Hello friends! It's in the wee hours of the morning & I'm sitting here pondering. I'm thinking about how little I've talked about LIFE on here lately. Or rather, how little I've talked at all. Life is all about fluctuation. I guess I've just been out of the flux of things lately.
(Forewarning: This is long. And a bit emotional. And maybe even a tad bit graphic, but most importantly, my soul bearing out on-line, venting and coping.)
LOADS of things have changed in the last few months. Robin got a new job! (THANK YOU GOD!!!), Autumn is potty trained (Again, thank you GOD!) lol. And I'm almost to my due date! Ha, did you forget I was pregnant? I'm due October 27th!!! A Halloween baby is what I'm hoping for!
I'm 32 weeks now and showing reallllllly good. It's kind of sad that I hate taking pictures of myself while pregnant. I've only got a few pictures of me while I was pregnant with Autumn & so far I've only taken one picture this pregnancy. My face is all sorts of puffy & my nose gets really big from pregnancy hormones.. it just looks all messed up! BUT, I am pregnant. I can promise I have a little mr. pumpkin growing inside me & moving around.
This pregnancy has been a little different than my first. Not too much, but a little bit. Being pregnant a second time isn't such a big deal. Just getting past all the morning sickness is the hardest part! Now, I'm just blissfully breezing through my weeks of being pregnant wondering exactly where did the time go?
It seems like just a few days ago I took the pregnancy test, because I KNEW just KNEW I was pregnant! And I was. I ran outside to Robin & jumped up & down, so excited. Then a few hours later I cried. And a few days later I thought to myself "What in the world were we thinking!" If you've been preggers, you know what I'm talking about. The excitement of knowing you are having a baby verus the psycological mind field as you begin to think of how you are going to afford & raise another youngin. It's tough stuff facing that reality.
But here I am. 32 weeks pregnant, seeing a doctor half way across the state so I can have a VBAC (natural birth after a c-section). Praying and believing God that I can and will birth this little boy myself & not have to have another doctor EVER cut me open again. And I'm struggling with it all. I know I CAN do it. I know I WANT to do it, but I'm worried that I'm just dysfunctional.
I had a c-section with Autumn because she was a breech baby. She never turned head down to be born. She sat in utero like a tiny little baby Indian & refused to leaver her comfy little nest. I didn't know anything about how babies were supposed to be born. My doctor wouldn't "turn" the baby because it was an old practice that no-one did anymore & it wasn't safe. (What a load of CRAP!) And they never suggested anything to help turn the baby either. So, at 39 weeks Autumn came into the world through an incision. I was out of it and I didn't get to hold her till later after the surgery. All things considered it was an okay experience. But just becuase something is okay, doesn't mean you ever want to do it again or that you enjoyed the process. Or that the process was meaningful to you. Honestly, I think birth is supposed to be meaningful to you. It's not supposed to be something you feel detached from.
This past week at my doctors appointment my doctor told me that this baby had also turned breech. Just 3 weeks earlier he was head down (and EVERY ultrasound before then he was head down.) I was so disappointed and upset with myself. Thankfully, because I chose a doctor who was KNOWN for being a huge VBAC supporter & practicing evidence based medicine, he turned the baby right then! An ultrasound confirmed that the baby was perfect & head down! YAY!!! Then I get home. My mind is playing tricks on me. Every little movement & kick is analyzed and I'm trying to figure out where he is. I layed down to take a nap and sure enough, my little pumpkin just flopped RIGHT back to a head up position. It was like he was doing sommersaults in there! Quite uncomfortable & very, very disheartening.
Now, it's two weeks before I have another doctor's appointment and I am so worried that this baby just won't stay down & that I'll have to have another c-section. I'm trying so hard to avoid another one. And maybe there is just something wrong that I can't gestate a baby in the right position. I've been reading and studying baby positioning, trying to understand what I need to do so that he has room to go south. Everyone keeps saying "Oh, it's so early, that baby has plenty of time to turn." And all I hear is, "Autumn never turned and this one never will either." It's a serious concern that I'm having. One that effects a lot of things. It's so easy to shrug it off, but to me it's like the pottery on the shelf is slowly cracking. Bits and bit falling off. Am I broken? Is there just something wrong with me that I can't birth my own baby?
I know those are just crazy thoughts and are things I shouldn't think about. Let's be honest though, when something doesn't work right with our bodies we blame ourself. I know I have NO control over what my uterus does. I have no control over what position the baby decides to fall into. The only thing I have control over is my thoughts and actions. And I'm trying so hard to keep my thoughts tied up tight & to stay positive. Doubt lingers like a cruel friend though.
To battle all that doubt I'm trying everything to turn this baby. I'm seeing a Chiropractor who practices the webster technique (a spine adjustment known to help relax the muscels around the uterus to give the baby more space to move head down.). I've got a birth ball to sit on to help let gravity take effect. I'm doing pelvic tilts & squatting around everywhere. And I'm praying. Praying God will grant me this desire. Praying that he will turn & stay down. And that he'll be there when I go into labor & make me strong.
Please pray with me.. send baby turn head down thoughts my way. And know that in a couple of weeks I will have a tiny newborn little boy and I would much rather birth him myself than have to have him surgically removed. Because it means a lot to me. It will mean a lot to this baby too.
