I’ve been obsessed with the idea that maybe the baby is breech since 26 weeks. At that point, I went into the hospital’s labor and delivery on a Saturday because I had a little bleeding for no good reason and my doctor wanted me to get checked out. Everything looked good, except the resident casually mentioned that my baby was in a breech position at the moment. “Nothing to worry about. It will turn before delivery.”
Telling me there is “nothing to worry about” is the surest way to make me anxious.
I’ve googled, “how to tell if your baby is still breech,” and “how to turn a breech baby,” and “why do babies stay breech,” and “odds of your third baby being breech,” and “what causes a breech baby” at least twelve billion times since January. I have laid awake at night trying to decipher between kicks and punches. Was that a hand on my rib or a foot in my pelvis? I never have any real idea. I have poked and palpated my belly over and over…is that a butt or a head? …and asked Don incessantly to do the same. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “It will be what it will be.”
While I understand these words, I’ve never abided by them. I will attempt to research and manipulate and influence whatever is within my reach in an effort to control what I can. I read everything there was to read on the “Spinning Babies” website recommended by my insurance company’s nurse educator. I’ve done a lot of weird, slow prenatal yoga. I’ve spent a fair amount of times in an inversion pose with my feet on the bed and my elbows on the floor. All in an effort to make sure I did everything *I* could to ensure the baby turned.
I finally had my 37 week growth and positioning scan. I didn’t sleep a wink the night before. I was so afraid the baby would be backwards or there wouldn’t be enough fluid or that it would be too big or too small or they would find something scary they never noticed before. Thanks be to god everything was fine, and I was so relieved I cried in the car. It hit me on the way home that I was so nervous that I didn’t even relish the moment of my last-ever ultrasound for my last-ever baby. I didn’t ask for a picture.
I came home and took the MOST peaceful ninety minute nap, and I slept through the night for the first time in ages (save the three quick trips to pee).
But today I’ll be back to obsessing about something else…like doing my best to ensure my house remains covid-free through delivery.
There’s always something loosely within my control that I can fixate on, and there always will be.