When do you start feeling kicks with an Anterior Placenta?

So as per usual, my body has decided to be a little bit difficult and has given me an anterior placenta. An anterior placenta is nothing to worry about, all it means is your placenta is located at the front of your abdomen, where as most people's are slightly at the side, or at the back - anywhere but the front. Having the placenta at the front in pregnancy means you won't feel your baby move as much as the next person. I remember finding this out at my 12 week scan, so I haven't been worried about it but it is disappointing having to wait so long to feel your baby move while others are documenting their movements with excitement.

I read that if you do not feel your baby move by 25 weeks, anterior placenta or not, you should tell your midwife. So in my mind I always thought, if I don't feel anything by then, that's when i'll worry.

I remember feeling twinges in my first trimester and second trimester which I thought could be kicks. But they were painful, like sharp stitch like pains and kicks are not supposed to be painful. Whenever I asked other mums what the kicks felt like, they would say they feel like butterflies or bubbles bursting. My twinges definitely felt nothing like that so I put those down to growing pains and patiently waited for the 'butterflies' to kick in. Every time I went to see my midwife or spoke to other pregnant women, they would ask me if I feel the baby move and I would always feel so negative about it because I felt NOTHING. My midwife would always tell me that the baby is too small to kick with force, and because the placenta is at the front, they are kicking the placenta before it reaches my stomach.

Finally at 21 weeks - during my 22nd week, I felt a kick! Because at this stage the baby was bigger and stronger, my kicks were not subtle. They did not feel like butterflies at all, more like big bubbles bursting/ little pokes. It's funny how one day it all just changed, and from then on I felt movement everyday. Sometimes I only felt her once a day which worried me but it's normal to not have a pattern that early on in pregnancy. Now at 25 weeks I can actually see the movement from the outside, it's amazing and feeling my baby move comforts me so much. I have been told to not start kick counting until 28 weeks as that's when the NHS care about movement/ decreased movement. Before that its too early on and less movement is considered normal.

Apart from the inconvenience of not feeling my bubs kick as soon as others felt theirs, anterior placentas are completely fine in pregnancy. Panic over!

When did you start feeling your baby kick?

-Robyn x