Baby girl born alive & well at 38 weeks exactly. She was small but bigger than we expected & is already piling on weight.
We’re grateful beyond belief, she’s wonderful. I still feel vey sad, which is a surprise to me.
I remember writing an eight weeks to go post when I was pregnant with J. I can stay sane that long I wrote then. It didn’t seem like a long time, now it seems like an eternity.
I’m having a bad day - if I had written this yesterday it might not have been so anxious. Baby (sex still unknown, name still not discussed) is pretty active - last night as I lay in bed I was thankful for that, constant movement is the only thing that reassures me at all. Today Baby is quiet & I feel sick with anxiety. At 6:30 HB was 133-138, at 8am it was 135-145, at 10:30 it was 150-155 (I’d a cup of coffee). I have lots of days like this.
Baby has changed position - it has been breech, then transverse for a couple of weeks now it is head down. I have a lot of pressure & shifting type movements but fewer kicks.
I’ve been having growth scans every two weeks, baby is small, but they are happy with its growth now* & I don’t go back for another one until I’m 34 weeks. That makes me anxious [just felt a jab - 10:37am].
Please don’t die.
(*at 30 weeks HC was just below the mean, AC just above the 5th centile - IUGR?)
Must have a genius baby or could it be that the sonographer really screwed up my scan last week?
Baby seems to have grown 2 weeks worth in a week - the doctor was diplomatic & said growth isn’t always linear blah blah but conceded that the results were confusing. Baby now meaures mid-21 weeks for everything (I’m somewhere between 21+2 & 21+6).
Anyway more importantly, everything looks okay, no detectable abnormalities, no soft markers - she looked at the great vessels, brain ventricles, cord insertion, hands & feet in great detail. There’s slightly high impedance in one of the uterine arteries but no notching. We’re going to watch and wait.
Two and a half weeks until the next scan.
They re-doing the scan this morning - in an hour. Last night I fell asleep feeling the baby bouncing around. This morning as I lay in the bath he/she gave me three big kicks in a row & I saw my tummy move each time.
I hope it’s okay.
hardly reassuring. It was the shittiest scan I have ever had (& I’ve had a lot).
Cervix is fine, pretty much the same as with Jasper (35.9mm) & no funnelling.
UA dopplers were okay - left side was excellent, right side a little less good but nowhere near even ’starting to worry’.
Abnormalities - no obvious abnormalities. Good huh? Except I have no faith that she actually looked at the structures she claimed to, it was all over so quickly. She certainly didn’t measure anything in the brain or kidneys (maybe they only do this if the look abnormal?). Heart is definitely okay, we got an excellent view. While she said the cord insertion was normal she didn’t report on whether it had three vessels or mention placental position (I know it is high posterior from previous scans, but it is still pretty crap that she didn’t record it). Fluid levels were normal. Abdominal wall was normal, as was the spine but she didn’t spend much time looking at it.
Baby was in the weirdest position I’ve seen but was moving. They didn’t do nasal bone or nuchal thickness which they do at the FMC anomaly scan (god I wish we could afford to go back there*).
Growth - she measured BPD, HC, AC & FL. With the exception of femur length all were at the very bottom of normal - HC was below the 5% confidence interval, BPD on 5% and AC <10%. The FL was almost at median, oddly enough. Even when I take into account that my dates are four days behind theirs I’m very worried - the baby is between four & nine days behind.
I got no explanation or comment from the sonographer. I’ve called my midwife & consultant’s secretary & they are going to ask her to review the measurements, I don’t have another appointment until 24 weeks.
So there you go … can’t say it has done anything for my mental health & I don’t think I’ll be sharing the news anytime soon.
We’re leaving for the scan in an hour. I have sweaty palms, constantly running to the loo, churning stomach, headache, I feel breathless & dizzy, my heart is racing. I’m close to tears. My hands are shaking. My feet are cold, I don’t know what shoes to wear.
I woke at 4am & couldn’t get back to sleep, I’ve dopplered the baby twice already. It doesn’t reassure me, I feel better when I feel him move but he’s very so quiet this morning. He was active all day yesterday, I felt okay, I didn’t even doppler before I went to bed.
I messed up my clexane & hit a capillary, I’ve only done that a couple of times in god-knows how many shots. I watched a huge green bruise appear and spread. It hurts.
I fucking hate this, I really do. I want to scream. I won’t say anything to anyone, I’ll swallow it & smile. Is this how other people feel?
but it is moving so slowly. The last four weeks have dragged by.
I’m 21 weeks on Friday, I have the anomaly scan tomorrow with cervical assessment & uterine artery dopplers. I even have a c-section date. I thought it was hard with Jasper? This is a billion times worse. Four or five times a day I am convinced that the baby has died - despite feeling movement & almost continuous use of the doppler. Last night I had a proper, sickening flashback to when I couldn’t find Toby’s heartbeat. Then I had a panic attack, which was extremely unpleasant (hahaha understatement - I thought I was dying).
That’s why I don’t post much, because there is much point - the pregnancy is moving forwards to the point at which a miscarriage becomes a stillbirth (24 weeks in the UK) and I don’t foresee any respite from the fear.
The scan yesterday was fine, the baby appears to be growing well & I’m approaching 16 weeks. I have another scan in 2 weeks but I’m already feeling anxious.
It is hard to check the hb with the children around, I don’t want them to know yet.
We visited Toby’s grave last week and took him some flowers. It was sad. There are eight new babies buried there now 
It’s a scary time. I want to make it through the next few weeks, we last heard Toby’s heart beat at 15+6, at 16+1 it wasn’t there. I’m 15+4 today.
Even if we get past that milestone it doesn’t mean anything - there was no reason for Toby to die at 16 weeks, there’s no reason for this one not to die either.
Very weird - trying to believe it can be different.
15 weeks tomorrow & decided to stay on the cyclogest through the second trimester (worried about PROM).
For a week or so I’ve thought I felt movement, but not anymore - which means
1 - I imagined it
2 - I didn’t imagine it & baby is in some odd position I can’t feel
3 - I didn’t imagine it & baby is dead
(obviously I’m convinced it is the third option, baby was fine on Tuesday - which means nothing at all).
Next scan is on Monday, I’m not sure what to do about childcare & whether to ask Simon to come with me.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
7+3 - okay
9+3 - okay
12+6 - okay
13+3 - okay
14+4 - okay
15+3 - ????
I caved - 14+6 - hb still there.
I was lying in bed debating whether or not to get the doppler out when I started running through the dead baby scenario - next scan, grim faces, no heart beat, telling Simon it has happened again, arranging childcare. I hate it, I hate it, I want to stop those thought but they keep sneaking in.
When I went to the loo this morning there was a blob of brown CM. Rather than spend the next week waiting to miscarry I decided to try the doppler. Found it pretty quickly - 145bmp.
And I thought to myself - so what? It doesn’t really mean anything.
Today’s worries - lots of CM & the brown stuff - cervix dilating? Heart rate - too slow? Movement - didn’t hear any, meaning what?
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