FET update aka straw, meet fist; fist, meet straw

So. I was moving along, doing my thing and passing the two weeks between the transfer of Draft Pick and the beta (blood test - scheduled for Tuesday) quite calmly, if I do say so myself, perhaps in part thanks to the Thanksgiving preparations and celebrations which distracted me and took up large amounts of time. Okay, I confess to wondering about the occasional twinge now and then, but for the most part I think I've stayed on as even a keel as one can stay on while knowing that there is a tiny two-celled embryo floating around in one's comparatively enormous uterus and wondering if it has found safe harbour.

Until this morning. A pink stain on the toilet paper, a bit of blood clinging to the Crinone applicator. Tears in the shower, hope swirling down the drain with the soap suds. It's eleven days past a two-day transfer; this is too late for implantation spotting, if I even believe that implantation spotting is always a good sign, which I'm not sure I do. For I had none with Small Boy; I had nothing with Small Boy and was convinced it had failed and you could have knocked me down with a feather when I got that positive beta back. But it's been hours, and I've been up and walking around, and there is no fresh blood on my pad, and now I don't know what to think. I didn't spot with Small Boy, at implantation or any other time, and it would be so late in the game for implantation anyway. Eleven days. But I do remember one night during the Small Boy cycle eleven or twelve days past transfer when I had such severe cramping that I was lying on the floor moaning and I was sure it meant it was all over. But I went on to have a positive beta just a few days later. Implantation cramping? Who knows. I've always thought it was the second embryo (for the initial IVF we transfered two) giving up the ghost. I have always thought that, that both implanted and that night one of them gave up the ghost. But now, in my attempt to cling to straws - and given my apparant fears about my ability to parent a second child I'm surprised at how hard I am looking for straws to cling to - now in my attempt to cling to straws I'm writing a new story line: if that was implantation cramping, then this pink toilet paper is falling at the same time in the cycle and could be implantation bleeding. Maybe I'm just a late implanter? Maybe?

Although I know how pointless it would be I'm considering throwing away the money on an HPT anyway. But it really would be just a waste of money, because if I'm such a late implanter wouldn't the thing turn up negative anyway? And if it turns up positive, then how do I explain the blood but that Draft Pick implanted and then died? Frankly at this point even a positive beta - and I'm going to call Dr. L's office Monday and see if we can't push that up one day - isn't going to be entirely reassuring. You know, what with the blood and all.

Me and my big mouth. Hubris, I tell you, hubris. It cometh before a bleed.