My Pregnancy 13-27 Weeks

So here we were in the second trimester of pregnancy, looking forward to more scans and feeling those first flutters!

 Morning Sickness

My morning sickness completely disappeared before the second trimester, I was lucky!

 Cravings

I still had my inklings for strawberry milkshakes but also went through a short phase of craving cheese and tomato pizza from Dominos.

 Scares

Unfortunately little scares kept us on our toes throughout our pregnancy!

I’d started to feel really noticeable flutters around the 18-19 week mark. At 23 weeks I there was an evening when I hadn’t really felt much and I started to worry. The next morning at work my colleague and I were doing some lesson planning but all I could think about were the ‘none’ baby movements. I called the midwife and ended up bursting into uncontrollable tears. The midwife did her best to reassure me and told me to come up to the antenatal unit so she could listen to bubs’ heartbeat. I’d gotten myself in to such a state, my colleague had to get the ok from our boss. So off I went, when I arrived at the antenatal unit I was greeted by a jam packed waiting area of blossoming bumps. Luckily I didn’t have to wait long until the midwife I’d spoken to called me. This was my first meeting with Johanna, she made me feel at ease and reassured me. It took what seemed like forever to find bubs’ heartbeat and I could feel the panic start to kick in. Soon it was swept away by relief when Johanna tracked down the heartbeat, all was ok.

 At 25 weeks I got up to go to work one morning and saw the tiniest spot of blood when I went to the loo. After my previous experiences a few weeks earlier and having found out all looked ok with our bubs at the 12 Week Scan, I felt remarkably calm. I pre-warned my boss that I might have to dash off as I knew if I called the midwife they would tell me to go to the hospital. I didn’t experience any further bleeding so didn’t call the midwife until the afternoon who said I should go to the antenatal assessment unit as I was rhesus negative. I was going up to the hospital anyhoo to get blood taken as the midwife couldn’t get enough for some routine tests.

Went and got my blood done first which again proved unproblematic for the phlebotomist, then made my way to antenatal.

They did the usual checks, blood pressure, urine, listened to bubs’ heartbeat but also wanted to take more blood…are you kidding?! I had just been downstairs in the blood clinic! Alas it was an important test to check if any of baby’s blood had crossed into mine. Of course may veins weren’t playing ball and after a couple of attempts by one midwife she asked her colleague to have a go, which she managed from the back of my wrist and boy did it hurt when she took the needle out. I was not a happy bunny! I then had to wait for my anti d injection to be sent up with some very heavily pregnant women, some of whom were in early labour, daunting to say the least!

This certainly wasn’t my last visit to the antenatal assessment unit, I was there again, I can’t remember exactly why (that’s why I should of documented all my memories at the time) but I met Johanna again as the midwife on the unit couldn’t manage to get my blood so they called for the midwife from the team who was at the hospital and it happened to be Johanna, which I was happy about.  Much to my relief she managed to take some blood on her first attempt.

 Midwives

At my 16 week appointment I met a midwife called Ailsa, she was very calm and informative, again someone else I would feel happy with delivering my baby. At my next appointment I met a different woman from their team but did not feel as comfortable as with the other three I had met, I guess it was just that personal feeling you get sometimes.

 Scans

Looking back now, I had heaps of scans, much more than the usual two that most normal, low risk pregnancies have.

One of my best friends bought us a private gender scan as a gift. At 16 weeks we found out the sex our baby. I was so excited to find out if we were expecting a girl or boy, I didn’t mind what it was as long as he or she was healthy but I was convinced it was a girl! So when the sonographer said ‘congratulations it’s a boy!’ I was taken aback. Daddy was very happy as he was desperate to have a boy! We had lunch after and discussed names as now we could really pinpoint one. We then went on a bit of a spree and bought our first few bits of boy’s clothes.

Our next scan was at 18 weeks as we’d been referred for a heart scan because there was a history on my mum’s side of the family. We were excited to see our bubs again but at the back of my mind I was aware at any scan things could change drastically. I was scanned for about an hour but thankfully all looked. They said baby was still very small so they wouldn’t necessarily pick up anything and booked us in for another appointment in a few weeks time.

 Next on the list was the important 20 week anomaly scan. That day our boy decided to be particularly stubborn. The sonographer confirmed ‘he’ was a ‘he’ and saw most of the things she needed to apart, from one side of the heart. So first of all I was required to do some ridiculous thrusting movements to prompt him to move but no joy came from those! Off I was sent on a jaunt around the GP surgery to see if that might entice bubs to turn…still no joy. Of course I was thrilled when she then asked me to go have some chocolate and a sugary drink. I certainly didn’t need an excuse for chocolate! Even after all that our lil man still hadn’t budged so it was back to those thrusting movements. Eventually after all that malarkey the sonographer saw what she needed and everything looked ok. The only small issue was that my placenta was lying low. I would need to have another scan at 36 weeks to check it had moved out of the way, if not it would mean Caesarean, eeek!

At 26 weeks it was back to hospital for the second heart scan. Now our boy was bigger, they confirmed that everything looked ok. They do warn you that not all heart defects can be picked up on the scan. Of course we were happy and relieved that bubs looked healthy.

Other

I’d been looking into different types exercise and started pregnancy yoga around 17 weeks. It had been recommended by one of the midwives who had also warned me that in her experience ,women who had done pregnancy Pilates were more likely to tear. Of course she wasn’t saying every women who did it would but that definitely put me off!

We have a children’s centre attached to the school I work at and they ran pregnancy yoga there, ‘Yoga Bumps’. It was a great deal cheaper than other pregnancy yoga classes I’d looked into. The lady who ran it was also a Doula and was expecting her own baby. I found it extremely relaxing and found it helped prepare me for labour and birth, I definitely give it 10/10 for pregnancy exercise.