I found out that I was pregnant early in 1994 when I fainted in the supermarket one Saturday morning, a bit old fashioned I know! Looking back it was easy to see that I had the symptoms of pregnancy but because I was "menopausal" and had been told that I couldn't have any more children, I thought that it was just a hormonal imbalance.

I was taking some pretty potent anti-migraine medication at the time I fell pregnant as well as hormone replacement therapy and I was very worried that it would effect the baby so I went for an ultrasound very early on. All was pronounced well and I was given the expected date of arrival. I finally announced that I was pregnant to friends and family and started to look forward to having my "autumn" child.

I have been a chronic migraine sufferer all my life. However I found in my previous two pregnancies that these abated during the actual pregnancy. Unfortunately this was not the case with Alex and I was afflicted with severe migraines, 2 or 3 a week, and which were quite disabling for about 6 months. Unfortunately my obstetrician was not interested in trying to help me manage these and simply told me to take Panadol. Eventually I went back to my neurologist who tried me on some medication. He assured me that they would eventually stop but could not say when. He also said that the medication I had been taking when I fell pregnant would not effect the baby, if had been going to it would have caused a miscarriage.

I also ran into trouble early in the pregnancy with painful "cramping" as the doctors termed it. To me it was a lot more painful than simply cramping and combined with the migraines it made life very hard. It also made working almost impossible. Because, as a single mother, I needed to keep working this was definitely a problem and at one stage during the pregnancy I considered some drastic action.

The cramping turned to contractions which plagued me, and, kept me hospitalised on and off until Alexander was born at 35 weeks. Repeated ultrasounds during the pregnancy detected no abnormality though a maternal AFP done early in the pregnancy was abnormally low. Unfortunately the consequences of a low AFP were not explained, and no follow up testing was done or recommended.

Unlike many T-18 pregnancies I did not have polyhydraminos (excess amniotic fluid in fact I was actually very tiny), my blood pressure was fine and other than the premature contractions all seemed well, though Alex was always very small for his gestational age.

All in all it was not a great pregnancy for many reasons, including social reasons, which saw Alex's father, and I separate about half way through the pregnancy. Certainly not the "ideal" pregnancy I had dreamed about. So I was actually very grateful when Alexander was actually born.