Those were the exact words I announced to my husband the morning of Thursday September 18^th. He was in the shower, and I had just peed on a stick. It was the fifth stick I’d peed on that week. And against my better judgment and the advice of probably every commenter on every pregnancy forum out there, I stared at that stick until it would tell me my fortune. Yep, I stared the shit out of that stupid little blinking digital indicator that held not just my future, but my sanity.

Because I already knew I was pregnant. I’d known the whole damn week I was pregnant. Scratch that, I’d know for going on two weeks that I was pregnant.

We’d been trying for five months, and nothing was happening. Then in September, seven days after a different stick had told me I was ovulating, twinges in my abdomen told me that this month was going to be different. Then came the lightheadedness, the oily skin, the sore boobs and all the other things that all the same commenters on every pregnancy forum out there say were their first symptoms. And I know this because, also against my better judgment, I’d spent hours upon hours scouring those sites hoping they held the magic answers I wanted. Sorry, work.

When the day came for my period to show up, and it didn’t, I confidently stepped up to the toilet, stick #1 in hand and let if flow. I spent the next three minutes picking out baby names and paint colors, and then I looked back at the test. Negative.

I tested the next day, then the next day, then the next day. All negative. Still no period. But a whole lotta pregnancy symptoms.

I called my doctor’s office, hoping for some sort of …something. And all I got was a nurse who insisted that I must be imagining that I was pregnant.

So that Thursday morning, when that damn blinking digital indicator on stick number 5 finally stopped blinking and showed “pregnant” I jumped pants-around- my-ankles for joy and held up the stick to my naked showering husband. Because it not only meant that we were we going to have a baby in nine months, but that I was officially sane enough to care for it.

That afternoon, I called and scheduled my first prenatal appointment. I traded texts back and forth with my husband about this secret we now shared, I googled my due date. May 28^th. And then I started bleeding.

After a couple of blood tests, an excruciating weekend of not having any answers and a small meltdown in the middle of a CVS, I finally got a call from my doctor telling me the pregnancy had ended. I had had an early miscarriage.

“Just bad luck,” my husband and I told ourselves. “Everyone has one of these at some point.” “At least now we know we can get pregnant.” “We’ll get ‘em next time.”

But then it all happened again. In November. Exactly like the first time. Except less heartbreaking, because now we were emotionally prepared for it. But also heartbreaking in a different sort of way, because it meant something was definitely wrong.

Thus launched a barrage of doctors appointments, conversations with specialists, tests, more tests, even more tests. And somehow, we’ve ended up with more questions than answers.

In the last few months, my diagnosis has gone from Habitual Aborter to now Infertile Due to Diminished Ovarian Reserve. Like, Crazy Diminished Ovarian Reserve.

I’m 34 and in excellent health, but somehow I have the ovaries of a 49-year-old going through menopause.

So now starts my quest to change all that.