Booking at week 11 and scan at week 13

[rosalue]

Hi all - I'm just over 7 weeks and have just had confirmation of my first appointment dates: 11+1 for booking and 13+4 for the dating scan.

Looking online it seems that ideally screening for sickle cell would happen before 10 weeks, and the screening at the dating scan needs to happen by the end of the 13th week at the latest. With that in mind the above dates feel a bit late, particularly if my due date calculation is off (plausible as my cycles are irregular).

Should I just assume there's a backlog and accept it or would you query the dates? When they mentioned the dating scan date on the phone they said I'd be "around 12 weeks then" but now I've looked I'm not sure I'd say 13+4 fits that 😅

i’m dreading this too, I phoned to arrange my booking appointment today but was told it can be up to 5 weeks wait just now so that would take me over 10 weeks and I don’t think a 12 week scan is even booked on their system until the booking appointment has happened 🤦🏻‍♀️

I'm sorry, @BCxx - I know how hard the wait for appointment dates is. If your local system is to only arrange the scan after the booking I'd hope that means it's normal and won't be too long a wait for you 💐

My booking in appointment was moved to when I'll be 11 weeks, if I make it that far. I don't even have a date for my twelve week scan yet.

You could always ask when you go to your appointment maybe? :) The midwife would be able to tell you if she had any concerns about the date of the scan.

My booking and 12 week scan all happened on the same day at the maternity unit (granted it was during the first lockdown so things were different). They ran all the same tests and that side of things seemed to be fine.

However, if you were looking to have things like the genetic probability done at your 12 week scan, you might consider calling them to rearrange as they can only do this via scan and blood test combined, up to 13 weeks and a few days which sounds like it will be close for you.

Hi @rosalue . Do you mind if I ask what happened with your booking appointment? I've just had mine through and I'll be 10+5 on that date - also been reading NHS guidance is for tests to be done prior to 10 weeks. Did yours get rearranged or was 11+1 ok for your booking appt?

Hi @VirgoPeanutPending - congrats on your pregnancy. I kept my booking appointment at 11+1 in the end after hearing from others that the timings were pretty normal in some areas. I think the part about testing before 10 weeks is with blood disorders in mind and from what I could find out, it's not that they can't be detected after that, but that they prefer as much time as possible so it can be looked into if the initial results suggest an issue. As I didn't have obvious risk factors for blood disorders I stuck with it and my results were fine. Wishing you all the best!

Oh that's great to hear! Thanks for getting back to me and good luck with everything!!