appointments update

I had my ultrasound scan on Monday and have just come back from my 34-week midwife appointment. I am currently home sick with a nasty cold virus so I thought I would quickly post an update on how the appointments went while I'm sitting here nursing a cup of tea and feeling yucky.

 The main purpose of the ultrasound was to check that my placenta was no longer low-lying. At my 20-week scan the placenta was very low and I'm happy to report that my placenta has behaved and has moved out of the way. During the scan, the sonographer also checked baby's head circumference (300mm) and abdomen circumference (308mm). Both measurements were in the normal range. 

After the scan, I saw the consultant to discuss the results. She decided that my pregnancy can now be classed as Low Risk and I have been transferred to midwife-led care.  This means I will now have the baby in the midwife-led ward of the hospital and I'm very happy about this. At first I was concerned because the midwife ward doesn't have epidurals available, but the doctor assured me that if during labour I am not coping well and want an epidural I can be moved upstairs to the consultant ward to have one.  

The midwife appointment this morning went well. My blood pressure was normal (120/60), fundus height was good (35cm) and the fetal heart-rate was fine (138bpm). What I was most excited about though was the position of the baby: he is head-down, partially engaged, and in the LOA ("left occiput anterior") position. I googled this when I got home and turns out this is the optimum position for labour. 

I'm not getting my hopes up too much though -  he can always change positions and even if he does stay in this position, it doesn't necessarily mean my labour will be straight-forward. But knowing he is in the ideal position at the moment makes me feel more confident about my upcoming delivery...which is rapidly drawing closer!