Had my first at 12 weeks. I was still suffering with first trimester pregnancy symptoms and I didn’t feel any worse than I did before the jab. I just had a sore arm. DH had his at the same time, he was saying he was tired and a bit fluey but it just felt like an ordinary pregnancy day for me
I did play pzifer or pregnancy with DH - “are you feeling nauseous? No, that must be pregnancy then”.
Two weeks after I noticed my arm was sore at the injection site when I meant on the arm. I also felt a bit more ill than usual but I’d done a site visit, got dehydrated and was suffering with hay fever. I went to the GP. They looked at my arm and said it was a local reaction (I had small red lump), it turns out along with suffering with suffering from the effects of summer I also had a UTI which is why I was feeling a bit more rubbish than usual. GP reassured me that a local reaction doesn’t mean it wasn’t working as it should in my body, it’s something to do with everything rushing to the entrance site and trying to fight it there. She also reassured me that all the data they were seeing was that pzifer and moderna are safe in pregnancy and a local reaction in the arm won’t be affecting baby at all.
Second jab at 21 weeks. I’ve been taking aspirin since 12 weeks so I bled this time. I bled for about a minute after she put the needle in and I needed a plaster, just in case. I had a bruise for about a week but that’s because of the bleeding and aspirin. I had another local reaction at the injection site. Slightly bigger reaction this time, my arm had a small bump about 2cm in diameter that was red and raised. It was itchy this time. I had the jab on Thursday morning, Friday evening is when it was worse but not unmanageable. I took an antihistamine and two paracetamol before bed. That reduced most of the local reaction. On the Saturday morning I took another antihistamine (I’d have taken one anyway for hay fever that day) and the local reaction cleared up by the end of the day. Other symptoms were just a sore arm which was sore for about 2 days but nothing else.
I’d had my first scan before my first jab and had my second in between. Baby was fine at second scan. They managed to look at everything and couldn’t find anything to be worried about. Baby was wiggling a lot during the scan (and being a little awkward bugger and moving just as the ultrasound tech kept trying to take measurements). Since the second jab, baby is happy wiggling away and I’m feeling lots of movement.
Despite having a localised reaction at the injection site, which by the way I’m the only person who I know who has had a localised reaction and I have similar reactions to bug bites anyway, I’m really glad I’ve had my jabs. I’m so glad that when I called the GP with my concerns, even though I explained I’d got dehydrated and suffering hay fever and I didn’t know why I was feeling so rubbish, they still invited me in to look at the injection site. I realise not everyone has a GP that is open at the moment but I’m grateful the GP took the time to look at my arm and reassure me. I will possibly need to talk to the GP when it comes to boosters to check it’s the appropriate one for me based on the local reaction. I’m still really glad I had the jab and I’m really hoping I can pass some antibodies on to baby. The more data that comes out, the more reassured I am. At my first jab, it was the least bad choice. I wasn’t hugely sure I was making the right choice but it felt like the better alternative to catching covid. Pretty soon after my first I spent a lot of time trying to work out how I could my second one as quickly as possible as more and more data was pointing to the fact that the jab is the better choice.