Life in the Ninth Month

One day and one week away from our due date, yesterday we were surprised at our weekly OB checkup to discover that our little peanut thinks he is a salmon and has decided to flip into a breech position. Upon checking via ultrasound and seeing his head appear at the top of my belly, my first utterances were profanity laced. After all, he'd been head down since 18 weeks. This was an unexpected turn of events to say the least.

Initially, we chose to schedule an ECV (where the doctor attempts to manually turn the baby head down from the outside) for Thursday, thinking it was worth a try. Once getting home and doing some research, I began to fall apart, assuming this was a setup for disaster.

Since then, I've scoured the interwebs and asked friends for suggestions to help turn the baby back where he belongs. Using Spinning Babies last night and today, seeing a chiropractor experienced in helping breech babies to turn head down, getting started on moxibustion, back to acupuncture tomorrow as well as attempting headstands in the pool, turning him back around is now my full time job.

I cancelled the risky ECV procedure and decided instead to schedule a c-section as our backup plan for next week. I felt uncomfortable trying to manually force him into a position he - for whatever reason - was uncomfortable in a few days ago. And with a mild success rate at that!

If we he refuses to turn on his own, we will simply yank him. A c-section is not my first choice for many reasons, but whatever is the safest for everyone is what will have to happen. Having consulted my cardiologist, he feels I can trust my doctors to take care of both the baby and me. I'm trying to keep that in mind and regain some sense of balance. After working hard the past few months to psych myself up for labor and delivery (which did not include a head up kid) and actually even feeling prepared for it, I now feel thrown off course.

I do not like surprises. Not very good at rolling with the punches. And this breech business is just one more reminder to me in a series of MANY that I have very little control over major events in my life. Cancelling the ECV made me feel just a teensy bit more in control and gave me a few more days to try to get him to turn on his own. If I go into labor on my own before that happens, I'll still end up with a c-section. But *hopefully* it will be on our terms, and no one else's.

The bottom line (no pun intended) is that I still have no idea how this will play out. Stay tuned, hope to meet this little fish sooner or later. Whichever works best.