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2005-11-25 - 8.58pm��previous entry��next entry
12 weeks, 2 days - Been for my scan!!
Sorry it's so late! I totally meant to update earlier but it has been a bit of a nightmare day. But I'm here now! :)
I had some light spotting this morning which freaked me RIGHT out, but I have had none at all since. I phoned the antenatal unit in the end and asked to speak to a midwife for some reassurance, since I had had those Braxtons Hicks contractions last night (thanks so much to those who left me notes to say those happened to you from early on too - that was so reassuring!). But there were no midwives available to talk to, and the lady said I should just come in for my scan and see what that shows. I was so nervous because I had hoped for some reassuring words before my scan, in case the scan would not be good news or something.
I really wanted to listen to Sprout on the doppler last thing before we went, so I knew he/she was okay at the last minute, but I just didn't have time. I did listen during the morning (Arthur got the doppler out, as though he wanted to listen!) and the heartrate was good and strong, but lower now, at 158.
I have felt very uncomfy and crampy today. I am sooooooooooooooooooo constipated that it just isn't funny. My whole tummy hurts with it and I can't go at ALL. Urgh. So I guess that doesn't help the discomfort and stuff! I managed to drink almost the required amount of water before going to the scan, and then off we went!
We had to wait half an hour, and I was sure Jemma was busy lying on a couchy thing and watching her baby while I was trying to stop Arthur playing with the automatic doors in the waiting room! Neil kept him busy while we waited and he got LOTS of fond smiles and stuff from waiting pregnant women with bumps and their partners :) He IS a cutie though! :) It felt nice somehow that we were there with such a little one and waiting to see our newest little one. I felt proud of it somehow, proud that others would see that. When we were parking the car, Arthur was pointing through the car window at the big building and making his shouty noise that means "Look!!" or "What's that?!". He was pointing at the second floor windows, and suddenly I realised he was born behind one of those very windows, in one of those rooms on the second floor. Probably even the one he was pointing at - exactly one year, 2 weeks and a day ago! Seems such a short time in the context of being there for another pregnancy scan to see ANOTHER little one of ours, when only one year ago today we had a tiny newborn! One year seemed nothing, suddenly. It was quite a poignant moment for me.
Anyway, I digress! So we finally got in to the scan room, and saw Sprout. Everything is fine, and I am so relieved. But we had a crappy sonographer who barely said a word to us the whole time - I had to ask several times, "What are you looking at/for?" and then she would say, "Oh I'm just taking a measurement" and that was it. She did point out the baby's stomach and hands and feet, but she didn't let us see much of Sprout at all. She just did her thing and kept zooming in and out and forgetting how the machine worked, etc.
When I wiggled my jeans down a little for her to put gel on my tummy, as soon as the gel hit my tummy I got a HUGE Braxton Hicks contraction. It was so uncomfy and tight. I really don't like how strong they feel this early on! My tummy went like a sticky-up rock and I said to the sonographer, "I think I'm having a Braxton Hicks - is that even normal this early?" and she COMPLETELY IGNORED ME!!! I knew she heard me too. Ugh. She just plonked the wand on my tummy and pressed about. It actually hurt a lot, and I said so, but she still ignored me. Neil said, "Should it be hurting?!" and she just pretended to be fiddling with the machine. I can't understand why she ignored us so much. My mum said maybe she just didn't have a clue about what we were asking so figured the best thing to do was pretend she hadn't heard. I know she did though. Sprout was all curled up in my squeezy womb at first, and the sonographer did his/her crown-to-rump measurement at that time. The baby's head was bent WAY forward over his/her chest so I'm pretty sure that wasn't the best moment to measure since she took it from the back of his/her neck, not the crown - tsk! Sure enough, the measurement came out as 56.7mm (not that she told me - I looked at the small print at the bottom of the screen) and next to that it said "12w0d". Which obviously is crap, since I know Sprout should be measuring 58mm today (which I'm SURE he/she was, when in a normal position) and measuring 12w2d like I know I am! TSK!
We waited to ask our questions till she was done, but all of a sudden she switched it off and told me to wipe the gel of my belly, and that was it! We asked what about our photos that we just paid �3 for, and she said she'd print some out. We got a strip of 3 identical scan pics, which was by FAR not the best image of Sprout that we had seen. We were so disappointed by how it went, although that seems crazy since we should be hopping with joy that we saw the baby and that everything is fine. But I felt so down afterwards for a long time. I just couldn't shake it. I guess I had expectations and I remembered how great Arthur's nuchal scan had been and how lovely the sonographer was, and how she talked us through every part of the baby and let us look for a long time at what he was doing. We didn't even see Sprout's face. She didn't zoom in on anything interesting.
We did see him/her yawn though, and he/she was way more active than Arthur was at his nuchal scan! Sprout kept arching his/her back and twisting his/her torso, and kicking his/her legs about! The little hands and feet were so tiny and detailed, but we only got a quick flash of those. I saw one foot clear enough for a second to see that it looked dead straight, but I think it's too early - I'll see how they look at the anomoly scan.
One thing Neil and I both saw is what we presume might be those boy bits again! They looked so clear that I thought I must be mistaken, since it's so early. I said, "Um.... isn't that a penis?!" and the sonographer said, "Oh that's probably the umbilical cord between the legs." So she was no use at all. She hadn't shown us the umbilical cord, it was like she was just saying, "Oh I'm sure that's all it is" rather than knowing it was between the legs. Anyway, the umbilical cord does not look like a tiny white stick with a grey fuzzy blob at the base on either side! Neil said he was SURE he saw balls. I'm not sure balls are visible at 12 weeks though. And then suddenly the angle changed and I could still see the grey blobs and the white stick, but from that angle it looked more like a white LINE between two swellings - girl bits then? I don't know. She never really kept the thing still enough for us to get a good look, tsk.
So obviously we will have to wait till the next scan to find out! I do wonder if it's a boy though. Surely if you spot ANYTHING, it's more likely to be a boy. With girls at this stage, I think there is just nothing to spot. But we'll find out in due course!
Sprout's nuchal fold measurement was great, and the risk factor for Down's Syndrome WAY lower than Arthur's was, even though Arthur's was very low. Arthur's was one in a thousand and something, and Sprout's is one in three thousand and something. The risk for triosomy 18 was one in like 15,000, so reeeeeally low. That is great news!! :)
And that was it! We went to the desk and I booked my next scan, which is going to be January 30th at 10.40am - I chose the earliest slot they had!! I would have much preferred not having to wait all day like today, and I know I'm going to be so eager to just go and get it done when the day arrives! I already feel so excited about the next scan! I just HOPE we don't get the same awful lady. But if we do, we've decided we'll be much more up front and persistant about what we want to see and which things we want pictures of. I will be 21w5d pregnant at the next scan, one day less than I was with Arthur! It feels ages away but I know it will just WHIZZ by!
I felt like I was going to DIE with how painfully I needed to pee, so I waddled off to the loo before we came home! Maybe that was why I got a BH during the scan? I really needed a pee when I got one yesterday too.
I didn't update my family and stuff till almost the evening because we had a total nightmare with Arthur's nap and I spent it crying on the kitchen floor and then dozed off on the sofa. Man I need to write a lot of stuff in my other diary! So it has been a weird day. I wished so much that we had been allowed to relax and enjoy seeing our newest little one at the scan, because I felt a little bit desperate about it being a chance to bond a little more with Sprout. And they didn't give me the chance. And now I have to wait till 22 weeks, with my feelings relatively unchanged. So I felt upset about that. I felt like a bad mother, what with not feeling as mushy about Sprout as I'd like, and with Arthur screaming upstairs like I was the worst mother in the entire universe.
But at the end of the day, it's all good news really, and apart from a stinking headache I am much better about everything! Arthur is asleep with no nails-on-blackboard screaming, I spoke to my lovely mummy who reassured me that I am definitely NOT a bad mummy and I believed her so that made me feel a lot better. And I saw my little baby! Squiggling and kicking and yawning! A lovely little string of pearls for a backbone, and perfect little limbs and organs, and a healthy outlook. I am so blessed, and so thrilled!
Also, I have a picture - the very first one! It's soooo not the best, and Arthur's was outstandingly nicer and more detailed, but oh well. It's a picture of my little Sprouty Blob! Here it is! I will put it on Sprout's ultrasound gallery too. You can see the torso with part of the spine (white), most of a little bent leggie, and the head which looks larger than it actually DOES in real life! Sprout had his/her little arms going and I think one of the arms was obscuring the face from our view. You can see a little hand up by the face there :)
My little tiny one! I have two children. TWO! How amazing. I can't wait till the next scan so I can see Sprout again, and find out if Arthur is getting a brother or a sister!
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