Throughout my entire pregnancy, I’d been preparing myself mentally for childbirth. It was a challenge I was ready to face. I was equal parts excited and apprehensive about the prospect of contractions, the marathon that is labor, and pushing my baby girl through my birth canal. I’d spent so much time thinking about it, wondering how it would all go for me. Would my water break in the middle of the night, like it had for my mom? Would I have a fast labor or be stuck in the throes of contractions for a full day? Would I tear?
But as they say, often the best-laid plans go awry. My daughter took matters into her own tiny hands, writing her own birth plan and taking us along for one whirlwind of a journey. From daydreaming about a vaginal birth to scheduling a C-section, only to end up leaving the hospital on the day of my surgery with my baby still in my belly so we could wait for her to make her grand entrance on her own time, she kept us guessing until the end.
My daughter took matters into her own tiny hands, writing her own birth plan and taking us along for one whirlwind of a journey.
I was 34 weeks along when I got the first indication that I might not get my chance at the vaginal birth I’d imagined—or any vaginal birth, for that matter. After my fundal height check, my doctor did a quick ultrasound and discovered that my baby’s head was still at the top of my uterus; she hadn’t made the transition into a heads-down position yet. My doctor assured me that while most babies flip on their own by 34 weeks, it was by no means uncommon for her to still be breech. We still had time to see if she’d make the transition on her own time and had options if she decided not to make the flip. We’d do another ultrasound in two weeks and assess from there.
I tried what I could at home to encourage her to make the move. I crawled into an awkward position nightly for two weeks straight. Kneeling on the edge of my couch, I’d carefully lower my forearms onto the ground in front of me, sticking my butt up into the air in the most inelegant inversion I’d ever done, and then breathe there for a minute or two.
But by 36 weeks, she still hadn’t turned. The only other option at this point would have been attempting what’s called an external cephalic versioning, a procedure done at the hospital where doctors put an extreme amount of pressure on your uterus from the outside to encourage the baby to turn. However when I looked into it, it sounded extremely painful and had a very low success rate for first-time moms, and I learned that occasionally the force of manipulating the baby could force an emergency C-section when the baby was only 37 weeks.
Talking it over with my doctor and husband, I decided to forgo further intervention and instead scheduled a C-section. I felt a complex mix of emotions knowing I was now planning a belly birth. I was happy to have made a decision, confident I’d done what was best for my baby and me. At the same time though, I was sad to let go of my dreams at a vaginal delivery. I’d been looking forward to the experience of working with my body to bring my daughter into the world. But my baby girl had other plans. She wasn’t budging an inch, and getting her out safely was my highest priority—a scheduled C-section was clearly our best option.
The idea that I was less than an hour away from holding my baby in my arms was almost too much anticipation to bear.
I woke up at 5 a.m. that morning to fit in one last meal before my pre-surgery fast began. I took a shower, watered our plants, and managed to squeeze in another quick nap to get as much energy as I could before we’d meet our little girl.
We arrived at the hospital quite easily, having done the practice runs a handful of times to make sure we were prepared in case I went into labor early. At the front desk, they checked my ID, slapped a blue plastic hospital bracelet on my wrist, and then gave me directions to get myself to the birthing ward.
When I arrived at the pre-op room, I changed, answered some questions and had a nurse set up my IV, drawing a few blood samples before she taped the tubing to my arm. She was pleased she’d managed to set it in my mid-forearm instead of my hand, telling me that I’d appreciate that when it came time to snuggle my baby since I wouldn’t want tubes and wires getting in my way. We used the doppler to listen for her heartbeat. “Healthy heartbeat, happy baby,” my nurse said, estimating it to be about 140 bpm. The idea that I was less than an hour away from holding my baby in my arms was almost too much anticipation to bear.
My husband and I finally got the first little bit of time to ourselves since I’d arrived, and I asked him to snap a picture of me on the bed in my hospital gown and mask so I’d have a memory of this moment. It was almost time. I was about to become a mom.
My OB arrived on the scene, we met with the hospital attending on call, and one of the nurses wheeled over the ultrasound machine—the last step before I hit the OR. The attending squirted the cold goo onto my stomach, then started the wand near the top of my uterus.
I could see a palpable strong look of confusion wash over her face. She didn’t really say much for a while. She just kept moving it around, looking at all areas of my uterus with her brow furrowed. When she got down deep into my pelvis, right near my pubic bone, I could see it on the screen for myself before she said anything, but I’ll never forget it. She said, “That’s a head, babe. Clear as day. Baby girl flipped.”
We were all in total shock. My OB had to be called back into the room, and she and the attending and all of the nurses were laughing and shouting and jumping around. This kind of thing almost never happens, they told me, especially for first-time moms. Our attending said this was the first time she’d ever been called in for a breech C-section, only to find the baby had flipped this late in the game. My own OB, after our multiple ultrasounds together over the last few weeks, had been so confident we’d be going forward with the C-section when she’d arrived that she’d already started filling out my baby girl’s certificate of live birth.
They asked us what we wanted to do now and I realized we had a huge decision to make, one that my husband and I hadn’t really discussed beforehand because the possibility seemed so low. And as much as I really wanted to meet her that day, as nice as it would have been to have her born a little early at 39.5 weeks instead of dealing with my swollen belly for another week or two, I decided I wanted my chance at a vaginal birth. So with that, I waddled over to my locker to retrieve my clothes and get dressed again. We thanked our various doctors and nurses and off we went, back down the hallways and out toward our car—our car full of all of the items we thought we’d need for our two-to-three-day stay—and we headed home.
This kind of thing almost never happens, they told me, especially for first-time moms.
Once I’d had time to finally process the whirlwind of a morning we’d had, I was surprised to find out I was at peace with it all and excited about the prospect of getting the experience of labor—which in hindsight felt naive when a few days later I was hit with a 40-hour labor, including five hours of pushing and both an episiotomy and a third-degree tear after having to undergo a forceps delivery. It wasn’t an easy journey to get my daughter out of my body, but I was so grateful to have gotten the chance to move forward with my vaginal delivery all the same.
Our daughter certainly put us through our paces and kept us on our toes from the jump. She wasn’t willing to play by anyone else’s rules, that much was certain. No one had thought that, at 39.5 weeks, she would decide it was finally time to flip. I was so proud of her. I loved that even when she was still a fetus in my belly, she had already begun teaching us so many lessons—how to be patient, how to roll with the punches, and how to give her the grace and freedom to make her own decisions. And we wouldn’t have it any other way.