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.