The Curious Case of Benjamin Breech

Well, the little stinker pulled off his own feat in the past few days.....not to be outdone by his large, slow mother climbing in a window at 38 weeks pregnant, he has decided to turn himself to breech. At my last 3 appointments he has been head down and the ones before that he has been oblique (diagonal) but still with his head downward. At my 37 and 38 week appointment, he had dropped some but was not fully engaged.

So now he is undropped.....lifted??!! And his skull is pushing up into my ribs which I am not so impressed with.

The good thing in all of this is we know he's breech. I got sent to Labor & Delivery yesterday for some funky spotting and bleeding. All was fine...except that he was now breech. When the resident doing the ultrasound told me, I didn't believe her. I couldn't see the screen because of a glare and just figured she must be a major newb or something. In my head, I scoffed at her, thinking, "You silly goose, that's a skull, not feet."

Apparently, she was not a newb and that skull really was a skull. The doctor said it was very good that I ended up at the hospital that day otherwise I could have gone into labor not knowing he was breech and had I gotten to the hospital late in the game and God forbid......etc etc etc. So where does that leave us? On Thursday afternoon, Mr. Jaguar and I head to the hospital to try an external cephalic version to see if we can get this little guy flipped around in the right direction. The odds look to be about 65% in our favor and then hopefully, if we can get him there, he'll stay there. If we can't, it's a guaranteed C-section. I'm trying to make peace with the C-section. Before this, I always knew it was a possibility and thought I was okay with it, but it turns out that it makes me pretty sad. I want to hold him right when he's born (this is the one that really gets me). I want his uncle to be there for the birth (only at my head). I want to be able to nurse right away. And while I know I can't guarantee those things if I try for a vaginal delivery, I'd at least like a shot at having them happen.

On another note, I'm terrified of the external version because I'm so scared it will hurt. I know...I'm a big wuss. What am I going to do when it's actually time to have this baby? I'll be the one curled up in the corner of the bed, rocking myself and sucking my thumb because I'm a giant wuss.