worry and relief

i suppose i'll just do this chronologically.
for about a week now i have noticed that samson has really taken a liking (or so i thought) to my right side. this probably should have been my first cause for suspicion, but i'm no baby expert, so i just thought he liked it over there. then yesterday when i woke, i realized that he had barely moved all night. nothing to worry about, i told myself, since i had slept through most of the night and therefore had just probably not noticed his kicks. so i rolled over and waited for him to wake and give me some little tickles like he always does. nothing. that's ok, i thought, it's earlier than i usually wake; he's probably just still sleeping. went downstairs and had breakfast. he usually kicks a bit while i eat. nothing. probably just asleep still, i thought. went and took a shower. i usually just get one or two kicks in there, but nothing at all this time. i probably just didn't notice them, right? drove to work. usually plenty of kicks in the car. well i finally get a couple to ease my worries, but he's still not acting himself. while at work i get a few more, but still nowhere near the intensity or frequency with which he usually moves. i come home and tell jason and proceed to worry. he assures me the baby is fine and just slowing down as he grows and takes up more space. maybe he's just tired today? he goes to work and i call my mom. she says it's probably normal, like jason said, but call the midwife to see what she thinks. i do, and she tells me to eat and then go sit and massage my belly to see if i can get him to liven up. so i do, and he does, but the movements are still small and seldom. she says i can come in to check on him if i want. the rest of the evening he still does things to let me know he's ok, but i'm just not convinced. so, this morning, when again he was very quite all night and during breakfast and my shower, i decided to call her and see if we could come in for an ultrasound. good decision!
most of me knew there was nothing to worry about, that he was healthy because there was no reason for him not to be. but a small part of me kept thinking that maybe there was a knot in his cord, or that he had become tangled in it. and this part of me worried enough for 1o people. i couldn't stop thinking about all the what-ifs if this were true. bed rest? an emergency c-section? premature birth? stillbirth?? it was a huge black cloud over my head, an ominous ghost of worry in the back of my mind for a day and a half.
when we finally arrived at betsy's and saw him on the monitor, i breathed a sigh of relief. there he was, cute as ever, healthy. heart beating strong, as always. so we examine him, closely, and notice...he's breach. that little stinker! he's wedged his little tushie into my pelvis, and his legs are jackknifed, both feet up above his head. obviously, this is not ideal, but at this point i just couldn't care less. he's alive and well, and anything else is a mere bump in the road.
so we start discussing what this means. well, firstly, he's a frank breech, the most common type of breech and the easiest to deal with. this means that if we can't turn him around (more on that in a second) a home birth with positive results is still very possible. another type of breech that's very common is the footling breech, where one or both feet come out first. the trouble with this is that the feet can fit through a much smaller opening than the head can, so they may come through before the mother is fully dilated, causing the head, which is much bigger, to get stuck until the mother opens up the rest of the way. with a frank breech, however, the butt is nearly the exact same size as the crown of the head, and would therefore not be able to come out early, having to wait for full dilation. there is still a possibility for a stuck head, (the reason a c-section would be done without discussion in a hospital), but the risk is not nearly as high.
that being said, we still have three months left until he's due, and plenty of time to try every trick in the book (and that's a big book) to get him to turn around. for the next week, until our next scheduled appointment, betsy is having me lie with my hips elevated above my shoulders for 15 minutes at a time, 2-3 times a day. while doing so, i'll massage him and give him some tickles to see if, without gravity pulling him down into my pelvis, he'll wriggle himself out of there and turn himself around. when i see her again, she will try maneuvering him with her hands, while watching him on the ultrasound to make sure she's not harming him. this, she said, could be a challenge, even though she has experience with it, because she can't be too forceful due to the previously discussed low position of my placenta. i have heard of many other procedures to turn breech babies as well, (such as acupuncture, hypnosis, chiropractic maneuvers and even smelling certain essential oils and just doing some positive imagery) but only time will tell if we will need them or not. she also told me something else i could try, which i had not heard of previously, was to get into a warm bath and hold an ice back on my belly where he is. if he's able, he may try to get away from this cold sensation and move to a warmer area. worth a try! already did the elevated hips thing once today. that was interesting. far as i can tell it didn't work that time, but i'll try again before bed tonight.
i am so grateful to have found a midwife with so much experience (she has delivered and assisted with breech births in the past, and her last baby was a breech successfully turned), and so much knowledge. i know that this position is not ideal, but i felt like a completely new person after seeing her today. there may still be things to worry about, but the vast amount of knowledge i gained on the subject today has really put my mind at ease. i have an explanation for the change in movement, i know he's still healthy, and i am armed with knowledge and options of where to go from here with this new diagnosis, and these things have made me feel a thousand percent better. i'm thankful to everyone who tried to ease my worries, but i'm also thankful for my own instincts. i'm glad i paid such close attention to his normal routines, and was therefore able to notice a difference. and i'm glad i listened to my heart when it told me something just wasn't right. no one should ever feel like their worries or concerns are silly or unwarranted. just ask; there's no reason not to. trust yourself, because no one knows you better.