Well, the good news is that we’ve had our scan and can confirm that Bob does exist and has one head, two arms, two legs and a heart beat. The bad news is the due date has changed AGAIN to two days after our original due date. Apparently Bob didn’t measure up as a 20-week old and was nearer to 16-weeks. Hence the sonographer didn’t do any of the normal 20-week checks. The silver lining in that particular cloud, though. is that we get to have another scan in 4 weeks’ time.

So, that means a Christmas of lying on the sofa doing nothing, barely able to move, being waited on hand and foot … and Kate will be pretty tired by then as well. Still, at least it will give us something to look forward to at the end of January (23rd to be precise).

It has shown us the difference between the New Zealand and UK health care services though. In NZ Kate had a brilliant midwife (hope you’re reading this, Zoe!) whom she saw at least every four weeks initially. We really felt that Zoe was sharing the pregnancy with us and Kate looked forward to her visits. Apparently she would try to book Kate in last thing in the afternoon so she could stop for a cup of tea and a natter as well as doing the check-up and didn’t need to worry about getting to another appointment. Each visit was fun as, among other things, we would play the “guess what sex slug is by the heart rate” game.

Unfortunately over here things aren’t quite the same. We realise it’s different having a second baby rather than a first, but we get the impression over here that everyone is simply doing a job and we are just A N Other Couple. Don’t get me wrong – everyone has been pleasant to us, and we’re not saying anyone is doing a bad job. It’s just that (probably because of all the work to do and such limited resources available) it’s a question of do the checks you need and move on. This week, for example, when the SHO checked Bob’s heart rate, she didn’t even tell us what the rate was. So much for the guessing game we had last time.

We have contemplated contacting Zoe to see if she would be willing to relocate to the UK to be our midwife again but I still don’t think she’s forgiven us for having a baby over here in the first place, so I’m not sure that’s feasible. Kate has also been watching a series on TV about the Portland Hospital in London but I (and our Bank Manager) have been explaining to her that that’s not feasible either (more’s the pity!). So it looks like we’re stuck with the good old NHS.

Having had a midwife visit this week (ie 16 weeks) we were initially told she wouldn’t plan to see us again until 28 weeks – another 12 weeks from now. Luckily she picked up on our “we’re not really happy about that” vibes and has arranged another appointment for a mere six weeks from now. We were told by a couple of the people we’ve seen that “we’ll see how the pregnancy progresses”, in terms of re-reviewing the due date, and they’ve also picked up on the brief blood pressure rise Kate experienced just before Isabel was born, and want to keep an eye on that. Quite how they expect to do so if no-one is going to see us, we’re not quite sure!!