Saw Rita, the midwife, this morning and I really like her. She seems to really know her stuff and is very forthright and honest. Baby heartbeat is at around 148 beats per minute and very regular (she said, hmmm, a boy?). You could hear it moving around too. Baby has moved up out of my pelvis and is sitting high and well. Placenta is at top of womb too…which it can move around a bit, but it’s good and needs to be at the top towards the last few weeks so the bottom of the uterus can prepare for delivery.
We had a fetal consultant (Dr. Rani) meeting last Friday and she gave us a very useful piece of information–we could request the actual titre values of the hormones from the 16-week blood draw (which I had today) and the risk factors against each of three conditions the test checks for (Down’s, Edwards, Spinal Bifida) in the information that is sent out to us.
Back to today…the midwives are now connected direct to the hospitals via computer and Rita will get our blood results back either this Wednesday/Thursday and will look them up on the computer–instead of us waiting for the mail out results–and she’ll telephone me with the actual numbers/risk factors and discuss over the phone what they mean. She is going to telephone Dr. Rani to book us in at St. John’s for 28 and 34 week growth scans. I told Rita that anytime we have the opportunity to see the baby, the better!
When we see Dr. Rani at week 28, we will probably discuss a birth plan with her. She said that for women over 39 they usually don’t want them going past 40 – 41 weeks.
So, now it’s waiting time for the blood results, the fetal anomaly scan on 16th February, then back at the midwife in six weeks time.