December 2017 babies #7 - 2nd trimester, gender reveals & 20 week scans this way!

[Carley27]

Thread #7 (!!!) for mumsnetters expecting in December 2017.

Join us for chat about the second trimester, teams pink, blue and yellow, 20 week scans and as always... food.

We also have a secret group on facebook - if you would like to join please ask to be added :)

Spreadsheet: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xkkNdcxTRfLVAtBUItL__yT9FchALAwK63e2BjZbVMM/htmlview

Hello all! I'm so rubbish with keeping up on here, I've missed a few days and that equals around 3 pages 😂 bunch of chatterboxes!
I'm mainly on the fb page now as it's easier to keep track of.
16+5 here today and I had my mw appointment this afternoon. Pretty uneventful which is always good lol.
If I still want to go ahead with a home birth then they will get the ball rolling at my next appointment at 22 weeks - that's exciting!
Just happened to mention that I didn't have my 20w scan date yet, apparently somebody should have told me at my 12w scan that I needed to book it there 😂 nobody did! Never mind, she called up for me and has booked me in. July 27th, it can't come quick enough!

@purplek1tty send me a pm with your email addy and I'll add you to the fb group x

Thanks all. She advised that calling was best and nothing to worry about as long as wasn't red (which is what I read, but wanted her to confirm)

*sigh So husband and I are walking to dinner when I suddenly feel a gush in and through my undies. Clear fluid that had a really sweet smell. I panic worrying it might be amniotic fluid. There later showed discharge also, but that was very obviously different to the clear fluid (colour, texture, smell). He runs home to get the car and head for the hospital (which thankfully has a 24/7 maternity wing). 2.5 hours later (which is frankly not that bad) and they think it's just thrush and that there's no evidence of further suspect fluid to indicate amniotic fluid leakage. So whilst I should be relieved (for tonight) I'm also frustrated because something happened that hasn't been explained and now I'm on tenterhooks till Friday (anomaly scan) when they'll measure my amniotic fluid. Argh ☹️

Oh biker that doesn't sound fun. Are you ok? Has everything gone back to normal now?

Welcome to the newcomers. Happy to have you all here.

So I have had about an hour or twos sleep, after an early night but now wide awake, can't sleep, sore throat and have an early start too. Grrrrrr.

In fact I'm really quite worried that me stressing about stuff (usually about the baby) is going to cause damage to the baby. I'm driving myself a little crazy with it.

I'm lying on my left nowadays to sleep but worry sometimes my weight goes more onto my front on the left whilst I'm sleeping which surely can't be good. Any advice?

Not fun at all @Mrsbluebell17 🙁 whatever it was seems to have stopped now so aside from suspected thrush I'm just having the usual cramps and ligament pains.

Re sleeping on left, are you using a maternity pillow / wedge? Might help stop you from flipping onto your front.

Oh and I'm also back to panty watch, of course, to see if it happens again. 🙁

Hey @dirtygrubbybikerchick. I can imagine, I think I'd be totally paranoid until the next scan too, surely that is natural. Let us know how you get on with your scan on Friday. Thinking of you and little biker. You're in a good position with a 24 hour ward you can go to in emergency, so try not to worry.

Re sleeping yes I've got one of those U pillows so it stops me from rolling completely one way or another but i seem to end up with some of my new bump tucked in a little at the side which is worrying me.

Hmm maybe adding one of the wedges just under your bump might help? They're firm and sit flat on the bed, so no room to roll anything under.

Biker, I know it's easier said than done, but try not to worry. That happened to me about 2 weeks ago when I got thrush

Bluebell I'm still finding myself sleeping half on my front as well, my favourite sleeping position is on my front face planted, I goggled (obvs) and every article I found said there was no danger in sleeping on your front and as long as you were comfy and able to it was fine. So try not to worry too much about how you're waking up.

Hello all! Haven't been on here in a few days, just catching up on all the messages! Welcome to all the newcomers! And sorry to all not sleeping well.

I find the maternity pillow helps a bit, but I do keep waking up in the middle of the night with sore hips. I keep switching sides from left to right (thank god they've changed the advice to say you can sleep on the left or right side!) and that helps a bit.

I've been having really dry eyes and my left eye is now reddish. Trying to get an appointment with my optician to see what's going on. And thirsty all the time! Dr Google says this is fairly common but means I can't wear my contacts and that feels very very strange.

@CheesecakeAddict Oh really? A clear fluid (like water) too before thicker discharge?

bluebell I really would not worry. I have a book (forget what it's called) but I basically looks st every myth/fact about pregnancy and then looks at all the studies in that area and summarises if there is any proof. From what I remember the sleeping on the left thing only really applies when the baby had significant weight (so really looking 28 weeks plus or so) so that any squashing of the blood vessels can occur and even then the evidence is minimal and sleeping on the back was perhaps associated with a tiny tiny tiny increased chance of stillbirth but the study wasn't really big enough to conclude this. Sleeping on the right doesn't seem to be and issue and sleeping on your front isn't an issue- your body will stop doing it when it's not possible to do.

In summary- please don't stress about it, honestly you are doing no harm. I sleep in all sorts of ways and definitely not on the left 80% of the time.

Biker, yes. I felt a gush of liquid that kind of feels like when you suddenly start your period. So I was rushing to the toilet and was like shit, shit, shit, I'm bleeding. But completely clear but enough to drench the bottom of my underwear. Lots of thick white discharge as well. I spent the evening googling if you could lose your mucus plug. A day or so later the thrush was unmistakable

Thank you for sharing, @CheesecakeAddict That was exactly what happened (except I was panicking in a quiet street and didn't want to risk walking further so I checked myself on the street 😳) so your story actually makes me feel such relief! Used a thrush pessary last night so hopefully the symptoms abate quickly. Thank you so much!

Well I wish had chased up my combined test results

Had my 16wk appointment this morning. Urine and b/p fine, and they picked up baby's heartbeat straight away which was nice :)

Then she asked if I'd had the NT test done.. said yes but I've not received the results yet. Oh so nobody has been in touch to tell you about taking aspirin? No

Basically, my results have gone missing and they couldn't find them, although a note had been put on my electronic record about the aspirin. They had to ring the lab to get the information.. low risk for downs (1:3258 I think) but low PAPP-A levels so I should have been told to start taking aspirin daily.

Has anyone else experienced this? From what they told me it increases chances of low birth weight, early birth, pre-eclampsia .. possible heightened risk of miscarriage. Obviously I've googled which has not helped! On the plus side I will get additional growth scans at around 28, 32 and 36 weeks, although I'd obviously rather not need them. Also read low levels are more common with boys so I'm even more convinced I'm team blue now!

Sorry for the rambling was a bit thrown by the results as I'd just assumed there was nothing noteworthy since they were taking a while to get back to me.

@Carley27 - I had Low PAPP-A last time around, and a lot of others have had it too. This thread might be helpful to read.

Right now, no one clearly knows what Low PAPP-A means - just that it is sometimes associated with some of those outcomes you've described.

For this pregnancy my obgyn didn't do a PAPP-A test - we just had the NIPT test, and I've been taking a low-dose aspirin every day since the positive test anyway.

[Btw, I'm sure everyone knows this, but low-dose aspirin is perfectly safe. Normal aspirin is very different / crosses placental barrier / should not be taken unless specifically directed by the doctor].

We have similar growth scans etc, and the only other advice I'd give is to keep monitoring movements, and IF the growth scans indicate a small baby, ensure your birth partner keeps highlighting that to the hospital.

Ours was a very extreme case in January where the baby was on the 5th centile so very small and the hospital completely missed that on two separate instances during labour and didn't intervene in time.

Sorry to hear it's not straightforward @Carley27 but really glad that Baby is OK and that you now know what you can do to keep him/her that way 🙂

Thank you Bisquick, I will have a read of that thread - I haven't really heard anything about PAPP-A levels so was a bit of a surprise nobody had been in touch and a panic that I hadn't been taking the aspirin. So sorry to hear about your previous experience

Thanks Biker, guess it's good they can detect these things early so things can be monitored.

Bluebell I wouldn't worry about sleeping positions. I'm still fully sleeping on my stomach and not even trying not to did with my other two pregnancies until I physically couldn't it's fine, I can feel a hard ball now when I lie on my stomach but it doesn't hurt.

biker that must have been such a scare, glad it's nothing to worry about.

I'm doing ok, still battling exhaustion but have started to do some exercise again which is good though taking it easy.

For those worried about sleep positions, my mw gave me excellent advice in my first pregnancy:

Stressing about the way you are sleeping is more harmful to the baby than any sleeping position. I relaxed a lot more when I woke up on my back from then on!

Fwiw I too am mainly sleeping on my front at the moment and I'm glad - I was a bit stressy with my first and ended up with really sore hips from all the side sleeping.

Thanks @fishfingerSarnies Phew indeed! Was going to skip the gym for the rest of this week just in case but I might go and do a light routine tomorrow and see what happens.