First Midwife Appointment

We've had a lovely Christmas, and had the excitement of the midwife's visit to keep us on our toes.

She came round this morning, through the snow, and stayed for about an hour. She was a very nice lady and everything went very well.

Firstly, we went through my maternity notes - talking about family history, if we smoked, did drugs etc etc - anything they may need to know which may affect the baby or the labour. She then spoke to us about antenatal classes and showed us what Barnet has to offer on the NHS. I asked her if the NCT ones were worth doing and she said they were good and they had smaller classes and can be more thorough. The leaflet she gave us said the NHS course lasts 3-4 weeks, but the NCT ones last 8-10 weeks so you must get told more information.

She then told us about the triple test which is the blood test you have which tests to see your risks of having a baby with downs syndrome or spinda bifida. This test has to be done at 16-18 weeks, and as I'm in the 15th week at the moment she has asked me to go to the hospital next week to have that done. She took 3 other vials of blood to test for Rubella, Hep B etc, and a urine sample to test for protien and sugars which were fine, she's going to send the sample away too to check for any infections.

Once she'd done all the horrid things she got me to lay down and she tried to listen for the baby's heartbeat. She felt my tummy first and found where the baby is, she said it's very big and grown a lot since my first scan. She then put the doppler on my tummy and within a few seconds she'd found the baby's heartbeat - it was very fast and loud - she said it was very good and powerful. She kept it there for about a minute which was lovely for us to hear.

She also took my blood pressure, and Jack asked to have his done too because he's never had it done before! We both have very good blood pressure according to her. She gave me all the information I need to contact her or any of the other 4 midwives on her team - I have their pager number and general number if I have any queries or emergencies. She's also going to book me in with the consultant for 20 weeks, and has asked me to make an appointment with the midwife at the surgery for in 4 weeks, which is also at 20 weeks. I also have my scan at 20 weeks, so a very busy week that week!