Explain I’m feeling, you know… slight temperature, chest now so big could eat breakfast off my own boobs, metallic taste in mouth, period late. I pause, as if there was no need to go on.

‘Have you been in contact with animals?’ is his incisive first question, as he makes tiny marks with his biro on my notes.

‘Well, we do have a dog and a pony,’ I answer. I don’t say ‘Trumpet’ because I am now all too aware that everyone in the village is stalking me to steal away Trumpet for the nippers to use on first days ‘out’, which is how the hearty refer to the sacred sport.

‘Children ill? Any viruses going round at home?’ is his next line of enquiry.

‘Not that I know of,’ I answer. At this, Dr Ashburton seems well and truly stumped. He takes my temperature, giving me a two-minute opportunity to study the lush thicket of black hair sprouting vigorously from his ear. The thermometer reads 99 degrees. ‘Is that high?’ I ask hopefully.

‘No,’ he answers, putting it back on the desk, and looking at me over his spectacles, which I can’t help notice have a drab frosting of flakes and smears on the lenses.

‘Do you think there’s any possible chance I might be, urn…’ I trail off. I want Ashburton to join the dots for me.

‘Contagious?’ he queries.

‘No, I just thought, all my symptoms…’ I give a light laugh. ‘To tell you the truth, the last time I felt like this, I was pregnant with Posy.’

Dr Ashburton raises his luxuriant eyebrows, which have long, bristly hairs extruding, and I see him glance at my date of birth onscreen.

I want to shout at him. After all, he has two children, is miles older than me, and I don’t hear anyone accusing him of being a medical miracle or a senior father.

Men get away with everything when it comes to parenthood.

Dr Ashburton sighs heavily. He opens a drawer. Then another. Then he rather reluctantly gets up, and leaves the room without explanation. He leaves the door open. He is gone some time. I hear doors open and close in the corridor.

‘Have you got a sample?’ he says, when he comes back with a thin white package. I shake my head. He opens another drawer, takes out a specimen bottle, hands it to me and points to the door. I meekly exit.

I hand him the warm bottle on my return with a downcast, maidenly look. He unscrews it and jabs in the stick. Then he leaves the stick on the side of the sink.