Brady’s birth: Part 1

At my 35 week 4 day checkup I had an ultrasound to check baby’s position. Just like all the others this one showed a foot down baby, his head comfortably resting on the top of my uterus. I met with my midwife and she let me know that since he was footling breech he wouldn’t be a candidate for external version, something I had already decided against anyway. We settled on a tentative date for my cesarean, June 28th, and agreed we would check on the position again in hopes he would flip.

That day I scheduled the remaining three checkups, one of which was with the doctor that would be delivering Brady. I came home and started making plans: I confirmed my last day of work before maternity leave and made sure Guy did the same for his vacation time. I gave him the list of appointments, telling him he didn’t need to be at them, maybe just the last since they would be routine and a waste of his time away from work but he decided he wanted to be there anyway.

On June 9th Guy and I worked half a day and then drove the 40 minutes to the office for my checkup. On the walk from the car to the building I said I wanted Brady to be born on a day just like today. It was beautiful and sunny, not a cloud in the sky.

Just like always I checked in, peed in a cup, waited, weighed in and was escorted to a room. The nurse asked if I wanted to be checked (referring to my cervix). The mandatory checks didn’t begin until 37 weeks and since I was only 36w 4d. I said yes, I did want to be checked, just for my own curiosity because I felt like I was starting to dialate. I felt a moderate amount of pressure and just had an intuition things were happening. I disrobed and waited for my midwife.

When she came in she also asked if I wanted to be checked because I didn’t have to. I think most would have skipped it, these exams are uncomfortable and unpleasant. I layed back and when she checked me she said, “I can feel his little toes.”. I had been telling everyone for weeks that it felt as if his feet could just dangle out at any point so I wasn’t surprised. Since in a typical situation you would judge dialation by feeling the head it was difficult for her to check so she checked by sight instead.

“Okay I’m going to send you over to the hospital.”

“Right now??”

“Yeah, I don’t know that we are going to have a baby today but I would say you are dialated this much.” And she made an opening with her hands to show me.

“What is that in centimeters would you say?”

“At least five.”

Five centimeters?? I was thinking maybe one, maybe zero! I was just curious! Guy and I looked at eachother with mouths wide open. “What the hell?” We kept saying to eachother.

A nurse brought a wheel chair to push me over to the hospital.

“Oh no that’s okay, I can walk. I’m fine.” I said, but suddenly things had changed and suddenly there was a serious look in their eyes.