The Final Stretch: 40-41 Weeks

The day before my due date (June 12th), I had my 40 week check up with my doctor. When checking me, he noticed something didn’t feel normal in the position of the baby. So he did an ultrasound and found that Baby Gruber’s head was no longer in the downward position, but was resting under the right side of my ribs. My doctor explained to me that the baby was breech, and the best course of action was to schedule a C-Section for the following Tuesday (my 41 week mark).

This news took me completely by surprise. I was not prepared to hear that news...I couldn’t help but to break down in the examination room. Of course I knew the important thing was delivering my baby in the safest way possible, that’s all that really matters, but I was extremely disappointed with the realization that I was probably not going to have a normal delivery like I had imagined. I had also heard of future consequences for delivering by Cesarean. I was devastated.

So essentially, I had a week to prepare myself and to do everything I could to get the baby to flip down. Jason was great through the whole thing. He was constantly researching more and more techniques that are supposed to help get the baby to flip. The disadvantage was that I only had a week. A lot of the “exercises” and “positions” that help with flipping babies work best between weeks 34-37, giving the baby the time he needs to make the flip. When I was checked at 38 weeks, all was normal and the baby’s head was down. So being 40 weeks and hearing this news was very surprising and did not give me the ideal time. I spent the week constantly thinking about the way I was sitting, the way I was walking, the way I was sleeping...anything to persuade him to flip. I did Inversions, Breech Tilts, Side Stretches, etc. I did crawling exercises. We used cold and hot pads, Beethoven music, and light, to try to get him to move. I spent an afternoon at the Larsen's pool trying to relax and loosen my body. I even went to the chiropractor three times that week to get “realigned” and receive the Webster treatment. At times it would feel like we were making progress, but before we knew it, he was back to his favorite position: laying sideways in my belly.

As we waited for our baby, we were able to participate in family activities that we originally thought we would be missing out on. Jason’s sisters were in town, so we got to hang out with the Tuttle and Spencer family. We even got to be a part of Alli and Karl’s birthday celebration. So fun! 

Jason, me, Amy, and Robby

Happy Birthday Alli and Karl

I was given a lot of love and support through the whole process. Lots of prayers from family and friends and blessings from Jason. It was an exhausting and emotional week. I wanted to have hope and faith he would flip and I would go into labor naturally before 41 weeks, but I also wanted to face the potential reality that a C-Section is what was meant for me and my baby. Even though a week is not ideal for moving babies, Jason and I both agreed that we were glad we didn’t know any longer...it would have been very tiring and stressful knowing and trying things for more than a week.

Tuesday morning finally came around, and Baby Gruber was still breech. But we felt good knowing we had done all we could do to get him to flip. We were ready for our baby to safely join us by C-Section.