To Go With the Flow

The pregnancy test is Tuesday.

Or is it?

Don't get your knickers in a twist here; nothing has happened. Here's the deal: Partner's sister has passed her bar exam. This isn't news to you, I know, since I announced this happy news a few weeks ago. It was a long time coming... So it's a celebration.

A little history now. PS (Partner's Sister) and I have had a not-so glorious past. When I started dating Partner, she and PS were living together. My partner, if you haven't gathered this yet, is a generous soul. They were living in a large apartment where Partner paid the rent, but PS was in the biggest bedroom, the one with the bathroom attached. There was one assigned parking spot under the carport. PS always got this spot too. All of this grated on me, perhaps because I am the consummate Libra. Partner was trying to be supportive while PS was in her first year of law school. In fact, don't think it was PS who just took these liberties: Partner offered them to her, encouraging her to attend law school and indicating she would support PS while in school. I couldn't understand. Or wouldn't. And this started us down a rocky path. Some of it my fault. Some of it her fault. We had a few little arguments before I moved in with Partner, but it was okay. A tenuous line of okay, but okay.

Things changed when we all started living together. The first house that Partner built was chock full o'lesbians when it first went up. There was Partner, Lodger 1, Lodger 2, PS, and me (on weekends only.) When I moved in, one lodger was long gone by then. And just like I had trouble living in a house with my mother, I had trouble living with PS. It all culminated one night in a huge fight where she essentially told Partner to choose between me or her. I was furious, prepping for a dinner guest. PS was standing on one side of the kitchen bar, and I was on the other side. I pointed at her with the knife, merely because I was holding it at the time, and said, "Fuck you. I love your sister and I would never ever put her in the position of choosing you or me." And then I left the house, got in my friend's car who had just pulled up, and told her to "Just drive." By the time I came back, PS was gone. She didn't return until we left town for Toronto-- Came in and moved out. None of us talked for months. Holidays were a total joy.

But over the years things have cooled down. I almost didn't want to relate any of this because we are in a beautiful place now. First of all, it helps that we aren't living together anymore. Second, I think PS knows that I really do love Partner, and I know that she really loves Partner too. I came into Partner's life after she and PS had gotten very close. I know that PS really considered Partner her only close family, and I'm sure I was very threatening. I've also been able to put down some judgment that I fully admit I carried. PS and I had very different lives, and I had to engage in some more serious empathy, not just surface level stuff. All of it has helped, and I'm at a place where I finally feel like I can be very honest with her, and well, maybe I'm even feeling family love for her too. (Shit. I'm crying now. I better be freaking pregnant with these emotions.) Also, even though PS and have had different lives, we are alike in many ways. We're both pretty strong willed women.

This bar thing is a big deal for PS. She's pretty much said she doesn't want to have kids, so that's all our purview for this side of the family. So when we can celebrate big things in her life, we just need to do it.

I don't want to overshadow her day with our pregnancy test. I debated back and forth about it. Could I get the news and not tell? Probably. But if I'm not pregnant, pretty much I'm just going to want to wail into the pillow for a few hours, not whoop it up at the brewery. If I am pregnant, I'm going to want to tell, and that might just overshadow this very important day for PS.

So today when the 12 year old called us to tell us no embryos survived to make it to the big freeze (big surprise), I rescheduled the pregnancy test. To Wednesday. One more day won't kill me, will it?

Will it?

(Oh, and an IVF secret? There's only so many secrets. There aren't so many secrets when you blog consistently about all this. Okay, here's one: Part of the reason we're selling our house a year before the next one will be done is because of the debt associated with IVF. )