The morning I found out I was pregnant my husband had gone out and he wouldn’t be returning until evening. I really wanted to share the news right away and cursed under by breath that why was it today that I had good news that he was out. I mean he’s usually at home in the mornings.

So I contemplated calling him and asking him to drive back home from wherever he was on his drive. But then I thought, no, I can wait till evening. My husband isn’t someone you ask to rush home without telling him why on the phone, otherwise he’d have a heart attack before getting home, out of panic over what could be the matter.

In the meantime I would go confirm officially that I was pregnant; as is the case with most women who find out they are pregnant, it was a home pregnancy test that had confirmed it for me at this time. So I went to a Lab and did a blood pregnancy test, and the result was astounding positive!

Now that it was hundred percent confirmed that I was pregnant and I still had a lot of time to myself before my husband returned, I started to think of the best way to reveal the good news to my husband.

I rushed to Google. I’d actually previously ran some Google searches on ideas for announcing pregnancy to your husband, ahead of getting pregnant. I did that because I knew it will be big for us when it did happen. So I had been thinking about it for awhile, but I didn’t really find any suggestion that would work for us. In the end I decided to put the pregnancy test stick still showing the two positive lines into an envelop and when he returns and settles in I’d give him and tell him that his one year wedding anniversary gift came in early.

You see, I remember thinking earlier on, when I was considering what to get him for our first year wedding anniversary, that it would be nice if I got pregnant before our anniversary so that I could present him the baby as his gift. So that was where that idea came from. But when he got home I was so excited and nervous (because I wanted the surprise to go right) that I didn’t wait for him to settle in. And I just presented the envelope to him and forgot the part about mentioning it was his anniversary gift, instead I said the envelope was left at the door for him earlier in the day.

As he was opening it he was saying it has to be from the management of our flat notifying us of the upcoming rent renewal. Then he brought out the stick and he was confused. He was looking at it like what’s this? He didn’t get it. I had to tell him “I’m pregnant!”. He was shocked. He thought it was a prank. He didn’t believe it until I showed him the official test result. I then told him how I found out and that I had to take a blood test before he got home to be very sure before telling him. I expressed to him all my actions and emotions after I found out I was pregnant. I even played for him the video I did of the moment. He was overwhelmed with joy. He looked at me and said something about how God has been so generous to me. I agreed with that.

He had had a very hectic day that day. He didn’t get home until very late because his car had developed a fault on the mainland and we live on the Island (if you live in Lagos Nigeria you would know these areas). And to drive back home he had to fix the car and that took a lot of time and effort.

By the time he got home he was exhausted. But after hearing the news my husband that walked into the house looking like his body was running on his last energy, became very energetic and he didn’t sleep that day until past 3am, I think. He was up just playing some of his favorite native music. And I was awake with him still not believing the news of the day. All through my pregnancy I still had days I couldn’t believe that it happened for me, I was pregnant! . Why, you ask? You would understand from the article First Pregnancy at 40!.

The post How I Announced My First Pregnancy To My Husband appeared first on The Good and Happy Wife Blog.

Note: The article you are about to read was written in real time (hours after I discovered I was pregnant), but it wasn’t published in real time. As much as I wished I could share the good news with the world in real time, I held off and waited to meet my child first before sharing the news online because I am someone that generally want to see things to the end first before sharing it with the world. As at posting this my baby has been born (born November 23rd, 2022) and gradually counting down to 6 months. I’m happy to share this article with you now so you know the feelings I had in those moments.

1:01am Saturday April 2nd, 2022.

It’s been over 36hours since I found out I am pregnant. And I still can’t believe I am pregnant! It was 10:09am March 31st, 2022 when I causally picked up one of my many home pregnancy test sticks thinking it was going to be another negative (I had been testing for pregnancy since one month after my wedding) only to be surprised with a strong positive! I was shocked. I couldn’t believe what my eyes were seeing.

Am I really pregnant? How come? Of course I know how come but it’s just that I’d been trying for awhile and nothing. And while I kept taking steps to help matters and praying I conceived naturally, in one part of my mind I thought it would never happen. As at finding out I was pregnant I was 9 months 2 weeks and 5 days old in marriage. And for that long I had been eagerly trying to get pregnant without success.

I went into my marriage prepared to get pregnant on my wedding night. When my husband decided the wedding should be June 2021, I actually chose 12th of that month because I had thought that I was going to be ovulating that week. Unfortunately my fertile period for that month came a few days earlier than I had expected. But from the next month I was eagerly trying to conceive. And being newlyweds we barely could keep our hands and bodies off each other So you’d expect that things would happen quicker, but no.

This wouldn’t have been a problem, I mean why the rush to get pregnant right? I married the man of my dreams and I was deliriously happy just being with him. In fact I had days in my marriage when I questioned the need to have a child. I felt contented with just having him in my life and I was genuinely enjoying life with just the two of us. I worried about sharing my time with kids and sharing my husband with them. That’s how much I loved our vibe together.

But on the other hand, on most days I desired to experience the love from a child too. The joy of nursing a child in the womb for 9 months and experiencing all that comes with it. The crazy and emotional moment of finally meeting this child. And the overwhelming love that engulfs a new mom and make them want to protect this innocent one against all evils for the rest of their lives. And then the joy and amazement of watching them grow up and blossom into beautiful, smart and intelligent man or woman, and really witnessing the miracle of it all. I knew that at the end of the day my life wouldn’t be whole without having a child.

Also I couldn’t wait to bear a fruit of our love. A physical representation of the man of my dreams and me. I wanted to see how our genes coming together will look like and see the love of my life in the role of a father 24/7. It was what I mostly dreamed of after our wedding. But I must act fast, the biological clock wasn’t on my side. All the medical experts say that fertility reduces greatly after age 35.
Infact according to reproductivefacts.org

By age 40, a woman’s chance of getting pregnant is less than 5% per cycle, so fewer than 5 out of every 100 women are expected to be successful each month.

And I had turned 40 two months into my marriage hence the desperation. And I also want at least two kids. And with just 5 years or less left of my fertility window it was important that things happened quicker rather than later.

What a relief this brought to us, my husband and I. He was worried about this I know, but not really for himself because he was ready to do the work and wait however long it took us, but he knew I wasn’t ready. He knew I wanted it now! Several times I would bring it up to him, out of the blue, “I want a baby”, “I want to be pregnant”, “Give me a baby”. And I knew each time I said that he must have wished he could make it happen for me right away. It gave him cause for concern just seeing me worry about it so much. We both agreed we were going to take advantage of as many options as possible for us to get pregnant before giving up. And then if it didn’t happen after all that, we would have to accept it.

The first option we looked into was IVF. I told my husband I think one month into our marriage that if after four months of trying we don’t get pregnant we should look into IVF. Normally four months isn’t a long enough time to be worried about one’s fertility as not every woman will get pregnant in the first few months of trying, and it doesn’t suddenly mean they have fertility problem. It just sometimes takes longer for some women/couple for whatever reason. But as I have said before, because of my age, I didn’t want to waste so much time trying before getting help. So after four months in marriage we went for IVF consultation.

We ended up doing a cycle of IVF that failed. After that failed, I told my husband we should take a few months break from IVF. IVF does a lot to a woman’s body. It’s very invasive and lots of injections to deal with. I wasn’t sure I was ready to do it all over again, at least not without trying something else first. So I said let’s go back to trying natural conception, if after another 3-4 months of trying we still don’t conceive then we can go back to do a second cycle of IVF. I found out I was pregnant three months after our failed IVF cycle. All glory to God.

I was 40 when I got pregnant and was delivered of a beautiful Baby girl at age 41! And she’s added so much joy in our lives. We feel very blessed.

The post First Pregnancy At 40 – I’m Finally Going To Be A Mom! appeared first on The Good and Happy Wife Blog.