Just a quick update:

I had my last ultrasound yesterday, as well as a couple of appointments with midwives, and everything looks fine! The baby is definitely a girl, and she spent the whole ultrasound poking her tongue out at us :-) She weighs just over a pound now and is around 24 centimetres long, (full length). As a part of the screens they do for the SCOPE research program, the sonographer told me that they check certain blood flow to detect any early sign of pre-eclampsia- and there's no early sign of it with me, so that's a relief! All her measurements are right on track, and everything (so far, finger's crossed) looks excellent.

Yesterday was my last appointment as part of the research program (it follows the pregnancy through to week 24) so now I transfer over to the midwives in the birthing unit. I tell you what though, touring the birthing unit brings the reality of pregnancy crashing back home- even the term "birthing unit" is enough to send chills down my spine :-) One of my appointments was in the "Birthing Assessment Unit- Low" area- the place where women have their babies who are at low risk of complications- which is me, right now. They have 5 or so "birthing rooms" in the low risk area, which all have queen size beds, a little table and chairs, a big comfy sofa seat and their own huge bathroom with a giant bath and a shower cubicle with dual shower nozzles- and you stay in this same room for the whole labour and up to 24 hours following the birth. The room is quite nice, probably a cross between a hospital room and a hotel room, and very large.

In this area they do not perform epidurals and encourage as natural (and active) a birth as possible- and you only get seen by midwives, not a doctor, as long as everything is progressing fine (and if it's not, they don't hesitate to call for doctor support). The midwife I saw yesterday said that our baby will be delivered by a midwife in the "yellow group" to which I am now assigned- and the midwife who'll end up delivering me I'll know as I would have had at least one appointment with her in the weeks leading up to the birth- it depends who's working when I go into labour, so they can't guarantee a certain person will be on. I can opt for a water birth if I like as long as a midwife who specialises in water births happens to be working when I'm in labour- or I could apparently even give birth in the shower (I never realised so many babies are born in bathrooms!!) After the baby is born, James can stay with me (hence the queen size bed) for the next 24 hours, after which we could go home or be transferred to a regular room.

Anyway, it was good to see the area and hear all about what I have to look forward to :-) Only three and a half months to go!!

I have more ultrasound pics- I know you're all probably getting sick of them by now, but when I have them scanned onto a disk (again) I'll put them up if anyone's interested :-) I mean, I think they're interesting but I realise I'm very biased :-)