Had an appointment with the midwife today.  This was the first appointment I have had where things did not go entirely according to plan.

I had, for a start, completely forgotten to do my urine sample, and had to try to squeeze it all out in the delightful conditions of the toilet in the GP’s surgery, which has signs pinned up all around it advising people not to make a mess and informing the plebs that should they have an “accident” they should inform reception so that they can “help you clean it up.”

I can only imagine the utter humiliation of having to have that conversation in the reception area with ten thousand people queueing up behind you and the assembled masses squeezed into the waiting room like sheep off to slaughter.

Also, is everybody in Wembley suffering from double incontinence?  Why does that sign even need to be up at all?  The last “accident” I had was on the way to gymnastics class in 1987 and even at the tender age I was then I managed not to wreck anything beyond my own leotard.

Anyway, I had the opposite problem as I only managed to squeeze out one tiny drop into the container, an embarrassingly poor effort on my part.  Even so, the midwife was still able to test this and confidently proclaim that it contained protein.

PROTEIN.  I’m not sure I even eat enough protein, let alone have such a surplus of it that it’s coming out in my urine.  This can only be A BAD THING.  A very bad thing, according to my knowledgeable searches on the internets, as this could be the start of pre-eclampsia, and that’s the thing that killed poor Lady Sybil in Downton Abbey.

OH MY GOD I AM GOING TO DIE LIKE LADY SYBIL!!!!!!!!!!

Well, OK, the midwife did have an alternative explanation for this.  She thought it might be a urine infection.  Not sure if anyone ever died from one of those, but it may mean I need to take antibiotics, which I will doubtless feel guilty about as will be contributing to the global epidemic of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that will one day wipe us out and take over the planet.  I can just imagine it now, me being rudely evicted from my flat by two tiny yet mighty blobs called Mr Bubonic Plague and Miss Small Pox, and them sitting down to enjoy a nice TV dinner on my cosy leather sofa in front of a BBC4 documentary about how these things called humans used to live on Planet Earth and they were really nasty and used to kill each other all the time in these things called Wars back in Ye Olden Days, and how Miss Small Pox herself nearly became extinct but luckily one of these humans had the foresight to keep her alive in captivity in a high security storage facility in America in case she might be needed for one of these Wars; and how Mr Bubonic Plague was briefly forced to eke out a miserable existence living in bins when those naughty humans proliferated.

Anyway, enough about diseases (although can I just say, not too long ago I read an article on the “Top Ten Worst Diseases Ever” and the worst one was something someone apparently had once in the Middle Ages where these insects burrowed inside his body and then multiplied until there were so many of them coming out of him that his servants had to maintain a constant routine of collecting them in buckets and emptying them into the sea until he finally died, eaten alive by insects.  IMAGINE IF THAT ONE CAME BACK).  The main point is I might have a urine infection, and this is kind of annoying.

Also, the baby is still back to back, and I’m not sure what to do about this as all the advice I have read says I should sit in a leaning forward position, but this is impossible as my bump is in the way.

Still, if last night’s antenatal class is anything to go by, all this might be the least of my concerns as when the baby is born, apparently my life is not only going to not involve never being able to drink a cup of tea from start to finish ever again, but every day will be one long panic about whether or not I have or am about to accidentally kill the baby.  Yes, apparently the whole flat (or any building in which the baby spends any time) needs to be maintained at a constant temperature of eighteen degrees celsius, the baby cannot under any circumstances have a duvet, it must lie on its back at all times, you cannot fall asleep on the sofa anywhere near it and it’s going to spend all day every day crying because you are a terrible parent who doesn’t know how to breastfeed, bathe a baby without drowning or scalding it, swaddle it properly or change its nappy, and it wishes it had been born into some nice family with two parents and a car and a proper house instead of to wretched old you.

I cannot wait.