In answer to the question about US ladies and when we get scans, it's a complicated answer. It depends not only on your insurance provider, but also on the state you live in. I live in California and BY LAW they must offer every pregnant woman a 12 week NT scan. You may opt out, as it's part of the genetic testing, but a lot of women I know do it just because they want an additional chance to see the baby.
In addition to that, my healthcare provider does a dating scan between 7-8 weeks, an anatomy scan at 20 weeks, and a quick scan at 36 weeks to check to see if the baby is in a head down position.
So I will get 4 standard scans with this pregnancy and I'm not high risk. With my first pregnancy I had all those plus one at 5w5d because I was spotting.
So really, the answer is... "it depends."
This can't be more true ^_^
I've had a total of three OBs and the scans are really at their desecration.
My first two OBs did their scans at around 10 weeks. They said they did this because their saying was if you're going to MC, a scan isn't going to stop it and the body is just going to do what it's going to do... but at 10 weeks they feel you're in the safe zone and they expect to see a healthy baby and heartbeat and will go from there. But if you do start to bleed or anything, they will try and see you just to make sure it's not ectopic or anything at the very least, but both of these OBs also had ultrasound machines in their office that they could use whenever... Then they do another scan at around 20-24 weeks to check to make sure everything is going well... they usually won't do a third or fourth unless they feel they 'have' to, like if you're belly isn't growing very big or you have multiples or high risk etc...
My new OB, unlike my first two, doesn't have an ultrasound machine in his office, I had to have one scheduled, but they just like to wait around 7 or 8 weeks (or schedule a scan asap after your first appt) to make sure they can at least see a visible heartbeat and baby... and then another scan at around 20 weeks to make sure baby is looking good (and to find out gender
)
We're considered high risk this pregnancy because of my son's premature birth and emergency C-section so we've been told we might get another scan near the end to make sure everything's okay as I'll also be getting injections after we hit about 17-18 weeks to make sure we can carry baby to term rather then risk another premature birth like my son.
But anyway, I'm from Pennsylvania and for the most part, I see most women are guaranteed at least 2 scans, almost all insurances around here cover both of those as far as I know, if there are any others they must be a necessity by the doctor... (or if they doctor is just nice and slips it in... I had this with my daughter because during the 20 weeks scan her legs were crossed and we couldn't figure out if she was a boy or girl... I kind of complained to my OB about it and she went ahead and just checked during one of my last appts before my daughter was born and told us she was a girl and didn't charge us ^_^ )
As for the constipation, omg I'm with you girls, I've been so scared that I'm going to strain myself into bleeding and I've been trying everything to 'fix' my stomach... I even ate straight apple sauce all day yesterday hoping that'd help, nothing worked...
I ended up trying to eat some buffalo chicken pizza (I know, terrible choice lol) and it finally did the trick... granted it's not the 'best' feeling, but it's far better then being constipated... so if you can stomach it, I'd try something with buffalo sauce on it, it always seems to work when nothing else does
app in a few days so I'll express my concerns with the midwife xx
