38 Weeks (ECV)

I turned 38 weeks on March 7th and went in for my 38 week Dr. Appt at 38 1/2 weeks on Tues. March 11th.  I was hoping that all my crazy exercises to turn my sweet baby had worked and that he/she would no long be breech but that didn't happen.  The nurse practitioner did an ultrasound in office and found that the head was still facing up. She called my Doctor who was at the hospital that day and he decided to have me come into the hospital to do an EVC  (External Cephalic Version) as soon as possible.  I quickly raced home and packed some bags for myself and the kids and found a babysitter to take Ty and then meet the other kids at the bus stop after school got out.  I called Craig to see if he could meet me at the Hospital.  I didn't want to go through this alone.  I felt horrible though because it was probably one of the worst days possible for him to miss.  He had several meetings in which he was the lead.  I got to the hospital around 2:30 to get an IV started just in case there was complications and Craig met me there at 4pm just as the Doctor was walking in.  Perfect timing.  I had heard horror stories about having an EVC done.  I really shouldn't google things anymore.  It just freaks me out.  Mostly women had said to get an epidural first because it is extremely painful.  That wasn't going to happen because I was hoping for this baby to turn and then for me to be able to go home.  There is a good chance the EVC can put you into labor though so we needed to ready.  They used ultrasound to detect where baby was and my Doctor manually was able to push baby around and down.  It took about 5 minutes and there was a lot of pressure but it wasn't painful at all.  The longest part was staying afterwords to be monitored to make sure the baby was still okay.  After that we picked up a pizza and our children on the way home and called it a night.

A few nights later I woke up in the middle of the night with this horrible feeling that something was wrong.  I couldn't feel my sweet baby moving.  I waited and waited but there was nothing.  I felt this sick, anxious feeling that I couldn't shake.  I drank some orange juice hoping that would wake baby up and I said a prayer.  I got a few movements after that but not enough to be considered normal active movement.  I did fetal kick count movements for the next hour and I woke up Craig to pray with me.  We decided to go into my Dr. office as soon as they opened.  I felt complete relief when they put the monitor on my tummy and I heard my babies heartbeat.  Everything was okay.  My Dr. was still worried though.  Sometimes after doing an ECV the cord can become entangled around the babies neck.  He was very concerned that I wasn't feeling movement and that I had a bad feeling.  Mom's instincts are usually best.  He strongly encouraged me to induce the baby that Friday as soon as I turned 39 weeks.  This was something I really didn't want to do.  I had gone my entire pregnancy determined to not induce this time around and just let baby come when the baby was ready to come. However, sometimes things don't go your way and in the end we decided to go ahead and schedule an induction for Friday March 14, 2014 per my Doctors strongly suggested recommendation.