“Pregnant & Winging It” is a short series about a first-time pregnant Autistic woman in Nottingham. Claire writes about her views and experiences around pregnancy and how it’s not all as she expected
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The first trimester is (arguably) the hardest part of pregnancy, especially if you’ve never been pregnant before.
Your body is going through a lot of changes in quite a short space of time. The first trimester is 14 weeks (some say 12, but 14 seems to be the average). You’ve gone from being the only inhabitant of your body to housing a roughly 1oz (28g) humanoid. There are a lot of hormones involved in this that make it hard time to deal with.
Here’s some of the things I think should be taken note of during this time:
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Medical Professionals Avoid You
When I say no medical professionals will avoid you, I am being very serious. It is as if, all of a sudden, every medical professional is afraid of me. Pharmacists will not give you over the counter medication, GP’s won’t give you appointments, and pretty much everything will be attributed to being pregnant.
The main example I have about this was the week after I realised I was pregnant. As I said in the last post a few days after realising I tried to go in to see a GP and was told to self refer to midwifery, which was fine, but they would not put on my records this had happened either. I took this to mean “we have no proof you’re pregnant so will not register it on your medical file” which, again, I can respect.
So a week after this incident, I am back.
“Could I please get booked in for a medication review as soon as possible”
“What for?”
“I am pregnant and I am unsure if all my regular medications are safe in pregnancy”
“No, we don’t do that.”
“… you don’t do medication reviews?”
“No, you have to speak to midwifery”
“Ok, I have self referred by they won’t give me an appointment for 2 months”
“Yeah you have to wait for that”
This went on longer. I am a trained disability advocate so I know how to communicate with professionals, discuss ways around things or find out what is reasonable and what isn’t. I tried asking for a nurse, a pharmacist, and all I got was “No”.
I will add I was not expecting an appointment to be available then and there. My expectations were something in the next few days, but I was being entirely stonewalled.
I went home and I told my husband. He knows that I will have talked rings around people to get a solution so he was confused as to how I didn’t get somewhere. He then phoned the practice and asked, in no uncertain terms “what they heck they were playing at”. It was only when he said he wanted it in my records that the request was made, and denied, because if his unborn child was damaged due to me taking unsafe medication he wants it logged that we tried… mysteriously a call back became available within 72hrs.
I ran this scenario by my colleagues later in the week, people who have also worked as advocates, to check I wasn’t being unreasonable and they too were horrified. More horrified when I had the medication review and it turned out that one of my medications did need to be changed. I am not going to ham this up, this medication was a “it may be harmful it may not be, we don’t know” it was not a 100% certain danger. However, what if it had been, and I hadn’t got the support in place from my family, colleagues and support provider? I would have walked out, accepted the “no” and kept taking a medication that would have been harmful.
Nausea & Sickness Can Be Crippling
From the start I felt nauseous, and I mean severely unwell.
Have you ever had that nausea where you know if you move your head too quick or even just move you will vomit? Yes, that, for 14weeks… or more in some cases.
At your first midwife appointment at around 10 weeks they will give you access to an app called “Badger Notes” and this will be full of your medical details but also give you contacts for the midwifery team and emergency helplines specifically if you’re pregnant.
Before that… you are pretty much alone.
I had no one to talk about about my sickness. I couldn’t talk to the GP, 111, midwives, no one. I was quite fortunate that I had a friend who gave birth not 2years ago and recommended some over the counter travel sickness tablets that they took during their pregnancy. If it hadn’t been for this bit of advice, I honestly think I would have needed to take months off work.
I will say, to this day I have no actually vomited, but I have been extremely close and it’s been just the worst feeling.
I read all the advice online and it would be things like “eat small and regular” and “eat dry toast, bread and cereal” so I did. Eating small and often helped but my diet was becoming very carb heavy and I wasn’t able to exercise due to the sickness so I gained a round half a stone in weight from my new eating habits as I tried to get a grip on the sickness.
First Midwife Appointment
I was really excited when this finally came around. We had the issues with rearranging the appointment but got one in just before Christmas.
The first appointment is to go over the information you give over the phone on your first phone call and discuss what happens next, get scans booked in, pick your hospital and so on.
I went into the meeting really happy and cheery but I left it feeling awful.
I was criticised for my weight; I explained I had a really tough time without support over the past months and got no sympathy or support in that appointment. I was prescribed extra folic acid because my weight was such a danger factor.
I was criticised for my age; at 36 that seems to be really old to the NHS to have children.
I was logged as being “learning disabled” despite me saying that I have a high intellect and 3 degrees… still, get the wrong things on my record.
She then decided to try and take blood without warning:
a.) I am very phobic of needles
b.) I have small veins
c.) I can get panicked by SUPRISE needles
Really all this got me was a “well how are you going to have a baby if you’re scared of a little needle” discussion.
Overall that meeting just left me feeling like I was failure for even trying to have a child (my next appointment with another midwife was much better that I will talk about next time).
Summary Notes
If you are planning to have a baby please do take some time before hand to work on a solid support system. Obviously we don’t always “plan”, these things can just happen, and if they do please take a bit of time to find out who in your life is reliable and who will be happy to be a part of your journey. I have one friend offering to attend the birth to shout at medical people who get in my way because I am fairly certain I will need that and my husband will be preoccupied with supporting me directly.
Autistic Nottingham 