36 Weeks
Apparently this baby was listening when I mentioned that I was feeling pretty good this pregnancy, and again when I jokingly called this baby my favorite and easiest child. I should have learned from E & G by now, because they love to prove me wrong, and apparently baby does too.
At my last appointment I mentioned two things to the midwife which made her pause and make a face - I was feeling extremely nauseous again, and baby’s movements had changed. I think she actually said “uh oh” before seeing if her hunch was right.
Baby, who has been in a cephalic position for months, decided to flip breech at 35 weeks!
I mean, annoying.
Also super uncomfortable. Having a head pushing up against my ribs and stomach is the worst thing. It’s painful, it’s making me nauseous, it’s keeping me up at night. I’m barely making it through the day with how painful and uncomfortable it is.
Also, you can’t really deliver a breech baby easily. It’s a little unsettling to no longer have a plan - to not be sure what’s happening next. Maybe baby will flip back, maybe they won’t… either way that will dictate how baby comes and when.
So for a week, I dedicated myself to doing all kinds of crazy things. Yoga positions, lying at an incline with my feet in the air, hanging upside down, tying ice packs under my ribs and shining flashlights at the bottom of my belly.
And then one day, baby moved. I could instantly tell they weren’t in the same position because the relief was that immediate. I still wasn’t sure if they were where they were supposed to be, but baby had at least moved. I was actually laying at an incline when I felt the movement, so apparently all those tricks have some truth to them.
At my appointment this week it was confirmed, baby’s back in cephalic! Woo hoo, go baby go! I swear it was just a lesson to show that they can cause problems if they want to, so lesson learned. No assumptions, no making plans.
I was actually talking to my doula recently and going over my birth plan - to which I answered I didn’t really have one. I’m planning to be flexible, react to whatever gets thrown my way, and my one and only goal is not to pass out from blood loss this time - but we all know that’s a nice to have and not guaranteed at all. Throw Covid on top of everything, and who knows what this birth will look like.
I don’t think it’s a secret that life has been hard for us lately. Really hard.
It’s not that we didn’t expect life with 3 small children to be difficult, but I think in my mind it was going to get easier when the youngest hit 18 months (which granted she’s not quite yet), and in early January we realized it felt like NOTHING was even getting close to better. In fact the past 6 months have felt the hardest we’ve ever had as parents, which is saying a lot.
I think we did okay the first year of having 3, but then everything started to change and it all chipped away at our equilibrium bit by bit. Work called us both back into the office, which directly took away time from our day to do things like laundry, or clean, or cook meals. And then sleep got worse. Our wonderful sleepers suddenly weren’t sleeping like they used to. Sickness hit over and over again, too. We went from having children in one school to two. The baby started walking and got older and her siblings saw her solely as a person who messes up their toys. Winter hit and we couldn’t go outside as much.