Round up your ghosties and ghoulies and long legged beasties, the BESH are going to scare out the BFPs!

Yum pumpkin spider soup, very helfy with extra protein, I'll have a large bowl plz.

Made it out of house to hairdresser so will be beeyooteeful for baby shower from hell tomorrow

Hehe. Love a good cat caption photo.

I'll have a mug of spidery soup thanks draff

(drizz, she was lured over from some froliky fred. But despite that, seems as cynical as the rest of us.)

(BTW check out my photo on here for a feline embodiment of me - KFZK found it and thought it was hilarious)

Gah! Spiders.

I'm new :) see post on Wed 03-Oct-12 13:44:13 for questionnaire answers...

PS the overboiling with grief sounds more melodramatic then I meant. Just referring to the unstoppable and unexpected crying fits, and trying to fit them in the pressure cooker metaphor, or something.

Feeling quite pleased you're all as horrified by my home work as I was. SB was quite pleased and not surprised by it, so I am happy to be in the company of stilted victorian gentlemen (I see a theme for the next fred).

Which reminds me, anyone for a bit of pumpkin soup to go with the toad legs. It is adorned with hairy spiders!!

Right - give me a pile of the negative calories. I lost lots of weight when diffed and piled it all on again. I quite liked the thinner me. So as of this weekend there will be more exercise.

:( about the weight gain euro. It is wrong and I hate shopping (cos I have the depressing experience you had frequently) so I sympathise. I say next time only buy shoes (and socks).

Well done on the racing and dodging giraffe (who were you btw, I did not catch up properly).

Hurrah for free (incredibly slow) wifi in cafs while waiting for trains!

Oh dear, that was painfully slow. I only went ten miles! And I ran out of battery on my speedo so no proof of doing anything to show HOTB later either. Ah well.

Sinky I like your point of writing a letter to work through. I imagine it would be a good deal less overwhelming that way.

On a more cheery note, I whizzed through the market place on my bike, nipping round teenage boys (why aren't they in school?) and old grannies, with the Bond theme tune in my head. I suspect I didn't look as cool as I felt (hi viz lycra will do that to a person) but it was FUN

Negative calories you say?

norfy I do think the drugs are to blame. I am at my fattest ever. And I have put on 3/4 of a stone since I came off the drugs in july. I put on a few pounds while I was on them (expected - water weight I think). I lost that really quickly as soon as I stopped then. And then the weight just piled on at a rate of about 2lbs per week. I just wasn't eating enough to justify that - it would have to be 7000 cals a week over my maintenance level and I was nowhere near that, even with the biz travel. I think it has halted now and I have even lost a pound or two but it is a real struggle in a way that it never has been before. So yes, I most definitely blame the bstd drugs!

Good effort on the cycling draff. I have showered. I think that's enough exertion for now. (will go running later and tomorrow, and, well, Sunday, so think I can take a morning off!)

Am also an ostrich. Why deal when ishhuws can be convieniently ignored ad infintium? The letter idea sounds horrific, but somehow very sensible. I suspect given the choice of speaking directly to someone or writing it down then discussing the points would be easier for me. See it as an action plan to work through, or meeting bullet points to deal with. Or maybe that's just more compartmentalising/stoking the pressure cooker, rather than confronting and dealing?

"overboiling with grief" :(

Have some toad finger biscuits everyone. (They have net negative calories, euro, with their delightful vomit-inducing action)

It all sounds so familiar. Let's all set up as emotionally stilted Victorian business men. AMNH can be Mrs Banks (the energetic yet dippy mother from Mary Poppins).

euro do you know what's caused it? Is it still hangover from bastard drugs, plus some business travel?

I'm jealous of all the PJ wearing on this fred today. I wanna be at home in comfy PJs too!

Drizz I'm not sure I would be any good at that sort of thing. It sounds like HARD homework. Make sure you suck the end of your pencil thoughtfully whilst doing it. That always helps.

I had an emotional wobble last night. I popped to the shops after work (having recently realised that I had most of my work clothes in my last job... that I left in 2006). I was too fat for everything. I did my usual thing of taking a size 10 and 12 into the changing room. I tried one thing on and it was tight so I thought "no matter, I can try the 12, that should fit". Only to find that it was the 12. I nearly cried. I was so out of sorts by that point I didn't even manage to buy some shoes to cheer myself up. Meh.

Counselling sounds utterly terrifying. I'm pretty in touch with emotions (I think), but the thought of counselling and/or therapy makes me squirm with embarrassment. Mind you, I suppose it has to be hard or it's not working? I have no idea.

I am loaded up with weetabix, off out on my bike now. It's blowing a gale, so I predict half of my route will be superfast and the other half will be like swimming through treacle. Ah well, needs must etc.

Oh, and futility friend thinks I ovulated a few days ago. Once again despite jumping HOTB an awful lot we seem to have missed the crucial date. For fucks sake

lead led. OMG I am tired I have no idea how to spell that.

Lovely witches come back, I won't thread hog too much, just wanted to tell a little bit about the counselling for norf. I am assuming I won't have to do too much of this cringe-worthy stuff. Fingers crossed. I promised myself if I find it too much and/or not helpful, I am allowed to bail out.

And yes, I have to take the letter back, but I told her she would not be reading it. I won't write it properly (as it is supposed to be what I feel rather than what I think) if I have to lead somebody read it... I told SB, who is a lot more in touch with his emotions, and he suggested he should write a letter too. Which I suppose is a good thing, but it surprised me, as he didn't seem to have accepted the pregnancy as a possible baby at all and does not seem to be overboiling with grief all the time. Perhaps the latter is because he is in touch with his emotions. Why am I the boy in this relationship, but have all the female hormones? It ain't fair...

Check norf, we share the strategy. I am known as the ostrich in our household, if I avoid the issue it will go away... But as there are unresolved issues in my past aplenty I am going to try it and see whether it helps. It can't harm too much to try and face up to grief, once, to see whether it works. There are some mother issues as well, which I really don't want to pass onto the our baby if and when, I have that as motivation.

Honestly, it makes me want to recoil. But my pressure cooker has been making threatening, explosive noises and I'd rather not have to clean up the mess after that...

Gosh yes, that idea makes me cringe and shut down emotionally as well. Which presumably is one of my coping strategies, and also one which leads to pressure cooker type stress, because I do anything to avoid the acknowledging and confronting grief sort of stage. Eek.

Do you have to take the letter back next time?

Not that I have written it yet, but I chatted about it with SB and thought about it on the way home.

I am dressed [proud] and ready to leave when I need to in 45 minutes!

Counselling was for infertility woes, I had made an appointment before I knew I was diffed, because I was not coping very well. I cancelled the appointment when I discovered I was diffed, but decided that it won't do harm to solve some of the issues now I am undiffed again (and I was wailing uncontrollably a lot when I remade the appointment).

I think it will be useful, but it is difficult to say at this point. I am giving it a try, she picked up on a few (unresolved) issues from before, which would benefit from being resolved. But it was quite difficult to talk through stuff and be made to deal with the emotional side of things. She said I am very good at developing rational coping strategies but they are not enough any more, which I think is true, fair and rather disappointing. [cross emoticon]

But I'll let you know. My home work is to write a letter to the wont-be-born baby I was carrying, which I have seen as a suggestion before, but found quite cringe-worthy. But thinking about what I felt/wanted to say/etc made me cry quite a lot, which I suppose is part of working through grief rather than ignoring it.

And here! I did get up and eat lots of shortbread though.

Was the counselling for miscarriage woe, lemon? What was it like? I've been offered it but am not sure...

Still in PJs here! :)

You can work in PJs, no?

Ooh. It's a BESH day off work from home day!

I have made the fatal error of coming downstairs without showering, and while I may get some work done, it's now guareenteed that I won't get dressed till late morning at best.

I'm so weak.

Not much with me driz. Apart from the Chinese woo needles tomorrow. Am hydrating myself in a "nervous first day a school" style. Am worried she will tell me my chakras are misaligned or something.

Am, of course, working just now. Not having a leisurely breakfast and watching tv. Oh no.