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Sunday 17th March was the date set for my twelve week scan. I’d been scanned at almost 9 weeks but it seemed like an eternity to wait. Three months was a real milestone – if I could only get through the ‘dangerous’ first trimester there was a good chance I would be able to relax and sail through the rest of the pregnancy.

A close friend had kindly offered to take me to the hospital. I was grateful for the company but dreaded the thought of her having to cope with my inevitable breakdown if something was wrong. I couldn’t even contemplate having to start this process all over again.

On the way, in the car, the vice-grip of fear clamped hard on my chest. My friend noted the tension.

“It will be fine,” she asserted, echoing the words I’d heard from most of my loved ones.

I nodded, knowing her intent was to comfort me. Perhaps everything would be ok, but other women had lost babies at this stage and so nobody really knew what lay in store. Was I to be one of the lucky ones?

I tried to clear my mind, letting my consciousness retreat into the background while my body flew on autopilot. I remained in this zombie-like state until I was inside the scanning room. The sonographer popped out for a minute, returning to find me in tears as the mountain of worries would no longer be silenced.

“What’s wrong?”

I apologised and gave an ‘in a nutshell’ account of the struggles I’d been through to conceive alone and how much this baby meant, not only to me but to my family and future.

“I just need to know everything’s fine.”

A few seconds later all my tension and fear melted as I saw my baby on screen, its tiny heart beating determinedly, its body bucking and kicking like a rodeo horse. A fighter, just like mum.

For the first time, and though it was less than three inches in size, it looked like a fully formed person. I was again struck dumb by the miracle before me, lying peacefully while the sonographer checked my baby’s arms and legs. I marvelled at the delicate features of the face, the gentle curve of the forehead, the little button nose, the fine lips and chin. Through the translucent skin the spine bent and flexed as the baby danced. Neurons inside the developing brain buzzed with electrochemical energy.

How incredible it was to be a woman and to be creating a human being!

The sonographer was happy with the foetus’s anatomy. I went for blood tests designed to check the potential risk for Down’s Syndrome and other abnormalities. The tests wouldn’t produce an answer with any certainty; I’d receive an estimate based on my age; hormone levels; and a measurement of Nuchal Translucency (NT), the fluid at the back of the baby’s neck. I was told that I’d be called during the week if the baby was high risk or receive a text the following week if low risk.

Disabilities such as Down’s had always been a serious fear – perhaps even worse than losing the child – and my age increased the risk. As much as I admired those who chose to keep and raise a disabled child, I knew I would not be able to do so on my own. But I was horrified at the prospect of being faced with that impossible decision.

After a week of flying into a panic at every missed call or voicemail message, I discovered that I was very low risk – chances of Down’s one in 13,000. With this news, my pregnancy finally began to transform into a source of joy rather than a daily walk along a knife edge. This was really happening. Come September, my life would change forever.

With everything progressing I allowed myself, at last, to begin to think through and plan the practicalities of the child’s birth and first couple of years. I longed to have and raise the baby in England but would it make better financial sense to rent out my house and live abroad with my parents? If so, would flying long-haul at eight months pregnant be preferable to flying the same distance with a screaming four-month-old infant?

The never-ending river of tricky decisions continues.