Whereas in Week 15 I was craving the smell of lavender, in Week 16 the lavender scent made me feel physically sick! The little bottle is now at the back of my wardrobe. This week I’ve been craving oranges and freshly squeezed orange juice with bits. I had this family-sized pack all to myself. I’m sure it must be my body telling me I need vitamin C or something.

I’ve been feeling pains at my front, like I’ve pulled a muscle everytime I get up from sitting down. According to my babycentre app, this is the ligaments around the uterus thickening and stretching causing these pangs in the belly. Phew. Also baby is the size of an avocado.

I had my 16 week midwife appointment on the Tuesday of the week. It was at 10.15am, but of course I was running late after getting Tyler ready so had to power-walk there with Tyler in the buggy. Now there’s my exercise for the year! I got there all flustered, but had to wait 10 minutes anyway.

When I was called in, I expected my lovely midwife Laura from the booking appointment. But there was a student midwife there instead -nooooo! She didn’t have much people skills, asking for the notes straightaway without a ‘how are you?’. Then the community midwife came in who was much friendly and chatty. While the student midwife was getting my blood test results on the screen, I lay down and the community midwife got her machine out and we heard baby’s heartbeat. It was amazing. She let me record it so I could let my husband listen to it later.

I sat back down, and the community midwife looked at the screen and gasped, ‘Ohh your iron levels are really low! Have you had any letters in the post about it?’ I was like, no, just a letter that I’m low-risk for Down’s Syndrome and a letter about an April scan, nothing about iron. She said this is serious, they’d have to book me into the antenatal unit and I’d have to have a prescription for 3 iron tablets a day. They were frantically trying to phone the unit but there was no answer, and I was just in shock, I’d been taking my pregnancy vitamins and had been eating healthily.

Then I looked more closely at the screen and noticed the date of birth was wrong. The day and month was correct, but the year was wrong. I looked at the name and it had lots of Zs in it. “Hold on a sec, that’s not me!” I exclaimed. The student went, “Oh, don’t worry, I haven’t written any notes on it”. She didn’t even apologise or looked shocked she had made a mistake, just carried on.

The system then crashed and the screen froze – typical. She had to log on to a remote system. When my results finally came up, the jolly community midwife goes “Oh your iron levels are fine. I thought so, look at you, you’re healthy! Good thing you noticed, eh?!” She was so jolly, I couldn’t help but laugh. Really, I should have been fuming, they were going to wrongly prescribe me iron tablets!!

Next they told me about this diabetes test I have to do at 28 weeks – ugh. I have to fast from 7pm the night before the test, and can only have water. They told me to choose the earliest appointment so I can eat soon, so I chose 7.40am, and then I can eat 2 hours later. I am really not looking forward to this. I forgot to ask them what exactly happens, so I asked my mate who had it, and she said they give you some Lucozade to drink and then they test the sugar levels in your blood to see how your body reacts. Then you’ll find out if you have gestational diabetes.

As this is my second pregnancy, there are no more midwife appointments until 28 weeks. So I’m kind of feeling like they’re just leaving me to it, weird. The only thing is, I need to get a MATB1 form to give to work, and you only get that after the 20 week scan, but you have to give it to work before 25 weeks, and I have no midwife appointments! I think I’ll have to phone them about that.

It was lovely hearing my baby’s heartbeat, and being able to record it, but my trust has totally gone from the midwives. The moral to this story is, if you have any medical appointments, ALWAYS check they are YOUR details on the screen!

Week 15
Week 14
Week 13
Week 10 – 12
Week 6 – 9
Week 2 – 5