Weeks 0-4
Fraser
My wife, Amelia, had been casually bringing up the subject of babies for a while since I talked her out of getting a cat. I had been pretty apathetic about the whole thing, I wanted children for sure, but something stopped me from thinking the time was right.

Then one day it just happened, I woke up and the time was right. Amelia brought up the subject of babies again and when I said 'yeah, let's go for it', her expression went through surprise, doubt, scepticism (I hesitate to use her 'what's in it for you' look), more surprise, more doubt, and then definite happiness - a massive smile coupled with the words 'really, really?'

Amelia
So we have finally decided to go for it. After a mildy drunken evening at our friends house just before Christmas, Fraser and I started talking about Christmas and how much fun it would be if we could wake up on Christmas morning with a really over-excited little one who had lots of presents under the tree. We had been married just under a year and it always seemed as if we were too young to be thinking about a family (I'm 27 and Fras is 29), we were still enjoying weekends with friends and jetting off to see family in Italy whenever we felt like it. So when we started talking about having a family it took me a little by surprise, although it also made me so happy, that Fras felt it was the right time too.

Fraser
So it was time to make babies. Now I knew how organised Amelia was, but she really surpassed herself with the programme she developed. This was just after mid-April, we were going on holiday on the 22nd for two weeks, July for one week (which we could miss if necessary) and also in October. So in order for the July and October trips to be as hassle-free as possible, she should be less than six months pregnant and more than three months pregnant for each. At least that is the shortened version of the speech Amelia made to me concerning cycles, ovulation, conception, fertility, and other such words. Anyway, our window would close in July. I had a busy couple of months ahead!

Amelia
We had a fantastic holiday in New Zealand trying loads of new food like oysters and sampling many of the lovely local wines. My period was due halfway through the second week we were there. After I was a day late (told you I was timetabled) I started feeling a little anxious. We finally found a tiny chemist and got the pregnancy tests. We hurried back to our room and Fras waited outside the bathroom while I elegantly peed into the tiny pot then called him back in for the actual test.

Fraser
'Is that a line?' 'You sure?' 'Was it there before?' 'I guess it's a kinda line?' 'Let's do another one.' 'Ok, so it is a line - you're pregnant!'

It didn't really sink in straight away. Then Amelia smiled. Then I smiled. Then we were both grinning from ear to ear. 'Let's celebrate, I'll go get some champagne,' I was almost jumping now I was so excited. 'Not for me,' replied Amelia, 'I'm pregnant.'

Weeks 5-9

The story so far: Fraser and Amelia are expecting their first child. This month they're keeping secrets and an exciting first scan...

Amelia
As soon as we got home, I made an appointment to see my doctor, which turned out to be nothing like I had expected. Firstly he told me off for seeing him and not the nurse, and then said that he assumed I wanted to keep it and that I'd hear from the midwife in about two weeks if they hadn't lost my referral! I came out of the doctors feeling as if I was about to start crying, he hadn't given me any advice at all and seemed less than interested, like I was wasting his time. But I made an appointment with the nurse for the next day. She was lovely and seemed to be more excited than me that I was pregnant.

Fraser
We really wanted to tell people but it was still early days, but we decided to tell our parents. We were too excited not to tell anyone.

Amelia's mum had been dropping baby hints longer than Amelia so we knew she'd be excited at the prospect of her first grandchild and she was; she started knitting almost straight away. Her dad was over the moon too and had a little cry over the phone, as did my mum when we called her.

Amelia
Fras took it upon himself to be my personal health advisor and we bought lots of books on pregnancy and diet and he swotted up and read me bits about what I should and shouldn't be eating. We generally eat pretty well, so I didn't need a major diet change.

I was really looking forward to starting to feel and look pregnant, as apart from sore breasts and needing to pee more often, I didn't have any symptoms. I was even looking forward to morning sickness! However, for about three or four days I felt pretty queasy for a couple hours but was never sick and that was it! Reading message boards with other ladies writing about having morning sickness I now feel really lucky.

Fraser
We're struggling to keep it a secret - people are asking why Amelia isn't drinking (everyone knows her too well) and excuses of antibiotics or headaches will only work once or twice. We have some nights out ahead, also a visit from my family, a visit to my sister and on top of this a wedding to go to with all Amelia's university friends. Our lies will need to be believable.

One downfall was visiting my sister. She and Amelia usually enjoy a few glasses of wine when they get together, but this time we had our excuse prepared. We would say that Amelia wasn't drinking because we were getting up very early the next morning to drive to Scotland and Amelia was doing the first stint. We weren't prepared for dinner however: my sister announced how she and her kids had made this 'special' chocolate mousse for Auntie Amelia and started listing the ingredients, one of which was raw egg. What could we do now? Amelia would never normally turn her nose up at chocolate mousse and with the fuss being made by the kids about how much they had done to make it, it would be harder to refuse. After one rapid, whispered conversation later we decided we ought to come clean and break the news. I'm so glad that we did as she immediately burst into tears and gave us both massive hugs, saying that her wee brother was going to be a daddy.

Amelia
We were determined not to let on to my university friends as we didn't want to announce our news at the wedding, and steal their thunder. We'd decided to say I had an impacted wisdom tooth and was on antibiotics so couldn't drink. Nobody believed us. My friends kept asking if I was pregnant and I kept saying I wasn't. I'm sure hormones had something to do with it but I started crying at the wedding as my friend looked so happy and it was such a lovely day.

As it is our first pregnancy, we decided to have a Viability Scan privately, to check all was going well. The doctor was lovely and seemed really excited that we were pregnant, which was really nice and unexpected. I thought he'd have already done 20 or so scans that day would be fed up but not at all. It was absolutely amazing, we could see this little peanut-shaped thing, which was 15mm from head to bum and had a tiny heatbeat going strong.

Fraser
Nothing had prepared me for how I would feel when I saw our child on the screen for the first time. The doctor rigged everything up, switched on the screen and there it was, the same shape as in all the books we'd read. My hand shot out and grabbed Amelia's foot (the part of her body nearest to me) and squeezed. I was smitten. There were limb buds, a tiny head and a tiny heart, flickering away. It was such an amazing feeling, only bettered when the doctor switched on the volume and we could hear this tiny heartbeat. It was truly awesome. The doctor printed out some fantastic images for us and then we were off, smiling broadly.

From the measurements and the information we gave him our due date was estimated as 9th January. This meant that the conception was just after mid-April, practically immediately after we started trying! I was quite pleased with myself.

Weeks 10-14

The story so far: Fraser and Amelia are expecting their first child. This month, a shock turns into fantastic news...

Amelia
The next couple weeks were pretty quiet until I went to the loo just before leaving work one evening and saw some blood. I went totally cold, ran back to my office and phoned Fras. He calmed me down a bit and we decided that I should call the midwife at my doctor's surgery. She told me to take a couple days off work and rest and that if the bleeding got any worse or if there was any pain I should go to casualty. We were both so worried about the baby that we wanted another scan to check everything was ok. So the next day, after hours of trying, I managed to find a sympathetic nurse at the hospital who booked me in for the next day.

We arrived at the hospital, still feeling nervous, but I lightened the mood by accidentally locking myself in the loo in the waiting room. After much pulling and banging on the door I finally emerged, much to the amusement of Fras and the rest of the waiting room. Luckily we needn't have worried. Our little one had doubled in size since our scan two weeks ago. The heartbeat was going strong and what gave me a bit of a shock was that he was also moving, arms and legs wiggling around like mad. It was really fantastic, we were over the moon, it was so lovely and such a relief.

Fraser
Our next scan came quicker than expected, but not under the best of circumstances. I got a phone call at work from Amelia sounding quite upset. She had been bleeding, not much, but bleeding all the same. We decided it would be best for her to call the nurse or midwife and while she was doing that I was scouring iVillage for articles on bleeding during pregnancy. Every article I read said that it could be perfectly normal but to still seek medical help. This was still not very reassuring though as it was our first pregnancy and to me any kind of bleeding is a bad sign. The midwife suggested that Amelia go home and rest and if the bleeding persisted to get back in touch, so we both left work in an instant and headed home. I can't remember driving home that day - I was so scared.

I got home and the bleeding had stopped, it had just been a tiny bit. I made sure that Amelia lay down though and didn't get up for the rest of the night. The next day there was no more blood but we were still quite worried. We had both taken the day off, Amelia to rest and myself to make sure that she rested - I know what she's like. We tried phoning the midwives at our hospital but couldn't get any answer and still needed some reassurance. We tried the maternity ward, but they told us that they didn't deal with anyone under 18 weeks - even after we explained the situation! We were both angry and upset and were contemplating going to A&E at this point, but we knew that this probably wouldn't help. Eventually we got an extremely helpful lady at the maternity records department who booked us in for a scan the next day.

I don't like hospitals at the best of times but for something like this it was so much worse. As we sat waiting for our scan we were the only couple that didn't seem happy to be there, although the mood was lightened when Amelia managed to lock herself in the waiting room toilet.

I was desperate for everything to be ok but was so scared to go into the scan in case it was bad news. I sat at the side of the bed for what seemed like hours while they prepared Amelia and the scanner. It was such an enormous sense of relief to see that everything was ok. We left the hospital relieved and took the rest of the day off emotionally drained but happy.

We rounded off the month by making the news public. It was so great and everyone we told seemed so happy for us. My mates from back home surprised me a lot by getting pretty excited and some even sent us cards. It was pretty cool.