Spare a thought for the single and childless

We spent the last week on holiday with an old friend, celebrating her 40th. We met while we were doing our PhDs and we are both still in academia. She is a very very lovely person, one of those "how is she still single" friends. She met a very nice man a few months ago and although he couldn't be there because of his work, he sounds lovely.

She was asking me how my "health" was (this seems to be code for Have You Had Any More Miscarriages Recently, but it's not a bad code), and I filled her in - I don't think she knew about all of them. Like some other people I've spoken to she thought that fostering and/or adoption were "such good things to do". I'm not sure we really think of it like that, we are not really seeing this as a vocation, rather as a way to either have children in our lives - even if temporarily - or become parents. I think we feel slightly drawn to foster care/adoption from foster care rather than the supposedly easier options of overseas adoption or (theoretically just possible) US domestic adoption, but largely because we are not sure they would actually be easier, not because we are trying to be saints.

My friend hasn't had that much luck with men so I'm really pleased for her, and she has said in the past she's not that bothered about having children, her nieces and nephew are enough. The new man has had the snip and again she said this was OK, he already had kids. But she also confessed that every time she hears someone is pregnant, she feels like she's been kicked. So it sounds like she's wavering between child-less and child-free. And she can't be the only one. I think some of it is her feeling it wouldn't happen for her with a partner, so resigning herself to being childless too. She is not the kind of person (partly I think through conviction - she is strongly Catholic) to get pregnant either with an acquaintance or through donor sperm.

I tried to say something to her about how I felt our childlessness was more public, but for single people or those who appear to have been happily partnered but childless for some time (probably including many gay couples) people may not feel there is an issue - it is obvious we are trying to have children and failing, because it is much harder to keep a miscarriage to ourselves. People should in theory think more of our feelings when discussing pregnancy and children - and they can be pretty insensitive around us.

She told me she'd thought about adoption as a single person some time ago but was put off by horror stories she read online. I am sure it is at least partly true that the horror stories are out there but the happy families don't post. We have a very good friend who is the single mum of two adopted boys and she's had ups and downs but is ultimately very happy. But I want to tell her how desirable she and her new bloke would be as adoptive parents - between them they represent a complex, though not unique, ethnic mix, though I get the feeling most of the children who would be perfect "matches" would have a Muslim mother, and that might make them slightly less exciting as potential adopters. I'd love to tell her not to give up hope of being a mother - but I'm not sure how her partner really feels about this, or if he knows how she feels. Or even if she does.

It is a lot easier being a married person who really wants to have children.

Yes, I still exist

Sorry for the silence - not a lot going on that you'd be interested in, too much otherwise.

Spoke to the wrong person at the fostering team (and they have a really irritating new central switchboard that makes you hang on for ages - need to get people's direct number, quickly) but their feeling was we would probably wait till we get back from the US to start our home study.

Had a job interview - didn't get it. Really wanted promotion in current position but would have been very happy to take the job so a bit annoyed.

Mr Spouse is looking at what he can do when in the US, including volunteering. Spontaneously suggested hearing children read at school, and I told him about the (scandalously huge, but quite clean and pleasant) county foster home that I used to volunteer at when I was over there before. The sheer number of children in institutional care was scary. I'm pretty pleased we don't have that many here, frankly.

About to go on holiday to some Alps which I gather will be quite rainy. But never mind. Old, old friend's 40th - very nice, sweet friend, similar work but a bit more committed to it so has done a bit better than me. Has recently met man who seems to be very good for her (though she showed me his website and he seemed to have a liking for cheesiness...). He can't come so I won't get to meet him. Shame. Seems to be someone who doesn't really have any hankering to be a parent - has three nieces and nephews and seems satisfied with that. Not exactly incomprehensible to me but a head state I can't quite enter fully.

Skiver

I don't normally blog from work - no idea why as I do almost every other conceivable timewasting internetty thing at work - but there is 1/2 an hour to go till our end of term social and I Cannot Be Rsed to do any more work. So there.

We finished our foster care course on Tuesday and I have mixed feelings. I was kind of left wanting more, but it will be nice to get a bit of time back (it seems to have rushed by, but to have become part of our lives) and I don't know where we go from here. They are supposed to be contacting us in the next week to tell us who will be our social worker, and I was slightly relieved to hear it won't necessarily be the person who came to visit us at home - she was OK, but the two who did the course seemed a bit more open. But it's very unlikely we'd be able to finish the whole of the home study before we go away.

Mr Spouse thinks I'm being overoptimistic, and that they'll want us to wait till we come back to start, but I am thinking I should try and persuade them that it would be better to start now at least or we'll have even longer between the course and the home study (like 10-12 months instead of 7-8 in the middle). I did (I think I mentioned) apply for another job earlier in the month but haven't heard yet about it and heard on the grapevine someone much more attractive than me applied for it so am assuming at least that we'll be coming back here, not moving elsewhere on our return.

But even being pretty certain we'll be in the area and available for approval as foster carers, it still feels like we've set ourselves back with this - we won't be approved for at least another year, more like 18 months, and our personal timetable was to think about stopping trying to get pregnant and going all out for adoption at the earliest by this September and the latest next September. It looks like we won't even be approved as foster carers then. Which is depressing.

In other news, small overseas baby comes home to my colleague in about a month - very exciting. You have no idea (well, some of you do, but probably you don't) how difficult it is to find an adoption-friendly baby card in the UK. Not one with prams or "the birth of your baby" obviously, but many others are out for a variety of reasons. I finally found one with "Brand new Mummy and Daddy" on it which is a bit twee, but much more appropriate. The Twins ones were also all very twee. I'm making progress on a pile of knitting for all these babies, including the post-recurrent-pregnancy-loss-in-her-40s baby that was born last month - the hierarchy seems to be:

Baby after infertility - proper knitted garment
Singleton with no problems - hat
Twins after infertility - hats
Twins with no problems - bootees and definitely at the bottom of the pile.

Applications will be received and dealt with in the proper order. But two jackets nearly finished and two sets of bootees queued up means you could be waiting some time. Though if you are also waiting some time for your child, perhaps that will suit.

(PS Just had a knock on my door and my supervisor came in with a short but pleasant request. Very glad I had switched to my email as he read over my shoulder a pithy email from Mr Spouse, instead of this post...)

For Someone Special

Okay, I know there have been a lot of blogs about Father's Day and I know it is hard for some people who can't have children or who can't be with their father. But to be honest it completely passes me by. I don't get on brilliantly with my father but not that badly, but I think he'd faint if I sent him a card or even mentioned it. It seems to me like Secretaries' Day or Grandparents' Day or something else made up by Hallmark. Mr Spouse never sent his father a card and I think would rather people shut up about it now his father is gone.

We had originally planned to make Fathers' Day cards at Rainbows this week and the girl who was organising it didn't turn up so we decided to make some cards anyway but first I went round and nosily asked everyone "who's in your family, and who lives in your house" which gave us the opportunity to work out that F lives with her mum and sees her gran and doesn't appear to have either a father or grandfather on the scene, and then to move extremely swiftly on and make a fuss of E who appeared to be telling us they had five bedrooms, one per child and one for Mum & Dad, but according to J in fact they only have a boys' bedroom and a girls' bedroom. F made two cards, one for mum and one for Nana; new girl S made one for her little brother even though she lives with her dad. So we were all diverse and happy.

The 14-year-old helpers were shocked that I didn't send my father a card. Perhaps he is, after all, sitting there wishing I would?

Tired and emotional

... and not just because of the Pimms I've just been drinking.

Today's session was quite draining, not just because it was all day on a Saturday. I won't go into too many details, partly because the very first thing we had stressed to us was confidentiality, but also because, really, you may not want to hear it. The first part was on working with parents and the (huge variety of) social workers we will encounter. I kind of knew there were a lot of social workers out there, from my mother who used to teach children who'd been excluded from school, and who had a couple of children ask "so, who's your social worker?" - in their world, everyone has one...

We had a very interesting chat at lunchtime - the chief social worker (she's in charge in our district, I think) suggested we might like to go for respite and short term caring, rather than just respite, as we'd probably get more out of placements, and we wouldn't need to do more than respite initially. Respite fits in with full time work but if we were to have children full time, especially younger than secondary school age, at least one of us would need to work part time. I can't see myself asking for part time hours just now, but it's something I've been thinking about, and Mr Spouse I think would also be happy with working slightly less than full time, in whatever he ends up doing in the future (itself not entirely sure). But if we are approved for both we could change tracks without reapproval.

The afternoon was the harrowing part - about abuse and neglect - not just harrowing in itself but because I started remembering all about A, the boy who lived with me when I was living overseas (see here). I remember being asked at the time if I was angry with his father or with the boys who likely abused him- and that's definitely an issue that we would be asked to face with some fostered children. I'm not sure if I'm really not angry with them (well, it's hard to be angry with his father as he was pretty pathetic) or if I was just getting on with caring for him and avoiding the issue. Some of the things that were suggested to us as reactions to children's inappropriate behaviour made me think, OK, yes, I did handle that well. Others made me realise that (probably because I was, erm, completely untrained and unprepared) I could have done something differently.

I never really finished the story about A, but there have been a few new things since I last wrote about him. I kind of feel I've closed the book on him, though I'd be happy to hear from him now of course. He finished school and got a couple of IGCSEs (the i is for International not Internet!) with pretty poor grades, but when last heard of had a job - probably thanks to his reasonable English. His behaviour was still a bit erratic but perhaps not quite as poor as when I knew him, but he is now past his teenage years and I know even for young people who have awful behaviour becoming an adult can sort things out a bit. I am less worried he is actually going to die and I think he has a little HIV awareness - and if he had become infected when he was a child I think he'd be at least quite sick by now. I know this sounds very morbid but I've had to face this.

Gosh - I didn't mean to get into that - it must be the Pimms. I am going to go and see what's for dinner (I have a feeling the answer is, whatever I make... as Mr Spouse is watching very boring important football. Just to annoy him I think Beans will be on the menu).

Anyway, where would an infertility blog be without TMI, so I'll leave you with this. Don't wear white trousers before CD7. Especially if you are on a break and checked your Persona this morning and it said "go for it!".

Me again...

So last night's session was also non-scary and dealt with Loss and also with Discrimination though these were linked. There are bits of material the social workers leading the group are given and you get the impression they get through these particular parts because they have to (and they aren't that comfortable using Powerpoint anyway), and then there are activities and discussions that are partly from their manual and partly not, which are a lot more rewarding.

I realised between writing that and coming back to finish this that the session could potentially have included lots of talking about losses we had experienced - since most of the potential foster carers have children of their own (apart from two adult children who have come along for the ride - 18 and 20 - and one young woman who is preparing to be a respite foster carer for her parents - 28), it is unlikely that anyone would have the same kinds of losses we've had. Though one couple I think have just the one 18-year-old so you never know. But anyway, we didn't have to "share" or anything like that.

Instead we talked about culture, race, discrimination, and losing things from your background/past/culture. I think some of it didn't really touch some people at all (if you have never lived anywhere but where you grew up, you don't know what it's like not to have it any more); some people had really interesting insights (one Northern Irish person and one who pointed out sectarianism also exists in our region - especially in Liverpool); and some thought it was all a bit PC ("why are we pretending to be gay?"). So, if we have foster kids we've to give them chip butties and let them watch telly all day, and the person who thought there were lots of gay people in high powered positions has to let the boys wear fairy outfits.

Onwards and upwards

So we now move into two months of Not Trying To, or to be more strictly accurate, Trying Not To. We have agreed on a slightly dodgy use of the Persona, namely, if we wish to be friendly on red days we will use protection, even though it tells you this is Risky, we do not really feel recent lack of success puts us in a high category of Risky.

I'm putting a positive spin on this for myself which is so far not working too badly: I can drink all I want, and all the coffee I want - which isn't that much, and I never really abstain from caffeine anyway, just try to keep it down to a cup a day, more so that withdrawal isn't too bad if I need to. (And - forgot to say this earlier - I am being a rebel on my vitamins. I think I'll find a general women's vitamin and take that as it probably will have things you can't take in pregnancy - just hate seeing the Mum To Be vitamins in the drawer).

I am also going to continue with my efforts to lose weight. At least if I started a pregnancy weighing less there would be less to lose and it would be marginally less depressing if I ended up on the sofa stuffing my face with chocolate again. And I do think being fitter has helped me get pregnant in the past - 2 of my pregnancies were when I was running and one when I was training for a long bike ride.

I've actually not been doing too badly on that - I am cycling to work at least twice a week (it is 9 hilly miles a day, people, hope you are impressed), swimming once most weeks, and concentrating a lot harder on my eating habits (I'm getting quite into Paul McKenna, which Mr Spouse teases me about no end - "I Can Make Myself Rich!") and I've lost 4lb over the last month, bringing my BMI down to just under 29.

Another post later on our foster care evening yesterday, but for now I need lunch, and Paul says eat when you are hungry. So I am following instructions.

Why do I do this to myself?

Period due today or tomorrow (most of my recent cycles have been 29 days but my breasts were sore very early 2 weeks ago so possibly today). Decided that as we're taking two months off and I had a FR test which expires next month, why not use it.

This of course causes me to wake up extra early and lie there being anxious. If I get up and test, will I be able to go back to sleep? If I don't get up and test, will I be able to go back to sleep? Are my stomach cramps due to complete inactivity in my digestive system (see, symptom spotting), the apricots I ate yesterday to ease that, or my period about to start? If I get up and test, will it wake Mr Spouse? If I tell him I'm testing, will he worry needlessly too?

So (comedy of errors begins here) I get up and pee into a specimen bottle we have in the medicine cabinet (don't ask). Go back to bed and still can't sleep. Get up and very quietly retrieve test from drawer. Dip in bottle and it is negative of course. Realise am also likely to wake Mr Spouse if I put the test box back in the drawer so decide to conceal it in spare room (his dressing room) in box of spare sheets which is on the table. Go back to bed and sleep, thankfully.

After Mr Spouse has left for work, get up and shower etc., still very tired, decide to retrieve test box and put in bin. Box of spare sheets no longer on table. Mr Spouse has tidied it away. Look under first sheet - not there. Look under second sheet - not there. Now I know it's not exactly healthy to conceal these things from one's husband, but I know he knows I do more tests than I tell him about and I know he worries just as much as me so I might as well just have one of us worrying. Look a bit harder - box still there. Box now in bin.

Neither a bang nor a whimper...

Which sounds like the end of something, but really was the start of our foster care course. It is a standard course used by a lot of local authorities, I won't go into masses of detail but it's not really restricted content as far as I'm aware.

The first evening, last night, was neither very exciting nor very scary, but in some ways quite reassuring. The content was very introductory, I was in fact left wanting more which is I suppose the point! The group seemed OK, mainly slightly quiet and unsure like we were, apart from one man who was loud and unsure (so Mr Spouse didn't have to tell me off for talking more than anyone else). I'm trying to play down the "I'm a child psychologist" but I've already had one person (a childminder, so also with lots of relevant experience) say "ooh, you'll be really good at this, it's all about psychology".

She probably does know what kind of psychology I do as she'll have done a lot on child development in her vocational training, and yes, I know both in theory and in practice about how to promote preschoolers' development, how to support primary age children in difficult tasks, and how to deal with a tantrum (at least, ignoring has never let me down yet!). But older children acting out, violent teenagers, depressed 10-year-olds, not so much - no more than anyone else with a small amount of common sense. And I think that's what most people mean by "child psychology".

So we felt fairly positive, and not too scared, at the end of the evening. I finally confessed to my mother what we are doing and she "thinks we are mad" but anyway, hopefully she'll be charmed round in the end - or just stay out of the way.

Freecycle

Of all the unusual ways to be blindsided by a pregnancy....

WANTED
Item: Phil & Teds double buggy
Info: my 2nd baby is due in november, and my little boy will be 13m old.

(this is from our local equivalent which operates a little differently; but this is someone I know who is a student - we all thought the first one was likely to have been unplanned - as far as I know she gets no maternity pay so I'm not sure she can really have thought a second would be a good idea just now!)

Compromise

Last week Mr Spouse and I had a bit of a barney. This coincided with me having yet another barney with my brother* so I had a couple of sleepless nights. It was started by me suggesting that he whisk me away as it was a very good night for whisking away, and him suggesting that we should not be trying to get pregnant before we go away in August. Late August! I was suggesting stopping trying when the next but one period was due - mid July; he was suggesting stopping now.

Next morning (in fact, very early, as I think we'd both been tossing and turning a bit) we both said "OK, how about a compromise - one more month". So we had, erm, an active weekend. And my calculations later proved that I was a bit optimistic - a July pregnancy would have meant going away exactly the time the last one failed - not good planning. Now, in my fantasy world where I get pregnant this cycle and it works, I'd be coming home for a short trip to the UK just in time for my 20 week scan, neatly avoiding some of the insurance issue too. I like this fantasy world as it also involves shocking my colleagues upon my arrival.

So we will see. In the meantime, we start our foster care course on Tuesday, and I'm practicing keeping my mouth shut in the face of weird analyses of child development by social workers.

*See: arrogant person who won't listen to me and must therefore be wrong; person who doesn't believe he should remind his children to say thank you; person who asked me to make an identical doll for his older daughter because she was jealous of younger daughter's birthday present, and told me I was being "perverse" when I said I would but it wouldn't be till her birthday.

Tee hee

Best woman (already had one kid) of my best woman (the one who has just had the miscarriage - following me?) just had twins. That's not the funny part - no doubt far from it - she found out it was twins more or less the same day my best woman found out the first ICSI didn't work.

The birth announcement includes first and middle names for both twins and I'm going to try really hard to make this non-Googleable, but when I forwarded the names to Mr Spouse his reply was:

"T'bias C'sp'r. Poor kid!"

(the girl's name wasn't quite as bad though I thought the middle name - He.tt.ie - was actually a nickname for, I think, Hester)*

"Don't be mean. Just you wait till we are fostering Chardonnay and Wayne"

"Yeah, I can just see you yelling out the back 'Chardonnay! Your dinner's ready!'"

Has a bit more street cred, don't you think, than "Hester! Toby! Your asparagus risotto is getting cold!"?

*I hate doing this but really, really don't want this Googleable!

Desperately sad news

My friends S & J who got married the same year as us have been doing ICSI (I related that already) - they had a fresh cycle last year, and it failed but they got about 6 frozen embryos. A few weeks ago she found out she was pregnant with two of the three they had to defrost - but I just got an email yesterday to say the pregnancy had failed. I felt a real shock when reading the email.

Understandably she doesn't feel like talking about it - I've written a card and am sending chocolate - I have said if she has any questions, or needs to get away, just ask.

I know they will have another round of frozen embryos (possibly two if they all work - they will only transfer two at a time here if you are under 40) but I am pretty sure there is no more ICSI after that, and that they can't afford any more.

But I think what I am really wondering is, how much do I actually understand her situation? I imagine it must be even more awful to lose a pregnancy after IVF, but what do I really know?

So, tell me, dear readers - if you know - what is it like? Is it different if you have had both types of losses? What if that's the only pregnancy you've had? Do you think that is worse than having, but losing, several pregnancies?

Not having a good day/week/month

Went to the acupuncturist this morning, who always asks me how I'm feeling about it when my period has started. Well, you kind of get used to it, you know. I don't know if she expects to magically fix me, or what, or if she's just trying to be sympathetic. But to be honest I'm not feeling that great. This time last year I was pregnant, and it was the most hopeful ever, and then it failed, and it's nearly the anniversary.

The GP says my progesterone level "indicates I'm ovulating", which I kind of guessed (even before having the test), and there's nothing more to do "since I've already been investigated thoroughly". I could probably push for more but frankly can't be *rs*d.

And I have a load of stuff to do at work, none of which is overwhelming individually, but I also have stuff to get ready before we go to the US in August, and finding insurance etc. just reminds me every time we look at pre-existing conditions or pregnancy clauses. Fortunately the one for me from the university is pretty generous and specifically includes pregnancy, or excludes pregnancy and its complications from its exclusions if you see what I mean - but Mr Spouse and I both need cancellation insurance for our travel and for other trips beforehand and these are more mean - sad emails have been going back and forth this afternoon.

I've been working on a paper today, and just pottering around, but I have loads of marking to do, and I could honestly have spent the entire day doing much nicer things like taking photos of my crafts etc. And if I don't get my marking done tonight I'm going to be doing that tomorrow instead of taking photos etc., going to my knitting group, going for a walk, the things I want to do. And I promised a couple of other people bits and pieces this week, which I haven't done...

And I feel like the last man standing in the world of People Trying To Get Pregnant On The Internet (which should tell me something about where I'm going wrong, shouldn't it?). But don't go away, just don't worry if I'm a bit quiet on your blog.

Tedious

So sorry that all my posts seem to be about me starting my period, or at least seem to include that information. What can I say, I don't have much to talk about.

I've just had a minor row with Mr Spouse, not really "about" anything except that we are both frazzled and tired, him because of a long day, me because of not sleeping well last night. I really need to sleep, and not fret and lie awake in bed like I did last night, over nothing in particular.

Step away from the Google

Not a huge issue really... Having been at a conference over the weekend (small, v. friendly, finally came out to my best gal-work-pal about the miscarriages and also to a woman who I know slightly less but who has been having a very difficult first trimester, and who started chatting to me about how badly informed she felt and how she got the impression she was just supposed to go away and put up with hyperemesis), I only just got a chance to call about my progesterone test. I think it was 28 (maybe 20!) which seems to be high? high normal? Anyway I'm not looking now, but have a telephone appointment with the GP on Thursday. I don't think she'll have any answers, though.

Of course this morning just as I surreptitiously put a small sample of FMU in the medicine cabinet (I wiped the bottle, don't worry) I noticed my period had started. I think I'm feeling extra bad about this one as it's the anniversary of my last miscarriage at the end of this month, and I can't help feeling sad about that, as well as worrying I won't have any more pregnancies either.

It felt really good to come out to C, who knew there were some "issues" but not really what they were. I've been kind of trying to tell her for a while, it just has been hard to bring it up - she started talking about her brother (who is an obstetrician) getting her sister-in-law in for extra scans so it finally seemed natural to bring it up - I related how Mr Spouse forgot that "normal people" don't get a scan till 12 weeks.

It was also good to rant about being told to "go away and come back when you are 12 weeks" to D. I don't know if D has any fertility issues but she is definitely a non-smug fertile - she says "I'm hoping to go on maternity leave in November". Other Smug Lady Who Is Convinced Everything Is Pregnancy Or Child-Related said "D will be on maternity leave". She also said "ooh, my hair went curly once I had been pregnant". Well, my hair went curly in my 30s, before any pregnancies, but of course she didn't listen to my theory. D is in a study of stress (I think) and pregnancy, and we discussed my wild idea of planning research into CBT and miscarriage. I don't think this would be a good area for me to research as I don't know anything about CBT (other than "it's a good thing") but I'm just wondering if I might ask the GP to refer me again to a different psychologist (I suspect scary shirt man will have moved on by now).

Privilege

I'm afraid I'm jumping on geepeemum's bandwagon with this one... it seemed intriguing.

1. Father went to college.

My dad has a degree from Oxbridge as well as a PhD ditto. I suspect my father is a tiny bit disappointed only one of his children went to his old college and that my PhD is from The Other Oxbridge.

2.Father finished college.

See above

3.Mother went to college.

Ivy League - one where, at the time she went there, there were separate women's and men's institutions.

4.Mother finished college.

Ditto. She has been heard to express regret at being the only person in her immediate family who only has a BSc - her father and brother, ex-husband (my dad) and two children all have PhDs, and her mother had a Masters.

5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor.

My paternal grandfather, and his father, were doctors. My maternal grandfather, maternal uncle, and father, are all academics (only my maternal grandfather I think is "professor" as my dad didn't get that high and my maternal uncle is in a research institution so I'm not sure of his title - but what they call professors in the US, certainly). Sundry other academic relatives, too.

6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers.

As my mother at the time was a secondary school teacher, and several children of the teachers were at my school, I'm guessing the same.

7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home.

Many more

8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home

Probably yes. Oddly I don't think we do now, as I'm trying to be better at decluttering. I keep special books, and easily available ones that I think I'll read again soon, and get rid of the rest.

9. Were read children’s books by a parent.

Yes, until I could read myself, and even then my dad read us big book series - Narnia, Swallows and Amazons.

10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18.

I'm assuming this means music/dance etc. rather than "going to school and having lessons" - in which case yes - lots of music, some ballet but I was rubbish at that.

11.Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18.

Three musical instruments (piano, flute, bassoon) and ballet.

12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively.

Possibly, apart from the "absent-minded boffin" stereotype

13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18.

I think I'd heard of other children having a credit card when I was a child, but only in films.

14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs

Fees from the Local Authority, and grant from my parents for the first 4 years (I dithered) and then half parental money and half grant in the last year as my brother was also at university that year.

15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs

Not in my last year, and not for my PhD - not a penny for that, in fact - thank you, MRC.

16. Went to a private high school

Yes - I was due to start secondary school a couple of years after a big change to the school system - my dad who had been to private school (well, actually "public school") would have pushed for this anyway and my mum didn't resist much.

17. Went to summer camp

Unless Guide camp, or a few days at day camp in the US count, no.

18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18

I was a swot and didn't need tutoring, plus my dad is a hard scientist and could help with some of the basic stuff.

19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels

I think so - at least, I am pretty sure we had a skiing holiday in a hotel once when I was about 13, and a few nights in hotels on our way to and from places. Although some of them may have been motels. Mostly we went self-catering or stayed with relatives or friends, though. My family don't camp and definitely don't stay in caravans, although strangely there appears to be a picture of me aged 1 in wellies and nappy outside a caravan but perhaps it belonged to a friend of the family.

20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18.

No way, and are you kidding? Although I'm the oldest child and the second-oldest girl cousin, I still got a lot of my clothes from that cousin, and even a few from the boy cousin who's a couple of months older (but quite hefty). I'm not too sure any of my baby/young child clothes came from charity shops but as soon as I started having my own clothes budget, aged about 14, I was a regular - so much so that I started working in one and got a discount. My mother is a seamstress and knitter and one of the jumpers she made me was then my brother's

21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them

The first car I owned was a 1969 Beetle (so, 2 years younger than me) when I last lived in the US, at the age of 31 (meanly, Mr Spouse won't let me get another one when we go this year). The first car I bought in this country was however new.

22. There was original art in your house when you were a child.

Yes - prints done by a family friend who makes a living from her art (so, not famous, but definitely professional) and lots of historic stuff.

23. You and your family lived in a single-family house.

I think this means detached, rather than "not a flat" but I'm not entirely sure. We lived in a whole house, but it was terraced.

24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home

Yes - they bought it just before I was born for about £3000 and it had mushrooms in the basement!

25. You had your own room as a child

When I was about 10 the attic was converted to be my room. I chose the wallpaper - pink flowers, of course.

26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18

I'm not sure we had more than one phone in the house before I left home.

27. Participated in a SAT/ACT prep course

I'm assuming this is some kind of college preparation course. We did have special lessons at school for those taking the Oxbridge exams, but within school time.

28. Had your own TV in your room in high school.

We only had one telly in the house, and my parents still have one each (as they live in different houses now...)

29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college.

I had a building society account but I don't think that counts!

30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16.

First flew to the US to visit my grandparents when I was 3 months old. I think my childhood carbon footprint must have been horrendous.

31. Went on a cruise with your family.

Don't think the overnight ferry to Denmark counts.

32. Went on more than one cruise with your family.

33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up.

Yes, lots, and I do remember being bored at times!

34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family

I wasn't aware though was probably told to turn the radiator down sometimes, and until we moved into this house I lived in small flats/houses (the largest being a small mid-terrace). We now live in a large end-of-terrace that is probably similar in heating costs to my parents' house and good grief, the heating bills. Thankfully double glazing should come soon.

22/34. Slightly higher than geepeemum but in that ballpark. I think some of these are either more common in the UK (private school is a bit more common, museums and art galleries are very accessible) or vanishingly rare here (cruises, children having their own phone lines)

*The original authors of this exercise are Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, and Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. If you participate, they ask that you PLEASE acknowledge their copyright.

[This was written ages ago but I never published it, I hope I've got the formatting at least slightly OK]

Car crash

Someone tell me, why am I compelled to watch/read these things?

In Mr Spouse's diabetes magazine, alongside the ads for stairlifts and bath hoists and comfy shoes, they have Real Life Stories. We read them, shocked ("She went blind at 19! He died of a hypo on his wedding day!"). This month was the story of a woman had seven miscarriages and two stillbirths. Now, diabetes increases the likelihood of miscarriage and stillbirth, and I have nothing for admiration for people who are, so to speak, further along in their allotted number of miscarriages (and possibly who can get pregnant more quickly than me), but in this case I didn't feel sympathy or admiration, or even glad that it wasn't me. It just made me angry. This woman wasn't controlling her diabetes, wasn't even really attempting to - she was in denial that she had diabetes, essentially.

Today I got home a bit early and was flicking through the offerings Tivo had decided we'd like when I came across Britain's Youngest Grannies. Another car crash - two who were upset their daughters had followed them by being teenage mothers (and in both cases the mother was 18 or 20 when their daughter was born while the daughter got pregnant at 15); and one who was pleased, and thought 25 was too old to be a mother. Then I turned off.

Anyway to get to my point, I was home early because of going to the GP who assured me I had no lumps in my breasts, that some pain at all points in the cycle is relatively common ("wear a supportive bra, take ibuprofen at the start of the cycle" - well, I am a 34F, so I know about supportive bras, thanks), and that there wasn't much point in doing day 2/3 FSH etc. - I definitely don't have PCOS, and I don't have any menopausal symptoms, and it wouldn't be a result I could do anything about, but that is worth repeating the day 21 progesterone. I am still pretty sure I am ovulating each month, but we'll see. I don't know if she'd be in favour of Clomid "just in case", if she'd give me it without sending me to the local hospital, or if she'll decide to refer me if the day 21 test is normal. I didn't get round to ringing the miscarriage clinic, and to be honest I think the local gynae will do another round of fertility investigations just as competently as they will (in fact she used to work with them), and will be easier to get to.

Oh, I forgot the best bit - she said "after all, you're only 41".

Yes, no, yes, no, yes...

That's more about our state of indecision and panic than in any particular order about decisions:
I didn't get my grant (boo) which means I'm going to have to bash away at several other grants (boo) in order to eventually get promotion (boo/hooray) and to have any chance, alternatively, of applying for another job. But it means that we are sorted as to what we are doing: we are going to Southern California for 8 months in August (hooray).

After dithering with Mr Spouse and dithering with the acupuncturist (who pointed out quite rightly that I don't have much time to be doing tests) but also getting increasingly irritated (boo) with the 3-4 days of somewhat tender boobs at the start of my cycle (not as tender as before my period, not tender enough to give me any thoughts of pregnancy, but tender enough to be very annoying), I decided to book in to see the GP. Mr Spouse wasn't too keen on the whole idea of more tests as he knows me very well ("you are just hoping they'll find something they can fix, I know you, and you know they won't") but was swayed by the "new symptom" card. I'm seeing the nice female GP who signed me off for four weeks after the last miscarriage, next week.

I'm going to try and call the clinic nurse, too, though as they are a) miscarriage not infertility for the most part and b) a long way away and c) a tertiary referral centre, I may need to get the primary-to-secondary referral anyway.

Both Mr Spouse and the acupuncturist (I'm regretting sending him to see her as I envisage them ganging up on me now...) asked what if I got pregnant before we went away. Mr Spouse and I had a little chat about it and I think we are both happier - if I was more than 12 weeks pregnant, I think we'd be confident to travel and would probably spend a few months there anyway (it would be nice to be preparing for leave, away from people who wanted a piece of me before I vanished!). If I was, say, 10 weeks pregnant we'd delay until we were more sure. If I got to the point where I could be 6 weeks pregnant at the time we left, I'd be the first one to call a break for a month. And if I found out I was pregnant while we were there, my medical insurance covers pregnancy.

You've got spam

I had a hugely long spam comment on one of my posts last night (it was a long post, and the spam was about 4x the length of the post). I've deleted it, but if anyone has any clues about how to deal with these - I think I'm probably quite lucky with just the one in 3 years.

I realised this morning that this is the longest I've lived in one dwelling and the longest I've been in one job/course of study since leaving school. Time for a move I think. I'm waiting to hear about the grant which will decide where we go for about 8-9 months, and when, but we are definitely going somewhere. I think Mr Spouse is more anxious than I am because his new job is continuing to bore him rigid.