Tuesday September 20th

11am. Sit Up Britain office. In loos, panicking. After promising start, entire day is hideously unravelling. Woke up without being sick for first time in weeks and got into work freakishly early, bursting with ideas for morning meeting, only to be greeted by Richard Finch, careering around me like enormous pantomime bee, going: "Bleedin' hell. It's a sign. It's a portent. The end of the world is nigh."

"What?" I said, crossly trying to get past him to my chair.

"Bridget Jones is on time."

"Well, that's good, isn't it?" I said, primly, starting to unbutton my jacket.

"Dunno. Scary. Maybe too scary. Now - I'm thinking Kate Moss, I'm thinking call the photo agencies. I'm thinking off-guard pictures with her mouth open making her look like a haggish crackhead... Gaaah! Jesus Christ!"

"What?"

"Your tits! They're fucking enormous. Freddo! Come and look at this."

Crossing my arms, furious, I turned my back on him, spluttering, "I could have you reported to the sex discrimination authority for this... this... harassment."

"Oh come on. I'm just remarking on a natural phenomenon. If you saw a double-sized double-decker bus, like a quadruple-decker, you'd remark on it, wouldn't you? "

"It's not the same," I hissed. "I am a human being."

I mean, I would have resigned on the spot, but I have to think of the child.

"Are you pregnant or something?"

I froze. Oh my God. My secret!

"Richard, really I think that's a bit beyond the pale," Freddo chipped in, in his resonant Oxbridge tenor. "One doesn't need to be actually cruel."

This was going from bad to worse. Did Freddo think I was so old that just asking me if I was pregnant was crueller than making sexist remarks about my tits?

"I'm going to the loo," I said, confusedly hearing Richard chortle: "Not to be sick, I hope."

Once there, I sat down, shaking, grabbing desperately at my mobile when it rang.

"Oh hello, darling. So you're still alive," said an icy voice.

"Mum, I'm sorry. It's just..."

"No, no, it's fine! Don't worry about me. I know you're busy with your life. I don't expect you to return my calls."

"Mum..."

"Anyway, I was just ringing to see if you saw Camilla's hat."

"Yes," I said wearily. "I saw Camilla's hat."

"Well exactly. And this Kate that Prince William's marrying. I mean, she was wearing a very eye-catching hat on the side of her head, wasn't she?"

"Kate and William are not getting married, Mother. They're just being sensible and taking it step by step."

"Yes but, the point is, darling, men do like it if you wear something a little bit eye-catching. It's like that MP woman, do you remember? Who wore the unusual shoes."

"Mother," I hissed, "Camilla's hat was insane. She might as well have put a plank of blue wood on her head or a litter of puppies. If you go out in something lurid or mad of course people will comment on it, but it doesn't mean they actually like it. It certainly doesn't mean I'm going to ensnare a member of the Royal Family by putting a bunch of lemons on my head, if that's what you're..."

There was a sudden banging on the loo door. "Bridget, it's Patchouli," - Richard's PA - "Richard says he's sorry about the tits thing and you've got to come out now."

"Tell him to bog off," I yelled, not, admittedly, very professionally. "I'm on the phone."

"All I'm saying, Bridget, is maybe if you dressed a bit more..."

"Mum, I've got to go."

I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the toilet wall feeling like whole world was going mad. Currently feel strange affinity to both Kate Moss and President Bush in sense that everything is falling apart and everyone starting to notice, but am still defiantly ploughing on. Everyone in world seems to accept that Bush is useless and mad, all busily e-mailing each other pictures of him cheerily sport-fishing in New Orleans street with his Dad, but he is still going along being President of most powerful nation on earth. Is exactly the same, perhaps, as me.

"Bridget!"

"Go away, Patchouli. Tell Richard Finch I'm very cross and if he doesn't leave me alone to recover my composure, I'll sue him."

You see this is what I need to do: take control of the situation.

Thing is, cannot quite believe that pregnancy is just being allowed to happen and am going along contentedly, buying more and more tiny baby clothes when have not even gone to doctor, informed potential fathers or purchased instruction manual. Is weird, surely, that these days you cannot buy a camera or mobile phone without instruction manual the size of a paperback book and yet you can do something as complicated and important as growing a baby or invading Iraq without any instructions at all.

Maybe problem is that do not want to go to doctor for first visit without baby's father. Used to fantasise about going to first scan with both Mark Darcy and Daniel - but not about going to first scan with both Mark Darcy and Daniel at same time, if see what mean. Oh bloody hell, what am I going to do? What if neither of them wants to be the father? What if they both want to be the father and get upset about the other one being it?

Right. Am going to emerge from Denial. These are the things I could do:

Not tell Mark or Daniel am pregnant.

Tell them I'm pregnant but pretend that neither of them is the father.

Tell both of them they are the father.

Tell both of them the other one is the father.

Find out who is the father and then if the one who isn't the father is upset about it, offer to have another baby with whoever isn't the father afterwards.