My Birth Story Part 1 - Getting Pregnant

It’s taken me 18 months to tell this story.

Despite loving reading other people’s birth stories and having a blog on which to share mine, I wonder why it’s only now I feel compelled to write about it. After all it was the second most important day of my life (behind the day my mother gave birth to me). 

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When I was in my twenties I thought 29-30 was a good/sensible age to have kids. I met Mr T just before my 27th birthday. There was still plenty of time I told myself.

I was engaged at 28 and was 29 when we were married in 2005 but neither of us was ready to start a family. I was too cautious and conservative to consider bringing a baby into the world before I had ticked a few more boxes - most importantly buying a house and saving up for the time I would take off work. It wasn’t about being career driven, it was about my career funding what I believed needed to be in place first. Our reality was and still is, that I earned more than Mr T and our choices were going to be different to couples where the male partner is the main earner.

We did what many young couples do and got ourselves a puppy and then another one… believing dogs would tie us over and teach us a few tips about parenting.

2007 was a rough year, I had experienced a really tough time at work and decided to leave the company I’d been working for for almost 8 years. Starting fresh meant I would have to wait at least 12 months before I could take any maternity leave. We also bought our first house that year and undertook a major rebuild, finally moving in a few days before Christmas.

We were mortgaged to the max and I started to have doubts on my suitability to motherhood - I wasn’t drawn to other people’s babies and wondered if this was a sign.

And then it started. Cluckiness. Initially just a few little niggling thoughts, building up to a stage where I vividly remember the point I made the decision. Ironically on a holiday in Thailand with a girlfriend. We laughed, got drunk, ate too much, sun baked, talked about men, bought knock off handbags and dreamed about our futures. For me it was a holiday of soul searching. But was we lazed by that pool, for the first time ever I became fixated on the young families around us with small babies. I watched them dote over their kids. I wanted that. Incredibly so. I wanted to ring Mr T more so than normal. I wanted to go home and make it happen.

Living it up in Koh Samui

We had never tried to make a baby before (well we may have practised the physical aspect once or twice but I am hoping you know what I mean) so what were my chances? Once you pass 30 you notice more and more (well meaning but in hindsight insensitive) questioning as to when you are going to start a family. I never really knew how to answer that. I didn’t even know if I could conceive.

When I returned home I SMS’d Mr T one day asking if we could try for a baby. Strange I know, but after 6 years together I couldn’t just come out and say it. We did talk about it that night and decided to just start being less careful and see what happened. No rush. After all I told him “it will most likely take 6 months to a year”. I am impatient, so I started Googling tips for conception. I read about the best sex positions and remembered seeing on Sex and the City something about keeping your legs up in the air afterwards to give the sperm the best chance to make it to their ultimate destination. I knew roughly when I was ovulating and so first time, I made sure we did the right things (according to Google).

Then I trotted off to Sydney for a week for work and figured we’d resume trying next the following month.
Within a few weeks I felt weird. I was exhausted. More so than normal. A kind of tired I have never felt before. And my boobs hurt – strangely so.

I knew. 3 home pregnancy tests later I was 99% certain.

Part of me panicked. I realised I had been pregnant during 3 boozy nights on my work trip. I hadn’t taken any preconception vitamins and my diet was less than ideal, but hey, as a friend reassured me, there are people way worse who end up with perfectly healthy babies.

I booked to see my GP to be 100% sure. It was just after the time when my next period would have been due. Mr T and I told my parents and swore them to secrecy – Mum cried, Dad’s eyes filled with pride and love. We wanted the blood test result to be certain – it was.

I began to see a different side to my husband. He was so proud of himself, of me, of us. He had good swimmers, they did the job first time round. How lucky were we?