Saturday 22 June 2019

First Trimester: The Booking In Appointment

The Booking In Appointment - Pregnancy Notes

I went for my initial booking in appointment on the 12th June, Luke unfortunately had to work so he couldn’t come along with me. 

I had felt nervous all day, I don’t know what for or why, but it was almost an anxiety feeling that took over me. It stayed with me all day, even when I arrived at the doctors surgery and sat waiting for the midwife to call my name.

I went into the appointment and the midwife immediately put me at ease, she was absolutely lovely. I answered all of her questions and explained that I couldn’t be 100% certain on how far along I was due to the unpredictable cycles that my body throws into the works every month or so.

By my last menstrual period, I would in fact be classed as 7 weeks at this point as opposed to the 4/5 weeks I believe I am. (I was adding 2 weeks to the dates I had calculated and this was giving me false weeks/dates).

It’s amazing how much has changed since my last booking in appointment over 8 years ago. They now check the carbon monoxide through a breath test, mine came back as 0, I don’t smoke and no one in our household does, but I believe this would pick up carbon monoxide through passive smoke too. It certainly was a rather nifty bit of kit, I imagine if you do smoke it will be a good deterrent to get you to stop!

I had my weight taken, my height measured and a quick MOT if you like. My stats for this were:

Weight: 8 Stone 5lbs (117lbs)

Height: 5ft 5 (1.65 Metres)

I had 2 lots of blood taken and also provided a urine sample, they were screening for:

- Haemoglobin - This is to see of I am anaemic, which can be caused by too little HB in the blood.

- The urine sample is checking for bladder infections.

- Sickle Cell and Thalassaemia - These are inherited blood disorders which affect HB (Haemoglobin) and can be passed from parent to child.

- Hepatitis B - A virus that infects the liver and can cause immediate or long term illness.

- Syphilis - A sexually transmitted infection.

- HIV - A sexually transmitted infection.

If Luke had been here we would have gone through some in depth family history questions, but we decided to leave it there for the day so that we could book an appointment together in a weeks time to answer everything together.

That appointment was today (22nd June). 

I believe I am currently 6 weeks pregnant (I was actually only around 3 weeks!), but there is no way of knowing for definite until I have my dating scan on the 18th July!

Luke, Leo and I all went along to the appointment this morning. It took about an hour to go through everything, all of the questions about background, family history and so on. 

She had my blood and urine results back from the tests they conducted at the last appointment, and thankfully everything was absolutely fine and as it should be!

Wooooooo!

This makes me a low risk pregnancy, and hopefully it will all continue that way! I took that opportunity to tell her that I want a water birth, and I’ll be blasting that into my pregnancy notes for the whole of my pregnancy until I Pop!

We talked about my first pregnancy and labour, I told her that I didn’t feel contractions properly and how I rocked up at hospital at 9.5cm dilated! 

Boy I hope that I have the same experience this time around.

I feel really lucky to have such a friendly midwife, she was laughing and joking with us throughout the appointment (mainly about how many tests I have done since finding out!) and she told me that whenever I want to hear the babies heartbeat she will find a way of sneaking us in for a quick appointment (told me not to waste any money on a Doppler). 

I found out that the midwife I had with Leo was most likely going to be doing my scan in a few short weeks time! Hearing her name really was a blast from the past, I wonder if I will recognise her, or she me!

This appointment made everything start to feel more real. The early stages of pregnancy feel like limbo for me. I don’t suffer from morning sickness, I’m not as tired as I was with Leo, my boobs are sore but don’t feel ‘as’ sore as in my first pregnancy. 

It’s almost like I could have dreamed the whole thing up in my head and it’s not really real. 

I won’t see my midwife again now until 16 weeks, in your second pregnancy you don’t see the midwife as much as you do in your first, unless your classes as high risk of course. At the 16 week appointment I will be able to hear the heartbeat for the first time! Although she did let slip today that you can hear it from 10 weeks!

I have got an early scan booked that I opted for privately, this will be on the 5th July! I should be able to get more of an idea on when to expect little Pop to make an arrival! 

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