After we got married, I couldn’t wait to fall pregnant. I just
felt ready and knew it would complete our family unit. We already had our fur
baby, Alfie, a black Labrador, but I was shocked by how broody I had become
when seeing other mums with their little ones.
So we agreed to stop trying to not conceive. This in itself was
very strange, for years you try not to get pregnant and suddenly you want this
to happen! I was convinced I would fall pregnant instantly, but month and after
month my time of the month would arrive and I would hide my disappointment. I
didn’t even tell my husband, Davy, how disappointed I was each time I would
discover that I still wasn’t pregnant!
I started to panic and think what if we were one of those
couples who have trouble falling pregnant. I even started to hate hearing about
someone else announcing they were expecting! Why was it so easy for them to
just get pregnant and not me! I have to say at this point, we had only been not
trying for 5months, so I knew I was being impatient. I had spoken to the Dr, out
of curiosity, and he advised it was only when we’d been trying for over one year
with no success that they would try to identify if we had any problem
conceiving. I was just desperate to fall
pregnant!
Then one day while at work, I noticed that the smell in the
kitchen of my colleague’s lunch was making me feel sick. It had never been an issue
before and so of course I jumped to the conclusion that I was pregnant! I couldn’t
wait to get out of work and buy a test. I went straight home and did the test,
but it came back negative.
I told Davy and he said it would happen when it happens and
not to worry. Call it intuition but I still felt like I was pregnant so I also
confided in him that I was convinced I was pregnant, even though the test said
differently!
However, for my own sanity I forced myself to forget these
feelings I had and to just get on with things, but my mind was running away
with itself. A couple of weeks later (2 weeks to be exact), I was still feeling
slightly sick and I had since read that doing a test in the evening was less
effective. So what did I do, I bought a couple more tests!
You can imagine my absolute delight and slight disbelief that
when I did a test at the weekend and it was positive!! I hid the test in my
dressing gown pocket, waiting and thinking on how I was going to tell Davy.
Little did I know, he had seen the pregnancy box in the bin and when I said I
had something to tell him, he guessed!! We were both so happy but also totally
terrified! We had spent the last 11 odd years trying to not get pregnant!!
I had bought the tests which show you the wording pregnant or
not pregnant but the wording disappears after a while. So for the first couple
of weeks after finding out I was pregnant, I actually kept buying tests and
just making sure I was definitely pregnant!!
I rang my Dr to make an appointment to get confirmation from a
healthcare professional that I was indeed expecting, but I was told the tests
are that accurate that if it says I am, then indeed I am. I was told to book an
appointment with the midwife for when I was 8 weeks pregnant! I couldn’t
believe I was just left to it, so I was terrified to believe I was expecting
until this appointment!
When I finally met the midwife again I couldn’t wait for the
confirmation that I was pregnant, but they just took some medical history and
explained about the appointments for scans at the Ulster hospital.
We literally could not wait to tell people our news, but
everyone says to wait until you are 12 weeks pregnant due to the possibility
that something could go wrong in these first few months, but we could not wait
to tell the grandparents!! We bought small white baby grows and with a marker I
wrote “Born in 2017”, one for each pair of grandparents.
We visited Davy’s mum and dad first, when we went into the house
Ethel was in her dressing gown and John made a comment “oh here comes granny
Ethel”, Davy and I looked at each other with a smile and gave over a little
gift bag. Ethel shrieked with delight as they both took in the news!
The following night we visited my parents, and I do not know why
but I was so nervous telling my parents!! I was waiting for the right moment to
tell them, so we just chatted away about their recent trip to England to see
their friends. The next thing Mum showed me a photo on her phone of her seven months
pregnant that her friend Rhonda had found. It seemed the perfect moment so I
gave over the gift bag. My mum opened the bag and actually thought I had given
her a pair of granny knickers from a game on my hen party, I laughed and said
no bring it out of the bag. When she read born in 2017, my mum actually said
what’s born in 2017?! My dad laughed and said what do you think is going to be
born? They were so excited for us, I cried.
My due date had been worked out as 13 October 2017. This was going to be very close to my brother’s wedding in
Copenhagen on 30 October 2017. I know we couldn’t do anything about it, but I
was nervous about telling my brother.
My mum had a family dinner and we decided
to tell them both then. Dad was giving out glasses of prosecco at the start of
the night, and I put apple juice into my champagne glass. My brother instantly
asked what I was drinking, I said its cider. He looked at me funny, so I wasn’t
sure if he had twigged on! As we were talking about wedding guests, I said they
might need to add another guest on, someone they hadn’t met yet. My brothers’
fiance Aoife started to shout I knew it, I knew it. My brother looked so
confused and Aoife had to spell it out, she’s pregnant!
We told them my due date,
I was a bit emotional as we had been looking forward to their wedding for so
long and had everything booked and paid. I tried to convince myself that I would
get to the wedding if our baby was born in time; I mean the baby just had to be seven days old to fly, it was possible.
Time seemed to drag by for our twelve week scan appointment to roll
around. Davy joked that it could be twins as they run in his family, with his
mum a twin! As soon as we got into the room with the sonographer, Davy announced
we are not finding out the sex. We had decided we wouldn’t find out the sex of
the baby and just wait for the surprise. I have to admit though the suspense
was killing me and on a couple of occasions at extra appointments, I was
tempted to find out and just not tell Davy I knew, but I didn’t since Davy was
so sure it would be more special if it was a surprise!
I just had to wait, but it didn’t stop us guessing what we would
have. I was convinced it was going to be a boy. I had read that if you have dry
skin, crave savoury or sour things and your bump is more to the front then it
would be a boy, and I had all of the above! I also knew that sods law would
mean I have a boy as my cousin had 3 bags full of girl’s clothes that I could
have!
My pregnancy was fairly uneventful, I had a bit of nausea and I
experienced the all consuming exhaustion, but this soon passed. I was just so
excited to start getting a bump but realised this takes time to show!! I was
nearly four months pregnant before I was getting a small bump, although it felt
huge to me. I loved looking at my side profile in the mirror and was reading
about the stages of my pregnancy on a daily basis, telling Davy what size the
baby would now be in terms of fruit!
We decided that as we live in a world of social media where
everyone knows what everyone is doing, that we were not going to announce our
pregnancy on FaceBook. Instead we would tell close family and friends and then
let everyone else find out by word of mouth or by bumping into us (excuse the
pun!). We found the shock on people’s faces quite funny when they realised we
hadn’t shared this life event with the world and their brother!
Overall I really enjoyed being pregnant, I loved my bump getting
bigger and the appointments to check up on baby. I had more scan appointments
than normal as when I was younger I had an operation on my spine and I have two
metal rods along my spine. The midwives and consultants had to be sure that I
could deliver naturally and to double check what pain medication I could have
during labour. I used these appointments as an opportunity to hear the baby’s
heart beat and see scan pictures!
When I met with the midwife she had advised me to create a rough
birth plan and advised it could change as no two labours are the same. I had my
heart set on a water birth, as i love being in the water and thought it would
be relaxing during what was undoubtedly going to be a very painful experience.
I also met with an anaesthetist about the likelihood of an
epidural with the metal rods in my back. They advised that only during an
emergency c-section would they administer one and went through other pain
options.
I finished work at the end of September, and I was so glad to be finishing. By this stage, my bump was huge, I was so uncomfortable as Baby Scott loved to kick and was pushing on my lungs making the walk from my car to work more and more difficult everyday! All I had to do now
was wait on baby Scott’s arrival!
Xx
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