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Monday, April 30, 2012

The Fun of Spinning a Baby...


Oh, the joys!  I thought it a bit odd when my midwife mentioned getting our breech baby turned a month and a half ago.  Surely, it was too early to be thinking about that - we had PLENTY of time, right?  No.  I had completely forgotten that with my bicornuate uterus, space for little man would become an issue in later pregnancy (thus the risk of preterm labor).  As our guy is currently residing in one-half of my utero duplex, our midwife wanted us to have the baby turned by 31 weeks - that's next week.  Ack!  Between vacation and work schedules, we've just not devoted time to trying to spin the guy around.  We now find ourselves at the point of procrastination, my forte in both undergrad and grad school years, but maybe not so much in this case.

I've learned a couple of things over the past few weeks.  First, the incidence of breech babies appears to have a genetic link.  If this is the case, Sean and I may end up fruitless in our attempts to spin our little Stevens, as both my sister and myself were breech, as were my nieces.  The second thing I've learned is that our little guy's personality has shown itself in utero, and he appears to be every bit as stubborn as his father and myself.  From day one, little guy has not budged in attempts to get him to shift his position, be it in the doctor's office for measurements or at home when I'm trying to get him to kick or punch a 'hello' to his dad - he does what he wants when he wants to.  Ah, karma....

You may be asking yourself - how does one 'correct' what nature seems to be dictating on its own?  And, is it really possible to turn a breech baby?  Apparantly so.  Thankfully, my midwife directed us to a website for 'spinning instructions': SpinningBabies.com.  Thus far, we've tried using inversion to get our stubborn ignats to flip - no dice (and really uncomfortable, I might add).  Last night, we decided to try our midwife's first, joking suggestion - frozen peas and a flashlight.  We thought, what the heck, why not give it a go?  I splayed myself on the bed while Sean grabbed a bag of lima beans and refreshed the batteries in the mag light.  The idea here is to make the little guy's toes chilly down low whilst annoying him by shining the flashlight up high by his head.   Let the silliness and hilarity commence!  I could NOT stop laughing!  I developed a nervous giggle because I felt so bad messing with him this way, however, Sean kept reassuring me that we were doing this for HIS own good, not OUR own entertainment. Boy did we tick the little guy off.  I have never felt him kick with such gusto as he did then, the bag of beans jumping like crazy off of my lower belly.  The sensations I felt brought me almost to the point of nausea, as it felt as though he was rolling around in there - ugh.  After all of that, the kicks once again descended below my belly button, we were unsuccessful in our attempt.  I can almost see our little guy in there, shaking his little fist at us with a triumphant look on his face.  No worries little man, we've got plenty more bags of frozen veggies to try - we're not giving up yet!

Stay tuned for my next entry - Fun with a Rebozo!