Finding Out I Was Pregnant & Trusting My Intuition
I found out I was pregnant in July 2015. Looking back now, it feels like a lifetime ago, not just in years, but in who I was and how much life has changed since then.
At the time, I didn’t immediately suspect pregnancy. I’d been feeling unwell for a few weeks: constantly tired, run-down, and drained in a way that didn’t feel normal. I was also experiencing severe headaches – which are also not uncommon for me. The kind of headaches that make it hard to focus or function properly, so I went to the GP, who diagnosed me with sinusitis and prescribed medication for the pain.
But the medication didn’t help. In fact, I ended up feeling worse! I was nauseous, low on energy, and just off. One afternoon, while doing a food shop in Tesco, I wandered past the toiletries aisle and noticed the pregnancy tests. I didn’t really think I was pregnant, but something inside of me just gave me nudge, that quiet internal voice we sometimes ignore. On this occasion I listened and picked up a pregnancy test.
When I got home and took the test, I was completely shocked. It was positive. The lines were faint, but they were there. Still unsure, I took another test a few hours later. Followed by another one the next day, this time a different brand from the local chemist. All of them said the same thing: I was pregnant.
At first, I felt overwhelmed not because I wasn’t happy, but because I was anxious. Just under a year earlier, I’d had a missed miscarriage, and the fear of going through that again hit me hard. I didn’t want to get ahead of myself or feel hopeful, only to face that heartbreak again. When I started to feel similar pains on the right side of my belly just like last time, the anxiety and fear grew even more.
I booked a GP appointment, who referred me to the Kingston hospital for an early scan. I was nine weeks pregnant. Sitting in that same waiting room again, in the exact same hospital, the déjà vu was intense. I braced myself for bad news, convinced I’d hear the same words: “I’m sorry, there’s no heartbeat.”
But this time, that moment never came.
The nurse found the baby’s heartbeat straight away. She turned the screen and showed me a tiny, strong flicker on the monitor. Everything looked healthy. The baby was there. Growing. Real.
I can’t describe the relief I felt, seeing that little heartbeat. All I wanted then was to make it safely past the 12-week mark, knowing that the risk of miscarriage drops significantly. I did get past that milestone, however the constant worry didn’t magically disappear. It’s something that stays with you. You hope. You pray. And you hold your breath through each stage, willing your baby to grow safely to full term.
When I think back to that day in July, me standing in Tesco with no real plan to buy a pregnancy test, I still don’t know what made me reach for it. But something told me. A quiet instinct. A whisper from my body that something was different inside.
Some women just know even before the symptoms make sense. My body was trying to tell me, and thankfully, I listened. If I hadn’t, I may not have found out until weeks later.
Now all of these years later, that baby of mine is here, here’s my middle child and second son. Full of personality, energy, and such a huge part of our family that it’s hard to remember life without him.
It’s strange how something that begins with a faint line on a test can become someone so real, someone who fills the house with laughter, noise, muddy shoes and football botts, and endless conversation.
He arrived, and somehow it felt like he had always been here.
And in a way, maybe he had.
