The Birth of Baby #2

Clearly I haven't HAD the baby yet. But, all of a sudden, it's become painfully real that he will be here in a week. Sweet baby is breech. Like, head up under my ribs, spine down by pelvis breech. And, that means that he's never turned head down. I know this based on sonograms and that I distinctly remember BOTH times Gage turned head down.

Yep, we've had this little problem before. Gage turned head down in the late 20 something weeks, then he decided it would be fun to flip back at about 37 weeks. My OB at the time offered to schedule a c-section at 38 weeks, but I had so much time before my due date, I wanted to wait it out. I went back at 38 weeks and Gage was still breech, so she referred me to a doctor who did inversions (manually and externally moving the baby - don't look for that on YouTube) for that afternoon. Gage turned at lunch time, while I was sitting in a lawn chair, having Thanksgiving lunch at Curtis's work. I went to the appointment and they confirmed he was head down. Moving along, we had Gage 3 days after my due date via induction and labor with an epidural.

This time around, he hasn't turned. Next Friday, may 4th is my due date. Most of you may not know that I've done a lot of educating myself and research and had decided that this time around, I wanted to have everything NATURAL. I even looked into a birth center birth, but didn't find one I liked that my insurance would cover. That's fine. I'm not trying to have a baby at home or anything so I skipped the midwife/doula option and found a doctor and made my desires clear. My OB is 100% supportive of letting everything happen naturally. Except for in the case of this breech baby. There are a lot of people who might get vocal about how midwives and birth centers and even home births (especially in other civilized countries) will deliver a breech baby. Maybe if he was feet first. MAYBE. But, his butt is where his head should be, and there's no way this boy is coming out folded in half like a taco, ass first.So, she scheduled the C-section for the day he was due, and I sort of resigned myself to it.

EDITED to add the Birth Story!

I actually ended up sobbing in our bed at 11:30pm the day before we were suppose to arrive at the hospital at 5am and basically panicking. I decided to participate in some last minute denial and just planned that maybe, perhaps, the baby would turn sometime before they cut into my abdomen the next day.

What happens next is an absolute miracle as far as I am concerned. We go to the hospital, get checked in, they're prepping me for surgery. But, just like my Doctor promised, she did one last sonogram just to humor me before they were going to roll me into surgery. Much to my delight, my sweet baby TURNED and was head down and ready to start the labor process.

My OB told me we should go ahead and induce and take advantage of him being head down. I was game. I knew the pitocin drip may not be ideal for my all natural birth plan, but hey THIS KID WAS HEAD DOWN AND IN PLACE. We started the pitocin at 8am. I labored til a little after 12 without any meds or an epidural.But, I was starving (they didn't let me eat after midnight or after they induced with the pitocin) and didn't enjoy laboring without any energy. So, I got an epidural and labored another few hours. Cade Corbin Avary was born at 6:18pm and weighed 7lbs 11oz.

All in all, Cade arrived perfectly and even though things didn't go exactly as I had planned, he was healthy and perfect and we'll keep him.