After the stress of the last few days, since our first and disappointing midwife appointment, we got into the system the right way today. After a couple of failed attempts to interact with the system directly, we got the number of the community midwife team. This turned out to be in the shape of a lovely woman called Dianne who made our world a much happier and more relaxed place.Continue reading
Category Archives: Parenthood
Energy, Midwives and Scans
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.Continue reading
Midwife met
We met our midwife today, well we didn’t actually as she was off, but we did meet her stand in from another practice and a charming trainee. I felt the meeting went very well on the whole. Much of the time was taken up with general chit chat, taking histories, bloods etc. and giving us an outline of the process from here on in. We have chosen to go with the hospital in Livingston, St. John’s, which is a bit quicker for us to get to from here than the alternative which is the Simpson wing at the new Royal Infirmary. I have it from others who’ve been through the system that the care ratio at St. Johns is better too, so hopefully we’ll be pleased.
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Midwife tomorrow
Our first midwife appointment tomorrow. The way it works over here, the midwife is the primary care manager for a pregnancy. You see your GP first, who passes all the details to the midwife team. The next step is the scan, followed by your first midwife consultation, and that’s tomorrow.
It’s another step forward and will be our first chance to discuss the monitoring and diagnostic options for the next few weeks. We’ve got some questions to get answers on regarding blood tests, our options for CVS (chorionic villus sampling), amniocentesis and/or a 20 week detail anomaly scan. I’m expecting that we will have an invasive test recommended because of our age, but naturally we’re worried about the associated risks. So, depending on what the detail scan can do, we’ll map our next steps.
There’s a lot to work through, in rather a short space of time, but it’s just so exciting.
Junior’s first portrait
Well, today was the BIG DayTM for the three of us. We hopped the 22, along the West Approach, Princes’ Street and down Leith Walk. Then a short walk to the Leith Community Treatment Centre for the dating ultrasound scan and our first encounter with the youngun. Half an hour later saw the missus and me in the scan room.
When the first image of the Little One hit the screen, tears shot out of my eyes in amazement that this little being is actually inside me. Proud Papa had a face of wonderment and joy that I will never forget. Very profound and I’m full of the joys today.
We’re pregnant!
I guess the title says it all really. As of now, we are approximately 12 weeks pregnant; we won’t know exactly until we get our first (dating) scan which is on the 15th of the month. So that was the motivation for putting up the blog, a place where we can both easily keep all our friends and relatives up to date, post pictures of Number One and all that sort of thing.
It was all a bit of a shock when we first found out. I spent the first couple of weeks not quite believing it but having those periodic “Shit! We’re pregnant!” moments at random times of the day and night. It’s all much more real now, I guess it’s sunk in that the world will change forever in the near future, and it feels great.