16 Weeks and Counting...

I seem to have done a great job in proving that I’m a rather shoddy blog-keeper with the lack of blog posts. In my defence I have been feeling rather awful up until recently, and blog posts about how much I’ve been throwing up didn’t make particularly inspiring material!

I’m now 16, almost 17, weeks and feeling much better; still queasy in the mornings and evenings, but it’s manageable. This first week back at work I’ve improved my diet massively and actually been doing some exercise, which is really helping me to feel better. The sickness was really awful – at one point I was being sick and there was blood in it, which was quite scary (although thankfully nothing sinister!) – I’m very glad it has eased off now.

Since I last posted at 10 weeks I’ve had my 12 week scan, nuchal test results, and 16 week midwife appointment.

The 12 week scan was fantastic – the baby looked a lot less like a little potato and more like, well, a baby! Seeing that the baby had grown, and that beautiful flicker of a heartbeat was such a lovely, reassuring feeling. Being awkward (like it’s mum already!) the baby was asleep in the wrong position for the nuchal measurement initially, so I had to go away and eat some chocolate to wake it up. This worked wonders and during the second scan we could see a very wriggly little baby that kept stretching and kicking it’s little legs.

12 week scan

I worried a bit about the nuchal results before they arrived, but they came really quickly and were low risk (1:100,00 – I cried when I read the letter), which was a relief as it meant no difficult decisions to make about further testing, etc.

My 16 week midwife appointment was earlier this week and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I took my husband along with me to have is blood taken, so he could find out his blood type (I’ve got rhesus negative blood which can complicate matters slightly if the baby has rhesus positive blood, which is much more likely if the father is a positive blood group) – so for once it wasn’t me getting stuck with needles. The midwives obviously don’t get to take blood from men very often, and they seemed to enjoy themselves. We also listened to the baby’s heartbeat, which was amazing and so rapid. Very nice to hear baby sounding well in there as the time between the 12 week scan and 20 weeks does seem to drag!

20 week scan is at the start of January and I am excited to see how the baby has developed since our last peek at him/her.