I asked the clinician to put the age headline down
At 37, I could not read about fertility without encountering a clock. Some headlines promised prevention; others seemed to treat my birthday as a clinical event. I carried both hop
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I counted the days pain had taken from me
I had described my periods as painful for years. The word had become so ordinary that it concealed the details: cancelling dinner, lying on the bathroom floor, missing a morning of
We changed “my cycle appointment” to “our question list”
For six months, every conversation about trying began with my cycle. I tracked, read and prepared questions while my partner waited to be told what I had learned. When someone said
The search I did not finish at one in the morning
At 1am, I was holding my phone close to my face and searching whether one app entry counted as an ovulation symptom. I had logged temperature and cervical mucus because people said
I closed the countdown tab before my appointment
I searched for information about trying in my late thirties and immediately found a page written like a timer. By the third paragraph I was no longer learning; I was measuring my l
I turned the referral leaflets into one unfinished page
The referral came with several leaflets. One described pathways, another lifestyle information, another counselling support. I spread them across the floor and tried to make a sing
I removed “trimester zero” from the top of my list
The phrase “trimester zero” kept appearing in advertisements and preparation posts. I wrote it at the top of a document, then found myself treating the months before pregnancy as a
I packed for the first clinic visit, then planned the journey home
The evening before my first clinic consultation, I arranged everything on the table: ID, referral, medicine list, cycle notes, questions and a notebook. I checked the appointment m
I drew a family tree and left question marks on it
Thyroid problems appear in my family, though I realised I did not know the exact diagnosis for everyone. My cycles were irregular, and search results made the two facts feel connec
The timeline online did not know my history
I waited because a general page said to wait. Then I found another page with a different timeline and wondered whether I had already waited too long. The numbers looked authoritati
We kept trying to find whose fault the silence was
The argument began over a form. It asked for my history in detail and gave my partner one small box. I said something bitter about carrying the whole process. He replied that every
I made a waiting-day menu instead of a perfect routine
After a procedure, the clinic gave me medical instructions that I am following. What I did not have was a plan for the hours around them. The first morning, I checked my phone befo
I asked for travel flexibility without explaining the calendar
I travel for work about two weeks each month. When trips repeatedly collided with personal appointments, I drafted an email to my manager that explained far too much. I deleted it,
I searched for signs until everything looked like one
One search result listed common experiences so broadly that by the end I could see myself in nearly every line. I opened another page to check the first. An hour later, I had more
I gave the waiting week office hours
As a freelance designer, I can move work around more easily than many people. During the wait for my follow-up appointment, that flexibility became a problem. I checked my phone be
Our shift calendar stopped telling us whether we were doing enough
My partner and I both work shifts. We began using a shared calendar to find time together, but soon every overlapping evening seemed to carry an assignment. If work changed at shor
The email to my manager was only four sentences
I spent most of a Sunday afternoon writing an email that eventually took my manager less than a minute to read. I work in a small finance team, and I have appointments coming up. T
Muting the feed also muted people I missed
My feed had become a corridor of announcements, bump photographs and products promising control. I muted accounts quickly one night and felt immediate relief. A week later I realis
My temperature chart looked like mountains because it was a chart
I held my phone sideways, hoping the graph would become obvious in landscape mode. It still looked like mountains. I could persuade myself there was a shift, then zoom in and lose
We took sex off the calendar for one Friday night
The calendar alert appeared while Helen was brushing her teeth. She looked at the little coloured block, looked at me in the mirror, and said, “Nothing makes me feel irresistible l