Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Crappy News

So, I had my 34 week checkup today. The doc told me that my stomach felt "lumpy" in the wrong spots. After a quick ultrasound, it turns out that "lump" was her head--which is up in my ribs and not down like it's supposed to be. In other words, she's breech. Butt down. This is not good news. It's hard to extricate the emotions, but I will say that you don't realize how much you want to have the natural child birth experience until the option is taken away from you. Sure it's the worst pain of your life, but it's so empowering (I imagine), it's part of the experience, one that I've been looking so forward to. Anyway, there is a chance she could turn on her own, but it's probably less than 10%. We are going to see a specialized chiropractor in the city tomorrow. They have a technique (called the Webster Method) of aligning your pelvis in a way that can get the baby to turn into normal presentation. It's between 85-100% effective according to some studies. We'll see, but my doc isn't all that optimistic.
It's likely that we'll be getting a c-section at the end of all of this. Aside from the fact that you are deprived a normal birth experience, it's less optimal in many ways--including a maternal death rate that is 4-5 times higher than a normal labor. Yay, the information you can get on the internet is soooooooo encouraging!
Anyway, we'll keep you up-to-date on any changes. At this point, we'll be scheduling a c-section at 39 weeks, which will mean somewhere around May 8th.

2 comments:

Lacey said...

So sorry to hear that Lana. At least this isn't a major complication or problem with the baby. I know there is only a slim chance that she'll flip back around, but I will be hoping for it for you!! Take care.

Georgia said...

ummm, still waiting on some recent belly pics up in here...:)