Warning! This post contains the P word and a Baby Scan Picture

I suggest you find the Lion King’s ‘Circle of Life’ on YouTube and have it playing whilst you read the following – for added drama.

30+: the amount of times I begged Nick to leave me for a ‘proper woman: one who would bear him a child’ (Forgive the archaic language: I get biblical in moments of despair).
4,500: the amount in pounds I spent on ‘fertility aids’ such as ovulation tests, Chinese herbs, acupuncture, reflexology, energy healing, thermometers, fertility books, vitamins, powdered peruvian root veg, semi-illegal pots of progesterone, organic sweet potatoes and so on.
20,000: the amount in pounds I wanted to raise to get a new-age fertility treatment whereby I would fly to a clinic in Mexico and get a blood transfusion. With Nick’s blood.
0: how much it actually cost us for one round of IVF (as far as I’m concerned, the NHS is up there with Freedom of Speech and Cadbury’s Dairy Milk as ‘things this country can be proud of’.)
40: the amount of minutes it took one nurse to find my cervix during just one of the many lets-just-say-less-than-pleasant-legs-in-stirrups examinations (in her defence, she said this: ‘Pet, in my 25 years of nursing that’s the smallest cervix I’ve ever experienced’.)
90: how many injections I gave myself.
205: the amount of giant progesterone pills I had to stick somewhere where no man has ever gone before.
100 million: the amount of sperm brought to the (clinical) table by Nick at just one sitting (or standing? I didn’t ask him).
15: the average amount of eggs produced by a woman my age during one IVF cycle (the amount of eggs produced is a good indicator of whether you’ll be successful or not…)
8: the amount of eggs I produced – even with the last ditch attempt at extra hormones (luckily I was too off my face on sedatives to worry about the low figure at this point. So off it, in fact, that I apparently asked the lab technician if my eggs were ‘sparkly’ (showbiz to the end)).
5: how many eggs actually fertilized.
2: the number that were considered ‘good enough’ to use.
10: the amount of seconds it took us to decide we wanted to give both embryos a chance, and have them both put back inside me.
1: the number of embryos that actually made it to the all important WEEK 12 SCAN.
Ladies and Gentleman, allow us to present to you… MIRACLE BABY (hopefully I’ve timed my writing correctly so you’ve just reached the bit in the song where Rafiki holds Simba and Nala’s baby lion up into the sky, the chorus comes back in full pelt, and the jungle animals all go off it)

The Fairytale is F**ked

The Fairytale, as we know it, is F**ked: six reasons why any woman worth her womb is turning her back on the traditional fairytale.

1) For a start, the girls are always simpering Messes in Distresses, waiting for a man to come along and sort their sh*t out for them.

Contrary to every fairy tale or rom com ever written, the RIGHT man is NEVER  going to come along when you’re ‘in distress’.

What sort of freak-man would be interested in a girl whose sat in a tower on her own for her entire life, with nothing but her hair to keep her amused (there’s only so many YouTube videos of fishtail braiding and easy updos one girl can watch)? I’ll tell you what sort of man: the sort of man whose going to feel the perishables in his pants shrivel up and fall off when she finally gets her act together and starts that ball-busting, multi-million pound wig-making business.

No, far better to meet Him for the first time when you’re winging your way down from the tower on that self-made zip-wire of yours, with your well-brushed hair flinging behind you in a brazen but beautiful display of rebellion: the man you give your happily-ever-after to needs to know he’s playing with fire from the outset.

2) And now, onto the (whisper it!) SEX. Let us pity poor Snow White, desperately pretending to be in an apple-provoked coma hoping to avoid it, or Sleeping Beauty, with her extreme narcolepsy bo**ocks (both better than the ‘Not tonight, darling, I’ve got a headache’ cliche, I’ll give them that). Eventually, though, the women give in and, both so keen to have the whole affair over with, fake a life-reinducing (but silent and ‘ladylike’) orgasm after just one chaste kiss from Blandy Blanderson, Prince Charming.

Ladies, we are not our grandmothers. We don’t need to lie back with gritted teeth and think of England (or Wales, preferably) anymore. We are allowed to say no. (On a side note, if the Prince wasn’t her cup of tea, I always thought Snow White should’ve given one of the dwarves a go. He would’ve been so grateful for the opportunity there’s no telling what lengths (ahem) he might have gone to, to please her.)

3) Perhaps I’m hopelessly romantic, but I like a man to at least be able to recognize my face after the deed; you know, should there be a lineup on the morning after. Take poor Cinderella, she’s already endured the Walk of Shame with only one shoe on (we’ve all been there, lovely) but then comes the real slap in the face: he’s totally forgotten what she looks like; so much so that’s he’s letting every woman in the land try on her shoe (even her so-called ugly sisters) in a humiliating attempt to jog his worryingly poor memory.

4) And why do the girls in Fairytale Land never make their own money or have any ambitions beyond meeting a prince? Shame on our Little Mermaid, Ariel, for selling her pretty voice to fat, slimy Ursula (seriously, can we stop making little girls terrified of post-menopausal women; that’s what they’re going to become eventually). Just for one chance with Eric (not the brightest tool in the box, God love him, he spends half the film chasing that catchy tune he heard once, unwittingly almost marrying Ursula-in-disguise in the process).

I agree with Sebastien the Crab, ‘darling, it’s better down where it’s wetter’ (the lyricist was having a right laugh on that day). Ariel should have stayed under the sea and started a function band with all of those talented animal-musicians. If it was meant to be, Eric would (eventually) (HOPEFULLY) work out a way to sell his (comparatively mediocre) voice to live under the sea, and off of her earnings, instead.

5) And, dear God, the lack of imagination on the princesses’ wish list for a man: Tall, dark and handsome. Is that really all she wants for the rest of her life: a constant crick in her neck from looking up, and a bad back from bending over to fish dark hairs out of the plug hole? What about thinking outside of the box, for a change. For example, I can personally vouch for the skinhead (God, no, not for political reasons) but because the bath is always clear of hair and they smell endearingly like babies. (There’s really something about being with a man who smells reminiscent of your past – and your future – at the same time.)

6) And as if more proof were needed that the traditional fairytale has had its day, I give you Frozen: the highest grossing animated film of all time (it took 1.274 billion at the box office) – and it ends not with the promise of romantic love but a declaration, instead, of sisterly devotion. And the protagonist, far from being a simpering Mess in Distress, is so badass that, when she’s having a shite day, she creates an eternal winter and an entire castle of ice with her own bare hands, but even more impressive than that: she sings a song that goes as low as an F and as high as a top E flat. What a legend.