I had a feeling...

Here is a picture of our beautiful boy's beautiful head. Unfortunately, as beautiful as it is, we found out today that it is ill placed. That is - it's in the top of my uterus, because he's breech.

Today, at 36 1/2 weeks, we had the first of our now weekly appointments. The main item on the agenda was a quick head shot via ultrasound just to make sure he was head down - the appropriate position to continue on the road to a natural labor and delivery. What we found was a precious little breech baby. Our little guy is upside down.

Not to worry - he's upside down, but he's healthy and happy there. He's still perfectly safe and in no distress. But now we have to change our plans a bit. It is now standard practice not to allow breech babies to be delivered vaginally - so if he remains in the breech position, it means a c-section for us.

But before we decide that there are some techniques we're going to attempt to get him to flip. First, between now and next Monday I, with Eric's assistance, will be trying some at home techniques found on www.spinningbabies.com (at our midwife's suggestion), namely inversion and the breech tilt. These are body positions I can try that have proven helpful in getting breech babies to turn.

If that doesn't work, next Monday we're scheduled for a version. This is a procedure where they will attempt to manually turn the baby from outside the uterus. Basically they give me medicine to relax my uterus and then wrestle him, via my belly, to try to turn him. They'll give that a try, and it'll either work or it won't - in other words, they won't keep trying for hours if it doesn't seem to be working. And they'll be monitoring the baby and watching him on ultrasound the whole time. So, it should be perfectly safe.

If one of those things works, we sit tight and wait for labor to begin on its own. If not, we schedule a c-section. The idea of having a scheduled c-section does make me sad. I'm really looking forward to attempting natural labor and delivery (says the 1st time mom). I also greive the fact that in a c-section, I won't be able to hold him and begin bonding right away. But, we'll have a healthy baby, and that is what matters.

So, we'll keep you posted on any baby flips. Think flippy thoughts!