It's a...

 A couple of weeks ago I had my latest midwife appointment. Once again they checked my blood pressure, conducted a urinalysis and used the doppler to listen to the baby's heartbeat. Everything checked out as completely normal, and this time they found the baby's heartbeat the moment the probe was placed on my stomach, where in the previous visit it took a few moments of moving it around to pinpoint the sound. They asked again how I've been doing, and I was able to tell them that I feel pretty normal these days, which is a welcome change from feeling sick. I did have a question about a muscular-type pain I felt in my abdomen one night when I tried to roll over using my stomach muscles. I wasn't too worried as the pain subsided the second I stopped, and used my whole body to roll over rather than just my stomach muscles. I said that I suspected from my online research I just over-stretched my round ligaments - these are the ligaments that wrap around your uterus, and so are very tight as it grows with your baby. My midwife agreed that it was most likely muscle or ligament pain, as these are very common throughout pregnancy. I have already had a flu vaccine this year, but I was advised that any time between now and 38 weeks I need to have my whooping cough vaccine, so that the baby will have some protection passed on from me until it can have it's own vaccination at 6 weeks of age. We then booked my next midwife appointment for early November, and my next scan for mid-October.

So today at 19 weeks and 2 days we had our next scan, which they term the 'anatomy scan' as they continue to check and measure many aspects of the anatomy. It is also the earliest scan at which you can learn the sex of your baby, if you would like. I found the scan really fascinating, it was amazing the level of detail they can see over the course of about half an hour. We were able to view and measure the heart, including visualising the four chambers and you could even see the valves moving as it pumped blood. They checked each of the blood vessels entering and leaving the heart, as well as several blood vessels elsewhere in the body including to the lungs, brain and kidneys. Measurements were taken of areas of the brain, including the circumference, the cerebellum and of the ventricles in the brain that secrete the cerebrospinal fluid. They looked at the hands and feet counting the digits - four fingers and a thumb on each hand, five toes on each foot, and counted the number of bones in the arms and legs. The stomach was measured, and we looked at the spine to check for normal shape. What we could see there looked normal, but unfortunately the baby was fairly uncooperative once again, and had by this time rolled from their side onto their stomach, where they were essentially curled into a little ball  upside-down with their bum sticking up. This meant the sonographer could not complete their measurements/check of the spine, nor could they check facial features (they check the eyes, nose, lips and profile) so we are going back for another appointment later in the week. They were able to get a look at the genitalia of the baby though - we're having a girl!

Stock photo of 19 week old foetus from: https://www.gettyimages.ae/detail/photo/my-babys-19-week-scan-royalty-free-image/139538366

They assured us that so far, everything they could see looked normal, and measured within a normal range. The only except to this was that the placenta is still sitting fairly low close to my cervix, so they will do another scan at 32 weeks to check it's position again. This does not affect her development, but can affect the birth if the placenta lies across the cervix (a condition called placenta praevia) as it can essentially get in the way, and also increases the risk of bleeding. They re-scan at 32 weeks because as the uterus stretches, the placenta may move away from the cervix and this self-rectifies the problem. If it was still low towards the time of birth, my understanding is that a planned caesarean section would be advised to minimise the risk to me and baby. This is not something that worries me, as at least it is something they can monitor closely, and they can then take appropriate steps to keep us both safe.

Update from follow-up scan

I had the follow-up anatomy scan at the end of the week. They were able to see the baby's face this time, and check her eyes, nose, mouth and facial profile. They were also able to see her lower spine. Everything looks normal, so my next scan will be at around 32 weeks to check the position of the placenta.