First time mum, early stages of pregnancy!

[whycanineverthinkofausername]

Soo I'm a complete newbie to all this and completely overwhelmed! I found out I was pregnant last week & I think I'm roughly 4+2 weeks, I've had a phone call from the midwife and I've got a home appointment booked for 2 weeks time. So my question is what should I expect? In terms of everything! It's not going how I imagined already, for some reason I expected a doctors appointment and a scan & all sorts, so it's taken me back abit. When do they check for a heartbeat? I'm a complete over thinker & a mess as you can probably tell!

Hey firstly congratulations!! I like you found out very early at 4+4 which I think was hard as it makes the wait till the 1st scan feel long. The first time you will hear heartbeat on nhs is likely to be your 12w scan however I didn't wAnt to wIt that long so we booked a private scan at 8 w to check for a heartbeat. If you went with a private scan Id wait until 7/8 weeks as before that you may see a sack and if the heartbeat hasn't developed yet it could be worrying waiting another week or so to be rescanned for it to develop. The midwife won't listen with a Doppler until your 16 week appointment in my experience as they say it can be unreliable before that point and it can give false worry if they can't find it. Best thing you can do is relax take your prenatal vitamins and eat well and im sure everything will go well xxx

Thank you bumplovin! That is incredibly helpful thank you you're right, it feels like forever. Especially as I can't get it out of my mind and carry on my life as normal haha! I might be tempted by the private scan but as you said it might just make me worry even more. So much to think about!

I found the private scan incredibly reassuring but like I say waited until 8 weeks so that I knew there was a good chance of finding a hb. I then found 8-12 weeks much easier as although nothing's certain I felt that as Id seen a hb that everything was progressing as it should. I also found it hard I told a friend and my mum at 6w as couldn't keep it a secret it was all I wanted to talk about and having a couple people who knew seemed to help me x

Im 3 weeks away from having her now. The waiting these last 3 weeks is almost as hard as the first!!! I hope it all goes well for you xx

I didn't take much convincing but I think it'll help me too as 12 weeks seem like a very long time. I've told my mum as my partner works away and I was worried that if something bad did happened I would need her for support before he was able to get back & I've told my manager as I do a very strenuous job and another 'just incase'. Thank you oh I bet!! Any signs of it being early at all?

It is very underwhelming when you get pregnant, you think doctors and nurses will appear to put you in a wheelchair and give you loads of tests and scans lol, you actually get pretty much ignored up until 12 weeks!

Im actually having a planned section at 38 weeks so im hoping she doesn't come any earlier I want her to stay in till 38 weeks so she's as healthy as possible but if my waters went naturally at 37 I must admit id be a little relieved I do feel very uncomfortable now. I also told work at 7 weeks due to a physical job it helped me too that they knew x