The realisation that convinced Constance Hall and Denim Cooke to have a baby together. 

Constance Hall and Denim Cooke had only been together six or seven months when she took a pregnancy test.

They were in Bali, and she had an inkling she might be pregnant.

Cooke wasn’t nervous, telling Hall’s cousin at the time, “she pisses on a stick once a month, she always thinks she’s pregnant”.

But this time, she was.

Hall has four children who she shares with her ex-partner Bill Mahon, and Cooke has two sons from a previous marriage. But even with a busy household of six kids, they had decided early on to have at least one child together.

Speaking to Mia Freedman for No Filter, Hall says the decision was “probably more driven by me”.

Listen to Mia Freedman interview Constance Hall on No Filter. Post continues after audio.

“It felt like his ex partner… they shared something, and me and my ex partner shared something, and we were just so in love that there wouldn’t be any reason for us not to,” she says.

But there was one moving conversation in particular that was a catalyst in their decision to have another child.

“We were sitting in a winery in Margs [Margaret River],” Hall recalls, “and I said, ‘when we’re 70, and we’re looking down at all of our kids, won’t we always wonder what ours together would’ve looked like?’

“And [Denim] was like, ‘when you put it that way, yeah, you’re right.'”

So when Hall discovered she was pregnant in Bali, she knew what she wanted to do. That doesn’t mean, however, that there haven’t been moments of doubt throughout her pregnancy.

From the bottom of my heart. I’ve never been this happy in my life. No sponsors, I’m simply tagging because everyone did such a fantastic job ???? @rolling_stills (photographer) @ixiah_thelabel (dress) and @thezestgroupwa styling ????????????

A post shared by constanceandtribe (@mrsconstancehall) on Jan 6, 2018 at 7:47pm PST

In October last year, Hall wrote on Facebook, “We are not ready for this and I am petrified, babies terrify me.”

“I considered having an abortion this morning because Densy slept in.”

After significant backlash online, Hall clarified her comments.

“A lot of people are angry that I joked about abortion,” she wrote. “Actually, I was dead set serious.

“I am pro choice, I always have been and I believe in normalising abortions, they shouldn’t be a dirty secret that we don’t discuss in public forums.”

Speaking to Freedman, Hall says in hindsight, “both him and I probably would’ve felt pretty stupid if we did that, considering… in three or four months we might be trying again.”

She did, however, feel a lot of pressure during the early days of her pregnancy.

“When we’d have an argument… that thought would be going through my brain… you know like it took me so long to get independent, what am I doing?”

One of Hall’s biggest concerns was Cooke and whether he’d always be there for her and the baby.

“I thought to myself, I’m turning the clock back and I’m doing it all again and I don’t want to do it on my own,” she says.

“I thought what if he changes? You know, how a lot of men change when the baby comes out?”

For Hall, those anxieties have subsided.

And now, she’s just excited to meet her baby in June.