Getting my partner to do it, and how that felt

My nurse talked me through the first one on the phone and stayed on the line, and I have never been more grateful for nine minutes of somebody's time.

I was three days late twice because I could not face it, and I want to say that here because I felt like the only person that had ever happened to.

Counting down out loud sounds silly and was the only thing that stopped me hovering. Three, two, one, done, and the hovering was where all the fear lived.

Recognition rather than advice, if that is any use at all.

The anticipation faded for me at around week ten. Not gradually — I just noticed one week that I had done it without the preceding hour of dread.

Cold hands made mine worse. Warming up for a minute beforehand genuinely changed the experience and I found that out by accident.

I set a timer for two minutes, sat down, and told myself I only had to do it when the timer went. Ninety per cent of the time I did it before the timer.

Picking up Gavin’s point rather than starting a new one.

What I would say is that the anxiety is not a sign you should not be doing this. It is a very common response to a genuinely unusual thing to ask of yourself.

I read this twice. The second time was for the last paragraph.

I looked away for the first six months and then one day watched, and it was so much less than my imagination had been supplying.