A decision and activist was made

Yesterday I had my appointment with my old OB/GYN because our sweet little one is still breech. I've known her for many years at this point and I like her and trust her. I struggled to decide, when I found out that I was pregnant, if I wanted to stay with her or go with the midwives and at that point I selected the midwives because I thought I would be able to have a normal natural child birth experience. After finding out that the baby is breech and everyone and their sister seems to think that since he's a footling breech, it's highly unlikely he'll turn and a much more "dangerous" type of breech. I was again facing that same decison, do I stay with the midwives and take a chance on having a resident I don't know do the delivery or do I go back to the Dr. I know. Unfortunately, the midwives did not support my plan of staying with them up until week 37, when the chances of turning significantly decreases and changing to my Dr. So as I sat in a sort of stand off of decisions, the midwife refused to do my visit and told me to go home and think about it and make a decision.... That's actually what she said to me and it actually really pissed me off that I drove an hour and a half to get there and then she didn't even let me hear his hearbeat. After crying for like an hour because all my visualization, all my hard "work" to prepare for a natural birth and my plan went down the drain... I didn't know what I wanted to do but I decided I had to meet with my Dr. to help me decide.

I have to say I was more than impressed with the amount of time the Dr. spent with me. WAY more than the midwives had been and she answered every single one of my questions about c-sections, u/s, footling breech, ECV and if the hospital would support a natural birth. I then gave her my birthing plan and she was in agreement with almost all of it, she did say I had to have a saline lock, but that's actually what one of the midwives had said, that I argued with. She asked me why I didn't want cytotech and then said, "Okay, I don't usually use it anyway but I wanted to know why".  She agreed that if the baby turned I could birth naturally and that she would not interfere at all allowing me to use the shower or whatever means I preferred. She even asked about Hypnobabies. Beyond that, she agreed that she didn't believe he would turn and after palpating she told me my uterus is big, and he has plenty of room, which could be the reason he hasn't turned. I'm pretending that's a little bit of hope for me that'll he's going to turn late... but I also feel like it's ridiculous, most people have c-sections because their pelvis is too small and I'm going to end up with one because my uterus is too roomy. lol Anyway, she said she would like to schedule a c-section for 39 weeks and if he turns we'd just cancel it, with ultrasounds at 36.5 or 37 weeks and one right before the scheduled c-section to confirm the necessity of a c-section. I wasn't 100% on board with scheduling for week 39 but her reasoning was that I live an hour and a half away from the hospital and if my water were to break, umbilical prolapse or a foot coming out could occur and result in serious injury to one or both of us or even death. Soooo.... I couldn't think of a good argument at the time but I've decided I'm going to see if she's agreeable to a 40 weeks scheduled date if I agree to stay at my parents house. It takes literally 5 minutes to get to the hospital from my parents house. That way he makes it to at least 40 weeks... I still believe the longer he's in there the better! She even agreed to allow for the umbilical cord to pulse for a bit before cutting it even during c-section if I wasn't having bleeding issues. :D

The only thing I think may be a bit of an issue for us is that I do not want my arms even loosely restrained... and I'd like to somehow work out skin to skin immediately after birth. Check out these videos below I don't get why the US is such a cluster f*ck of worry... well I actually do get it, it's all about speed and malpractice but I don't get why we as consumers don't demand more. Anyway, watch the first part of the top video and all of the second! It's awesome and inspiring! I have to tell you, I'd love to hop on a plane to guarantee me this type of delivery but since I can't I can say I am going to bring this up to the Dr. and will probably send it to the hospital administrators as well. This needs to be standard practice.

So there you have it... I'm still trying to get this baby to flip... but I'm also coming to terms with the fact I very well may need to have a c-section. I've begun preparing for this change by of coarse researching, and I've ordered the hypnobabies c-section cd's to help me with the anxiety and loss of my original plan. I've given up on my perfect midwife expereince at Vandy and have returned to my Dr. that I trust. This decision may impact some of my "natural birthing freedoms" as well as my chance to demand a more "family friendly" c-section .  However, I feel like this was the right decision for me and our baby. The major bonuses are my parents do live so close, I don't have to worry about Courage being taken care of, or them driving having to drive to Nashville, I will have at least one person in the operating room at all time that I know (my dr.) and it's a new hospital.