A better day...

Calm was restored more quickly than I thought after my moments of panic. I woke on Saturday believing entirely that my trip to the on call gynae service was a dream. I discarded the small panty liner with a light brown smudge on it and got a flash back of the linen bin full of blood stained gowns and towels in the linen trolley from the real emergencies. The bleary-eyed Doctor with pillow creases on his cheek asking how much blood I had lost while I tried to explain that there was no blood but a hint of brown maybe, I had nothing to show but how important this was, especially as I may have deadly food poisoning...2 + 2 = ?disaster?

I picked my pregnancy book up again and found something useful about sensitive cells in the vagina causing spotting after intercourse or bowel motions but describing something more obvious than my meagre findings. Things moved back into perspective as I remembered the heart beat and the closed cervix. Also, a very uncomfortable internal examination but despite this I have had no more colourful PV loss. Maybe my body wasn't letting me down after all. The same book explained that gastroenteritis was not risky to the pregnancy alone, more the effect of resulting dehydration and therefore seek advice after 48 hours, if not tolerating fluids or you have a fever. So actually 5 hours of nausea, a bit of vomiting and one episode of diarrhoea didn't seem like the end of the world.

I wrote a few bits down in a post on BC re. above experience, fear and frustration that I seem alone in compared with the ladies sharing a due date in December post IVF online and got a lovely response from a handful of women, many with pregnancy number two, sharing the fact they did not shop until post 24 weeks for the baby, never stopped knicker watch ever, unless the baby had moved within an hour and one lady didn't announce until 30 weeks on FB. I felt much better after that, I have to say.

Happy news re. the lady with a high risk of Down's that I mentioned has also had the all clear. Her risk was very high 1: somewhere-in-the-teens but the official tests came back negative and she passed the risk stage of m/c post procedure, she says she would never, ever have the screening again. I can imagine how that would feel. For me it's worth the gamble because to be low risk is one more encouraging sign. I know I start at 1:350 so I'm looking for a reduction in that to make me happy. Still a week to go before the results.

Today's picture is of a Mother and her son on 'the world's slowest ferry'. The little boy was very fidgety and grizzly and his Mum was tired, eventually she pulled him to her and they both slept for about 10 minutes so it was a perfect opportunity. Sometimes I consider giving these little sketches to people but wonder if it would feel weird to think someone had been watching you without you knowing, a bit risky maybe. Anyway, I remember how I felt when I sketched it, not jealous but envious and hopeful that I might have a moment like this one day and that if I did I hoped I would appreciate it and remember it rather than the hard work and temper tantrums.