Liliana's Story, Part I

Since it is a rather long story and I want to give background information about the crazy 6 weeks leading up to Lily's birth, I will be posting our birth story in several parts. Please excuse all grammatical and stylistic errors--maybe one day when I have time I will go back through and edit.

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Liliana’s birth story really starts at the end of September. The same week that I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, I also found out that Lily was presenting breech. For several weeks she had been switching between head down and breech, but it was at this point that she really settled into a breech position. At first I was not panicked, but as the weeks passed it didn’t look like our little one had any intentions of turning except for several occasions when she would hang out in a transverse presentation for a few hours at a time--I could distinctly see a head and bottom on either side of my belly. This was not boding well for my birth plans.

Despite generally having a low pain tolerance, I am a huge advocate of natural birth. I also had no intentions of having a hospital birth. Between the gestational diabetes and my stubbornly breech baby,I was starting to fear that I would “risk out” of having a birth center baby. It turns out that keeping my sugars under control, while annoying, was actually rather simple. Getting Liliana to turn was a whole different ballgame.

As Liliana’s due date loomed closer, my midwives gave me all sorts of exercises to try in hopes that she would turn. Ever tried laying upside down on an ironing board for 15 minutes at a time with a bag or frozen raspberries sitting on top of your belly? It’s not fun, but I did it. I also started going to a chiropractor who used the Webster technique in attempts to flip Lily.

When I hit 36 weeks pregnant and she was still breech, I was told I might want to consider having a version. At first it seemed like a decent solution and I found a doctor willing to perform the procedure. As I researched versions, I realized it wasn’t really a risk I wanted to take. Not wanting to have a C-section [the standard protocol in hospitals for breech presentation], I took the advice of two of Ish’s sisters and called a local homebirth midwife who has experience delivering breech babies. Due to her November full of mommas who were due around the same time as me, she agreed to be my “plan c”, but first she referred me to a wonderful midwife an hour away who has tons of breech delivery experience. I called the referred midwife and not only was she willing to take me on as a client, but she made the time to meet with me and Ish that day. At our meeting, the new midwife answered all of my questions about breech birth and I left feeling confident that if Liliana remained breech that I could and would still have a natural birth.

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To be continued

A bit of "bathroom humor"...

Yesterday we celebrated Super Thanksgiving with Ish's family.  At one point after dinner this conversation took place:

Ish: Do you know where our boy is?
Me: Last I saw him he was in the dining room taking all the oranges out of the fruit bowl. (note: this was about 2 minutes before the conversation took place)

Ish then handed Lily to me so I could go upstairs and nurse her.  As I was on my way upstairs I walked past the bathroom.  The door was open, and what did I see? A very content looking Little Ish sitting in the toilet.  When I asked what he was doing his response was: "Bath".

I called for Ish, who told me that since the damage was already done that I might as well grab my camera.   My brother in-law Walter managed to catch some of it on video.
  


[Note: I only find this funny because he wasn't head down when I found him.  This could have ended terribly.  It is a good reminder to close all bathroom doors when you have a very curious toddler in the house.]

It's a girl!

Liliana was born on November 4th, 2011 at 1:19 PM.  She is an absolute peanut weighing in at 6lbs 5oz (almost a full pound less than Little Ish).  She is 18 inches long (or was...I am pretty sure she's grown already).  She scored a 9/10 on both Apgars.  Also, her blood sugars are fine--a concern since I had gestational diabetes. 

Birth story coming soon...