Dragons' Den star Ramona Nicholas has spoken of her joy at becoming pregnant with her second child after three years trying to conceive.
The entrepreneur and MD of the Cara Group told the Sunday Independent that she would not be appearing on the new series of the RTÉ business show as she is due in March and did not want to have to pull out in the middle of filming.
Nicholas said she viewed her pregnancy as "a gift" after the years of waiting and hoping.
"It can be very stressful," she said. "We did try and it didn't happen and you see so much of it happen now and it can be down to the stresses of everyday life and trying too hard."
"You get to the stage where you get obsessed thinking about it," she continued. "You're constantly asking yourself, 'Why can I not? What's wrong with me? Why can I not have another child?'"
Nicholas and her husband Canice, who are parents to five-year-old Alex, felt they were putting too much pressure on themselves to have a bigger family. The news that she was expecting subsequently came as a surprise.
"We decided we were going to be happy with Alex and enjoy life as it is. We made the decision to live our lives and start planning for our life the way it was and to start planning forward. It distracted me so I wasn't expecting it."
Nicholas plans to take more maternity leave this time and admitted she has regrets about going back to work too soon after having her son.
"Now I feel more confident that I can make a decision and that I don't have to be driven by what other people expect I should be doing as a woman who is running her own business," she said.
