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!

midwife & NCT update

It was a busy day yesterday: I had my 31 week midwife appointment and my NCT class on the same day. I thought I would write a quick blog post to say how they went otherwise knowing me and my baby brain I will completely forget the details by the weekend.

The midwife appointment was in the morning before work and it went well. Everything was "normal" according to the midwife. From the scribbles she put in my maternity notes I can make out that my blood pressure was 100/60; fundus height was 31 cm; position was "ceph"; and fetal heart-rate was 148 bpm.

I think ceph stands for cephalic, which means head-down. She also wrote that baby was "free" which I think means he is not engaged yet...so overall everything seems fine for being 31 weeks. My next appointment is at 34 weeks and is scheduled for 30th May. 

NCT class last night was all about pain relief. It was good to go through all the different types of pain relief available, but it was scary too! We discussed all the options available from natural things like hot baths and massage all the way up to the hard core options of epidurals and opiates.  For each type of pain relief we went through the pros & cons.

I found out that the medical options for pain relief at my hospital will be Gas & Air (aka Entonox), Pethidine (aka Demerol); or an Epidural. I wasn't aware about all the negative side effects that some of these drugs can have and it scared me a little. For instance, Pethidine crosses over the placenta, effecting your baby and potentially making him "drugged" for a day or two after birth. 

We also talked about something called a TENS machines, which I didn't know much about. I'm thinking about getting one because it's a natural way to deal with early stages of labour and can be used in combination with Gas & Air. If anyone has used a TENS machine in labour I would love to hear about your experiences.

I decided after the class that my favourite options at the moment are hot water, TENS machine and Gas & Air. But I'm not going to rule out any of the more hard-core options completely because who knows how I will feel once the contractions start.

twenty-eight weeks pregnant

28 weeks pregnant

Pregnancy day 196...84 days to go!

Baby is now 14.8 inches long and weighs about 2.25 pounds. That's about the same weight as a litre of water!

I had my 28-week midwife appointment last Friday which I posted about the other day here. Then today I went to the hospital for my Glucose Tolerance Test. I went in at 8.45am on an empty stomach, had my blood taken, drank a sugary drink, waited for 2 hours, then had my blood taken again. On top of this I agreed to take part in a test the hospital was running, which meant I also had my finger pricked each time. So in all I was jabbed 4 times in 2 hours - not pleasant! 

The nice thing about the finger-prick was that I was able to get the results immediately. My blood glucose level measured 4.4 for the first test, and 5.4 for the second test. I don't know much about gestational diabetes, but both hubby and the midwife said my results were good.  

Fingers crossed this means I can be discharged to the midwife team and can give birth on the midwife-led ward, rather than the consultant-led ward.  I will find out at my next midwife appointment, scheduled for the 9th May.

Otherwise, I've just been working like crazy and getting stressed at the smallest thing. At the moment I scheduled to leave work when I am 37 weeks pregnant. But I am considering using up more holiday than originally planned and leaving when I am 36 weeks or even 35 weeks if I can! Is that too early to leave?

We still haven't sorted out the nursery, but we did go on a little shopping spree last weekend and bought way too many clothes for baby boy at Mamas and Papas. Everything was so cute - we just couldn't stop ourselves. We don't have much more to buy now, except for bath/hygiene stuff and all the nursery bedding plus any decorations. Oh, and I need to do my hospital bag, but have a feeling I will put that off until the last minute.

midwife appointment

Yesterday I had my 28-week midwife appointment. I was only 27 weeks (+4 days) at the time, but the midwife wanted to see me before my Glucose Tolerance Test scheduled for Monday morning. 

The midwife checked all my vitals and everything was fine. My blood pressure was 110/60 (that's normal right?) and my uterus was measuring at 28 weeks. They checked for baby's heartbeat (148 bpm) and checked my urine, which was fine. And then I was ushered swiftly out the door. 

Before I got pregnant I imagined what midwife appointments would be like. I thought the midwife would chat and ask me loads of questions and do a huge range of detailed tests and we would laugh and it would be such fun! It's not like that. Maybe it's because my pregnancy has no complications, or maybe the midwives are extremely busy, but every appointment has been a quick check - I ask my questions, they are answered sharply, and it's over and done with in 10 minutes. It's odd.

My NCT antenatal classes start in a couple weeks. The course lasts 6 weeks and each session will be 2 hours long in the evenings. I'm hoping that all my silly questions and concerns will be answered thoroughly at these and I will start to feel like my pregnancy is slightly more important than a 10 minute check-up.