Things You Might Do During A Two Week Wait

You might make a list of Jobs That Need Doing Before Christmas.

Sadly you will only make this list in your head and you will only ever recall the entire list once when you are lying in bed and can’t be arsed getting up to write it down.

For the rest of the Waiting Period you will be haunted by vague memories of The List as you determine to put things on and cross things off.


You might decide to get a haircut.

This is because you are attending a wedding on the weekend and you are sick of pulling your hair back into a boring ponytail and exposing your spotty forehead to the world.

But on the morning of the wedding you may wake up and go: oh fuck, I forgot to book that appointment. But then, genius may strike you!

Look, here in the shopping centre is one of those very cheap, very nasty, no booking places! All the hair cutters are standing about waiting for hair to cut. And here I am, practically standing in the doorway and I’VE GOT HAIR.

And one of them, Svetlana say, from an unnamed Eastern bloc country, will draw you gently inside. When she asks you how you would like your hair cut today you will start to explain your dilemma and then realize she is wearing her hair pulled back in a ponytail and she has a spotty forehead just like you.

Later you will emerge with your hair strangely layered and your fringe reshaped and a lurking suspicion that it’s not really a very good cut at all. You will attend the wedding with your hair pulled back in a boring ponytail.

This will be a lesson learned.


You might tell your sister in law that you intend making an entire nativity set using paper mache and roll on deodorant bottles.

To your surprise she may hand you a bag of washed empty roll on deodorant bottles which she has collected because she is a mother of three children and they Do Craft. Now you are stuck with this task because you will look like a wally if you hand the bag of washed empty roll on deodorant bottles back and you would feel guilty if you just shoved them into a recycling bin.

During your Waiting Period you might choose to start the Roll On Deodorant Nativity Set. You might sculpt your Christmas artworks on newspaper so as to avoid mess.

But then a breeze may blow through your flat and in a panic you may be forced to grab precious ornaments to weigh the newspaper down.

This will lead to precious ornaments being streaked with flour and water which dries with a cement like consistency. This will be irritating because it will be another job to add to The List.

A quick and clever fix however will be to put the Precious Ornaments somewhere people won’t see them like in that spot behind the bookcase.


You might start reading Messages From The Cosmos in word verification thingys when you go to comment on other people’s blogs.

This will be unsettling. The messages are very firmly one way or the other so as soon as you see the previously unreadable jumble of letters you will be struck with either joy or grief. They will also be spelt very badly.


You might have a mental blank and worry about whether ‘spelt’ actually is the past tense of spell or a primitive grain used to make tasty breads suitable for people with wheat intolerance.

Then you will cunningly incorporate your ignorance into your post in an amusing manner.

You might spend long periods of time staring at your nipples in the mirror.

This is a natural thing to do as you are wondering if they are changing in any way to indicate pregnancy.

Then you might decide your boobs are sagging. Then you might start holding a breast in each hand and wiggle them up and down, pretending your nipples are eyes and your bellybutton is a mouth and it can talk to you. Then you will stop because this is not natural it's just stupid.


You might read on somebody’s blog that pineapple is good for implantation.

Immediately you will dash out to the fruitshop. However there will be two kinds of pineapple available and you will spend half an hour weighing them up in each hand and wondering which is best for the embryos.

Unluckily a fruitshop man will hear you muttering to yourself about pineapple and embryos but on the bright side the sheer embarrassment will encourage you to make an immediate choice.

Your sister might ring from New Zealand and chat while you both wait for the phone call from the clinic.

As you chat together she will mention that pregnant women have higher body temperatures. Inspired, you may get your digital thermometer and shove it in your mouth. Similarly inspired your sister will get her thermometer and shove it in her ear.

Strangely your conversation will flow unimpaired.


When you go in for your blood test you might feel a shock when the Fertility Sister asks if this is your “final” blood test.

You may wonder if she means your credit card is declined or if all the sisters got together and decided they hate you and your husband with his rice pudding scented head and they never want to take your blood again.


On your way home you and your husband might feel moved to hug and embrace a large piece of public art because it reminds you of a pair of enormous ovaries and hence it could be lucky.

You will need to do this surreptitiously because the artwork is in a public space surrounded by offices. This will make you feel like Harry Potter trying to run through the wall at Kings Cross station without anyone noticing except of course you will not be carrying an owl.


If you get the phone call that says your beta was 490 and you are “definitely pregnant” you will cry/shriek/attempt to speak calmly/scrawl notes in your diary that will later prove to be unreadable.

For 48 hours you will float on a bubble of happiness and sheer joy. You will share that joy and be delighted and encouraged by the enormous wave of love and support you receive both online and in person.





With a great screech of brakes and clunking of gears The Great Big Fertility Ride pulls in at the station. C and I gingerly step out of the carriage. Hope’s already brushed off the vomit and darted off to climb into someone else’s carriage and start the ride all over again. She’s such a roller coaster tart.

We feel exhausted.
We feel incredulous.
We feel very very lucky.

It’s the earliest of early days but to get to this point, for us who have never ever been pregnant, it seems an incredible achievement.

(In fact, even writing this down seems ridiculous. As if the phone will ring again and an apologetic Fertility Sister will say… oh dear there’s been a computer error…)

C and I stagger shakily past the ticket booth and make our way towards the exit.

In the background I can hear the crazy music start up again, the gears clunk into place, the doors on the carriages slam shut, the babble of excited voices.

I’d like to watch, wave them on their way, maybe buy a Cheese-On-A-Stick for old time’s sake but then I remember that Roll On Deodorant Nativity Scene isn’t going to paper mache itself and so we hurry on home.