So we get there and right away, the ultrasound tech is like "oh looks like she is breech". WHAT?!?!?!?! She isn't supposed to be breech, she is supposed to be head down just like she was at my last doctor's appointment.
Ok, so she moves on and it turns out she is what they call "Frank Breech" which means her legs are up by her face in a pike position. That means that when she would switch to the 4d view, all you could see was her feet and hands, no face. She did give it a good try, even had me stand up and walk for a minute to get her to move, but she wasn't budging.
In the end, we got a DVD of our 30 minute session and a CD of pictures (which I couldn't even tell you what's on there since I haven't looked at it). Not only is it disappointing that we didn't get ANY face shots, but then like David was saying, she should have just stayed in "2d" and gotten movement there. Instead she kept switching back and forth to see what she could get, which was nothing. So I feel like we just paid $175 for nothing.
Luckily, she did say we could come back on Wednesday to see if we could get some better shots. She made it sound like even if we could, it wouldn't be a full 30 minute session. So we'll have to even see if she is going to cooperate on Wednesday.
At this point, I don't think I would ever do an elective ultrasound again. It just wasn't worth it.
Noah was being really cute though. He would come sit on the bed with me and poke my belly and say "Move" to get her to try and move. I don't know if he really understood what he was trying to do, but he thought it was fun. Then we went to Babies R Us and bought the stroller frame that we will use with her carseat. Noah loved pushing it around and he kept saying "sister" and "emmy". I hope he stays this excited about her even after she arrives.
The rest of the weekend was somewhat depressing. I was most upset by the fact that she is breech. I kept using the fetal doppler to detect her heartbeat and use that as a way to determine where she is. It seemed like later last night, the heartbeat was a lot lower and I couldn't feel her head jabbing into my ribs like before, so I think maybe she had moved back down, but it's so hard to tell.
We also watched a little more than half of the "More Business of Being Born" videos. So awesome and so glad I bought them. I would highly recommend them to anyone who is ever considering having a baby and even those that are completely done, it will just open your eyes to all kinds of things I'm sure you didn't know.
The most interesting things I've learned is that the maternal mortality rate and infant mortality rate have both increased substantially in the last 30 years, right along with the C-section rate. The C-section rate has gone up from about 7% in the 1970s to 32.7% in 2009. The increase is due to several reasons (too many interventions, convenience, doctors who are just knife happy). I think most people would think that maternal mortality rates are linked to that in the sense that they die when they are being cut open, but it's actually the future of the mother that is more in danger. They can die from infection, scar tissue problems, etc, but one of the biggest causes of death in the future was something called "amniotic embolism", where basically the amniotic fluid goes back in the mother's system and she has an allergic attack and her heart and lungs just shut down, with no warning. Ina May Gaskin made a quilt as a "tribute" to all these mothers who have died through childbirth or related to childbirth and I was shocked how many of them were linked back to C-section. It's just sad and to think how many of those could have been prevented.
The other issue was infant mortality rate. I forgot the statistic but it was astounding how much more likely an infant was to die in the first month of life after a C-section birth than a vaginal birth. The MD talking about it suggested that it was linked to the amniotic fluid in the lungs. When the baby is in the womb, they are practicing breathing with the lungs with the amniotic fluid, so when they are being born, they have fluid in their lungs, they are supposed to. The difference is that when they are born by vaginal birth, the "squeeze" through the pelvis and cervix pushes out all the fluid from the lungs. Also called the "fetal heimlech maneuver". David got to see it on Noah. Even then, he still had some fluid left in his sinuses that had to removed, but otherwise, he didn't have to be suctioned or anything. However, in a C-section, that never happens and it's up to the doctors/nurses to get it all out. Sometimes they do, or sometimes they think they do. This doctor explained that if some is still left in there, that they can develop infections or essentially drown from it. Again, very scary.
My end comment. Sometimes C-sections are needed. I don't doubt that there are certainly infants and mothers out there that 200 years ago would have died without a C-section, but I think they are way overused today and the result is actually more death in both mothers and infants. If you ask me how you should avoid a C-section, it's to avoid interventions. Your body knows how to have a baby. If you start adding drugs, pitocin, artificial hormones, and restricting how it can move/labor, then you are messing with the process and many times the baby and the mother's body doesn't like it and will react with erratic heartbeats, high blood pressure, etc and then at that point, a C-section is needed.
Above all else, go watch the movie and do your research.
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