Short Version: Mr Bea brings his sister up to date, and I remember Jester's would-have-been birthday.

Mr Bea told his sister over the weekend. The conversation was definitely due. Because of a complex and tedious array of social interactions, every other member of our immediate families - including both my sisters - is fully up to date with our story except for her, so as you can imagine that's a fair old information gap. The conversation went like this:

Mr Bea: So anyway, here's a piece of news - Bea's pregnant. Eighteen weeks.

SIL: Oh my goodness congratulations! Has everything gone smoothly so far?

Mr Bea: Uh. Well...

---

It was Jester's due date a few weeks ago. I was asked how I feel about it, and I feel ok. In many ways, I think it helps to have The Foetus to focus on - a baby who is here, now, who I can still do something for, and with all the lovely pregnancy hormones to boot - but it's not just that. For every due date that passes, there has been a slight release, as if I have to bring each embryo to term in my mind, if not my body, and once that's done, my responsibility is over. I mean, clearly he's not here demanding feedings or nappy changes - my work must be finished.

I suppose it's the final point at which the loss becomes a reality. Sitting here, even now at 18.5 weeks, I can't quite get hold of the fact that The Foetus is in there. My entire experience of pregnancy is very abstract, especially for those pregnancies which were "biochemical". But not having a take-home baby - that I can't fail to comprehend.

So as each due date passes, something in my mind pulls the last piece of understanding into place. Oh, I get it - it's over. It really is time to move on.

That's what the report said, more or less. I felt it coming on as I was waiting to pay the bill - a great torrent of... no wait, that sounds silly. A huge vaccuum opening up, sucking all the... not quite right. It was an oppressive, though invisible force, pressing in on me from all sides and... no.

Words fail me. Except the ones which keep repeating themselves inside my head: perfectly normal boy. Perfectly normal boy.

I made it down in the lift, paused briefly to decide between a taxi and the tube. Relaxing my force of will for even a moment left me gulping for air. A crowd of school children streamed past on both sides as I deliberated. Perfectly normal boys. All perfectly normal boys. I took the MRT. Anonymous strangers rarely ask for explanations.

On the platform I was reaching for my book bag when a man stopped to stare at me. I half-looked at him, without meeting his eyes. Indian gentleman, turban, white collared shirt, thoughtful frown. After a pause he said softly, "You are very lucky."

"Really," I replied, looking steadily into his face and giving him a sad little half-smile.

"Yes," he answered emphatically, and tapped his forefinger between his eyes in a gesture I don't understand. "There is good luck coming to you soon - before the end of the year." I paused, baffled, and gave a stunned nod. Then I had to bite my lip and avert my eyes.

The train came. Two stations later the Indian man turned to catch my eyes again, and gave a barely perceptible nod. Then he alighted and was gone.

Gone, just like my perfectly normal boy.

Our perfectly normal boy.

--

(And in remembrance of our perfectly normal boys gone by...)

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

Lest we forget

The Last Post
The Rouse
_____________________________________________________

When I was young - about primary school age, I think - I was prone to the same unsociable habits as any other child my age, and I came in for the same amount of scolding from the adults around me. "Bea!" they would say. "Stop whining/annoying your playmate/picking your nose!" But my mother always took a different tack. She would take me aside and, looking stern but patient, pose the following question: "Is there any reason you're doing that?" And I would usually pause uncertainly, caught off-guard by being made to analyse the basis of my actions, sometimes causing my mother to prompt ("Is your nose itchy? Runny? Sore?"), but inevitably I would come up with some excuse, whereupon my mother would explain why the solution I'd come up with wasn't an acceptable one, suggest a list of suitable alternatives, and close with a warning about what type of punishment I could expect were I to repeat my behaviour now I knew better.

On Tuesday I phoned my mother about the fact I hadn't heard from her since I wrote to her about our loss. "I sent you an email on Saturday," I began.

"Yes," she admitted reluctantly.

Then I heard my mother's voice from my own lips, stern but patient, saying, "Is there any reason you haven't contacted us since?"

The plain truth is my family is bad at these things. But I learnt that lesson a long time ago so there's no need to rehash it all again. Really, my mother's only following in the footsteps of the woman who raised her. It's funny how life reminds us we're our mother's daughter, after all.

Little Sister emailed Mr Bea to check on me. She said my mother is distressed to the point of threatening to buy a plane ticket and come over, apologised for having read the password-protected blog uninvitedly, but assured us it's for the best as it's allowing her to give wise counsel on the appropriate things to say and do. To think, I didn't tell her because I'm the Big Sister. The Little Mother. How hard it is to reshape the mould.

**Addition**
Shortly after I published this post, a bunch of flowers arrived at the door from my family.

I couldn't stop shaking. It started as soon as I entered the day surgery area, and continued for nearly an hour and a half, beyond the point the anaesthetist took my hand to look for a vein, and remarked, "Boy, you really are frightened."

"I think I'm just cold," I answered honestly. I certainly didn't feel frightened. I felt, kind of... numb. They brought me an extra blanket but the shivering continued. Then he gave me fentanyl, and it stopped.

As he made his preparations, he babbled on about the ring structures of various opioids, the logistics involved in anaesthetising patients for open-heart surgery, and the importance of not insisting you were allergy-free to the first four people who asked you and then, after getting a dose of intravenous kefzol, suddenly remarking that actually you are allergic to something, come to think of it, and it might have been an antibiotic, anyway all you can remember is you nearly died - which a patient had done to him on the previous day. Lastly, he told me it would be ok because this had happened to him and his wife and now they had an eighteen-year-old son and a seventeen-year-old daughter. I was about to make some sardonic remark about how few embryo transfers it must have taken for number two, but the next thing I remember is waking up, and it was all over, and I wasn't shaking any more.

I bled a little in recovery. It was like a heavy period at first, but lightened within a few hours. They gave me pain killers, which I considered taking, but the pain was never worse than menstrual pain and today I feel almost fine. Towards the end of my recovery I sent Mr Bea out for chocolates and a card. Since that first beta - gosh was it only in March? - the staff have been very kind. And it's good, once in a while, to encourage goodness in others.

---
Speaking of which, don't forget to encourage Mel as she Walks America in support of the March of Dimes.

You can stop now.

Beta is falling. I'm glad we held out for a definitive answer.

SOB thinks that, due to the size of the pregnancy and the falling hCG, there should be no problem with a natural miscarriage. He thinks tissue testing, in the light of previous test results (eg parental karyotyping), is unlikely to yield useful information, and we would be better off waiting and doing an endometrial biopsy "when everything settles down". And I had to admit the logic to his suggested approach. But I told him I was keen to pursue any and all avenues of investigation, despite the lack of compelling reasons to do so, and screw the cost/benefit analysis, and did he see any problem with that and he said no, so we are booked for a D&C tomorrow morning, with results in 2-3 weeks.

I still haven't heard from my family. I'm really grateful for all your comments.

That is all.

**Update**
Parent situation resolved. Explain later.

**Wed Update**
Went smoothly.

A few weeks ago, when my family started enquiring as to the status of our cycle, I set up a private blog to provide them with updates and pictures. I thought I would wait until we had answered the "ectopic" question - no need to cause unecessary panic, although I remain fully in favour of the necessary variety - and then let them in on the news as it happened. But even after that scan I hesitated. It's hard to carry this burden without the help of our families, but it's harder to feel they've let us down. In the past, I've often regretted giving people the chance.

Last week I rung both my parents and grandparents, hoping they'd raise the topic, looking for an opportunity to explain what's been going on, baldly seeking a few words of comfort. I find it difficult to broach the subject in conversation, and after being fobbed off the first time, they've decided to stop asking. Several phone calls later, my mission had failed. So on Saturday, I sent my parents an invitation to the private blog.

They've visited several times over the last few days.

I've heard nothing.

I don't know what to do about it except post this entry, in the hope that someone, somewhere, will read it and think, gosh, well, mental note, there is a fine line between pestering a couple for information and ignoring the situation completely, and I'm one step closer to figuring out how to walk it. So here it is:

I know it's hard. I know it's awkward. I know the rules seem to change on a daily basis and you're always afraid of causing offense and getting your head snapped off. But please - don't give up. As long as your heart's in the right place, you'll be forgiven. Don't stop calling. Don't stop asking if we want to talk about it. Don't stop making the point that you're here, and you want to help.

Just please, whatever you do, don't leave us alone.

I was trained as a scientist, and all through university I heard this message: reach for the obvious; expect the expected. It doesn't mean we should shut out the possibility of strange and awesome things, but we should come to unorthodox conclusions only after rigorous investigation of the more likely alternatives. The lesson was always summarised using the same, well-worn aphorism: "When you hear hoofbeats..." the lecturer would begin, and we'd roll our eyes. "Yeah yeah, we get it. It's not the Serengeti."

A beta of 23.8 at 16dpo can go several ways - and the extreme ends of the spectrum do contain heartwarming urban legends and tragic horror stories - but almost all the area under the curve is taken up by chemical pregnancies and blighted ovums. Since I heard our hoofbeats, those are exactly the breeds of horse I've been expecting to see.

Today, looking at the screen, my first thought was, "Fuck me, there's the heartbeat." A few seconds later, it was followed by, "That's far too slow," and "Wait, wait - I'm watching my own pulse." SOB started by running through all our positives - the pregnancy has grown and the hCG has gone up but - and here he hesitated in that awkward manner people have when they're about to say something upsetting. And I heard my voice, and it was gentle and calm, "You'd expect to see a lot more at this stage."

"Yes," he agreed, and we paused. "I think we should keep you on all the medication and do another hCG reading on Tuesday."

"Even though we have no heartbeat at eight weeks four days, our hCG doubling time has deteriorated from 2.5 days to about a week, we are measuring even further behind in dates than we already were, and we have now fallen well off the bottom of your already overly-generous reference range?"

"It's still growing. The hormones are still going up."

Clearly, we have very different definitions of the word "over". But one more blood test will do no harm. It's not like you can call this "limbo" anymore - rather it's "waiting til Tuesday to discuss options for miscarriage".

And expected or not, you know it hurts to get mown down by a half-ton of steel-shod equine.

Hopeful Bea has already started rehearsing her script. She clears her throat theatrically, and takes one last look at her lines, mouthing them to herself rapidly before nodding as if ready to begin. A pause for the start of the scene, and then, "Oh!" she gushes, trying to make the water well up in her eyes. "Oh my- oh my g- Oh!" She fans her face and looks upward, gasping for air, and then collapses forwards, overflowing with tears of joy. The loosely assembled audience claps half-heartedly, and she breaks character to take a bow.

Logical Bea takes the opportunity to peel away from the crowd, looking soundly unmoved by the performance. Soon she spies Anxious Bea, at her desk in the corner, nervously chewing the end off her biro and oblivious to the ink stain spreading around her mouth. "Thought I'd find you working on an alternative," says Logical, giving Anxious a start. "What've you got so far?"

"Well," Anxious begins, looking embarrased, "the scene is this: ultrasound shows minimal growth of the gestational sac, and no heartbeat. We rush a blood test through the lab, which confirms the end is inevitable. Then I, sort of, well I can't work out whether to go for stony-faced stoicism or disruptively noisy grief."

Logical nods. "Want my advice? Focus less on the emotional aspect. That'll happen by itself, and you can't plan for it. What you need to be writing down are constructive questions, things like, What are our options? Can we do tissue testing on the embryo?"

"Should we schedule an endometrial biopsy, and when?" suggests Anxious, but Logical shakes her head.

"Too much at once. There'll be time for that talk when this pregnancy's over and a new cycle has begun."

"You mean "if", don't you?"

"Sure. If. That's only logical."

Anxious nods thoughtfully, and sets to work. Soon the script is ready for rehearsal. She stands, and delivers her lines woodenly. "Can we do tissue testing on the embryo? What will that involve, and when can we discuss the results? Can you explain the pros and cons of each of our options? What signs of complications should I look out for? How will it happen?" She faulters. "I mean, exactly how - where will I go, who will I speak to at each stage, what will I say? What..." She breaks off, sobbing quietly. "I'm sorry - this isn't in the script."

After an awkward pause, Logical walks over and puts an arm stiffly around Anxious's shoulder. "Try not to be upset," she says, feeling futile. "Hey - I still think it's going to be ok in the end."

"You do?" Anxious looks pleadingly into Logical's face.

"Sure," says Logical, and she is. "Whatever happens tomorrow, try to remember we're not out of options yet. Things still have a good chance of working out in the end. It's only elementary logic."

--
Don't forget to leave your thoughts over at IIFF. As of yesterday, there is a new post, discussing the next festival.

First of all, since I posted this deed, all the supermarkets I shop at have started offering re-usable bags for sale at the checkout. I'm not claiming responsibility for this, merely pausing to be heartened by the turn of events.

I have furthermore decided (in celebration of the above) to recycle one of my past good deeds*. The idea behind Kiva still takes my fancy, so I decided to give it another go. And as if the universe was in enthusiastic agreement with my theme, I almost immediately came upon this guy (except they seem to change it to a "general" thingy once the loan is raised):

He's a recycler. Well, a repairman, which is pretty close to the same thing.

Good luck, Jesus. This one's on behalf of Jester.

--
*Ok, you got me. It's because it's really hard to come up with something unique every seven days.

--
Please check out IIFF, where I have posted regarding the next festival. Opinions required!

**I just thought of another one (second-last paragraph)**

If there's a complaint I hear over and over again from those who have conceived easily against those who can't, it's this: "Why can't she just be happy for me?" Or perhaps, to spell it out a little more clearly, "Why can't she be demonstrably happy for me, to the exclusion of all other feelings? Why must I be constantly reminded of her sadness as I'm discussing my success?" And I have to admit, I'm guilty as charged of this offense. As someone who's just bad at faking, my traditional response is to concentrate on looking vaguely happy as the announcement is made, whilst leaving it up to my long-suffering husband to verbalise our congratulations. Ongoing babble about your pregnancy is more likely to be met with somewhat disinterested nods and grunts than the enthusiastic banter you desire. I'm sorry about this. It's a deficiency of mine, called "single-facedness". It's probably a sign of diminished EQ.

But I think we can all agree it's better this way than the most likely alternative, wherein I jump up and down with glee as if I'd never experienced infertility and then finish my performance with a few sincere and breathless words, such as these:

"Gosh. Well, all I can say is you're brave announcing it this early." (Smile of complete admiration.)

"Well, you've got good reason to feel confident now you're in the second trimester. After all, these days the rates of fetal death, premature labour and serious maternal complications are quite low." (Encouraging pat on the hand.)

"Hey, if you ever need someone to take your mind off thinking about all the things which could still go wrong, just give me a call. That's what friends are for!" (Big bear hug.)

"Let me give you some advice I wish someone had given me the first, second, third and forth times I fell pregnant: do not, whatever you do, google the following terms...." (Earnest expression, followed by casting about for paper and pen to write said terms down.)

"So, was it a natural conception? Oh, it was. Still! I imagine it you guys are probably thrilled even so!" (Bright smile.)

So, in conclusion, I'd like to apologise for any lack of excitement in my response to your announcement. However, as you have so wisely told me on countless occasions, you have to look on the bright side, because it could be worse.

After the scan that Friday, so as not to keep Mr Bea hanging, I sent him an email with a message so vague as to be indeciferable to those not already in the know - but it went missing. In any case, it didn't mention the picture.

"Do you want to see it?" I asked when I'd eventually caught him up, and he blanched slightly and said he wasn't sure. Mr Bea is a glosser. If a thing bothers him, he likes to try and make it less real. Me, I'm a confronter. I'm a "meat comes from killed animals not the supermarket, you nitwit, and if you can eat it when it's nicely filleted you can eat it when it's presented with its head attached and if you can't deal with it become a vegetarian" kind of girl. Now, when it comes to eating flesh, quite frankly I feel I have the moral high ground. But in coping with pregnancy loss there's no moral ground at all - just an inhospitable abyss, from which each person tries to climb by whatever means they can. Yet when Mr Bea said he wasn't sure about the picture, some ugly reflex in me threw him a look which said, "Have some bloody backbone, man," so he acquiesced and sat down to see.

"What am I looking at?" he asked after a pause during which he frantically searched the photo in the hopes of not having to admit ignorance.

"It's hard to see - it's the zoomed-out view, and blurry at that. The little round thing just there?"

"Huh." And I watched him as he tried not to shrug and say, "That? That's all it is?"

---

At several points I've thought about giving our embryo/s a name. It's something I haven't done before, but I now see the value in it. Adding a name adds reality; it adds the ability to ritualise and process a loss. It fits with my approach as a confronter. Of course, Mr Bea is against it, being a glosser, but that doesn't mean I can't have a secret name, just for me. Leading up to transfer I decided I was going to call this pair Shitter and Fuckface, based on the reasoning that an embryo with a cute name like "Jellybean" or "Bubblegum" is bound to get flushed down the toilet, whereas "Fuckface" will grow up to be a physically huge and devastatingly intelligent adult, who will exact cruel and excruciating revenge on those who inflicted this early psychological trauma, before turning to a life of heinous crime - and what could make a parent more proud? But at the last minute I chickened out, because really, Fuckface, what kind of mother would that make me? and so the pair went nameless.

Now we're down to one.

I think I'll call her Jester. Because regardless of outcome, this pregnancy feels like some sick bastard's idea of a practical joke.

--
P.S. Thanks for supporting the IIFF - special thanks to the contributors, of course, and those who spread the word on blogs and messageboards. It's great to see so many people touched by the work of our film makers.

I think I'm going to make it, but at times it's pretty touch and go*. Take Tuesday. Everything I tried to do came up against some kind of obstacle. By the end of the day, I was on the phone to Mr Bea asking if he'd mind pizza delivery for dinner. Then a few minutes later I was on the phone to him again, this time in floods of tears because the pizza guy doesn't deliver to our area. I can't even order a fucking pizza, I was saying. I might as well curl into a ball and die.

The feeling of complete and utter despair lasted well into Wednesday morning. It was Maternal Bea who finally stepped in. "Alright, that's enough now," she said in tones which brooked no argument. "You've had your cry, now it's time to buck up."

"Most of these problems are very manageable," Inner Therapist Bea added. "You already have a mental list of them - all you need to do is arrange them in order from easiest to hardest and start at the top, focussing on one at a time." By Wednesday evening I had made some headway, and I was beginning to look at item seven - weekly good deed.

Being the week of the International Infertility Film Festival, it seemed like a good time to bang the freedom of expression drum. I signed the Amnesty International Campaign for online freedom of expression here, and for what it's worth I bring you this little snippet of formerly repressed content:

Now doesn't that make the world feel a little better already?

As for items eight and nine (Figure out what to do in the overwhelmingly likely event this pregnancy goes to shit and Stop this pregnancy going to shit) well, they remain beyond my capabilities. Luckily, when I woke up this morning, I found I had new tasks to tackle - simple ones which I added to the top of my list with a sigh of relief. Hopefully I won't get down to those other things for another week and a bit.

---
*I have repeatedly decided not to bring the appointment forward a week. I find turning up to appointments highly stressful - mainly because I always expect to be told it's over. And yet, that's not what happens. Instead I get told it's not looking either as good or as bad as it could do, and to come back next time for an answer. The short period of partial relief is not worth the crash I get a few days later when it evaporates suddenly. I think, on balance, it's better to wait it out til we can know.

**Thanks, guys - I have heaps now. You rock.**

**Also - remember our sick dog? She has finally been discharged (as of Tuesday 27/3) and is now undergoing outpatient monitoring. For the next 6+ months. If all goes well.**

---

I haven't had a chance to work out whether or not it's a good one, but with the International Infertility Film Festival now less than a week away, I don't really have time.

I need photos. I would like you to send me some. I'm looking for a diverse range of photos depicting both everyday life and special events. They don't have to be good - a happy snap of a party where everyone forgot to pose and the flash is bleaching their faces and causing red-eye is fine. Good, in fact. You can also send me pictures of your garden, your dog and your car. Your home renovation project in progress. Your handbag collection. That test shot you took in the shop before you bought the camera. Your family at Christmas, or your friend's wedding. Your neighbour's child (who is also your neighbour, I suppose). The cafe where you eat breakfast.

You get the idea.

Please email photos to me at infertilefantasies (at) gmail (dot) com, or tell me where they're posted on your blog and that I can download them myself. Photos will be used anonymously during the film, although I'll credit all contributors collectively at the end - unless you tell me you want to be listed as "anonymous" in the credits as well. I'll credit the nickname you use for blogging unless you tell me otherwise. You can submit any number of photos. Disclaimer: submission does not guarantee acceptance. If I get twenty photos of Christmas, I'll have to choose one or two. I'll be choosing whatever gives the most diverse selection regardless of photo quality.

So quick! Go dig up a photo! We don't have much time!

It's intrauterine.

It measures 5w4d - about 6 days behind.

I got a picture. It's blurry. It's a photograph of the scan, taken in low light at a busy reception desk. But it's our picture.

The hCG is still increasing, albeit at a slightly lacklastre rate.

This is far from being out of limbo, but probably the best we could have hoped for. Well, a slightly more enthusiastic hCG level would have been nice, but I'll take it.

The next appointment is in two weeks and a day. I'm not sure how much I'll be posting or commenting during that time. I hope you can forgive me if I'm not around.

I can't remember whose message did it, but I finally had to cry today. The comments, the emails... you've been more than sweet.

I've been fine. Apart from a couple of small outbursts, that is. It feels like I have a job to do, and that job is to remain calm and in control, to speak with a reassuring voice, to feed myself and sleep and bathe, and carry on as if everything is going to be ok.

Mr Bea asked me whether everything was going to be ok. "What are we expecting to see on this scan on Friday?" he asked. I explained that in normal situations, at 6w3d, you might hope for a foetal pole, a nice plump gestational sac, a heartbeat even. "But I think it would be silly to expect all that with what our hCG's been doing. It'll be good news if we can confirm it's not an ectopic. I think the best case scenario would be a normal-looking intrauterine pregnancy measuring several or more days behind, without heartbeat, and another week of limbo." But I don't really believe that's what we'll see. The spotting has continued almost daily. In my soul I believe it's nearly over. It's just my heart believes it's not yet time to give in.

Meanwhile, I have peed on another stick. It looks the same as the one from last Thursday, so I won't bother photographing it, I'll just refer you back there. Of course, ultimately it can't tell me if the hCG is rising or falling, much less doubling, but it's nice to see the pretty second line.

As for my good deed - there never seemed a better week to focus on infertility. On the people who understand limbo, and that a line is not a line, and can say the right things, at all the right times. First, a couple of shout-outs.

Richard points out the new Give A Toss* campaign for donor sperm in the UK. A campaign manager after the same heart as our very own Max (Don't Be A Wanker campaign). It's very cheesy, and hopefully successful.

Resolve (via Jenny) have passed along a request for couples to step forwards for a documentary (the film and its creators are not affiliated with RESOLVE). Here's what they say, in case you, or anyone you know, are willing and able:

We're interested in your stories. We are shooting a documentary on family building and are looking for a woman or couple trying to have a baby.

What we are most interested in is the emotional side of trying to get pregnant. The struggle to conceive or find a good donor or gestational carrier. We want to know why having your own baby is so very important to you.

We'd like to follow you in your quest...at home and at the doctor's office...to experience the more intimate moments of triumph or failure with each procedure. We're also interested in how it is effecting your family and or partner.

If you believe you could share your story with others...please contact us as soon as possible. I'm sorry there is no monetary remuneration but your shared experiences might help others struggling with infertility. To apply to be a subject in our documentary please write why you think you would be a good candidate for the video. We will contact you and set up a meeting to talk about the project. Thank you for your consideration.

Contact: dianedowling at earthlink dot net

And what about my own good deed? Well, I went to the Access site to make a donation - because I wish every infertile person could have a voice to speak up with, and friends who understand. Even if they don't blog like I do.

---
*It's come to my attention that Americans may not be familiar with the slang here. "Toss" is another word for "wank" which is, of course, a slang term for male mast.ur.bation. "Give a toss" is roughly equivalent to "give a crap". Hence it's a very witty, slightly naughty pun, full of nuance and meaning, etc etc.

Our relatives can count. They've started asking probing questions, which range from the rather direct, "Any news yet?" to the slightly more roundabout, "Do you have a travel date for your next trip?" to a basic and ambiguous, "How are you?" of the kind where you can hear the eyebrows waggling down the phone. We say we don't know anything yet. It's true.

We've thought about telling them what's going on. I did tell my mother about our initial positive for FET#1. Her responses were 1) an excited awe at the wonder of modern medicine ("Isn't it amazing they can tell the outcome of a pregnancy so early?") 2) what she referred to as "disappointment" ("You must be disappointed - I am too - but there's always next time...") and 3) a helpful entreaty to look on the bright side and count my blessings ("Well, you're much better off than a lot of people with your problem. At least you know you can get pregnant. And in any case - this result might still work out!"). Her summarising statement was, "Never mind." None of these were helpful enough to make me want to keep her up to date from there on in.

They come from a world where you're either pregnant, or you're not. Pregnancy loss is an isolated tragedy which doesn't happen all that often anyway*, and the really early ones don't count. They're not up to date with the details of our history - I'd have this whole backstory to fill in. And there's still a small but real possibility of something more sinister like an ectopic. On the one hand, I don't want to get angry with them because they're not taking it seriously enough, and on the other hand I don't want to have to soothe my mother out of a state of panic. And I don't want to have to cry and wail and become dramatic in order to get my point across.

They may be dying to know, but it's better for us all if we keep them in limbo. At least til things get slightly less ambiguous.

---
*Perhaps that's unfair. My mother does know plenty of people who've had miscarriages - even recurrent miscarriages - so she knows these things do happen. She just doesn't expect them to happen, certainly not to anyone in her family.

I remember the first time I had an embryo transferred. At that very moment my easy-going self became about a thousand times more likely to put her foot down if she thought she was being asked to do something which might harm her little conceptus. And when the last hope for that cycle died away, I felt my usual self return. The changes were immediate and intense. It was, I think, what they call a Mamma Roar.

---

Last night we went out for dinner with some of Mr Bea's colleagues. As my usual bedtime rolled around, I turned to Mr Bea and gave his knee a subtle squeeze, and he gave me an almost imperceptible nod in return to show he'd heard and understood. So I sat back and waited for him to politely make our excuses. Twenty-five minutes later I decided to take matters into my own hands. I placed my hand upon his and said, both to him and to the table at large, "We should be going." He agreed, and immediately turned to strike up a new line of conversation with the person sitting on his other side. As that subject drew to a close, I again took his hand, this time turning to our host who was sitting on the other side of me. "Thanks for an absolutely gorgeous dinner," I said. "It was all wonderful*. I hope you don't mind if we head off a little early**."

"Not at all!" she replied, and I turned back to Mr Bea, who was pouring himself more wine.

"After this glass," he promised. Over an hour after my first request, I managed to effect an exit by gathering our things together and making actual physical manouvres towards the door, forcing all the other guests to stand up and bid farewell. Mr Bea found himself swept up in the general movement, and we were soon on the street outside. "Shall we walk to the MRT?" he asked.

"We're taking a taxi," I replied tersely, and hailed one. There was silence on the way home.

As I turned the key to our flat, he hugged me at the waist and asked if I'd had a nice day. "It was marred at the end by your refusal to leave dinner after repeated requests," I replied in clipped tones. "I'm actually pretty pissed off about that. These are not ordinary circumstances. I expect you to be taking better care." And I didn't mean "of me". I was talking about... well, our precarious and only-just-clinging-to-life pregnancy. The stakes are high this time. I've got my Mamma Roar, where's his Daddy Aggro?

Mr Bea got this sullen, almost childish look - the indignant look of an eight-year-old who knows he doesn't have a leg to stand on but isn't ready to give in. "I might come to bed later," he said once we got inside, lying down on the couch and popping the cushion under his head.

But when I woke up this morning he was lying beside me in bed, curled protectively around my waking body.


---
*Although I do wish it hadn't been almost entirely made up of sushi, soft cheeses and meat cooked rare to medium-rare, and the frequent toasting made it extremely awkward to disguise the fact I wasn't drinking.

**It was already after 11pm.

Mr Bea: When can I stop worrying about failure and start worrying about success?

I, of course, suggested he might like to worry about both simultaneously, and furnished him with a whole list of more specific concerns to try out.

There's an art to writing a good thriller. I say this as someone who's read and/or watched a handful or so in their lifetime. The trick is to strike a balance between tension and relief - if you ramp up the tension too relentlessly something will snap, and your audience will lose interest and walk away. The skilled writer will strain people's nerves to a certain, carefully calculated extent, and then provide a "false dawn" - an unexpected or even comedic interlude during which things finally seem, on the surface, to be resolving. At the same time the writer must cultivate an unsettling impression that the worst is yet to come. When this sense of foreboding has had sufficient time to grow, the final, terrifying act can begin. By this time, the audience has been lead and mislead enough times that they have lost all sense of control and can only watch, horrified, as the scenes unfold before them, wanting but unable to look away.

My beta doubling time has improved. It is now an only-slightly-less-than-normal 55 hours (reduced from 96, for those who've lost count). I feel I may have given a false impression of the odds we're facing by not supplying the actual beta figures from the first two tests. We are not, you see, only slightly behind the bell curve. The first beta, at 16dpo, was 23.8. The second, at 18dpo, was 36.0. And today's, at 24dpo, is 226.0. Still, SOB seemed greatly heartened by this and was grinning broadly from ear to ear when I walked in to see him.

Then I told him about the spotting. It's very slight, but it is pink rather than brown. His face fell, and he asked me if I had any pain.

"That depends. Do you mean, for example, am I waking at 4am having dreamt I'm in labour to find my uterus has clenched itself into an angry, angry ball which provokes much restless pacing about the bathroom, and sitting on and rising up from the toilet until the sensation of needing to go, the sweating, and the nausea resolves itself and I can go back to sleep, only to find small tinges of blood on the toilet paper when I wake several hours later? Because if you do, then yes."

"Do you want to do a scan?"

"Will it help?"

"Probably not."

"Will it hurt?"

"Probably not," he repeated, although this time he put the emphasis on "probably" rather than "not". "Why don't we hold off til next week?"

"Sounds grand."

"In the meantime I want you to take a couple of progesterone tablets a day, in addition to the two crin.ones and low dose aspirin." Considering my P4 is already an amazingly good 150, why the hell not?

I buy more prenatal vitamins. I advise FS of the latest results. I cancel the shifts I'd lined up for FET#6. And I wait. For my scan at 6w3d (next Friday), or whatever might happen to upset the plan between now and then.

Don't look away yet. The final act is yet to come. And I need all the hoping and praying.

I didn't want to do a good deed this week. Why should I? The world obviously feels it owes me nothing and just now the feeling is pretty mutual. Surely, I thought, surely I can just chuck a sickie? I mean, who reads these things anyway? Wouldn't they let me off with a note?

Then at some point yesterday I realised I owe it to myself. I need to refuse to fall into a bigger heap than is absolutely necessary. I need to keep working towards my goals - one of which is doing Fifty Good Deeds In Celebration Of Life. I need to do something. I just have to.

Repeatedly coming up against a solid barrier after working so hard towards your dream is not just frustrating, it's soul-destroying. I wish someone would just hand me the thing that takes our chemical-pregnancy barrier away. A voice inside me is sure it's the only thing between us and success, and if only I could work out how to remove it, we'd be set. Well for thousands of working poor the world over, taking away their barrier to success might be as simple as a twenty-five buck loan, repaid in full (but without interest) over six to twelve months (with a default rate less than 3%). Well, shit - I've lent friends more money than that with less assurance of repayment. So with the help of Kiva (and thanks to Ankaisa for the idea) I decided to give it a go.

On Tuesday, Abla Akla, of Toga, got my first loan to help her fund a scheme to bring clean water to her village. I must admit, as a citizen of a nation whose few constitutional rights include "the reasonable use of the waters of rivers for conservation or irrigation" umimpeded by "any law or regulation of trade or commerce" I had to sit for a moment and think about the ethics of selling drinking water. Then again, it's not like this scheme is removing any previous water sources, and also it's not really water "of rivers" is it? The bleeding heart liberal in me wishes people could get what they need for love, but accepts that in practice it will mostly come through money.

Besides, the project seemed to fit. Something about how water, like the ability to not lose an embryo prior to six weeks' gestation, is life.

--
Cycle update: have started spotting.

Updated update: so then I used an OPK at lunchtime (after unthinkingly hydrating the shit out of myself an hour beforehand) because I suddenly realised I didn't have a dose of Crin.one for tomorrow morning but I thought I wouldn't bother buying more if I definitely wasn't pregnant, so better use an OPK to see if it's worth making the trip or not and... I got a quick and clear second line. You know I'm only making this shit up to keep you biting your nails and second-guessing til the very last page, don't you?*

*No I'm not:

The astute reader will note that the test line is considerably darker than the control. I wasn't timing it, but it happened "quickly".

***Updated updated update*** - for those who asked: still got my appointment tomorrow for another blood test.