One of the best pieces of advice I got during pregnancy was from one of my friends who said ‘They’re going to tell you you’re a bit fat and a bit old, but don’t worry about it.’ Not in a mean way - they'd said it to her. And it’s true, they said it to me, too. I mean, they didn’t put it quite so bluntly, but instead showed me a tick list of risk factors and which ones I ticked. Over 35. A higher BMI than they’d like. And a first pregnancy that had gone very, very wrong.
Having a high risk pregnancy wasn’t actually a terrible thing, but that’s because the risks were concerns that didn’t seem to impact anything in the long run, thankfully. It meant extra scans - every 4 weeks towards the end - and a scheduled induction at 39 weeks.
There’s a lot of negativity out there about inductions, but I felt reassured by having a guaranteed date to work to and plan around. I had a week of annual leave and then about 1.5 weeks of maternity leave before the induction date, which meant plenty of time to sort things out before the baby got here.