Would you get a private early scan?

[Ellie06]

So I had my booking appointment today, midwife was lovely but said we wouldn't have our dating scan until around about 13-14 weeks because they are so booked up at the moment.

This may sound ridiculous but I am getting married when I will be just over 15 weeks pregnant and I don't want to find out something is wrong potentially up to two days before the wedding. I know whatever stage a miscarriage or problem with the baby is identified isn't going to be easy to deal with, but if there was a big and obvious issue I would rather find out earlier so I had a bit more time to process it before I am meant to be walking down the aisle with a big smile on my face.

Has anyone had an early private scan? What was your experience?

I am six weeks at the moment, was thinking of waiting until we are around 8-10 weeks and going for a private scan.

Be careful if you have a very early scan. I have had 2. With ds1 it was at 6.7 wks and all was fine, heartbeat detected easily. But with ds2 I had one and she pressed so hard on my abdomen to get an image that she caused a haematoma and I nearly miscarried. If it is very early (6-7 wks) I would ask for an internal scan but ideally I would wait until 9 -10 weeks if possible as it will be easier for them to detect heartbeat etc and more likely to be reassuring.

I had one with DD2 at 7 weeks, just because I wanted one for reassurance as 2yo DD1 was already blabbing to everyone, and because I was so sick that it was impossible to keep it a secret anyway. Plus I was worried about the possibility of twins and wanted as much time to prepare as possible if it was!

I would definitely do it again if we have a third DC. We went to the Fetal Medicine Centre which was absolutely brilliant. My only regret is that we ended up paying individually for an early scan and a 32 week wellbeing one, and I wish we'd purchased the package for not much more money which gave you all 4 scans plus the harmony test.