Not Ideal

I had my 37 week appointment for P2 yesterday and he is still growing right on track. His heart rate was 138 bpm. I had dilated a little more but am still not quite a one.

Right before the doctor left the room, I asked if we were just assuming P2 was head-down since I have been feeling most of the movement up by my ribs. She said she thought he was but we could do an ultrasound really fast to make sure. I was kind of excited because we haven't seen him since the 18-week ultrasound. She brought the machine in and scanned where his head should have been. She said "hmmm" which I was assuming meant the machine wasn't working right. Then she started moving up. It turns out that P2 is not head-down at all. He is transverse with his head on my left side and his feet in the middle and on my right side. At 37 weeks, this isn't what I wanted to hear, although I can't say I was really surprised. I have kind of been feeling like he wasn't head down, which is probably why I asked her for the ultrasound.

Since Paxton was big, we are assuming that this baby will be big too. She was not expecting him to turn on his own. She doesn't like to do the manual turning since it can cause a placental abruption. She referred me to a chiropractor who specializes in the Webster technique. Now I am usually one that is a little skeptical of the holistic approach, just when it comes to big medical things like delivering a baby, but she said that this chiropractor and this technique have really good results for flipping babies. So, I scheduled an appointment with the chiropractor for Monday, and another appointment with the baby doctor for Friday where she will do an ultrasound to see if it worked.

I have never been to a chiropractor before and am a little nervous about the whole experience. It is also not covered by insurance, so hopefully it works. In the meantime, I have been googling ways to get the baby to flip and even positioned myself upside-down on an ironing board propped up on the chair for 20 minutes last night (but only after Paxton went to bed because when I tried to do it while he was still awake, the poor kid burst into tears and would not stop crying until I was safely upright).

I'm putting my faith in my doctor and in the chiropractor she recommended. I definitely wish there was a medical procedure we could do that could flip the baby, I don't like that this is pretty much my last hope to avoid a C-section. I know that the most important thing is for P2 to come out and be healthy, so we will do what we need to do to make that happen.


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