Ash's Bedroom, Reading, UK – August 2023 – Circa 7am.
What Happened
“Ashleigh, wake up,”
Tap, tap, tap on my cheek,
“Ashleigh look!”
I open bleary eyes to see a flash of white and blue streak across my view. I’m in bed. It’s early – earlier than I’d like to be woken up, especially like this. The speaker tapping my cheek is my wife, Lanny. She sounds odd. Happy, but insistent – urgent even. More taps on my face bring me to full consciousness.
“Ashleigh, look – are there 2 lines there? Can you see two lines?”
“I can’t even see shapes yet, let alone lines. What’s going on?”
“We’re pregnant.”
Lanny starts to cry, overjoyed. They say you never forget the first words you say when you find out you’re going to be a parent. No doubt I’ll never forget mine:
“Did you just tap your wee stick on my face?”
And that’s how I discovered I was going to become a parent. Lanny had woken up unusually early one morning, taken one of her regular monthly pregnancy tests and this morning it had shown the very clear ‘control’ line, which shows that the test is working as it’s supposed to, and a much fainter ‘test’ line which comes up only if it has identified the compound which indicates pregnancy. After 2 or so years of pregnancy tests, we knew what ‘not pregnant’ looked like. This could be something different. The line was faint – but it was definitely there. The likelihood of a false-negative i.e., the test shows ‘negative’ when you’re actually pregnant is pretty unlikely – but this can happen. The chances of false positives, where it shows ‘positive’ when you’re not pregnant – this is far, far less likely.
Once Lanny had noticed the extra line, she’d bowled up to me and begun to stick the thing on which she’d just peed – in my face – and I’m not joking, there was skin-to-stick contact.
The Background
Lanny and I had been trying to get pregnant for about 3 years before this. Lanny has had anorexia since her teens, and during COVID-19, she had a serious bout of symptoms giving her amenorrhoea[1]. This meant that in the 6 months prior to this morning, I’d started a strange process of preparing myself for the idea that I might never be a dad. About the time of the good news, I’d just gotten myself into a calm, if not content mindset around this. So, when my head caught up with the news, we might be having a baby, I didn’t quite know how to react.
The Reaction
My instant reaction was elation, joy, happiness. I could barely believe it – I’ve wanted to be a Dad since I was three[2]. But when recognising those emotions, I also felt the necessity to shield them. I didn’t let them into the room. I held back.
I think to some extent, I was cautious about the meaning of our being pregnant. I knew from the reading I’d already done that there was a risk in the very early stages of pregnancy of miscarriage. I knew that there were such things as false-positive readings of pregnancy tests, sure 1 in X-thousand, but still – the risk is there. I was aware how much Lanny wanted this, how much work she’d done to get to this point, I could see the beam stretched across her face – she was delighted, and so proud of herself, she was radiant with joy.
“Lan, let’s do another one, just to make sure. Do you have any more pregnancy tests?”
Lanny immediately went and got another test out of the packet. It was another positive result.
Then she cried.
This was an ambivalent overwhelmed reaction. This was the elation I felt, plus the fear I was concealing. This was everything we’d hoped for, but there was a long way to go before we could begin to be calm. I didn’t quite cry, but I did immediately start getting a Wish List on Audible together of all the books I needed to read to prepare for this journey. Getting the book list together was a top priority. I wanted to be ready to do whatever it took to prepare our home, ourselves, our minds to welcome this new person into the world, into our lives.
I hugged Lanny and we both settled. I reassured Lanny that everything was going to be alright, and we had a giddy five minutes talking about what we had to do next.
I reeled off all the things I knew I didn’t know,
Under the Bonnet
“So when do we see the midwife? Is it too early to start shopping for the nursery? Where do you buy nappies after 11pm? I’m going to get so much sleep in the build-up. Which school are we sending them to? What do you think it’ll be, boy or girl? Should we take another test? What is a perineum? How are your boobs feeling? Have you felt sick? How far along are we? Can I use ‘we’ when discussing ‘our’ pregnancy, or should I use ‘you’ and ‘your’ – what are this pregnancy’s pronouns?”
It was a lot – I can be a lot sometimes. It’s probably best you acclimatise to that now.
All the while, reeling off these questions, as the top layer of stuff just poured out of my head I was scared. As a partner, not a Dad at this point. The real questions were mounting behind the scenes.
What if we lose this baby? How will she cope? What will I do if the worst should happen? Our friends have been through this and come out the other side, stronger than ever – how did they do that? How long before it’s safe? Who can I talk to about this?
When can I talk to anyone about this…?
To be continued.
[1] The inability to menstruate (have periods) https://cks.nice.org.uk/topics/amenorrhoea/
[2] See my Blog post “A Dad at Three Years Old”
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