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Part Two of Growing a Tiny Human: The Second Trimester, 'Oh Glory Be!' and 'Wait for me

The Second Trimester. Ah, the Second Trimester... The sickness and nausea had ebbed away, the torturous stenches that filled the air were now the normal smells of the world which once I knew and everything became that little bit easier. To say the following months continued in this glorious vein of positivity is well... ABSOLUTELY FRICKIN' TRUE! Second Trimester, you were glorious my friend. I will however start off with some negatives (duh), but just to get them out of the way. This sudden upturn in positivity regarding all things baby growing unfortunately lead me into anticipating many awful things happening. Predominantly the sudden and spontaneous return of all the awful symptoms of the first trimester, and that this brief time spent beginning to feel like myself again (with some added little curiosity to my body caused by growing a human - veiny boobs anyone?) would all have been some big Con and my body would be like 'Surprise! Just kidding! Go throw up again and despise the smell of everything on the planet whilst you cry and despair at the decision you've made to bring new life into the world when it makes you feel so utterly terrible! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!' But most of all, everything then became so, so wonderful I then became gut wrenchingly, heart woundingly worried that my blessed little Bean would simply not make it. I'm not saying it consumed my every thought (because I decided that was a complete waste of time), but every now and then it would catch me off guard and proceed to scare the constipated shit out of me. It was a two-for symptom - Symptom 1. I am a general pessimist about good things, because life experience has unfortunately lead me to the conclusion that good things don't last and bad things happen all the time, so of course this was going to be one of those times something bad happens. It was all too good, too pure, too amazing, too perfect for something bad not to happen. And symptom 2. Having a Mum that is a Sonographer I grew up with such sad stories about ectopic pregnancy, severe foetal defects, non-viable foetuses, no heartbeats and a burden of knowledge that you are never in a safety zone whilst pregnant until that little human is out and screaming in your arms. And even once they are out, a whole new heap of neuroses and paralysing fears take over like 'I forget to buy toothpaste, how on earth am I going to keep them alive!' I can now say with certainty, so far, so good. Go us Teeny One!

That being said and now those are out of the way, let's get down to the nittaaay, gritaaaay. We had our 12 week scan on Monday 13th March at 9.45am and it was without a doubt one of the most incredible experiences of my existence. My incredible Mama Bear was the one that did it. Grandma took baby's first selfie. She took all the pressure on her shoulders of scanning her daughter not knowing what she might have to tell her, and to see her do her thing was mind blowing. She's amazing. Seriously, just completely amazing. I'm so glad I got to share that moment with my Mum. She has been there for all the most poignant, life changing moments of my life. Be they good or bad, she's always been there. And this was the icing on the cake. I, of course, did a cry and soon as she said everything looked good. Husband stood there grinning like a loon the entire time. She cheekily let us hear the heart-beat and that little wriggler put on one hell of a show for us. And much to my mums delight, but also chagrin to get good pictures, did not lie still for one minute. So we're thinking we have a little dancer on our hands like her Mummy. She measured the fluid at the back of baby's head to assess any risk of Downs and that looked all good. Little fingers and toes and tummy were all there and looked just as they should and suddenly, our little bean was real! We finally got to see them and it made the three months leading up to that point melt into insignificance. It didn't matter what had come before, all that mattered was the tiny little person growing inside me and they could twist and turn my body inside out for all I cared, as long as they were ok. We got our photos, sent messages to everyone and then I went to get my bloods done.

Pregnancy is part feeling like a pin cushion and part feeling like a Roman Water Fountain. Except you're not part of the Masterful Trevi Fountain, you're peeing in another sample pot at the Doctor's Office for the 100th time and handing your fresh urine to a virtual stranger. 'Hello nice Midwife Lady! Here, please take another sample of my wee. Get it while it's warm and fresh!' These Urine Samples are to test for Protein to make sure you're not at risk of pre-eclampsia and the various blood samples are for a whole host of things. A few tests that I can remember were to assess Blood Type, check you don't have HIV or syphilis (I don't), to check for Sickle Cell and Thalassaemia (negative for both) and to check your risk level for Downs, Edwards Patau. A risk factor of under 100 is considered high risk for any of these things. You may decide to have further testing or you may decide not to. Either choice as far as I'm concerned is yours and yours alone to make. And whatever you do decide is the right thing for you and your baby, you do you and don't let anyone pressure you into ANYTHING. Thankfully our risk was 1 in 10,000 and that is literally as low as it goes, so that was beyond a relief to find out. However all this being said, and all the positives that came out of all these various tests really didn't mean squat to me until she was in my arms and I knew that everything was ok. But that's just me (read above for eternal pessimist).

As I'm adopted and don't know my family history, the only additional extra test I had have that isn't mandatory is a GTT test. Or Gestational Diabetes Test. Which basically tests for what is says on the tin - checking for Diabetes whilst you are gestating (which makes you sound a bit like an elephant but thank god our pregnancies aren't as long as those poor creatures...). You have a blood test, drink a glucose drink, sit for 2 hours, and then have another blood test to ensure that your body is able to metabolise sugar as it should and your pancreas is behaving as it should. Thankfully mine came back negative. But I did unexpectedly have to have a growth scan as I had my 28 week check up whilst at the Hospital waiting for the magic glucose drink to work it's magic (this was actually surprisingly ok to drink. It tasted like Orangina) and the Midwife felt she was measuring up small. So off I went for a scan and she was perfect. And I got to see her again and hear her heart beat. That was lovely. I did feel bad though as I told Husband not to bother coming as it would be boring and non eventful. Cut to me sending him a scan photo of our little bambino and him being gutted he wasn't there.

Anyway, back to the official scan of the Second Trimester; the 20 week, or Anomaly Scan. Now this was the one we were waiting for. We just couldn't wait to see our little bean again! I was so excited it was almost intolerable. Fiiiiiiinally the day rolled around and there we all were, Husband, Pumpkin Head, Mum and I. Pumpkin Head was as good as gold and loved seeing what was going on and being a part of it and seeing where my Mum works. He thought the jelly that went on my Belly was brilliant and that it was like being in the cinema because the lights went off and we were looking at a screen. Husband held him up so he could see what was going on and Mum stood back and let her friend do her thing. And I have to say, she was absolutely brilliant. Just like my Mum, for the second time around we had crystal clear images and as you can see, have the most brilliant scan picture of baby with her long legs right up over her head practically touching her nose. What struck me most about this second scan was the sheer detail of what you could see on the screen this time around compared to the first. You could literally see every bone, like I had tiny fossils growing inside me. You could see her little heart beating away and we got to hear it again thundering along. We got a close up of her little face to check her nose and formation of her philtrum. You could make out her tiny organs and clearly see her little fingers and toes. We saw her femur and spine and arm bones so clearly and oh my goodness I could just keep going on and on and on and on and I wished I could see her in there every day! At the beginning of the scan we were asked if we wanted to find out the sex and we had decided all along we wanted to find out so said yes. But once the image was there on the screen, it completely popped out of my head. At the beginning of my pregnancy I was all 'I want a girl, I want a girl' but after the 12 weeks scan, I literally could not have cared less. I did want to know, but only for the purposes of buying things, choosing a name, being able to tell Pumpkin Head and bonding with my Bump. Also, I was SO sure they were a boy, I even put money on it (I never ended up paying up so I hope neither of them read this). Everyone else thought it was a girl, so the cheese stood alone. But I steadfastly maintained it was a boy and was not to budged on this fact. And anyway as I said, as soon as they were on the screen, I'd forgotten I'd even said I wanted to know. Obviously Mum had remembered this naïve early pregnancy wish and had proceeded to tell everyone she knew, because about half way through the scan, she just casually went 'well I think you got your wish' and the Sonographer said 'I think so too.' Husband started to beam and I just went 'huh?' because I honestly didn't know what they were talking about. My Mum then said 'well unless it's an incredibly unfortunate boy, you've got a girl in there!' Husband said there was no way we wouldn't know it was a boy as it was his off-spring. So there we had it, we knew the gender of our little Human - we were having a girl!

What I was very happy to discover was that I didn't have an overwhelming relief that she was a girl - to know the sex just seemed like a nice extra thing to know and I was happy to think that I would have been ecstatic either way. They were healthy in there, growing like a little trooper and they were mine. Husband was over the moon because I know how much he wanted a girl, my Mum was thrilled as she was getting a granddaughter to go with her two grandsons and I couldn't wait to tell my Mother-in-Law as for so long she's been a one woman band surrounded by a veritable orchestra of men. So now she finally has a little person on her team! And she can now finally buy girls clothes! The only person disappointed at first was our Pumpkin Head who's immediate proclamation on finding out he was having a sister was 'ohhhhhhh, I wanted a baby brother *tiny pouty face*' but we completely understood. We had a few funny moments of him telling people we were having a boy. Immediately after the scan we rang Husband's Mum and said 'tell Nana, is it a boy or a girl?' And he said 'a boy' and Nana was like 'wow, how lovely, a boy!' and Husband and I were then shouting over loud speaker 'no, no, no, it's a girl, it's a girl!' He told everyone in his Mum's family he was having a brother and also whenever we said are you having a brother or a sister he would confidently claim 'a brother' - like if he said it enough, it would be true! But we talked about 'her' all the time. Got him to rub 'her' in my tummy, talked about his baby sister to him all the time and told him that she can't wait to meet him and that she's so excited to play with him and that she promises she won't steal any of his toys. He knew that she'll call me Mummy but he will still call me Vicky, he helped carry stuff up to her room and helped pick out her pram and that she would want to buy him a present when she is finally here and he was thrilled with his Lego Ninjago Set from her on her arrival. He then began saying the sweetest things like 'we could get this for my baby' or 'my baby sister will like this' and he heart meltingingly told Nursery 'Vicky has a Princess in her tummy.' I cried. We decided from the beginning we were going to navigate the situation for him as best we could and when she was born wanted him involved as much is realistically possible because his tiny world was changing too. And to say that he has taken to Big Brotherhood like a duck to water is an understatement. He is absolutely and completely besotted with her. And his love and adoration for her is above and beyond anything we could have anticipated. He has the kindest soul and heart and I we love our blended family of four. In terms of weird pregnancy 'things' in the Second Trimester, it's a testament to how good I felt that now looking back, I really can't remember any! What I can however remember is going to the Loo. Again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. AND AGAIN. I could look at a droplet of water on the Kitchen Worktop and would need to go to the loo. It was relentless. I religiously drank 2 litres of water everyday, but my God did my bladder pay the price. I was up and down like a whores draws to the toilet. Honestly, at work it would have been more efficient for me to have just had my desk in the Loo with the toilet as my desk chair. But when you have a tiny person resting comfortably on your bladder, something has got to give. And that something was my ability to hold in urine for more than five minutes... The Second Trimester allowed me to get back to living life and feeling like myself again. I was even a Bridesmaid at 20 weeks for on of my dearest friends on her Wedding Day! I My Husband got his wife back and I completely got my Mojo back. I became so resolutely sure I could do this. I decided I was going to crush Labour and was going to be the best Mum I could possibly be. I was at peace with myself and couldn't wait to meet my Baby Girl. I got the pregnancy 'glow' - well that's what everyone said. I just knew it was the fact that I now had the energy to put a face of makeup on every morning so no longer looked like a background extra in The Walking Dead. Praise be to YSL for aluminising Foundation. I was full of energy and loving life again and I just couldn't wait to meet my tiny human. I was counting down the days until her due date and couldn't wait to reach 28 weeks and officially be on the Home Straight to having her in my arms.

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