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Failed External Version, Breech, Cesarean

By Melissa Kirchhofer

I was not a good pregnant woman. My problems started in about the fifth week. I started spotting. It turned out that my ovaries were not producing enough progesterone and I had to go on supplements for the first trimester. I was on bed rest for almost two weeks. Also, I had all day sickness. If I did not eat every two hours I would toss my cookies. This got a little better after the first trimester but never completely went away. During the second trimester my lower back and sciatica started getting bad and got progressively worse throughout the pregnancy.

Once we got to the third trimester I just could not wait to have this baby. My ankles were starting to swell and I had this pain in my ribs that would just not go away. Starting in the beginning of the eighth month I stopped feeling any movement from the baby and I worried constantly that something was wrong. The first time I called my OB about this he sent me to labor and delivery to be monitored. The baby was doing fine but was not moving because he was stuck in a Frank breech position (his head was in my ribs thus that pain was finely understood). They told me that he still had time to turn, but that it was not likely because of the position he was in with his toes up by his ears. From that point on every time I went in for a checkup they put me on the monitor and did numerous ultrasounds to make sure that he was doing OK.

At about 47 and a half weeks they decided to do another ultrasound to see if he was still breech. He was, and my OB wanted to try to do an external version, or try to turn the baby from the outside. On Tuesday, January 4, 2000 I went in to labor and delivery for the version. They tried to turn him for about 30 minutes. That was the most painful thing I have ever experienced and it didn't work. He was stuck in the breech position. The next day I had a bruise on my stomach the shape of my OB's thumb. My OB told me to just keep coming to my regular appointments and that if he was still breech when I went into labor they would do a Cesarean.

My next appointment was at 9:30 a.m. on January 6, 2000. I went in and got hooked up to the monitor as usual and everything seemed to be fine with the baby, but the nurse commented that my blood pressure was up a little. I wasn't too concerned because she didn't seem to be, but when my OB came in the room, he said that there was protein in my urine, my blood pressure was too high and that I was going to have a baby today. He told me that I could not leave the hospital to go home and get my bag, and that I should just walk over to labor and delivery and get hooked up to the monitiors. He said that they would keep an eye on me until he finished seeing patients for the day and then he would do a C-section that afternoon.

I called my husband and my parents and told them that we were having a baby today and to meet me at the hospital. At 5:45 p.m. on January 6, 2000 Nathaniel James was born weighing 6 pounds 15 ounces, and was 20.75 inches long. My little redhead arrived 11 days early and is the joy of our lives. My C-section was a breeze and the recovery was much less painful than I had expected. Nate has hip dysplasia from being breech, but he is wearing a harness and hopefully they caught it early enough that he will not have any long term problems.

Good luck to all those moms about to have babies. A child is the most wonderful thing in the world.

Enjoy.