Week: 21

Waist: 35.5 inches (+ 0.5 inches, possibly owing to indulgent weekend mini-break)

Feeling: Relieved

It was the day I’ve been looking forward to and dreading in equal measure: the 20 week scan. The scarily named ‘anomaly’ scan, or the day we found out whether our longed for second baby is developing as he or she should, or whether something had gone amiss.

Remarkably – and impossibly it seems to me given all that’s happened – everything appears to be as it should be: two arms, two legs, four chambers in the heart, a butterfly brain and blood rushing in and out of all the right places.

I can hardly believe it.

However, as the sonographer’s probe did its stuff and the anxiety which has built up since the 12 week scan ebbed away, it transpired there is in fact one anomaly: this baby is going to be (in the sonographer’s own words) ‘tubby’.

While the baby’s head circumference falls into the totally normal 50^th centile – i.e. 50% of babies are larger and 50% are smaller at the same gestational age – the same can’t be said for the rest of the little monkey.

He or she (we haven’t found out) is in the 25th centile for length – i.e. short – but in the 85^th centile for tummy circumference – i.e. massive. In fact the length measurement equated to 19 weeks and 6 days gestation while the tummy measurement equated to 23 weeks and 1 day gestation. Crikey.

Of course I’m blaming Misery Guts’ side. But I couldn’t care less. If that’s the only anomaly, then all’s well and good…