Just got back after 6 hours at TMC, and it was scary. the External Cephalic Version was not as bad as I was expecting (I planned on it being VERY painful!) and I can now relax for the moment! Thought there was a few moments where they were thinking of not doing it!
The ultrasound this morning around 8:30 am showed Nikolai moving between 3 different breeched positions; complete breech, frank breech, and footling breech. Complete is your typical breech. Frank breech is when the baby's feet are by it's head (like in the 3D ultrasound pictures. Footling breech is where one foot is dangling into the cervix area. The tech thought maybe with his movement the doctor might do it, but because I am at 37.5 weeks they may not. Apparently they don't do it much after 36 weeks!
They did predict Nikolai's weight to be around 7 pounds 3 ounces! A big boy! That is give or take 1 lb 1 oz... And a big head! But it fit into the cervix just fine once he finally gave in to the doctor and moved! The weight was a deciding factor too, usually there is not much room to try and turn a baby with that weight. But the Amniotic Fluid Index was at 18. Apparently that is a high number but a good number (ranged 5-22) and signifies that he should have room to move into place!
So after much deliberation between the nurse and the doctor (apparently my consumption of a breakfast was not a good thing in case of emergency cesarean) they decided to go ahead and do the version. They gave me a shot to weaken the uterine muscle and had to allow that time to work into my system. That, of course, was after about 45 minutes of fetal monitoring to develop a baseline of his heart rate. The shot was a little weird and I could feel it's effects only slightly. I felt so bad. I had no idea when I decided to do the procedure that they gave me a shot! I could only imagine it's effects on Nikolai (and no wonder they need to monitor the heart rate afterward!).
The Doctor started to do her thing, pushing hard and pulling the baby through my stomach. Really, it was not that painful, and I have to say hurray for the child birthing classes! If the mom does not relax, it wont help the procedure any! So I relax, using my breathing and relaxation techniques from the class. The doctor and nurse were impressed. Yay! Nikolai fought in the beginning though. He did not want to move. But after we got his head half way around, he just gave in and moved! Yay!!! It got a cheer from the doctor and the nurse! But of course, hopefully he will stay that way. So the cheer was followed by a 'stay!' from each one of us!
In all honesty, I cannot tell a difference between him being head down and breeched. It feels very much the same to me and that scares me. I hope that he does not go back to the breeched position. I think I am most terrified of having a cesarean (I really do NOT want one), and him being breeched makes that likelihood much higher. And monitoring him was so difficult! He kept moving away from the little thing they attach to you, and made it difficult to get his heart rate. Finally at a quarter after 1 we found a good spot and it stayed that way until 2 pm. Only then was I able to go home!
Lets just keep our fingers crossed that he stays that way!
Wow - that sounds like a scary experience, but you handled it great! That's awesome! I'm so glad your classes helped. Thanks for keeping us posted - I've been thinking about you constantly. I hope Nikolai stays in a good position. I can't believe his birthday is almost here!
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