Good News About Last Week's Bad News

37wks2d

On Wednesday David and I went to my 37 week appt. It wasn't with the midwives, which disappointed me at first, because following (meaning: requesting each subsequent appt with one of them and hoping that one of the 3 of them is on call when it's time for Little Miss-Almost-Has-A-Name's debut...) with them was more relaxing and they actually seemed to care, and they actually returned phone calls in a timely manner.

*Note to Little Miss: Your mother is the QUEEN of run-on sentences, but you won't even learn what those are until you're in about 4th grade. If then.

Anyhoo. My appointment was with a Dr. Boyle, who is some kind of highly ranked (remember, Army Medical Center)head honcho-type doctor man at Tripler. He was really nice (a little rough during the exam... I feel sorry for his wife) and during the discussion part after he'd confirmed that she was indeed STILL BREECH, he talked to us about the inversion and c-sections options.

He said that he prefers to do manual inversions at 39 weeks, which is just awesome sounding to me. I know it's only the matter of a week or so, but September just seems WAAAAY too early for her to BE HERE. But that's another post (maybe). Dr. Boyle said that at 39 weeks we'll do the inversion (if she's still breech when I go in for it). The procedure is performed in an operating room, and the baby's heartbeat is monitored, so that if it's medically necessary (example: if baby's heartbeat shows distress, and *DOESN'T* recover to a normal level within a certain amount of time), then we can lop her out. I mean, we're already set up for a C-section. Which doesn't thrill me, but it seems to be on the level. That's worst case scenario though.

If we do the inversion, it's successful, and the water does NOT break, then we'll talk about waiting for natural labor to begin. This is the inversion scenario we're hoping for.

If the inversion is NOT successful, then we'll talk about scheduling a c-section, but Dr. Boyle did say something about allowing me to go into labor naturally and having a c-section that day. But we don't even have to think about c-sections till next week.

I'm so glad that we still have 2 weeks to get her to flip. Or rather, get her to flip and STAY FLIPPED.

Please send us flippy little baby thoughts, because all the other weird stuff we've been trying hasn't been working... And on that note, I'm off in a minute to go put clothespins on my pinkie toes for half an hour. Later I'll sit upside-down on the "slant board" for as long as I can stand, or 10 minutes, which ever comes first. And if you're thinking "gee, 10 minutes really isn't that long," remember that my stomach is now attached to my gag-reflex with nothing in between, and that when upside-down, a watermelon (county-fair-prize-winning sized) is pressing on said stomach. One little burp could be disastrous. it's a very precarious activity. Must be done on an empty stomach, but not empty enough that acid has been creeping up my throat like it does at night...

Anyway, here's an amusing image for you: I tried to do the slantboard by myself the other day after David had gone to work. It's nice to have his help to get up and down, I thought, but I can do this without him... it needs done. So I sit on the board, and lean all the way back. I set my timer, I start checking Facebook on my phone, doing other piddly-internet-related things. It feels like the blood is all rushing to my head, but I stick it out. Ding. I set my phone down and try to get up. And try to get up. And try... to... get... up... You know when you were a kid and the June bugs would come out for the summer, and you'd poke one with a stick and it'd end up belly-up, flailing all it's little legs and trying it's damndest to flip over right-side-up?

That day, getting off that slantboard, I was that beetle.

Tricksy Babyses...

36wks3d

So I'm pretty sure she's flipped back. And by "pretty sure," I mean I thought that, based on how my tummy felt and where I felt her hiccuping, and then went for my 36 week appt on Thursday and she was head up, for sure. They brought in the portable ultrasound and everything. So next week at my 37week appt (I get seen once a week from here till the end), we'll talk about the version. I'm still *pretty* sure I'm going to decline it, but I want to be fully educated about it before I decide one way or another.

::sigh:: I'd ask what I did to deserve a tricksy baby like this, but I really don't want to hear the list of my past indiscretions... It's long!

How Big Will Baby Awesome Powers Be?

Here's a link to our baby game! Guess at what weight, length and date our Little Miss will make her triumphant debut!



And if I haven't actually met you, and you just follow here, put "Blogger" as your "Who I am" ...unless you can think of something more clever!

I Have A New Best Sleep Friend

David bought me a Boppy Pregnancy Wedge.



I'd rebelled against getting it for myself because I didn't want to pay $15 for a stupid wedgy weird-looking pillow that I'd only get to use for a couple of months. David insisted, because he's more concerned about my comfort than I am, and it makes him feel good to buy things that are (potentially) helpful to me. Sometimes that backfires terribly, but in this case, OMG, I love that pillow. It goes, as you might imagine, between the upward slope of my bebe belleh and the bed and provides support while I sleep. It. Is. Fabulous. And it fits sooooo much better than trying to cram part of a regular pillow in that spot. It's one of those things that looks really stupid on the shelf at the store, but once you're using it you can't believe you waited so long to get one.

I <3 that wedge. I recommend it to anyone who is pregnant and is beginning to be uncomfortable in bed at night. It won't cure your insomnia, or your heartburn, or lessen the frequency of your trips to the bathroom in the night, but it sure will make it more comfortable while you're lying awake contemplating/suffering from those things.

You Know How I Know I'm Pregnant?

My eyes got that going-to-cry prickle when I saw a Navy Wife- The toughest job in the Navy decal on a Land Rover when I left base today. How silly is that?

Flip, Baby, Flipped!

I *think* she flipped!

I was REEEEALLY tired on Saturday night, and slept HARD. There was none of the usual "I'M AWAKE" feeling that usually accompanies my return to bed after a trip to pee. I definitely noticed Baby Girl kicking around in there, and in retrospect (one of my current favorite words), she was kicking in different places (like on the side walls of her habitat, instead of the bottom left (at my hip, specifically)). On Sunday morning, my tummy felt different. I felt around and David felt around, and we both agreed that the places where we felt bits of baby didn't feel like the bits of baby we'd felt before. And then she had hiccups, and it was in the opposite corner from where they'd been every other time before.

So, I think she's flipped. I'm fairly certain. We'll see on Thursday at my OB appt. I've pretty much decided to refuse the inversion, so she'll still have time to flip after my 36 week appt.

Yay flippy baby!

Now, STAY THAT WAY.

To Everything, Turn, Turn, Turn...

35wks,3d

We're still trying to flip this baby. Here are the things we've tried so far:

*Ice on the baby's head (and by "head" I mean on my stomach where the baby's head is"). It was cold. Baby didn't move away from it, she just pushed at it. I'm not sure what that means, but I'm chalking it up to more of her general contrariness. You know, the kind that inclines her to ninja-KICK the scope at our ultrasounds and to squirm away from the doppler at our OB checkups.

*Laying with a stack of pillows under my butt and back to elevate my hips and "disengage the baby from the pelvis", the theory behind this being that there'll be more room for her to flip if I'm all squashed in the lungs and stomach. I mean... if I'm laying at a 45degree angle. Very unpleasant, what with the acid that creeps up my throat even if I'm 100% vertical... it was thrilled that I'd laid down in a position that was even easier to try and make dinner escape. ::shudder:: But, I *tried* it.

*Hand stand in the pool. Yep, I did one, and the massive burp that it caused to dislodge from my insides was unpleasant enough that I probably won't do more of those. Especially because that's ridiculous.

*Warm bath. This was particularly sad, because when I sat in the tub, the water in our stupid


And in all seriousness, because now we're down to crunch time:

Yesterday we tried acupuncture.

But before I get into THAT story, let me explain why we're not just letting things run their course.

*******************
At my 32 week appt, the midwife I saw (who was really nice, BTW), felt the baby's position (head up by my ribs, back curled around to my right side, butt down by my pelvis and legs curled up the other side). She said that position is called "breech" and that if she hasn't turned into the head down position by my 36 week appt (which will be on Thursday the 16th), that they'll do what's called "Inversion" to flip her.

Inversion, from my understanding, is where a team of doctors ultrasound you (to be sure of baby's position and the cord position and all that), and then they press their hands down on your belly and PUSH the baby into position.

From what I've learned since she oh-so-casually-mentioned that, Inversion HURTS (me, and I'm sure that Baby Girl won't like it either), and that more often than not, it has a tendency to burst the bag of waters, which can start labor. And if it *doesn't* start labor, since the bag of water has already burst, Tripler's policy is to deliver that baby one way or another within 12, I believe, hours of it bursting.

I called the other day to ask the midwives (they have a PAGER, and you call and leave your number and get this...THEY ACTUALLY CALL YOU BACK. *gasp!!* THAT DAY EVEN!! *DOUBLE GASP*) what they thought about my trying alternative (to inversion) methods to flip Baby Girl. The midwife I talked to was ALL ABOUT IT. It was so refreshing to hear a positive review of something I want to try from anyone at Tripler. I feel like everything's been so negative from there so far. Almost nothing but uncomfortableness and unpleasant news and visits for me and my other pregnant friends. So the midwife said to go ahead and try the acupuncture and the other things I'd come up with, and that I shouldn't worry too much about the inversion till I've tried those things and had my next OB appt. I think I <3 the mid-wives.

So. Yesterday we went to Sacred Healing Arts in downtown Honolulu to try the acupuncture. Before I start *this* part of the story, let me just say that we had a 3d ultrasound on Friday, and she was in the exact same head up, butt down, legs up the side position that she'd been in before. Monday was a holiday, so I called on Tuesday and made the appt to be stuck with needles. Tuesday night, Little Miss did some interesting dancing around, and I wasn't *SURE* anymore what position she was in, so I called and they said they could have one of their midwives come in and confirm Little Miss' position. She felt around on mah belly, and listened to the heartbeat. We were right, she still hadn't turned. The midwife showed David how to feel for her head (I already knew from a previous appt at Tripler), and then she left and the acupuncturist came in. She asked me to lay on my side, and then she stuck a teensy little needle in my foot, on the top side, about half an inch from my pinkie toe. Then things got weird. She pulls out a smudge stick (a bundle of herbs wrapped in paper and lights it. She warns us that "This WILL smell like weed." and proceeded to roast my pinkie toe (the one with the needle) for 10 minutes. Then she took out the needle, and had me turn over and did a new needle in my other foot and roasted THAT pinkie toe. Then we were done. She gave us a new smudge stick to take home with us and said that we needed to roast (my words not hers) my pinkie toes for 10 mins each, twice a day, and we scheduled another appt for Monday, just in case (it can take up to 3 sessions to flip a stubborn baby). I also have to spend up to 20 minutes on a "slant board", which is a board, propped up on the couch, head at the bottom, everything else upwards. Very uncomfy. ::sigh:: I'm totally saving this story for the first time Little Miss asks for money when she's a teenager.

SO.

Our plan of attack:

Acupuncture- Friday (the appointment we went to), Monday and maybe Wednesday if she STILL hasn't turned.

Thursday is our OB appt at Tripler. If she still hasn't flipped, then between that appt and the appt to invert her, we'll try to go to the chiropractor and get her to do what's called "Webster's Technique", which I haven't researched yet, but supposedly it opens the pelvis and baby flips. Also has a fairly high success rate. So it's worth trying.

I think that if she hasn't turned and they want to do the inversion, I'm going to decline. I will tell them that I'm not comfortable with the inversion risks (breaking the water and artificially starting labor), and that I'd rather wait to go into labor on my own, and if she's still breech when that happens, then I'll labor and then we'll have the C-section. Don't get me wrong, I don't WANT a C-section, but I think that natural labor first and then C-section would be better for my baby than the early alternatives.

Whew. Long post. I still need to Chronicle the trip I took to Texas! But that will have to be another day, I gotta go roast my toes now, with a bunch of plants that smell like weed. This better freaking work, hahaha

David: "Oh God, I Read About This."

I do believe David is nesting. He's doing laundry, the dishwasher is running and right now, he's compulsively scrubbing the drip shields that go under the burners on the stove. He's even mentioned vacuuming later. Keep in mind, it's currently 9:53pm.

THIS. IS. AWESOME.