I have been bad, but I will be confessing

I hope you think my badness is justified. I have had a sore shoulder for a few days now and, although I broke the shoulder about 10 years ago so it is occasionally sore, I had a nagging “ectopic” going round in the back of my mind as it wasn’t quite my regular pain. My period is probably due this evening, maybe tomorrow, so this morning I sneaked a Clearblue test and got a faint positive. Not light-of-a-thousand-suns faint, but fainter than the control line. I was actually thinking of heading straight for A&E but as I had to go to the GP anyway I looked pathetic at the nurse and she squeezed me in with a different GP to my regular one (who, er, said we should wait this month after a booster jab on CD2. I ask you – CD2?? With something that isn’t actually contraindicated in pregnancy?).

I’m trying really, really hard to steel myself for this being a chemical (and I will try my damndest to count it chemical if it’s less than about 4w4d). So please, no congratulations. I didn’t want to test this early, and I actually didn’t think I had any regular Clearblue left – I thought I’d stocked up on digital for that exact reason. If I have a late period and don’t know I’m pregnant, I needn’t tell Mr. Spouse I am (I’ll tell him it’s late, but I don’t need to tell him any symptoms). And if I only have digital tests in the house there’s no point in doing one early as they are pretty insensitive. Similarly if I just have a late period I don’t need to tell the adoption agency.

Anyway the plan is to panic a lot over the weekend, possibly presenting this episode to Mr. Spouse as another “trying to be positive” test (that’s what no. 2 was like and we were a little sad but coped fine when I bled at 4w5d) or possibly not telling him at all till Monday if I haven’t bled before then. Then (not sure I can look beyond 4w3d at this point, let alone to the adoption preparation course early next month) I’d have to ring the hospital and get booked in for a scan. If I haven’t bled before the scan, I think that would be the time to ring the agency. It’s a bit of an emotional risk, I think, rather than a medical one – could I cope with going to the preparation course if I’m only 2 weeks past a miscarriage? Judging by my last one, I’ll be really keen to move on, and I probably will be able to.

And the GP? Apparently I’d be in full-on cramping agony if I’d been having shoulder pain for a few days as my abdomen would be full of blood. So at least, so far, I can rule that out.