Peeing on Sticks

I can't stop peeing on sticks.

"HUH???" you ask.

Like I just said, I can't stop peeing on sticks. The TTC parlance for "pee on a stick" is POAS, which is curiously conjugated as "POASing." The miracle of modern technology has made it possible to track the hormones in my body by POASing on various sticks at various times.

There is an absolutely unbelievable urge to know exactly what is happening in your body throughout your cycle when TTC.


Pregnancy tests are about as addictive as crack. The commercials on TV inevitably show attractive, young, active, fertile women who are apparently soothed by the definitive nature of these tests. Use this simple one-step home pregnancy test (AKA HPT), they say, and you will know FOR SURE within a few minutes whether you'll have a beautiful and stress-free pregnancy OR will finally be able to take that much-desired nuclear power plant manager job in New Jersey. The reality is not quite so clear. Even though they say there is only one step, there are actually three. Here is how it REALLY works:

Step One: Pee on the absorbent end of the stick for a full 20 seconds more than the recommended time, just in case the urine at the top of your bladder has more hormones than the urine that comes out first. (Try not to pee on hands, toilet seat, stick handle or floor.)

Step Two: Stare at the test windows for the full 10 minute waiting period, pee a few more drops on it just in case you didn't pee enough the first time, hold it up to the light, hold it at eye level, hold it up in front of a window, toss it away after not seeing anything within the 10-minute limit, retrieve them from the garbage can 30 minutes later and hold it again up to the light, go outside to look at it in the sun, take a picture of it with a digital camera and publish the picture on FF so that hundreds of like-minded, obsessed women can pore over it, enlarge it, invert it and otherwise alter it on any one of a number of photo editing programs, declare that they DO IN FACT SEE A LINE and post emoticons of jumpy green men in jubilant celebration of your obviously impending pregnancy.

Step Three: Repeat steps one and two several times daily beginning 7 days past ovulation (DPO) and continuing until 3 days after period starts. Promise yourself you are not going to pee on anything this next cycle.


This cycle, I peed on an incredible 25 sticks, most of which are pictured above. (I wasn't kidding about taking pictures!!) That was a bit excessive, even for me.


Granted, the test results are not as black-and-white as you might believe. In fact, they are red and white and many shades of pink. If you look reeeeeeally closely at this test and tilt the monitor just so, you can sorta see the very faint second line just next to the thick red control line. I used to laugh at women posting these kind of pictures... until I got my first faint line.



Fortunately, you don't need to wait until the second half of your cycle to get your PAOS fix! You can also POAS and put it into a special little computer thing-a-ma-jiggy called a fertiliy monitor. This is a little better for instant gratification because the computer will tell you in about 3 minutes where you are in your cycle by showing you one bar for low fertility, two for high, and the coveted three bars (with what looks like a cocktail olive but is actually an egg) on your peak days (as is hown by last month's reading to the left). Fun for the whole month!

There are entire websites based around POASing, including where to buy your sticks on the cheap and picture galleries of sticks at various stages of hormone levels... Wow, I'm like a crack whore.

But really, this cycle, I honestly won't POAS unless I am definitely late. Really. I mean it this time.