Week 12 is here and its the most exciting update to date and we exit the first trimester!
We traveled back from an amazing holiday in Cyprus on Sunday with the excitement of a scan waiting for us when we got back on the Monday.
This brought with it 2 great things, 1. the chance for us to officially see “bean” as we have christened him/her and 2. the freedom to start telling our friends the good news.
The 12 Week Scan
So on Monday it came. The scan. The moment we have been waiting for ever since the urine soaked stick was first wafted in my face!
We arrived at the hospital with a mix of nervousness & excitement and reported in to the Maternity Services department. Sat around me in the waiting room were 6 other couples all eagerly awaiting their turn.
When we went into the room for our amazing moment I couldn’t help but become fascinated by the fact that there was a Dyson bladeless fan on the desk. It was amazing, almost silent and yet the breeze it kicked off was incredible. How can the NHS afford such tech….anyway I digress dangerously away.
The scan itself was the most incredible experience of my life.
First bit of news – “There is definitely only 1” – thank god for that, whilst it would be nice in theory to get our preferred quota of 2 in 1 go im not sure my nerves or bank balance could really cope. Maybe the old wives tails about twins running in the family really are just a load of old tosh!
The radiographer did have some trouble getting the little blighter into the right position in order to get the measurements that she needed. It turns out that even at aged -6months he/she has the stubbornness of it’s mother. What followed next was my wifes single happiest instruction from a member of the medical profession…. “have a walk down to the shop and get yourself a chocolate bar, we need to wake little baby up” …. her eyes lit up.
After our recess we got back in and got to experience our first look at the babies heartbeat. I almost melted. People have asked me if I cried. I didn’t but it seeing its heartbeat made mine go mental.
Here are some of the scan pictures – I may as well share them with you as I have been showing pretty much everyone I have seen in the last 4 days
I know they probably look like everyone elses scan pictures but to me they are just mind blowing. I, sorry, we made that. The fruit of our loins and all that. The miracle of life! What is amazing is that bean is only 5cms long but is already pretty much fully formed and even has teeth.
The good news is that so far so good. Everything looks fine, nothing that makes anyone in a white coat nervous. The only bad thing is that due to our slightly older age (33 & 32) we were offered the Nuchal translucency (NT) scan for Downs Syndrome which means a nervous wait on the horizon. So along with measuring the fluid at the neck we had to go to another room for some blood tests (where there was another Dyson Fan….). These are then combined with the OH height and weight and we have a nervous wait to see if we are considered a high risk or a low risk. The painful part is that we are at the mercy of the NHS’s ‘no news is good news’ which means we have 7 working days to wait for a call to invite us back for more tests as we are considered high risk. If we don’t then statistically we should be fine. As I write this we are 4 days into the wait. Fingers crossed.
The announcement
High on the news of the scan going well we decided that the time had come to break the news. Suddenly a new weight fell on our shoulders… how should we do it.
Facebook. Everyone does it on there so why don’t we? We had told our family and close friends in person so decided to go with the message below:
It also meant that we got to buy our first bit of baby clothing (Im sure this will be filled with many more in the future). Man they are cute little shoes. Can’t wait to start buying more of these.
Anyway, that will do for now. Enough of my rambling.
What I learned this week
- Never call your pregnant wife “chubbs” – no matter how much of a term of endearment it is meant to be.
- Trimester is a real word and there are 3 of them and being at the end of the first one is good!
- The NHS have amazing fan tech.
- Announcing a baby on Facebook is the best way of getting likes!