Missing a due date

I am coming up to one of those nasty things: a due date which never happened. The first one of these events comes around at Christmas time. This last Christmas that date passed me by as I was in the throes of the miscarriage which should instead have led on to the due date I am currently obsessing about. The upcoming date has me feeling maudlin to say the least. Oh and my period came again just like clockwork. Marvellous. Just marvellous.

In the grand scheme of things earlyish miscarriages are so easily dismissed as "just one of those things, lots of people have them and don't worry at least you know you can get pregnant". Well actually as far as the latest miscarriage was concerned no, I didn't bloody know I could get pregnant, not without a smorgasbord of drugs, needles and petri dishes at any rate. And it wasn't for lack of trying.

Even though the pregnancy failed to progress it was at least pretty amazing to finally have to the things that happen to seemingly everyone I know in the real world: realise my period was late; head out to the chemist for a test; do it and see the word pregnant appear in no seconds flat and no need to to see or tell any medical professional immediately. I have never been one for doing pregnancy tests. In fact even with the ivfs I never peed on any sticks as I was too scared to see what would be on them. I just had the blood tests and made the husband call for the results so I wouldn't have to hear bad news. I would occasionally think there might be cause to go and get a test but usually before I'd even worked myself up to buying one it would become obvious it wasn't necessary. So this whole unbelievable natural pregnancy and stick peeing was a major event. How pathetic is that - peeing on a piece of plastic a major event - this infertility business skews one's sense of what is important somewhat.

The husband, being a man albeit one who is usually pretty astute about these things, had no idea this date was coming up at all. I suppose that is hardly surprising. Whilst the emotional commitment of the man to the pregnancy as a whole and the baby to come is undoubted in the vast majority of cases, given that the physical contribution to the event is pretty fleeting I can see why a man might not be so invested in the exact number of weeks passing by. Its not like I was counting the weeks either - I just knew when 20 weeks should have been and 30 and 40. Still it pissed me off that he seemed to have forgotten entirely. But then it was only another of the things making me cross and miserable these past few days which encompass such things as the guilt of the working mother, the politics of the 4 year old birthday party and the nature of friendships. But I think those better be for another day.