one word

I realised the other day

that of the many things I've talked about on this blog

I've never talked about the one word that changed my life.

And with only a couple of weeks left until my beautiful boy turns one,

it seemed like it might be time,

time to talk about that one word,

talk about the day our lives changed

and the day that we found out we were going to be parents.

Almost as soon as we got married we started talking about when we would have a family,

but as newlyweds we were living in a one bedroom rented flat

and it just didn't seem the right place to raise a child.

My husband was ready for children before I was,

the day before our wedding I would have sworn 

that we would wait another few years before having children.

But something about getting married changed our relationship,

we belonged together now,

and before we even boarded the plane to return from our honeymoon 

we were talking about getting our own home 

so we could have a family.

Fast forward six months from our wedding

and we were living at my parents

while we waited for our first proper home to be built.

By March 2010, eight months after our wedding

we had our own home

and the mortgage that came with it.

And we were over the moon

because now our married lives could really start.

In the April we bought two little fluffy babies into our home.

We got the first taste of being parents.

We doted on them, spoiled them, cuddled them and generally made a fuss of them.

We were so ready to be parents.

So in May 2010 we decided to start trying for a baby.

I say trying,

really it was more that we weren't not trying anymore.

Friends of ours had taken months to fall pregnant and had let it really stress them out,

we didn't want to become that couple,

we just wanted to go with the flow and see what happened.

At the end of May I was on half term holiday from school,

we had lots of family events planned

including my hubby's cousin's wedding in Wales the first weekend in June.

The half term week flew by like usual

and before I knew it I was packing my bag for a weekend away.

As a loaded up the mountains of cosmetics that I like to take away with me,

I picked up the box of tampons knowing I was due on my period at some point over the weekend.

I didn't think much of it really.

Until we were in the car

which is always when I do a lot of thinking

and I realised that my period was a day late.

Only a day late so not that big a deal

but . . . what if?

So we stopped on the way to pick up a pregnancy test,

mainly because I was planning on drinking at the wedding

and I just wanted to check.

And I really though it was just to check.

I honestly thought in my bones

that the test would be negative.

On the morning of the 5th I was nudged awake by my husband telling me to go and do the test.

Part of me didn't want to.

I was really afraid of what would happen.

I knew I'd be disappointed if it was negative, because we did want to be pregnant,

but at the same time I hadn't really mentally prepared for the possibility that I might be.

So I peed on the stick

and left it in the bathroom face down.

I was excited and scared, not really ready for whatever the test would say.

My husband asked me why I'd left the test in the bathroom

and told me to bring it into the bedroom so we could see it together.

He asked if it said anything yet.

I wouldn't look.

I told him very firmly that we needed to wait 3 minutes 

and it had only been 1.

But I peeked,

just for a second,

and there it was in black and white;

Pregnant.

My face clearly gave the game away

because he instantly asked me what was going on.

I still couldn't allow myself any excitement

so I told him that it did say pregnant

but that we had to wait the full three minutes to be sure.

And after three minutes passed. . .

there it still was.

And the added confirmation of 2-3 weeks.

I looked my husband in the eye and whispered

we're pregnant

but I said it as half statement, half question.

It just didn't seem possible that we could have been that lucky,

to fall in the first month of trying.

It was the strangest of days.

We couldn't be excited

because we didn't want to tell anyone

and we were away from home with no personal space to just think.

Most of the family at the wedding

we hadn't seen since our own wedding 10 months before,

and they all spent the day asking us when we were going to be starting a family.

It was completely bizarre carrying round such a big, exciting and life-changing secret.

We spent the day looking at the photo we had taken of the test whenever we had a private moment.

That photo helped us to believe that it had actually happened

and we were actually expecting a baby.

It's such an overwhelming thing,

finding out that you're expecting a baby;

realising that you are going to become a family.

An overwhelmingly wonderful and scary thing.

We were giddy with excitement right from the start.

We had our moments,

when we doubted if we had what it would take to look after another tiny, fragile little human being.

But mostly we just felt very proud of ourselves.

I did two more test when we were home again.

The day we found out had just been so out of the ordinary

that it seemed afterwards like perhaps we has dreamed it.

We hadn't of course.

And almost eight months to the day after that strangest of days,

our beautiful boy came into the world

on another surreal kind of a day.

He made dreams come true

and he made us a family.

So that one word; Pregnant

changed everything.

And then a little boy changed everything even more.

And another one word took over everything; Love

although that one word will never quite be enough.