At our week 34 ultrasound we noticed our baby boy was breech, which normally wouldn’t be concerning since he had over 6 weeks to turn head down. They scheduled another ultrasound two weeks later to see if he had flipped, since that’s around the time most babies start turning. I tried so many natural methods including seeing the chiropractor, ice on the belly, playing music and using a flashlight to coax him down, cat/cow yoga poses and knees to chest inversion. Unfortunately, he was still breech at our 36 week appointment and at already 7lbs he showed no signs of flipping on his own.
Since I really, really don’t want a C-section, my midwife gave us an option to try an ECV (external cephalic version) where a doctor will try and manipulate him through the outside of my stomach. There are always risks when doing that since you are putting so much pressure on the baby and placenta, not to mention I heard it’s pretty painful. If something were to happen, we’d have to deliver him early via an emergency C-section, but the risk of that happening was so low that my husband and I elected to schedule the appointment.
We arrived at the hospital yesterday at 8:30am and were admitted around 9. They hooked me up to fluids and then monitored the baby’s heart rate and my contractions for about an hour and a half. When the doctor came in to check on us, my contractions were about 10 minutes apart, and he let us know that he would be unable to manipulate the baby if my uterus was continuing to contract. They gave me a shot of Terbutaline to stop the contractions so they could continue. It felt good to be contraction free for a few hours since I’ve been having them pretty consistently for the last month! But then the pressure started.
The doctor and another resident manipulated the baby together- as the doctor tried to push the baby’s bottom upwards, the resident would follow with baby’s spine with the ultrasound Doppler to guide him. After a few minutes of trying to push from just the bottom with no movement, the doctor started to push his bottom and then also guide his head at the same time. The amount of pressure was extremely uncomfortable to the point where it felt hard to breath- but I wouldn’t say it was painful. He did this for about twenty minutes, until he finally told me he had to stop because the baby was making no progress.
I was devastated.
Starting crying right on the spot. I knew there was a chance it wouldn’t be successful, but I don’t think I was mentally prepared for it to happen. I’d been prepping for a natural unmedicated birth for as nearly as long as we knew I was pregnant, so it just didn’t seem real that I now had to face getting a C-Section- something that seems so against what your body is made to do.
They monitored the baby’s heart rate for nearly another 2 hours just to make sure he wasn’t in any distress. He took it like a champ and checked out perfect, so we were discharged shortly after. My contractions came back about an hour after that, and felt much more intense now that my stomach was so sore from all of the pushing and pressure. In the end though, it was so worth it to me to try, and if anyone in the same boat is hesitant to try it because they heard it was painful- you can totally do it, it’s not nearly as bad as it’s rumored to be.
I’m definitely feeling better about it the more I think about how healthy he is and how easy and amazing my pregnancy has been. I really have a lot to be thankful for, even if his birth does end in C-section. It just feels so unnatural to me to “plan” his birth day and part of me feels like I’m missing out on the experience of laboring. There is still a chance I can go into labor before the section, but if he’s still breech when that happens they won’t allow me to deliver him that way. But God has a plan for everything and there is likely a reason he’s still stuck in the breech position so if he doesn’t turn on his own, it’s probably for the best.
The best part of this journey has been Drew- he’s literally been the most supportive person through all of this. He knows and understands how badly I wanted to try an unmedicated birth and has helped me try every route to get there. So in the end as long as I have him, and our big healthy baby boy that’s all that matters.
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