Today was the day of my 26 week growth scan (at 25 weeks 6 days!). This scan was initially not scheduled in my care plan of scans every 4 weeks (24, 28, 32 etc.) but for some reason two weeks ago the consultant decided to book me in for it.
Not knowing why this scan had been booked I was worried that maybe they had found something last time and not told me, so I approached this scan with trepidation.
I was called in for the scan quite quickly, and found that the lady was really friendly. I asked at the beginning for a couple of pictures, and I also asked if she could just double check for me that he was indeed a boy.
She started at his head, moving down she checked he had a heartbeat, then went straight to check the gender and low and behold I could tell he was a boy even without her telling me! It is amazing the growth and development from the 20 week scan where I couldn’t see anything when they told me he was a boy and pointed to what they said was the penis and scrotum, to the 26 week scan where I could clearly see what it was! So there is now definitely no doubt he is a little Jackson Theo!
She then went on to measure his head circumference, his abdominal circumference and femur length – at which point she begged him not to kick while she tried to get a good angle! Infact I was amazed at how still he remained throughout the scan having been kicking like mad in the waiting room before it! After that she checked my fluid levels, and at this point I got a bit worried. I hadn’t noticed in any of the other scans how many measurements they took of this, though had you asked I’d probably have guessed at one. This time however she took lots at all different points. After this she went to plot everything on the computer and graphs and told me that everything seemed good but would be discussed further with the consultant.

Following my scan I was called in to see a maternal medicine consultant – one I hadn’t come across before. He went through everything with me, and decided to continue with the 4 weekly growth scans from today meaning my next one will be at 30 weeks not 28. I asked him about my injections as my side is starting to bruise again, and I am sometimes bleeding a lot when I inject. He told me to change location, so I will try the left side of my bump to give my right side a break. I have been avoiding the left side as it is difficult to reach around the bump! He told me that he was very happy with Jacksons growth and how the pregnancy is progressing. I asked about the multiple fluid level measurements and he reassured me that she was just measuring at different points around baby but that it was all normal.
I then saw an endocrinology registrar who told me that it won’t be necessary to change me back to PTU towards the end of pregnancy as this is done because it transfers less in breast milk. However as I am on the lowest dose possible of Carbimazole that will be safe even if I have to continue taking Carbimazole when I breastfeed. He also gave me a blood test form to test my antibody levels, I’m booked in for that blood test tomorrow morning, and I am to have a thyroid function test in 4 weeks just before returning to clinic.
After a very positive clinic everything is still looking good and as after each positive outcome I can feel everyone around me breathing another little sigh of relief. With each positive result I allow myself to believe a little more that I will be bringing my little boy home, and that I will get to raise this child.

Yesterday I had my 25 week midwife appointment – yet another new midwife! It seems that although I am under one particular midwife she is rarely there, infact the twice I saw a midwife in my last pregnancy neither time did I see her, and now I have been three times in this pregnancy and I only saw her at my 8 week appointment!

This time I was seen by both a midwife and student midwife. While the midwife was reading through my notes the student midwife checked my urine and blood pressure and then asked me to lie on the bed so she could measure baby and listen to his heart. At this point she started poking my belly (quite hard – I would never dare press that hard in fear of poking him in the face!!) and announced that she had just felt a limb up the top above my belly button. She measured from there to (after prodding me hard in the crotch) my pubic bone and measured me at 28 weeks… (I’m only 25) She then felt round the side and said she was feeling his back and then she tried to listen to his heartbeat. After a couple of attempts the midwife swept in and took over the prodding announcing that his feet were up the top and that his head was down in my pelvis (the same position he was in at the scan) she measured me and got me to measure at 24 weeks (I think I will wait for the growth scan to see how big he actually is because it seems a bit of an inaccurate science measuring from a point they aren’t sure about!) The midwife then had the same amount of difficulty as the student midwife in finding the heartbeat – I wasn’t particularly concerned, I had felt him move just before I set off to the appointment and they seemed to just be poking it in one place and removing it rather than trying a whole area as every other midwife has. Eventually she found it and his heart was beating approx 148bpm.

My belly button has started to pop out recently and the skin around my piercing has been going a bit red – I assume where it is stretching. I have started cleaning it daily and it doesn’t seem to be infected, I just think that the skin ripped and it is now healing. The midwife picked up on the fact it was red and told me that if it gets any worse I will need antibiotics.

After they had done prodding my stomach they asked if I had any questions to which I asked how I should know if he was moving enough and was told that if I don’t feel 12 distinct movements in 10 hours to see someone. Now that seems a really small amount of movements! He can easily do that in 10 minutes! I don’t think I will be paying any attention to that advice and will be concentrating on what he normally does, and as normal, worrying if he doesn’t move for 5 minutes!

Then while making small talk the student midwife asked if this was my first pregnancy. I hate being asked this question, not because I don’t want to talk about it but because I hate making people feel awkward. I told her that no I lost my first pregnancy at 21 weeks so this was my second and she went really sheepish after that. It’s a standard question that lots of people ask, and I am not ashamed to tell the truth, it just ends conversations really quickly and makes the person who asked the question feel really awkward. I suppose it’s the same whoever died, asking someone about a particular family member when they are dead is also awkward, but I suppose maybe a bit more socially accepted as likely to be the case.

They then told me to book my next midwife appointment at 28 weeks so that is now booked in for 22 May. I’m pretty sure my life is ruled by appointments at the moment, and it seems midwife appointments are approximately every three weeks now and with scans every 4 and the occasional blood test I suppose I’d better get a move on with organising a shopping list – I’m sure time is about to start flying!!

On Thursday I am going to London for 5 days with my girlfriends. We are going to see McBusted at the O2 and then having a few days of shopping and seeing London.
I am worried.
We booked to see McBusted back before I was even pregnant, and as soon as I found out I was, I worked out how pregnant I would be at this time. Answer: more pregnant than I got to be last time. In the back of my mind I assumed I wouldn’t be pregnant by now, that everything would have gone wrong again, but it hasn’t. Jackson is a little fighter and with everything thrown at him he is still here and kicking away. I am now 24 weeks 5 days and Jacksons ears are fully developed and he can hear, meaning he will hear the concert. I am assured by midwives and internet research that the sound will be muffled by both me and the fluid around him, that he won’t hear the same as me – like being underwater in a swimming pool, sound will be muffled and that sound only becomes damaging to the unborns ears after long and constant exposure to incredibly loud noise. That’s reassured me about that.
I also don’t know how busy the concert will be in terms of getting to our seats, I can’t obviously push through crowds so I am hoping it will be fairly organised, if not I shall either have to beat the rush or wait until everyone else is in. Luckily we have seats or I wouldn’t have even considered going – standing in a crowd of rowdy music fans would not have been safe for Jackson, not to mention that standing, even for 10 minutes, puts my back out at the moment.
And that brings me onto the rest of the time in London. If I walk around my local city for a few hours at the moment, as I have had to do to buy a few extra maternity clothes for this trip, my back lets me know about it, and that evening is incredibly stiff, how it will cope with walking around London for a few days I don’t know – I fear it may involve regular stops and potential difficulty getting up in the mornings, causing irritation to my friends.
My mum has spent the last few weeks trying to talk me out of going at all. I reassure her by referencing that the midwife said it would be ok, to which she responds with the fact I should come home straight after the concert. The way I look at it is I will give it a go, and I can always spend a day at my friends flat or sitting in a cafe while the others head out if I need it. I can’t sit at home for another 3 months like I have been for the rest of this pregnancy. I will eventually need to head out and buy some things for this baby! I can’t become a recluse from my friends either, I’ve never been the most social person in the world, but I know it will only get harder and harder to see them once little ones here.
I have assessed this all from a risk point of view and from a pain point of view and I think I can manage. I will definitely not do anything to put my little man at risk – we have been through too much to risk it all for something so trivial, on the other hand, I won’t put my life on hold for the rest of these 9 months. I haven’t done much the first 4 months because I had terrible morning sickness, and now I’m feeling better I have things to do to get my house ready for the new arrival (sealing the bath and unexciting things like that – I haven’t even dared start in the nursery yet!) but I won’t let that stop me making the most of these last few months. I’m loving being pregnant and I want to share that with my friends (not least to make them all broody so Jackson will have lots of little playmates!)

Not a massive amount of growth, can’t say that’ll still be the case after Easter though!

17/04/14
23 weeks 6 days

15/04/14
23 weeks 4 days

Since I became pregnant I have been having dreams. I know they say you always dream but some people just don’t remember them, well I never remember them. I could probably list the amount of dreams I’ve remembered in my life, but since becoming pregnant I regularly remember them, though details slip away soon after I wake up.
The majority of them have been ridiculous and really random – school trips with people I didn’t like, or monsters attacking me, I can normally link them to something that’s triggered it for example a TV show or talking about something the previous day, but the other night I had a dream that shook me to the core – I dreamt I lost Jackson.
I know what brought it on, this week my fear and expectation of losing him has been heightened, and obviously it has spread to my subconscious. Unfortunately I didn’t wake up until the dream had finished, however when I did wake up I refused to open my eyes believing if I did I would find that it had all really happened. I lay there refusing to wake up properly for ages, until I felt him kicking away inside me and I breathed a sigh of relief when I realised it wasn’t real. Only at that point did I start to deconstruct the dream and realise that the nurses wouldn’t treat me in my own bedroom, and a few other random things that you just accept in dreams, but at the time it seemed so real that although I didn’t wake up, I was exhausted the next day, clearly having used up my energy already!
The dream, however awful and genuinely traumatic even though it wasn’t real, did make me realise how much I love this little man. I’ve been wondering if the fact I haven’t been bonding in the same way I did last time will have affected how I love him, but I realise now that I would do anything for him already. His strong kicks make me feel closer to him each time I feel them, and I am so grateful to him for giving me that amazing reassurance every day that he is still there and fighting.

So from now on I think I’m going to have to start relaxing and clearing my mind before bedtime to stop myself dreaming of things that have been worrying me, as obviously if it is something that’s worrying me anyway, it’s so much worse to then go through it, even if it is all in my head!

So today I turned 21 weeks pregnant.
21 weeks is the stage in my pregnancy I lost my little girl. Could this week end the same as last time?
I’m not sure how I’m supposed to deal with this week. Every time I stop feeling Jackson move I know I’ll panic, every evening I sit down and he doesn’t start kicking straight away I’ll freak out.
Jacksons kicks are already stronger than Effys-Maes ever were – big butch boy I have here! I know that’ll mean that it won’t take me three days to notice I haven’t felt him moving, infact I’m so hyper aware of his movements that I know within a few minutes if he hasn’t started kicking when he normally would. So does this mean I will be spending my week constantly at the midwife unnecessarily? Or do I ignore the rising panic in my throat everytime I don’t feel him and just believe that everything will be fine.
It’s hard to keep faith in that fact. I worried right up to the 20 week scan last time, then when I heard everything was perfect I relaxed. I ended up relaxing for less than a week before I found out I’d lost her – I had faith everything would remain fine and my world tipped upside down. So I’m not sure how I will cope with this week, or any week after this week if truth be told. I think even if we get through this one I will spend the next week, and the next, waiting for things to catch up with me.
The midwife told me at my 8 week appointment that I wouldn’t relax until I got past this point in the pregnancy – I told her I wouldn’t relax until I had given birth, and I’m pretty sure I was right.
I still haven’t imagined a future with this baby. I’m not sure if that’s a success on my brains part of blocking out all images of baby, or a massive failing in my role as mum. I haven’t given myself a chance to bond with this baby in the same way I did in my first pregnancy. I haven’t imagined my baby past the stage they are now. Right now I know exactly what he would look like if I delivered him, and that’s all I dare imagine, I’m not hoping it will happen, just mentally preparing myself for if it does.
However, I haven’t actually told myself I’m having a baby. I know that if I get to full term and deliver a baby I will have 9 months of bonding to do in about a second, and that it will be a total shock to me. I think I am going to have to start letting this guard down a bit when I start shopping. I think at the point that I go shopping, I’m thinking about 36weeks, I will need to have some belief I will be bringing a baby home to look after, to feed and to sing to.  I’ve been denying myself that for months and it will be hard to suddenly convince myself that’s the case.
I am sure that this week will pass, as all the other before it have, with no dramas and no excitement, but I think that knowing what happened last time I will be spending this week on edge, waiting for something to go wrong, while hoping nothing does.