Did I mention I had a breakdown?

Did I mention I had a breakdown last week?

A complete and utter meltdown - my own existential Etna...my own vilifying Vesuvius...my own...no, there is nothing that goes with Eyjafjallajokull (hey, I was trying to be current).

Yes, I neglected to mention that didn't I?

It was last Thursday.

I could not get out of bed until 8am. That is when I normally leave for work. So, immediately I knew something quite bizarre was going on.

I got in the shower, as is rote, and exited seven minutes later, at which time I promptly burst into tears. You read that phrase a lot, don't you. "Mrs McIntyre promptly burst into tears." I always thought it sounded ridiculous. It was what highly-strung school marms in Dickens novels did when they weren't wringing their hands, fretting about the pox or staring anxiously out the parlour window, to see if the master will return from the great hunting conflict...or some such.

Then I got older, hormones took hold, and then ravaged my body, Huggies kept making those bloody beautiful, heart-wrenching TV ads and I realised that in fact tears do burst from their ocular pods quite bloody often.

That morning, I remember feeling like eons of stress - some of it conscious and some of it subconscious - had, well, burst their banks in my mind.

I also felt an incredibly draining weight physically pulling me through the soles of my feet to the ground. Deeper, maybe, if the tiles weren't stronger. Yep, this was some kind of freaky crazy evil pull - and not just gravity gone haywire. This was a weight on my soul.

I thought about calling in sick at work. But then I thought of how far behind I would be if I did that, and that cracked a new dozen dread eggs all over my newly-washed hair. So I went in, but told myself I'd leave at midday.

And I did. I also felt incredibly, bone-hollow tired. So my plan was to sleep all afternoon. My neighbours, who congregate in their backyard about 2centimetres from where my head lays on the bed, had other, very loud, ideas.

So, to say I was overwrought, anxious and consumed with a type of residual fury I have not known before...well, that would be an understatement.

In the days since, I have realised this is perfectly reasonable for someone in my situation. I feel the weight of expectation and I cannot help but feel a personal failure every time that one little line does its solo appearing act on the pregnancy test stick.

IVF is hell.

The two-week wait is heller.

It is the most uncertain I have been about anything in my life. I do not like that. This is a huge thing. A thing you want to be certain about. IVF also raises your expectations - almost to unrealistic proportions. Do you know how freaking hard it is for sperm to actually fertilise an egg the "normal" way? I saw an amazing documentary about it once...parts of the female anatomy are actually designed to attack and kill the poor little spermies. Can you believe that? I remember thinking as the credits rolled on that doco, "how the hell does life even happen, if not in a petri dish??" So, we eliminated all of that hoo-haa. Honey, we got an embryo, yee-haa. That is amazing...the science is amazing...so keep on with the amazing and make it implant, god damn it! That is not too much to ask, surely?

Tomorrow I do a pregnancy test. In less than 12 hours I will know.