Anastasia’s pregnancy diary – up to week 10

So that brings us back to the day I was expecting my period. I found myself in a familiar scenario; it’s 6am and I’m once again peeing on a stick. Except this time, almost immediately, two lines appeared. Two lines. I looked at the stick in the light, looked at it again near the window, and wondered if my eyes were creating blue lines where there were none. I called for Nick. ‘How many lines do you see here?’ Groggily, he mumbled, ‘Two. What does that mean?’ (Men). ‘It means we did it. We’re pregnant.’ He looked at me with doubt, not sure if this might just be another of my phantom pregnancies or emotional breakdowns. But he sensed my conviction and said, ‘Wow’ over and over as we stumbled back to bed, trying to convince each other that we were really going to have a baby.

Weeks 4-10 – it’s real

The first thing you learn when you’re pregnant is that you’re ‘four weeks pregnant’ when in fact you have only just missed your period and the little embryo can’t be more than two weeks old. But that’s the way it’s measured, and in early pregnancy every day is a milestone. So being ‘4 weeks pregnant’ feels like a bonus. Every time I go to the loo, I half-expect to see blood and when I don’t, I breathe again.

Nick and I spend the first week looking at each other in disbelief. We really did it. We decide not to tell anyone for a while, but I have lunch with my friend Rebecca the day after the pregnancy test and she looks at my face and knows immediately. So once it’s out of the bag, we tell the world. Every once in a while, someone will say, ‘You can’t tell anyone until you’re twelve weeks pregnant,’ and I realise that I hate this ridiculous rule. If, God forbid, I were to miscarry, should I shoulder that responsibility myself and suffer in silence? Are you meant to lie to friends and pretend nothing’s happened?

I immediately make an appointment with my GP to tell her the good news. To my surprise and disappointment, there are no ‘official’ tests or scans or anything…She simply believes me, congratulates me, and half-heartedly takes my blood pressure. She pulls out a little paper wheel, asks me the first day of my last period, and announces that my baby is due March 7, 2001 – my own birthday. Although I take this as a good omen, I leave the surgery with the unnerving feeling that maybe I’m not really pregnant after all. Thirty quid and three more pregnancy tests later, I’m pretty sure the twin blue lines aren’t lying. This is real. As I walk to the bus stop I repeat to myself: I am pregnant, I am going to be a mum, there is a tiny living thing inside me. Wow.

Catch up on Josa Young's diary up to week 10 of her pregnancy.