As I sat clutching the white plastic pregnancy test, I started shaking with nerves. One, two, three seconds later . . . and a blue cross spread across the square window, a symbol of my recklessness and sheer stupidity.
My careful plans for a perfect family life lay in tatters.
Why so dramatic you might ask? After all, I am a happily married 38-year-old stay-at-home mother, with two gorgeous children, Rory, three, and two-year-old Purdey.
Our house in Northampton has plenty of room for a new baby and my husband, Andrew, earns a healthy income from his property development business. Surely there’s no one more suited to have another baby than me?
Third time unlucky: Alex Peek, pictured with her two children Rory, three, and Purdey, two, believes her unplanned third baby will ruin her perfect family life
But this pregnancy is the last thing I want. A third baby is the straw that will break the camel’s back, a strain on our balanced, happy family. An abortion is out of the question, obviously. Like it or not, I am going to be a mother again.
And so, as I gaze at the blue cross on the pregnancy test, I call out wretchedly: ‘Oh my God, I am, I am.’ My best friend, Lindsay, is waiting outside the bathroom on tenterhooks. She had bought the test from our local chemist to spare my blushes, she is waiting to be my shoulder to cry on as my life goes up in smoke.
‘I’ve ruined everything,’ I weep, my shoulders heaving, as my dreams of sending my two little darlings to exclusive prep schools vanish. Any notion of regularly treating them to regular consignments from Mini Boden is forgotten.
It’s not that we can’t afford a third child. It’s more that the quality of life our two children enjoy will be irreparably damaged by another baby. Not to mention the fact Andrew and I had just started to emerge from the dark tunnel of broken nights, endless feeding and wailing.
Expecting trouble: Alex Peek is worried that a third child will upset her perfectly balanced family
Don’t get me wrong, I adore my children — their giggles, the sweet smell of their skin, their soft sighs as they drift off into sleep — but doing it all again? Please God, no.
I struggle to articulate this to Lindsay through my sobs, but I can see she’s struggling to comprehend my reaction. If my best friend can’t understand why I don’t want another baby, will anyone?
This was three months ago and while the shock has faded, my horror at how my family’s life will change has not.
There is no one to blame for this but myself. My self-recrimination is only outweighed by my mortification. You hear of unplanned teenage pregnancies all the time, but unplanned thirtysomething pregnancies? Hardly.
The chaos this will inflict on our little family unit seems to multiply every time I think of it. Not to mention the weight gain, stretch marks and the agony of labour.
And the saying ‘Two’s company and three’s a crowd’ keeps rolling around in my mind. Our two get on fine, but would a third tip them into tantrums and fall-outs?
I can’t help but think the world I live in has been calibrated for families of four. Indeed, Andrew and I had rather smugly congratulated ourselves at our good fortune to have created the ideal family, a little boy swiftly followed by a baby girl. Not once had we felt the need to expand our brood.
I’d sold the cot, and the Bugaboo stroller, once my pride and joy, was languishing in the toolshed covered in mildew. Our nanny had significantly reduced her hours in preparation for the children starting pre-school and my career as a writer had started to take off again.
And as the children weren’t so high-maintenance, Andrew could finally spend Saturday mornings on the golf course without coming home to frosty looks and long silences from me.
At night, I tossed and turned. Would this baby ruin my children’s lives? How would we pay for three sets of school fees, even at a second-rate private school? To educate the children as I wished, I would have to spend £45,000 a year — and that’s without skiing trips and lacrosse tours. I should have married a Russian oligarch.
On the school-run, I began taking mental notes of who had three children and who had more sensibly stuck at two. Certainly, the mums at the posh nursery wearing diamonds and expensive gym gear, seemed to wave off no more than two beret-topped little ones each morning. Clearly, this was how they could still afford expensive personal trainers and Range Rovers.
All this began because I was desperate to put a bit of spark back in the bedroom. I know exactly when I conceived — July 22. I had my nails done that day. Chatting jokily with my manicurist about men’s ‘needs’ set me thinking about our love-life. I drove home, thinking I could do with upping my game.
So when Andrew arrived home, I stuck a Fireman Sam DVD on in the toy room to entertain the children and dragged him upstairs. I remember feeling pleased with myself later, despite the fact we hadn’t used any contraception. Never mind, I thought.
How wrong could I have been?
When I broke our shock baby news to Andrew, he took it well. He cheerfully took off on an expensive shooting trip, justifying it by saying that we’d only be able to afford holidays in a caravan in Bognor once the new baby was born. I even detected a certain swagger to his stride. Why did I feel so different?
Unhappy memories: Alex Peek went through two failed bouts of IVF, one ectopic pregnancy and one miscarriage before having her two children. This has left her frightened of going through yet another pregnancy
I’m all too aware that the many thousands of women out there who are struggling to start a family would give anything to trade places with me. The irony is we battled for years to have our babies.
My medical records read like a gynaecological horror story, with endless fertility drugs, two failed IVFs, one ectopic pregnancy and one miscarriage. I know only too well what it is like to long for a child only to have your hopes dashed month after month.
Such was my desperation to have a baby, I carried on when many would have given up, subjecting myself to hundreds of intrusive scans, blood tests and powerful hormone injections.
Then there were the faddy diets, the vitamins, lymphatic draining massages, revolting Chinese herbs and painful acupuncture sessions.
I just wanted to spice things up in the bedroom. How will we pay for three sets of school fees?
The emotional battering was even worse. And as all my friends began to fall pregnant in quick succession, I began to withdraw, feeling envious, miserable, and empty.
Eventually, exhausted and some £20,000 poorer, we began to look into surrogacy and adoption.
Then, more than six years after I started fertility treatment, a fairly routine test revealed a defect to my uterus, a glaringly obvious reason for me not getting pregnant, which every doctor had somehow missed.
I had an operation to correct the problem in 2009, and swiftly fell pregnant with Rory. Purdey was conceived three months after his birth.
No children have ever been wanted more, but after two high-risk pregnancies resulting in two miracle babies, I honestly felt that I had more than done my bit.
Today, as well as being frightened about the future, I also feel so guilty for being so ungrateful for my accidental baby. I am 14 weeks pregnant. The morning sickness has passed and the bloom of pregnancy has taken its magical effect on my body. Hormones surge through me, leaving me sad, fearful — but at times, happiness creeps in.
My 12-week scan didn’t elicit tears of joy, but of course I was relieved that all appears to be going well.
For I am pregnant. Unmistakably, definitively, utterly pregnant.
And while I pray that 2014 brings me a healthy child, I also pray the birth of my accidental baby will silence my fears about expanding my family once and for all.
No comments:
Post a Comment