Just after Liam was born, things started deteriorating in South Africa to such an extent that Gerhard and I decided to immigrate to Australia. We went over to Australia for the first time in October / November 2008 when Liam was four months old and fell in love with Sydney. We applied for permanent residence and went over to Australia again in December 2010 to validate our visas, only there were really four of us on that plane to Sydney as I was 17 weeks pregnant this time around.
We always knew we wanted to have two kids, Liam and Luka, and when Liam was 1 and a half, we decided to start trying again. The same story as with Liam and in the end, I fell pregnant in August 2010. Even though actively trying, it still comes as a bit of a shock to the system when you do a pregnancy test and there are two lines. So timing wise, this was not great as we planned to actually be in Oz in April 2011. Luka's due date is the 26th of April 2011. After careful consideration, we decided that Luka must be born in SA, I will not survive a repeat of Liam's birth in a foreign country without friends and family, so then we decided OK, September 2011, we will have a passport for Luka, a visa and she will be 4 months old and over the worst.
I then had a mini-nervous breakdown as this meant that I would have to resign this week and spend four months at home on unpaid maternity leave. Some more thinking and we decided, OK, lets revisit this in January 2012 and that is that. So January 2012 will be a big month for the four of us.
Anyhow, I digress, Luka...Yes, a very normal and uneventful pregnancy until the routine Downs Syndrome scan at 13 weeks. Doctors use this scan to determine the possibility of the baby having downs dyndrome. They measure the nuchal fold at the back of the baby's neck. 1mm is ideal, anything over 10mm is not good. So Luka measured at 5mm...the gynea then said that this is no reason for concern, let’s follow up with blood tests. After two weeks of waiting for the results, I call the gynea's office and I am told that all is clear. Two weeks later, I arrive for a routine 16 week scan, and the gynea says, sit down...your downs risk is 1/40. They found some increased pregnancy hormones in my blood and that is never good.
Now Gerhard and I have talked about this a lot, we will not proceed with a downs pregnancy. We already have Liam to think of and we both have stressful careers. So we opt to do an amniocentesis at 17 weeks, incidentally also the day that we leave for vacation in Oz. What a day...it’s a fairly simple procedure involving a needle being inserted into your stomach to draw out fluid. This is done whilst scanning to ensure that the needle is far away from the baby. I was fine until I stood in reception to pay...then it felt like I was about to faint! To this day Gerhard is convinced that the needle pricked Luka on the leg as there was a pretty tense moment when the scan machine blacked out whilst the needle was in my tummy!
Anyhow, two long weeks of vacation and then the call came whilst we were in Perth, it’s all fine and it’s definitely a girl.
Finally after more than two months of stress, we could relax and enjoy this pregnancy! It has truly gone past in a blur and it’s because we did not really want to get excited at all!
So at 19 / 40 weeks, we finally started getting excited and I think it might be my imagination, but I started looking pregnant shortly thereafter!
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