Not so breech now are you, mister?

The little guy is back where he should be, no longer breech. I would love to tell you that he was so obedient and helpful that he turned completely on his own, but that would be a big fat lie. Instead it went a little something like this.....

Mr. Jaguar and I headed to the hospital around lunchtime at which point I realized I forgot to pick up the necessary paperwork from the OB yesterday because I now have a memory like swiss cheese. So I end up rushing, which I hate and which at one day shy of 39 weeks I pretty much suck at. In my doctor's office, I see the doc who is scheduled to do the version so I relax a little realizing that I can't be all that late. Get my paper, rush to the hospital and head into admissions. At this point, I get paired up with a woman I guess is new to the admissions process. That's my nice way of saying she's really slow. Then she decides that I need to sign all of my forms for when I deliver right now because it will make it so much easier later. Oooooookay....let's sign quickly, sister. I got somewhere I gotta be. Sign sign sign....up to labor and delivery.

I get changed into the gown, monitors get attached, one last ultrasound to be sure Ben is still breech, IV in, shot of turbutaline to relax my uterus and the doc starts rolling up his sleeves well past his elbows. Seriously, I thought the man was going to start stretching and jogging in place to warm up. This procedure looked to be some serious business.

A mountain of the ultrasound goo was poured on my abdomen and then it was go time. While I tried to focus on relaxing my abdomen, the doctor started smearing that goo all over the place (now I understood the very rolled sleeves). And then it started. Painful but manageable at first, maybe about the first 30 seconds. And then not manageable at all, for about the last 30 seconds. I couldn't speak through the last half which was probably good because I would've been begging him to stop and then he might have actually stopped which I'm now very glad he didn't. I made some I'm-in-pain noises that I can't even recall because I think I blocked out those 30 seconds as much as possible. And then the boy was flipped.

I laid there staring at the ceiling, trying to regroup while I listened to Ben's now slowed heartrate. I had read up ahead of time so I knew it was normal to slow and should come up on its own. I glanced over at the monitor but couldn't tell if it said 54 or 94. Mr. Jaguar told me later that it had dipped very briefly to the 50s and then quickly went up to the 90s before climbing back up to normal.

The boy is doing well. I am hanging in. I feel like....well, like a baby inside of me was turned 180 degrees from the outside. Not comfy but I could be much worse. I am now sporting a sexy, hot girdle in an effort to keep him in place. It spans from just below my bra to the top of my hips and I am instructed to wear it "as much as I can stand it" which to me means it only comes off to take a shower. I'm not going to lie, it's hot and itchy and uncomfortable but I can't deal with the potential guilt of taking it off and then having him flip and feeling like it's my fault. He may very well flip anyway but at least I'll know I did everything I can.

The whole procedure felt so weird. I couldn't see what was happening because I was lying flat but I could feel it all. I could feel my entire abdomen being moved while the rest of my torso stayed in one place. Mr. Jaguar witnessed the whole thing and when all the medical people left, he looked at me and said, "Whoa.that.was.crazy." And that about sums it up.