Pregnancy Diaries: How We Found Out (And How Fajita Was Born)

We found out we were pregnant in February 2019. I already had a feeling I might be pregnant as my cycle was longer than normal, so on the Friday evening of 22^nd February, after he got home from work, I convinced Carl that we should take the test. While he pottered in the kitchen, I went upstairs to the bathroom to do the deed.

As soon as the moisture on the stick crept across the little window, I thought I’d seen the faintest of lines start to appear, but I didn’t want to jinx it, so replaced the cap and set the stick aside and sat and waited. And waited. Then before I took a proper look I just knew. Lo and behold, there it was; a definite solid line which meant it was positive. I was pregnant. I called downstairs to Carl, then he came to meet me at the foot of the stairs, where I stood holding the test behind my back. “I’m pregnant!” I told him, although I think he already knew as soon as he’d seen the beaming smile on my face. After lots of disbelieving hugs and kisses, I decided I wanted to take a proper test to tell me how far along I was, so we went off to Tesco to buy another one.

While we were walking around with the pregnancy test in our basket, still in the cumbersome security packaging and not very well hidden by the ingredients for dinner, we joked about people recognizing us, so it was just typical that we were collared by someone Carl knew from his rugby club who stood and chatted to us for what felt like a lifetime! I can remember Carl subtly trying to hide the basket out of view, but his friend even took a good look in the basket and commented on what “healthy ingredients” we were buying, so he definitely spotted the test! Talk about awkward.

The second test I took that evening confirmed I was 2-3 weeks pregnant, which was reassuring, but we still didn’t want to get too excited. It was the first time I had ever been pregnant and after hearing so many stories of people losing their babies, we both didn’t want to get our hopes up that this would really be it, only for it to go away again. Although thinking back, I’m sure it would have been utterly devastating no matter how much I’d managed to suppress my nervous excitement.

I can remember sitting eating our dinner feeling completely amazed that it had worked; we had conceived. Our parts worked. With a mixture of relief and incredulity, we sat speculating about the sex of the baby and as we were eating Fajitas, decided that would be the nickname for the little bean growing inside of me. The little bean that would one day become Charlie.