This wasn’t what we had hoped for.
As we stared at the ultrasound screen in front of us, it confirmed that our baby was breech. This was not a new revelation to my husband and I. We had so hoped and prayed that things would turn out differently. Though based on the unchanged position of our baby, we were now facing a scheduled c-section. And it was going to take place the very next day. All of our endeavors to flip baby and attempt a natural delivery had failed.
Over the last several months, inversions had become a normal part of my day. I had never spent so much time upside down! I was trying to open up space in my abdomen for baby to rotate head down. Ideally, this exercise would position her nicely for a vaginal delivery. I visited the chiropractor several times a month to try to keep my body optimally aligned for carrying baby. This treatment would also prepare my body for the pending labor and delivery.
I became quite familiar with a traditional Chinese heat therapy called moxibustion, or “moxa”. My husband would light the moxa stick, which resembled a cigar, and hold it as close as he could to my little toe without touching it. A few seconds later, when I couldn’t stand the heat anymore, he would pull the stick away. I would take a little break and then repeat the sequence all over again a few more times. The concept was that baby might flip based on the stimulation she was receiving via my little toe.
I even applied peppermint oil to my belly in a rainbow pattern with the hope that baby would be so repulsed by the scent that she’d move south and face head down. I tried sleeping in special positions for breech babies, as laughable as sleep was at this stage. And made several visits to the Spinning Babies website to see what they might suggest.
You name it, we tried it.
As we left the office that evening hand in hand, we wrestled silently with our thoughts.
Ultimately, we knew that the goal was a happy and healthy baby & mama. But the means of getting there mattered to me. It mattered to both of us. We had spent months diving deep into the birth process and all the benefits that a natural delivery held. Now it looked as if all of our effort had been in vain. We were not so naive as to think that we may need to use some kind of intervention. But having major surgery??! This was definitely something that we had wanted to avoid altogether. We never accounted for the fact that our teeny little baby had a mind of her own.
It was getting late and I was starving so we decided to stop somewhere and grab a bite to eat. As we sat and savored our dinner, we relished in the fact that this would be our last meal with just the two of us. This thought both excited and terrified us. Despite the news we’d received that evening, we would inevitably be meeting our sweet little one soon!
We also discussed the sequence of events that would take place the next morning. In one last attempt to rotate baby, our OB doctor was open to performing an external cephalic version (ECV) in the Operating Room. In English, this means that our doctor was going to try to flip our baby manually. She would be manipulating baby from the outside of my abdomen. She told me that it would be extremely uncomfortable. And if it did not work, we would move right into the planned C-section. Even so, if the benefits outweighed the risks and if there was a chance for safe natural labor, I still wanted to try. A cesarean section was the last thing I wanted to add to my life experiences.
Rewind several months…
As first time parents, we were doing all the things.
I had always wanted a natural birth. This desire was shaped in me by the example of my own mother. So now that I was expecting my first child, I was determined to learn all that I could about it. I read stacks of books and articles recommended by like-minded friends. One of these books included the Bradley Method, which I immediately fell in love with. The Bradley Method champions a husband-coached birth. As I excitedly shared with my husband what I’d learned about this laboring style, he graciously reminded me that he was a novice at this whole thing. He wanted to support me in any and every way that he possibly could. But he humbly admitted that he was not quite feeling up to the task of being my sole birth coach. So we compromised and decided to hire a doula.
Besides the books and articles that I was reading, we chose to attend a birthing class as well. This was a phenomenal course on the ins and outs of the natural birthing process. Moreso than any of the books I had read, this class really served to shape our mindset for what we hoped to get out of this experience. We wanted a natural labor with minimal interventions and, of course, a healthy babe.
We toured the hospital’s maternity ward and sat in on their mini-birthing class. It boasted of the myriad of interventions that they could provide for us and baby. We listened politely and endured the videos demonstrations which were night and day from our birthing class. After all, with a natural birth as our aim, we felt that the likelihood of utilizing such extreme interventions would be low.
At home we prepared our “Birth Plan”, which was a sheet of paper stating our wishes for labor and delivery. We planned to have it visible for all staff attending our birth. This way everyone would be on same page and hopefully refrain from offering us interventions that we were wanting to avoid. It was our baby, after all, and our experience. We were not about to let hospital protocols and “norms” spoil it for us.
Fast-forward back to the evening before the scheduled c-section.
We arrived home after dinner, mentally and physically exhausted. My husband had worked all day and I was 39+ weeks pregnant- need I say more? We decided to unwind by watching television together for a bit. As I sat there, the reality of what I would be facing the next day started to sink in. I decided that trying to get some sleep would be the best thing for me. I kissed my husband goodnight and headed upstairs. Though they had already been prepped for weeks, I made a final inspection of my hospital bags. I tucked a few last-minute items in and then got ready for bed.
My mind was racing as I laid down to rest. Admittedly, I was still hoping that baby would miraculously flip during my slumber. This would allow us to go ahead with our plans and avoid all of the unwanted procedures. It seemed too much to hope for at this point. But I prayed to try and settle my heart and mind as I thought about the next day.
I did not expect what came next.
Minutes after my head hit the pillow, I felt a little gush of warm fluid seep into my pants. I sat up quickly and headed to the bathroom, suspecting what might be happening. As I sat on the toilet, I quickly realized that this steady trickle of warm clearish liquid was not stopping. My bag of waters had ruptured!
I stuffed a pad into my underwear and quickly descended the steps to tell my husband what was going on. The news took him off guard as he never expected things to unfold this way in a million years. It took me a minute or two to convince him that my water had indeed broken. Once convinced though, he jumped into action and got on the phone with the on-call service at our OB’s office. The on-call physician quickly called us back. She told us that we needed to come into the hospital as soon as possible. In about ten minutes, we had gathered our bags, threw them into the car, and were on our way.
We really didn’t know what the next moments held. All we knew was… This. Was. Happening.
