Baby girl, the gymnast

We’re knocking on the door of 39 weeks, and the baby’s now breech. Or at least that’s what the sonogram revealed on Thursday afternoon. In the past 10 days, she’s been all over the place – transverse one way, transverse the other way, breech, head down and breech again.

If you’re familiar with pregnancy, you’ll know that we’re a little late in the game for all that business. For a natural delivery, she basically has to be head down.

I’ve been to the acupuncture guy for three treatments. Each treatment sparked a lot of movement, and almost every time has pushed me into early labor. Luckily each time my body has given up after a couple of hours because the baby wasn’t in the right position.

I’ve been regularly doing a series of exercises that are to help encourage the baby to move. And I’ve played music through headphones and placed a flashlight at the bottom point of my belly hoping to coax her down. So far, nothing’s worked and permanently kept her in place.

On Friday, I met with a obstetrician at St. Francis to talk through my options to get this baby in the right position. We have a game plan for an external version mid-day Tuesday, but there’s still several scenarios that could play out:

1. The version procedure doesn’t work, and they’re not able to turn the baby. Then I will go into an immediate c-section. While it’s not ideal, if I have to have a c-section, this is the way I want to do it. I don’t want to risk going into labor again and then end up having an emergency c-section. From what I’ve heard from friends that have gone through it, that’s the least ideal way to go the c-section route.

2. The version procedure does work, and the baby is head’s down. Then we’re going to induce labor so we can make sure she doesn’t maneuver her way back around before natural labor begins. I will have the option to be induced at the hospital or at the Birth Center. Unless something really compelling happens during the procedure, I plan to go ahead and check out of the hospital and go to the Birth Center.

From my conversations with the doctor, I feel comfortable going the hospital route. It sounded like they’d be pretty supportive of facilitating a delivery that is pretty close to what I could get at the Birth Center. But if I get to choose, I’d rather do it around my friends and family, because that’s what the Birth Center is – friends and family. Plus I get to go home within hours of delivery, which is what I’d prefer.