16 weeks

I suppose I ought to update here! What a lax blogger am I. I thought I'd be fascinated by every detail of my pregnancy but I'm, um, not! I think I like it just washing over me!

I've gone spotty this past week, which I think is worth recording for next time. I also had a little bleeding at 14 weeks - I call it bleeding, just brown squidge really. It didn't last long, and a bit of diary-bashing revealed it was my period anniversary, so I've put it down to that.

I have a proper bump now! People even want to feel it, which is strange but OK I think! It's all been women I know, so it's fine. I do not want strange men rubbing my tummy!

I'll put scan pics up this entry too - better late than never, eh. Here they are. Apparently it's quite unusual for the baby to be face down, like Pea was. The lady seemed to think we'd be unable to interpret the pictures. It's really not that hard! The white line at the top is Peazle's little spine. His head's on the left, and one the second one you can see his arms.






Emma, I think you asked why we originally declined a 12 week scan? A couple of reasons really.

First, I didn't think it was medically necessary - we know my ovulation date down to the hour (which the scan proved), and I'm not completely convinced on the safety of scans, especially in early pregnancy.

Second, we love our baby and don't care if he/she is normal. This is a choice, and quite a scary one! Recently a friend of ours had a baby with Down's Syndrome (whom, incidentally, I had a lovely time snuggling yesterday). It was at a routine 12 week dating scan that it became apparent that the baby was developing differently. At that point, my friend was told that the baby had a 50% chance of survival, and a very high chance of having a chromosomal abnormality if it did survive. After that followed 8 weeks of torment for my friend, until at 20 weeks it became apparent that the baby would probably live, but have Down's Syndrome. Throughout, the medical expectation was that our friends would choose to terminate the pregnancy. It is rare in our society for parents to choose to love and cherish an unborn baby with a disability. We felt that if Pea was going to die, we'd much rather not know, and cope with his death rather than have to cope with any amount of worry and concern AND his death. And, if Pea is going to live, we love him. As I said, this is a scary choice as it might mean having a child with disabilities so severe that he is forever constantly dependent. Most likely, it just means commiting to loving a 'normal' healthy child. In short, we declined the scan because we felt there was no emotional or medical advantage to seeing our baby on screen whilst he is scrutinised. We'll decline dating scans with future children for the same reasons. We don't believe anything about our baby is a mistake, or outside of God's plan for our family.