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WEEK 28 – Dumped when pregnant and facing motherhood alone, follow mum-to-be Farah Ishaq's bumpy journey to motherhood. This week she's flying solo...
I have a confession to make. I'm currently typing this on an airplane flying back into London. I feel slightly self-conscious, almost awaiting a tap on the shoulder to say 'excuse me madam, we need you to leave this flight'.
Luckily though the romantic lights of the city of London in the black sky are already in view and I've got away with it.
You see, I'm not carrying a 'Fit to Fly' letter. Before I'm told off for being irresponsible – it's not for want of trying as I really tried to get one.
I made an appointment with the midwife more than a week before my outbound flight, but the hospital fobbed me off by telling me to make an appointment with my GP, who in turn left me to speak to the surgery receptionists.
"Oh no, we can't do that, it has to be typed, and the secretary is away next week, we need 10 days notice...There's nothing we can do...oh and by the way it costs £25..."
My flight being a last minute cheap airline carrier the following week by this point, I took the decision I'd just have to chance it. I desperately needed a break from wet depressing stressful London, and needed to see my family. After all, the midwife did say short haul at this point would be totally fine (even though she refused to back that up in writing) and luckily or unluckily despite being almost seven months gone, from some angles I have a bump more in line with around four months...
I'm very glad, in this instance (not on rush hour tubes and buses!) that most people are afraid of calling you fat, when in fact you're pregnant, and thereby just ignore any bulging semi hidden under a coat that doesn't quite do up.
Paranoia though is a fine thing and on the way out through Stansted, I admit I did have a bit of a panic. A million 'What ifs' crawled through my mind.
But the eventuality was fine. The journey was easy. No luggage carried to aggravate my pelvis, plenty of water and sitting up on the plane was surprisingly comfortable, more so than usual if that's even possible.
The home cooked meals and general TLC at my destination, however, made up for the 'risks' of flying around 30 weeks... Rules are there to be bent, aren't they?
Catch up on Farah's previous weeks at Pregnancy Diaries.