My fault

Yessssss! Sweet Jesus Gay, I'm back.

In the end, I have had to McGyver an internet connection out of my 10 year old laptop, a paperclip, frog modem and a section of my small intestine. It's painfully slow, and all the fonts look funny, but it's at least a connection.

Yesterday I ran home at lunch time to phone my ISP to establish if the problem lay at their end. Cue Telephonic Abyss of Death. The automated voice that greets you when you ring my server is so disdainful and depressing, it makes you want to stick your head in the oven. As if infertility and a wonky internet connection aren't bad enough, you have to listen as Automaton drones through the options.

Press 1 to speak to somebody who knows nothing about your problem, press 2 to be told that we have lost all your billing details again, press 3 to go straight into the Seventh Ring of Hell.

Finally, after 20 minutes on hold, I got through to a slightly more animated drone- that is to say he actually was a person rather than a computer voice, but that was about the only difference.

He went away and goosed my line or whatever it is they do, and came back to report that it was my problem.

Noooo, I wailed. Are you sure? They say it's a 50% chance either way that the cause is male or female. It can't be meee!

Well, he went on to say, it's working fine on this end. Are you sure you're not using any birth control, like a firewall or anti-virus software?

Of course I'm not. I don't even own any birth control!

Well, could you check?

I wouldn't know where to look.

OK, go to your clitoris and click on "run"…

My WHAT?

Your clitoris. Your S-T-A-R-T button.

Look, pal, I'm running a Mac here. Leave my clitoris out of it.

With that our conversation came to a frosty end.

So, dear blog readers, I am still none the wiser as to the cause of my internet woes. I have cleared caches, checked settings, looked knowingly at systems logs, done the Hokey Pokey and turned myself around. An insanely expensive computer should work. It does not. E.'s friend, a reputed computer genius is coming out to look at it this weekend.

One thing is for sure, like it or not, I depend on the internet, my friends at my message board (also known as Camp Control Freak) and the blogosphere for my sanity. Without it, I realised I am alone with my thoughts and fears about what is happening to me, and to us as we struggle to get pregnant. That's OK some of the time, but quite daunting as a permanent prospect.

I wonder if the Apple helpline people would blame it all on me, too?