And without further ado, here is the first part of little girl's birth story!
(And probably don't hold your breath for part 2... at the rate I'm going, she'll be 16 and I'll finally have it finished lolololololol)
About a week before delivery.
Being cool at the height of pregnancy brain and showing up at the gym in my flip flops
We found out at about 34 weeks that she was breech. How I didn't realize this before is beyond me, because her hard, round little head was in my ribs for couple months ha! For whatever reason (pregnancy exhaustion?), I didn't feel the need to try hard and flip her on my own. I think she was probably too big at this point for that to happen anyways, but you never know I guess. We scheduled an external cephalic version at the hospital at about 36 weeks to see if my doctor could flip her, and to no avail. With two adults putting their entire body weight on my stomach (it was as unpleasant as it sounds), she didn't move an INCH. This is seeming very consistent with her personality so far haha. She wants things how she wants them! So, we scheduled my C-section for June 20, a week before my original due date.
No baby flippage!
Honestly, I was worried for weeks that I wasn't going to last all the way to a scheduled C-section. Little miss was footling breech... both of her feet were RIGHT in my pelvis in a very precarious place. Nash and I were going on tons of walks, and every time we were out, I panicked a little because she'd kick so so much. It hurt like crazy, and felt like her feet were about to pop out haha. The reason why that was so concerning is that with feet-first breech babies, if you go in to labor or your water breaks, you have about ten minutes to get to the hospital or you and the baby can be in serious danger. Footling breech babies can get stuck in the birth canal very easily, or the cord can prolapse, which completely cuts off oxygen supply to the baby. So basically I was stressed out of my mind about going in to labor on my own or my water breaking. And my instincts were telling me that that was VERY close to happening. Turns out, my thinking wasn't too far off ha!
Sunday, at 37 1/2 weeks, I started having a lot of contractions. After hours of timing them, we were a little worried we'd be making a trip to the hospital that night. They weren't calming down at all! They finally subsided, but I was pretty sure my body was moving riiiight along. Thankfully my mom had followed her motherly instincts and left Arizona to come stay with us that weekend, earlier than she had originally planned. Her timing couldn't have been more perfect! The next day, I had my final appointment with the OB. Surprisingly, they weren't even going to do an exam, but I asked them to and they obliged. I will NEVER forget the nurse's reaction. She looked at me and said in a very worried voice "Have you been dilated at all?" I said "yes, but only a 2" thinking she was going to tell me I wasn't dilated at all haha. She then said "Well you're now at a 5 with a BULGING bag of waters" hahahaha. I'm sorry for the gross imagery, but that was just so funny (and shocking) to me. I was so so close to being in labor! The nurse asked when the last time was that I had eaten, said she was going to go get the doctor and told me not to drink anything and do NOT leave. Suddenly I realized this was HAPPENING. Like asap! So exciting and crazy! My dr. came back into the room and basically said "We'd really like to admit you tonight, but I'm not available to do the surgery. So we are scheduling you first thing tomorrow morning for your C-Section."
So there it was! Baby Faye was on her way! The whole rest of that day felt surreal. It's very strange with a scheduled cesarean, because you know the exact time that it's all going to happen. So different from my experience with Nash, and in a lot of ways, I really loved it. I spent the rest of that afternoon just laying down pretty much, because literally anything could have broken my water at that point haha. We went to bed that night and it felt like Christmas eve. Our 4:30am alarm was brutal, but we were so excited.... we were finally going to meet our little girl!
