Latest update...

I received a letter this week from my consultant at the maternity hospital. At my first appointment with him I mentioned that I was worried about giving birth naturally since I have had a lot of surgery and was told at the time that having more children would be dangerous. He basically said "oh don't worry, I'm sure you will be fine". I wasn't impressed and talked to my own midwife who said there were various degrees of severity in the operation that I'd had. It seemed the consultant was presuming that I had been at the minor end of the scale. She told me to talk to him again. So at my second appointment I spoke to him again, explaining that I really did not want to risk having the same surgery or worse again, and that my doctor thought a c-section was an option. To this the consultant said something along the lines of "I'm sure a c-section can be arranged, but don't worry about it yet as you have months left". Then a few weeks ago I went for my third appointment and was booked in with the wrong consultant who was very nonchalant about the c-section option and once again said "no my dear, you will be fine to give birth naturally". To this, I almost fainted. So far no one had even looked at my operation notes to see what I'd actually had done to me! The midwife attending this consultant seemed to have her head screwed on and organised for my surgical notes to be found, and promised that she would get my consultant to read them. She obviously kept to her word as this week I received a letter from my consultant saying he had read my notes and that I had indeed had a very serious repair operation three years ago. Considering this he has decided that a c-section is indeed the safest option for me and I will be booked in to have one a week before the baby's due date. Well, I can't tell you the flood of relief I felt reading that letter. It just makes me cross that if I hadn't pushed to be listened to, that no one would have read my surgical notes until I was already in labour and it would become obvious that childbirth was dangerous for me.

So only another 7 weeks to go until we get to meet our baby daughter. I can't wait, let me tell you. I feel so uncomfortable last week and am fed up of waddling like a duck.

Here are a couple of photos of Annabelle and Barney taken this week. I just like the one of Barney. The pic of Annabelle was taken last night when she went to the school disco on what is officially her first date! (Do I feel old now? Yes.)