The few days leading up to last Mother’s Day something was different, I felt both exhausted and full of life, something about me was definitely off. My boobs were aching like crazy, I was craving Vegemite toast and I felt like I was about to get my period, something that doesn’t usually happen when you have a Mirena IUD. I knew I couldn’t be pregnant, only two years earlier I was told by two different doctors that I was infertile, and I was on the most reliable form of female contraception on the market, there was no way I was pregnant! But what if I was? What if by some absolute miracle, I was pregnant?

I was living with my brother at the time, who was heading to the shops Mother’s Day morning for breakfast in bed supplies. I asked him for a lift to the supermarket because what was the harm in taking a test to just indefinitely rule out pregnancy before making an appointment with the gp, right? But how was I going to explain the test to my brother without him getting all weird about it?

I felt like I was carrying out a super high stakes undercover mission buying a pregnancy test without it being noticed. I was darting around the supermarket looking like a Meerkat on the radar of a predator, peering over my shoulder every half a second, trying to make sure I went completely undetected. I quickly went through self serve, sweating like I’d just run a marathon, which I basically had from power walking around completely failing to resemble anything close to normal. I stuffed the box under my strategically planned oversized jumper and hoped I’d gone undetected, only to realise I didn’t buy anything as a cover up to explain why I needed to go to the supermarket in the first place. As I’m scrambling to find an excuse for my now seemingly unnecessary trip to the shops my brother shows up next to me and the first thing that comes to my head is that they’re sold out of TimTams, an unlikely story that I don’t think was fooling anyone.

After the stress of acquiring the pregnancy test, I needed a nap, but I also needed to pee, and they say the first of the day gives the best results. I’m pretty convinced I’m not pregnant anyway, what are the odds of an apparent infertile woman getting pregnant? Like one in a million or something? So I’m thinking, what the heck, and go take my morning pee, on a stick.

Before my eyes, my life changed. An instant, strong, definite positive. There was no questioning it. But how?! My mind was running a million miles a second but somehow at the same time, was totally and completely blank. How was I going to raise a baby? Was I going to keep it? I knew I’d be doing it completely alone, was I going to be able to? I am barely a real adult as is, how am I meant to be a mother?! Now I definitely needed that nap, but there was no way I was going to be sleeping with all this on my mind. And now I was craving samosas too. How was I supposed to focus when all I could think about was sore boobs and samosas!?

Thankfully I already had a doctors appointment that afternoon because at this point in my life my neck had randomly decided to start growing a second head (it was a swollen lymph node, but that’s whole other story). I had to discuss this positive test with a doctor, how on earth could this happen? What was the likelihood of a false positive? Was someone selling faulty pregnancy tests on Mother’s Day as some sort of cruel prank? I needed to get to the bottom of it all.

That afternoon I saw the doctor and he did another test. He assured me that there was no way I was getting two false positives in one day, but I made him test again, just in case. Three positives. All clear as day. There was no denying it, I was pregnant. The doctor ordered a blood test and another appointment for the next day to get the results, everything had to be fast tracked because there was a high risk of ectopic pregnancy from the IUD and at that point I wasn’t even sure if I was going to continue the pregnancy.

From starting the day as just another Sunday. I got my samosas on the way home from the doctors and spent the entire afternoon tucked in bed. It was that night that I decided I wouldn’t spend one more Mother’s Day alone, that this in fact, was my first Mother’s Day.

A year later, and I can barely imagine my life being any different than it is today. My little miracle baby changed my entire life, and now Mother’s Day will always be the anniversary of the biggest and best surprise of my life.