Moore Baby News!

I'm slow in posting this because it was actually very hard news to hear. I've been avoiding phone calls/emails/texts/facebook for a while because I've had a lot of thinking, researching and soul-searching to do, but here we go...

I had another ultrasound last Friday to figure out what in the world was going on with this kid (other than nothing...) and as it turns out, all is well. He's healthy, a good sized baby, if on the bigger end, and is thriving in his current state of overdue-ness. A problem that my doc was keeping to himself was that apparently the baby hasn't dropped. He's been upside down for weeks, but still hasn't settled into my pelvis yet. Dr. Marshall didn't want to freak me out when he found this out a few weeks ago- he actually suspected that the kid was breech for a while, and wanted to give him time to get corrected.
The reason that I haven't even come close to starting labor is that the baby's head hasn't made a move to engage. The reason the baby's head hasn't made a move to engage is that my pelvis is too narrow for him. Also, my cervix is still "floating"- I might as well be 7 months pregnant according to the shape it's in.

So, Scottie and I were presented with two options. The first being that they admit me for induction (drugs for "ripening" overnight, followed by pitocin the next day and artificially rupturing membranes... the whole snowball effect), and let me labor for a while to see if that brings his head down. Option number two is that we schedule a cesarean section. What the doctor actually said was "We can try for a vaginal birth, but with your situation, and batting with the Yankees, I don't think you'll do it". Read: I'll let you try for a while, but you're just going to be in a lot of pain and exhausted when we finally decide to pull you in for a C-section to get the baby out. This upset me a LOT. I was a mess for a few hours on Monday night, and ended up going to my mom's to dig through her nursing books and cry it out. I thought it was my fault- that maybe I'd gained too much weight (30 lbs for the record...), or that I'd done SOMETHING wrong to keep him from getting here "normally". I've been set on a mostly natural vaginal birth for a long time- I have my own birthing ball, and was even looking at buying a small baby pool to be able to sit in at home for as long as possible so I didn't get germies from our bathtub. I had breathing patterns DOWN, and Scottie was ready to go with the back massager, lavender lotion and all the other things that good coaches do. I did not count on having a narrow pelvis (King of the Hill and the whole "narrow urethrea" comes to mind...). I barely paid attention to the c-section part of childbirth class because it wasn't going to pertain to me at all! Little did I know...

After researching, talking to my doc today (twice on the phone for about 20 minutes each time- he's awesome!), and getting some extra advice from various nurses (Mom works at Good Sam= AWESOME!), we've decided that the c-section is the best route for this birth. I was afraid for a while that my pelvis would be too narrow to ever give birth, but the doctor assured me that this is simply situational, and that I'd just have to be monitored a little more closely on the next go-round.

The biggest reason I was against having a section in the first place goes back to the exploratory surgery I had in high school that left me with a 5" vertical scar from under my belly button to my pubic bone. Even though it's been almost 13 years, the scar itself is still pretty ugly- raised, pink, and even sensitive in some places. My doctors both said that they'd have to go back in through the same scar (existing scar tissue, plus it's in the same area they'd need to work in anyway), and all I could think about was how awful it was to recover from that operation the first time. I'm a pretty good patient- I always take all my antibiotics, I never pulled my braces off as a kid, and I went through all my assigned exercises when I blew my knee out- I'm just afraid that it will be 10 times worse and slower than average to get me back to normal. But, at this point (unless a miracle happens...) it's out of our hands, and I'm just going to have to suck it up.

So, long story short: Doc is calling tomorrow once he finds out what the schedule for the OR is, and it looks like we'll either have a baby this weekend or early next week. Scottie is a little better about updating the facebook thing, so if you're ON facebook (and I know you all are...) join the "Moore Baby Pool" group, or just check his status.

Finally, to my friends: I really appreciate all the support, suggestions and general sympathy that I've received. This was a hard thing to get hit with, especially when I've had no other complications through the whole pregnancy, and it helps that so many people are either just keeping us in their prayers or have been there before and are great about sharing their experience. It really makes me feel a lot better- even over the course of the day, I've become much more relaxed and focused on getting the baby here safely, which is what matters after all.
Plus, now that I know it will be definitely be within the week, Scottie is more apt to listen and respond when I ask him to take care of something. "You know you won't want to leave the baby once he's here, so why don't you do it now??" ;)