My Pregnancy Scare

I very briefly discussed an unexpected event in the latter half of last year. At the time I wasn’t ready to talk about it straight away, but as I look back, I realise how important it is to talk about the topic that happens more regularly than you would expect. 

As you can see from the title, last year I had a small pregnancy scare. I can’t remember the exact date now but I seem to think it was in September. My partner and I were apart quite a lot, with work and business meetings, so it was a bit of a difficult time in the relationship, but nevertheless we were still together. 54% of young women report that they've had a pregnancy scare, and more than 40% went on to experience an unintended pregnancy.

I have been on the contraceptive pill for over 2 and a half years now, and since the first 3 months I haven’t had any spotting or bleeding. Due to shifts I don’t take the pill at the exact same time every day, but I do take it regularly and I’ve never missed a pill so it was quite unusual. I ended up having a little bit of spotting, feeling really tired and even nauseous. In view of the symptoms, I took a pregnancy test and it had a faint positive line. A couple days later, I took another which was even fainter; I could almost convince myself that it wasn’t positive, but the line was faint. I repeated it again three days after that and that was negative. 

I don’t know if I was ever pregnant, if it was an early pregnancy or almost a missed period, but nevertheless, it didn’t stop those emotions coming through thick and fast. I pictured where the cot would go in my small rental property. In my head, I was planning childcare and birth plans. I was dreaming of the clothes and toys I would buy. It’s crazy how fast you plan ahead. 

At first, I was terrified. As much as I want children, I do want to get a little more settled at work and call me old fashioned or traditional, but I would like to be engaged, married and have a house first. Despite that, I would love to have a baby. It’s the biggest dream of mine and whenever it happens, I’ll be happy. The thing that worried me was my partner’s reaction. I knew he’d not want it and he wasn’t ready. 

I wasn’t wrong. I told him the next time I saw him, which was over a week later and all he could say was that “I would have let you keep it.” I was heartbroken. That was one of the worst days of my life and a huge low point in our relationship. He has apologised since but those words haunt me regularly. 

Have you ever had a pregnancy scare? What would your reaction be if you were to get pregnant right now?