It was all so Textbook - The Pregnancy

How it happened

I think we all know how it happened — but we needed a bit more assistance than the average couple.

I started going for cycle tracking with my gynae. Every month, when an ovulation stick said I was ovulating, I would go into her office for a scan to check where I really was in my cycle. Shockingly, I actually ovulated a few days after the positive ovulation tests. That was one of the reasons it took us a bit longer.

But eventually, in May 2024, I saw those two blue lines — and nothing happened the way I thought it would.

There were no tears of joy, no jumping up and down. Just a quiet, almost surreal feeling of “Oh — that’s what we’ve been waiting for.” I was excited to tell my partner, and we were both happy that it was finally our time.

Then came the wait for that first scan.

We were lucky enough to see our little alien blob at 7 weeks and hear the heartbeat. Again, no tears — just that feeling of “Oh — …”

I felt guilty for not being emotional. I was just stressed. Are they going to make it? Is everything going to be okay?  So many questions that couldn’t be answered yet. We just had to wait and see how our little alien grew.

We didn’t have any cutesy nicknames, but we kept an eye on our apps and watched as they slowly evolved into a small human-like creature inside my uterus.

We went for monthly scans, and after 12 weeks, we were able to find out the gender of our little human. We had the big gender reveal — and the smoke cannon was pink. A girl to drive her mom mad and crawl deep into her dad’s heart.

All our scans went perfectly. We were told on multiple occasions that we were having a textbook pregnancy. She was always measuring average or slightly ahead. She was perfect — she was okay.

We went for all our scans, including the big anatomy scan at 20 weeks, and the feedback was always the same. Our little girl was growing all her fingers and toes, and everything was perfectly within range.

At our 32-week scan in early December, everything still looked great. Our gynae mentioned she would be going on leave for two weeks, but reassured us that we’d be seeing her practice partner — and she’d be back with more than enough time before our due date: 28 January 2025.