When can we...

go on holiday? ring up the adoption agency? book my work trip to Tropical Climes (Asia this time)?

As Thalia just blogged, if you think there is a possibility you might be pregnant/have just had a scan/be just about to have a scan/have just miscarried/be just about to miscarry, then it is hard to plan ahead, especially for major things.

After the last miscarriage, at 5 weeks, just as we were supposed to be going away for the weekend for our anniverasary, and I was supposed to be giving a talk for work also several hours away (the same place, though), I am really scared of travelling while pregnant. But I also know that, if we did have another very early miscarriage, then I'd probably be fine with travelling after a couple of weeks - after the first miscarriage, I went to East Africa and was glad to get away. But I'm also not going to anywhere disease-ridden (especially malarial) while pregnant - and this is totally contrary to my normal inclinations, which are that lots of people get pregnant and give birth just fine and live in such places, and I have access to better medical care than most of them. I'm not planning a home birth in a developing country, don't panic, but I've always been a bit dismissive of nervous Nellies. Now I am one.

So my mind is full of scenarios like: will I tell the student whose fieldwork I'm going to supervise the real reason if I decide to cancel? Would I only tell her if I'm pregnant, but not if I miscarry close to the trip? Would I go if I was 15 weeks (I think that's just about possible)? She knows I've been sick on and off. So perhaps "I'm sick again" would do. But if I was at work, and cancelled 4 weeks before the trip, would that wash? Would my GP even write me a note for the insurance (probably, as it is a malarial area)?

And then, what about the adoption? Mr Spouse has agreed that we will try our luck with the concurrent planning people - no idea if either his or my age, or our distance from their centre, will be an insurmountable obstacle - but they should tell us definitely no, or that we have permission to apply, pretty much immediately. So the plan is to make that initial enquiry towards the end of October, leaving either them or the other agency two months to get the criminal records checks out of the way before starting the proper application early next year. But do we do the traditional "I'm not pregnant AGAIN since I just got my period so I will cut my losses and ring them now" or is that a bit too predicatable? Again, do I wait till my next cycle (not for 3 weeks) to book my Asia flight so I know more clearly the possible options (the 15 weeks pregnant will have been ruled out then, you see).

I really hate this ruling my life by my cycles, and I know I'm doing it to myself. I guess if you have treatment in the equation you just have fewer options for any one date - but you know further in advance which ones might lead to a pregnancy. I know the real answer is "book now, see what happens, don't let anything else be ruled by your cycles", but it's hard.