turn baby turn

So about a month ago we learned our little baby girl was breech.  As most of you probably know, a breech baby nowadays results in an automatic c-section.  Wanting to avoid this fate at all costs, I quickly researched all the ways we could help encourage her to flip head down.

I pulled out all the stops.

Sitting on a ball at the office:

Seeing a chiropractor.

Practicing inversions:

Laying on an ironing board with my head down

Doing handstands in a pool.

Putting ice on the top of my belly.
(Apparently baby heads don't love cold.)

Acupuncture.

Asking her to flip.

And perhaps weirdest of all: moxibustion - a traditional Chinese medicine therapy where you burn a stick of charcoal (known as moxa) by your little pinky toe for 15-20 minutes a night for 10 days.

I know, I know.

Ridiculous.

But I was desperate!

After all of my "voo-doo" as Stefan so fondly called it, we tried medical intervention: an External Version where a doctor uses his hands to try and manually turn the baby from the outside.  Unbeknownst to me, this technique has been used for quite some time and has about a 50/50 success rate.  

Unfortunately, baby girl would have none of it.  With her butt tucked down on one side and her legs outstretched and pressed up against the other, anytime they tried to move her, she simply pressed her feet forcefully into the side of my stomach to maintain her position.

I think the real issue is that she has inherited by hideously huge feet (as displayed so beautifully in the above pictures) and their size would not allow her to make the moves necessary to get head down.  That or she's got my stubbornness (determination?) to have things her way.

While I was at first fairly devastated by my c-section fate, I've decided to fully embrace it and get even more excited about what will no doubt be a spectacular day.  While she could by some miracle flip herself around, the chances are unlikely given her dwindling space in there and her propensity to stay put.  In some ways the outcome is perhaps better suited to my plan-aholic personality.  More details to come.

xoxo

KK