Energy: Debs is doing great. She’s a lot more energetic now that she’s in the second trimester. The uncharacteristic afternoon naps have passed (mostly ;-)) with generally higher energy levels. The bump is progressing nicely too. It’s really pretty noticeable now, but still quite well hidden under a baggy top. If you’re superstitious about the shape of the bump, it’s all front and centre – so that’ll be a boy then! I’ve got a completely open mind on gender, not being superstitious at all. Statistically though, it has to be said that the male line I come from (and we do chose the gender, ladies) produces mostly male babies. It’s like this solid little bubble on her front.
So, all seems well just now. And it’s still just as exciting as it was on the first day.
Midwives: Following on from our somewhat unsatisfactory meeting with the midwife last week, we met up with a couple of friends at the weekend, one of whom is a general practitioner and the other of whom is a paediatrician who is also about 10 weeks more pregnant than Debs. It seems that our experience with the front line of NHS ante-natal care is not unique.
Their experience, from a position of professional knowledge, was that some of what they were told at a meeting to discuss the results from a blood test was plain wrong. The long and the short of the conversation was that we should try to get a meeting with a consultant, interested in fetal medicine, at our chosen hospital. The rub here is that, were we going to the ‘Option #1’ hospital the midwife would have made an appointment on our behalf. Because we have chose ‘Option #2’ we have only been given the main switchboard number and told to get on with it!
This week’s task then, is to get through the phone system at the hospital, find the name of a relevant consultant and lodge a request with our GP for a referral to this person. In the mean time we’ve got some journal papers to read through. Yep, pregnant geeks!
Scans: So, with that task under way, we’ve also now got a date for our second trimester detailed anomaly scan, which is provisionally set for the 23rd of February. That would put us at 19 weeks and 2 days, which is really a bit later than we would like. Ideally the scan should be done between 18 and 20 weeks. If you are in a high risk group and will likely need amniocentesis though, you really want to have the scan as close to the start of the window as possible, in order that you actually have time to have an amnio and get the results in time for them to be meaningful.
In an effort simply to speak to someone, and request a change of appointment, Debs spent over an hour and a half on the phone – WITH NO RESULT WHATSOEVER. Basically the phone was constantly ‘busy’. The only person who picked up the phone was on the general enquiry line and unfortunately all they could do was offer to pass on a message. So, landline and mobile numbers were left, but we’ve not heard anything yet.