Road to Morocco

I’m in a bad mood. Just plain semi-miserable! Sitting in an idyllic, palm-fringed, olive tree-filled garden in deepest, darkest, southern Morocco. This place should be heaven but the dexamethasone (steroids) that I’m taking (another kitchensinkesque move on the medication front from my clinic to give baby every chance of survival in those crucial first few weeks) is dampening my mood. Not that I’m an easy customer by any means on a normal day. “Dynamic’ I’d call myself, but I’m either a ‘love it’ or hate it’. I’m never anything in between. I hate in between. It’s boring. I have no patience for boring. My husband says I’ll never be happy. Maybe he’s right.

So, here we are on this holiday that I was so looking forward to. This adventure, this ‘only three hours from London and you are in another world’ holiday and I just feel flat.

I’m pregnant (still, I hope. You never know with miscarriages in the first few weeks, most people don’t even know they are pregnant at this stage unless they are doing IVF). I should be ecstatic. Looking forward to what’s to come but I don’t feel pregnant. Luckily, I have no morning sickness (so far). My only ‘side-effects’ are a huge, swollen, bruised belly and a massive appetite, which makes me worry that little seven stone seven/eight/nine?! me is going to balloon, never to shrink back to my petite self (a big worry given my preoccupation with the superficial). Anyway all but the bruising are from the steroids I am taking and the bruising is from the daily blood-thinning injections I give myself (yet another miscarriage precaution-you can’t be too careful). I don’t mind any of these to be honest. Here, in Morocco, to the world, I’m pregnant, so I can look it. Back in the real world in London when we return I will be seven weeks pregnant; where pregnancy is a closely guarded secret. Embryo update: We had a scan at five weeks two days and you can see the sac! Whoopee! Eleven millimetres long! Only impatient me has the six week scan early! Anyway, my HCG level was in the early thousands (can’t remember what now) and there was only one sac so my little dream of having twins is slowly fading (although at this stage you never know). Real scan on the day we get back. We (hopefully) will see a heartbeat and then maybe I will really feel like I’m pregnant and actually believe it!

I have been feeling guilty for not writing (I told you that I was unsure how long I could keep it up) and since I haven’t been discovered in the meantime (although believe me my ‘writing ‘ briefly took off with an article on pregnancy sent to any newspaper that would consider it- nearly got lucky- more of that later) nor has my blog gone stratospheric, my interest has waned. Once I start the writing though, the drivel kind of spills forth, luckily.
Oh, I forgot one other pleasant side effect; constipation! Luckily, the kilo of dried figs, purchased from the souk in Marrakech is sort of dealing with that.

Do you want to know about southern Morocco? Probably not. All I’ll say is that Lawrence of Arabia was filmed down the road, to my left palm trees and in the distance snow capped mountains. All I hear around me is birdsong with the occasional intervention from a donkey. So close to London and yet so brilliantly far. So, I hate London at the moment, yet I don’t love it here. As I write, some of my misery is dissipating at least. At some stage I might actually relax. Oh, and I forgot to mention the seven hundred dirham fine we got for ‘crossing over the white line in the road’ on the six hour drive from Marrakech. I wouldn’t have minded but have you seen the how Moroccans drive?