It’s perfect timing. My period decides to come early for once and our clinic appointment is suddenly scheduled right before Freya’s birthday. That means we can combine going over to London for the frozen embryo transfer with celebrating Freya’s birthday there with her grandparents, who we hadn’t seen in person in nearly two years! It feels like it was meant to be.

When the day finally arrives, it’s a bright sunny morning in London exactly like when we transferred the embryo that would become Freya. That must be another sign, right? Despite the beautiful weather though, I am feeling exhausted and stressed. I barely slept the night before, our trip to London has been hard with an overstimulated toddler in tow, and I end up snapping at Jo enough to make her tear up (sorry my love!).

We eat breakfast in a café nearby because I wanted to be in the area well on time. I go into St. Paul’s cathedral for a quick prayer like we did last time, while Jo stays outside with Freya. They both walk me to the clinic’s doors, and… that’s it.

Because of Covid, I have to go in alone. I think my irritability that morning was about that, too. It’s not the same, it was never going to be the same, but if there’s ever a moment where you want your partner with you, it’s at the conception of your child!

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Freya was quite a late walker, she took her first steps at sixteen-and-a-half months. So she has been running around our house for only a few months now but it already feels like a distant memory that once upon a time she wasn’t everywhere at once. We must have been so well rested then… Ha!

She’s wonderfully sweet, but she’s also a cheeky little monkey who loves trouble.

When she’s verrryyy quiet, that’s when something is going down! She might be head-first into rooting through the kitchen bin, or attempting to deconstruct one of my orchids, or trying to poke the cat awake, or stripping off her nappy, or stealing knives off the kitchen counter and then running around with them while giggling madly like a happy ninja about to take out your kneecaps.

She loves her shoes. Her rainsuit. Tea, cheese, beans, and BANANAS.

She will take our hand, and gently, encouragingly, guide us towards the toilet while motioning to sit down, then hand us toilet paper and try to flush. She’s like the world’s tiniest and most thoughtful toilet attendant. Unless you close the door in search of some precious privacy of course, in which case she will screech in outrage that she’s been denied entrance.

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