Something to chew on

Mr Spouse was, as some of you may know, made redundant just over a year ago. This was a cause of much rejoicing as it was the third round of redundancies with the company, and he'd been there umpty-ump years so was in for a very large Go Away Now Please payment. We spent some of it on making our windows wind-proof (a good thing in windows) and some more on getting him teeth that you can chew on (he was previously a product of 1960s school whip-it-out dentistry). People would ask us how we were doing and I would tell them we were fine, both financially and emotionally, and would elaborate on what some of the money was going on. But he asked me not to tell people, saying it was his personal business, though myself I didn't think teeth were that personal, he thought so and I felt a bit mean.

He would never tell other people about our fertility bits unless I gave him the nod, but there are a lot of nosy people in the world, in particular, well, My Mother. She's staying at the moment but is off to see her old high school friends in Washington State on Monday (it's very sweet, they have their 50th reunion later in the year but she and her pals are having a maverick get-together now instead for those who couldn't care less what the prom queen is doing - assuming they had them in the Dark Ages). I have to have a quick pointless pregnancy test on Monday and although I will be able to conceal the HSG as it's on Tuesday I need to think up a reason to stop at the doctor's on Monday.

I can't decide whether to say "I need to run an errand" or "I need to get a test at the doctor's" (what test? what for? a blood test? ooh, do they think your blood sugar is high again? ooh, you shouldn't have made all those cookies*" or "I need to pick up a prescription" (in fact, I need the preventitive antibiotics but am picking them up elsewhere) (ooh, what for, ooh, are you sick, ooh, you'll still be on them when I come back won't you?).

Am I weird that, unless I'm actually going for an operation I will not be sharing any of what's going on with my mother?

The problem is if I do share, she expects things to happen Right Now, both treatment/investigation and, of course, pregnancy; and if I don't share, she seems to assume we've given up. I particularly don't want to share adoption/fostering-related things partly because of her negative reaction to the whole issue, to anything hinting at non-genetically-related (i.e. not "real") grandchildren, and in particular to anything relating to disability, which of course is a risk with birth children as well (though she wouldn't see it - termination can solve anything I think would be her stance) - witness two references to "half-wits" in the last three days alone. Although she did mention David Miliband** to me recently, so perhaps she is softening, but I doubt a previously-fostered four-year-old would meet her criteria.

*Sam, you don't escape so easily - I'll be packing some up for you for later in the week.

**There are many misinformed articles going around about the Miliband family adoption, incidentally, so perhaps I will try and correct them at some point.