You feel cheated by the lines on the peestick. You want soaring romance, an intertwining of souls, a togetherness almost spiritual, and you think I'm giving you cold-calculated dates devoid of passion. But it's not like that.

It's like I'm drowning in signals and noise, pouring in from each part of my body.

I am aware of my lips, parting gently; my breath, spilling into my mouth and catching in my throat.
I am aware of my eyes' dilation as their lids slightly widen, then half-close.
I sense the roll of my hips, the tilt of my pelvis, the curve of my breasts, the arch and bend of my spine.
My fingertips warm from the feel of you; I think I could welt your skin with my softest caress.

I am a ball of sensation in the palm of your hand.

It has been like this since the beginning with you, and only with you. It is unchanged by fertility, and infertility, or by something as cheap as a peestick. The word "lust" is too trivial; "desire" too shallow. What should I call it? It's carnal, and animalistic, and mindless, and deep. That taste. That smell.

The flesh I am wants to grow and swell and hurt and tear, for you and descendants of you. Only my mind knows it's futile. There is no ghost to fear, just the machine.

You want soaring romance, an intertwining of souls, a togetherness almost spiritual. But it's not like that.

Sometime around... ooh... beta number two of FET#5, this woman I know asked if I was going to have any kids. "I don't know," I answered lightly and truthfully, followed by, "Hey, isn't that the Goodyear blimp?" But she persisted, wanting to know if I had plans, and I was too drained to lie, and too upset to explain. So I simply told her it wasn't a good subject and hey, isn't that the Goodyear blimp? and she looked horrified and said she was sorry to have pushed, and changed the topic.

To her teen daughter's recent, unplanned pregnancy announcement. Whatdaya think - three out of ten? Gold star for effort?

But when I got home I sat down at my computer and sent her an email. "I can recommend you an OB in Singapore." And I gave SOB's contact details, and some neat little what-you're-supposed-to-say sentence, and that was that. And when her daughter lost the baby a couple of weeks later, I passed on a few what-you're-supposed-to-say words.

You see, I can do it.

This week I arrived at the side gate at the same time as a father with a pram, and had one of those moments. One of those For Some Reason This Baby Amongst The Dozens I See All The Freaking Time Is Going To Upset Me (FSRTBATDISATFTIGTUM) moments. But I stepped forward and opened the gate, and I was watching Dad's retreating back by the time the tears started to well.

I can do it. You see.

And I guess I can go home for this miscarriage workup and visit my easy-conceiving friends and their growing bumps and their happily breastfeeding children, too.

I just don't want to.

--
(More on friends later.)

Oh! Haha. I get it, Mr Faint Line Who Turns Slightly Darker Then Disappears Again Altogether Without Provoking A Thermal Shift. You're a premature LH surge! Very droll.

It's peestick day one. I'm choosing to optimistically believe I'll surge within the next ten days, and I have a body of historical evidence which supports this belief. Of course, I also have a body of historical evidence which runs contrary, but in the honourable tradition of Mendel himself, I'm choosing to ignore it. In the meantime, my eyes are peeled for 'signs'. These are all I've come up with so far:

Singaporean philosophy.


Mr Bea and I have often complained that film runs here seem to end the very second cinemas fail to completely pack a showing, giving a sort of blink-and-you'll-miss-it effect. Now this! Photo taken Thursday afternoon.


If you've ever wondered whether the cliche of Singapore as a heavily-ordered society is true, you need look no further. A footpath cobbler informs his customers...

It's easy to find a good deed to do on the road. We left donations at temples, museums and other attractions. We didn't bargain too hard. We ate at a restaurant which serves as a hospitality training centre for disadvantaged youth. All this was well and good. And then. Then came the night of the lottery tickets.

We were sitting in a coffee shop in Da Lat, drinking what is arguably the best coffee in the entire world, when an old woman came in - not begging, exactly, but selling lottery tickets for a small commission, which is a pretty close thing. As one of our guides explained, Vietnam has a daily lottery draw, which happens somewhere at 5pm. Tickets are about 35 US cents each, results are published in the national paper, and there's a cash prize. On a whim, I bought a couple of tickets. It took me a few moments to dig for the cash, and I chose my tickets from the bunch offered me, with a quick thanks. And then.

Then I happened to glance up into the woman's face. She was grinning with excitement. She said something in Vietnamese, and grinned some more. Her eyes were shining.

Later on, they started to close up shop, so we asked for the bill and made to leave. "What are you going to do with the tickets?" Mr Bea asked. Tracking down the winning numbers seemed an impossibly large effort for a fairly small and unlikely payoff. So when the waitress came back I gave them to her. She looked at them, and got that same grin and that same shine in her eyes. She asked whether they were really for her, and I said sure, why not, so she went off to show them to another waitress and we watched them talk excitedly.

It was strange. The reactions seemed all out of proportion to what we'd given. There was something about those little bits of paper - the potential, I suppose, the anticipation. There was some sort of magic in them.

And then.

Then I got that feeling again. The one where it's ok if we don't have any kids, because I can still experience that look on someone's face - the bright, shining eyes, the excitement, the magic. And I thought, pish tosh to all those who say there's nothing like the wonder of watching your child grow. Perhaps they've never bought lottery tickets from an old woman in a coffee shop in Da Lat.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to buy a return airfare's worth of carbon credits for deed number twenty-eight.