More than just a blob now!

Time for the real scan.... this is the one that is done at the ultrasound clinic and combines the skin fold at the back of the neck with the blood tests taken earlier on. This give an estimate of the risk of the baby having Down's and also checks to see if the brain, organs and skeleton are developing normally.

At this stage everything looks fine. The tests showed that I have a risk rate much lower than my chronological age and the baby is developing normally. This was a great relief and made me feel comfortable about telling everyone else who didn't already know.

We were both very excited. It was amazing how much more detail there was, and how much more BB there was, since just a few weeks ago. We really did feel we were saying hello to our little baby!

12 week scan

This is the image we received from our 12 week scan. We also got a 20-25 minute video. Here, if you can make it out, you can see the BB waving hello. (Head towards centre-right, belly lower left. Right hand waving in front of face).

Henceforth... thy shall be called...

We have settled on some preferred names for each gender - plus a few extras sitting on the bench just in case we get gazumped by the multitude of friends, stepfamily and workmates having babies within 4 weeks of our due date. (Of course, we're not that concerned about some of those - but having the same name within the family is probably a bit much).

However - it took some time to come up with an in-utero name. Although I would love to name a child in memory of my father, burdening anyone with 'Barry' for the rest of their lives isn't something I feel comfortable with. However, to many people my father was always 'Boardy', or 'BB'. And so, Baby Boardy or BB for short just started being used.

Reading between the lines

We found out we were expecting in Dublin, but we kept it quiet until later. Once we went public, people were trying to see if they knew. Generally, most people said that we 'hid it well' as they had no idea.

A few went back to the last day of our travel blog, where we mention that Nai hadn't been feeling well and suggested that this was morning sickness. In fact, apart from being (only slightly) more emotional, so ready to put on the blub if required, Nai hadn't really had any morning sickness. The nausea was, we think, mainly due to being in the car. So really, we where just ready to use a ploy to ensure we sat together on the plane - and it worked perfectly!

Once we got back to Australia, all was pretty good. Occasional slight nausea, cured by a snack. Pretty good, all things considered!

Going Public

We had decided to do the usual first pregnancy thing, and tell very few people until the end of the first trimester. Kellie knew, as did our parents and a few of our closest friends.

Once we had the first scan, and our first appointment with Lionel he said that it was a very healthy pregnancy and thought that we should tell people, if we felt ready.

The next day, at work, with a copy of the first scan on my phone, I couldn't hold it in, so I told my workmate, Bec, just quietly. Her eyes grew very wide as I was telling her but she kept her excitement in. I showed her the photo and told her all about it.

To her credit, she let me say the whole story - prob about 3 mins worth - because then she replied 'Funny about that - I'm pregnant too!'. She is due 2 days after us - pretty amazing. So, although I wasn't going to tell anyone at work, this had really tipped the scales for Bec who was finding it increasingly hard to keep quiet, so we went around and told everyone on our floor.

I was quite amusing, as more than one person thought that 'we' were expecting a child, as opposed to Bec and I expecting our own respective kids, which caused more than the odd chuckle!

Nai kept quiet at work for a few more weeks...

First Scan

Well there it is - definite proof. It's one thing having a swelly belly, and feeling not quite 'normal', but it's another seeing something moving around inside you!

It truly does bring it all home and make it far FAR more real.

Just in case you can't suss it out, the head is towards the right, the body in the centre with a bit of leg toward the left. Placenta at the top.

Meet Dr Lionel

Kell had worded us up about Dr Lionel. She described him as being quite 'to-the-point', and as someone who doesn't beat around the bush. Consequently, she said that some people found him a little abrupt. This was also backed up by Dr Adrienne who said that some people preferred a softer approach. However, the no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is approach generally works for me, so we weren't concerned at all.

On meeting Dr Lionel, we found that this in fact was the case and his style suits us well. He's very matter-of-fact and subscribes to a low-intervention approach to labour and birth. This doesn't mean he takes one-size-fits-all, production-line or removed approach - quite the contrary. He is very focussed on the well-being of the woman and this forms the foundation of his low-intervention philosophy. He's very concerned about the amount of pressure that's placed on women by today's medical community, in terms of their options in childbirth. He's also concerned about the skyrocketing number of caesarians performed today - and firmly believes that is for the benefit of hospitals and doctors rather than the monther and child.

Of course - if something is required, he will do whatever is going to provide the best result for mother and child.

After some discussion about how I felt and how I was going - and if I had any questions, he asked me if I'd like to have a look and see what's in there. We were a bit surprised by this, as we didn't know that was on the cards but agreed straight away. We got to see a little blob moving around and checked there was just the one of them. Phew!

He also checked the dates, and it appears that we were first time lucky as the dates coincided perfectly with what we thought.