appointments update

I had my ultrasound scan on Monday and have just come back from my 34-week midwife appointment. I am currently home sick with a nasty cold virus so I thought I would quickly post an update on how the appointments went while I'm sitting here nursing a cup of tea and feeling yucky.

 The main purpose of the ultrasound was to check that my placenta was no longer low-lying. At my 20-week scan the placenta was very low and I'm happy to report that my placenta has behaved and has moved out of the way. During the scan, the sonographer also checked baby's head circumference (300mm) and abdomen circumference (308mm). Both measurements were in the normal range. 

After the scan, I saw the consultant to discuss the results. She decided that my pregnancy can now be classed as Low Risk and I have been transferred to midwife-led care.  This means I will now have the baby in the midwife-led ward of the hospital and I'm very happy about this. At first I was concerned because the midwife ward doesn't have epidurals available, but the doctor assured me that if during labour I am not coping well and want an epidural I can be moved upstairs to the consultant ward to have one.  

The midwife appointment this morning went well. My blood pressure was normal (120/60), fundus height was good (35cm) and the fetal heart-rate was fine (138bpm). What I was most excited about though was the position of the baby: he is head-down, partially engaged, and in the LOA ("left occiput anterior") position. I googled this when I got home and turns out this is the optimum position for labour. 

I'm not getting my hopes up too much though -  he can always change positions and even if he does stay in this position, it doesn't necessarily mean my labour will be straight-forward. But knowing he is in the ideal position at the moment makes me feel more confident about my upcoming delivery...which is rapidly drawing closer!

thirty-four weeks pregnant

Pregnancy day 238...42 days to go!

Baby is now 17.75 inches long and weighs about 4.75 pounds. 

Well another week has passed and things are definitely getting more uncomfortable. The weather here has been very warm (which normally I would love) but being 8 months pregnant, the heat makes everything much more of an effort. My feet are swelling now (yuck) and sleeping has become nearly impossible. And then yesterday I started to get a sore throat and a runny nose, so I think I have caught a cold. I'm trying not to moan too much, but it's frustrating to not be able to take normal cold medicine!

I have only 3 more weeks at work now and it is starting to feel that the end is near, though there is still so much to do. Hopefully by the end of this week I will have handed over most of my workload to my replacement and my last two weeks can be more relaxed.

Someone in my antenatal class recommended a second-hand baby shop to me, so on Saturday my husband and I decided to go check it out. It's in a converted barn out in the middle of the countryside so I didn't know what to expect, but it was huge and had tons and tons of second-hand baby clothes, equipment, toys, and maternity clothes! I bought 4 summer maternity tops and a TENS machine all for really cheap! It was amazing. We decided that we would be buying all of baby's stuff from there in the future. If anyone lives in the Suffolk area of the UK and wants the details, let me know!

In terms of medical appointments, I have an ultrasound scan today (Monday) and then my 34 week midwife appointment on Wednesday.  I'm looking forward to seeing baby again on the scan - he is probably going to look huge! The scan is just to check that the placenta has moved because at my 20 week scan it was low-lying. I will post an update later in the week about the appointments.