"Supernatural Childbirth"

Recently, my pastor's wife passed us this book called "Supernatural Childbirth".

I recalled friends who are Christians and themselves mothers all having read this book and getting very inspired by it. There was a friend WHL who even experience it herself and told me that she didn't feel much pain during the labour and even managed to laugh through it! WOW!

The stuff in there were really quite inspiring to both YL and myself and if we were to act on it, it would be a really faith-building event! I will readily confess that whilst I believe that it happens, it is difficult to claim it for myself.

Well, we've still got about 5 months away before D-day, so have got plenty of time to build up my faith level! :)

Result of maternal serum screening blood test

Received a letter today from the hospital to inform us that the recent maternal serum screening blood test has shown that bambini is not at high risk for Down's syndrom or an open neural tube defect.

Totally forgot about having done this test during our 1st NHS visit....but certainly thankful of the outcome.

:)

1st encounter with NHS Maternity - 15th week scan

Yuan Liang has tentatively called our little one "Bambini", which means "multiple children" in Italian, but we know that we are only expecting one. We do not know yet whether it is a "bambino" (little boy) or a "bambina" (little girl) and therefore gave it a more neutral/generic term.

Today's our first encounter with NHS maternity system. We have registered with the Maternity Department of Queen Charlotte and Chelsea Hospital in Hammersmith. They are supposed to be one of the newer hospital and therefore are better equipped with supposedly high tech machines...

After a short wait, we were called upon by a midwife, who happened to be a Chinese Malaysian lady. The UK system is much more personal...the midwife patiently explained to us the various procedures and did the various tests (apart from blood test and ultrasound), and gave us stacks and stacks of free magazine, and brochures to read. Over in UK, u don't see the doctor/gynae himself/herself at such an early stage, and only do so if you have a problematic pregnancy or are about to give birth. Praise God that so far, the pregnancy has been really smooth.

Unlike the Singapore system of "public hospitals" (which only admitted the mother into the ultrasound room, at least that was what happened to us in KK Hospital), Yuan Liang was allowed into the ultrasound room this time, and had the pleasure (for the first time!!) of seeing his Bambini stretching his/her hands and feets and sucking his/her thumb, all these "live and real time". It was all very exciting for him! The nice ultrasound lady printed two images for us, one of which is shown below.

You should be able to spot his/her facial features and clenched left fist...the legs are curled up and cannot be seen clearly here.

The baby is currently approximately 15cm long head to toe. Too bad, we couldn't yet spot the gender. The ultrasound lady said we should be able to have a better look at it when we next come back at the 21st week. We're now only in the 15th + week.