36 weeks 6 day....a/k/a my 37 week visit....or Me: The Blubbering Mess...whichever you prefer

My visit was scheduled for 10:30 am on Jan 14, 2010. I woke up around 3:30 am having contractions which I was pretty used to by that point. Ethan woke up with fever shortly after so he was in my bed and I wasn't sleeping well, especially with the contractions. They were coming pretty regularly so I started to time them. Every 2-6 minutes.... Around 4:45 am I called the Labor room at the hospital and they said to take a warm bath, a Tylenol, and lay down which I'd already been doing (and what I'm normally doing between 3 and 5 am...)

Matthew started to get antsy around 5 so we called his parents to come because they were supposed to stay with the kids, but they are 250 miles away from here in New Edinburg, AR and it takes between 4-5 hours to drive down. Meanwhile, we ate breakfast and packed everything we may need at the hospital. Sometime after 8:00 am the contractions started slowing down. They were never really painful, just mildly uncomfortable and very regular.

His parents made it in time for us to drop the kids with them on the way to the doctor and get to my regular appointment. I was very much looking forward to finally getting to talk to the doctor about trying to turn this breech baby around....that never really happened. My BP was slightly elevated 141/82....which used to be normal for me. During this pregnancy, however, the norm had been more like 116/65 or so. She literally came in the room, said that my BP was up and I had protein in my urine and that I was going to the labor room to be monitored for 24 hours. She wanted a 24 hr urine sample and BP study. I was devastated. My pressure had been so great and so stable that I'd really thought I was going to miss the whole pre-eclampsia bus this time around.

My BP was fine on the monitor once I got to the room....until the doc walked in around 2 pm when it jumped to 151/100. After we talked and she left it returned to normal. However, during our talk we discussed what was going to happen. Her version: I lay there for 24 hrs and then she would decide based on my pressures and my urine specimen whether I had pre-eclampsia and required delivery or could be sent home. My version: I lay there for 24 hrs then she would decide that I did, in fact, have pre-eclampsia at which point I would be delivered. Delivery for me with my first 2 pregnancies had been very easy....and vaginal. Since Miss Sophie had decided she didn't like to be head down, delivery for me at that point would mean a C-section.

I asked, probably even begged my doc to try and turn her, but with elevated BP she would not do that nor would she have let me labor anyway. So, I swallowed my fear and my pride and I asked if we could just do the C-section and not make me lay there for a full 24 hrs and THEN do the C-section. She said yes, and around 4 pm I was being prepared for surgery.

**I must say this: the only 3 nights before this day that I had EVER spent in the hospital was the night before Abby was born, the night after Abby was born, and the ONE night I was there when Ethan was born...** Surgery scared me to death. I actually enjoyed delivering my first two children, and was actually looking forward to having an uncomplicated vaginal delivery with Sophie completely un-medicated. Once you've delivered two large babies vaginally you really don't contemplate surgery much at all...or at least, I didn't.

From the moment I asked Dr. Middleton if we could "just do it now and get it over with" until almost 5 hours later when my baby was finally brought into my room, I cried. I think I managed to stop crying when they actually started the surgery and managed to remain fairly calm through the procedure until Matthew carried Sophie out of the operating room and I realized that I was alone at which point the tears resumed. Then, the second hour that I was in recovery ALONE, I managed to stop crying until I got to my room (which was 3 hours after Sophie was born) only to call the nursery to find out that it would be another 2 hours until she would be brought to me. Poor Matthew.

I will post more tomorrow about the actual procedure and how insanely emotional I was.

36 weeks

I went yesterday for my first weekly visit and she did the Group B Strep swab, but didn't check me, which I was slightly bummed about. But, I did get to go for an ultrasound and everything looked great....although Sophie is breech. She still has time to turn, but she has been in this particular position for quite a while already and I'm afraid that she won't. What I thought was her butt (high on my right side under my ribs) was actually her head. She's laying somewhat transverse with her butt slightly lower and on the left and she is facing down. Which means that her feet are pretty much directly on my cervix which explains alot of the crippling pains when she kicks or stretches.

I'm not sure if it's in my head or not, but it seems as though suddenly this morning that she has dropped down out of my rib cage quite a bit. So, in light of her being breech I'm not nearly as ready to go into labor because I REALLY don't want to have a C-section when I've had 2 successful vaginal deliveries already. I am impatiently awaiting my 37 week visit next Thursday so I can talk to the doctor about my options if she doesn't flip on her own. Will she try and turn her? Will she allow me to try and labor with a breech baby? Or will she automatically set me up for a C-section? Very uneasy about that last one. I mean, I have 2 kids at home and have felt really good after I had both of them. I don't want to deal with surgery on top of everything else I have to do around here, besides, I just plain old don't want to be cut on!