Making progress: 30 weeks
Things are getting real now. I’m almost 30 weeks pregnant, which means there’s pretty much 7 weeks to go (if things go to Type 1 diabetes ‘full term’) - and that is a rather scary thought.
It’s not 7 weeks till the long-awaited excitement of meeting your baby. It’s 7 weeks till your baby is most probably no longer with you. And that said, we do realise that things could well head south before that.
I had another scan two weeks ago at 28 weeks, and finally they started seeing signs of something wrong with baby. Nothing specific like the list we have of likely issues with this chromosome translocation, but indications that things aren’t all sweet on the inside.
Baby is steadily tracking lower and lower on the growth charts, which indicates her little body just isn’t keeping up with the progress she should be making if all was normal. The docs also spotted a little bit of fluid around her heart, and not enough fluid around her – nothing super alarming they said, but indications things aren’t progressing as they should.
Until now we’ve had a harsh diagnosis, but no real evidence of anything wrong, so it’s pretty easy to sail on rather oblivious to the reality that’s fast approaching. But this day at clinic definitely bought it home for me. This is real. And it’s going to get very real, very soon.
It’s an odd feeling as she kicks away more and more, yet you know the more you get attached to that, the more it’s going to hurt when it all stops. A real kick in the guts.
This post sounds like a real downer, I know! People often ask Russell how I’m doing, and honestly, I’m fine. I have my moments (pretty rarely, in my humble opinion!). But yeah, reality does catch you sometimes, especially once you have to start talking to the docs about birth and a plan for what happens after that. In my experience, giving birth’s not that fun at the best of times, let alone the worst!
But still in the back of my mind is the fact that we don’t know the reality of what will happen until it actually happens. Despite all the feedback you get from docs or people who’ve been through similar stuff before, nothing’s a given – so we’ll wait and see. As someone said, this baby is like a Christmas present – you don’t know what you’ll get until you open it. But she's a gift, nonetheless.
