First GP visit

I’ve opted for combined care, which means I don’t need to trek to the public maternity hospital for antenatal visits and instead alternate between my GP and local health care centre.

Today was my first GP visit and all was well. I’ve become spoiled with scans that reassure me the baby is okay but haven’t had one since the Harmony test in week 13. So, it was nice at 16 weeks to hear the baby’s heartbeat on the Doppler and be told it was exactly as it should be, at the right speed and rhythm. We could also hear my, slower heartbeat and the whooshing of blood into the placenta at the same rate.

There was the odd rush of what sounded like interference, which apparently was the baby moving against the machine. As a first-time mother, I won’t feel him kicking until 20 weeks or even later, so that was really nice to hear.

My weight and bump were as they should be, and urine and blood pressure were fine. As I got the flu shot privately at the start of the month, we were able to tick that one off. I have read somewhere that you need to get a whooping cough shot but no one has mentioned this and I forgot to ask – I’ll check at the clinic when I’m there in four weeks’ time.

I still haven’t divulged the news outside a select circle of family and friends. I’m not on Facebook and so won’t be announcing my pregnancy that way, though even if I had an account I don’t think I would choose that route. Given my circumstances, a Facebook update would cause complete confusion and possibly a few strokes.

I will be telling friends this week, starting tonight, and am a little nervous about disclosing to the very close ones that I’ve been lying by omission for so long. I’m sure they will understand and I have thanked the universe many times that I didn’t tell most people back in 2012 when I was starting off, oh so blithely and optimistically, assuming I’d be pregnant by my third IUI. We would all have been pretty embarrassed three years later that I still had no news. Wish me luck with some intense chats over the next days!