I've said it before...

... and I'm SURE I'll say it again, but the NHS is a pile of pooh.

I'm a first time expectant mummy, there are things happening to me that are quite alien and some of them are quite scary.

Like on Friday night, when I had some bright red bleeding.

Now, all the books and online resources say that 'spotting' is normal. But how much blood constitutes spotting?

I had to wait until this morning to phone the Early Pregnancy Unit to ask for some advice. They very nicely told me that because I was now past 12 weeks, I would have to consult with the ante-natal department, and they put me through to them.

I told the receptionist what had happened on Friday and she, quite snappily, said I had to be referred by my GP. I tried again, telling her that I just wanted some advice.

She eventually put me through to the duty midwife, who was bloody awful.

"What's the point of phoning us now? You should have phoned us on Friday when it happened."

I told her that I didn't have the number to phone her on Friday and she replied:

"Well, you'll just have to wait and see what happens now then, won't you."

What a horrible woman! I know that they hear these questions over and over, but it's the first time I've asked them! Part of her job should surely be to reassure pregnant ladies.

When I asked her if the amount of blood I lost could be counted as spotting, she just said, "I don't know, any amount of blood can be called 'spotting'."

Thank you.

Thank you for nothing.

Get this...

... I received a letter from my GPs Surgery last week, asking me to come in and discuss the results of my recent kidney scan, due to long term high blood pressure.

So, me being me, I have been panicking for the last week, waiting for my appointment.

I went to see her last night.

Do you know why she wanted to see me?

Hmm?

Because, when they carried out the scan, they found...
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A foetus.

And I might not be aware that I'm pregnant.

Riiiiight.

I'm actually 13 weeks pregnant now, and:-

I've been to the doctor's for a threatened mis-carriage, at six weeks.
I've seen my midwife, at 8 weeks, and have another appointment for 14 weeks.
I had to phone the doctor's to cancel my flu jab, because I was pregnant.
I've had three lots of blood tests carried out.
I've been to the hospital twice for scans, and already have another 3 appointments.
I TOLD the guy who scanned my kidneys that I was nine weeks pregnant.
And they have NO RECORD ON FILE OF ME BEING PREGNANT!

Muppets.

While I was there, she checked my blood pressure - which, pre-pregnancy was at 190/113 - and they were seriously worried, now that I'm preggers...? 140/86!!

How freaky.

She also asked me to take a urine test, and this is where it all goes a bit bleh - there was protein and blood in my urine. She thinks I may have been bleeding.

She's going to treat it as a water infection for now, even though I have no other symptoms, and has put me on a course of antibiotics, until a thorough test is done on my sample.

Bum.

Le Weekend...

We spent the weekend doing 'baby prep' kind of things.

Went to Mothercare, Babies 'R' Us and Ikea on Saturday (all strangely empty), to price up prams/cots/etc - but no spendy money.

We also 'had a look' at our guest room, which will need to be converted into our nursery.

At the moment, it has our two wardrobes in there, our 2000+ CDs (no idea where we're going to put THEM!), the guest bed and some other shiznit.

We went through our wardrobes - making bags up for: Ebay, Family/friends, Charity Shop, and Bin. We're going to try and get our clothes down to one double wardrobe, which will 'live' in our room.

We've made room for the wardrobe already, and swapped my bedside cabinet round to the other side of the bed, as (for some completely bizarre reason) it's easier for me to lie on my left side, if I'm on the 'other side' of the bed. (Lying on the left hand side is apparently good for baby, and helps your kidneys to function better).

Dave was panicking (really!) over the fact that the wardrobes 'don't go with anything' in our room... how I laughed while trying to tell him that he'll have bigger things than that to worry about in six months time! As it happens, we can buy some new doors from Ikea, which will make the wardrobes perfectly suitable.

I'm going to strip the walls and carpet out of the guest room and 'study' over the holidays, ready for the plasterer and carpet fitters to get to work. Again, Daves showed his stupidity by asking me to help him move the wardrobes into our room on Sunday - I had to remind him that Maria is DEFINATELY not lifting any pigging furniture AT ALL. We'll wait till the holidays and rope in our friend, Steven to give us a hand.

Dave has taken a week off work - due to the fact that we have three dogs in our house at the moment, our two, and Dave's parent's (while they're on holiday). He decided that three dogs pulling me through the park, is a little bit too much of a strain... so, he's getting some college work done, and looking after the puppies at the same time.

Yesterday was only the second Sunday we've spent together this year, and it was lovely - we went out for Sunday lunch, and took the dogs for two nice, long walks - I was shattered, and had to go to bed in the afternoon... wimp!

We also realised over the weekend that Dave's finals are due at the same time as the bambino. Which is a bit poop. If he misses them, he'll have to wait another twelve months... which is not ideal.

I'll have to keep my legs tightly crossed until he's finished.

And that was my very domesticated weekend - how was yours?

So, H., you wanted gossip...

is this gossipy enough for you...

As of today, Dave and I are 12 weeks pregnant.

We had a scan at six weeks, cause we had a very nasty scare, and the tech could detect his/her heartbeat - huge amount of relief.

Then we had another extra scan at nine weeks, because I was having a kidney scan, and the tech checked our 'jelly bean' at the same time.

And today, we had our 12 week scan.

I hadn't drunk quite enough water, and so things weren't that clear, but we could see a head, a torso, two arms, two legs - and most importantly - a heartbeat.