I believe in sixth sense. Not always. Just sometimes. Sometimes I get a feeling about something - and it turns out to be right. Other times I ignore one of these feelings - and I realise that I should have done something about it.
This happened to me when I was pregnant - and I just knew that I was carrying a child before I even thought about doing a test.
My husband and I weren't going to have children. His choice, not mine. I decided that his love was worth sacrificing my dream of children for and married him anyway. Over the years to come, many of our friends started families and I did feel very sad. So when he told me that he thought he had changed his mind and would like to try for a baby, I was obviously delighted. He was very matter of fact about it all. We would try and if nothing had happened in a year's time, then we would take it as a sign that it wasn't meant to be.
That was then. Of course, once the first month had gone by and nothing happened, he felt very differently. We both were disappointed, even though we knew that the chances of it happening the first month I came off the pill was unlikely.
The second month, I was a few days late. He was urging me to go and do a test but I didn't. I hadn't got "the feeling". I started to have a little hope, then my period arrived. Another disappointing month - once you make the decision to start trying, you just want it to happen straight awa.
So we entered the third month of trying. I was reading magazines and doing all the tricks that people were telling me about. Working out when we should be having sex, and lying there with my legs and bum in the air afterwards to make sure the sperm "hit the spot" (so to speak!).
It was hard not to become obsessed with being pregnant. I had visited the doctor for advice and I had started to take the higher dose of folic acid in preparation for conceiving. My second cousin was born with spina bifida and died when he was two and a half, so as a precaution, I took the higher dose.
This was probably the only precaution I had taken. Otherwise I carried on living my life pretty much the same as I always had done. I ate what I wanted , I drank alcohol - I didn't smoke, but then I never had. I knew that I would watch what I ate and drank once I found out but until that point life carried on.
The moment I realised I was pregnant will stick in my mind forever. I was going to watch Simply Red at Warwick Castle with my friends. It was an outdoor concert and we were looking forward to a picnic, plenty of wine and a stay over in a nice hotel. A couple of days before we went, a "feeling" came over me and I decided that I should drive. I don't know why - as the idea of a picnic and a glass of sparkly while watching my favourite band really appealed to me, but something told me I should drive.
When we got to the concert, I felt a bit strange and so went to sit down. It was a beautiful day and in the evening Simply Red were playing their set. As Mick Hucknall started to sing "For Your Babies", my hand instinctively went to my stomach and a breeze came over me. From that moment I just knew that I was pregnant.
When I got home, I told my husband and he thought I was going slightly crazy. I stopped drinking , was very careful what I ate and began to read pregnancy magazines.
A few days later, I went to the shop and bought a pregnancy test. My husband thought I should leave it for a few more days, but I knew what the result would be and I didn't want to wait. Sure enough, the result of the test was positive.
I wasn't at all surprised. My husband was - more surprised that I knew rather than the fact that I was pregnant, so that was quite funny.
Funnier still, when I went to the doctor, he did a test and it came back negative. I was insistent that this was wrong as I knew that there was a baby there just waiting to happen.
Of course, it was just because I had gone to the doctor so early, that their test didn't detect it. The over-the-counter ones are so much more sensitive these days.
I find it really odd when I watch these television programmes and read magazines where women have gone for eight or nine months without knowing they are pregnant. For me it was quite the opposite - I knew I was pregnant even before I bought the test.
