Flick back to last week. Thursday. Maybe Friday. My wife says “I think I’m a little bit late with my period this month.” Innocently enough, I tell her she’s not stopped breastfeeding for very long, and her periods may take a little while to adjust.

By Saturday, she’s starting to fret. “Nah! Couldn’t be!” I naievely reassure her. But she knows better. She’s been here twice before. . .

Let me start by saying that we have two wonderful children (you might have already guessed that!). However, after number 2 (our son), we’d resolved not to have any more. Two young children were enough, we didn’t want to have a rabble of kids. We had plans to start a business. I was (eventually) going to get the snip, at whatever personal pain that might have cost. There were to be NO MORE CHILDREN!!!

Of course, no matter how well-intentioned, the vasectomy thing didn’t happen. I was walking around with a loaded gun! I remember the same thing happening us a few years back with a dog we had. “Must get her spayed”, we’d recite absently until one day the inevitable happened. Six pups later and we’ve learned nothing it seems. . .

Not one, but two pregnancy tests later (just to be sure), we’re looking down the wrong end of a nine-stretch. At the moment, we’re both shocked - the plans have changed dramatically, and nobody checked with us first.