The construction of childlessness

One of the problems with our particular version of not-being-able-to-have-kids is that everyone we have talked to about it, who is professionally involved with it, has a different construction on it.

Doctors and nurses see recurrent miscarriage, and long gaps between (some) conceptions as a medical problem. They can't explain it in our case, but they do have at least some medical interventions which have some success in getting to a live birth of a child genetically related to us, which is their goal.

Alternative practitioners seem to view it similarly - my previous acupuncturist was very focussed on getting and keeping me pregnant, and not on helping me stay sane. Although I had my first reflexology appointment yesterday, and the therapist seemed more focussed on general wellbeing, helping me relax and work through my grief, which my old acupuncturist was not really - she even said "so, you've had a period" when I miscarried at 5w.

Social workers see it as a social problem. If we are able to give up on the idea of having children that are genetically ours, they will be much more willing to work with us towards their goal of gaining permanent families for children who do not have them.

We have not consulted any psychologists (well, I've consulted myself and some colleagues, and I did see the scary shirt man) but I don't know of any particular school of thought that would direct a decision one way or the other, the main emphasis being on being happier with what is happening in life anyway; in other words, it is constructed as a cognitive problem - if you look on yourself as childless, you will not be satisfied, but if you look on yourself as childfree you might be.

Going back to the alternative practitioners, I am wondering about seeing a different acupuncturist and/or a TCM specialist. I feel in need of at least a short break, so now might be the time for some herbs, if appropriate. Any suggestions in the NW of England, or London, gratefully received.

(I have a little more to post about The Hospital Experience but that one seemed to want to come out now).

Sad

I was feeling overall better today but remembered later - and was again reminded because Mr. Spouse remembered - that we were supposed to be going for our nuchal scan today, which was booked at the 8w scan, so even before the 10w-scan-that-never-happened. For a complicated work-related and season-ticket-related reason he had to buy a return to the same place we get the train to for the hospital, today, even though he wasn't going there.

That is just the kind of thing that makes me come over all sad. He is such a girl.

Next

Next morning - Weds, 30th May - I rang the local hospital to find out if they had a scan time first thing for me, which they didn't, so I rang the specialist hospital and was told that in order to have an ERPC* at that hospital, my scan had to be there, and that they could fit me in at lunchtime for a scan, and it was likely they could then do the ERPC that night. So I packed my bag (forgetting dressing gown, slippers, and earphones to listen to music on my phone) and we set off, ringing the local hospital as we passed it to tell them we weren't coming.

We needed to go to A&E at the specialist hospital but as it is specialist, and the labour ward is elsewhere, it was relatively quick, and I suspect almost everyone there is in for a similar problem. A quick triage and we were sent downstairs for a scan, where the radiographer did a thoroughly decent job including using visual doppler and narrowing in on the chest area, but couldn't find anything resembling a heartbeat. As I posted previously the foetus was much more as I expected in shape - similar to the previous week - and did not look like it had disintegrated, only like it had not grown further - it still had a distinguishable head and body, and measured 7w6d.

Of course we have since racked our brains for anything that might have happened around 5d after our second scan but that particular Tuesday was quite relaxing so, although we know intellectually that it is unlikely anything I did caused the foetus to stop growing, it is helpful to actually feel blame-free too.

Back up to A&E and a few tears were shed while a junior doctor talked us through the options - well, rushed over medical management, didn't mention expectant management, and talked more about surgical management. I mentioned for the first of about five times that we needed analysis of the foetal material. While we were waiting to be allocated a bed someone in the next cubicle was having a very loud doppler with a pregnancy of uncertain gestation, "about 16 weeks".

I had at this point not had anything to eat since 8.30 and no water since midday, before the scan. They found me a bed and at about 4pm confirmed they'd be able to do the ERPC that day, and that I should be able to go home at 10pm, but I decided I didn't want to arrive home woozy at nearly midnight, so Mr. Spouse went and got me a magazine (forgetting chocolate - he was in trouble later) and went home. More waiting, I went down for the op, and eventually came back to the ward and demanded food. I spent most of the rest of the evening demanding more food, and asking to go to the shop to buy chocolate, and not being allowed to go. I think I finished my magazine, and my first book, and checked various things on t'internet on my phone, and dozed off about 10.30 after the other girls on the ward (unidentified serious gynae op, and huge ovarian abscess) had watched the first Big Brother, and the old lady in the next bed (some type of gynae cancer, removed) had started snoring.

I did have my earplugs, but about 4am was woken by an emergency admission, one of those things that actually makes you feel lucky - early 20s, suspected ectopic, very frightened. I tried really hard not to cry too loudly, and read most of my second book, until drugs came round at 6am and I went back to sleep.

Before Mr. Spouse arrived one of the doctors from the miscarriage clinic came to see me, admired my (Paul Frank) pyjama bottoms, and said how sorry (blah blah) she was to hear this, and then totally blew me out of the water by saying how encouraging it was that we had got this far, we had never got this far before, what they are doing must be working, etc. etc. I have to say that I hadn't thought at all that it was encouraging - more along the lines of, they do everything they can and still it doesn't work - but perhaps she is right. Except she isn't really going to just tell us to go away and give up, is she? Or is she? I have since thought that maybe, if there are two problems (rubbish embryos with genetic abnormalities, and an unsupportive environment), if we can sort out the second, then possibly luck will lead us to have a chance with the first, statistically.

We went back home about midday on the Thursday, after they had finally found me some anti-D (as I'm Rh -ve, and this was my first surgical management). The girl in the next bed still hadn't been scanned, and was getting very fed up of being on a drip. I gave her my magazines and commiserated about waiting for a scan when you are nervous.

I spent the next two or three days in a complete haze, mainly in bed ringing down for things to be brought to me, not even really making it onto the laptop. I think those days were more upsetting for Mr. Spouse, with me being so out of it, and his emotions being very raw, but he was at home with me, and very solicitous too I may say.

It's late, and I'm getting over the (ahem) tiredness from yesterday which followed on from the black tie do of the day before, so I will sign off. Probably only one more update installment - Hospital Visit Mark 2.

Incidentally we (as in, our household) don't do Father's Day - something that Mr. Spouse told me when his father was alive, so it's not that he wants to avoid it because of not being a father yet, or because of missing his father who died last year - my own father has never even mentioned it, except possibly to agree with my mother (always wise, at least when she's in the room) when she bemoaned its artificiality when we were children. I don't remember her acknowledging it when her father was alive either - even though she expected something from us on UK Mothering Sunday, and called her own mother on US Mother's Day. So. I haven't commented on it. But Mr. Spouse has been a bit out of sorts today. Though I think it's his Open University assignment, and the same (ahem) tiredness as me, to be honest.

As he's now asleep I'm not going to wake him up and say "oh, were you upset because it's Father's Day and your dad died last year". I'm nice like that.

*Evacuation of Retained Products of Conception. I think in some places they still do D&C as standard, or else a lot of women are told that's what they are getting, as I've seen a lot of people still referring to D&C, even for recent pregnancies. I even saw an online gynae query where the gynae "wasn't familiar with the abbreviation ERPC". But I believe ERPC is best practice now.

In all its gory detail

You realise this is mainly for me, not for you, OK? So feel free to nod off.

Tuesday 29th May, a.m.: After having had a small amount of brown blood (and I mean small - titchy in fact) over the weekend, I rang Liverpool and got Accident & Emergency who said yes, I could come in, they could not promise to scan me that day, but they could check my cervix. I decided to book a G.P. appointment for that day as a quicker way to check if it was closed. My friend J rang, who had the day off and who I'd completely forgotten might come down to see me if she wasn't too tired after being on call. She is a consultant anaesthetist who lives about an hour and a half away from me. This point will become important later. I realised that there was no other day that week for her to come, and at that point was feeling OK, so I asked her to come down that morning and planned to have lunch with her.

After she arrived, I opened my birthday present from her (she is a busy woman!) and that was my last panic-free moment. The paper is, I think, still sitting in the dining room. One part of the present was a blank book and I remember thinking I could put stuff relating to the baby in the book. That is also still sitting there. We decided to walk into town and get lunch, and I nipped to the loo where true panic set in - I found some red blood. I wasn't even sure whether to tell her but decided she'd know what to do. I remember saying "I don't know what to do now". She suggested that I needed to eat (that was a mistake, really as the place we chose to eat took over an hour to serve us some rather mediocre sandwiches - we chose it as it is on the same side of town as the hospital, and there isn't much else out there except my work) and that going to A&E after that would be quicker than waiting for the GP, who probably wouldn't examine my cervix anyway.

So, about 3pm we were in the hospital and after we had refused the medical student trying to put a canula in and the A&E registrar had failed she did it herself. It is very handy having someone bossy and knowledgeable in a hospital, even if she doesn't know as much about fertility/miscarriage as I do - which made me feel slightly better. By 4 we'd been taken up to an examination room in the gynae ward, and finally at about 4.30 I'd been examined, pronounced to be closed, the bleeding had pretty much given up and I and was about to go home feeling much better, with a promise of a scan slot at some time in the morning. J didn't know what they meant by a follicle tracking appointment [which might have been free] nor when I explained I thought it was for the IUI they do at a different local hospital did she know what IUI was. And she didn't know the condoms in the box on the shelf were for TV scans.

We'd been talking about her pregnancy (she didn't find out till she was 19 weeks - she was on the mini-pill and religious about taking it, but had been vomiting - her daughter was just 7 - she is a big lass but although I only saw her after the birth, having not seen her for a few years, I don't think she was that big!) and antenatal testing (she pointed out, quite rightly, that if the baby had a fatal condition I would be wasting six months to a year of my fertility if I didn't terminate early), and everything felt calm.

Then one of the radiographers (I'm assuming - whoever it was, I've never seen him before, and even J who likes her patients unconscious was aghast at his lack of bedside manner) arrived with a portable scanner although I actually felt very calm, and somehow knew it wasn't going to be good, even before he switched much too quickly from an abdominal to a TV scan. The previous scan had been abdominal and very quickly found something - although looking back now I think even if things had been OK he might not have been able to see much since the resolution is very poor on the portable scanner. But I suppose it was probably best for me not to hang on in hope, as in the first pregnancy I had an overnight of hanging on in hope when Mr. Spouse had given up.

On the TV scan the foetus was measuring just 7w - smaller than when we had seen it nearly 2 weeks previously - and he could not see a heartbeat, and the shape was really blobby and not at all foetus-like. I managed to hold it together until J took me home, by which time Mr. Spouse was there, and she went and made a cup of tea while I collapsed, sobbing, into his arms. At this point I was thinking that the foetus had deteriorated into a mass of undifferentiated tissue, and had been partly reabsorbed, and even was wondering if the first miscarriage (empty sac at 10+2) was in fact more advanced than we had previously thought, but had been reabsorbed. I was also feeling even more depressed (personally) than after any previous miscarriage - serious thoughts of self-harm and even suicide), which very much worried Mr. Spouse.

I've known J since we were both 18, but she isn't a very touchy-feely person - I was very touched when she pressed my shoulder before leaving and said "take care of yourself".

We were still promised a full scan the next day, either in an early morning slot or mid-afternoon. I can't really write much more now, but having started the story I think I'm going to have to finish it at some point. Nudge me if you think I have gone off into a deep depression (honestly, I wouldn't be able to write this if I wasn't feeling a whole lot better).

Isn't that what they say about giving birth?

that the only reason people go through it more than once is that you forget how awful it was? I think that must be what has happened to me with each miscarriage. I look at myself from the outside, thinking how other people must see me, and I think that I must seem, to them, who have never experienced it, rather like those who have experienced seven, ten, teens of miscarriages appear to me - slightly crazy and slightly obsessed.

I mean this with no disrespect to those who are in this boat - in some ways I find their stories inspirational - but although I know (either personally or online) several people who have decided that they have had enough of trying to get pregnant, either on their own or with medical help, I am not sure I know of anyone who made that decision after recurrent miscarriage. I have read that once you've done three properly regulated IVF cycles your chances start to drop, but there don't seem to be those statistics for recurrent miscarriages.

But I also feel that, with this 4th or possibly 5th miscarriage, that I have entered the big leagues. I had various blogs on my bloglines list of people who had had 2 or 3 miscarriages, but several of them have recently moved to the "parents" section (one through adoption, but most through carefully monitored pregnancies, just like mine was...). I know there are more people out there, some of them who are being seen at our clinic. I am not sure how much lower our chances are now (I'm guessing about 50% per pregnancy). Like I say, I don't know if our chances are now about the same with each pregnancy, or are exponentially dropping.

I'm just trying to carry on carrying on here, watching TV, avoiding having my mother to stay, eating peanut butter candy (Thalia is fantastic, but thank you to the other people who offered, you are also fantastic), buying shoes, weeping in cafés, arguing with Mr. Spouse and then both of us apologising, avoiding pregnant friends and those with babies (managed two yesterday on the 10 minute walk to and from town). Mr. Spouse says he is trying to be happy for them by thinking that he couldn't possibly wish this on them.

Back home

I was discharged at lunchtime yesterday, and had to take a taxi home (ill-timed out of town meeting for Mr. Spouse - in fact he was slightly grateful they admitted me as he had to leave at an ungodly hour in the morning and was worried about leaving me at home, in pain and bleeding), but actually found that I felt a bit better than even before I started feeling worse, if you get my drift.

However today I had a migraine (haven't had one during any of the pregnancies - I'm guessing it's the hormone crash) and started feeling a lot more emotional. I had a quick trip to the GP - basically for some tea a sick note and sympathy, both of which I got. She even asked how Mr. Spouse was doing, which impressed him. I'm signed off (which here means you are not allowed to go back to work) until the 25th June. There's one more week of term after that (mainly whole-department meetings, which I may cry off and try to catch up with some students) and we are then on holiday for our annual pre-school-holiday-price-hike trip for Mr. Spouse's birthday. I may go back and see her again (instead of my registered, nice-but-male GP). But she'll need to refill her tissue box first. One tissue! How pathetic is that!

I just about made it to the market and managed to buy a few small things and make it home again before my tears won out over my clenched teeth. Mr. Spouse kindly rang work and told them how long I will, provisionally, be away for, I think also leaving the message that I'd been admitted again, to emphasise that I Am Poorly. Very Poorly. I also seem to have failed to set up my email out-of-office message correctly, so I updated that today, and my irate students will at least have some idea when I am coming back.

I may, as I said, write more about all this when I feel up to it, but I just thought I'd reassure you that I am at least alive, and at home. The pain and bleeding are almost gone, though I am rattling with the antibiotics and as zonked as I wish to be on the good painkillers, there was a little fluid on the scan, so no repeat ERPC, and the swab for infection wasn't back yet when I left, but I think they wanted to be on the safe side and dose me up with killer antibiotics.

Oh how nice

I'm in hospital. Again. A lot more bleeding, clots, and some very severe pain led to a trip to the out-of-hours GP service (a lot quicker than A&E), followed by transfer to the gynae ward, where I am currently languishing, waiting for the good painkillers and some antibiotics.

Trivia

There is a young man I know, through message board/blog route (so when I say "know", you realise I haven't met this person) and he, though only in his 20s, has recently lost his wife. There is more to the story, but this is a tragedy of such huge proportions that you don't really need to know more, though I may post a bit at some point. When this happened, I noticed that fairly quickly he started posting about things other than this huge tragedy on his blog, and on the message board.

I thought this was a bit weird, but I think I understand a bit more. I don't feel ready to process or write much about Sprout and how we lost him (for some reason, we have been referring to the baby as "him"), but I need distraction, more than TV/knitting/reading/napping can provide, so I have also been reading, and occasionally posting, about things that I then think "this does not MATTER. Why do I care about this? Why do I care about anything?".

I'm still in a bit of pain, though not unmanageable, hardly any bleeding, though my whole pelvis seems to be objecting in unison, as I've been having a bit of pain on urinating. No heavy bleeding, clots, or fever though so I'm pretty sure I haven't got an infection, still taking the codeine/gin in alternation. My mother sent home-made brownies (and roses, in the same jiffy bag, rose-scented brownies are surprisingly nice), and Mr. Spouse found peanut butter chunky Kit-Kats which aren't quite Reeses, but are still pretty good.

No-one is at home. Please leave a message after the beep.

The anaesthetic has left me tired and groggy, and the painkillers ditto - just one codeine makes me dizzy and sick, though it works, so I have been taking it at night, plus you can alternate it with NSAIDs, and I'm still quite crampy. I think it's been Mr. Spouse who has been feeling more emotional today than me, as apart from an hour or so in the middle of the night in the hospital, I haven't really been seriously crying. I think I need to be able to feel something to be able to feel sad. It is very different to the previous "natural" miscarriages (the first one was medically managed but apart from timing it was similar to a spontaneous loss).

I'm trying to make sure I have what I need for the next week or so at home but I'm also afraid I'm going to go into recovery autopilot, and just do things that pass the time without helping me feel better - I don't know if the things that made me feel better in the past will be the same ones.

Don't know if I'll describe the whole process, just salient bits, or none of it, but not just yet.

Later: Sent Mr. Spouse out for coffee, lemons to put in the G&Ts (don't worry, I won't mix them with codeine), peanut butter, and Reese's peanut butter cups. They don't have peanut butter cups in our Sainsbury's. Do they have them anywhere in the UK? I think this is a mother's-milk craving - before you could get peanut butter over here, my mother used to bring it back when we visited her parents.

In hospital

You won't be too surprised to hear that. We went to the specialist hospital this morning, the scan showed the same, though clearer and easier to say goodbye, somehow, I've had the ERPC, and multiple assurances that there would be analyses. I'm staying in overnight and Mr. Spouse is coming back for me in the morning.

Not good

Although there wasn't much more blood, and the cervix was closed, the portable scanner showed a poorly shaped embryo and they couldn't find a heartbeat. Another scan on the good machine tomorrow but basically, we are battening down the hatches and thinking about our options.

Red

More blood, different colour. My nice doctor friend is over for lunch so after we eat she is taking me to A&E. Just don't want this to happen in public.

No scan today

I just rang the hospital and the nurse said that given how little blood, and that it's brown, it's extremely likely my cervix is closed, though I can come in, or go to my local A&E, to have it checked, but they won't scan me today since I have one booked for Friday. I don't think they are that full up but it actually saves me a decision - I was wimping out of going to potentially bad news on my own, and now I'll still be going with my mum holding my hand.

It is 90 minutes either to drive (and it's not a very straightforward journey) or on two trains and a bus so given the choice between sitting with my feet up mocking my students' exam answers/watching trashy TV, and taking a long and stressful journey, I am fairly happy to have the decision made for me, and to do the latter. Hopefully Sprout will thank me for it.

Where would I be without something to panic about?

I dashed to the loo before an out of town meeting on Friday morning when I discovered the tiniest bit, ever, of light beige mucus in my knickers. This was after a tiring day and a fairly sleepless night, and at the start of a long journey via the city where Mr. Spouse works to my mother's for the weekend. We had promised ourselves a weekend of R&R but I think there was too much of the second R and not enough of the first as I had a larger, but very light beige, bit each morning, once after, erm, straining, and again this morning when it was gloopier and a bit browner. Apart from the first bit whatever there is seems to be mixed with, erm, how to say this, externally introduced mucus. Logically I know that

a) it is brown, in fact most of it is beige, so there is not a lot of blood and whatever is producing it has stopped bleeding

b) apart from the first day, it was all post-activity and perhaps now is the time to lay off

c) it is very very common to have even some red blood and for it not to be a bad sign

d) it could actually be something external to my cervix

e) all the other symptoms are the same, including the nausea (which, though not worse, seems to be more frequent), and although I have a few cramps if I look at each one objectively it is no worse than any I've had so far this pregnancy. I am also a little confused about the cramping as I've had a couple of wicked bouts of indigestion (sorry, mother, it's not your cooking, I just don't seem to be able to do meat at the moment), and bowel cramps can be easy to confuse with other pelvic cramps.

I'm 9w3d today. You will understand where I'm coming from when I tell you that at exactly 10w in my first pregnancy I had something similar (though quite a bit heavier) and although they pronounced my cervix closed, a scan showed only an empty sac. I know it won't be exactly that way this time, but I've always thought that was actually the first warning of a full bleed, and that it was just taking my body some time (in that case, about 4 weeks) to decide to bleed properly.

I tried to ring the Early Pregnancy Unit at the women's hospital as soon as we got home from my mum's this afternoon but, being a bank holiday today, they were closed and I got the emergency number. I imagine that about 25% of their emergencies, statistically, are miscarriages or threatened miscarriages, though, so they should know what they are talking about. She repeated point a) above, told me to take it easy - "no heavy shopping or hoovering" were her words. I'm taking that to mean I shouldn't have gone to the outlet village yesterday, and that confining myself to home for the next 24h, at least, would not be a bad idea. If I have any red blood, I am to go to A&E locally, but like the other hospital, I can't see them being able to scan me before tomorrow, and in fact, probably not even then given their usual timetable. I have my next scan on Friday, but I will also ring the EPU tomorrow and see whether they think an earlier scan would be possible.

Eating for 1.01

Having noticed my trousers get a little tighter, and being unable to escape the fact that I had been, basically, sitting on the sofa and eating for the past couple of weeks, I promised myself that if I made it past the 8w scan I'd weigh myself. I have put on half a stone (3kg for the imperially challenged) - about 3lb of which I reckon is evenly distributed between my boobs.

Now, I am trying really, really hard not to beat myself up about that - I know that much of it is fluid and blood - but I also know that not exercising, and eating too much sweet stuff, is not good for me or the embryo. So, despite being told not to obsess, I have decided to fill in my online food diary for a week or two. It is not good news. I am eating far more than I need to maintain my weight and I am eating too much sugar, not enough protein, and I'm barely making my 5-a-day some days. I know I should not worry about this, and I also realise I am struggling with nausea, but it is hard not to. I'm trying to concentrate on increasing the amount of protein, and eating slightly less sweet stuff to ward off the nausea.

It is very hard to get to the point of not thinking about my weight, after more than three years of mainly thinking about it. Before I lost weight, I was adamant I was fine - it took a failed glucose tolerance test to wake me up, which is partly why I'm now worried, though at the weight I am now I don't have any problems with glucose, I am very worried about gestational diabetes. But I am also catching myself thinking "I don't want to be a huge fat mother". I actually am not that worried about being a huge fat pregnant woman, partly because I can't quite believe I can get that far.

I had mad ideas of carrying on running while pregnant, and although I am almost certainly not going to go there (boobs hurt too much, and I'm exhausted - took a 2 hour nap today - even leaving my foot aside, so unless they magically stopped hurting in my second trimester, it would be a no go) I still feel idle. I'm not a very sporty person, just fairly active, and I don't like being inactive, but I am still a little scared of being too active.

Big grins all round...

Getting your stuff ready to go for a scan, if it's 90 minutes away, is a fine art. First there are knickers you don't mind losing, then enough books (and lightweight enough) to read when you're both dying to pee, and potentially going mad waiting for a decision to be made. Then there's "do I take overnight stuff". I took my contact lens case and toothbrush, as years of travelling experience leads me to have two sponge bags ready packed at all times - the mini one, with the lens and tooth stuff, and the big one, with the soap/shampoo/hairbrush etc.

But in the event my pessimism was not needed. As you can see, all were happy, including the nice doctor (the one I've seen twice before, and Mr. Spouse once, when we were there in January. She was crying that time, in sympathy with us.
Me: I wish they'd wear name badges, so I'd have better chance of remembering her name.
Him: She was.
Me: So what's her name then?
Him: I forget.
We were too busy looking happy, I think.

Anyway we saw and (pretty much immediately) heard the heartbeat, saw a vague shape of embryo, which measures 7w2d but the doctor says not to worry as there's a large margin of error. It measured 11.1mm and clearly just 0.1mm off would be easy to do, but would make at least a couple of days' difference. I reckon I am 7w5 to 7w6 by when I ovulated so I will try not to fret about that. I did give in to temptation and look up my official due date, which should have been December 29th, so I reckon this would be a January delivery, realistically. And we now have about a 90% chance of having one, by my guesstimation.

The radiographer (50-ish, male - I didn't know they made male radiographers) referred to it as a foetus and we were also later directed to the fetal (sic - despite this being the UK) medicine centre so although I think it is technically still an embryo, that also makes it seem a bit more real. The fetal medicine centre visit was to book in for a nuchal translucency scan and combined blood test thingy. We feel that if there is to be not-so-good news, we would like to know sooner, even if we are pretty sure we won't want to do an invasive test, or terminate except in the case of an abnormality incompatible with life (and we also discussed this case). I had been ruminating on this for a few days and it all came out in an incomprehensible rush (rather like the tax information Mr. Spouse was trying to send me to sleep with last night) but I think we are now on the same page. I think we always were, actually. It is partly personal conviction, partly history - at the moment we feel like we would rather have a baby, and child, with some problems than no baby, or child, at all.

So this afternoon we went to the seaside! In fact, to a gorgeous Victorian town which, local legend has it, was visited briefly by Napoleon, and on which he modelled Paris' main streets. Well, that's what they say. For more information, read the hilarious Lancashire, Where Women Die of Love. We had a slightly substandard pub lunch, and then wandered around the continental market, clearly laid on specifically for us, and enjoyed the fine weather, ditto.

Then home, where I have just come off the phone to my mum - who on being told the news, squealed for about five minutes. She is going to come to my next scan (1st June) as Mr. Spouse is getting to the stage where he will have to take unpaid days off to come with me. She was clearly delighted, not only at the news and the invitation to hold my hand, but also at the chance to get out of something her fellow retirees had signed her up for that she didn't fancy. I swear, she's busier than me. She again bent my ear about my brother's parenting skills (or lack thereof - I better measure up to her idealisation of me, is all I can say!), but seemed a bit more positive about them than recently (long story).

I'm just going to remind Mr. Spouse that he said he'd cook something for me, as I need to eat but can't face the kitchen...

Do you have any children?

I've been asked this twice so far this week. The first time was by one of my Brownies - they seem to have just cottoned on to the fact that I am an adult with an independent life (though she did also ask me if I was a student...) and keep asking me if I'm married, "is that a wedding ring", etc. When I said no, she asked "why not?"

I was a bit flustered, and didn't know what to say - to an adult you can just say "it hasn't happened for us" or even (though it's been three years) "give us a chance, we've only just got married", but neither of those will work for a child. Thankfully the other leader saw I was a bit flustered and told her "She's got lots of students" which then meant I could explain that the students kept me really busy, and then of course explain what students were and what I do, and then have an argument with her about whether I would know her cousin, who probably isn't at my institution (there is another, more vocational, university in town too).

The second time was yesterday when I was attempting to find out if my foot was broken. The shower head fell off the wall onto my left foot on Sunday morning and after the swelling went down a bit yesterday morning, it was still very painful (except if I sit on the sofa and elevate it, which is nice), and had a lump in a place where I don't think there should be a lump, and where there isn't one on the other foot. I can't really walk any distance (especially not in shoes) and I can't drive.

Note that I haven't told my GP practice that I'm pregnant yet - I was planning to book in with them next week, if the scan is OK on Friday. The nurse practicioner at the GP practice said that as A&E have a 48 hour cutoff, I should head over there, where in a miraculous five minutes I was seen by a doctor who said "I haven't got X-ray eyes" and since the foot is a long way from the uterus and the dose is low, I should be OK. The radiographer, however, said that she personally would not have an X-ray in the first trimester, and that there were risks, and I told her I'd had miscarriages before (I didn't mention how many); she asked if I had children. When I said no, she replied "Hang on to this one". Which seemed unnecessarily dramatic.

The upshot was that the doctor refused to do anything, and said he couldn't feel a lump. Now I know he probably sees more broken bones in a week than I have, er, hot dinners, but I couldn't help feeling that someone who is an actual broken bone specialist might have been able to find some way round this. I got the impression that if I had pushed them to treat it as if it was broken, they might have put it in plaster. But I've also been told by friends that when they cracked something in their foot, they were just told to strap it up. Mr. Spouse asked if they could ultrasound my foot, but even in my ignorant state I don't think that would work. I am now paranoid that I'm making my foot worse by walking on it, even if it's just round the house. Anyway, assuming all goes well on Friday, we're going to ask about the risks. Unless of course it is magically better by then.

7w

Not much more to say, really. My boobs still feel sore, though slightly less so, but I feel much, much sicker. I need to eat approximately every two hours, though I haven't thrown up yet. One good thing about pregnancy is you can eat as much dried fruit as you want (if you are like me, and love dried fruit) and you don't get the runs (if you are like me, and dried fruit normally gives you the runs). I seem to feel sicker in the afternoons - in the mornings I'm just starving.

I went to yoga today for the first time in three weeks. I am not sure how good an idea this was, since the time before that was about three months previously. Normally I go to yoga every single week, and have been doing so for about six or seven years, with the occasional gap. I have been feeling a little bloated, and some of the bending over postures were a bit uncomfortable. If I was paranoid (me?) I would have worried it was pressing on my uterus but I know it's still well-protected in there. Happily nothing involved lying on my boobs for long periods of time. But I am wondering about saying something to my teacher. She just does it voluntarily, and is very nice, but I don't really want her altering things in an obvious way ("Dr Spouse, you shouldn't do this one").

I've also booked in to have a reflexology session on Tuesday, on the advice of perceval - thanks - I didn't want to go back to my acupuncturist even though I think she's a good therapist, because she is so bossy about meals. I'm supposed to eat rice for breakfast, according to her. Not going to happen.

I think I feel OK about waiting another week for a scan, though I'm starting to get nervous again, and I'm only sleeping well about half the time. I tried to put a couple of drops of lavender on the pillow, and it ended up smelling like an aromatherapist's boudoir.

Work continues to ignore me, or vice versa, or something. It's exam marking season, which is another good excuse not to go near the office, and to watch back-to-back episodes of trash (yes, it really helps me mark exam scripts accurately. Honest). Currently it's season 1 of The O.C. which I have on DVD. I ordered season 6 of Gilmore Girls ages ago from ebay and it hasn't arrived yet (in fact, the vendor sent me another copy, which also hasn't arrived) and I was originally thinking "don't watch too much of The O.C., you might want it post-miscarriage" but now I'm keping Gilmore Girls for that. But I'm also bidding on things from ebay which I might wear to a black tie do scheduled for when I'm 12 weeks, which, at this rate I won't feel like going to if I miscarry before then. Since it seems unlikely I'll be doing that on my own.

Pants

That's the ones I'm wearing, not a comment on life. They are white. I feel I am becoming more calm...

I had a bit of a panic on Monday and a rather stressful day yesterday - well, a stressful couple of hours in the morning - I felt I should ring Personnel and tell them I needed to have my ante-natal appointments counted as such, not sick leave. They initially wanted me to tell my department but that is not going to happen, so after lunch I rang back and they suggested I ask for annual leave and then they can be recoded later. The only difficulty is going to be getting several days' annual leave during term time, but I think I will be vague and only say that I am actually not just working but away from the office, if pressed. As I've said, I don't want to give my boss the chance to open his mouth just yet.

Continuing to use a visualisation/encouragement technique, this week I am urging Sprout to grow villi and limb buds, and shape its cranium correctly. I've also decided for the sake of my sleep and state of mind I need to do some exercise so I'm going to yoga on Friday and went for a 30 minute walk at lunchtime today.

That article

In case you're interested, it's here. A more recent article from a different clinic gives the predictive power of seeing a heartbeat at slightly lower - 82% - but I'm not clear whether they are all idiopathic recurrent miscarriers, or whether they include some with clotting disorders, and likewise it's not clear from the abstract whether they are using "heartrate over X" or just "presence of heartbeat" as the diagnostic factor. Perhaps someone with a subscription (Thalia?) can enlighten.

(Later - I really shouldn't have carried on reading as I just found another article saying the predicitive power is only 71% in over-40s. Excuse me while I go and sit in a hole).