Week 24: Another scan and a worrying discovery

This week, I had my 24-week scan and took all my maternity benefit forms to be filled in by the doctor. I also took in my health and safety leave forms. I don’t get sick pay from my company but I might be entitled to health and safety leave because working in general is putting me at risk of pre-term labour. Fingers crossed my application gets approved!

 

At the scan, everything seemed to be looking good so I asked my consultant if I could work until 25.5 weeks. However as I was talking and she was completing the scan, she discovered that the identical twins of my triplet babies have not grown as much in the last two weeks as they should have. The result is that I have to be signed off work at 24.5 weeks to give my babies the best possible chance to grow and thrive while I rest.

 

I was gutted as I wanted to get all my work finished properly but then realised I needed to take a step back and focus on the most important challenge of the moment, which of course is growing these babies and keeping them healthy and in my tummy for as long as possible.

 

So I had a mad two days at work, but I got it all finished (more or less), did my final handovers and that was that. I’m going to pop in on Thursday though and a group of us are going out for lunch so we have a proper, relaxed farewell. It was just too busy at the office to do it this week.

 

Then next week, I will have to get steroid injections on Monday and Tuesday to help the babies’ lungs develop and then an additional scan on Wednesday.

 

In the meantime, I’ve started to get things ready at home. I got some beautiful neutral clothes in the summer sales and also got some other lovely things online on the Boots website. I didn’t know they had such a good baby section!

 

We had the spare room repainted in cream and duck egg blue, ready to be the nursery and my next challenge is to make some check curtains in the same colours. My mum is coming over from the UK in July with my brother’s and sister’s children’s hand-me-downs. These include two cot beds, two Moses baskets, a baby bouncer and lots of neutral clothes, so that will be an exciting delivery.

 

I know you cannot take anything for granted until they have arrived safely. Each week goes by and my bump gets bigger as my three babies continue to grow and as I get more and more tired, the only way to prepare is just to do a little bit at a time.