It can be tricky to spot the early signs of pregnancy.

Unfortunately, many of the pre-menstrual symptoms are similar (sore breasts, bloating, general crankiness, nausea, cramps…) and I am the type that tends to get “phantom symptoms” anyway… but this time I was pretty sure something was going on.

I’ve mentioned before about how I had intense baby brain in a couple of older posts the last two times I was pregnant (check them out here and here) and this time around was no different!!
Starting with…

The Bank Debacle

Early last week I needed to go to the bank to cash a cheque (I’m still trying to get around why some companies still use check, but anyway…), unfortunately the cheque had been written with my maiden name on it, with a “not negotiable” stamp on the front.

I thought that since the bank is pretty good at being useless and hadn’t managed to change my name properly on half of our accounts anyway that cashing it shouldn’t really be a problem. Even so, I thought I would dig out my marriage certificate just in case there was an issue.

Since I had to go to bank anyway I thought I might as well run some other errands at the shops. I had heaps to do that day and didn’t want to waste any time, so I decided to plan out which shops to go to in which order in order to maximise efficiency (I hate going to the shops at the best of times, so the less time spent there, the better!!).

I went and did my bits and pieces and then headed over to the bank. There was a queue 3 deep, so I waited about 15 minutes and then finally got to speak to the guy at the desk. I explained the name change situation, and joked with him that since the bank couldn’t seem to get my name right on my card anyway, that surely cashing this cheque wouldn’t be an issue.

He seemed to think it wouldn’t be a problem and steered me over to the fancy new ATM cheque deposit machine. I reached into my hand bag and… of course, the cheque wasn’t there.

I must have left it… somewhere. Which is stupid, because the cheque is the main reason I’d even left the house that day.

I explained to the guy that I would go home, get the cheque and come back.

I decided to quickly do the rest of my jobs at the shops, then raced home, got the cheque (of course, it was sitting on my desk in a neat little pile with my marriage certificate) and thought that rather than walking, I’d speed up the process by driving over to the shops.

So, I jumped in the car… navigated to the parking area near the bank and of course… it’s packed out.

Not a spare car space in sight! I circled for 20 minutes with no luck at all (it felt like every time I saw a spare space another car would magically appear out of nowhere and snatch it up before I could get there!)

Finally, I admitted defeat and went to another parking area, further away from the bank.

By this stage, I’m wondering whether to just give up, I’ve already wasted enough time on the stupid cheque today.

Anyway, I finally get to the bank and of course… there’s a new staff member at the desk.

I walk right up to her and explain the name situation all over again. She looks at the cheque, looks at my account and says “you can’t bank this cheque, you will need to get them to write a new one”.

At this stage, I’m about to flip my lid. Through gritted teeth I say to her “Look, this is the second time I’ve been down here today. I am not having a good day, this is not the time to stuff me around and I am NOT IN THE MOOD FOR THIS. Since the bank can’t seem to work out how to change my name on all our accounts in the first place, I don’t see any reason why you wouldn’t be able to deposit this cheque.”

Her response? “That’s not a problem, I will order you a new card with your married name now”

With that response, I’ve pretty much had enough, and say to her (probably a little too loudly) “I think you’re missing the point. I just need to deposit this cheque. If the name is such a problem, here’s my marriage certificate, why don’t you just go ahead and change my name back! I don’t care HOW you do it, you just need to

DEPOSIT.

THIS.

CHEQUE.

PLUS, the other guy SAID I COULD!!!”

While I shot daggers at her.

She look at me like I was a bit of a crazy bitch and said “um… well the other guy that was here before is a teller, so he probably knows what he’s talking about… I’ll just get the manager…” and tip-toed away quietly.

She faffed about for around 15 minutes and then finally came and said “no problem, we’ll deposit that cheque for you now”.

I felt slightly guilty about my crazy outburst, but I’m kinda thinking I might not have gotten my cheque deposited if that situation hadn’t gone down?

Anyway, the whole cheque business was only the start of my crazy week.

The Barely-a-Break-In

After I got home, I saw that one of our statues had been knocked over in the garden, and our back door was open… so I was freaking out a little.

I tiptoed over to the back door, only to find that… it was locked.

WHAT!?

Yep, I had managed to lock it… and leave it open at the same time. What a cracker.

and the third thing that tipped me off baby brain wise…

The Freeway Fiasco

The next day, we were having Sam’s parents over for dinner. Nothing totally unusual about that, but long story short I had agreed to go pick up Sam’s Mum after I left school.

I don’t go down South street all that often, but it is pretty simple to navigate to their place from there, all you really need to do is get on the freeway…

So, I  managed to get myself onto South street, driving along, only to see the University on my left, at which point, I’m thinking “umm… I’m pretty sure, the university is past the freeway”.

Which of course it is!!

My baby brain managed to somehow DRIVE PAST the freeway on-ramp without even noticing (seriously, you think they could make those big green sign’s more obvious, right!?)

So, the return of the baby brain earlier in the week is what first tipped me off about the new pregnancy before it was confirmed.

Following that, I found myself craving steak with sour cream (weird combo, hey!?), feeling just a little bit off, but also hungry at the same time, my skin was unbelievably dry and I was sooo sooo thirsty all week. There were a few other symptoms but possibly TMI so I’ll leave it at that 😉

Finally, on Friday morning I decided I better take a home test. I was a mixture of nervous and excited so I could hardly sleep the night before and found myself awake half the night.

Finally at about 5:30am I got up and did a test. Only to find the test was faulty! ARGH! I was so annoyed I’d wasted that “first thing in the morning pee” on that stupid test. I quickly jumped on google to see if there was a 24 hour chemist close by.

Of course, the earliest a chemist is open near us is 7am… so I occupied myself for a little while until 7am came around and shot off down there to check with the chemist if there is another type of test you can use any time of day!

Thank goodness there is. So, I grabbed a 3 pack (I know, probably over-kill, but what if the first one doesn’t work again!?)

And Lo and behold… that one was nice and positive. Just as I thought.

But even so, I decided to race down to the path lab and get a blood test as well just to be sure (I’m pretty lucky that my OB usually calls me with test results the same day as the test so I was eager to get it done… but of course, on this occasion I had to wait 3 days for the results *sighs*).

So, that’s how I knew I was pregnant again.

Now, we just have to wait to see if our 50/50 chance pulls through for us this time! Lot’s of positive thinking happening over here 😉

Until we find out what’s happening, I’d love to hear your experiences!

Did you know you were pregnant really early on? How did you find out?
Did you have weird symptom’s that tipped you off?
Do you have phantom symptoms sometimes too??

Let us know in the comments below. Look forward to hearing your thoughts!