I had such high hopes for this cycle. It all went smoothly, the nurse could see I was either ovulating or about to, and it was a beautiful early spring day with the crocuses peeking through the grass.

Two weeks later, the snow has come down and the crocuses have all died.

At first, it seemed just like before. The random twinges in my pelvic area, the nausea, the very faint line on a First Response pregnancy test that you can only see if you tilt the stick at the right angle. Dr Google gives conflicting advice on whether this is a positive or a negative result, and I kept changing my mind about whether it counted, but still, there was hope – it seemed just like before.

Then, it seemed just like before. The faint line not getting any darker, the spotting on day 12, the cramps on day 13. They woke me at three o’clock this morning and I thought, I know how tomorrow goes because I’ve been here before. I go for my beta, the heavy red bleeding starts, and the nurse rings to say I’m pregnant but it’s not viable. And how long will this one take to resolve?

Not long, I hope, because in daylight things are different. That second line has gone completely and my period has started. I don’t know whether the Ovitrelle just took a very long time to leave my system, or whether I’ve had a chemical pregnancy, but maybe, just maybe, this time I’ll be able to move on quickly.

I need to trust God, I know that. I so desperately want a living child, and when treatment fails or babies are lost, there’s nobody else I can blame. But wrestling with God is destroying me. I need to stop looking for signs in magpies, stop insisting that a viable pregnancy this month is the only outcome I can cope with… and come back to this moment, sitting mindfully with my grief.

Crocuses in snow. Photo credit: Simon Dyer.