So it's April 2015 and I mean the doctor's surgery and I have no energy. My hands are swollen and I honestly feel like I'm dying. I'm only twenty two, but I feel like I'm 82. I go into the doctor and she asks, Laura, could you be pregnant? My stomach is flat. I haven't missed my period, so, no, I'm not. She lies me down and starts feeding my stomach and then she freezes. She has this look of, like complete horror on her face, it's like she just discovered a tumor or something.

My mind starts to race and I think about California, of all places. This time of year ago, I was getting ready to go to L.A. and I'm wondering if all this is related to something that happened when I was there.

So let's go back to the start. My name is Laura Malloy, and a year before I found myself lying on the doctors couch, me and my boyfriend Luke were planning to go to California on the J1 visa. I'm from Ferguson, Dublin. That's where I am now, looking through photos of when I first met Luke. A friend who I just met in college was one of his good friends, and she begged me to go to this house party.

I decided I'd go. I didn't know anything about California. And when we arrived to the party, we were laughing so much. We fall through the SAT.

It's kind of a normal enough night, I suppose.

And then these two idiot girls just burst outside, really broke through the door laughing.

That's Luke. And of course, I was one of those idiot girls. You were one of the idiots. But then he offered to help me up, just started talking to her, had a lot of fun and took a while for us to start going out. It took Luke six months to ask me properly. But then again, we live in different parts of the city and are from totally different backgrounds.

We we're in the same year and more or less the same age.

And yes, our age. It's one difference that never fails to mention.

You act as if I'm so much older than you. Six months old. Yeah, well, it seems like, you know, you're older than me. Well, because of the old wrinkled. Listening back to myself and, you know, reminds me of just how much life has changed since we first met, you always say that. But I think it say because you see like you're getting thick there anyway.

Anyways, so anyway, we're finishing up in college and getting ready for the J1. I'm doing film broadcasting and Irish and and Luke is doing business and economics and Trinity. And the idea for Monte, California is just so, so exciting. Just one thing is mainly don't end up going to the same place. I decided to go to San Francisco with one friend and I was going down with the boys.

Now I just with a few friends in L.A. When we get to San Francisco, it feels more like Carlo.

There's guys jerseys everywhere, no work. And every week they have a God Jersey team twice. And I thought I'd not come all this way and save all year for this. And then on Snapchat, I can see that is having the summer that I imagined.

You were living in a frat house, and so the UCLA campus was about about 20 other Irish living in the frat, so it was crazy and eventually I convinced her to move down to a. I remember leaving San Francisco, getting a bus over the Bay Bridge and wondering what was ahead of me. There was this feeling of freedom and it was amazing. And when we get to L.A., there's this massive welcoming party and I know we've made the right choice.

Nonstop partying, it was it was it was the best summer I've ever had.

You'd be woken up because, like the sun would come in glare and like be like eight o'clock in the morning, you'd try and sleep for like two hours or something like that because you've been out the night before.

It was kind of like a song that would come on.

I was kind of like the signal that we could actually start drinking again.

You I don't really know who put on the song because I don't know who put it on either.

But the song was called Find Her by Nine Toes, and it became the soundtrack of the best seller.

It was unbelievable. We were obviously very broke and we live in a microwaveable per Brito's. I don't even know what was in them, but they were the best day of the holiday or remember was there were three for a dollar and then they moved them to four for it. So that was like, yes, all right, we can eat for the next couple of weeks.

And that was all we had to worry about, the fluctuating price of frozen burritos and whether anyone else was sleeping in our beds. Since that doctor examined my stomach, the possibilities of carefree summers are pretty much out of the question for me. But I'm telling you at the time, the thought of going home and not hearing that song every day felt unbearable. And all of a sudden we're back in Dublin. Well, when we came back home, it was more dealing with the comedown of such crazy summer and back to reality of college and living at home after having so much freedom.

After a few months, Luke dropped out of college. It's coming up to Christmas. And I'm starting to feel that something isn't right with me. I feel really run down. I put it down to too much work and study, but I feel lifeless. I keep a close eye on my diet and I can't figure out why my legs and arms feel like they've just been pumped up with air in college instead of studying and Googling my symptoms.

I feel heavy, but I don't have the balls to stand on the scales. So I ask Luke if I've put on weight. Maybe I thought you put on a little bit of weight, but thought it was just a bit like Christmas, Christmas, turkey weight, it just looked like maybe a little bit of normal weight gain.

It's kind of evenly spread. In March 2015, I started thinking, I'm pregnant, there's no way I'm not, but I'm still having my period and I haven't had any morning sickness. I buy a cheap pregnancy test in the two Eurocup on Georgia Street and walk up to my college and an interest rate, it's my first time I take in a toilet cubicle for a piana with the clothes you're supposed to remove. It didn't work. I buy a second one.

I take the cap off this time Dianella Water and I wait for it to turn positive or negative. It's the longest 30 seconds of your life ever, waiting to see if one line or two lines will come up or if it's going to, say, pregnant or not pregnant, but it's negative.

And I rang like I just remember and hugely relieved and then not really thinking about it that much after that, like, it just was instantly out of my mind. I know, Luke, we were going out for two years by then, but I didn't share his belief. I still feel terrible and if I wasn't pregnant, then what could possibly be wrong with me? By April 2015, nothing has changed, and I tell Luke I need to see a doctor, so here I am in the doctor's surgery and the first thing she asks is, could you be pregnant?

I tell her no. I take out my pill, remind her up and show her. Look, it's been 13 days since my last period. And I was asked to do another test and again, in big, bold writing negative. So I kind of parade isher with it and say, look, I told you so. It's negative. She starts asking me about my lifestyle, about my diet, what it's like, I tell her I've really gone off runny eggs and that I can't even bear to look at them.

I'm thinking she must really like eggs because she looks horrified, leads me down on the bed and starts feeling my stomach.

And after more prodding and squeezing, she says, I think you need to go to the hospital. My initial thought is shit. After finding a tumor, I've terminal cancer. I actually am dying. Then she says, I think you're pregnant. I'm like, you've just seen the negative pregnancy test, I've been having my period this whole time, this isn't physically possible. She says, The only reason I can think of is that you were already past 28 weeks and the hormone that gives you positive brain test has already left your system.

What? Twenty eight weeks was. I do the maths, but that's more than seven months pregnant, I have no symptoms, no bump, no morning sickness and no feeling of any movement. I guess I left downstairs and I'm staring at my reflection in the mirror thinking, what the hell is happening? What am I even going to say when I get to the.

This has to be a mix up. She clearly isn't a very good doctor.

And then I go outside and jump in a taxi. My reality is so work with the stage and the taxi driver is trying to make small talk, I'm just zoning out, but it feels like another punch in the face when he says I Fergana you love.

Is this your first? I get to the cube and I don't know where to go. I've never even been in here before. I got up to the security kiosk and I can't even bring myself to say pregnant. My brain won't let me process it. So he just points me to the admissions office.

All I can hear is women screaming in pain and taking deep breaths. I'm just sitting here thinking, how am I going to tell my parents? And then I started thinking, what are my friends going to say? I think of a story my friend Rachel told me about a girl who had a baby at the end of a pub crawl. She literally came home and 12 pops went to the bathroom and gave birth.

Now I'm that girl and I will be like, Laura.

Oh, my God, what's going on? What have you done? Like, how is that even possible?

How did you not know? I actually cannot imagine a more traumatizing experience. Clearly you knew they'll think I'm lying or just stupid. And now the doctors suddenly decide I'm no longer fit to walk. So they bring me to this room in a wheelchair. The nurse asks me more questions. Do I smoke? Have I been drinking? She says, this happens more than you think. And I'm like, What do you mean this? What is this?

I'm wrapped up in all these bandages and wires going into monitors, lights flashing, things beeping. I tell her that the doctors obviously made some kind of mistake and then she takes out this wand thing and put it to my stomach and all I can hear is the moon and thinking, well, at least I'm not dead yet. And then she says, that's like your heartbeat. It's the baby's. I was like, shit, I can't believe I'm pregnant.

Then they tell me how pregnant I actually am, 37 weeks, 37 weeks pregnant, passed by first trimester, my second trimester. And I'm in the final stages of my third trimester, like, stop. How how did this even happen? I'm in complete shock. I just can't believe that this is actually happening at some point. I can't even hear what the doctors are saying. I'm starting to feel faint. When I came back in, I hear I'm going to have a baby in less than three weeks time and I'm just about to find out the sex of my child.

I can't even believe I'm saying those words, my child. I'm like, oh, OK. The doctor said my mom was measuring at 17 weeks, but the baby's femur length with measuring a 37 weeks. I can't make sense of it either, but I can see they're concerned there's a problem with the baby's heartbeat and they tell me I'm going to need a 3-D scan. I'm trying to retrace my steps. Everything I've done that I shouldn't have, anything I've eaten, that I shouldn't have, anything that I drank that I shouldn't have.

And now I'm wracked with guilt. I didn't have the guts to phone my mom. I just can't handle the disappointment in her voice. So I texted her instead and asked for a lift.

Well, I was actually just after being down visiting my mother and I was coming up the Valley Colin Road, and I was thinking it was unusual not to have heard from Laura, but I thought I heard the battery is gone or she was out with Luke or something.

So she phone eventually contacted me about quarter five and said she was in the cool.

After I sent that message, I turn off my phone because I couldn't handle my mom's reply or in case she tried to ring me.

So I thought, well, maybe she has a fibroid or something. And then I turned on the phone again and said the baby might be in distress and my blood pressure is up.

But I thought, baby, I mean.

And then she wrote back, Are you pregnant?

And I said, yes, I was so shocked I could feel myself shaking all over with the fright. So I drove home. Don't know how I drove home, but I got home.

The doctors come back and say that I've got a rare blood type and that they would have class me as high risk a three months, never mind eight months. And now on top of all this, I have to ring Luke and tell him that he's going to be a dad. You call me. And I was on my break and work in Alvar's, and you pretty much told me straight away that you were pregnant. I was just like, Oh.

I can you can you check again and then you I'm definitely pregnant. I'm 100 percent pregnant and I just remember the phone just sliding out of my hands and. I felt myself really collapsing and the world was spinning. I then asked, how far along were you? How much time do we have? And I was like, uh, three weeks.

I couldn't get over the shock of it and knowing I would have to go home and try to explain to my parents was something that I was not looking forward to at all.

And then I was like, OK, I have to go and meet my parents, because in the time I've been talking to Luke, my mom had told my dad and I just showed them the text because I was absolutely speechless, couldn't talk.

I just showed them that thing.

So it was sort of just in this day and age to have this happen to her. We just thought the worst of everything, everything was negative, shock, anger, total anger. So the world is ending at home.

And I'm standing outside the school smiling like a maniac, thinking about what's going to happen when they arrive. I don't feel scared or that I'm going to burst into tears. All I'm thinking is, Laura, you're an idiot. How did this happen? Then the car pulls up across the road and my mom jumps out. She runs through all these cars and throws her arms around me, I said, is everything OK?

And I said, come on, get in the car. It must have been the trauma and the emotion of it all.

You still are you to this day about what exactly happened next.

So when they got in the car, dad said here, no matter what has happened, you have to say, I told mom and she said, she's seven weeks.

I asked him if he didn't do it.

I turned around to and I said, how far along are you going to ask me a second time that better turn it all off, because I'm telling you now, you have the story wrong. Like it was it was me.

You got talent. And we just sort of stared at each other for a while and said, I don't know what's going to happen because my dad didn't say anything for a minute.

And then he says, why didn't you tell us that beforehand? And he said, I didn't know. And I said, You must have known him. If I didn't say he was joke for 27 weeks. I didn't think I looked back. No, I didn't. I was a bit heavy anyway, so I didn't think you were that far gone.

But I said, now, what's the story? Is that the end of college? Is it the end of your life? As such?

It Retriever's take it up before you can do anything again. Is the baby OK? She had no prenatal care, nothing, no classes, nothing, just total worry, shock and pity and anger at all combined, we all drove off in shock and I could see my mom sneakily texting one of my sisters, Kate.

When I found out, I was. It's a spa luxury my way into my friend's engagement party in town, and I just stopped off to get money, I think, in an ATM and Claire and me and she was like, Laura's pregnant. I was like. What? And she said, yeah, but like she's eight and a half months pregnant, she's due in two weeks.

I was like, oh my God, what's going on?

She's in the room with mom and dad. So I just imagined this warfare going on home with her parents is like, I have to go over there. So I cancel my plans for the evening. Just went straight over to the house. Things like my dad has just been full meltdown. We get home and my dad starts to work on a solution.

Either that's a first. When I came home to settle the nerves and then he takes out his little Nakia 33 10 and says something about having to make an important call.

Prime minister to say you aren't going to believe what happened, she says what I said, and you've got every agreement. And she said, what? Who is it? Case no. Clear. No, Laura. Yes. Oh, well, it's true. Couple of weeks time. What he seems to be dealing with it. OK, but according to Kate, my mom was a different story. I went in to Michael and I said, get me a brandy.

And he said, You don't drink brandy all Isobella get me the next nearest thing. But Mom was just in absolute shock and kind of laughing at nothing.

I think he insulted and tried to focus on what was kind of shocked atmosphere.

I thought, oh, she's going to miss out no one so much in her life anyway.

And were you walking around folding socks the whole night? You were folding and unfolding socks and walking into a room just staring off into space, and you'd walk over again and we were all like the same mind, like, you won't believe it. And then everyone and I was more thinking not of the baby. I was thinking of Laura and her future. She was only 22. And then we thought about it and we said, well, somehow we'll get her through college and get her there and get her qualify.

My mom was talking about college, the future and what I wasn't going to be able to do. And my sister, Claire, she's also a nurse, says, sit down, show me your stomach. I pull up my staff, put all that revealed is a big fat barrero and no bump. It's a few hours now since I've spoken to Luke and Kate said she's going to college. I'm on the way home because his parents were away, so she thought she'd better check in.

You know, Luke was alone the evening, so we went over to see how he was doing and we brought him out for a drink, a milkshake from then to McDonald's, just see his house. And he was in total shock as well that I was I was like you hot of known, though, like you knew he was like, I didn't know anything. I didn't I don't know what going on. And he was really just was a serious state of shock.

Honestly, the main thing that came to my mind straight away was just telling people, how am I supposed to even when I can't even fathom it myself and just try pass this information on to people. I didn't know how we were going to go about that at the start.

Just it was so little time to prepare for anything and having to tell everyone it was so everyone would think you were stupid or, I don't know, hiding it or something. I'd I never heard of cases like this. I really didn't have a clue how to tell people or how to feel even. But with three weeks to the due date, I'm nervous. The doctor sent me to a clinic in Blakroc for a 3D scan. They said if my blood type and the baby's blood type were different, it was going to be a problem.

Lou came with me and I remember thinking I had the baby come all this way on its own when the show was a 3-D image, it's like the baby is holding up an angry fist. I can't describe what it felt like to see that first picture that is grainy, rubbery image with a baby and not just any baby. My baby. Just weeks from being born and Luke's parents still don't know. My own parents took the news a lot harder.

I drive you home, but I'm careful to drop them around the corner in case I run into them. They were extremely angry.

They had thought that we were lying. They thought that we were hiding it.

We were just sitting here just look, you know, beating down the shower, rain, look, you know, 37 weeks command.

It was a kind of a surreal and again, a little bit unbelievable that nobody knew about the baby until now. And there's only three weeks to go because, you know, look, I already had a bit of history in telling us that he was going to college and he wasn't going to college and telling us he was doing this and he wasn't doing that. And everybody was doing a whole lot of things that he wasn't doing. So could this be one more thing?

I just was stretching credibility.

Laura must have known. Someone must have known. Well, uh. We didn't know we didn't know my dad was angry at first, and then he is a logical man, is he immediately realized that this was going to happen and we had to prepare. Those first few days were a blur and we less than two and a half weeks to get ready like we were. We were scared, but we had so much to do that I kind of helped my parents out a lot.

And even though mainly Luke had been together for two years at this stage, they'd never met. There was never any reason. And I'm sure you can imagine my stomach drops when I hear Luke was coming over with his mom.

Well, I had never met Luke's mom. And she arrived one Sunday afternoon with Luke.

They come through the front door and I'm like, I'm so not prepared for this. I knew Luke's parents didn't believe him when he told. No, you didn't know I was pregnant. And my mom sees me for the first time. She says, you just don't look like your full term. And she's right. I didn't. I mean, we're as shocked as they are, but it's only when they start talking that I realize how much their lives are going to change to.

We just talked about the future for Luke and Laura and the changes that would be in our house and the extra work and stress on us here and the extra Washington and the House taken over completely with bogeys and highchairs, toys, everything as you'd expect with a small baby coming to the house.

And then after months of not showing, it's like a wake one morning heavily pregnant. It's hard to believe even now.

But overnight, the full term maternity wear that I just been given is too small for me, but my mind was blown.

My friend Rachel can't get her head around us.

It was Zeph like you were keeping the lid on something. And then when you actually found out and told people you just like exploded like your stomach just like absolutely exploded.

And now with less than two weeks to go, I'm terrifying myself with episode after episode of One Born every minute of that. Wow. Go on. Keep going, Don. Well, do I fall asleep to binge watch it with me?

Which probably wasn't the best idea because of my final checkup. The doctors say the baby's head isn't engaged and that I'm going to have to be induced when I go ten days.

And I've heard all about how painful that can be done. By the time my due date arrives now, one could say I didn't look the part walking around SUPERVALU in my slippers shopping for doughnuts, and that's when I feel a trickle. I ignored it because I'm expecting this big tsunami.

But all that evening, my waters are breaking Alamdar and bad messaging on Facebook. Then out of nowhere, I get these piercing stomach pains, I look at the clock and it's 12, 27, am I maced?

Look again on Facebook, it's getting late, is getting towards midnight, I think. And I was sitting on the couch playing FIFA and the Xbox. And you messaged me on Facebook and you said, I think I'm in labor. Leaked messages back and asks, are you time of your contractions? You were getting the contractions and the nerves immediately hit me. But I can't time them because I'm shivering so much and trying to apply to all his messages. And then eventually they started getting closer.

So I woke when parents said, I need a lift. We're kind of expecting it. So, um. And so he tapped on that the door at and I can't remember two or three o'clock in the morning, maybe a bit earlier, actually. So we wanted to get into the school.

At the same time. I've gone to work my own parents, and I'd love to say they reacted with the same urgency as Luke's dad.

That was early morning. It was. What was it like when the water broke?

Laura kind of said, I feel I went into your bar three times and he kept saying kebobs.

So we're both driving to hospital coming from different directions, and this is programmed by childbed. It must be a repeat on the radio. Reporter Brian O'Connor was on a journey with a group of mothers, a very special journey. And when we were on the way, there was this radio show and my dad wouldn't change. It had the first six weeks of when a child was first born or at the most difficult. And it's basically like hell because you don't know what you're doing if the child isn't sleeping, it just like there's all kinds of complications that can happen.

And my dad knew it was awkward and he just wouldn't you say this will be educational for you now? And yeah, it was it just it didn't it didn't help.

And I just remember thinking this is this is going to be how we get to the hospital immediately.

And he's really quiet. When we got to the hospital and I saw you, I was just uncomfortable because I didn't like seeing you in pain. I'd never seen such pain in your face.

Looking around, I have to pinch myself. I arrived at the same ward just three weeks earlier thinking about a holiday that may like planning a now we're not having a holiday for a baby.

I'm already far along for the doctors. Put me in a delivery squeeze and give me Gossner for the pain. But I press the button so many times I pass out.

She was out of for most of it. And also when she got the epidural, which she went back for seconds, pretended the first one didn't work. So she asked for a second one.

And she was it was like she was on drugs. She was completely out of it.

I was asked I was trying to keep her awake and I asked her what what you want to call them. Laura said, chicken nuggets.

I don't remember any of that. Just a nurse waking me up and saying, Laura, this is the final push.

You couldn't really feel the pain that much because of the epidurals. So you were able to keep pushing. But that too much pain without too much trouble. I might have been drugged, but after 18 hours of labor, I know that any second I'm going to meet this little person who's been hiding from me all these months is gorgeous.

So I thought it was sort of. I was working and it was a boy, he had massive eyes, I had full of dark brown hair and things so long. How did he fit inside me? I know. He was handed off to Laura and the first thing he did was take a poo into her belly button, I know straightaway he's going to be amazing.

When he was handed over to me and Laura was just coming back to her senses and there I was trying to dress them and I'd been up for 36 hours. At this point, I didn't know what I was doing at all. I said, you know, this is the first baby I've ever held. And Laura was just like, oh, no, we're screwed. And then our family started arriving.

So welcome to the world. There's a long little.

My dad had arms and legs and engineers and overall on the one place and he was a healthy, happy little lad.

My mom, it's like she went in with a shopping basket and picked up a baby and came out so it wasn't a bother on her.

My sister case. I was just so cute and I was really alert. Like he knew who we were and that I was trying to talk was already Luke's dad.

The first reaction is, is relief. You know, everyone as well. And after that? Well, after that, there's not much.

After that, you know, everything else is only a detail.

After that, we name our new baby Fenrir put the nurses had already nicknamed him Buster because it appends he was the biggest and heaviest baby on the ward. Looking at the size of fan, I was just amazed. I couldn't understand how the hell I nearly got into full term without showing any symptoms of pregnancy.

But later, one of the consultant obstetricians in the coom, Dr Chris Fitzpatrick, said, I've actually been experiencing symptoms of pregnancy all along.

The symptoms of pregnancy may be mild and also may be misinterpreted, and they're very non-specific.

But these symptoms are ones that people wouldn't necessarily associate with having a baby heartburn, irregular periods and swelling of the hands and feet.

And psychologists and psychiatrists, when they talk about pregnancy denial, sometimes talk about conscious denial and unconscious denial. So unconsciousness with almost absolutely no awareness whatsoever that she's pregnant.

And so the doctors gave her a new baby boy, then a clean bill of health. And all the worries about floods, about the pregnancy going on, monitored for eight and a half months, had come to nothing. But everyone was no doubt thinking the same thing.

Just what was life going to look like now, then come up here.

This is our home today in days where I still live with my parents. And then, of course, and it's now nearly three years since that afternoon. So much has happened since then. You say my name is. Well, what's your name? He is.

Just a month after Finn arrived, I managed to set my third year college exams. Somehow past got into final year, and after lots of tears and tantrums, I graduated with honors.

When I think back to that first afternoon in the coom telling my parents, well, if someone had said this baby was going to have this kind of effect on my family, I wouldn't have believed it.

Given us a new lease on life in ways he's open to marriage and he's always on the go. He never stops. He's a he's wired. He's go, go, go. Granddad, run.

Granddad has run on our wedding rings. Go away. Having somebody so young in the house is great again, even though sometimes I come home and the house is blitzed with everything and anything between outside and inside. But we wouldn't swap him for anything I like.

Oh man. And golf.

I think my favorite one when he started talking and he used to call me gang dad gang that left gang that I'm with, you know, when you hear that for the first time and even it's it's mangle a little bit, it's, it's, it's, I think that's really special.

I don't think that I you I'm Shalvey white boy. Sorry, Thin Shell and I'm sure you've already guessed me Lucasville together.

Show me what he didn't do anything wrong. You don't have to be sorry. It's been five years now and we're still the only parent in our friend group. We don't live together, but we make it work. We're dreaming big and hoping to move in together eventually, whenever that'll be. Right now, Lucroy from the bank. And I'm getting ready to go back to college again, this time to study primary school teaching. You can probably imagine I've lost count of the amount of times I've been asked, how did this happen?

How did you not know you were eight and a half months pregnant? How do they explain me not really having a bump? Yeah, I think well, they said that this was because Fynn grew behind my placenta and this would have also hidden his movements from me and Mrs. Frederic to five years ago.

I would have never designed my life to work out this way. Then how old are you?

No one would know. Do you know?

All I can say, really, is that I can't remember a world without Finn, two parents.

And now and I certainly don't ever want to live in one without them three three times a year or two.

But you nearly three a.m. and I don't know, you're nearly three.

You'll be three. And may I.

I had to put that down. Put that down. I have to listen to this.