Week 13

This week was the week of our first scan! At the start of the week, every day dragged, all I wanted was for it to be Wednesday so we could see our baby. And then the day came, and I was soooooo nervous.

I kept thinking, what if the baby is not moving, or what if I have imagined the whole thing?? The appointment was at our local hospital, in the ante-natal unit. We eventually found it after walking down many corridors fulls of doctors and nurses walking around like zombies. The ultrasound waiting room was very calm, quiet with lilac walls and matching Christmas decorations. We had to wait about 20 minutes which was really nervewracking. Tyler was being restless, so my husband put YouTube on his phone (the hospital had wifi – yes!), so Tyler was happy watching train videos. Here they are waiting:

Then my name was called by a lady and we went into this room behind that had a place for me to lie down on next to the lady, and a chair next to it for my husband. Tyler sat on his lap, still watching trains. There was a screen attached to the wall for us to look at. The lady sonographer apologized for the delay, she had just had to scan two sets of twins who were really wriggly so took longer than usual!

I had to lie with my tummy close to the lady and lift my top up a bit. She tucked a tissue into my leggings waistband and put this gel across my lower tummy. She put her scanner thing on the right of my tummy and within a second there was our baby on the screen! Beating heartbeat and everything! I was so shocked at how quickly the image came up, I gasped, “Oh my god, I wasn’t imagining it!”

You can see the picture above, there’s the brain, little nose and mouth, the feet, all so clear. Amazing. The sonographer said our baby was really good, in the perfect position for her to do her measurements. She had to measure the nuchal fluid, which is the white line under the baby’s head in the photo. The smaller the better, and ours was very small – phew! We asked for two pictures, which were £3 each.

Afterwards we went back into the waiting room while she printed the photos out, and she gave me the date for our next scan which is at 21 weeks. That is the one where we can find out the gender. It should be at 20 weeks, but there’s a backlog of appointment because of the holidays. I don’t mind, it’s only one week later.

Next I had to go into another room, where another friendly lady took my bloods for some more tests. These would tell me if my baby was a high or low risk for Down’s syndrome and the results would come in the post. I got my 2nd Bounty Mum-to-Be pack and filled in a feedback form and then we were free to go. I was still rather shell-shocked. This is really happening!

That afternoon I messaged my closest family and friends, before announcing it on my blog and social media. Here’s the announcement if you missed it.

Symptom-wise, I can’t really remember anything from this week, as it was Christmas week, we suddenly got preoccupied with wrapping presents and visiting family. I had a really small portion of Christmas lunch as I feel full very quickly.
Week 10 – 12
Week 6 – 9
Week 2 – 5