Ivf pregnancy update

Today I am 20 weeks and two days pregnant (according to our dating scan! 20 weeks exactly according to, well science) and I’m so excited we made it half way! 

Throughout this pregnancy I have counted my lucky stars each and every day and I am so grateful for this babe. I wouldn’t say I’ve been outright anxious about things going wrong, but I am a realist and I know that shit happens. 

Pregnancy so far; 

After our beautiful 12 week scan I started myself on low dose aspirin to prevent pre eclampsia. In the U.K. NICE guidelines recommend it for anyone high risk of pre eclampsia, which I fall into due to using a sperm donor. None of my blood relatives have had preeclampsia and I have no other risk factors but this is one risk I do not want to take. Technically I was meant to see a obstetric consultant prior to 12 weeks to prescribe this for me, and provide a plan of care (which I hope consists of carry on as normal 😆) however I have yet to see one, and my appointment that was scheduled for next week has just been pushed back another fortnight. I guess I’ll just let them know I consulted myself instead ha.

About 15 weeks we got our Down’s Edwards as Pataus syndrome results and we are low risk. 1:1568 for downs and 1:100,000 for Edwards and pataus. This doesn’t mean no risk mind. 

16 weeks and we popped to see our lovely midwife for a quick antenatal and all my blood results etc were normal. Brief but sweet. We had a small debarcle where I left my notes at home and the wife had to run back to get them and I cried in the waiting room thinking she would miss the appointment, but thankfully she didn’t! Oh pregnancy hormones! I learnt though just how important it is that’s she’s with me all through this, I don’t want her to miss a beat. 

And our 20 week/anomaly scan! Most importantly everything looked normal. Plodding along just under the 50th centile and kicking around like crazy. It was lovely to see our little one again, and we were so strong and didn’t find out gender. We are team 💛 mostly because we love surprises and feel no need whatsoever to genderise a foetus, each to their own of course but I just want to let the little thing be. 

Here’s our babe getting itself into some interesting positions at the anomaly scan! 

The only issue I’ve really had in this pregnancy is my hips. Man, my hips. It’s quite distressing at times, and I’m not sure why it is. Gp things inflammation in my trochanteric bursa, I think maybe sciatica. Either way I’m off to see the physio today as I’ve been reduced to tears with it more times than I can count. It really is painful, but it comes and goes and luckily doesn’t seem to set in until late afternoon. I haven’t yet missed a day of work and don’t intend to until maternity leave at term! 

So that’s my update so far 😊 we’ve also been on a bit of a spending spree and are in the early process of decorating a nursery, but more on that another time! Xxxx