On Thursday October 25th I went to see my doctor for a routine weekly check-up on me and the baby. We did all the regular stuff and it was also a week to get an exam. I was excited because it had been 2 weeks since my last exam and I wanted to see if I was any closer to meeting this little Peanut. Sure enough I was 100% effaced, and still about 2 cm. The doctor was reaching around down there a bit longer than anyone would like and she said to me she wasn't sure if she could feel his head or not, so she was going to bring in the ultrasound machine to be sure he was STILL head down as he had been in the previous weeks.
She brought in the machine and sure enough, she found his little noggin way up by my belly-button and he was happily sitting on his bum. Wow, I hadn't even ever considered the impact of a breech baby. I know now that it affects just 5% of pregnancies and it really wasn't ever on my radar. Especially since as late as 37 weeks he was head down. The day before my appointment I had felt him moving a lot, I am convinced he flipped that day.
It all happened pretty quickly, the doctor told me I had two options...schedule a C-section or try a "version" where they basically push on your belly for 3 or 4 minutes to try to flip the baby. Since I was going to be 39 weeks she said they could try to flip the baby and if they succeeded they would induce me for a vaginal delivery, otherwise I would have a c-section right then. I made an appointment for Monday at 7am. We knew then that we were having a baby on Monday. I was done working, we were going to be parents and it was going to be soon. I had such mixed emotions, not what I had pictured, not what I wanted with surgery, but so completely out of my control. We were going to have a baby and that is what mattered.
That night Brian went up the street to Amalfi's and had dinner, we sat at the bar. He was so calm and excited and reassured me. The more I read the more scared I got about the procedures, so I stopped reading. I decided to do a little research on positions you can take at home to create belly space in hopes that they flip. I was going to attempt some of those.
I didn't sleep very well that night, just figuring I was a little overwhelmed with the days to come. It was Friday morning, I had planned to do a long walk with my Mom and Brian was headed to work. He left early and at about 6:45 I woke up and was playing online on my phone and found a position to try to flip the baby. So I rolled over and put my bum in the air and swayed a little bit...then I felt something a little wet in my pajamas...so I stood up and there was a full on gush....holy cow, I think my water broke.
I called Brian and he was calm as usual, he had just gotten to the office and I needed him to head home. I called my Mom and told her what I thought had happened, but I had gotten a little blood on the carpet and was most concerned about that. I was shaking, so nervous, by myself and overwhelmed. I never had pictured this either. I got in the shower and got dressed, what does one wear to the hospital for something like this. I threw the final touches in my bag and was ready when Brian made it home. We grabbed our bags and got in the car. We video taped a short interview to remember the drive with. The whole time I was gushing liquid...in the movies when the "water breaks" it is more like one gush and then things are cool...not real. This was like a river running down my leg and that is what I told the check-in nurse which clearly sped up our process.
The next few hours are a bit of blur. We spent a little over 3 hours in the triage room, the whole time I was having contractions, but figured they were just the beginning of labor, but I was a bit surprised by how much they hurt. No nurse really ever asked me about them, but I was getting more and more uncomfortable. I was trying to be tough here, I mean they confirmed that the baby was still breech so it isn't like I am going to go through labor. We watched TV. My parents were there. At about 10:45 we headed down to the operating room. Brian wore a cool jump suit. I walked to the OR, but I had to stop twice because the contractions were so strong. I had to rest one more time with a contraction just before I got the spinal, which I was pretty darn excited to receive by that point.
Everyone in the OR was a woman and they were all so nice. I had never had surgery, it just seemed so much more comforting than I had ever pictured it. Finally they had me set-up and Brian came in to sit by my head. It was only minutes before I felt some pressure and some tugging and we heard the doctors say something like "wow, HE is really down there" and then they told us we had a baby boy. Quickly a rush of additional nurses came through the door, we didn't hear any crying. Our baby wasn't breathing at first and they had to get a few breaths to get things going...then he howled. I cried, I couldn't believe we had a son, a little baby Jake.
