The Gallery | Bond

Falling pregnant is a funny old process. For some it happens in no time. For others it doesn’t. We were the latter. The day I discovered I was pregnant I felt really strange. Maybe I knew subconsciously. Something made me buy a pregnancy test in the chemist that Saturday. It’s not the same as grabbing a Diet Coke and a Twirl is it?

The Thursday prior I’d been on one of the biggest benders of my life. It was a marketing industry shindig but with people I, for the most part, knew very well. I have a vague recollection of discussing pant styles. I drank champagne, I drank wine, I drank shots. Lots of them. The following day I vowed never to drink alcohol again.

On the Saturday morning, after discounting the possibility of a two-day hangover, I bumbled off to the chemist to buy I can’t remember what. It wasn’t a pregnancy test but somehow it seemed right to buy one. We were trying after all. I didn’t tell The POD Father I’d got one as I didn’t want to build up his excitement only to crush the dream a few minutes later. So I peed on the stick and left it do its stuff by myself in the confines of the bathroom. I expected the result to be negative so when I saw it was positive my immediate reaction was to swear. A lot. Aside from that I was completely speechless. So much so when I passed the stick to The POD Father I couldn’t speak. I also forgot I hadn’t actually told him I’d bought a pregnancy test. Never did a look speak a thousand words.

We had a tennis court booked so we decided we’d still go and have a game. What followed was the most appalling game of tennis you’ve ever seen. To be fair it wasn’t even a game. Neither of us could hit the ball and we giggled like a couple of teenagers. We’d been having lessons locally and our coach, playing nearby, thought we’d completely lost our marbles. We didn’t mind we were very happy bunnies.

That feeling of total and utter joy was replaced with extreme worry two days later. In hospital the words ‘miscarriage’ and ‘eptopic’ were bandied around. It wasn’t looking good. I was also nearly forty and therefore classified as an ‘mature mother’.

We had our first scan at five weeks and saw the amniotic sac. At eight weeks there was a fetal pole (two of The POD Father’s favourite words ever) and amazingly a heartbeat. It was an incredible moment even though what we saw was so tiny.

At twelve weeks we saw POD looking like a baby for the first time. She was nicknamed ‘baby Jesus’ because of her Christmas Day due date and I was convinced she was a boy. We declined the downs test as it was invasive and there was a risk of miscarriage. We’d had enough scares. During the twenty week scan, I was so nervous I thought I might vomit. Even presenting to 100 people, I’d never experienced that level of nervousness before. It was off the scale.

The nerves were due to an underlying fear of pregnancy. I was diagnosed with epilepsy in 1983. Whilst I’ve been fit free since 1996, it’s widely documented anti-epileptic drugs (AED’s) can cause a multitude of complications in pregnancy. These can include facial deformities, spina bifida and heart defects. For this reason, I was prescribed with horse-like quantities of folic acid which I started taking several months before falling pregnant.

We had scans on a regular basis throughout my pregnancy. Whilst all parents have that indescribable bond with their offspring, I feel blessed that this journey began before POD even had a heartbeat. She made her appearance on Christmas Day 2010 after a 47 hour labour. And with all her bits and bobs.

Nothing comes close to the bond I have with POD and equally the bond The POD Father has with her.

The theme for The Gallery this week is “Bond”. To find out more, please visit Sticky Fingers.