6 weeks ~ meeting a midwife

I had seen the doctor the week before who basically said congratulations and referred me on to the midwife.  He also worked out an estimated due date based on my last period of 2^nd June 2012.  However I knew this date wasn’t very accurate as I wasn’t entirely sure of the exact date of my last period as we hadn’t really expected to become pregnant so quickly and also my periods had never been very regular anyway which is quite common in woman with epilepsy.  I was surprised they didn’t do another pregnancy test to prove it but apparently over the counter pregnancy tests are so reliable now you very rarely get false positives, doctors only run pregnancy tests if you get a negative test but still have reason to believe you are pregnant.

We had been planning to move house for 18months to near where I worked as since I had lost my driving licence for a third time after a seizure 2 years ago I had been getting taxi’s to work which were paid for by access to work, a government scheme set up to allow people with disabilities the chance to work.  However getting Taxi’s to work made me feel less independent and I was desperate to move somewhere with more transport links so I could get around places myself.   We had lost a house after waiting 6months for the people to move into a new build which never happened and as we still had to exchange on the house we had then found I knew I couldn’t count on the move so I decided I should see the midwife in the area just in case things fell through.  However I wasn’t impressed with the local hospital there so I definitely had my heart set on the move, plus a one bedroom house isn’t really the place to bring up a baby…

So I saw the midwife at my local doctors, it didn’t go too well if I am honest.  She didn’t know very much about epilepsy which is fine, I have got used to the lack of knowledge of health professionals when it comes to epilepsy.  But she didn’t seem to be listening too much of what I said.  We discussed the Downs Syndrome Test, she explained it gave a percentage chance of the baby having Downs Syndrome, not a definitive Yes/No.  Rich and me had already discussed what we’d do even if we knew for sure our baby had Downs Syndrome, we wouldn’t want to have the baby aborted so we decided we didn’t want the test at all, what was the point having something else to worry about?  When I explained this to her she looked surprised and said that often people want to plan for a child with Downs Syndrome… having worked with children with complex needs for the past 5 years I know that there is no way of planning for a child with a disability, they are all completely individual with their own abilities and challenges, you cannot plan for that. It then came to taking routine bloods; I have had many blood tests in the past and I know I am easy to get blood from but she seemed to struggle and when she finally managed it said “I should have more confidence in myself, I can take bloods after all…” as I walked out the room my hand felt a bit funny and the bruise I got after was huge, I guess she hit a nerve and damaged the vein.  After that I didn’t have the greatest confidence in her abilities.