I'm having trouble conveying the extent of my eating woes. When I tell people how hungry I am, they respond by either a) remarking that I'm obviously feeling great, or b) leaping to the conclusion that my main concern is pregnancy weight. My main concern is feeling like dogshit.

I am literally sick with hunger. I try to keep up with my appetite, but there's just not enough room in my gastrointestinal tract for all the food I'm craving. Throw in an unpredictable aversion here and there and I sometimes feel like I'm starving to death and at the same time unable to eat. It's a cruel and unusual form of torture*. About once a week the whole thing culminates in a puking migraine, from which I take twenty-four to forty-eight hours to recover. I have been reduced to tears.

Now, as far as pregnancy concerns go, this isn't the worst - it is not, for example, anywhere close to knocking "dead baby" off the top of the pops - but nevertheless it is a real and immediate problem and I need to find a solution, the sooner the better. For a start, I'm not sure all this is conducive to the best nutrition, and secondly, I'm a little worried about what my blood sugar's doing in there.

So on Saturday morning I gathered my wits together, having got to the end of them, and set upon a three-point plan. Part A was buying a new cookbook, because I've noticed if there's one thing I'm craving it's novelty, and that afternoon I found The Well-Rounded Pregnancy Cookbook. The back cover spoke to my soul. I nearly wept with relief right there in the shop**.

Thus armed, I embarked on Part B - home delivery options for groceries. We don't have a car, and the nearby markets are not always inspiring, meaning I have a problem keeping the house adequately stocked with a good range of food. The first online order is arriving this week.

Part C is to even out my exercise a little. With the end of semester coming up, I've been yo-yoing between sitting, reading and writing for one entire day, and running around the next. I need to be doing some gentle exercise every day instead, and probably more of it in general.

Mr Bea also proposed a Part D, based on his timing of my hunger pangs over the weekend, I think in self-protection after I had a semi-violent hypoglycaemic meltdown. He says I need to eat a light meal every four hours, day and night (with snacks in between - ie six meals a day plus snacks). He wants me to set an alarm so I can begin preparing in time. Hopefully my three-point plan will allow me to settle into a less demanding regime.

I'll let you know how it goes.


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*And yet still more fun than infertility! I feel like there's scope here for someone to compile a list of things infertility's not as fun as, just to prove a point. "Certain forms of cruel and unusual torture" can go down first.

**I'm not exaggerating for effect or amusement. I actually teared up a bit. A lot of things make me tear up at the moment, though, so it's probably not as dramatic as it sounds.

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P.S. Note to all those who promote a do-gooder idea of adoption, with the implication that those pursuing ART are do-badders: news story for you. Yeah, that's your "save the children" idealogy at work for you right there. Want to join me in the "choices for families" camp?