Hello and welcome again to babynames.co.uk.
As I said last week, I would like to take you back to the beginning of mine and Ana’s baby adventure, and where else to start but at our surprise (and believe me, it was a surprise!) on discovering that we were pregnant.
Ana and I hadn’t been trying as such, but in the previous months the discussion had arisen. Ana was told she would struggle to conceive the longer she left it, and as my girlfriend of two and a half years reminded me, she was worried she would miss her opportunity. (In fact she had actually booked an appointment at a fertility clinic for the following week). A caring response and a not totally empty gesture from me – “maybe we should start trying soon” – sparked a moment of careless passion, unknowingly sealing my fate as a future father sooner than I could ever imagine.
The evening of the discovery started down the wine aisle in the supermarket. After I selected a peppery Shiraz, Ana suggested a triple pack of pregnancy tests as a complement. A strange suggestion, I thought, but I was informed that certain actions hadn’t been put into motion when they should have, and in an effort to not make me worry unnecessarily, she waited two weeks and got me in a busy public area to cushion a possible blow.
My first thought was that these pregnancy tests are very expensive.
My second was that we would have to use a self-service checkout if these were the only two items we were to buy.
When we arrived home, Ana disappeared into the bathroom and I perched on the sofa. I don’t remember when I opened the bottle but I remember thinking that at worst, I would get to have the wine all to myself.
“Ryan… it’s positive”.
Ana then had to explain to me what ‘positive’ means in relation to taking a pregnancy test because I’m a man, before I calmly grabbed at the box. Despite reading on the reverse that a ‘false positive’ isn’t possible, the two remaining pregnancy tests were still urinated on. In fact, I did one myself to confirm it wasn’t a dodgy pack.
With the instilled doubt that we could just get pregnant just like that, and in my disbelief that sperm could indeed be used for good and not evil, there we sat. Pregnant.
Our decision had been made for us.
I couldn’t quite comprehend it. (Something that would, and will, continue as I watch our daughter grow, just like I did Ana over those long nine months).
Of course, I had the normal conversation in my own head.
“Can I get done all that I want to do over the next three years?”
“What do I want to do?”
“Will I want a baby once I’ve finished doing what I want to do that I’m not sure I even want to do yet?”
I’m not much of a planner.
The remainder of a once-planned, wine-soaked night in went by in a sober haze for both of us.
I was soon told that we had entered the ‘first trimester’, which prompted a Google search to find out what it was. (My other tabs consisted of Skyscanner and the Canadian working holiday homepage). “Fatigue, morning sickness, headaches and constipation”. All those things aren’t so bad, but to what degree would they reach? Would she be a bunged up hibernating grizzly bear bound to emerge vomiting every morning for the next twelve weeks?
What did it matter? It was out of my control.
Next week holds the exciting for some, and daunting for others, event of informing our own parents. Question, is it just my Dad that has no filter?
Take care, all you parents and parents-to-be out there.
Ryan
