Book exerpt! (Finding out I was pregnant with Ali)

Chapter 7: Alarm Bells

Clear Blue

When I dreamed about having a family during my younger years it was more of a romantic, idealistic picture of how it would all happen. I would find the perfect man, set up home, get married and plan a few children to fit in with the career I would have already built for myself. So you can imagine my frustration and sheer shock when I saw the blue lines of the pregnancy test I had taken in the toilets of the local bargain department store.

I had taken tests before when my period was late, even though had been on the pill for quite a few years, I still got panicked whenever it did not arrive exactly on time. I expected it to be negative, as it always had been, so this really did knock me for six.


If anyone had been watching me that day they would have thought I was a mad woman. Having taken the test I returned to my car and sat so still for what seemed like forever. I rang one of my housemates from Leeds and she instructed me to take another test, good advice. So off I went to the same shop, bought another two tests and returned to the same toilets to pee on two more sticks. Peeing on sticks, something I had dealt with for over two years on a daily basis; but now the lights were on me. Two more positives. Shit.

Back in the car. Shit.