Alder's Tone

What an experience, it will stick with me forever. We have chosen to have our kid at St Johns in Livingston. We did not really have to think too long about it, its quite simply a case of logistics. Living in South Queensferry the thought of travelling for instance out of my work at rush hour, home, picking Sarah up then negotiating the bypass to get to the Royal, well it's just not going to happen.

So having finally got to the magical 14 week mark and hitting our scan date off we set. I picked Sarah up from her work and off we went safe in the knowledge that TOM TOM would get us there no problem. With its "turn lefts at the next exit" how could we go wrong. Yeah right. Our first time at the hospital, Livingston and its round abouts and me at the wheel, thats how. Anyone that has one of these navigation systems would you agree the tone changes slightly as Tim tells you off for missing that last turn off. "Turn around at the next opportunity....sigh". It's there man, listen carefully and you'll hear that subtle change.

Anyway, having finally got to the Hospital and been warned that that was once, twice and its a taxi being ordered on the big day and we found the x-ray dept. They say you pee more during pregnancy, Sarah was none too pleased that I was therefore not around when the nurse came to collect us having been caught short!

We went into this room and Sarah lay on the bed, the nurse then put the gel on her stomach and pressed down. Now Sarah was facing me with the screen alongside her. As the nurse found the spot she was watching my face rather than the screen itself. She said my eyes simply expanded and jaw dropped, then I started to grin like a cheshire cat. I could not take my eyes off of the screen. There was this little baby, not something indiscernable, this was a baby. It was moving about, pressing its head against the back of the womb, crawling with its legs up the front of the womb (my favourite move) and I watched as it pressed its fingers to its mouth. It's so hard to describe the feeling, its simply too much to take in at once. Sarahs reaction was similar, she looked like a spectator at Wimbledon though. Look at the screen, look at me, look at the screen etc.

Everything was normal with the baby, it was about 13 and half to 14 weeks old, once she finally managed to measure its head it was normal, the placenta was in the right place etc. Great news as alongside the happiness there was also relief that all was well. We were given three photos, one of which was clear as day. I think I must have spent around £25 texting the photo to everyone I could think of as we sat in the car outside the hospital, Sarah did likewise. Then it was off to both parents houses (soon to be Grandparents) to show the wee blighter off.

Without doubt the scan is a fantastic experience if everything is deemed ok. It will live with me for ever more and was without doubt what the 1st trimester had been all about getting to for us.

To summarise the 1st trimester I would say it was shock, excitement, nervousness, overawed, impatient and wonderment. That's a lot of emotions to work through. For Sarah she had all of this AND the physical changes to take on board. I would say the most used words in her vocabulary were "I'm tired" throughout that time. Although not physically sick she was nauseous a lot of the time - the tell tale sign being the Alpen Bar sitting at the side of her bed each night. If she felt ok over night I tended to scoff it for breakfast! But we got there in the end and then it was onwards to the 2nd trimester..