Many Babies Look Like Piglet: Is This More Than Just Coincidence?

NEWSFLASH!  NEWSFLASH!

Piglet has twenty-one brothers and sisters.

Or something like that.

Obvs. this is not my doing.  I barely have Piglet, let alone twenty-one other hidden children squirrelled away somewhere.

The reason I know this is because I registered Piglet's birth with the sperm bank, and although they have so far not managed to send me the photo of the donor that I requested (Piglet might want to see his father one day, right?  Plus all my extended family want to have a good look at him so they can make a more informed decision about who he looks like.  When he was born, my all my aunt could manage was "hasn't he got a lovely shaped head?") they have added me to their social media thingy where you can "connect" with all the other people who have children with the same donor.  There are twenty-one of them.  Which is actually a fairly modest figure considering that the limit for the number of families a donor can, er, donate to, is fifty in the United States and ten in Britain.  And that's not including all the other countries a donor's emissions could potentially be sent to.

Anyway, some of the other lucky recipients have set up a Facebook group for those who have received sperm from my donor or another donor who is apparently my donor's brother (quite the family business!) so they can all talk to each other.  I have sneakily Facebook-stalked some of these people and looked at their children and some of them LOOK JUST LIKE PIGLET.  It is UNCANNY.  Anyone would think they were related or something.  This is notwithstanding the fact that there are a great many babies that look like Piglet, including a baby sat on the next table to us in Grupo Lounge in Bristol when we were in there having brunch a few weeks ago, and several of the babies whose pictures are used to illustrate The Essential First Year by Penelope Leach.  Even Dermot O'Leary of X Factor fame has been mooted as a potential lookalike.  Perhaps these too are all members of Piglet's extensive worldwide family.  Anyway, I am now in the position of checking Facebook frantically every five minutes to see if the moderators of the Facebook group have accepted my request to join yet, so that I can have a proper look at these children that are apparently Piglet's genuine relations, and maybe find out some interesting titbits from their parents, such as, have any of your children so far grown up to be an axe murderer?  No?  Oh well that's great then.  The genes are obviously OK.

Could this man be related to Piglet?

Hang on.  What if their children are all awful?  And the parents are not?  Perhaps I am going to find out more than I actually want to know here.  After all, as that great sage of the nineties, Dr Alban, once proclaimed in his classic hit It's My Life, a little knowledge is dangerous.  And that song was used to advertise tampons.  I rest my case.

So this is what it feels like to be, in the words of the bloke from Fat Families, a "Massive Fatty"

Today's most pressing questions:

1.) By having a baby with a sperm donor, am I inadvertently ruining the lives of the next generation, who will be destined to resent me and be forever miserable, and

2.) WHY DOES IT HURT SO MUCH WHEN I EAT????

With regard to the second one, I am currently lying prostrate on the sofa, unable to get into any position that could be remotely described as "comfortable," purely due to my having just eaten dinner.  It literally feels like my stomach is squeezed up underneath my rib cage.  Probably because it is.  O the joys of pregnancy, wanting to eat everything in sight and then being unable to contain it all in my squashed stomach.  This must be what it feels like to have a gastric band.  I promise I will never berate fat people ever again.  Honest.

Also, being fat must be bloody hard work.  I have only put on a stone (so far), and already I find myself having to use the disabled entrance at the tube station, lest I give myself a coronary by heaving my bloated body up the steps; a feat that now requires at least twenty minutes of recovery time at the top, clinging breathlessly to the bannister and panting deeply whilst clutching my distended stomach.  And I'm still only 27 weeks!  What will become of me in ten weeks time when I'm still having to drag myself to work and do a job like a normal human being who's not constantly carrying someone else?

Anyway, mustn't complain.  After all, being pregnant is basically brilliant, especially the little kicks and movements I am subjected to daily by the Little One, causing me to while away endless hours feeling bits of my belly and speculating on whether I can feel tiny feet beneath the skin.

I will try not to depress myself by reading the many angry stories from children of sperm donors that can be found on the internet, bemoaning their lack of normal parentage and making me think that it's only a matter of time before Little One rejects me entirely as the reprobate who denied him a father and messed up his entire life, and concentrate on the little tiny feet.

'Twas the night before the scan and all through the house.....I am stressing out, googling like a hyperactive louse

First scan tomorrow and I am feeling completely calm and zen-like about this.

In other words I have spent the entire day sat in my flat googling the following search terms:
Period pains 12 weeks pregnant (need to know if this is normal)
12 weeks 6 days pregnant stomach flat (and is this normal?)
Chances of missed miscarriage at 12 week scan (it always pays to be prepared for the worst)
Chances of missed miscarriage after 12 weeks
Lower back pain in early pregnancy (surely this is a sign that things have gone awry?)
How do I know if my foetus is still alive

Strangely, none of this googling seems to be able to give me a definite answer to any of these pressing questions, and thus I have come to the conclusion that the internet should never have been invented, as it clearly serves no purpose beyond wasting one's precious time which could have been better spent doing something important, like dancing around the room making myself feel sick or modelling different outfits around the house to see how non-existent my baby bump looks in each one.

Also, in my frantic googling, I have managed to read many scientific articles about the purpose of the nuchal scan, so now when I go to the hospital, not only will the myriad of different fears include the possibility that the baby is dead or never existed at all and is in fact a figment of my clearly over-active imagination, but that the baby has one of the many different "trisomies" or other horrific disabilities the scan is designed to reveal.  What if, for example, I see the little thing on the screen, only to discover that it has a patch of fluid behind its neck, or lacks a nasal bone?  Both strong indicators of Down's syndrome, apparently, and as I am so old surely my risk is greatly increased?  Why oh why did I not have children in my teens?  WHY?  Why didn't I just settle down with the first reasonable person who was interested and start popping them out?  Now I am doomed!

OK so when I look at some of the people I was interested in in my teens as they are now the thought of settling down with someone who was destined to become, twenty years later, an obese chav with an oddly shaped head and eyes that don't appear to line up properly with each other might make that seem like the great juvenile folly that it would have been, but you get my point.  And anyway, it's hardly as if my babyfather is the catch of the century given that I have technically never met him and he may well be awful.

Oh God what if Babyfather IS an obese chav?  I mean, it's not like I would know.   OH MY GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE???!!!

I can't think about this whole situation anymore.  My brain is about to explode.  Need to be mindful.  Mindfulness, mindfulness.  Concentrate on the moment.  Ooh I think Countryfile's on now.  Going to watch that and not think about any of this awfulness.

Why can't it just all be easy, like in the Bible?

AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHH

I am sat on my bed with a copy of The Baby-Making Bible next to me.  It all seems a lot more complicated than it is in the real Bible, where men just have to "know" their wives, and "go into" them.  Although I suppose that Abraham and Sarah had difficulty conceiving, and had no success until they reached the grand old age of ninety-nine, which beats even the most outlandish Wikipedia stories about OAPs conceiving back in the 1740s.

And there are several stories about women (including the unfortunate Sarah) having to put up with their husbands going off with comely young concubines to continue the family name.

And the Virgin Mary's cousin Elizabeth struggled a bit.

And the Virgin Mary herself conceived in a somewhat unlikely manner, being a virgin and all that.

OK the Bible is probably the greatest book ever written about infertility.

But it doesn't tell you an awful lot about how to conceive, except that it is something that only The Lord  can make happen, which isn't very useful.

Or you could just go and get your widowed father roaring drunk in a cave, and "lie with him" (THIS HAPPENS KIDS.  IN THE BIBLE).

Anyway, The Baby-Making Bible isn't so much fun (not that I am suggesting that *see above* is fun).  It's just about how people should have acupuncture, and not drink too much water and stuff.  Yes, not drink too much water.  It actually goes against all known medical advice.  I have continued to drink water, and I have also been augmenting it with a daily shot of "Royal Jelly," which is quite literally the food of Queens.

Queen Bees, that is.  Yes, I eat the same stuff that Queen Bees eat.  And I am like, a million times their size.  This is astonishing.  Anyway, Queen Bees lay LOADS of eggs, enough to populate an entire hive; therefore it stands to reason that eating their food means that I too will lay LOADS of eggs.

And this is very important as I am going to be having IVF.

YYYYYEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!

I have been accepted as an egg sharer.  This means that I do not have any of the following:
HIV
Syphilis
Gonorrhea
Chlamydia
Any of the ten million varieties of Hepatitis
Cystic fibrosis
Dodgy chromosomes

I have so few diseases, I am even CMV negative, and eighty per cent of the population have that, whatever it is.  The only significance of that fact is that it limits the choice of sperm, as one can-in bizarre twist of weirdness as clearly in Real Life, when choosing a partner on Match.com, or in the dim light of a ropey club with sticky carpets at 2am, one always questions the likelihood of one's prospective partner having a very common virus that almost everyone has anyway-only choose sperm from a CMV negative donor if one is CMV negative.  This inevitably limits the choice of available sperm.

In fact, it limits it so severely that when one narrows the selection down to only "UK-compliant, ID-disclosure" donors, one ends up with a choice of barely sixteen men.

Sixteen.  IN THE WORLD.

OK "in the world" is a slight exaggeration, when what is actually meant here is "in a sperm bank in America."

You can imagine my delight when I saw their photos (yes, photos.  AMAZING) and discovered one who was "fit."

I was so happy that I ran home from work early just so that I could call America before my beloved Chosen One sold out, only to find that it was "Labor Day" (please note inverted commas.  I know this is not the correct spelling of "labour."  I am merely being authentically American.  Also, no pun intended) and the sperm bank was closed.  Horror.  This meant that I had to make the Fateful Call the following day, from work, from my mobile, whilst praying that no one walked in while I was on the phone.

To my relief and delight, the donor-who I had, in my head, started calling "The One"-was still in stock, and I purchased him-or rather a vial of him-immediately.  Totes amaze, as they would say in Essex.

However, all was not rosy for long, as I then decided to have a little look at him on the website again, just so that I could admire my great judgement in choosing him.  Then I saw the other nine photos.  AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH.  He is not as fit as I thought!  This is a tragedy.  I am going to have an ugly baby with a grade point average of 3.2.  And I don't even know what a grade point average is!  And he is doing a degree in something which sounds dangerously like "mickey mouse studies of things that aren't really things."  At a college which isn't Harvard or Yale!  And none of his siblings went to university!  And he places baseball!  BASEBALL for God's sake.  It's like ROUNDERS!  And he was a ten pound baby!  Not as in cost ten pounds (I wish.  No comment on the cost of all this), as in weighs ten pounds!  OH MY GOD I AM GOING TO HAVE A HUGE BABY WHO'S GOING TO BE EVEN BIGGER AS WILL POP OUT WEARING BASEBALL CAP.

Pass me the smelling salts.

Introducing the world's first Gu Chocolate Pot Baby

Well, the insemination process is complete.

And if I get pregnant, I will be writing to the Daily Mail and proclaiming it a "miracle baby."

I'm sure the Daily Mail has lots to say about people importing sperm from abroad off the internet and using it to self-impregnate.  Hell, they could even illustrate their disgust with a picture of me showing off my "bikini body" on holiday in their sidebar of shame if they wanted to.

Not that I'm going on holiday this year as cannot afford it after buying sperm off internet.

Anyway, the insemination was a bit of a disaster.

I say "a bit" because it was actually 50% a disaster.  I had ordered two straws of semen (I didn't see why you couldn't just order one, but I figured that as I was paying so much for the shipping anyway I may as well go the whole hog) and miraculously managed to get them both out of the nitrogen tank without causing injury to myself or, more importantly, the sperms.  Not that I could really be one hundred per cent sure of the latter as obviously they are microscopic.  And reader, it was EXACTLY how it looks on TV, you know when they get the semen out of the tank in the lab with a big ladle, and all the nitrogen-steam escapes.  AMAZE.  I felt like I was in a laboratory when in fact was in own bedroom.

Anyway, I then thawed all the little sperms out of their slumber and prepared the syringe.  Except that I didn't have a test tube handy (who has a TEST TUBE in their house?) to pour the sperm into, and the entire contents of the first straw ended up on the floor.  Disaster.

Fortunately, I managed to rescue the second straw by using an old "Gu" chocolate pot in lieu of a test tube, to empty the sperm into.  Forget "test tube babies," the "Gu Chocolate Pot Baby" will be a world first.  Maybe I could even get Gu to sponsor the baby's upbringing.  This is assuming that there will be a baby, however, and frankly that is looking unlikely since the content of one straw added up to no less than 0.5mls of semen.

I know they say it only takes one but that is ridiculous.  I have basically just done the turkey baster equivalent of have sex once with a man with a ludicrously low sperm count who hasn't even properly ejaculated.  No amount of lying on the bed with my lower body propped up on a cushion is going to rectify that.

Anyway, now all there is to do is send the nitrogen tank back to Denmark, forget about the whole sorry exercise and pray that all my egg sharing tests are clear so I can have IVF.  I imagine that will be a whole lot less stressful than this exercise has been.  I mean, IVF isn't stressful at all, right?

Existential Crisis

OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD.  Having a proper crisis over the whole situation.

That yellow nitrogen tank is eyeballing me from the hallway and I am absolutely terrified.

What if it works?
What if the baby hates me?
What if it buggers off to Denmark to look for its father?
What if its father is awful?
What if he's a mass murderer or other class of reprobate?
What if he's-as the youngsters would put it-"butters"?
What if he doesn't know the difference between "your" and you're" and scatters apostrophes around inappropriately (or whatever equivalent Danish grammatical sin)?
What if I can't afford a baby?
What if I have to move back in with my mother?
What if I end up having to get a payday loan from Wonga and shop at BrightHouse?
What if I have to relinquish all hope of marriage and/or child with person who actually loves me?
What if I'm a terrible mother?
What if the child grows up to be a complete bounder?
What if I never fit back into my American Apparel disco pants?
What if I am hunted down and killed by Daily Mail readers?

OK, so some of those questions more worthy of consideration than others but AAAAAARRRGGGH!

Sperm Shipment Arrived: Not at all Worthy of Comment. Just a regular day for everyone.

This just arrived at my door.

It was not at all embarrassing.  NOT AT ALL.

For a start, the two concierges downstairs didn't notice anything remotely amiss.  They were not engaging in any kind of conversation with the courier from UPS about "ooh look at this, ooh it needs to be kept cold apparently!" which I could not overhear down the intercom.  Then the courier did not even bat an eyelid whilst handing the package to me, let alone chortle heartily "HERE'S YOUR BODY PARTS!"

Then, while I signed the delivery note, he did not ask any questions at all which might have suggested that this particular delivery was in any way a little bit out of the ordinary and perhaps not your average book or DVD from Amazon, such as; "IS IT ACTUALLY HUMAN THEN?  WHAT IS IT?"

Thanks, Danish sperm bank, for adding that lovely sticker with the words "TISSUES AND CELLS" and that tantalising little footnote about the case containing "human tissue."

I had images of the police turning up on my doorstep, demanding to know why I was importing human body parts and was I in fact a cannibal/mass murderer/both, so in order to avoid this, I ended up blurting out what it was.

"I don't want to say!" I protested, before realising that this made the whole enterprise sound even more dodgy.  "OK it's sperm!"  then added "from a sperm bank" just to clarify in case he thought I had got it through some dodgy means rather than through a recognised commercial enterprise that presumably conforms to international laws.  "For insemination" I then added, in case he wondered what I could possibly be doing with a load of human sperm and did I in fact have a laboratory set up in my flat, where I was running my own secret government cloning laboratory, manufacturing cloned soldiers for some future war when I am going to be a Blofeld-style Bond villain with ambitions to be Queen of the World.

"Oh right," said the courier with interest.  "So do guys come round and do that here then?"

Horrible images flashed through my mind of what that might entail.  Although to be fair, surely this was no worse than inviting round Absolute Bastard to do the deed au natrel, so to speak.

"Er, something like that."

Something which is never going to be done again.  It either works, or it's the IVF.  I am SO not going through this again.

  

All is not lost?

There is currently a tank of liquid nitrogen containing two straws of frozen sperm on its way from Denmark with my name on it.

As you pause to take that in I will add that this was purchased on the internet.

For €700.

At least that's euros, not pounds.

In other news, I went back to the fertility clinic today, and they have provisionally accepted me as an egg sharer.  AND my AMH has not decreased!

I am drinking Tesco Cava to celebrate.  All I need to do now is make sure that I pass the myriad of tests for STDs and genetic diseases and problems.

Fingers crossed at least one of the above options works.

"Yes, I am familiar with Epipens."

And so it begins.

Everything got off to a good start, i.e. despite everything seeming so easy in the clinic with the nurse explaining to me how to use the Gonal F pen and how she made it all look so simple, just like taking a lid off a felt tip pen and writing with it, and then I get home and promptly stab myself in the finger with it (a painless, but surprisingly bloody affair).

A bit like my first scan today (ewww TMI).

And thank God I've never been in close proximity to an Epipen emergency.  It would be a disaster for all concerned.  "Hang on, let me just check Youtube for a video of someone doing this!  I know you're lying on the floor with a swollen windpipe, unable to breathe and gasping for air, and your face has swelled up to the size of a beachball, but it'll be fine!  Just five more minutes!  Oops, you appear to have died."

I still can't believe I'm doing this.  Felt very brave today, injecting myself (well, once I had managed to get it into the right spot).  Sort of like a diabetic or other variety of ill person for whom every day must be a struggle, and who must literally be covered in holes from all the injections.

Anyway, have spent millions of pounds on it now so it had better work.  Although on the plus side, if it doesn't, at least I won't be having a baby with a man who may well be a total minger.

Oh God, banish terrible thought from head.  What if the baby grows up and reads this, and realises it has a terrible, cruel mother, who only cares for her child's physical attributes and once said to a colleague that she hoped her baby didn't turn out to be autistic.

OH GOD WHAT IF THE BABY IS AUTISTIC?  AFTER ALL ITS MOTHER CAN'T EVEN USE AN EPIPEN!!!!!  Is it called an Epipen?  I don't even know.  What else is one to call it?  Gonal F pen?  Anyway, I told the nurse I was "familiar with Epipens"  in a sage and knowledgeable manner today when she brandished the pen and asked me if I had seen its like before.  As in, we had a five minute training slot on it at work back in 2008.  So there you are, I am familiar with Epipens. 

Anyway, I'm off to stalk the many anxious and often hysterical chatrooms on the interwebs dedicated to women having fertility treatment.  Women like me.  I bloody knew this would happen.  I knew it in 1995 when I did that GCSE coursework on it.  I should have just cut my losses and had a baby then.  Then I would never be in this position.  I mean, what have I even done between 1995 and now anyway?  Only GCSEs, A levels and university.  Other than that it's just been a load of drunken carousing really.  Should have given up my youth to tend to the youth of tomorrow, like any good Daily Mail reader would do.  Bloody career is a quintessence of dust anyway.

Oh God now I'm really depressed.

AND the leaflet inside the aspirin pack of the aspirin I have been ordered to take (apparently it helps to prevent heart attacks in people with angina, though I'm not sure that that's the reason I am supposed to be taking it) says it may impair fertility.  The nurse assures me that this is not the case, and that they always prescribe it, but I have been obsessed with reading those little leaflets inside packets of tablets and sanitary products and assuring myself of their devastating accuracy ever since I read an article in Just Seventeen about somebody who had ACTUALLY CAUGHT toxic shock syndrome from a tampon.  You know, it could happen.

Let's hope not though, as I'm on my period at the moment and would hate to think that there could be a deadly reaction when one mixes the dangerous triumvirate of Gonal F, aspirin and tampons.

What with those and the folic acid, I am going to be literally rattling this month.  And to think that last time I got pregnant all it took was a couple of buckets of wine.

OK so I lost the baby.  Doesn't count.  Must have been because I wasn't taking a weird concocotion of medications.

Right, I really am off now.  I am starting to bang on about nuffin'.

Stop Press: Wholesome New Me Turns Down Night Out in Walkabout

Yet again it is 9.30pm on a Saturday night and I am sprawled on the sofa at home, alone, looking up Wikipedia entries on little-known European royals of the eighteenth century through my ovulatory phase rather than-as we would all doubtless be doing-having passionate baby-making sex with someone really, really hot.

Desperate text messages have been sent enquiring whether either of the two people who might potentially want to have sex with me and live just about close enough to pop over are free tonight.  No messages have been received, although I did receive word from one "potential" that he was playing football in Surrey today and wouldn't be back until "late."

The predictive text managed to alter my return message to such an extent that it made it look as though I was also going to Surrey, presumably to stalk him while he played football, simply by changing the inoffensive word "well" to the more inclusive "we'll" (as in "we'll go to Surrey and play football.")  It looked as though I was planning on joining him and trying out my skills as a centre-forward.  Needless to say, he has not responded.

At least I have some potential baby-making to look forward to next month, given that I have now officially purchased some sperm.

I'm not sure which was more painful, having to ring up the clinic (from work) and announce within earshot of my startled co-workers "I'm just calling to pay for some SPERM," or handing over eight hundred pounds for the privilege.

I'm telling you, this thing better bloody well work.  Half the women on the Fertility Friends website (don't ask) seem to have their cycles cancelled before they even start, what with underresponding to the medication, overresponding and all manner of obstacles in between.  Why is life never simple? Why can't I just be Kim Kardashian?  Or Kate Middleton?  I've given up alcohol and everything, for Christ's sake.  I even turned down a trip to Walkabout in Shepherd's Bush last night I was so full of my wholesome and discerning new self.  After all, Kate would never be seen in a Walkabout.  Instead I bit the bullet, went home after one hot chocolate and cooked a healthy dinner and tried to download Call the Midwife on Blinkbox (practising.  Or at least I would have been, if it weren't for the fact that after 30 minutes of trying to punch in my card details with the TV remote, the damn thing wouldn't recognise my address).

The highlight of tonight ended up buying a dress on Asos that I hope will make me look like Rihanna.

Bring on next month and its attendant drama.

The Curse of the Missing Email

Aargh.

Haven't been able to sort out the sperm donor admin (yes, there is "admin") as you need to print off the donor information and sign it and send it back to the clinic.

God this is complicated.

So as I don't have a printer I opted to send the email order to my work email account so I could pillage the facilities in secret and print out my order form.

The only problem was, the email DISAPPEARED.

As in, literally vanished.  INTO THE ETHER.

Presumably it is still floating around somewhere in Cyberspace.  Wherever it is, it is certainly not in my work emails, despite my two (TWO!) attempts to send it.

My fear was palpable.  What if I had sent it to the wrong person?  It could have literally gone ANYWHERE.  One hardly needs to spell out what a disaster this might have been.  I even asked one of the IT technicians if he had any idea what could have happened, which would have raised supicions in itself as the minute he offered to try and find it for me, I backed away, waving my hands as if surrendering to some imaginary army and shouting "No!  No!  It's OK!  It doesn't matter!" whilst walking backwards at top speed.

As an alternative to email, I have been forced to use a USB stick.  Now all I need to remember is to delete the offending item from said USB stick before I use that very same instrument in assembly to deliver the end of term powerpoint.  Imagine the horror if I accidentally flashed up an order form for a load of sperm.

On second thoughts, don't.  Is too hideous to contemplate.  I am going to continue trying to track down that missing email.

I am having an alcoholic baby. Or not. Eighty per cent not, to be precise.

Well, yesterday was the momentous day that I finally chose my donor.

I chose him on the basis that he sounded the most fun, and some of them sounded frankly a bit worthy and serious, with their Christian beliefs and all that.  This bloke was an atheist.

He also sounded like someone who probably enjoyed a drink.  Apparently he goes to "all the donor social events."  I can't believe they have social events for sperm donors.

OH GOD THE BABY IS GOING TO BE AN ALCOHOLIC.  What with alcoholic genes on BOTH sides.

Hang on, what am I talking about?  There is no baby.  Twenty per cent chance of success.  That means an EIGHTY PER CENT CHANCE OF FAILURE.  That's what that means.  Yeah, I can do the sums.  Look at me with my mathematical genius.

Anyway, he is also Polish.  He's probably hanging round the local park right now, with all the other Polish people, drinking their Polish beer from cans and talking in Polish about Poland and stuff.  Probably.  Not that I'm a total racist or anything, nor do I have any stereotypical ideas about Polish people WHATSOEVER.

Anyway, that's OK.  I slept with someone from Poland once.  Perhaps it's the same one.

No, it can't be, for he had blue eyes and the donor has brown eyes.

So the baby will have brown eyes.

Shut up and pull yourself together.  There is no baby.  Do not under any circumstances get hopes up.  There is no baby, only a gaping hole where my credit card used to be.

Hang on, aren't these things supposed to work better when one has positive thoughts?  Surely there is no scientific basis in that whatsoever and it makes no difference if I am utterly convinced that there will be a baby or of I am totally sure of the opposite, except that in the former I become crushingly disappointed and probably throw myself off the balcony in anguish.

Well, I would if it was warm enough to open the doors and going out on the balcony wasn't going to turn me into a great big icicle.

Anyway, even if there is no baby, I went on a date on Saturday so hopefully all is not lost.

Walking Around London Carrying a Phone

Day 1 of my period.

I know, that's officially Too Much Information, but it's only going to get worse, I can assure you.

Tried to phone the clinic today as they said to call on the first day of my period, but of course my period would be awkward and start on a Saturday, when the clinic is barely open.

I was out walking at the time and I carried my phone in my hand for nine miles, hoping that they would call back.  They didn't.  I hope this is not a terrible omen.  Anyway, it probably makes no difference as it would seem that if I wished to start treatment this month, I would have had to have ordered my donor sperm by now, and so far I am still yet to decide who to choose: the Brazilian one (will I have to take the baby to Brazil and teach it football and Portugese to fit in with its heritage?); the Polish one (described as "trendy," which I thought was a fine gene to pass on to one's offspring, but will I have to teach the baby Polish?), the American one (described as "Christian."  I was concerned in case this too was genetic) or the one who might be someone I went to university with (potentially a bit awkward, should my suspicions turn out to be justified). 

Also I am supposed to have ordered my drugs, but I have no idea where to order these from.  Is one supposed to purchase Gonal F from some dodgy neighbourhood drug dealer?

Funnily enough, I walked past GlaxoSmithKline today.  Perhaps I should have popped in.

Anyway, looks like I will have to call the clinic on Monday at work.  That will be an interesting phone call to explain should someone pop in to make a cup of tea while I'm in the office.  Not sure I can explain away "drugs" or "sperm" as work related.

In other news, I made a cake today.  Well, with no alcohol, what is a girl to do for pleasure?

And Thou Shalt See Me Weeping on the BBC

So today's Productive Thing was that I watched a documentary about a fertility clinic on BBC i-player.

Interesting, although as a connosieur of the art I would have preferred a section on IUI.  All we got as far as that was concerned was a brief interview with a sperm donor.

I wondered what our children would look like.

Fortunately, he looked OK, which was a relief.  I don't think I could have coped had I found myself staring into the seal-like face of Trifon Ivanov, former Bulgarian defender from Euro '96 and universally recognised Ugliest Footballer Ever as he banged on about what a privilege it was to be able to create a life using purely one's right hand and a television with nothing but porn channels.

What if they wanted to masturbate to BBC4?  I mean, I do.

So naturally they were focusing on IVF (with the obligatory ICSI shot), which was depressing as out of four couples having treatment, only one got pregnant.  And IVF is supposed to have higher success rates than IUI.  

Bloody hell.  I would have thought they could at least have featured a lesbian couple, just for a bit of variety, instead of just loads of white, heterosexual couples.  I mean, WE DON'T ALL HAVE A LOVING HUSBAND TO HOLD OUR HANDS WHEN WE'RE CRYING AT A NEGATIVE PREGNANCY TEST YOU KNOW.

Not that I'm jealous or anything.  Hard to be jealous of a bunch of people weeping on national television when you know that's going to be you in a matter of weeks.  Hopefully not on national television though, in my case.  Just had horrific vision of what events might lead to that eventuality, and can think only of myself in a television report about a dreadful natural disaster such as a tsunami whipping up from the Grand Union Canal and engulfing the whole building and me, wailing like I'm in a war-torn Middle Eastern country and my son has just been blown up by rebel forces, beating my breast as I scrabble among the ruins of my lovely flat, now reduced to rubble and bits of disassembled furniture from Dwell.

And thou shalt see me weeping on the BBC.

Anyway, there were some highlights to the programme.  I found myself positively skidding across the room with excitement every time someone did an embryo transfer.  Although all seems a bit futile now, given that most of those transfers didn't amount to anything.

I shall hold that mental image of the sperm donor dear, and dream happy thoughts, hoping that I will be one of the few lucky ones.