Tempted

I'm tempted...

...to pee on a stick.

[I just paused to think, anyone who has not TTC-ed would read that sentence and definitely think I have issues!]

I stopped testing about a year or so ago, because the disappointment of stark whiteness was too much for me to bear. What I found most frustrating is that there was never a clear no, because "it ain't over till the old hag shows." One day may be a negative, but there was always the next morning to test (and be disappointed again), and the next, and so on...until AF would show up, mocking me for getting my hopes up for nothing. The yo-yo of up and down each day was just too much. I resolved not to test unless AF was at least a day late - never happened, so I never got a chance to test, and I haven't used a pregnancy test in more than a year.

But this time, I feel a bit of temptation to test...just to see. Though I don't want to see that whiteness, that nothingness that so blindingly stares back at you. I suppose I'm tempted to test because I am feeling a bit more hopeful than usual - for the first time in a few cycles, we did everything right - things couldn't have been better. But at the same time, I don't want to let myself have that hope, because I've had many, many perfectly-timed cycles before too. I don't want to get my hopes up only to be shot down again. That was what made TTC the first several months so acutely painful - so much hope, and that hope would be crushed time after time.

How do you balance having hope yet staying grounded, so you don't crash if your hopes aren't fulfilled? Should I go for it, or should I do what's been working for me for the last year?