Visiting the Midwife

I saw J, the community midwife, again on Tuesday. This was a pretty short visit - just a chance to get back the results of the various blood tests I had last time, have a BP check, and hear a bit more about what to expect at this stage of the pregnancy.

I've always wondered what my blood group is, and now I know. It's A+, which is the second most common for people in the UK. My husband is O+, for the record (which is the most common). I also found out that I don't have HIV or syphilis (didn't think I did, but nice to have the proof!) I'm also not a carrier of sickle cell or thalassaemia (due to my ethnicity I'm very low risk anyway, but again, nice to have the confirmation). Being a researcher, as soon as I got home I did a little googling to help me understand the results of my full blood count, which just looked like alphabet soup on the page. Here's what I found out about what all of those acronyms mean:

WBC - total white blood cells
RBC - total red blood cells
Hb - Haemoglobin (low Hb= anemia)
Hct - Haematocrit (the fraction of the whole blood volume that consists of red blood cells)
MCV - Mean Corpuscular Volume (the average volume of the red blood cells)
MCH - Mean Corpuscular Haemoglobin (the average amount of Hb per red blood cell)
MCHC - Mean Corpuscular Haemoglobin Concentration (the average concentration of Hb in the red blood cells)
Platelets
Neutrophils - may indicate bacterial or viral infection
Lymphocytes - higher with some viral infections/leukemia, lower in HIV
Monocytes - raised in bacterial infection, TB, Malaria, leukemia and ulcerative colitis
Eosinophils - increased in parasitic infections, asthma and allergies
Basophils - increased in bone marrow disorders like leukemia and lymphoma.

Good news for me - everything was in range, except for the Eosinophils, which were at the very top end of normal. Since I've had asthma since I was four, and also have masses of allergies, this was to be expected.

I also had my blood pressure taken. It was 120/64, which is brilliant for me. I asked whether BP tends to go down in pregnancy, and was told that it can do, although it usually finds its way back up to the levels seen at the booking appointment by the time women reach the third trimester.

We also talked a little about what I can expect to happen over the next few weeks. I'm 17 and a bit weeks now, so I may start to feel baby's movements any time (this usually happens between 16 and 22 weeks, and can be on the later side in first pregnancies and bigger women). The advice from the NHS is that you should expect to feel movements every single day after 24 weeks, although they won't be consistent throughout the day since baby has a cycle of sleeping and waking. If you don't feel a movement, or if you are having noticeably fewer movements, then you should call the maternity unit by 9pm, and they will bring you in for tests. We also talked through the symptoms of pre-eclampsia. This is more common if you have close relatives who've had it (my mum did), if you have diabetes (tick), a BMI of 35+ (tick), and if it's your first pregnancy (tick!) Signs to watch out for include raised blood pressure, protein in the urine, bad headaches that don't go away, blurred vision (or flashing lights/spots in front of your eyes), bad pain below your ribs (especially on the right hand side) and vomiting. Again, any problems, and you call for help immediately!

I'm not seeing the midwife again until I'm 25 weeks, so that will be around mid January. In the meantime, if I want my Mat B1 form before then (which in the UK allows you to arrange maternity leave, amongst other things), I'll need to contact J at 20 weeks, and she'll leave it behind the counter for me at our GP's practice. Next stop in the pregnancy wagon train is my 20 week scan on 9 December.

I also finally had my flu jab today, so I'm typing this with a very sore left arm! :(

I'll finish off with the obligatory fruit/veg pic (although I'm a little suspicious of this one, since I think onions are usually smaller - at least they are when they come out of our veg box or from our allotment!)

A very quick post for World Diabetes Day

I didn't want today to go unmarked on my blog. It's World Diabetes Day.



Last 14 November I had no idea that there was a World Diabetes Day. Since then, in preparation for this pregnancy I've taken my diabetes in hand, and got my HbA1C down to 6.4% (a number I haven't seen for ten years or more!) I've worked hard, and proved to myself that I can do it... but I haven't done it alone, because this year I discovered the DOC - the Diabetes Online Community. Diabetes, especially Type 1, can be incredibly isolating - but thanks to the DOC I don't feel so alone any more. So, this is my big thank you to all the wonderful D-bloggers out there who've become my support network. YOU ROCK!

Happy World Diabetes Day.

The big reveal, an intense working week, and a huge surprise

1) The big reveal

Once again I've been absent from my blog for longer than I intended to be, so I have lots of catching up to do. After my lovely week off I went back to work on 1 November and finally told them the news that I'm pregnant. Everyone was really lovely about it, and more surprisingly no-one had guessed. I was sure that I'd been busted a few times - especially by my closest friends - but apparently I'm better at this cloak and dagger stuff than I thought. (That's actually a slightly disturbing thought!) I was sure that the number of medical appointments I'd been having would have raised some eyebrows somewhere, but although one or two people expressed a slight concern about my health, it seems that having diabetes can be the perfect camoflague! It's good to know that there are some advantages, huh?

The really good news for me is that work have agreed to fill my post on a fixed term basis when I go on maternity leave in March (for a year), so I'll be able to come back into the same job when I return to work. Since I really like the particular role I'm in this is fabulous news. There's not another job within my organisation that I'd want to do, and I would have been really sad to have to take another role. All my organisation are committed to is to keeping a post open at my grade, not to keep my specific job open, so I'm actually feeling pretty lucky at the moment. There are also some childcare options to start to consider (which seems a bit mad when baby isn't even here yet). My parents, who live about 65 miles away, have offered to come down and look after the baby a couple of days a week. There's also an on-site nursery at work (although it's a 40 mile commute every day, and I'm not sure how fair it would be to drag baby to work with me). Lots to think about. In the new year I'm going to visit the nursery and talk to a couple of mums who do the same length commute as me, to see what I can learn from them.

It's really nice to finally be out in the open, and not to have to censor every word that comes out of my mouth!

2) An intense working week (or fortnight, in fact!)

Since I got back to work things have been manic. I've had to be in London for six out of the last ten working days, with one more trip to go on Monday. As a result I'm exhausted, not least because some of these days have involved either very early starts (5.30am) or late finishes (like the day I got home at 1 am following a lovely night out with American and European colleagues following a big meeting, and a missed train home meaning a two hour wait at Paddington railway station). I was hoping that the tiredness would abate in the second trimester, but given my working schedule I haven't been able to tell if it has! I have been told to take it easy by my boss, and by our director, so I'm trying to dial things back a little now. (Let's see how that goes, shall we?) I am planning a good long break at Christmas, as well, which is not so far off now. I go on leave on 13 December, so only about a month to go. Whooo-hooo! I love Christmas more than any other season of the year, and it's nearly here. I'm busy knitting presents at the moment, and have started to feel the pressure of the clock ticking for the first time in the last few days.

Things on the pregnancy front have been pretty quiet since my appointment at 13 weeks. I've had a couple of one-off episodes of spotting, but very very minor and nothing to write home about. I'm starting to thicken a little around the middle but as I'm quite a large lass I'm still not really 'showing'. I'm really looking forwards to having a proper bump to show off (rather than having people think I just over-indulged at dinner last night). I can feel a tightness in my abdomen that wasn't there before though, so something's definitely starting to happen. In general things are going smoothly, although whenever I spot I panic a little (or sometimes a lot, according to my lovely hubbie). How would I know if something had gone wrong? I have to wait another four weeks for my 20 week scan, and I can't tell you all how much I'm looking forwards to the reassurance of seeing a little heartbeat on the screen. How do pregnant ladies deal with the whole paranoia thing anyway? Or it it just me?!

3) The huge surprise

I had a hospital appointment yesterday morning to see the diabetes team (no obstetricians this time). I'm still getting over this nasty chesty cold thing that I've had for about a month and a half, and to be honest I'm having to work incredibly hard to keep on top of my blood sugars. I've seen some numbers that I really don't like (hitting 13 mmol/l a couple of times a week), and in general I've felt that my control has been slipping compared to where I was when we conceived. Dr Inspiring gave me a real pep talk last time I was at the clinic, telling me that I was still doing brilliantly, and that I shouldn't beat myself up over the odd high number, but although I knew this was totally rational I still felt a bit disappointed that I wasn't doing better. As I was having my bloods drawn at the end of the appointment all I could think was that my HbA1C was bound to be much higher than the previous time, when it was 6.3%.

When I arrived at my appointment this time Dr I asked me how it was going, and I explained that I felt I could be doing better. He had a quick peek at his computer screen and then told me the result of my last blood test (the one I was expecting to be so rotten)... My HbA1C three weeks ago was apparently 6.4%. WTF? You could have knocked me down with a feather. I even asked him to check again, since it didn't seem possible. The only thing I can think of is that it must be a combination of more highs and more lows, whilst the 6.3% was a result of a flatter less bumpy set of readings. I am sooooooo happy. I'd been steeling myself for a number beginning with a 7 at best. Dr I repeated his pep talk from last time, and we agreed that since I was doing so well there was no need to come back before my 20 week scan appointment, when I'll also have an eye examination (pupils dialated, therefore my parents will have to drive me), as well as a diabetes check, an appointment with the obstetrics team, and the all important anomoly scan. So, between now and 9 December I only have one appointment, which is with the community midwife next Tuesday. I'm intending to try and enjoy this little break, since I know once I reach 24 weeks it'll be serial growth scans every fortnight right until the end of the pregnancy. I'll try to blog again next week once I've seen the midwife.

Until then, here's the obligatory fruit update - I'm 16 weeks and 2 days pregnant today, which means since I last blogged I've passed through another two fruity landmarks...