24 weeks pregnant

I am so pleased to be at this stage in pregnancy, the last few weeks have been more than a little exciting and filled with lots and lots of prayer from us as well as many of our friends and family.

This is the second week that I have been on modified bed rest and over the last week and a half that I have been home we have had 5 hospital/doctors visits including 2 ultrasounds and a few calls back and forth to the doctors and midwives.

This week the ultrasound showed that the stitch is still doing it's job and my cervix still has a closed portion of 24mm (26mm last week and 13mm prior to the stitch)

I have what they call funnelling of the cervix as per the diagram below, the funnelling is on the baby's side of the cervix.

This week the funnelling has widened which is not alarming but not great either, so I am putting my feet up as much as possible :-)

We have been very blessed with the team of doctors and specialists that have been working with us throughout this pregnancy and have only praise for all of the staff that we have encountered both through this pregnancy and our previous ones.

Unfortunately our local hospital is not equipped to look after premature babies and therefore it is likely that I will be heading off in the next week or two, to the Nepean Hospital in Sydney to stay there on bed rest until the baby is born as they have a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. 

At this stage it is a matter of when. I have just spoken to the Nepean Clinic and now have an appointment with the Specialist next week for an assessment and I say that we will know more then. 

It really is a waiting game for us now and we are thankful for every extra day that bub stays put and when the days add up to a week we are thrilled, hopefully the weeks will continue to add up so we can give our precious baby the best start possible.

At baby born at 24 weeks is considered viable and has a 40 -50% chance of survival however the average hospital stay for babies this premature seems to be around 23.5 weeks. 

I am feeling great physically which I find slightly ironic since I have to spend most of my time lying around. I have no unpleasant pregnancy symptoms, no heartburn, no continuous aches or pains and I am still sleeping comfortably. 

I have started wearing maternity clothes and I have found new ways to wear my existing clothes, luckily I have a few baby doll tops and dresses as well as stretchy clothes that still work well.

I don't have any bleeding, increased discharge or cramping at this stage but find that I am always looking for any unusual signs and have to keep myself from overreacting.

Thanks for your continued support and prayers, I will aim to keep my pregnancy story updated regularly as I have found reading the stories of other people who have been in this situation really helpful, sometimes sad and other times very encouraging but all of them have been empowering me with knowledge and that is a great thing.

xx