I went for my consultant appointment yesterday with Heather. It went fine - we had to wait aaaages as always, but we chatted and it was nice. :) After a while I didn't feel so well, just tired I think. And morning sick. I felt increasingly nauseous and the light looked too bright and swimmy. I already had a headache before going out so that was getting worse which didn't help. Anyway, by the time we got called, I felt rubbish!
We saw a midwife who did my obs and stuff before the consultant came in, and she was very chatty and asked how I was feeling. I lied and said I felt fine, because I didn't want ANOTHER thing to add to the list of concerns by saying I felt unwell! I was pretty sure it wasn't relevant to my pregnancy anyway, just tiiiiired and still queasy.
So she filled in notes and asked questions, like, "Is this your second baby?" I said, "No..." and looked at Heather, and she said, "Third, fourth?" I said, "Keep going." haha! ;) She actually didn't bat an eyelid at sixth, just said I must be busy. I'm sure other people DO have six babies! After she filled in my notes, we went through to the examination room where she tested my urine, which was completely negative of anything (hooray!), and took my blood pressure. I expected it to be really low again, thinking maybe that was why I was feeling so yucky and lightheaded, but it was 110/80 which is very good for me!
Then she got the doppler out and I lay on the bed. She wasn't too gentle feeling around for my uterus, and put the doppler above it for some reason once she found it! She did angle it down though. She listened for the heartbeat all over the place, various parts of my tummy and all sorts of angles, but all we heard was a white noise silence and occasionally my own pulse. After the first couple of minutes I started to seriously NOT enjoy it. By 5 minutes I was actually feeling pretty anxious for my little one. She was being chatty and cheerful and way too brisk, saying how the consultant would probably be better at it than her, and how it's sometimes hard to hear a baby's heartbeat at 16 weeks - which did NOT reassure me since I know that's rhubarb. I have been hearing the baby's heartbeat since 8 weeks, and by 12 it's EASY to find. Way more so four weeks later! Although having said that, a week or so ago when the boys wanted to hear Sausage's heart beating, it wasn't immediately evident, and I think I searched around for a minute maybe, before finding it. That's odd for me at this stage though...
Anyway, she started asking if I was feeling the baby move yet, and I said yes, but just faintly. She occasionally asked while looking for the heartbeat, if I could feel movement right now. I felt so put on the spot! I really can't feel movement too clearly at all, and it's few and far in between anyway. I automatically started straining to feel any sort of pop or wiggle as she waited for my answer :( I wondered at the start if I had felt a single tiny pop to my cervix when she first started non-gently prodding the top of my uterus about, but I wasn't sure enough to say, so I said, "Maybe..." I didn't feel anything at the time she asked me. After 5 minutes, trying not to make eye contact with Heather or the midwife (I just didn't want to), she cheerfully suggested that I hop up and walk around a bit, because sometimes that helps the baby change position. Again, noooo reassurance for me because that's surely rubbish at 16 weeks! Position my foot, the baby is RIGHT THERE for a doppler. Anyway I got up and paced about the room feeling sort of embarrassed because they were both being cheery and jokey, but it sounded forced to me and I felt like I was being treated like a child a bit. Not by Heather so much, she was just going along with the midwife. Anyway. I said I needed a wee (which I did) and the midwife said that would probably help. I went to the loo and PRAYED my heart out that we'd find the baby's heartbeat and everything would be okay. It was such a horrid moment!
When I got back, the consultant had arrived and shook my hand as I walked through the door. He is so nice, and has a great sense of humour. I really like him! He sat straight down at the desk and we started the "discussion" part of the appointment. He talked briefly about the "risk" of having more than 5 babies, that of haemmorrhage, which is uhhhh basically UNTRUE but which the medical community believes anyway (despite complete and utter lack of anything to support it - Heather has researched throughly, AND questioned them as to where they get their evidence from, and they can not give her an answer, they fob her off with the fact that they learn it as part of their training!!!). And that he would prefer for me to deliver in the hospital due to that risk. And the Group B Strep status, how there's a risk to the baby, though slight. Etc. He recommended a managed 3rd stage (syntometrine injection to deliver the placenta) because of the "increased risk of haemmorrhage". He then asked me what I wanted to do. I said I wanted a homebirth, and he asked if I planned to have a managed 3rd stage and I said, "No." We talked a bit about the usual observations I need to make of my newborn, which I am now very familiar with doing, and he didn't make any objections. He finished by saying he had no problem with me planning a homebirth, but he would like to see me at 36 weeks just to review the pregnancy and make sure there were not any additional risk factors along the way. So, a good result, and one I expected, since he's a really good consultant who isn't anti-homebirth! :)
A non-managed 3rd stage is important to me because a) managing it isn't natural, and b) I want my baby to get ALL the blood that belongs to him/her, which continues to be pumped from the placenta for some time after the baby is born! It amounts to about a THIRD of the baby's total blood volume, seriously folks. I do not want to cut that supply off prematurely, which is exactly what "managing" the 3rd stage is about.
So then Heather pointed out that the midwife hadn't found the baby's heartbeat, and he said, "Oh, then let's go through and take a look!" We went through and I felt soooo nervous climbing on the bed and lying down. He felt my tummy first (expertly and gently, I might add), and kept doing so for quite a while, with a thoughtful expression. He said, "How many weeks are you?" although he knew, I think, from my notes. I told him 16, and he said, "Hmmm... you're not as big as I would expect for 16 weeks." This made me SO NERVOUS, having not yet found the baby's heartbeat, but especially coming from a very experienced consultant who wasn't likely to be making a mistake with his findings. I could not think why my womb was measuring behind at such an early stage, especially with everything measuring right on track at nearly 13 weeks - only 3 weeks ago. My mind did go to the thought that things might have deteriorated between then and now :( This was not helped by the next question he asked - "Have you noticed diminishing pregnancy symptoms?" To which I answered, "I don't think so..." He asked if I had had any pregnancy symptoms to start with, and I said I had morning sickness. He asked if it was still there, and I said yes, but it's milder now. At 16 weeks MOST people's morning sickness has cleared up for perfectly normal reasons, so that was a bit annoying that he made a bit of a thing of it when it could have cleared right up without it being a sign of a problem!
*sigh*
Anyway, he stopped feeling my tummy and got out the doppler. To my immense relief he found the heartbeat almost straight away. I just let out a huuuuuge breath, like I had been holding it for the past 15 minutes or something! But I was still worried about the size thing. After we went back to the desk, he updated my notes to say he was happy with my homebirth plans, and told me I should make sure I go to my 20 week scan to check on the baby (nerves!!!!). He asked if I had any questions, and I had a typical blank-brain moment, so thankfully Heather prompted me that I might be nervous about the size issue and could do with some reassurance?! Why won't my brain work when I am asked a question of any sort?!! Tsk!
So I said that it did make me nervous. He said he was not concerned at this point because he had heard the fetal heart and I had had a previous healthy scan. But he said again that I should be sure to attend my 20 week scan. I said that it was 4 weeks of nervousness away (actually nearer 5 - I'll be 1 day shy of 21 weeks at my scan), and he immediately said, "Then we'll scan you sooner for reassurance." He told me to go to reception and book a scan to check on the fetal size for as soon as possible. When I did that, they said the earliest they could do was next Tuesday. So I'm going in for a scan at 16 weeks and 6 days, on Tuesday 13th - a year to the day after my due date with Samuel. The appointment is at 12.40pm, and Neil says it will be no problem to take the day off work as he's ahead in his work right now, and they are always sympathetic about appointments and so on. Heather said she is available and very willing to either come with me or babysit the boys. Neil says I should go to the scan with Heather while he stays home with the boys, because then he can keep Samuel with him too (we wouldn't leave Samuel with Heather yet), and he thinks Heather would be the perfect person to have with me if something was wrong with the baby. I am in two minds over it. It's his baby too, and if everything IS fine, it's possible we could find out the gender on Tuesday! I asked him about it but he said he doesn't mind waiting until the 20 week scan to see the baby, and if we find out the baby's gender then he will be happy to hear it from me and see for himself in a few weeks. So I think that's what we'll do - I think I will ask Heather to go with me. I actually would love Heather to be with me at a scan, because she is so involved with my babies and it's lovely to have her able to SEE the baby before it's even born! :) I would like Neil with me, but we'd have Samuel too, and I think if something was wrong, he would probably focus on Samuel as a way of coping, and I know that Heather is an expert at being "there" for mummies over any issue with their babies. I would need that level of support.
So, Tuesday! I am nervous, reeeeeally nervous, even though Neil feels sure that everything is fine, and Heather reassured me that if the consultant had been concerned, she is sure he would have cracked out the portable u/s machine to check right then and there. I am desperately watching for movements, and planning to listen in with my doppler more than I have been over the next few days. I just want to hear that the little one is the same wiggly active baby he/she has always been. It will be very reassuring for me, and if it's not the case then I think I would benefit from a heads-up. I will be terribly nervous on Tuesday probably, but Heather has told me to go home and PRAY, especially my prayer about fear that's taped to my chest of drawers. So I will. I feel so insecure and weird and hormonal inside, which doesn't help. It's like the same sort of hormones that I remember from adolescence (BOY am I glad those years are behind me!), and I don't know if I have ever had this much trouble with those sort of hormones in any of my other pregnancies. Maybe a girl?
The other part of me is so happy to be having an opportunity to see my little love again at the scan SO SOON!!! :D And a good opportunity for an early look at whether the baby is a boy or a girl! How exciting! :) It will not be a long scan, just a quick measure for reassurance, they said. So it might not be appropriate to ask to see if the baby is a boy or a girl, but I'm hoping they'll be looking at the baby from various angles long enough for me to catch a glimpse of the gender myself. If I feel confident enough I will ask if there's anything between the baby's legs! ;) If there is something wrong with the baby I will flat out ask them the baby's gender, because it will be SO helpful to me to know that as I cope with what's ahead.
Neil feels sure it's a girl, because he said there was NOTHING between the baby's legs at the 12w5d scan, and we saw 3 lines. I reminded him that there must have been SOMETHING there at that early stage, but the angle could have been such that it didn't come into view - AND there are folks who have seen 3 lines at their scans with boys at that stage, showing the curvature of the scrotum. He still says it's a girl because we've never seen anything like that at the other boys' scans.
Okay, Samuel is crying so I have to go. I just wanted to update about the appointment. I am definitely looking smaller than usual at 16 weeks, and I will get Neil to take a pic tonight if I remember, so that I can post it and compare more easily. I will also get round to posting the letter to my grandparents soon - they did call me the other night with slightly tense if very positive words! :) Hooray!
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