Yesterday during our weekly appointment we learned that our little girl is in a breech position. This news came as a surprise as we have been under the impression for the last several weeks that she was in a head down position (as assessed by two different midwifes and two different doctors). We think she was probably breech all along as the ‘bumps’ in Kristy’s abdomen have stayed in the same place. What we thought was our little girl’s boney butt all along is actually her head.

Kristy and both of her brothers were all in the breech position and our midwife thinks Kristy must be shaped like her mother.  Mark was delivered vaginally (breech) and Todd & Kristy were scheduled c-sections.  Our midwife was very surprised to hear this – only 4% of pregnancies are breech and it is extremely rare to have a breech baby on more than one occasion.  Apparently Kristy is built more like her mom than we previously thought!

We have a couple options moving forward. Since breech delivers are risky (and illegal in 49 states) and there is little chance of the baby rotating on her own this late in the pregnancy, we need to take some action. One option is to try to rotate our baby into a head down position with an External Cephalic Version (ECV) procedure. This procedure if fairly successful around 36 or 37 weeks and is a little more difficult at full term. The doctors think that our chance of successfully rotating the baby at this point in the pregnancy is around 20%. Our other option is to schedule a cesarean. Since Kristy is now 39 weeks and 4 days, we could do a cesarean at any time, and the doctors would prefer sooner rather than later as it becomes more difficult once labor starts.

We have chosen something of a middle ground. Tomorrow morning at 6:00 am we are going to attempt the ECV. We have also scheduled a cesarean for 8:00am so that if we are unable to rotate the baby we will go right into the cesarean. Our intention is to give the ECV an honest try and not make any heroic efforts. If it doesn’t seem like the baby is going to turn without a whole lot of manipulation, then we will move forward with the cesarean.

Our perferred plan was for a natural delivery and Kristy and I had been looking forward to the labor process. So, yesterday’s news was a little disappointing. The important thing is that everyone is very healthy and there is a good chance we will meet our daughter tomorrow!