Physically I didn’t feel that much different in terms of how I looked, or, or feel that I looked any different. I felt exhausted and the first three months, or the first – it was more like the third month was I think the most exhausting month of my life, I’ve never been so tired. I couldn’t get out of bed some days because I’d just wake up, eat some food, sleep all day, eat some food and go back to sleep again. And that was difficult, and I found that no-one understood that at all because – I don’t know whether it was, it was because I was slightly stressed about the situation, maybe, and that the best way I dealt with it was by sleeping through everything – but I really, I was just exhausted all the time. Yeah, but my appearance I didn’t worry about too much at the time.

I kept on wondering if my boobs had gotten bigger. I sort of felt like a little bit, like I looked in the mirror and just thought, My tits have gotten bigger. Have they’ve gotten bigger I was just feeling a bit like that. And I was asking, asking my partner at the time, Is my – – you know, I asked him, Are they? Do you reckon? Do you think they are I was feeling a little bit like that, really. And also because I usually do get PMT as well so – and I had sort of PMT symptoms which had disappeared. So that was another thing as well. I didn’t actually, you know what I mean? I was feeling very stressed out, but I wasn’t feeling as stressed as I had been a couple of weeks earlier, so I thought maybe that was something. I wasn’t feeling particularly stressed. Things were tasting funny when I was eating. I didn’t like, I mean I didn’t associate it to be, associate it at the time and think I was pregnant, but if I had a drink I just sort of didn’t feel like drinking it any more, it tasted a bit funny. And because I smoked at the time as well, cigarettes tasted a bit funny as well. And it was just the boob thing and the fact that I realised I’d had no period since quite a few weeks that I thought I’d better go and check this. You just felt that theres something going on here. So [laughs].

We did three cycles of IVF and on the third cycle we were, we were successful.

And then what happened? [laughs]

Right. Well I then, they told me that I would know within, in sort of, ten days whether I was, whether or not I was pregnant and they told me the symptoms to, to look out for and I was suspicious that I might be pregnant because I suddenly started to feel very sick and started vomiting and in fact I was actually working a weekend shift and I was actually at a patient’s house visiting them and they had vomiting and diarrhoea and I had to rush to the bathroom and be sick myself which they thought was rather amusing, I think;

But then I actually started to feel more and more unwell and my stomach got more and more bloated, so I contacted the hospital and they asked me to come up, and they, they examined me and took a pregnancy test which was positive but they took some blood tests and they were concerned that I might have this ovarian hyper stimulation syndrome. Because my hormone levels had been very high on that IVF attempt they were aware that it might be a complication, so they told me to go home and just rest. But things got worse over the next few days and I was getting more and more bloated. I had lots and lots of fluid in my stomach and that was irritating the bottom of my lungs which was giving me what we call pleuritic type pain which is a sharp pain going up to your shoulders which is very uncomfortable. And I just couldn’t keep any fluids down. So after a few days I was admitted to the hospital and they put up a drip and I was in hospital for several days and then, then the fluid started to go down again, so I was, I was allowed home then. And I felt sick probably for about the first six weeks of the pregnancy and then that eventually just settled down to just to normal morning sickness. And the rest of the pregnancy was straightforward after that;

Is that complication potentially serious?

It is. I think you can get it in mild, moderate and severe forms and if you have – I had moderate, apparently – but if you have it in the severe form you, you can, you know, you can be very ill and in intensive care and- but that’s very rare, it’s, you know, it’s a rare complication.

Once I discovered I was pregnant, in the fourth week from my last period, so it was week four, I then made a doctor’s appointment with my local GP and she then referred me to the hospital of my choice within the area; I had a choice of four hospitals. And she confirmed that yes, I was pregnant, and then from there the ball started rolling. I was due for my first scan at twelve weeks, then in fact I went on holiday, weeks seven and eight, to Spain and during those weeks I was absolutely fine. I had no sickness, I felt in brilliant health and there were no problems at all. A little bit of nauseous but other than that I was fine. And I’d been in Spain walking up mountains one week and then came back to England with excruciating pains week 9 of my pregnancy. And they lasted for nearly 24 hours by which time I was at the GP’s surgery. And I was sent to A&E to my next hospital, local hospital, where it was discovered after a lot of trauma that they suspected I had an ectopic pregnancy at that time due to the fact that I was in excruciating agony. And I was spotting, so I was losing blood, not a great deal, but enough for concern. And at that stage it was four o’clock in the afternoon and by midnight I was still in A&E awaiting to be seen by a consultant. And a gynaecologist did actually see to me that night and basically, I mean it was a very upsetting time but I had the choice, I was on a drip and ready for theatre, and I had to make a choice whether they wanted to investigate or I could hang on a little bit and see if the pain subsided. By which time I decided to hang on and stick it out, and then it got better and better and better, and by seven o’clock the next morning I was having an internal scan within the hospital. I wasn’t allowed to walk, I was taken by wheelchair, I wasn’t allowed to get out of bed, I wasn’t allowed to eat, I wasn’t allowed to drink, all the usual scenario ready for surgery in the case of an emergency. And they then confirmed that there was a heartbeat and that it was all in the right place. So that was a huge relief.

So, did they do any investigations to determine whether or not it was ectopic?

Yes, they can tell by an internal scan. Using an internal scan they can tell very quickly whether it’s ectopic or not. If the cells are embedded correctly therefore it is not ectopic. But due to the fact that I had excruciating pain which, to this day, no-one knows why, it’s one of those things, and it can be quite common apparently. If you have symptoms that I had, such as spotting and pain, it is usually the case of an ectopic pregnancy but in my case it wasn’t. So that was wonderful.

I think it was about two, three weeks before I went for my scan so it was about, I was about, I think it was about three, four weeks I was going on ‘Oh, I don’t want her, I don’t want her, I don’t want the baby. But they were all saying to me, ‘Just, just wait, just wait, just, just wait. You’ll see how, you’ll see how you feel in the next few weeks. But when I went in for my first scan and I seen it, that was it, I knew that I wanted this baby and I’d love this baby, do you know what I mean?

But that, that, I think that was the turning point for me then, when I went and actually had my first scan. That was my turning point for me, that this baby was mine and it was growing inside me and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I wouldn’t have dreamt of hurting it then, do you know what I mean? But I wasn’t, I wasn’t that keen on it at first, I was saying, ‘No, I don’t want it. I think most girls do in places, don’t they? But, no, I wouldn’t change her now, wouldn’t do.

What sort of hopes and fears did you have in the early weeks, the early part of the pregnancy?

My biggest concern I remember was that I wouldn’t be able to support, to bring up the baby because I didn’t have any money. I’d just graduated and I didn’t have a job and I had thousands of pounds of debts and I felt a bit lost because, because it had been a surprise and because my parents weren’t quite sure how to react and my partner wasn’t quite sure how to react. And, and so I was determined to go through with the pregnancy but I did feel quite stressed because I knew that emotionally I could give him all the, all that he needed but financially and, and I didn’t know how my circumstances were going to, I mean I, I didn’t know what was ahead of me. And so that worried me, so I worried about money a lot at the beginning. But I knew that, well I felt like I knew that I could give him all the love that he needed and the support and the, and so I wasn’t too worried about that. It’s just all the practical things.

How did those things get resolved? I mean did you, were, was it quite, reasonably easy to kind of figure out how you were going to manage and so on?

No, I just it wasn’t easy to figure out how I was going to manage. I had to take each step, each day as it came and it was difficult, it was really difficult but I just had to, to know that the next day would be another day and that things would change and I just had to trust in, that, that the whole situation would evolve. And it did and I got through it but it was difficult.

Who supported you through that difficult period? Where did you go for support?

I went to my friends for support initially. Not so much my family because they were getting round the idea as well, and to my partner who, despite being stressed and confused about the situation, was supportive and, yeah. I went to him quite a lot, and my friends.