And it will be a ...

After the blood loss, the weeks slowly crept by, going for check-ups every week made every week exciting. The upside, we knew early on the gender of our baby! The chances of a girl got smaller every week and in the end it was very clear that we would have a little man. The result: a very proud daddy! Naturally, we celebrated with a very small gender reveal. We wanted to tell the future grandparents and aunts and uncles in a fun way what the sex of the little one was. We did this with a cake.

Our little guy was growing well and the bruise behind the placenta was thankfully not getting any bigger! With appropriate uncertainty, it was time for the 20-week ultrasound. As a midwife, it was of course very special to experience this myself. Because I am in ultrasound training myself, it was exciting and fun for me not only as a mum but also as a midwife. We had the ultrasound done at het lichtpunt in Nuth, where we could also go on Saturdays. Very convenient if your partner works during the week!

We were welcomed nicely and the ultrasound technician did go through all the structures at a fast pace but explained everything very nicely. A little easier for me to follow than for my partner. After each body structure, the ultrasound operator mentioned whether it looked normal. This was very nice, but also made us wait each step for those fine words: this looks normal and gross abnormalities have been ruled out. We chose to have the 20-week ultrasound recorded and watched it back several times at home with family. Now that everything was good so far, I also felt a bit more space to start buying things. I hadn't done this yet. Because of the blood loss and the increased risk that the pregnancy could still go wrong, we were very reluctant to do so. After the 20-week ultrasound, I started to feel more relaxed about this and could start working on the nursery with a good feeling. Choosing colours for the wall and picking curtains. We bought the cot and the changing table second-hand so we could put these together straight away. The first clothes went into the dresser and slowly the realisation dawned that we could now really start preparing for the arrival of our little man.

Due to a higher risk of developing gestational diabetes, I had an indication to have a sugar test done. You can read how this went in the next blog!