We talked until late one night and decided to do a test first thing the next morning. I lay awake most of the night, and at about 4am gave up and went to do the test there and then. I was so sure it was going to be negative, and couldn't believe it when the second pink line appeared. I had to call Chris to come and see. I thought I'd relax then, but of course that wasn't going to happen. I couldn't bring myself to believe that it would be ok this time, and nearly drove myself crazy looking up all of the statistics on various types of miscarriage.
My doctor began testing the hormone levels in my blood. That was fine for the first couple of weeks, but then one result came back lower than we'd expected. The midwife said that it was probably fine that the levels had started to increase slower than before, but I was so worried that she got me booked in for an early scan. I was a complete nervous wreck before the scan, because I was so sure that the scan was going to show the same as last time, an embryo that wasn't developing.
The sonographer was very nice, and said that she'd tell us what was happening as soon as possible. It seemed like she was looking for hours, but it can't have been mre than 30 seconds before she said "Well, there's two things you need to know - there's an embryo and it has a good strong heartbeat."
I couldn't believe it at first, until she showed us the screen and we saw the little beating heart for ourselves, and saw a little arm waving.
I calmed down a bit after that, and I told my colleagues at work. I hated telling people, though. It felt like jinxing things. (I still get like that, I have some forms to fill in and send off to join clubs for getting free baby stuff and I keep putting that off.)
I was slightly calmer for the 12-week dating scan. Chris couldn't come to that one as he couldn't get off work, which was a shame. The embryo had changed so much in just three weeks.
You can see arms and legs, and the umbilical cord, but what surprised me so much was the difference in the shape of the head, from a disproportionately big lumpy thing to a proper head shape where you could see the forehead, nose, chin and so on.
My bump popped out very suddenly, which was a surprise! It appeared over the space of an evening, becoming a very definite bump. Since then it's grown pretty quickly - a lot of people assume I'm a month or so further on than I am, but I think the growth might slow down a bit soon.
Chris made sure he had the time off work for the 20-week anomaly scan. It was the first time he got to see the baby looking like, well, a baby! I was quite nervous, but not too bad, but he was so excited. Chris got to see a lot more of the baby than I did, as he could see the screen from where he was sitting while the sonographer did all the checks. I was mostly watching Chris throughout the scan, enjoying seeing the look on his face. He says that he got to see the baby's face, and it was opening and closing its mouth! I'm kinda jealous that he got to see more of it than I did, but then I suppose I get to feel it move.
It looks so big compared with last time! I also now know that what I thought were movements definitely are - I'd been feeling them in a particular place, on the lower left, and at the scan that was the way round the baby was lying. It seems to change position pretty frequently, though. Recently I've been getting kicked straight down onto my bladder, which is fun...
It's really reassuring feeling all the movements. Chris can't wait until he can feel them too. He hugs my stomach and strokes it, and talks to the baby, which is sweet. :)
I promise there'll be more frequent updates!
