Breech of Contract

So here we are, 36 weeks pregnant tomorrow. That makes me officially 9 months pregnant and a month away from our due date. Say what now? As we come towards the end of this chapter and the beginning of the next one it has become apparent that Art Vandelay is beginning as Art Vandelay intends to continue. We discovered a couple of weeks ago that the kid was breech. That is to say, sitting the wrong way, head up. This surprised me not at all, partly because I myself was a breech baby and why wouldn't my kid also be backwards and stubborn?

At the time that we learned of our breech status I had been struggling with pretty debilitating back pain for about week and was on a reduced work schedule and a sort of semi-bed rest situation. Slowing down is HARD but having the Robeau to drive me around and make dinners sure helped (as did the kitties keeping me company). I'm a lucky girl.

Anyway, our midwives gave us a number of suggestions to try and turn Art Vandelay into proper birthin' position and we tried a bunch of them...inversions, hot and cold therapy, we even flirted with Chinese medicine. The method that is supposed to have the highest success rate is the Webster's Technique, a chiropractic thing. Now, I've never been to a chiropractor and truth be told I was quite skeptical about the whole thing. At that point though, trying seemed like the right thing to do. After my first appointment I had totally gulped down the chiro-kool-aid. Why? Because without any scary cracking but with gentle prodding I started to feel my S.I. joint (the source of all the back pain) along with my hips and pelvis begin to get realigned (I was quite a mess, apparently). I've learned about why I was in such pain and what I can do to help correct it. This morning, not even two weeks after beginning treatment with my chiropractor I'm getting closer and closer to being pain free and more importantly, I can actually walk. I can WALK without shuffling, wincing or clutching the wall. Believe me, this is HUGE.

That said, while the Webster's Technique has set my back onto the road to recovery it has done nothing to turn Art Vandelay.

After what had to have been our 342nd ultrasound yesterday, even our midwife, who you would imagine would be all "wait and see, try this yoga move" about this stuff was like "yeah, this baby's not going anywhere, go ahead and book a C Section". Which is exactly what we're going to do. I'm going to keep up with the Webster's, etc. but we're not going to stress out about it. I know there are a lot of folks out there who feel very strongly about not messing with the birth process, even with breech babies and I understand their point of view. In fact, the Society of Canadian OBGYN's is starting to train docs on how to perform breech births vaginally again because they've determined that C-Sections are in fact NOT the best way to go in this situation. HOWEVER, for the last couple of decades doctors and midwives have not been delivering breech babies the old fashioned way, which means there are no health care providers willing to go there today without implying huge risk. To that I say, "no thanks". I also say, "Hey, bring on the pharmaceuticals!" WHY NOT?

So it looks like the big event might be happening in two or three weeks instead of a month. We should know an exact date by next week some time. It's funny because I thought I'd be upset at the prospect of surgery but for some reason I'm liking the predictability of it (type A much?). Besides, I think at this point, we just kind of have to respect the fact that Art Vandelay's mind is made up, you know?

Meanwhile, Holy Cripes, do we ever have a lot to do before this all goes down!