Scary day

Yesterday was a bit of a stressful day for this Mummy and Daddy to be. In the morning, I had a repeat blood test at the hospital. The letter just said that I needed a repeat blood test so I was a little apprehensive - although Auntie Laura had been very reassuring.

We arrived at Birmingham Women's at our allocated time (Daddy came with me) and had to take a number to be seen. So we waited half an hour (thank goodness for my fig roll stash) and were greeted by the phlebotomist, who asked what bloods I needed repeating. We didn't know and the letter said nahtheeng so off she went to find a midwife.

Twenty minutes later, she came back. All my tests came back absolutely fine but they couldn't test for sickle cell because they didn't have the form. They didn't have the right form. A form that I'd completed with the student midwife when she took the first set of bloods. Frustrating but more relieving that it was so simple a fix.

After Daddy got home from work, I popped to the toilet to discover I'd been bleeding. Not 'fresh' but scary nonetheless. We went straight to Solihull A&E and were seen very quickly - only one problem, no gynae or maternity services at Solihull. Cue many calls from the nurse looking after me (who took more bloods, blood pressure and tested urine) to Heartlands who are the closest hospital with a Women's Unit. She got me a referral and off we went.

We found the Unit and were seated outside the most public consultation room ever for an hour. The lady before us was in a lot of pain; I was grateful that my bleed wasn't accompanied by cramping. We were very grateful that I carry so many snacks in my handbag, we hadn't had any dinner - thank goodness my sickness is so much better.

Eventually, we were shown downstairs to the delivery suite for an ultrasound. You appeared on the screen and had a wiggle but were generally quite content to be relatively still - I guess 11.30pm was quite late enough for foetuses. Your heartbeat was nice and strong, placenta was fine. All as it should be. Such a relief!

After they'd checked me over upstairs just to be sure (the bleeding had stopped by then), we were sent on our way.

I was very glad to be in bed that night, safe in the knowledge that all was okay and you were safe and sound.