The humiliation of the barreness, episode 1

I perch on the last seat of a row of vinyl waiting room chairs. I focus on Judge Judy on the little TV set suspended from the ceiling in an attempt to ignore the hurtful scene around me.

The pregnant woman next to me reeks of smoke. Her Peter Jacksons poke from the top of her handbag and her tuckshop lady's arms reveal tattoos peeking from the bottom of her cheap big-girl's tshirt.

'It's so silly,' giggles a twenty-something blonde to the nurse at the desk in the centre of the waiting room. 'You should have told me you wanted me to pee in a cup earlier. I just went to the loo. I need to pee all the time now I'm pregnant you know.'

'Come on now, love,' laughs the nurse conspiratorially. 'You know it's all part of the torture of pregnancy."

I ignore the blonde, the tuckshop lady and the blamange of pregnant bellies crammed into the waiting room and I focus harder on the television.

I bat back tears as Judge Judy passes judgement and punishment to the bad and the recalcitrant and wonder whose sensitive idea it was to schedule the infertile women into the pregnancy clinic.

We, the infertile, are the bad and the recalcitrant women too, I guess. And we take our punishment with quiet desperation.