The woman who did the scan was fantastic. I'd never had her before, and obviously when I walked in and saw that it wasn't the doctor that I expected, I thought, “Oh my God, this is going to be someone who doesn't know what they're doing. It's just a junior person.” But she's been there for years and she was absolutely fantastic. She put my mind at rest.
She made it, she built up a rapport with me and my husband straight away, and I went in there, although I was terrified, she made me feel very relaxed at the start, before we'd even sat down. Which I suppose is good, but then in some ways it might be setting you up for a big fall. But I mean, luckily for us it wasn't that. But she was really good, and as she was scanning me she was talking to the baby and saying, “Oh God, he's a cheeky little thing, he's jumping up and down” and it just really made me feel at ease.
I mean I met, I saw her for half an hour, but in that half an hour she made me feel as if she really enjoyed her job, she wanted to do it. She didn't come in and say, “Right, I'm not going to talk to you now for half an hour. Please don't talk to me, don't disturb me.” Which is what some of them do, some of them do say that. And she did say that, but she said it in a much nicer way. Yeah, it was, it just put me at ease, it made me feel more comfortable.
And you said that she put both of you at your ease. Did she pay particular attention to your husband?
Yeah, my husband's a very jolly chap, and he's very jokey, he loves chatting to people. And I think the husband is always, in every scan I've ever had, the husband is sort of like just someone that sits in the corner and is there to offer a bit of support. That's, I think, how the sonographers feel.
But she, yeah, she had a, chatted with him, had a conversation, laughed and joked. I mean, I asked her and I know I shouldn't have done, I asked her if once she'd done the heart scan, if she would check for the sex of the baby. And she sort of jokingly said, she went, “Look, the heart is the size of a grain of rice.” She said, “I'm sure nothing else is going to be obviously standing out.” So we had a joke about it and, yeah, she made my husband feel part of it, which I thought was very good. And she said, “Come and sit down here.” And she was talking to both of us, rather than just to me.
Have you ever talked to him about how, whether he's felt kind of sidelined in…?
I haven't but when this happened with this scan, I said to her, I said to him, “How did you feel about that?” And he said, “It was really good to be, to feel like I was there for more than just to offer you support. It was my child as well.” So that, I thought it was probably the best experience, probably because they told me good news as well, but with the sonographer it was the best experience that I'd had. |
