When Does Early Pregnancy Begin?

On Friday I more or less finalised what's going on with my appointments with the hospital. I posted last Thursday about the ordeal I'd had trying to get booked in.

Well it occurred to me on Friday morning that I wasn't actually clear on all of the specifics so got that chased up and now I'm more or less clear on what's going on. I also know which protocol I'm on and when I spoke to the nurse about what I thought the drug regime would be her exact words were 'see you already know all this'. Yay! I'm a pro!

And since then I've kind of been in a bit of a buzz.

And part of it is because I'm off to Wales for Christmas in less than two weeks.

And part of it is because I have a plan again.

You see, I'm one of those people who likes to have a plan. I like to know what's going to happen, when it's going to happen and all those other little details which seem so insignificant to the majority of people but which are a big deal for me.

And it might sound a bit weird, but I'm excited to get started because for me, early pregnancy doesn't begin with the appearance of a second line on a test, that bit actually comes quite a bit later for me.

For me it begins with a letter or phone call telling me that I can begin a serious of uncomfortable and invasive tests and procedures. It probably doesn't seem like a thing to get excited about. But for me, who has no other alternative to make a baby, it's a pretty big deal.

Because the rest of the time it doesn't matter how hard we 'try', how perfect our timing is, it's the odds of that leading to early pregnancy is so very slim that it's hardly worth bothering with (except, y'know, we do anyway).

If you don't have any problems getting pregnant then your early pregnancy will probably begin with a late period or a sneaking suspicion that you had a birth control snafu. There'll be the anxiety or excitement of buying a test, then the appointment with the midwife, the scan, working out when you're due and planning all the things that are associated with an upcoming new arrival.

If you've made the conscious decision to try things will be much the same. For the first few months you might look at when your maybe baby will be due. You might even try and time things, after all, there are so many birthdays in November that perhaps it would be better to wait another month before kicking it all off, because you're planning and being organised about it all.

But as the months go on, you'll probably stop doing that. You get to the point where it doesn't matter if eleventy-one other people in your family have birthdays or anniversaries or other celebrations that month, because it'd be nice just to have that extra little one to celebrate as well.

And then you find out that it's not going to help without some serious help, so you stop tracking it altogether.

Until you get the news that you're going to be having an assisted conception cycle in a particular month. And then you can't help but sneak a peak at when you're likely to be due if everything goes to plan or follows the same routine as last time.

And that starts the snowball. Because the next thing you're thinking about is how a baby born in that month is going to need these sorts of clothes, or that sort of car seat would be most practical. And you think about where they would fall for the school year, one of the oldest or one of the youngest. And you start thinking about how you'd really better start getting back to work on the spare bedroom again. Just in case.

Because it's nice to have something to plan for. And you want to be optimistic. And it's kind of exciting to be back on the wagon again.

So while it might be many months (please, I hope not) before I actually catch another glimpse of a second line, and just in case I never do again, I'm going to carry on making my little plans because getting a date for treatment means I've got that little glimmer of hope to cling onto once more.