Bad experience with 20 week scan

[Blondesthanna]

I had my 20 week scan the other day - and our baby is fine! Phew, but the nurse was very clinical and negative. I understand that at this one they are looking for anomalies and also that they can never be a 100% certain but she would not confirm anything until we pushed her, an looked for nearly an hour over and over for the same anomalies telling us how badly our baby was behaving (clearly a bit photo shy like his parents) though we could see images alright. I'm still experiencing a lot of sickness during this pregnancy and was badly ill on arrival, which the nurse knew, yet i was told off for being unable to keep down enough liquids to fully fill my bladder. I've just come out of my scan feeling unexcited and berated. As she was finishing we asked if she would have a look at gender as she wasn't even going to for her own records, it's a boy, though she then went on for 5 minutes to tell us, none of the scan can be considered certain or even "pretty much". Now I'm struggling to feel excited my whole mood since then has become kind of stale. I want to be more excited, or think I should be about having a boy, it's not that my heart was set on a girl or anything. Also I've read my mood can affect my baby, which is concerning me now i'm so down. Has anyone else has a similar experience? I knew it'd be different from my 12 week scan but it was totally different, day and night.

Don't worry about your mood, your baby will be fine. It does sound like she was a bit off, but they are there to do an important job, not for your entertainment. It's really important that they check for everything and tbh gender isn't top of their priorities. I think you need to let this go and just enjoy the rest of your pregnancy knowing everything is fine.

I hated my scans. I found them stressful and intrusive, and they can never guarantee anything.

People seem to think scans are to be enjoyed, whereas I found them to be just like any other medical procedure - something to get through in the hope the results will be good.

Look after yourself and hope you are feeling better soon.

My scans have mostly been a miserable experience and there was a great thread about sonographers recently which started off in the same vein as yours. One or two nut cases came on to tell us off for complaining about our treatment but towards the end there were some really good posts from someone in the trade as it were and it sort of put it all into perspective. I'll see if I can find it.

Here

Firstly, she isn't a nurse, she's a sonographer.
Secondly, she did her job properly, taking an hour to scan you and your LO. Would you rather she was slapdash about it and didn't do it correctly and missed something? Her comments on your LO being camera-shy were probably an attempt at humour. She has to be clinical - that's her job - and she has probably had to tell at least one person this week that their baby had some sort of issue - they have to do this in a clinical way (iyswim).
Sonographers are famously dour anyway too :)
Turn your attention to worrying about something else - as we all know there's loads of other irrational stuff to worry about in the next 20 weeks :)
Congratulations on your little boy x

I had similar experiences in my last pregnancy but had paid for private ones as well so I knew all was well and how scanning could be such a different experience. This time round the 12 weeks scan was fab and had a brilliant sonographer ( they are not nurses by the way) I've got my 20 week scan in a few weeks but am actually treating it as a clinical examination, as a nurse myself I want them to concentrate and check all is well. We are lucky in that we will be paying for a private scan around Christmas so am focussing on that being our 'nice' experience so that I don't feel disappointed.

Sorry you had a bad experience but this really is their only chance to check everything but there is no need for them to be quite so cold about it.

i had a crap 12 week but a lovely woman at my 20 week. As other have said i had private scans and they are amazin if your really feeling low why not try going for one of them, they are mostly for bonding not medical tho they will check everythings ok. It can be expensive but why not treat it as an early xmas pressie. I used ultrasound-direct.com also called babybond can not recomend it highly enough.

Thanks everyone, I really don't want anyone to think i'm complaining about the health professionals (i couldn't remember the name) and understand that they're being up front from the start. I just struggled with my child being told off and feeling like a bad parent before my child's even born (know I'm probably sensitive due to being a 1st time mum) the camera-shy comment is just what me and my partner came up with in response, the sonographer didn't refer to our baby or fetus at all, just 'it'. Think I just have too much spare room in my head, my partner has said we're getting a fetal doppler (?) now so we can have something to enjoy until bump joins us (also because he's jealous he can't feel anything yet).

Ah, that is a bit rubbish. Sure the 20w scan is a serious business but for the overwhelming majority of people (including you!) it's going to be good news so I don't know why your sonographer couldn't just stick a smile on her face, whatever it was that was wrong with her...

Honestly I think some of them just try and take the opposite attitude to the patient to be annoying. I get told off the whole time for being too negative, because I have a history of recurrent miscarriage and I don't really get excited (I'll relax when I see them in their school uniforms, I reckon :-) But then you walk in excited and you get a bucket of cold water... you just can't win so don't take their attitude to heart.

Hope you feel better about it all soon.

Why are you getting a fetal doppler?

It's your decision, not your husbands.

You really need to know what you are doing when you use a doppler because even health professionals find it sometimes hard to hear the right heart beat. They sometimes cause more stress then reassurance.

I agree with belgo dopplers do nothing but stress you out if you can't find anything if your going to spend money get another scan, i've uploaded mine on my profile if you want to see how good they are.

Blondesthanna
I don't doubt your experience of a 'clinical' sonographer in any way but I do think maybe your emotional state got the better of you - especially as you said you were feeling ill on arrival. That combined with hormones being all over the place makes us feel very vulnerable to comments, no matter what the intention was. Look on it as a positive thing that you had over an hour of scan time in which the sonographer was clearly doing the job well and ensuring that all was well with your baby.

At my 20 week scan, it took 50 minutes because, like your little boy, mine was not 'co-operating' and refused to turn over so that she could check the artery and vein coming from the heart. I am so glad that she sent me off to the loo and for a walk to entice my little one to turn. She was also 'clinical' with me too, but I already understood that the scan is called an anomaly scan for a reason - it's to check there isn't any defects in the baby's growth and development and therefore NEEDS to be clinical. it isn't a gender scan or a photo/video opportunity to allow us to go all gooey at seeing our little one - although clearly we all do anyways when it's done. But the point is, the scan is not being done for that reason.

Put your feet up, try and relax and look forward to the rest of your pregnancy KNOWING that your little boy is doing well. x

I agree with belgo- NHS scans are like any other medical procedure, you just hope they don't reveal bad results, rather than see it as a chance to get the first photo for the baby album or similar (not trying to suggest you were thinking like this).

I suspect that sonographers, like most NHS staff, are overworked and pressured to meet tight deadlines, which might be why they can be reluctant to spend time looking up non essential things such as gender. They have a set list of body/organ parts they have to check look healthy and not a lot of time to do it in.

Incidentally, the lady who did our 12 week scan this time seemed a bit curt and dismissive, but I saw another side to her a year before when we found out about our missed miscarriage at the 12 week scan- she was really kindness itself, did all she could to look into the cause with an extra internal scan and comforted me. They are human after all!

I would recommend that you pay for a private scan, either 2D or 4D, as it will be a much more enjoyable experience- after all, you'll be paying for that! We had one at 22 weeks and it was totally different from the anomoly scan, as the focus was for bonding and enjoyment rather than looking for anomalies. Our private scan clinic was fab, even though we only paid for 2D images she switched it to 4D for some bits which was so cool, plus if you want to know gender they'll spend more time checking it out. It sounds like that would be really good for your and DH, far better than a doppler would be. We paid £50 for ours.