23 weeks and still not sure I am feeling movement?

[AprilBaby2025]

I am 23 weeks pregnant (23+5) with an anterior placenta. I am a healthy weight.

I have a midwife appointment on Monday when I will be 24+2. I don't think I have felt the baby move yet. At least, I haven't felt anything that anyone would describe as the baby. No bubbles or popcorn popping or fish swimming. No eye twitch feeling or butterfly wings. No light pokes. Nothing happening in rapid succession or multiple times in the span of a minute. I had the anatomy scan at 19+3 and all was good and heard the baby on the doppler at 21+2.

I have felt large muscle spasms or tumbling feelings in my lower abdomen. Or like air kind of moving through sometimes. Or the feeling when air in your intestines drop before you fart lol. But I get the same type of muscle spasms on my legs, arms and even my upper abdomen. Although they seem to happen a lot more in my lower abdomen, but it is probably just because the uterus is expanding and I am trying to focus on it. I wouldn't think twice about it if I wasn't pregnant. The muscle spasms are quite big and can be felt clearly from the outside and seen.

I am so scared. This pregnancy has been so scary. I thought after the anatomy scan I could relax. But now I don't think she's OK because I don't feel her. And now I am worried I ruined her because of my stress and she is not OK in there because of my highly anxious state.

When I hadn't felt my baby for awhile I use to drink a really cold drink and laid on my side (as my midwife suggested) and that helped but if you are really worried ring your local hospital maternity triage unit and they'll get you in on the monitors and it'll reassure you. To be honest i would recommend that there's no harm in it

It sounds like you probably are feeling her OP. Don’t give too much weight to how other people describe the feeling- I’ve got 2 DC and I wouldn’t say the movements felt like some of those descriptions. Also, everyone is different and every pregnancy is different.
If you’re really worried you could go to maternity triage and get checked out.
Assuming everything is okay, you will start to feel her more and more. IMO one of the best bits of pregnancy 🥰

I didn't feel much until quite late as my placenta was at the front and as it was my first I didn't really know what to expect. But I think you should always trust your gut. If you are worried then speak to your midwife. Always better to be safe than sorry

The sucky party is that my gut is the most unreliable thing in the world though lol. I have severe anxiety and have been 100000% convinced I had about a hundred different diseases in the past. And I mean, absolutely certain as in my gut feeling was that I definitely had melanoma, kidney disease, lymphoma, whatever that month's worry was. It's very hard to listen to your gut when you have anxiety :(
My husband is more logical, although also has anxiety, and isn't concerned at all. He also says I definitely have felt her because he has felt a thumb on his hand like 10 times and this point and there's no way I can be denying it's her. So I don't know.

Is this your first baby?
I had anterior placenta for both of mine and I was over 24 weeks before I felt my first one move.
I was paranoid as it took years to conceive so even after I felt movement I kept going in to get checked 🙈
Anterior placentas are the worst when you are worried anyway. However, I agree with your be of the previous posters that from what you have said, it does sound like you have felt a few movement but are putting them down to something else. It's so hard in the early days to differentiate x

You say that the 'muscle spasms' in your stomach can clearly be felt and seen from the outside, you are almost certainly describing your baby moving, Op. I never felt like any of the way people described movements (fish flipping, air bubbles etc) are what movements felt like to me, but then it's very hard to describe unless you've been pregnant before.
The movements will get stronger and stronger the bigger she gets, but it's like with any pregnancy concerns, please phone them if you are worried and unable to control your anxiety. I've read people on here going in every week for monitoring just because they were so anxious regarding movement, so if it will make you feel better ask if this is an option for you.

Not gonna lie, it's so hard having an anterior placenta - i had one with my first baby and the 'early' movements were just as you describe - kind of like a spasm or a gas feeling but without the gas! They were very, very faint and easy to miss or put down to being something else.
I was about 22/23 weeks when I first felt anything but they were very infrequent the first month or so. After a while they did get a bit stronger and I could say it was definitely baby but they were never big strong kicks..... and we never established much of a pattern.
The last 2 months of pregnancy I went in a lot with reduced movements to the point i was offered daily monitoring the last couple of weeks. On scans she was always so active and there would be a lot of movement picked up when I was being monitored but I just couldn't feel any of it - absolutely crazy!
She's now 4, perfectly healthy and very lively.