As with many couples, COVID 19 disrupted our plans.
After changing the date 4 times, we finally got married on 7th August 2021 and the day was worth the wait. Being surrounded by friends and family, all there to celebrate you- it's delightful, a bit odd and bloody expensive.
But we were supposed to get married in 2020. We were supposed to spend time as a married couple, just the two of us, before embarking on our journey to become a family.
Whilst not traditional in every sense, my wife did insist on being married before having kids...but now we had lost a full year and I was on the wrong side of 35...being a couple and enjoying just us didn't seem like it was possible anymore.
I had no desire to be an old old dad...my knees and back are shot to pieces as it is from years of playing & being moderately ok at football.
Plus all the questions. People meaning well I am sure but the assumption that the marriage has happened so babies must be next really puts pressure on.
We had a house, we got 2 cats, we got married...
I felt like the clock was ticking.
Of course there was no guarantee of how long it takes to get pregnant. There was no guarantee we could even get pregnant.
But there is palpable pressure. Pressure to move to the next stage of our lives together, pressure to perform in the bedroom when needed, pressure to silence the worry in my own head that it's even possible to be a dad.
We discussed it as a couple, and my wife decided to come off the pill with the understanding it's likely to takes months of trying before anything happens. Let's just enjoy us for as long as we can.
We had the the oldest/youngest in the class conversation. My wife is a teacher so she told me that we wanted to try and give birth between September and Christmas and avoid the summer months so they are not the youngest in their year.
How can we even influence that? All sorts of things ran through my head. We now had a deadline...I thought about everything from positive manifestation to gravity assisted adult cuddles and special vitamins.
Does any of that even work?
Step forward ovulation tracking...I mean, there is literally an app for everything.
I don't pretend to understand the biology behind it but I do know that there is a short window of time each month when my wife was more likely to get pregnant and when the time comes, I had to be ready.
I don't know about anyone reading this but that type of pressure for a guy isn't helpful, if you catch my drift.
When the app says go...we go. This included Boxing Day 2021! Whilst it is difficult to know exactly when the magic happened, working backwards from when we found out she was pregnant in early January, the quick nipping back to ours from the in laws, full of turkey sandwiches and cheese, seems like the most likely culprit.
My wife had just gotten over having COVID but she started feeling a little different to normal. Her period hadn't arrived as it usually did and her queasiness was more than just a Christmas dinner hangover.
We decided to get a pregnancy test. Quick side note on these... standing in Tesco looking at the various tests, with their various prices and various guarantees of accuracy I had no idea what one was the right one to buy. The irony of all these tests being next to a plethora of tablets aimed at getting you pregnant on one side and a variety of condoms aimed at stopping you getting pregnant on the other wasn't lost on me. I opted for the cheapest digital display test to avoid any confusion of lines....seemed like that was a sensible choice.
We sat down together to just test the theory that she could be pregnant, fully expecting it to be negative and she was just under the weather.
Nope!
As we sat in the bathroom holding hands waiting for the test to tell us what the score was, we joked about it being unlikely to get pregnant more or less at the first time of asking and perfectly line with a September due date. I also commented on the fact she could never divorce me now as I have seen her wee'ing on a stick...she was stuck with me for life.
As the word started forming on the test, I clocked it first - Pregnant
Let the fun and games begin
*Key things I have learned from this experience
- people are going to accidentally pressure you. They mean well and it's just conversation to them. Remember, you don't have to do anything with their suggestions!
-telling your wife to lay flat with the legs in the air and let gravity help, might of actually worked (this has not been medically tested)
-as with most baby things...there is a cheap option, an expensive option and everything in between. I have learned that in the UK we have such exacting standards for testing on anything being sold as 'for babies' that as long as you are buying it from a recognised shop (and not the inside pocket of Dodgy Darren's coat), the cheapest options are probably fine
コメント