Breech update

I mentioned in my 32 weeks post that my baby was still frank breech (head up, feet up by his face).

At 33 weeks I started doing everything I could do get him turned. Acupuncture, moxibustion (both with my acupuncturist and at home, twice a day), inversions, watsu, chiropractor (Webster technique).  The Spinning Babies website has lots of helpful information about these techniques if you want to learn more - that's where I learned about the inversions.

I felt like the baby was trying to turn but just couldn't get into position. He's super super wiggly - as in when the doctor told me to do kick counts and make sure I get 10 kicks in an hour twice a day, I told him I usually get 10 kicks in about 90 seconds, every hour of the day.

Moxibustion would make him wiggle, inversions would help him slide up in my torso, watsu made him incredibly, violently, active for hours afterwards (and was super relaxing and therapeutic for me - if you have a watsu practitioner nearby I highly recommend it in late pregnancy), and the Webster technique felt like it was giving him more room. But he didn't turn.

So yesterday, at 36 weeks, 5 days, I went to the hospital for my doctor to do a version (official term is 'external cephalic version' or ECV). This involves the doctor manually turning the baby from the outside of the belly - sorta like squashing a watermelon seed under your finger and having it squirt out the other side (this was the image that popped in my head during the version!)

I was at the hospital for about 3 hours, with prep (they prep you for an emergency c-section because there's a tiny chance the version can either stress the baby or cause the placenta to detach), pre-monitoring (non-stress test) and post-monitoring (non-stress test).  The version itself took about 90 seconds. It was intensely uncomfortable but bearable. (My husband helped me through it, and I realized I need to cut my nails before I give birth, as he was ok with me squeezing his hand, but not digging in with my nails. Hee!) After 90 seconds, my doctor said, ok, we're done, and I couldn't tell if it had worked so had to ask.

Such a relief! If he stayed breech I would have had a scheduled c-section as very few doctors in the US do vaginal breech births (my doctor used to but stopped after a particularly tricky/risky delivery). So now I just need him to stay head-down (it's unusual but possible for him to flip back), and I can work on going into labor naturally prior to being induced on December 15 at 39 weeks.

After we got home, our nursery furniture was all delivered, and we hung our mobile and started putting up the wall decal. I'll post a photo once it's done.

Tomorrow I'm 37 weeks and considered full-term! Crazy!