June 1, 2011

Hi folks.
Well, it's been a while since I last updated LO's blog, but no news is good news!
We went for our anomaly scan on May 10... and everything is looking perfect so far.
I can't express how thrilled and relieved we were to hear this.
All the major organs looked totally normal - brain, kidneys, stomach, bladder, heart - everything was exactly where it should be.
Growth-wise, LO is spot on, and Mr Beattie was very confident that all will be well.
I however, won't be convinced until the baby is born, in our arms... and has had an echo and a sats check!
It seems such a long time since I started this blog last December, and I wrote about all the hurdles we had to jump on the road to Charlie Barley's baby. I don't really even want to say it, just in case, but it feels like the worst of those hurdles might actually be behind us.
Of course, there are always new and unexpected hurdles that could pop up at any point, but for the time being we're enjoying the knowledge that there doesn't appear to be anything major wrong with LO.
We go back next week - June 9 - for a really in-depth cardiac scan. The baby's heart grows massively between 20-24wks, so they should be able to get an even clearer view than they did at the anomaly scan.
Mr Beattie told us that they have been looking SO hard at our baby's heart, that he is confident that there are no major issues, and that if anything were to show up next time, it would only be something very minor and treatable - if in fact it even needed treating.
However, nothing he has seen has given him any cause for concern, and he doesn't expect there to be anything wrong.
Needless to say though, we are most certainly not counting our chickens yet.
In spite of that though, Pete and I have enjoyed the novel experience of wandering around John Lewis, earmarking the buggy and cotbed that we'll buy "if all is well".
We have never, ever done this before - even with Charlie we didn't buy anything apart from a packet of babygros and a cuddly dog before he was born.
We're not planning on buying anything big for quite a while though - but we're really enjoying looking!
Having said that, Charlie has bought his baby a cuddly Tigger, and I bought a lovely rainbow blanket, but that's it for the time being!
LO is quite the little wriggler, and I've been feeling movements for quite a few weeks now - since about 16wks. They are much more definite now though, and Charlie has been able to feel the kicks and prods from the outside. Pete however, has not - LO can be doing an Irish jig inside, but as soon as he puts his hand on my tummy everything stops! Hopefully it won't be too long though before he can feel how lively LO is.
We've decided on LO's name - whether we need a boy's name or a girl's name... at the last scan, they thought it MIGHT be a girl, but LO really wasn't cooperating so we're taking it with a pinch of salt! Hopefully we'll be able to find out at the next scan.
I also had my first ever 'normal' visit with the midwife last week - I've always been under the care of the hospital in all of my previous pregnancies, so haven't seen a community midwife. However I wanted to get the form to exempt me from paying dental charges (and I wanted my Bounty pack... it's nice to have some of the fun stuff as well as the serious medical stuff!)
She listened to LO's heart with a doppler, and it was beating beautifully at 147bpm. I recorded the heartbeat on my phone (sad, I know!) so I'll upload it here if I can work out how to put an audio track on Blogger.
I think that's about it for now - as I said, the next scan is on June 9, and we'll be going for a 4D scan a couple of weeks after that. So watch this space for some very cool pictures of LO!
For the record, I'm now 22w3d and LO is about 11ins from head to toe and weighs about 1lb.