Last Thursday was our second hospital appointment. Everything went well, except the doctor couldn’t find the baby heart beat with the Fetal Doppler machine. Although it made some impressive space-time-travel type noises, she just couldn’t quite get the heart beat. At one point she even closed her eyes to listen more closely, talk about being a baby whisperer! She quickly soothed our concern by tracking the baby with the ultrasound machine and we saw the heart ‘blinking’ instead of listening to it on the speaker. She called our baby a little rascal for moving so much and imitated its little ‘dance’ moves. Awwwwwww…….mummy V and daddy D were instantly smitten.
She handed me a clean bill of health: perfect blood pressure, clear urine test and the lowest odds of birth defects she has EVER seen! I felt extremely special by all her soothing words.
And the same goes for the rest of our hospital experience so far. We’ve booked in to give birth on the 26th September at the Royal Hospital for Women at Randwick, 5 minutes drive from our house. We’ve only heard great things about this place, such as “the best maternity ward in the country”! And after all the horror stories in the news lately about birth in hospital bathrooms (I will spare you the gruesome details) we feel lucky to have such a great facility close to home. The receptionist are always efficient, the ultrasound technicians are highly understanding (even when I didn’t drink enough water for the ultrasound), the midwives are extremely reassuring (I have also been assigned a personal midwife called Alex, who will look after me all the way till I give birth and beyond), I just can’t say enough great things about the place.
My next appointment is scheduled for the 5th of May. I will first have an ultrasound to track how the baby is developing. And then an appointment with my midwife Alex. I hope I will have more exciting developments for you again!
In the meantime, I am now at 16 weeks. And here is the ‘which bits are growing’ update:
The baby is now the size of an avocado, weighs around 100 grams, and in the next 3 weeks it will double in size. It is now playing with its first toy - the umbilical cord - by pulling and grabbing it. It is also practising breathing by inhaling and exhaling amniotic fluids through its lungs. Its arms and legs are complete and its joints are working. You can now also tell the baby's sex - we're happy either way and as David says "as long as it's not both".
Until next time....
Love,
Viv
No comments:
Post a Comment