Interesting developments

Meanwhile, wheels were in motion on the Great-Get-And-Stay-Pregnant Escapade of 2005 (ongoing, extended).

H had been hunting about for contact details for a highly renowned Professor who specialises in treating recurrent miscarriage and infertility. The NHS waiting lists for her clinic were all at least 8 months long (at least. In NHS terms this means 8 months if everyone else on the list emigrates or has triplets before August), and my mother is practically waving fistfuls of tenners in my face every time the subject of my uterus comes up (hey, she brings it up herself just so she can wave tenners at me), so we decided to ask for a private appointment.

And while we were in Wales, we found out we’d got one! In less than a month’s time! With The Professor* herself! Bother this rash of exclamation marks! But I’m actually quite excited about this! And breathe!

Anyway, when we’d got home again, and breathed, we found the email from The Professor’s secretary included a vast medical history questionnaire to amuse ourselves with, a request for a referral letter from my GP or gynaecologist, and a stern recommendation that we cease forthwith from disporting ourselves in the bedroom so we don’t get pregnant and mess up the investigating. On which points: –

1 – Filling in the questionnaire sucked. We had to do it in sessions, because the suck, it became almighty. Also, insanely complicated, as they hadn’t left enough room for all the Goddamn tests and procedures I’ve had done in their mimsey little columns. This made me feel like the Defective Freak, also depressed. And then H had to call his mother to find out during which trimester she’d had her miscarriage in, which must’ve been a fun conversation for the pair of them (we also found out she’d probably miscarried because she’d already been pregnant when she went to have her IUD removed so she could get pregnant… which sucks. Horribly. Irony is so very bloody. But at least H isn’t the proud owner of some seriously fucked up genetics. Felt more like the Defective Freak than ever, because, after all, it’s all about meeeeeeeeee damnit).

2 – Referral letter from my gynaecologist? From the very team that have driven me (a socialist, FFS, a socialist) into the arms of capitalism because they seem completely fucking unable to communicate with each other or me and keep screwing up my appointments and keep not telling me interesting information about my own damn innards and generally act like they don’t give a flying fuck –

[Pause to wipe flecks of spittle off the monitor] –

Sorry about that. I’m taking deep breaths. So. I think I shall get a letter from my GP instead. Heck, I’ve got to show him my toe anyway (but see below).

3 – H and I read the ‘no sex please’ bit of the email, and agreed that this was Very Sensible. Why risk another doomed pregnancy when it would a) interfere with all the tests and b) be really stupid if it delays finding out the Answer and therefore not having to have another doomed pregnancy and c) would be doomed. Did that make sense? Never mind. Meanwhile, my temperatures have been dead-cat-bouncing and Satsuma has been flinging her furniture about and slamming doors, so we can’t be sure what, if anything, she thinks she’s playing at. Tentatively, I may have ovulated yesterday (day 20. Meh. I’ll take it) but I am perfectly prepared to take it back later this week. We’ve been here before. Anyway, we hadn’t had sex for nearly a week, not even the not-baby-making version, and it wasn’t an issue until… Look, I have no idea what happened this afternoon. We just… *cough*. And only realised we should perhaps back off a minute and find some latex (we do actually have some, somewhere…) juuuust too late. This is how nice girls get knocked up in carparks, isn’t it? Oh well. If I was right about Saturday being Satsuma’s Big Day, it’s not an issue. Which practically guarantees I will be wrong about Saturday, won’t it?

(Oh God. I’m a grown-up and everything, and this is my husband we’re talking about, the man I’ve been living with for FOURTEEN YEARS. Anyone’d think I’d just met him in a club.)

So there’s that.

In other news, I’ve borked my sodding toe (Yes! The toe I keep especially for sodding!). On Friday night I was striding briskly into the kitchen to get a glass of water. There was a large solid suitcase on the floor, the sort with wheels and an exoskeleton, that doubles as Luggage as and when. I strode right into it, and it was wedged up against the kitchen table, so it weren’t going nowhere, baby. Something had to give, and I rather fear it was me. I took another step or two in stumbling disbelief before folding, and H came running in to find me in a heap by the washing machine, clutching my foot in the special rigid-cage-clutch in which you try to squeeze the wounded part as hard as hard without actually touching it, and muttering obscenities through clenched teeth. My middle toe was so astonishingly painful I couldn’t even let the duvet rest on it in bed. This did wonders for my sleep.

Next day, couldn’t put any weight on my foot at all. At least, not without yelping and toppling over. We were going to go on an outing to the Lovely Big Park and walk all about it admiring the English summer before it melted away altogether. As it was, I spent the day lying down or hopping about the house in a tearing sulk.

Today, the damn toe has developed a deep navy ring of bruising round the tip, and some deep magenta bruising tucked down between it and the next toe, and still does the most peculiar stabbing, grinding, tingling thing when I put any weight on it. I can’t actually stretch or curl any of the toes on that foot. Not as in, it hurts to try (which it does) but in that they just won’t bend. It’s weird and horrible. I shall show it to the GP tomorrow, I think, in case it gets me out of any of the more boring or tiresome parts of work.

(And thereby fell my Divine Punishment for disregarding the Word of The Professor’s Clinic. When enjoying marital relations, ill-advised or otherwise, there comes That Special Moment when the toes automatically curl. It can’t be helped. It can’t be stopped. It’s not something I’d ever wasted more than an ‘oh, how cute’ on before. It, err, put one off one’s stride, rather.).

*I’ve mentioned her name on this blog before (you can do your own detective work), but as I’m actually reallio trulio meeting her, and I most certainly am going to blog the hell out of the experience, I thought… reticence? Pootling in just below the radar? Might be wise. No people turning up on either doorstep saying ‘I googled The Professor and I found this‘. Eh. This semi-anonymous blogging thing is a bugger to navigate.