Holding onto God's promise

Negative thoughts plagued my mind yesterday. Suddenly, the thought of losing my baby through miscarriage was so strong that I was constantly checking on my symptoms every 5 minutes, was my breast hurting, was I feeling nauseous, any pain from the stomach?

Somehow, yesterday was symptom free which worsen my fear. The only thing I should look out for should I miscarry, is bleeding, but there was nothing close to that, so far everything was perfectly normal. This led to feel that the satan is obviously threatened by this baby and is envious with this gift. Surely the devil doesn't want another child who will worship the Lord, who will grow up fearing the Lord, hence the devil is planting all these thoughts in my mind.

Therefore, I cannot succumb to the devil's scheme. I should know better. Thanks to my aunt who prayed for me over the phone, to denounce these thoughts and to hold on to God's promise. My best friend, YLi also told me that "if the Lord has given a baby to us, He'll protect the baby even at sperm and egg stage until his gray hair days". Amen, and I shall claim that promise!

Still, the weak human of me couldn't sustain the confidence and comfort that was given to me from God. Today, I heard from a friend that his wife had bleeding/spotting on and off at 6-7 weeks and just did a D&C. I am not even 6 weeks and the next stage of my baby's growth is the heartbeat. So, that isn't something I want to go through.

Alright, so this is when faith is testing.

Anyway, as I should be doing, I called up the hospital to book for my first hospital visit, which I don’t even know what it’s all about. Apparently it will be a two hour session with a midwife, so what do we do there? I have no idea.

The hospital then told me to book an appointment for ultrasound. I called and was then told that I should basically have 3 scans;

1. Dating Scan – to determine fetal heartbeat and date the fetal’s age basically. This will then determine the right time to do the follow-up scan. This however is done if the last menstrual date (LMP) or the first day of your last period was not known or unreliable. So for my case, this scan is a total WASTE of money as I’m 101% sure of my LMP. I can even tell my sonographer my conception date if she wants, because there were only 2 dates! Ok, kids don’t let your mind wander away. Back to serious topic.

This scan cost ~ $190, medicate rebatable $50.

2. Nuchal Translucency (NT) Scan – In Australia, this is compulsory for all health providers to advise pregnant women to undergo this scan. This is basically done in the first trimester or to be precise between 10-13 weeks and is used in conjunction with blood test/maternal serum biochemistry. This scan is important to identify Down Syndrome. According to my friend whose wife has had experience giving birth in Malaysia, scan was done almost every month to check on the baby. However, according to my boss, serum biochemistry screen done serially is a better predictor of baby’s wellbeing.

This scan cost ~ $390, medicate rebatable $90.

3. Morphology Scan – This is basically done in second trimester; 14 – 20 weeks in conjunction with a triple test (the use of 3 markers hence the name triple test) ie blood test. This is mainly designed as a risk estimate for Down Syndrome and certain chromosomal abnormalities, such as neural tube defects, spina bifida, trisomy 21 and trisomy 18.

This scan cost ~ $(not too sure, gotta check this one out).

So, I’ve basically booked for my first hospital visit for now and will try booking for ultrasound next week. That’s about the update for now.