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22 weeks and scan info
01 July 2008 - 1:53 p.m.
Yesterday was the big 22 week scan.
I was a little disappointed to be completely honest. The nurse who did the ultrasound was training and being watched by a senior.
Baby was very low down and it was hard for her to take measurements. Every time she tried to measure a bone or check on an internal organ baby would change position so it took a lot longer than planned. In the end the senior sonographer took over and she was rather rough in doing so. I came out feeling rather tender and pretty bruised on the lower left hand side of my uterus. It was not at all pleasant like the first scan at 12 weeks.
The visual quality was not as good and as they were taking measurements they had the screen at a stupid angle so I could hardly see a thing as it was. Bf said he couldn't see much either and though we did manage to get two photo's the quality of those were not great either. In the clearest of the two photo's it looked like baby had it's finger stuck up it's nose. Of course, it could just be the angle and baby actually has a finger or two on the other side of his face but it looked funny anyway. I will show the clearest one on here when I get round to working out the scanner.
I did go to see my mum later in the day and my brothers friend was round. His girlfriend is due her baby this coming Thursday and straight away he said they were disappointed by the second scan as everything was so much clearer in the first one and again, they had an older sonographer who didn't seem to understand the word "gentle" and that his girlfriend also found it very uncomfortable. That sort of makes me feel better that it wasn't just me.
I also had a little bit of a scare. Everything was looking fine but I overheard the nurses saying I had a posterior placenta. If anyone was reading this diary just over a year ago, I had a smear test early last summer and was told I had a posterior cervix. I did have to look that up myself to discover that it means that my cervix faces the opposite way to most other womens. So whilst I can't see much on the screen my mind starts to race. Does this mean the same sort of thing? Is my placenta the "wrong way round" and if so, does it put an end to all my birth plans as they stand. I've heard of the low lying placenta being a problem but I've never heard the term "posterior placenta." At the end of the whole scan they gave us the pictures and said that's us done. That was a relief as in England, we only get 2 scans unless there looks to be a problem or if there's more than 1 baby in there so I was satisfactorily happy knowing that I would not need to go back for another scan.
I came home and went through about 6 pregnancy magazines and did not find the term at all but a google search showed that this is the normal place for a placenta to be. The only time to worry is with a low placenta but it makes little difference if the placenta is posteria or interior. The only difference is that an interior placenta means it in front of the baby and makes movement harder to feel. I felt alot better after that.
As soon as the scan finished and for the rest of the day, baby played pretty rough. There are definitely alot of strong kicks or elobowing action going on in there. I think it was a case of revenge and a planned attack on allowing the nasty woman to put so much pressure on him. He's been just as active today.
Finally just to cover myself. I am still calling baby Pooh "HE" this is NO indication at all of the scan yesterday. Despite my best attempts to find out and sneaky little looks, I could not see anything that would suggest whether it's a male or female in there. "He" just sounds better than "it" and I am very much used to the idea that this will be a boy but like I said before, I thought Matthew would be a girl so it sort of means nothing. I really did try to get a good look but like I said, vision wasn't great and the women in there immediately told us baby had it's legs crossed. I'm not sure if thats true or if they say it as part of their "no sexing" policy to stop people asking. I 'm not too worried though, we'll all know for sure in the next 4 months. :)
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