13 Weeks Pregnant

So am I now in the second trimester?! No idea.

It seems to be at the end of the 12th, 13th or 14th week but saying that some people say that 13 weeks pregnant would be the 14th week or something...? When something so simple become so complicated...

This week has flown by with all the scans and things, cant believe we don't have another for several weeks, but I have had quite a few more severe symptoms than normal. Nothing horrible, but things that really took me to the edge and played on my mind a bit.

The main thing has been pains in my abdomen. Actually quite crampy at times, and by crampy I mean that it was persistent waves of discomfort. At the time I was trying to think round ligament but this was central and round ligament pain is supposed to be more towards the groin.

I had that for a couple of days and wondered if it was possibly exercise related because I've been going swimming twice per week and that is very dependant on stretching and posture, so maybe I pulled something.

Then to coincide with the pains, I do have the impression that I have popped a little bit. I've mentioned heaviness before but I'm almost a bit put off balance sometimes. Obviously not in a very real way, I'm nowhere near falling or even misplacing my footing but I just feel like I lean a tiny bit more than I intend sometimes.

I'm starting to feel aware of a bit more bulk up front. James has commented but sometimes I wondered if I'm letting my posture slump and gut hang on purpose, not anymore. James assures me it can't all be that, some of it has to be baby (because I'm so frickin huge?).

I have now been weaning off most of my ongoing immune medications and I feel my worse since my BFP! I have had bouts of nausea again and yesterday I actually thought to myself I could literally be sick for a few minutes. I have also been getting sharp headaches every now and again.

I actually had my very last intralipid done yesterday. Another new nurse who was pretty boring but she was good with the needle and managed to get it done in 100 minutes which is a record by about an hour.

My weight this week has only gone up by 0.4lb but that brings the total to 7lbs for the 1st Tri which is still quite a lot really. I do retain water like a cactus though.

Nuchal Translucency Scan - 12+4

My oh my. I am officially an Nhs snob and feel completely justified too!

I went in for my nuchal translucency scan today and even before we got out of the car I was pissed off when I realised we had to pay for parking. Pay for bloody parking?! Pay, as in I was taking a leisurely walk around the shops or something, but I wasn't. I was actually attending an essential hospital appointment. Visitors, fine. Patients paying for parking for day appointments? Tax paying patients paying for parking for day appointments?! What a joke.

Muttering to myself all the way to the Maternity and Gynaecology Unit we walk in and eventually find our way to the Antenatal Scan Unit.

Walking in, I feel like I've time travelled back to the 90's. It's clean, but very dated and cluttered.  No pride. Everything attached to the walls with sellotape in a haphazard fashion.

We go to the reception and she flicks through my booklet and asks for a specific form which I tell her is actually in the booklet. She finds it and then very loudly asks if I'm here for the "Downs Syndrome Test" which immediately offends me.

It's not called the downs syndrome test. The test is for other conditions besides downs syndrome and in fact downs syndrome is the least fatal of them. Plus, my baby still might have a syndrome and I resent it being implied that downs is the worst thing that can happen when it isn't.

I've been looking at kiddies with downs and they are much more widely recognised within society and mostly live very normal lives for people with sometimes severe mental and physical disabilities.

Then you've got the poor kiddies who get edwards syndrome or patau syndrome or one of the others trisomy defects and they are born to die, if they make it that far. Not worth mentioning apparently.

And anyway, why assume we're all so thick that we don't know what a bloody nuchal scan is when that is what we're there for?!

What a cow.

Sitting down waiting, James goes and fetches me drinks to help along my full bladder. It comes out of a dispenser but its clearly tap water - it tastes like bleach. I like my water at least filtered if you don't mind, I knew I should have brought in my Evian. I studied Geology and Environmental Sciences - I know where tap water has been!

The other couples that come in are the typical mix required to make the world go round - kids having kids, Polish, women with their mums, young ethic girls with older white gentlemen, women on their own. All looking a little awkward, except one lady who was more my type and chatting away to her husband about her birthing plan. I learned something quite handy really from listening in, something about them having to provide hand held heart rate checking devices and last time them checking her manually every 20 mins rather than strapping her up to a machine on the bed.

As we sat there I noticed a sign stating to ask if you want an ultrasound photo which seemed odd because I couldn't understand who would not want one.

We were finally called in and the lady was really old but seemed nice enough and I got on the bed and got my gut out. I always remember ladies stating how surprised how low down they do abdominal scans and this has caused me to be surprised at how high up they do them on me because it was only about an inch below my belly button.

There was an almighty fart as she squeeze out the gel and I could feel it spray everywhere *sigh* but not as cold as expected either.

The monitor was high up on the wall about 6 foot away but big enough to see clearly, but I could probably have done with my glasses on really.

I thought it was bad yesterday but today the baby was dead for ages. I'm so glad that I saw it only yesterday because that kept me going while we waited and waited. She did say that the baby moved but I didn't really see it so I was just looking out for the heartbeat but even when she had the baby in the usual length ways cross section and slowly panned through the baby neither me nor James could see a heartbeat. Back and forth she went again and again and nothing.

I wasn't freaking out, I was thinking more along the lines of how crap this stone age equipment was and with granny at the machine too and I was getting a bit irritated to be honest.

Eventually she stopped and proudly stated that the heartbeat was there and squinting I could just about make it out, but baby wasn't happy either and he started bucking away so she lost it and decided to attempt the measurement and nuchal reading instead.

He measured... wait for it... 68mm(!) compared to 62mm yesterday and that put him at 13w. That is what it says on my notes anyway even though the monitor said 13+1.

My telling her that I had IVF and the most accurate date possible is 12+4 and it isn't dependant on her measurements clearly went in one ear and out of the other.

Then it was time to measure the nuchal fold and she managed to sneak in a measurement of 1.1mm before baby had enough and began to violently protest.

There seemed to be much less fluid in there with him today and the walls of the uterus seemed to be closing in on him (maybe due to full bladder but the lady said uterine contraction???) and he started bucking away. He wasn't having any of it. Every time she got close to finding his neck he'd buck and twist and I actually started to feel a bit concerned... It seemed like distress.

To be honest I was worrying about two scans in as many days so that was playing on my mind and now baby was really giving it some. I just wanted to go and pee asap incase the full bladder was squishing him.

That might sound ridiculous but James felt the same. Did you know that pregnant women can pee anywhere, anytime because they should not hold their pee?

Anyway, so the lady was trying and trying for ages and was getting a bit frustrated until she finally grabbed another measurement from thin air and announced she was done.

We said we'd like a photograph so she quickly took one and put it into a folder and handed it over - "£4 please".

..............

I had exactly £4 in my purse and I really had to suck in the pregnancy hormones because a large part of me wanted to have a tantrum but I think ultimately I was too outraged to react and also really wanted to empty my bladder for baby.

Looking in the wallet it is literally the same photo, twice.

Back into the waiting room, waiting to have blood taken for the second part of the assessment, we noticed a broken machine offering stamps at £4 each to be exchanged for ultrasound photos.

I didn't feel like I was waiting too long, maybe 20 mins, when I was called in by a nurse who turned out to be very competent at getting my veins to play nice. I phased out for a little while, I'm not going to gawk at the giant needle going in, so she asked if I was feeling ok. 

I replied I was just relieved to know where the nearest defibrillator was, as explained in the signs on the wall opposite me.

She then got my booklet out and informed me of my new EDD of 15th January, which I immediately disregarded, and she showed me my babies growth chart which showed him to be slap bang on target... for 13 weeks -_-

They know the age of the baby exactly, he is 12+4 without question and therefore you'd think they'd use the information that he was measuring at 13+0 to highlight that he is currently above average in size (according to their machine anyway because he was just 1 day ahead yesterday). I doubt that it has any significance, but it is accurate. Using the sonographers measurement, which they are the first people to suggest is not perfect, and using it to classify my baby as perfectly average when he isn't seems stupid. Yes, it is. It's bloody stupid.

She then told me that if I didn't hear from them that I'd eventually get a letter through telling me everything was ok but if they phoned then the results needed to be discussed, but my nuchal reading was apparently 1.5mm when the abnormal cut off is 3.5mm so that looks very promising.

I've done a lot of soul searching about the whole chromosomally abnormal baby thing, in fact I'd done it before we'd gotten pregnant because to be honest when things were looking rosy we weren't 100% sure about how we'd deal with the situation if you know what I mean. Now, however, we'd definitely be grateful for whatever we were given and you even wonder sometimes if all the crap you have to endure is to force you into such a situation that completes you even though it would have at one time destroyed you, so I had been suspecting that I might have been destined to have a handicapped child.

I don't know if that seems really bazaar, but I was more surprised than I anticipated that the nuchal reading was normal. Life hasn't been normal for so long.

Oh! Actually I just remembered that I really shit James up earlier too. He was waiting outside during the  bloods because he's a wuss and he'd missed the whole conversation before she called him in and she left to get something. I'd previously told him the nuchal reading needed to be less than 2.5mm so as he walked in, I said "oh, it wasn't what I said earlier, it was 3.5mm" and he went a bit of a grey colour and I continued by saying "so it's even better" to which he looked confused.

He thought that I meant the 1.1mm reading from earlier was actually 3.5mm so well over the 2.5mm! Oops.

All in all, I do think the whole Nhs hospital setting is something I'm going to have to get my head around but it wasn't as dirty as I thought it might be and I do have higher hopes of the midwives being a bit more personable.

I've got my 20 weeks scan booked for the 27th August and I'm glad it's ages away!

Still not heard the baby's heartbeat or got a reading so I'm going to borrow SILs doppler and hopefully it'll be a good one and give a reading too. It looked so slow today.

Here is the photo of baby. You can see how cramped he looks! I am charging 20p per view to cover the incurred expenses :P

"Dating" Scan - 12+3

And breathe - ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh........

HOLY CRAP I'M OFFICIALLY 12 WEEKS AND STILL PREGNANT!!! :D

I'm feeling so reflective upon everything we've been through up to this point. How the hell did we end up here?!?!?!?

Oh boy was I so done with IVF and instead of just about getting ready for the next cycle to start - I'd  already plotted it on my calendar - I'm actually pregnant and not just pregnant, but a trimester down!

I actually had right up until 2015 plotted with fitness goals and IVF cycles and by that time I'll be morbidly obese and a mum instead, a good trade off I reckon. I'm glad I got out of that bloody Insanity DVD.

James was clearly feeling the same as me as he was keen to talk about the ups and downs we've endured. 

He's infertile, but we get IVF. 

We do IVF but it fails badly. 

Just bad luck apparently but it fails again with no hope.

We try all the latest techniques and it still fails.

We find techniques not in the UK and it gets better, but still fails.

We find the techniques in the UK and its the worst yet.

We have one last hope with antibiotics, nothing seems to improve...

But now we're 12 weeks pregnant!

The scan today was met mostly with excitement, but it is so hard to actually be positive and enthusiastic like how everyone expects us to be. "Have fun" I've been told and I just think it feels too serious. I'm wrong of course, it should be fun, but laughing is the last thing on my mind while I'm sitting I'm that waiting room.

The thing that was top of my mind was baby and then the close second was embarrassment because I have the worst bikini line rash I've ever had. Sure, this is much more attractive than glossy curls of ash blonde. Fine, dark ash blonde! James must feel cheated that I'm not really beach babe blonde because he hates me saying I'm blonde when I genuinely am a shade of blonde. Anyway I digress.

So lovely red raw itchy spotty rash down my thighs - check!

We get called in and I'm about to nip to the loo but she requests that I don't and we go for abdominal scan instead which was fine (yessssssss!). A bit disappointed it was the less preferred sonographer though. They must alternate each fortnight. She's ok but very clinical and reserved.

For example - she asked if I had spotting so I told her about my recent episode and follow it up with reading about AF related breakthrough bleeding and she goes quiet, keeping her face straight, and then finally says "Hmmm, I guess that could happen". Wtf, seriously. Thanks.

I'm on the bed, feeling like I need to take my knickers off just to help me relax, and watching the black screen while she starts smearing slime just above my muff line.

Baby appears but is very still.

She does a top to bottom scan and I don't see a thing and then back to the baby from the side but still no movement.

This was all done in a a few seconds but it felt like forever and I started to feel the ground swallowing me up. I think it's dead. I think the baby is dead.

And then the fucking heartbeat. Little shit could have just wiggled a little bit!

The scan continued, no one else realising I'd just undergone the emotional trauma of the baby dying, being resurrected and me realising with horror it had already inherited being an arsehole (from its dad of course *cough*).

The rest of the scan was brilliant, really good.

Oh, except for looking very much like it has a scrotum in the 3d scan! I daren't mention it because I don't want to know and didn't want to risk it being confirmed but she clearly felt the need to acknowledge it because there is no way we weren't both looking at it - the huge bulk between its legs.

The sonographer rather tactfully chose to inform us that a baby's sex cannot be identified this early and girls and boys both have the same. Telling the truth? I know it's not entirely accurate. Trying to be kind? Maybe. Saving her skin? More likely.

Believe it or not, I have purposely not been looking at gender scans because I know I'll see what I don't want to see if I know what to look for but it didn't look like a nub to me without any research required - it looked like baby had balls. Not the cord either.

Just to annoy anyone keeping up to date with my blog, I'm going to exclude all images of the balls because I don't want to acknowledge them further and I don't want opinions. I'm just going to hold on to any shred of doubt until after my gender reveal party and I'll show you after then.

We left the scan feeling fine, very happy :)

Seeing the nurse afterwards was a trial because the consultant had told us one thing and the nurse had no record so she was conferring with a different consultant who was telling her wrong.

In the end we kind of compromised and I'm just going to do whatever I think is best and whinge at the original consultant in the meantime.

I'm currently stopping all the drugs (thank god!) except the blood thinners.

We went shopping for a bit and I looked very pregnant in my dress, until I started noticing all the other people who were clearly more pregnant then me. Should they be out in this heat? :P

Ok, here is a better 3d photo. The head looks pretty... interesting... but the elbows and things are amazing!

And here is the link to the video :)

https://vimeo.com/70001246

12 Weeks Pregnant

Omg! 12 weeks pregnant :D

Gone quickly, hasn't it? I suppose I should have expected that really.

The burning question is though... Am I now in the 2nd trimester?

Apparently it can be determined by three different factors and each one influences when the 1st trimester ends and the 2nd trimester begins.

One of the ways is based on the development of the baby and then the other two are based upon dividing either the period of time since LMP to EDD or the period of time since conception to EDD by three.

I'm going to go off the development of the baby and why everyone doesn't adopt this method I don't know why, because that is the only factor that is consistent for every pregnancy. Basing anything on the EDD when it is an unknown seems a bit daft.

So, yes! I'm now classing myself as being in the second trimester :D Crazy or what?!

Well, I suppose I'll have to wait until my scan on Tuesday for my official confirmation but the spotting seems to have stopped as soon as it started and I think everything will be ok.

I thought I'd actually popped this morning but progression photos showed that there has still been little difference in my bump, or lack of. I have been feeling heavy up front though, especially when I bend forward. It's hard to describe but it just feels like something shifts forward and prevents me bending as freely.

I did have a tantrum though after getting on the scales. I'd put on 2.4lbs last week and felt glum, well I'd put on an additional 3.6lbs this week... How?!

That's a total of over 6lbs in total during the 1st Trimester, compared to the recommended maximum of 4.5lbs, and what is worst is that it's pushed me into the next stone bracket on the scales.

I've always been chubby so I figured no big deal if I put on weight during pregnancy because I'm used to being bigger, but honestly, I feel really upset about it. I feel like a huge big fat cow who will be so massive come labour that it'll take me years just to get down to a small enough size to use my frozen embryos :(

Also, I've been getting some nasty pains low down. I assume round ligament but I thought I was already getting those previously and they felt different. They were more like stretching warm aches whereas these are very brief but sharp ouchies very low down.

Boobs are huge and getting more huge, but nothing else to report really.

Skin is ok at the moment and the hairs have yet to recover the electrolysis.

I'm enjoying very spicy foods, disliking vegetables and although I have now attempted chocolate, I didn't enjoy that either. Melon was popular but I think that phase is passing. I don't really fancy anything in particular.

I am tired, but still waking 6am every morning and not getting to sleep until 11pm so that's not exactly a long time.

Hmmmmmmm, and that's it I guess!

Spotting Again Update - 11+6

Last night I had a thorough antiseptic wash in the knicker department to make sure there was no pessary bits irritating me and also so that I'd be able to see any new blood vs remnants of yesterday's gush.

I did find a lot of lumps of pessary gloop and they were dark chocolate brown, very very dark.

Today has been ok. Better.

I am still wiping small dark lumps but I haven't had any actual orangey red smears which is the really scary bit.

I'm just hoping it continues to ease off now until my gloop is the usual creamy orange colour.

I don't have any cramps, except the odd cervix twinge and low sharp stab, so I'm trying to remain optimistic as everything was ok after the last time.

Right on que I had a conversation with one of the clinic consultants today on a completely unrelated issue that I'm sure I'll mention on scan day, but before every sentence he added the disclaimer "hoping the everything works out" and added to my spotting and my impending scan I took it a bit personally.

Would it be so bad if they assumed it was going to work out by default and risk being wrong rather than sitting on the bloody fence?

Hopefully I'm in the clear after this recent scare.

Spotting again - 11+5

Just did my pessary this morning and as I pulled out the applicator it was covered in watery blood, maybe burnt orange in colour. I've shit myself of course and jumped right onto Google.

I'm trying to think what might have lead up to this and I remember just yesterday complaining to James about some itchy stabs near my cervix implying maybe I was getting a build up of pessary rubber and also yesterday I had a bit of unexpected bowel movement and went from being very constipated to being on the loo until it was coming out a little runny. I put it down to dodgy cake at the time.

Google suggested that the placenta is taking over now so that somehow causes bleeding and also that my period might be due around this time (the same advice I gave someone one else who recently had spotting actually).

It doesn't really help though.

Just checked when I last had spotting was and it was pretty much 4 weeks ago though so maybe there is something in it?

It's so hard not to melodramatically drop to my knees with hand raised to the sky shouting out "Why meeeeee?!?!?!?!" but I'm trying to remain calm. And rational.

Actually I'm also feeling glum that I should do bed rest now and I was supposed to be having a much craved for extra hot Nandos today :(

No point in phoning the clinic I reckon, I've got a scan early next week anyway... which will probably be very intense again now *sigh*.

Just when I was feeling really very settled with everything :(

First Midwife Appointment - 11+3

The appointment with my midwife was yesterday, so when I was actually 11+2, so quite late in the scheme of things.

When I originally phoned up my GP at 8 weeks to see the community midwife I was told that I needed to see her between 8-10 weeks and then told she wasn't free until three weeks later, so not a very reassuring start.

My problem is that admittedly I'm really quite cynical regarding the Nhs to start with, having more than one family member who work within it and listened to all the stories of incompetence and bitching and a genuine lack of compassion.

Add that to my own sense of putting in way more via taxes than I have ever been able to access and I guess I'm poised to seek the negatives to validate my preconceived opinions rather than the good points, but being aware of this help to keep me opened minded in spite of myself and that is what I did.

Needless to say the whole thing was the farse that I expected.

I'm welcomed in and sat down at the desk and after a brief introduction she starts rummaging around for "the forms". I'd been pre warned that this would be a long 60+ mins appointment due to all the form filling so I braced myself for a thud upon the desk as she heaved them down, however I was surprised that she carefully placed only about three pages in front of her.

Name, address, marital status, ethnic origin, religion... Oh, better take my weight and height.

Then she asked which maternity unit and suddenly I felt on the spot, like I was making a huge decision based on absolutely nothing. I asked if she had any recommendations knowing full well I didn't value her opinion in the slightest and that there was just one unit on the internet that seemed like the logical choice, so basically I didn't really have any choice.

She still made a crack at a couple of units though, the one that I was leaning towards in Derby and she also pointed out that a lot of women she sees pick one in Nottingham. I asked which is better and she reassured me that the one in Derby was better so that was that. Another form was filled.

The final form was the health medical history and she streamed off a list of conditions of which I had none and then I informed her of the medications that I'm on as my of my IVF immune treatment. She wrote them all down looking very perplexed and then announced I'd definitely be consultant lead care and that she'd have to phone ahead and see if the consultant would see me at my 12 week ultrasound.

She was one the phone for ages and she kept referring back to me asking what each medication was for and I felt a bit like an idiot because I don't really know. I never really acknowledged there being anything wrong with my fertility so all these medications are just precautionary and uninteresting as far as I'm concerned. The thing is though that I want my blood clotting to continued to be managed because clots are a definite cause of healthy pregnancy loss particularly in the later stages.

She confirmed with me I wanted a nuchal scan measurement doing at my 12 weeks scans and it was all booked over the phone. They would also try to get me to see the consultant at the same time but could I bring a note from my fertility consultant explaining my current prescriptions.

I listened on as the topic changed on the phone and they were joking around with each other about work and my midwife must have forgotten herself because she even made a joke about just sending all the patients at my GP to Derby and all the patients at another GP to Nottingham.

When she was off the phone she must have known what I was thinking before I asked for clarification about which unit she thought was better. Derby, she said, was much more involved in continuous risk assessment whereas Nottingham was more laid back in their approach. Needless to say the summary of Nottingham appealed more to me because I don't want to be intruded upon during labour, but trying to be sensible Derby still makes more sense.

So, all the forms filled, it was time to take blood for several things of which I'd get told the results only if they required action. That went surprising well considering my veins are crap.

I sat down again, realising I'd been in there for an hour already, and she handed me a bounty pack and a blue folder.

The date of my 12 week scan was confirmed for the day after my 12 week scan at my fertility clinic, so I'm getting two consecutive scans, and she told me with a very serious face that I must take my blue folder with me and the documents insides or they won't do the scan when I arrive (because they can't checked the computer to confirm my identity and appointment?!).

I know I'm going to forget them!

Anyway. That was that. As I was leaving she informed me that there was a number if I ever needed to speak to her but she was very rarely actually available so to just speak to whoever is free. Very reassuring.

I wondered out, realised the appointment had been closer to 80 minutes and I wondered why it took so bloody long.

I felt my opinions has sadly been validated. It just wasn't what I'd hoped for really and I suppose I must have been naive to expect the enthusiastic midwife dedicated just to me and putting herself forward as a person to be relied upon during what is a very significant time in someone's life.

No question about me having a doula now!

Oh, and the famous bounty pack... What a crock. It's like a collection of all the spam mail they want to send you but haven't been accidentally given permission to by one of their third party partners.

I get another pack - if I fill out an address form. Yeah, like I'm that stupid!