I have run through a whole range of emotions this past week over this stubborn breech baby of mine! It seems that maybe s/he has turned, but then I end up feeling something a lot like a head up top again (a dull hard pressure under my rib), and I am wondering again. Before I could feel the baby's position easily and as the baby gets bigger you would think it would be even easier, but this baby seems to have sunk back into me and I can't feel a thing. One night that thing jabbing me in the right rib moved away easily when I pushed there which makes me think it's a foot and not a head, but I couldn't feel a head down low either. I'm pretty sure baby is still posterior (knees or feet are out front at my belly button area) which makes it harder to determine position because you can't follow a spine along. That night where I thought the baby went vertex my lower back was in agony for a few hours. I leaned over the birth ball for quite a while and that pain finally went away. I had really been hoping it meant the baby was posterior. It felt just like the back labor I had without the painful contractions in the front breaking up the constant back pain, but if the baby did turn vertex, the leaning on the birth ball didn't turn the baby anterior. If anything it raised the baby some. At the time I shared in an email that "If this is vertex posterior baby right now I don't think I've ever been so happy in my life to have a baby that is just posterior! After worrying about breech, posterior alone I think I can deal with!" I was having to pee a lot more and getting some vaginal pains like something was pushing down, down there. My hips were hurting as well and they haven't hurt at all during this pregnancy because the baby is higher up and feet or bottom down. I was really hoping these new pains were due to a head down there, but the next day they were gone and the kicks were feeling more breech-like again.
I have stopped seeing the chiropractor for a little while. On Saturday she said I was all aligned and my legs have equal resistance meaning I'm "Webster" adjusted (Webster is the technique done for turning breech babies named after the chiropractor that invented the technique). She worked on my sacrum a little, but says everything looks good. I think that was my sixth visit and she's always been successful in four to five. She left town on Tuesday and will be back next Tuesday. She is taking her pediatric chiropractor boards to get official certification. I had an appointment on Tuesday, but she said skip it because she can't do anything more right now. She wants to wait until after my next OB appointment on Friday where I will hopefully get confirmation of the appointment.
As of last Saturday, the baby had moved, but neither of us could tell where! We can't feel a head or a bottom, but occasionally legs or arms kick quickly then disappear so we're pretty sure baby is still posterior. The "kicks" I get are so quick that I don't have time to try to follow the arm or leg to the body. Because of their location I'm pretty sure the baby is folded in a pike position, either frank breech or vertex with legs folded back. But I can't tell which.
I found a pool and have gone just about every day to bounce around. The weightless environment a pool creates is supposed to lift the baby up and encourage him or her to turn. There has never been any true research on if this works though, but I figure it can't hurt and it feels good! My baby is still pretty high which I am thankful for. Whatever position this baby is in, s/he has definitely not engaged yet which is a very good thing being that s/he is posterior and probably breech! It's one of the few things about this that is encouraging. I don't feel a lot of movement while in the pool or after, but Tommy sure loves it! He gets excited when we pull into the parking lot now. And he stands still at home before we leave while I put sunscreen on him. He's become quite the Coppertone baby and has a serious tan line around his little suit. He takes after me and is fairly pale, but tans well I guess. We've both been doing some heavy duty coating with the sunscreen, but we both have dark tans now from just this one hour in the sun a day. Unfortunately the pool is open for recreational swim from 1:15 - 3:45 so it's at the peak of the sun. It has helped us cool off in the heat wave we were having. Tom has gone with us most days and we've all had a great time! Tommy has even learned to kick. He started doing it all on his own the second day at the pool. The first day he just clung to me and was really unsure of everything, but the second day Tom came with us and I took my goggles and swam underwater and all around the two of them and Tommy thought that was the funniest thing ever! He started floating on his belly (well supported by Tom of course) and doing a combination breaststroke and butterfly kick. It was something he did all on his own! Now he will kick across the entire pool and if I turn him on his back he flutter kicks. I'm so proud of my little boy! He enjoys going underwater too (if one of us goes under with him), but he hasn't quite figured out how to blow bubbles. Today he learned how to jump into the pool into my arms and insisted on doing it over and over again!
Well back to this baby! I really have no clue what position that baby is in except the baby is definitely up and down and not transverse. We (the chiropractor and I) are hoping that since neither of us could feel a hard head that maybe the head is down and hiding? I'm getting kicks everywhere - in too many places to believe there is just one baby in there! But as soon as I try to feel what is kicking me that body part disappears; it's very frustrating. So I've decided to just give up on trying to feel anything. That has been hard to do too, but I am feeling better about things since I stopped feeling around. Of course now everyone is asking again and again if the baby has turned yet so I have to explain that I'm not thinking about it - or at least trying not to think about it!
I've stopped doing the slant board and am just doing knee-chest and hands and knees. Since baby is possibly breech and definitely posterior we thought leaning forward might be better than on my back with the breech exercises. I've talked a ton with this baby and right now I'm just trying to forget about it - easier said than done! But I will only worry if I try to keep prodding and feeling for a head. After Friday I will know and if baby is still breech I guess we'll talk about scheduling an ECV, and I'll talk to the chiropractor again about what else she can do. If the baby does remain posterior she also offered to come adjust me at home while in labor so that is good news. I didn't think any doctors did house calls nowadays! At this point I'm not worried at all about a posterior baby. That we can handle with laboring positions; I just want to get this little one vertex! I do still have time, but it's so hard not to worry!
Another thing I really need to do is work on my birth plan. My doula returned from her vacation today so I guess we will soon be having our first official prenatal meeting. I have actually talked to her so much on the phone and through email and even in person twice when I have borrowed books from her, that I feel like I know her really well even though we haven't done the "official" meeting. Unfortunately the OB I found does not do breech vaginal deliveries so I need to consider writing up a planned cesarean birth plan, unless I just decide to not consent to a cesarean. I've been reading up on vaginal breech delivery and the more I read the more I find that in the hands of a skilled OB, it is quite safe and possibly safer than a planned c-section. My OB does have extensive experience delivering frank breech babies vaginally, but she doesn't do them because of hospital policy. I wonder what the hospital would do if I just outright refused a c-section. I probably won't do that, but I suppose it is an option.
I need to write an emergency cesarean plan as well so I can basically use the same one for a planned c-section. The midwife who I might be able to switch back to will deliver frank breech babies (at this same hospital so I wonder how) and there is still a slight chance that I might be able to switch back to her. Tom called his former company's human resources representative last week, and she still hasn't gotten back to us on whether or not they are doing open enrollment in August now. We did finally get the Cobra paperwork, and it is less than we were expecting! The medical alone for our family will be around $300 a month. If we keep dental and vision it goes up to about $500, but I don't think the dental and vision (I'm the only one that needs that) is worth $200 more per month. Hopefully since this HMO plan was reasonable the PPO plan won't be too much if we can switch. Cobra with my last job was close to $550 for our family (I went on Cobra after I quit my job when Tommy was born and we stayed on a few months while Tom was finishing a contract. He got a permanent job with insurance after that). The insurance we have now doesn't cover quite as much as that insurance did and our co-pay is higher so that must be where the difference in cost comes in. There is still no news on the job hunting. He is being considered for one position and is in the top two candidates (they have more than one job as well, but the main job is regular hours the others are night shifts). The company has just been taking their time in making a decision though so who knows how much longer we'll have to wait. He had an interview yesterday that went really well, but he and the president of the company both feel that he isn't right for the job they interviewed him for (and I agree after hearing what it was. Tom probably could do it, but he would be in a little over his head, very stressed out and never home!). The president really liked him and said he is going to look to see if they have an opening in a different department and where he feels Tom would fit better. But unfortunately this other department isn't a high priority for the company so again we'll have to be patient and wait until they fill the spot they interviewed Tom for.
Getting back to my birth plan now. I will not agree to a c-section before 40 weeks. I'm giving this baby every chance possible to turn. I also want to find out if there is any reason not to wait 41 weeks or even 42 provided the baby is doing well. I wonder if a larger baby might make the c-section more difficult or cause more risk to the baby. A c-section is actually more traumatic to a baby than a vaginal birth as the opening they are being forced through is smaller. Cesarean breech delivery has some of the same risks that vaginal breech delivery does and also requires a very skilled doctor to deliver the baby safely without requiring a vertical extension to the incision. A vertical incision causes more risk of rupture in future pregnancies. This OB wouldn't consider me for a VBAC in the future if I have this baby by cesarean so if that happens I will just need to find another care provider! I do want her to know that I do not consent to anything but a low transverse incision. Vaginal birth after two cesareans (vba2c) is done and still has a very low risk of rupture. Considering that each c-section I have puts all future babies at greater risk, I will not give up my pursuit of vaginal births! I'm not just planning on having two to three babies. If I was I wouldn't be as worried about the dangers of many cesareans. With more cesareans I risk a uterine rupture in each subsequent pregnancy (not just labor). These are things I need to talk to my OB about. I also refuse to allow this baby to be forced into the world before 40 weeks by induction or c-section. Tommy was 2 days shy of 40 weeks (well more than that according to my calculations), and he still had some vernix and we had a horrible start to nursing. I don't want to go through that again and it is a fact that earlier babies have more issues with nursing than full term babies that arrive after spontaneous labor. There are other things to consider than just lung maturity and size. Those two alone don't mean a full term baby! Tommy was horribly colicky and had reflux (undiagnosed because he gained well) and I believe he was just taken too early.
Lastly I want to talk to my OB about laboring. Laboring is good for both the baby and me, and I would like to know how she feels about me laboring for a while even if the baby is breech and we are planning to have a c-section. Laboring releases hormones in the mother that help with bonding, pain management and improves the post-partum recovery period and also reduces the incidence of post-partum depression (which I had with Tommy and really don't want to go through again!). It also benefits the baby as receiving the hormones from the mother helps the baby handle the trauma of birth better. Labor in a woman with a scarred uterus does also increase her risk of uterine rupture so I need to decide if the benefits are worth that very small risk. From what I have learned so far I feel they are.
I really have been putting off writing up my birth plan and I should just do it. I plan on talking at length with my OB one of these next appointments. As far as the c-section is concerned I care about the kind of incision I have and also figuring out some kind of anesthesia that won't cause the shakes like last time so I can enjoy the baby. This time I will refuse to allow my baby to be taken away from me! That was the hardest part with Tommy; not seeing him for so long and there was no reason not to. He had 8 and 9 on the apgars and he was just fine! With the shakes so bad I wouldn't have been able to hold him or nurse him, but at least they could have given him to my mom to hold near me. My husband is hospital and doctor phobic and was in the hall, which I was fine with! He would have caused me to be even more nervous than I was. It was very comforting to have my mother there. When we have discussed the possibility of another cesarean we decided that it should be the same way, but I also realized with me refusing to let the baby go Tom won't be able to see him or her for quite a while and I don't like that. He's ok with it though. We'll figure something out. He insists he doesn't want to be anywhere near the blood and stuff, but I'm trying to convince him to at least hang out where he doesn't have to see anything so he can see his baby right away. Oh there are so many things to discuss and decide on. And I really am running out of time!
