A Planned-Surprise

Natasha is coming up upon her second birthday. She's very similar to her sister in some ways and very unique in others. She's a definite mummy's girl while Angelica is more attached to her daddy. When I come from from work I head a fast padding of feet and little Natasha runs out into the hallway, her arms wide open. She climbs onto my lap when I'm resting and sits there while she eats her snack, watches some TV or plays with her toys.

She is a quiet little thing who knows a lot of words but prefers to use them sparingly while her sister chatters on all day long. She sits down often with a book, turning the pages and examining every inch of the pictures, turning it the right way up if it happens to be upside down. She has a wild mop of bed hair when she wakes up in the morning that always makes me giggle.

Natasha was our planned surprise. As her birthday draws closer I've been thinking a lot about how surprised I was to get my BFP. I think it's amazing that either side of her conception I had such difficulty getting a sticky bean and yet she just held on in there for all she was worth.

My periods returned quickly after Angelica was born. I wasn't happy to see such a fast return from everyone's least favourite relative, Aunt Flo, but it did bring about the question of whether we were going to TTA (Try To Avoid) or to try again quickly. With the issues we'd had conceiving our first, having a successful pregnancy and my endometriosis we decided to let things happen as they would. We loved being parents, couldn't believe how lucky we were to have this amazing new member of our family and knew that we wanted our family to grow.

For a couple of months we did try to conceive. I had a chemical pregnancy early on - I don't think my body was ready to support another pregnancy yet - and I longed for another baby. Then my health went downhill and I was unable to even DTD ('Do The deed') for over a month. Certainly there was no baby making going on, there was no way that I could have coped with a pregnancy physically even if we'd been able to make love at the right time.

One November evening I started to feel familiar, severe O pains. I'd never really had ovulation pain before I had my eldest but now I was in no doubt when I was ovulating every month. I didn't even use OPKs that month, I knew what was going on. I was still having a difficult time with my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome but I just had this feeling that this could be our month and had to try. I don't know why, it just felt like a special night.

The next day I walked around in a kind of a daze. I didn't know why I felt so certain that we'd caught it this time because we'd had so much trouble the first time around. Our daughter was only 9 months old, we'd only had a couple of tries, it didn't seem likely that we would conceive so fast.

The following week and a bit dragged past. It was literally the longest 2 week wait of my life. I had in my mind the ultra-early BFP I'd had with Angelica at 8 DPO and when 8DPO arrived I took a test, fully expecting a line, but all I got was a BFN. The next day I POAS again but again received nothing but a plain, white space staring back at me. However, my LP was short at the time and my period was already late so I was torn between staying hopeful and admitting defeat. At 10 DPO I took another test - well, more like 3 or 4 - and all were negative.

When I got to 11DPO I'd given up. I didn't know where my period was but I had bigger things to think about as a big storm caused a leak in our ceiling. I remember spending an hour on the phone angrily to the letting company about how badly they were maintaining the property and doing a lot of mopping up, then falling asleep.

When I woke up I thought about how exhausted I was at the start of my pregnancy with Angelica. I could fall asleep at the drop of a hat. I remember my heart thumping as I thought about it and wondered if I should take just one more test.

All I had left were a couple of cheapies so I dipped one and waited. When a faint line started to appear I almost passed out. After days of BFNs I seriously thought my previous hope had been wrong. The line was so faint that I didn't dare truly believe it, I couldn't let myself in case it was an evap, and the next morning when I dipped another one I actually got a BFN.

I felt absolutely hollow. Was I having another chemical? Had I just been staring at an evap the night before?

On my way to work that morning I popped into the chemist to buy two things; firstly an umbrella to fend off the rain and secondly my first ever Clearblue Digital test. I needed a definite answer, one way or the other. I was planning to take it after work but by morning break I was in a complete state. I was a nervous wreck. I had an almighty headache and I was cramping, and felt like AF was on her way.

Eventually I couldn't stand waiting any longer. I confided in one of my best friends who became even more impatient to know than I was and hurried me off to the toilets.

The wait for the egg timer to finish doing its thing felt like at least an hour instead of three minutes. I can't even remember what we talked about while we waited. It could have been anything from politics to furniture polish for all I can recall. Eventually she moved toward the test and took a peek.

"Go and have a look," she told me.

I tried to read her expression but it was completely neutral. She wasn't giving anything again. I bit my lip and picked up the test.

'Pregnant'.

I couldn't believe it, I just couldn't! After the BFN that morning I thought it was all over. To get a positive on a digi made my heart soar. I wanted to scream in excitement but didn't dare in case anyone overheard and wondered what was going on so we just hugged and I stared at the test over and over.

I actually left work early and practically floated home to tell my husband the news. I couldn't believe it. Somehow I knew this was a sticky one, and the little whirlwind of wild bed-hair and odd socks that greets me every day proved me right.

In just over a month she'll be two years old. My little baby is growing right up. But I will never forget that first faint line or the flickering of the egg timer as I waited to know for certain. Natasha was our planned surprise - so very much wanted but yet so unexpected. She hasn't stopped surprising us ever since!