Yellow Vans

When I was at university, I took six months off and went on NOLS course- for those of you not familiar with the National Outdoor Leadership School, it's like Outward Bound, only slightly more hardcore, or at least it was when I did it. One of my instructors was this sort of Zen god- he exuded this aura of knowingness, and insight into the mundane. In retrospect I don't know if he was actually any more clued up than you or I, but when you are impressionable and 21, he sounded pretty good.

One of the things that he said that has stuck with me for years was this:

"I never noticed how many people in the world drive yellow vans. Until I started sleeping with a woman who drove one."

This amusing little truism has applied to a lot of things for me over the years, but never has it been truer until I packed my bags for my delightful TTC journey. Suddenly, the world around me is FULL of pregnant women, big bellied, glowing, mothers-to-be. Or full of baby buggies with pink cheeked little infants.

After my trip to see Dr Endocrine, my mother and I stopped in at a local department store to do a little shopping. Truth be told, I was looking for a little retail therapy, because I was just feeling so down in general.

And the place was wall to wall babies. Couples arm in arm cooing over precious little poppets, a young mother with said child strapped to her chest FOLLOWING us around the shop. I am not, and have never been, really resentful of other people's children. A mild envy and vague sense of the injustice of it all is as far as it really went. Until then- when it hit me.

The world is suddenly full of people driving yellow vans. And at the moment, all of them have a baby on board.