36 Week Update

Just wanted to give an update since I haven't been in here all week to do so.

Lots has been going on recently because baby girl is breech. My stress level is much lower than a couple weeks ago but this hasn't changed her position, yet. I'm staying optimistic. Here are the updates..

Tuesday we had an ultrasound to confirm her position. The ultrasound tech was.. short. She didn't give us an estimate of how much the baby weighed and she didn't talk much other then answering the questions we had like, "what are we looking at?" etc. Big difference from our 19 week anatomy scan.

It must've been a busy day because we went back out to the lobby for at least 20 minutes, then went back to an exam room for the normal OB appointment and waited almost another 20 minutes. A (midwife/nurse practitioner, I do not know which) came in and said she just reviewed our scans. It had to be a midwife, why would a NP be reviewing our scans?? Regardless, she did not review them WITH us. She barely even mentioned them other than saying yes, the baby is breech.. we knew this because we were there at the ultrasound, obviously. Needless to say, this midwife was not helpful in the least. She asked us if we knew about ECV (External Cephalic Version where they can try to manually turn the baby) and tried to get us to schedule one for the following week and then talked c-section a little bit and said we should schedule that too. We were pretty taken aback. First of all, I thought midwives were supposed to have options of things to do to keep labor/delivery as natural as possible. Second of all, she couldn't answer ANY of the questions we had regarding the ECV or having a breech baby. Needless to say, we were pretty irritated after leaving there but we did schedule a consult with an actual OB for Friday.

Thursday, I went to see Laurel's mom who is a Chiropractor so we could start doing the Webster Technique to get me aligned so that the baby has a better chance of flipping. This went well and I felt more relaxed afterward which was a positive sign.

Friday morning bright and early we headed to the consult with the OB. We (again) waited a long time, which seems so abnormal compared to my previous visits, but the OB was very friendly and seemed like he would've spent more than an hour with us if we wanted which was comforting. He told us that they would not do a scheduled c-section prior to 39 weeks and we would try (if we decide to) the ECV right before the c-section to see if we could get any movement. He was very helpful and informative. One thing however is that he said he will not force the baby during the ECV, if she does not want to turn around, he is not going to 'force' her more than she is willing. We have a 2nd opinion consult with another OB in the practice this coming friday to talk about the same thing (which was suggested by this OB). It was comforting to hear that we don't need to schedule the c-section until after 39 weeks (if it comes to that) and that the baby still has plenty of time to turn naturally, something the midwife did not say ONE TIME! We left the appointment feeling better. We're almost 100% sure that we will be trying the ECV prior to going on with a c-section.

This morning, Saturday, I had another appointment at Dr. Kegel's for another adjustment to stay aligned. Baby girl moves around a lot and has been teetering to the transverse position so I think she's just prepping herself to make the big turn. Staying optimistic. I have also been relaxing a lot more on my sides and drinking more water at the doctor's suggestion.

Everything else, not breech related, is going well. The OB said the baby is the average size currently so not too big or too small or anything. I got all of the baby stuff organized this past week and with the help of Nick and Laurel we have the pack n play set up and the carseat/stroller ready to go. I need to focus on packing a bag though and getting the small stuff taken care of. This coming week at work is going to be quite busy as I tie up loose ends prior to leaving for maternity leave.

I think i'm still in a bit of denial that we're 3 weeks or less away from having a baby girl. We're very excited and cannot wait to meet her but it's definitely one of those things where you don't believe it until it's happening. I have not had any false contractions (probably because she isn't sitting in my pelvis head first) which is a positive because then I probably won't go into labor but I have no idea what i'm in for.

The next couple weeks are probably going to be pretty crazy but we're going to try to keep it as relaxed as possible and spend a lot of time together since pretty soon we won't be alone anymore.

Please keep your fingers crossed for us that she does make the turn to head down. We'll keep everyone in the loop if she does flip! That will be an exciting moment which will be followed by me doing about a million jumping jacks so that she gets wedged in there and can't flip back!

Hope everyone has a safe and happy new year!