Like Turning a Faucet with a Pillow On Top

I know that I dropped an emotional bomb over a week ago, and I appreciate all of your prayers and well wishes more than you can imagine. While I didn't end up shining a flash light on my tummy to help baby move towards the light, unfortunately Baby Buckaroo is still breech. 

We tried everything to turn the baby:

Acupuncture- this experience was very weird and fascinating. I haven't been to an acupuncturist before, and told the woman when my appointment started that I was also struggling with high blood pressure in addition to having a breech baby. The acupuncture needles didn't hurt at all, and were almost immediately calming-- even the first one that she inserted, right in the middle of my forehead! The point that the acupuncturist stimulated to help turn the baby was just on the outside of my pinky toenails. She inserted needles there for a while, but then spent 30 minutes burning moxibustion sticks using the heat from the smoldering cigar shaped sticks to stimulate that pressure point. While I relaxed, and truly felt my blood pressure go down, the baby seemed pretty happy and content where he was at, and refused to move.

Webster Technique- this chiropractic technique helps open up the pelvis to allow the baby to turn. My good friends are chiropractors, and they were more than willing to help me out. The chiropractor spend an hour and a half stretching my back muscles, legs, and pelvis-- it felt awesome. I felt so relaxed and limber after we'd finished, and once again, the baby refused to turn.

Gravity and Stretching/Yoga positions- I tried to lay down on pillows so my hips were higher than my head, to help the baby turn. I can see how this would help, but with my high blood pressure and the nausea and headaches that went with it, this was too uncomfortable and painful for me to keep up the positions for long.

Hot and Cold packs- the theory of putting an icepack on the top of my baby belly, basically on the baby's head, and putting a hot pack down on my lap makes sense. The baby doesn't like the cold, and will move towards the heat. Out of all the homeopathic techniques I tried, this definitely got the baby moving and shaking more than anything else, I could almost hear him crying in frustration. But, he didn't move.

At the hospital last Friday the Doctor tried to do an External Version, which involves using constant pressure and constant fetal heart monitoring to physically turn the baby in the womb. I deliberately did not research this technique too much before I went in, because I had heard so many horror stories about how much this could hurt the mom. The Chef and I had our bags packed, and were prepared for an emergency c-section in case the baby went into distress. After the doctor gave me a medication to relax my uterus, he began twisting on the baby, trying to encourage the baby to turn clockwise so his head would move from the 11:00 position to the 6:00 position of head down.

The only thing I can compare the feeling of an external version to is when I got in a horrible horseback riding accident, and my horse rolled over the top of me. That pressure, the feeling that I would simply pop like a cartoon character was very similar. Despite the doctor's experience and preseverance, Baby Buckaroo would not turn more than 20 degrees, and then would pop back to the place where we'd started.

The doctor said that because my placenta is on the front of my uterus, that trying to turn the baby with the placenta in the way was like "turning a faucet with a pillow on top of it." While that description didn't make me feel any better, the doctor was very encouraging and compassionate. There are a number of reasons that a baby will remain breech, including some physiological reasons that the baby won't turn, such as the cord is wrapped around him somehow so he physically can't turn around.

After several hours of monitoring after the attempted version, the doctor decided that the baby was OK and healthy enough to wait for a c-section until it was a bit older-- closer to 39 weeks. While the baby is perfectly healthy, my tests all had me right on the border of pre-eclampsia, which had everyone concerned. After the version, I had to stay in the hospital four more hours that afternoon, while the doctors debated whether or not I was healthy enough to go home or not.

After hours, many more doctor's visits, I'm on modified bedrest and am taking a blood pressure medication twice a day. I feel good, surrendered about the c-section, and am looking at the bright side of all of this. Because of the bedrest, I don't have to go to work, and therefore have had this whole week at home to study and work on my two law school finals.

With luck, my finals will be finished this afternoon, just before my next doctor's appointment to check my blood pressure and baby's vitals. The c-section is scheduled for this Sunday, December 12th at 11:30.