We went to the doctor again, got another scan another bloodtest. There on the scan the little dark dot, making its first appearance. Yolk sac, amniotic sac. There it is. And the tests came back good - a nice rise in the HCG since Friday. Despite the spotting that hints something may not be right, it looks like things are all right.

I still have the two futures inside me, that will continue. But I feel a bit easier.

And then Dermot has died. I remember each of the things he said, each like a cutting still waiting to be planted. There's not so much time. 

That most of what is being made now is a cosy home, a down. Something is growing but it is very tiny. If it's not right it will pass through at the right time. A full, intricate, intimate and barely perceptible conversation is taking place between that tiny entity and the world it's held in - like an orchestra in two parts, working back and forth in hormones and enzymes and thickening blood. They are responding to one another. But it seems that if the embryo dies, it might take days before my body knows? Or my body will know, and wind the hormones down slowly. Let it pass through at the right time, without violence.

It's me who doesn't know. The me who isn't the body, and can only pretend to be the body. My conscious brain doesn't know any more about this than my ear or foot. I see a little bit of blood on the paper. It could mean anything at all.

I knew this guy who was almost unbearably kind and gentle. When his family cat sickened, he waited till everyone was at work and school, and then took it to the vet to be put down. He brought the body home, and curled it up on the end of a bed, then told his family that it had died peacefully in its sleep. He had lots of secrets, and a life-threatening heart condition. 

When I think about the little one inside, and whether it's okay or not, it doesn't make much sense. I feel different but it's ME that feels different. I can't feel anything in there or connect with anything separate. But thinking about it a bit more that is the truth of it. There is nothing in there yet that is separate from me. I feel the making, and that is me, and it's undistinguished from the life that isn't an other. 

Back to the doctor today - bloodtest, and then bloodtest on Monday too. In my head I imagine an obstetrician's having at most half a dozen women in the waiting room, but there are a dozen doctors at the practice, and so there are mazes of corridors and waiting rooms everywhere, all thrumming with nurses and administrators and patients.

I wonder what percentage of patients come out with bad news. Ten percent? Twenty-five? It must be normal for the doctors and nurses, at any rate. My doctor looks like a quoll, or a dunnart. She often has empty afternoons, and sometimes she seems out of her depth, or like she feels guilty. 

Suddenly the Ministry puts a freeze on all our hires in progress, and everyone's caught in limbo. Someone's turned down - 'the Ministry strongly recommends that this hire does not proceed' - for no known reason, and no face or name is attached to this judgement - it comes through a long, long tunnel of administrators, each of whom is empty. Each of the people who passes on this message erases the details of their predecessor.

But the one turned down at least knows where he stands. If he's lucky, someone has told him the content of the message. Others are told no message, no decision. Just that what had seemed simple and certain is no longer simple and certain. The promised contract, thought to be imminent, has not yet been approved. Please do not book your ticket until we have confirmed its approval. You must wait. Weeks go by, and months. The promised start date approaches. You must wait. Your previous contract expires. Your lease expires. The promised start date passes. You must wait.

It's impossible not to wonder. Who did I offend? Was it me, or my department, or a series of faults in those we meant to hire? This one showed interest in the idea of propaganda. That one is a former citizen, and they say once you've left, sometimes you can't come back. Or is it a new policy, a shift in the wind or in the bases of money? Did the message begin with a disgruntled senior minister, or a confused and incompetent junior clerk?

Communication should only be passed through your immediate superior, or better, the administrators that flank him or her. It's preferred that you don't attempt to contact anyone else. This helps to prevent confusion.Your immediate superior reminds you that nothing can be done.

I think when a baby starts to come into being it comes in like a fireball. sometimes you feel happy but mostly it's anger and fear - that there's not enough money or love, that the world is a dying shithole, that the baby is not okay and could die or be very sick. all of it's true but that's just fuel, I think, and the burning flame is the agony of death-in-reverse, life igniting at the core right now. A woman feels this right out to her skin and yells at her husband and her boss, which is 'hormones'.

I miss you, Sable Cure. Among the missing, you, the little tweak or nag of unformed wish, just to see the day here. You're like one of those binocular sets on a hill. So I put a coin in and open the lenses.

Today I talked to a former clerk of a House of Commons, and we helped to plant a nutmeg tree. I've met him before, he's so kind. Putting the glass of chardonnay down on the metal drain grid to applaud softly. Damp armpits all around. The way people toss their heads with a bit of panic when they are just TOO hot. He said he misses the fun, the intrigue.

The future's been swinging around wildly. A door's opened in the trap. It's wonderful news.

Adult women who've never held or moved a spade. I remember that feeling from childhood - wrists flailing and the blade skimming off the pile of dirt, scattering it at weird angles.