+ or -

" l "

It's not a "+" but it's certainly not a "-" so what exactly does it mean?

Let me back up just a little bit. Elaine is late, but is she really "late". Yes we are "trying" but we just started, and really it's more like we stopped trying to avoid it than any real active "trying" on our part. We don't really have any pattern set forth yet to compare against, so maybe without the precise timing provided by actively avoiding, she simply is less regular. We don't have the data, and certainly haven't developed any charts or spreadsheets yet to really know how late "late" really is.

Anyways, we were sort of expecting it to take a few months, and maybe sometime after the holidays we'd be pleasantly surprised. But now, much sooner than expected, late seems like it might be turning into "late", so it's time to break out the big guns and use the test.

It's supposed to be incredibly simple, just pee on a stick, wait a couple minutes and you should see a "+" for positive or a "-" for negative. Well, we followed the directions (technically Elaine followed the directions, I didn't pee on anything) and after a few minutes we held our collective breath, looked at the results, and reached completely opposite conclusions.

The test read " l ". What's that supposed to mean, "such that", "given", "bitwise or", "vertical concatenation"? Elaine thought the test was negative and I thought the test was positive (perhaps a little bit of our underling hopes and apprehensions peaking through there). I argued that the test certainly must contain two elements: the part that forms the "-" should turn dark when it reacts with substances in any urine, as long as you pee on it you should see the horizontal bar; and the part that forms the " l " should only react with something found in the urine of pregnant women, so the combination of the two reactions, the "-" and the " l " should form the "+" of a positive test. Elaine countered, "but it's not a plus!" As a tie-breaker we called the hot-line listed on the box, and sure enough, the vertical line portion of the pregnancy test looks for the presence of beta hCG or human chronic gonadotropin in the urine. As for the horizontal line, sometimes it can be incredibly faint, and sure enough if we squinted our eyes, we could just make out the hint of a horizontal line completing the "+".

So we're going to have a baby! What do we do now?!? That'll have to wait for another post.