A Very Upside Down Boy

This is the story of how we got our stuck, breech boy to turn.

I haven't talked much about how he was positioned, but basically since we've been able to identify where he was at by feeling him, his head has been directly under the bridge of my ribs. He wasn't flipping on his own and my doctor felt like the likelihood that he would was very slim. Basically our options were to schedule a C-section, or to go ahead with an external version procedure and hope for the best. After trying basically every single method in the book to turn him on his own, and a few long discussions we decided to go ahead and try the version.

I had my last day of work last Monday and I had to rush from work to my 37 week appointment. We did a quick ultrasound to confirm that stubborn G was still breech. He was, in fact, and we scheduled an external version procedure for 7:30am on Tuesday. That night we kind of frantically packed hospital bags, just in case something happened during the procedure that might have prompted baby boy to join us sooner than original anticipated.

Tuesday morning we woke up at 6:30 to head to the hospital. They hooked me up to all of the monitors, my IV, and we settled in to wait for the doctor to show up. She came in and took another quick peek with the ultrasound and then gave me a dose of a muscle relaxer to help move things loosen up so that I didn't start contracting while she turned him.

The muscle relaxer made my heart race a little bit but I didn't ever feel very affected by it. Not long after the injection they went ahead and started to turn him. Basically all she had to do was push and pull on my stomach in a clockwise motion. It was incredibly intense, absolutely uncomfortable, and painful when they got him transverse. Nick stood up by my head and rubbed my arm, I couldn't look at him and stared up at the ceiling and concentrated on not holding my breath. He said it was an amazing thing to watch and could actually see the entire outline of Grayson's body as he turned. It only took a few more seconds and he was in position! Success rates of an ECV procedure are only about 50% so we are absolutely counting our blessings that it worked for us.

Now I'm settling into my new found freedom in maternity leave, sleeping in, and making lists of things I want to do before G joins us!