I once wrote during my first ever two week wait that “nothing means anything” – it was basically about the idea that you couldn’t deduce anything from a single symptom, that a headache, no headache, bleeding, absence of bleeding, cramps, absence of cramps — all of it seemed as likely to be an indicator that you were pregnant as you weren’t. Never had that felt more true.

I mean, the fact that I’d taken three pregnancy tests that have all showed I was pregnant and each one had approx 99% accuracy did mean that there was literally only a 1 in million chance that I wasn’t at some point pregnant. But I was trying very hard not to assume that the fact that I hadn’t got morning sickness didn’t mean I was definitely going to miscarry; the fact that I hadn’t had any bleeding yet didn’t mean I hadn’t miscarried already; the fact that I still appeared to be pregnant today, didn’t mean I would be tomorrow. Nothing means anything, and one day at a time is the only way to take it. That’s all far more easier said than done.

Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst, my therapist told me. But what is the worst? Logically the worst is actually that we’re in exactly the same place that we were at the end of August: waiting for the agency to find us an egg donor, knowing that we’ve done literally everything we can do before we got to that point. That’s the worst. There are worse worsts to have, right?

It was that brief interlude between lockdowns and so I was seeing loads of friends who — naturally — want an update on how things are going IVF-wise. And so I’d tell them… most of it. I’d tell them we’re going down the egg donor route, I’d talk about the “perfect” donor, who disappeared almost as quickly as she appeared, about the one that just didn’t do it for me, I’d tell them we’re still waiting. I didn’t tell them I was pregnant. Why would I? People don’t do they? Not til they’re past the 12 week mark, not til they’re surer. For me, I didn’t tell them partly through superstition, but partly because I didn’t want to have to untell them if anything happens.

And every time I talked about the donor eggs, I had a small pang of guilt, of disloyalty. “Don’t listen” I’d telepath to the bundle of cells somewhere inside me. “You’re the one I want, not the hypothetical one from the so-called perfect donor. You’re the one I want to beat the odds, you’re my plan A. You do understand that I can’t tell them yet, don’t you? That I have to know you’re sticking around, that I really, really want to tell them about you — just not yet…”