Part One: Breech.

Tuesday the 9th

        I have my weekly OB appointment. (According to my dates I'm already 40+4. According to their dates I'm only 40+1) I'm seeing the midwife for the first time. She seems rather likable and I wish I'd thought to request her on previous visits. She takes the fundal height and feels around on my belly. She mentions that there's rather hard lump quite high up, she wonders what the chances of that being a head is. We both joke that that would be unthinkable. She decides that she wants to send me for an ultrasound 'just to be sure.'

        Ultrasound: The midwife is going to do the scan herself. That's a head. He's breech. Somehow not a single doctor noticed that the baby was still head up. Everyone just kept assuming he had a really hard butt I guess. She decides that because the baby is breech she needs the actual tech to come in and do the scan so they can check the placenta and get all the measurements correct.

        Back to the midwife: This means a c-section. They estimated the weight during the ultrasound and it's coming back as 8lbs 13oz. The midwife tells me that while I might be able to find a doctor willing to try a breech delivery vaginally, she doesn't know of a single doctor who thinks it would be safe to try to a normal delivery. She looks at me. I nod. She mentions that I'm awfully calm for someone who just found out they have an almost 9lb breech baby and needs a c-section. I stare at her some more before I find my words. "Well, what am I supposed to do? The baby needs to get here the safest way for him possible. Stressing out about it isn't going to change anything." With that she sends me off to do a 'non-stress test' to make sure babe will be happy waiting till the end of the week for a c-sec appointment.

         Non-stress test: These are the most stressful test ever labeled NON-STRESS. Lay back in a chair with monitors stuck to your belly and push a button every time the baby moves. Did the baby move... or was that just a gas bubble? Did the baby roll... or was that just my heartbeat?? aaaah! Babe wasn't cooperating and the test took ages. At first he wasn't wanting to move much and then (after having me drink a large glass of ice water and a Dr. Pepper) they weren't getting the proper heart-rate accelerations. [apparently when they move the doctor wants to see the heart-rate go up at least 15bpm and then stay elevated for at least 15 secs. Babe's was going up but not staying up. After about 40 minutes they were finally happy and I was released. At first they wanted me to wait for the appointment time but they couldn't get ahold of anyone at the hospital. Super busy. July is THE month for birthing babies.

         Lunch: I was texting Mark constantly throughout my appointment (thank you unlimited data plan and new phones!) so he knew what was going on. We had about 40 minutes before we needed to collect Jessica from school, so Mark drove out and met me for a very blah lunch at Jersey Mikes (I do not recommend.) He knows how terrified I am of a c-section. Mostly I'm worried that I'll have to have general anesthesia and it will be hours before I even meet our baby. Plus who wouldn't be freaked out about having their abdomen sliced open? There's a lot of staring at each other and Mark telling me it's going to be okay. I had my CBC (complete blood count) done at the OB's that morning so we won't know till tomorrow what my platelet numbers are. An anesthesiologist won't do a spinal if my platelets are under 100. We still don't have a day or time for the delivery but the clock has started to get my platelets up.

        Scheduled: I finally get a call from the hospital around 3 in the afternoon letting me know that I'm scheduled for 12 noon on Thursday the 11th. (A couple hours later they call back and ask if it's okay to bump me up to the 10am slot. Sure. Less waiting = less stress right?) I call mom. Well I called mom multiple times prior but this is THE call. The, we have a time and date and we need you to come down, call. She decides to head down in the morning.

       Family date night: I really needed to get my mind off things so we decided to take Jessica out to a movie on one of our last nights as a family of three. We let her choose between Monster's University and Despicable Me 2. She chose Despicable Me 2. (Only slightly upsetting as both Mark and I were secretly hoping to see the new Monster's movie.) We headed to the cinema and let Jessica chose anything she wanted.. mistake I know but we were in the mood to spoil. A cherry slushie, a box of junior mints split with Daddy, some popcorn and a bag of fruit snacks later, we had one very wired girl on our hands, but everyone was happy. 

[Stay tuned for Part 2. The Hematologist.]