After what felt like an age I finally had my booking appointment with a midwife at my local Doctor’s surgery. I took Sam along in case they had any questions about his and his family’s medical history.

The midwife was really nice and it was great that she was so enthusiastic about how thrilled she was at our initial choice to have a home birth, it made me feel much more relaxed about the decision. My Mum had my older sister at home and had always said how brilliant it had been to just be in her own environment for the birth and immediately afterwards – no driving to and from hospitals to worry about. Also, her subsequent three hospital births had been far from straight-forward and this had always put me off having a hospital birth if I was able to choose.

Am I actually pregnant!?

It still blows my mind a little that the midwife simply takes your word for the fact that you’re pregnant! I was almost expecting them to do another test to double check but no, my word was enough. The first appointment isn’t overly exciting – it basically involves getting all of your details down, explaining some of the process of when your next appointments will be including your dating scan and taking a family medical history. I was a little nervous about this as there have been a couple of recurring issues on my Mum’s side that I thought might concern the midwife, a history of blood clots along with SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome)/Cot Death. Basically, you should bring up anything in your family history that vaguely sounds similar to the conditions/issues that midwife asks you about as, I think, you can’t give too much information and they’ll disregard anything irrelevant.

Very surprisingly for me, I didn’t make a list of questions beforehand as the forms I got in the post to fill in ahead of my appointment let me see what we would be discussing anyway. However, some people find it easier to make a list of queries to ask their midwife to make sure they go away feeling fully informed.

Peeing into pots…

One thing you do unfortunately need to get used to is peeing into a tiny pot for each appointment. So:

1. make sure you drink enough before you go or get your own pot so you can do your sample in the comfort of your own bathroom beforehand; and
2. practice perfecting your aim to make the process slightly less unpleasant!

Oh, and at your first appointment they will take bloods. I’m OK-ish with having blood tests done and have given blood in the past but I always bruise badly unfortunately and this time was no exception! It was bloomin’ sore as well!

Top Tip:

I had already been taking folic acid supplements since December after the doctor said it was good to take them for a few months before you start trying to conceive then I decided to buy three months’ worth of Vitabiotics Pregnacare Max Plus Omega tablets after doing some research into what you needed to take for the first twelve weeks. The only problem I found was it went from one teeny tablet to three big massive tablets every day. I have always hated taking tablets so I really struggled with them to be honest – goodness knows how someone with morning sickness would cope! The midwife said just plain old folic acid would have been fine (dammit!) and much cheaper and she recommended taking Vitamin D for the rest of the pregnancy so I got some Boots Folic Acid + Vitamin D tablets for the next few months – much smaller and cheaper. They’re also perfect to carry on taking after your baby arrives if you choose to breastfeed.