The good news outweighed the bad news, but it didn't stop us feeling awkward. We'd called at Sainsbury's for a pregnancy test on the way to my brother's house. Perched on the edge of the bathroom we whispered in our excitement as we watched that word appear: Pregnant.
The bad news was that my brother and his partner had spent a fortune on swordfish for dinner. We googled it. No, as we thought - no swordfish for pregnant Sal, only a very small amount of swordfish for me; I was still breastfeeding Luna. At the table we awkwardly shifted bits of fish around our plates; the next day, feeling a bit guilty and a bit excitable we told them the news: four weeks pregnant.
Ten days later Sal woke me to say she'd had some bleeding. "There was a small clot - I'm afraid I think that was it." She wiped away her tears and we consulted the books. And there we found some hope because she wasn't in pain. She took her first sick day in ten years and, settled herself in bed for a day of worried wondering.
The following day at the hospital, while Luna entertained herself with the cubicle curtains, we watched as a tiny heartbeat pulsed contentedly. The heartbeat of a little five-and-a-half-week-old, not-yet-baby-shaped blob, bouncing around in its very spacious-looking uterine home.