The most pointless meeting in the world ...

When Tom had his allergy appointment the paediatrician referred him to the dietician aswell, I didn't question it as he is the doctor. I had forgotten all about it until on Saturday I received a letter for the upcoming Friday. I didn't really know what I would get out of it but we had an appointment and so we would duely attend.

It had been a few months since Tom had his allergy testing and he had only had 3 reactions in that time so we have a pretty good handle on managing them. Prior to the appointment Tom was weighed and measured, FYI he is in the 99th percentile!

We then had our appointment. The dietician reported that she was happy with his size as it's clearly inherited - Mr B is 6"5. We had been asked to keep a food diary for 3 days, so we looked at that and she was happy with the variety and that what he eats shouldn't upset his  allergies. Then she gave me some fact sheets from the Allergy UK website. I had already seen them as I did a lot of research when Tom was diagnosed. And so that was pretty much it. The gist of it was, keep doing what you are doing, it's obviously working. 

So yeah, that was pretty bloody pointless. I'm not about to start slagging off someone's profession but I don't think that she really brought much to the table in our situation. I guess it would have been much better if it was closer to when he was diagnosed but at this point the advice "read the packaging" is a bit of a given. 

So there it is. I hope this post was helpful in some way! 

Plus Size Pregnancy :

In truth I'm not sure about this post, I feel a bit anxious, like I'm putting out there what people don't want to know? I'm not sure exactly what I mean, just a gut feeling.

Equally, soon after I found out I was pregnant I started to manically Google 'plus size pregnancy', 'fat mum', 'obese pregnancy' and many other variations of the above. When we started trying to conceive I hadn't given much thought to actually being overweight and pregnant, two of my sisters have fertility issues and I'm a 'big girl' so I assumed it would be a big struggle. Three months later I was a knocked up fatty. 

I was wearing a size 22 and had no idea even what a plus size person looked like at full term, cue Google. And it helped a little bit but it seemed to be mostly American women, which is wonderful but I was looking for advice and guidedence  from the home soil.

Then I turned to those wonderfully crazy Netmums. I have found Netmums to be a  great resource on many occasions but in this case it felt a lot more like scare mongering. There was so many frightened women in the same boat that I was and the responses seemed to be that doctors will tell you off and people will say you are huge, this is not what you need to hear and I friggin hope it was the exception and not the rule!

I am going to do a Q&A style on what I worried about and if you have any questions or if I miss anything then pop it in the comments and I can answer or do a part 2 post (which would be terribly exciting!)

Did I end up so massive that people thought I was just really really fat and not pregnant?

I worried about this for a long time, an older friend of mine told me that when she had one of her children there was people that didn't know she was even pregnant. I think she was trying to prepare me in case I didn't show. I did show, I ended up with a fecking great big bump that you couldn't pretend was anything but a baby! 

This is me on my way into the hospital to have Tom so excuse the action shot/looking like a tramp, notice said massive bump!

Will I get gestational diabetes because I'm a chubby bunny?

I didn't! I have friends of all different shapes and sizes and some got it, some didn't. Just eat healthy and take care of yourself. 

I'm under consultant led care, what does this mean?

I had this, in daily life it means more appointments and possibly extra scans  (every cloud has a silver lining). The other side is that you may have extra complications as your body does have to work harder to sustain a healthy pregnancy. Labour may also have difficulties and your choice of pain relief may be affected. You also may not be able to give birth on a midwife led unit, in case of these problems. You may also be referred to a healthy weight management club, I was supposed to be but it didn't happen due to a clerical error (no biggie). I like to end on a positive, so, you get more time off work for the appointments!

Will medical staff be mean to me as I'm fuller figured?

Not in my experiences, in my time not one person made me feel bad about my weight (except me!). I personally felt embarrassed when I had to lift my belly (cringe) but when you hear your babies heartbeat then you don't give a fig.

Will they see my baby on the scan through my blub?

Yup, it might take a bit longer or be a bit more difficult but they will find your little pea. A few times Tom would snuggle right under my thickest part but my midwife was always able to find him. 

Will I be able to fit in maternity clothes? And not look like a twat?

Of course you can. Next maternity leggings was a particular favourite of mine! I bought a big bundle on eBay and used some items I already had. There is plenty out there. Your body will look beautiful in empire dresses and long skirts or tunics. Don't be shy to accentuate that wonderful rotund tum!

What will my bump look like? 

Well, mine wasn't the traditional D shaped round beach ball bump (I wish!). Instead, I had a B shape bump, so I had my big beach ball but under it I had my belly. Dressed, you wouldn't even notice but in the nude it was there. It wasn't the beautiful maternity pictures you see in magazines but it was me abd Tom, and that's ok.

This is all I can think of for now, but please ask any thing else you are worried about! I'm here to help! Sending chub mama love x

Allergy Testing :

Before: I am feeling really nervous, I really don't know what to expect. It seems so long ago that he had reaction I almost feel like I made it up. I am scared that he is allergic to other things, nuts in itself is a bit of a pain. I'm hopeful that I will get good advice on how to manage a reaction. I just feel really nervous. They don't really give you much of an idea as to what is going to happen.

During : I got there and handed in my appointment card and sat and waited. Because the appointment was a the children's unit there was lots of toys which was handy. We went and got Tom weighed and measured, not really sure why but it was handy as I hadn't done it in a while! Next up we met with the doctor, we discussed Toms allergic reaction to peanut butter and our family history with allergies. We decided on what to test him for based on what he has been exposed to, so he was tested for peanuts, hazelnuts (to check if it's an all nut allergy or peanut and not tree nut allergy), cat hair, another animal hair (but I really can't remember what!), eggs and there was also a positive and negative swatch to ensure he was reacting in the expected way. 

N.B. I was asked if Tom had taken any antihistamine prior to the testing as I'm assuming it might sway the results, so avoid if possible.

The test was done by having numbers listed on his arm, next to each number was a blob of the allergin which was followed by a shallow prick to introduce the allergin to the skin and cause a reaction. We then waited for 10 minutes.

This was as the hive reactions started coming up. As you can see Tom had a few reactions. We went back in and the nurse drew circles around the hives and used a transfer tape to magically transfer the circles onto paper. They was measured and taken to the Dr to have a look-see (back to the waiting room). We went back into the Drs and discussed our results. It is confirmed that Tom has a peanut allergy but not to hazelnuts! This is really good news as it means Tom can eat some nuts (and Nutella!), Tom is also mildly allergic to cats (we have a black cat called Hillary), the doctor said that if Hillary isn't affecting his eczema then not to worry (phew). 

The other big reaction was eggs. I had intentionally not introduced eggs into his diet as my gut was telling me to hold out until his allergy testing, after the peanut reaction just in case. The Dr has advised us to research if Tom has eaten things with egg in previously in which case he might tolerate baked egg. If this is the case then we could do the baked egg test, which is feeding him a bit of cake made with 1/4 ratio of egg that you would usually use. I'm going to have to check if Tom has eaten baked egg before as the Dr explained that if he hadn't then we defiantly shouldn't attempt it. 

I was given some information from the Allergy UK website and it was agreed for us to return in 4-6 months.

After : I feel a bit relived that it's done and I now know where I stand. Equally I'm really disappointed about the egg allergy as my dad (Nandad to Tom!) has made a special egg dish for both my neices and Tom won't be able to have it, but c'est la vie. I think I will need more time to digest (boom! Pun intended!)

I hope this has been helpful! Have you had any experiences with allergies?