Stubborn Babies

I had my 37.5 week check with Dr. Hirata yesterday and the outlook is not good, unfortunately. This pregnancy is progressing much like Cyrus in that my cervix is being totally unresponsive to the fact that we are almost done with this pregnancy. The major concern is that she is a big baby, much like her brother (who weighed in at 8.5 pounds), but anticipated to be bigger.

Cyrus's birth was tough. I was induced, seriously labored for 5 hours (contractions every 30 seconds for 20 - 25 seconds each…no rest, it was exhausting) with absolutely no dilation in my cervix past 1.5cm before I opted for the epidural. After the epidural, I was fully dilated in about 1.5 hours thankfully but Cyrus just couldn't engage. He couldn't get under my pelvic bones so aside from doing an emergency c-section, we opted for the vacuum. That was tough on him. He developed a cephalohematoma on the top of his head, torticollis in his neck, had to have spine manipulation and physical therapy after we figured out he was having issues. We were almost too late in that his head was FLAT (which I didn't realize was wrong) in such a way that the doc thought it was going to affect the formation of the rest of his features (eyes and ears). It was scary! They wanted to put him in a helmet for 17 months for 23 hours per day. We opted not to do that and I just did physical therapy on him each day and it definitely helped, although his head is still misshapen in the back. So, looking back on all that, I probably should have had the C-Section. My hold up then was that it didn't feel like the "right" way to bring a baby into the world. That it would be overly traumatic on him to be just yarded out of my belly without engaging in the natural progression through the vaginal canal. That being said, I think we can all agree, that his method of joining us on planet earth was not stress free for him, or for me.

So, back to Tag…she is not progressing, my cervix is not progressing, and she is just getting bigger and bigger. My doc, who is as close to a midwife as you can expect a medical professional to be, is the one who put the c-section on the table which is not like her at all. She doesn't want me to vaginally deliver a baby that is larger than 9 pounds (why do I have such large babies?!) and neither do it. So, here is what we have decided to do thus far (though this can change based on the next 2 visits). We are scheduling an induction on the 20th for a vaginal birth, but Hirata is planning on it being a 2 day labor (lord help me) at this point so I wouldn't expect to actually deliver until some point in the evening on the 21st. OR, based on the next few appts, we'll actually schedule the c-section (gulp) at which time I will go in on the 21st and have her removed.

I was really hoping my body would get on board with this pregnancy so that things would progress naturally. I am not one of those women who feels like childbirth needs to be a natural process, and I am aware enough of maternal mortality in the world to fully understand how fortunate we are to have these options to ensure a safe delivery, but it would have been nice to just have my water break and then head into the hospital after laboring at home for a bit. Oh well, it is what it is and we'll just keep moving forward in the safest way possible for me and this little nugget.