Those early few weeks of pregnancy are both an exciting and ever so slightly scary time. You have to get your head around all sorts of do’s and don’ts that are said to impact on that teeny tiny person growing inside you. There are also the inevitable list of health questions that come from the midwife during your booking in session.

However, what do you do before your first appointments. More importantly what do you do when faced with a health scare you weren’t aware of? Today Fran is sharing her experience of a Rubella scare in early pregnancy. Something she wasn’t aware could be an issue.

When trying to start a family there are some things we all ‘just know’. Stop smoking, reduce your alcohol intake and start taking folic acid. Checking my immunisations were all in order was not something I even considered.

I am a primary school teacher in a city school. When I was just seven weeks pregnant (before any scans/midwife appointments and before we’d many any form of announcement), a child in my class was diagnosed with Rubella (German Measles). Alarm bells rang for me when an unknowing colleague made a passing comment of “I’m glad there’s no way I can be pregnant as you wouldn’t want Rubella if you were!” I simply smiled and nodded, before rushing off to check Google.

As Rubella is rare in the UK nowadays, most cases occur in people who came to the UK from countries that do not offer routine immunisation against rubella. This was the case with the child in my school. My knowledge of the virus was limited to say the least. My first thought was that it was something we were all immunised against at secondary school. Wrong! I didn’t realise it’s actually part of the MMR vaccine available to children at 12-13 months and then again at age three to five. My parents moved areas whilst I was a baby so couldn’t categorically say whether I had received all of the jabs necessary. The potential impact on a baby if the mother catches the virus in the first twenty weeks of pregnancy is terrifying.

Luckily, I had told my Head Teacher I was pregnant early on. I thought it was best to tell her so that I could have more flexibility over hospital and midwife appointments in the early weeks as appointments are few and far between where I live! At the first opportunity, I approached her and asked her advice. Whilst I was teaching, she called the school nurse who advised me to see the doctor immediately to find out whether I was immunised or at risk of catching the virus. The doctor firmly informed me that I should have checked I was immunised against Rubella before trying to conceive. At the time, I was in a panic and not thinking clearly. In hindsight, I should have informed her of our previous conversation earlier in the year when I explained my husband and I were planning to start a family she simply told me to have regular sex and take folic acid.

I had to endure a weekend of waiting until I could have a blood test on the Monday. I was then unable to return to work until I had the results in case any other children had caught it in the meantime. From the date of the outbreak to receiving the call that I was immune was an agonising six days. The longest six days of my life but thankfully everything was absolutely fine.
I am now well into week 15, my 12 week scan went well and I’m really enjoying the second trimester. I even managed a whole weekend of going out which was unheard of in the first!
Since this, several friends who are also trying to conceive have said to me they do not know whether they were immunised or not.

Has anybody else found themselves in a similar situation where things were out of your control in early pregnancy?

Image by Divine Day Photography