Month One, Day Ten

According to the instructions on the pack, today is the day I need to start ovulation testing.

I am not the sort of woman who takes tests lightly. I prefer to pass them with flying colours.

I shut myself in the bathroom and stare at this odd plastic stick I am expected to - well, to pee on. What I am aiming for is two dark purple lines. That's it. That's the pass mark, the A*, the badge that will allow me to take my place amongst the creme de la creme of fertile ladies.

I'm sure there should be some work I can do beforehand - a little bit of swotting, revision, reading. Surely some neglected Victorian poet must have composed Lines on the Begetting of a Baby that I can dig out from the archives of the Bodelian Library and commit to memory to recite as I go.

But there is nothing. Nothing. My body either works as it's meant to, or it doesn't. I am out of control, helpless to the whims of my ovaries.

I wait the required two minutes and look at the stick again. There are definitely two purple lines. What I can't tell is whether they're the right sort of purple lines. According to the instructions, they must be the same colour. If the second line is lighter than the first line, I am not about to ovulate. If it's the same or darker, I am.

But the line is two-tone. Part of it is dark. The rest of it is sort of cloudy-looking and pale.

I do not know what this means.

'Are you going to be much longer in there?' Jack calls from outside.

I toss the stick in the bin.

I have failed my ovulation test.