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.

Today I went for my anomaly scan. I was half dreading it, half incredibly excited. I was counting down the time until I got to see little Shrimp on the screen again, but at the same time I was terrified about what they may find.

The scan wasn’t until the afternoon, which was probably good as I take ages to wake up properly in the morning nowadays, but when I realised I only had an hour to get ready I realised how quickly it had crept up on me. I booked it 2 months ago, and it had seemed forever away then, even a week to go seemed ages, but suddenly it was here and I was so not ready!
We were the first appointments after lunch, I chose them because I figured they couldn’t start to run behind so soon, SURELY! On the whole I was right, however they didn’t open reception until it was time for my appointment and the two people before me both took FOREVER, but after I had booked in we didn’t have long to wait until I was called in for my scan. She checked at the beginning if we would like a photo and whether or not we wanted to find out gender. We answered yes to both.
She started at the head, showing us the nose and eyes and lip and then she made her way down the body, looking at the skull circumference and measuring bits within the brain, checking the heart was ok, both kidneys were there, stomach, which she noted was full, and baby had clearly just had a drink, measuring the abdominal circumference, checking both legs were there and measuring the femur length. She then checked the spine and I think she could tell we were waiting with bated breath as she quickly reassured us everything was ok.
She then went inbetween the legs and quickly and very definitively told us it was a boy, pointing out the penis and scrotum! With both of us grinning like loons she checked a few other bits, took some lovely snap shots and sent us back to wait in the waiting room.
As soon as we got into the waiting room we were both instantly on our phones texting friends and family to let them know everything was ok and that we were having a little boy. We had decided on our boy name back at the beginning of our last pregnancy, so there was no doubt that he was going to be called Jackson Theo.

After a while I was called into the antenatal clinic by the maternal medicine consultant who told me I’d be seen separately by an endocrinology consultant but that she knew I was on Asprin to thin my blood, but she would like to start me on injections… I quickly pointed out I was already on the injections and had been for 2 months, she looked a bit abashed and said it wasn’t in my notes, but when I told her the date I had started on them she checked my notes again and realised it was there! I swear they don’t read anything before seeing me!
She then sent me back out to the waiting room to wait to see the endocrinology consultant. I didn’t have to wait too long and I was called back in. He told me my thyroid function results had come back normal and he was tempted to take me off Carbimazole completely. I must have looked really worried as he told me he would play it safe and leave me on them for two weeks, but he wanted to see me back in two weeks after another blood test. I’m also booked in to see maternal medicine in two weeks, not that I’m sure why! After that appointment I will be allowed to book my 24week scan, why I couldn’t book it today I am not sure as it’s not going to change!

On the way home I decided that I wanted to buy a cute blue baby grow to help with my Facebook announcement that I am having a boy, but after browsing both Asda and Tesco I have deduced that baby boy clothes suck! I ended up just using one of the pairs of booties I already had and had used for my pregnancy announcement. I’m not complaining though, it made a cute photo of the two scan photos we got today and the booties.
I shall really have to shop around for some cute boy clothes though. BUT NOT YET.
It’s really hard now I know what I’m having, what he’s called and what colour I should start buying, not to get excited. I know I can’t, atleast not for a little while. I want to hold off buying stuff for as long as possible, but knitting I can do! If I put off knitting I will never get the time to do it, so I suppose I shall have to head out and buy myself some blue wool! I am yet to decide what pattern to do. I think I may do some booties to start with, then maybe a hat, then we shall see where the blue takes me!

Everyone is excited, I can see that it has all become more real for my mum and she is literally bouncing off the walls! We know there is still a long way to go, but we are halfway there, so that has to be a little celebration!

So as I am nearing my 20 week scan, I am filled with both fear and excitement.
It’s only 2 days to go until I get to see my little Shrimp on the screen again, until they give my little one a thorough inspection and potentially tell me something has gone wrong, or that something hasn’t developed properly, maybe that there is a clot forming, but hopefully that everything is perfect and whether I’m having a little girl or boy.
All these things are in the back of my mind, but also the fact that it might be the last time I see my little one moving around on the screen. I lost my little girl less than a week after they told me everything was perfect at my 20 week scan. What if history repeats itself. I’m not sure I could cope.

Straight after my 20 week scan I am having another meeting with my consultant, looking at my blood results to see how my Carbimazole is working and checking the growth measured from the scan to check baby is growing at the right speed. Hopefully everything will be developing ok and the meeting will be positive.

But keeping thinking positively, for the last couple of days I have been able to see Shrimp kicking me. It’s incredible seeing my stomach moving of its own accord! I’m only 19 weeks along, at 21 weeks last time I was only feeling slight movement, but to be feeling such defined movement is amazing. I have a proper little kicker in there! I need to start counting the kicks so I can notice any changes in movement.

You are looking to the right of my tummy, above my hip bone. There are 2 kicks in this short clip one at 00.02 and one at 00.06.
Sorry about the quality of the clip – everytime I turned flash on to get a clearer video Shrimp stopped kicking, clearly doesn’t like the light!