Blessings and Bummers or Baptisms and Breech Baby

Oh, why is it so hard to get back into the swing of blogging after taking a few years off? Every time I get onto the computer it's like a black hole opens up and sucks me into CNN, MyFamily.com, Facebook or Weather.com. Stupid sites that offer stupid things and yet I can't break away to blog… but I am now!!

Let's start with the fun one: Ava got baptized on Saturday! She turned 8 (which is the age in our church  when we believe children are able to understand and take responsibility for their actions) and she choose to be baptized into the LDS (Mormon) church. At this time, we believe that you make your first covenants (or 2 way promise between you and the Lord) and she did not take that idea lightly. For weeks before the baptism she would ask to talk about it and want to read scriptures or pray about it. I think she finally came to peace with it the morning of and now is happy that she went ahead and did it. John baptized her and confirmed her a member, along with giving her a beautiful blessing and conferring the Holy Ghost upon her. She is so excited to try to live the way the scriptures teach and even got her own set of new, blue, name engraved scriptures. In her own words, they were the "awesomest set of scriptures ever." For the baptism, she had lots of company: her Aunt Laurel, cousins Abby, Gordie and Lydia, her Papa Genho, her Grandpa Donovan, her primary teacher Sister Karen Greco, her best friend Cassia Gainer and family, and many, many other friends from the ward. She really is a super mature little girl with a huge heart that we're so proud of. John and I just can't figure out how she got this big or how we got this old to have a kid baptized!

Now onto another Genho girlie - the one in my belly. About 7 weeks ago I was showing a friend her position in my belly and all the sudden I felt a huge movement. The next day, sure enough, I could tell her chest was right under my ribcage as I could feel the hiccups she has 3-4 times a day move my whole rib. I wasn't too concerned since I know babies will shift around quite a bit, but by 34 weeks I was starting to get bothered. And now here we are, 37 weeks along with only 3 short weeks left and she STILL is under my ribcage. Except now her head is firmly wedged there and her little feet are dangling down into my pelvis kicking all sorts of things that should not be kicked! I've finally gotten up my courage to give a home birth a try and have been with a wonderful midwife this whole pregnancy.  However, neither one of us (thank goodness) feels comfortable with a home breech birth so I've been trying to weigh my options for moving forward with this baby. Technically, she still has a few weeks to turn but there are a few factors that are causing me to wake up at 3 in the morning and google all sorts of things.

First, we live 35 minutes from the hospital and my last 2 labors have both been under 2 hours long, from start of contractions to baby out. That's not very much playing room with getting into the hospital before something scary could happen, so it makes me nervous. Second, she's is currently what is considered a "footling breech" which means instead of her bum sitting in my pelvis, she has feet hanging down. This can lead to complications because the cord has room to potentially drop out with her feet when/if she's allowed to come out this way. It's still a rather small chance of this happening but when it does, you have major life threatening complications. And I've worked way too hard in the past nine months to mess with that!! Third, I wouldn't be totally opposed to trying a breech birth in a hospital but with issues one and two and the fact that no doctor within an hour of here would let me attempt one AND the fact that my last 2 babies have been 8.10lbs and 9.6lbs, I'm pretty much ruled out as a candidate.

Which leads me to the options I've been trying - hanging upside down in the attempt to convince her to turn. Oh, and diving down into water hoping the pressure change will convince her, and putting cold ice on the top of her head trying to get her to move, and having the kids screech over her head hoping to scare her away (Nathan's really good at getting her to jump, but not actually move), and laying with my bum up in the air and my shoulders down to try to give her more room. I haven't tried the chiropractor yet but I think it's in the plan this week, as is the attempt by the doctor to physically shove her around. This requires a hospital visit and IV and all that jazz, so I'm not too thrilled with it but our attempts by the midwife today at home didn't budge her at all. All this is in the attempt to not have a C-section, which is the last resort but may end up that way if all else fails.

I'm not excited by that option, mainly just because I've finally gotten a home birth planned and it's hard to give up on the idea of having her here in my own home, with all the kids around and everything going smoothly. I'm really hoping the version (doctor pushing her) will work on Tuesday because then I'd still have the home birth option. But luckily I've been around the labor and delivery floor and actually seen 5-6 C-sections at the hospital that I would have it done in, so I'm not too incredibly freaked out. Just bummed. And I know it's not rational at all, but I'm a bit frustrated at the baby - which I'm working on getting over. I'd like to think that maybe there's a reason she can't turn - cord trapped, not enough room or something like that rather than just stubbornness. I guess when she comes out we'll see what her personality is like and find out!!