37 Weeks: Good news and Bad News

The good news is that I did not have an emergency c-section today! The bad news is that we are currently looking at a planned c-section. Let me back up a bit....last week we had an OB appointment and the ultrasound showed the baby is still in the breech position. So I was scheduled to go into the hospital Monday morning (at 6am) to have an ECV done (External Cephalic Version). Basically they try to manually manipulate the baby into a heads down position. There is a risk of placenta abruption or just stressing the baby so that an emergency c-section is needed, so I couldn't eat or have anything to drink beforehand. They injected me with a drug to help relax the uterine muscles and then two doctors worked together to try to move the baby. They basically dug their hands into my abdomen while my heart is racing from the drug! So I am trying to stay relaxed and take slow breaths while my heart feels like it's going a mile a minute and four hands are digging into my abdomen. Super fun. They tried twice and the baby didn't move AT ALL! His head is firmly planted at my rib cage on the left side and the doctor couldn't even get his hands between my rib cage and the baby's head. Because they consider the pregnancy a high risk (due to my age and all the hoops we have gone through to get this far) they didn't want to push it too much and decided to stop after the two attempts.

So at this point we are going to be having a planned c-section. I know it's not a huge deal because women have them all the time but I was really hoping to have as natural a birth as possible and obviously a c-section is as far from that as possible. There is a slight chance that he may turn on his own still but only time will tell.

I have had two treatments with a chiropractor using the Webster technique where they work on the ligaments in the pelvic area to help loosen them. Often the baby will not move into the correct position if these ligaments are too tight and there isn't room for the baby to go head down. I was in a car accident many years ago and had two injuries at work that exacerbated my chronic low back issue which has caused my pelvic area to be very tight. The chiropractor is pretty sure that is what has prevented the baby from moving into the head down position. I do plan to keep going to the chiropractor for more treatments in the next couple of weeks to see if it will help. Keep your fingers crossed that he turns before it's time!! We are tentatively scheduled for March 20th as our day for a c-section or induction (if the baby is no longer breech). We should get confirmation of the date in the next few days!

So at 37 weeks the baby is about 6.5 pounds and is considered ready to go if he did come out now. He's the size of a striped skunk now or a honeydew melon. His brain and his lungs are still not fully matured, so the next two weeks should give him time for that. We have washed all the baby clothes we have and they are now put away. The car seats have been cleaned and one of them has been installed so we are ready. We have the baby monitor set up already and now we are just waiting!

I mentioned the maternity photo shoot we did previously and I finally got some time to sit down and go through the pictures!! So here are a few of the wonderful pictures our friend Sarah took for us a couple weeks ago!