Pregnancy Diary Week 20

Dear Diary

What a week it has been. Twenty weeks of pregnancy marked our "big scan" date. Many people will find this to be the most anxious time in their pregnancy because this scan gives a really detailed picture of how the baby is doing. I felt really nervous about it and kept going to the worst place in my mind to almost prepare for some kind of bad news.

On my first pregnancy, I didn't bat an eyelid before this big scan. In fact, I referred to it as "the scan where you find out the gender" which irritated the sonographer and I can totally see why now. I think on a second pregnancy your focus is so much more on actual life with a baby. You know so much about what can go wrong.

In the lead up to the big scan, I noticed my old friend comfort eating made an appearance once again. It's amazing how clear I can see it when it passes but at the time I am completely oblivious to what is going on. The thing about comfort eating is that its so easy to do. It is instant escapism, a total distraction and because it's not illegal, nobody even knows you're doing it.

I didn't see it at the time but there were several points this week where I actually ate so much that I felt sick. It was as though the minute I stopped eating I had to really feel the anxiety and worry over the scan. So I kept eating. It's something I've battled with for my entire life and I just find it amazing that I can never see it coming on.

I associate it as being legitimate hunger and "just wanting" those particular foods but it's total self-destruction mode for me. Some people turn to alcohol or cigarettes at times of stress and for me, food is the drug of choice. I ended up having a few cross words with myself during the week as soon as I realized it was happening. I reminded myself that my body was a vessel and binging on crap food was only going to hurt my baby. Thankfully it is not something I do very often but it seems to really happen at times of great stress.

I am feeling so very lucky and cannot stop looking at the scan photos!

I was a nervous wreck on the way to the scan. I'm usually a real chatter but I kind of went mute in the car. My husband kept saying that he just felt everything was going to be OK. This did reassure me but I couldn't help but look back on our twelve-week scan and how it panned out so differently than what we expected. We went in to see the baby and left feeling panicked about my Ovarian cyst. I was worried that the focus this time would also be on the cyst or something negative. I just desperately wanted to see my baby thriving and doing well.

We were called in more or less immediately when we arrived in the waiting room and for this, I am eternally grateful! Just like on my previous pregnancy I couldn't believe how much the baby had changed in just eight short weeks. Seeing up-close images of their tiny kidneys, fingers and bones was just incredible. They were moving around a lot and had their hand up to their face which was just adorable. The sonographer confirmed that everything looked great and that was literally it. She turned on the 3D mode at one point and it was the most amazing thing to see. We had never seen that in our last pregnancy and it was just so incredible. We were asked if we wanted to know the gender but we stuck to our guns and have decided to keep it a surprise.

I feel like I can breathe again. It is an amazing feeling to know that my body is creating a new life again and how blessed are we that all is going well and they are thriving in there.

I am feeling so very lucky and cannot stop looking at the scan photos!