Today was my first doctor’s appointment with Dr P for this pregnancy. It was also my first antenatal appointment ever! With my previous pregnancies I only ever got to the doctor after the miscarriages had already happened. Today was a lot of firsts!

First time seeing an embryo in my uterus! Measuring 16.8 mm from head to rump. Good yolk sack visible with a clear foetal pole. There is good thickening around the placenta. The pregnancy has implanted quite high in the uterus. There is lots of fluid in all the right places. Dr P said that everything looks exactly how he’d like it to look at this stage.

First time seeing and hearing my baby’s heart beat! 170 pbm. Dr P said it was right where he wanted it to be.

First pictures of BSquirt. Here is the first pic, there is another in the gallery.

First appointment that B came with me to the doctor. I think he was as emotional as I was when we heard the heartbeat.

I must admit that the nerves had started to get to me yesterday already. Suddenly it crossed my mind, that as positive as I had been about this whole experience so far, I wasn’t out of the woods, and had no idea what today might actually hold. The worried thoughts started to go through my mind – What if there was no foetal pole? What if it was a blighted ovum? What if there was nothing there? What if I started spotting last night – would it all be over before the appointment again? What if there was something terribly wrong when he looked today?

I did not have a very good night’s sleep. It didn’t help that there were other issues in our family that were on my mind too. It boiled down to me being awake from 4am this morning with thoughts racing through my mind. At 6am B woke up and told me to just relax. Way easier said than done.

Thankfully my job is very varied, so I could find a fairly mindless task to help me get the time to pass. I wrapped Christmas presents all morning for one of my clients. I still have more to do, but it definitely helped the time pass. By the time I left my office to fetch B I was a bundle of nerves! I downed my bottle of water in order to ensure a full bladder and we headed to the hospital where Dr P is based. We were super early as usual. I do love that about B – he doesn’t mind that I always like to be on time, but preferably early for appointments. We sat and waited, and I waited for all the water to reach my bladder, which it did, about 10 minutes before we finally saw the doctor. Why do they always want pregnant women to have a full bladder for these things? It’s really hard concentrating on other stuff when you are trying so hard not to pee your pants!

We went through to the room and I changed into a gown. Dr P checked my eyes, my heart and lungs and my blood pressure. He was happy with all of that. Then he turned to the ultrasound. Up until this point B was sitting quietly in the corner. He then tried to find a place where he could also see the screen. This is South Africa – there are no ginormous flat screens on the wall for us – we all shared the ultrasound machine’s screen. Dr P invited B to stand right next to him so he could get a clear view. It was awesome. As soon as he started, I began to feel my heart race – I was so worried that something was going to be wrong. Dr P takes a moment to explain where all the parts of your body are, which was actually quite nice – showed my bladder which was full, my cervix, vagina and then – there it was! You could definitely see something was there. He then proceeded to go through all the things he was checking and letting us know what we were looking at. He then showed us the heart beat and flicked a switch which let us hear it! That was the point that I teared up, and I’m almost certain B did too!

What an amazing moment! I can’t describe all the emotions that were going through my mind!

Dr P is very cautious – it’s one of the things I like about him. He’s also very factual, which both B and I really like. We talked about the schedule for the next few months, in particular about the next appointment which is 12 Nov. This will be my detailed 12 week scan and blood work for chromosome tests. He discussed the options and what he recommends. As we were leaving, I think he could see that I was still a little apprehensive about everything and he said the best thing he could have: “At this point there is nothing that I am even a little bit worried about. Everything looks exactly as we’d like it to look at this point. We aren’t completely out of the woods yet, but there is nothing niggling at me. This is a good pregnancy.”

I feel like we can go out tonight for dinner and really celebrate this milestone.

I’m still going to be cautious and take things one step at a time, but I really am feeling 100 times better than I was yesterday this time!

I got an album as I was paying which says “Baby Scan Album”, it’s quite something to have two pics in it already. I really am feeling like this is real now.

Here’s hoping for an uneventful 4 weeks until my next appointment!