How I found myself with three teens and a baby

Almost 20 years since her first child, and 14 since her last, our new columnist finds herself in an unlikely position ... ‘What am I looking for from a pregnancy test, these days: a line? A tick? A Facebook notification?’

At 8.25am on April 4 last year, I walked into a branch of Superdrug, on London’s Oxford Street. I was on my way to a radio studio to front a campaign about, of all things, “real mums”, and my partner, who is a photographer, was on his way to a shoot. I had caught a glimpse of my face in a shop window and, even for radio, it was bad.

“Hang on, I need to grab some dry shampoo and concealer. I look terrible.”

It was the truth. But not the whole truth. A few minutes later I emerged with the desired items – and a packet of pregnancy tests. Because at 8.25am on April 4, I was officially five days and 12 hours late. Which was five days and 12 hours out of the ordinary.

My monthly cycle is like clockwork. It is so precise, there’s a computer in Greenwich hooked up to electronic signals from my ovaries; the second an egg is released down my Fallopian tubes, alarm bells go off at Mean Time HQ and all the watches in the world are synched. I am basically the world’s biggest egg timer.

We stopped to buy a coffee. I was now five days, 12 hours and 11 minutes late. “Skinny cappuccino please. I’m just nipping to the loo. Back in a tick.”

Door locked. Hidden packet of Bun-in-oven Detecting Kits removed from bag. Two white sticks taken out. Hands starting to shake. Trousers down. Pants round ankles. Sit down. Try to wee.

Can’t. Too nervous. Just GO! Think of waterfalls inside lakes of wet fountains in the rain. No? OK, try psyching it out; think of not weeing.

A stream starts. I try to time the bit that goes on to the stick to be exactly the bit that’s most likely to contain the maximum amount of the hormones that this test is designed to measure. And, ideally, less of the prosecco I drank the night before.

I haven’t taken a pregnancy test for 14 years. Back then, you had to put 50p in the side and wind them up. I don’t even know what I’m looking for nowadays. A line? A tick? A Facebook notification?

I decide to read the instructions, which have been handily folded 250 times for ease of reading when freaking out. Aha! It seems I’m not looking for a line, or a tick. I’m looking for the definitive P-word.

It’s been at least 40 seconds now. It must be nearly ready. It took less time to get into this potentially up-the-duff situation in the first place.

Then, there it is. Time at Greenwich stands still. “Pregnant”. I turn the stick over, just in case it amusingly says “not” on the other side. It doesn’t.

Just “pregnant”. Me. Right now. In the lavatory of a café, with my pants on the floor and my partner of two and a half years, aka The Scot, waiting outside, probably wondering what the heck I’m doing.

Me. Aged 42. A mother of three teenagers – 20 years since my first baby and 14 years since my last, with a man from whom, after 20 years of marriage, I am now separated.

Pregnant, after months of wondering if I was now so old my ovaries had shrivelled, my uterus was dust and my eggs were scrambled. You see, The Scot desperately wanted a baby. And I wanted one with him. We weren’t actively trying, but we weren’t actively not trying. But I was certain that I was menopausal and ancient, so it couldn’t happen.

Yet, here I am. With my eldest daughter in her first year at Oxford University, her 17-year-old sister starting her A-level years and their 14-year-old “little” brother choosing his GCSE options. And now a baby on the way.

I am now officially a “gap mother”, and our lives are about to change completely. Now I just have to tell them all.

Next week: How will The Scot react to the news?