Posts Tagged ‘external cephalic version’

He Flipped! (With Some Help)

Wednesday, October 8th, 2008

Today, I have some good news! Binary Boy flipped. He is now head down the way he should be. 😀

So, what worked? Well, unfortunately, nothing I had been trying for the past 2 weeks did, so I asked the midwives for a referral to an OB that could perform an external cephalic version. They referred me to Dr. Uribe. So, yesterday, Kevin and I went in for a consultation to see if I am a good candidate for the procedure.

Side note: If you live in Austin and need a doctor to do a version on a breech baby, Dr. Uribe is the guy to see. He’s been doing versions for 20 plus years and really knows what he’s doing.

He checked the amount of amniotic fluid around the baby via an ultrasound and felt for the amount of “give” and wiggle room available. After a few dozen other questions and filling of paperwork, he deemed me a good candidate, especially since I am between 36 and 37 weeks pregnant.

Before I made the decision to get it done or not, we also went over the risks. The most major one is the placenta detaching. If that happened, I would have to have an emergency cesarean section to deliver the baby. Which is why it’s good to be between 36 and 37 weeks pregnant – the baby is still small enough to turn, but developed enough so that we could take him home with us if it came down to an emergency cesarean. Scary thought, that one.

Since there was a very small chance that would happen, I couldn’t eat or drink anything past midnight last night. No water even. That was the toughest thing about it for me. I usually drink water throughout the night when I wake up.

Anyway, after we discussed all the risks, I made the decision to get it done. It wasn’t an easy decision for me to make, but I know that a version is much less invasive than a cesarean and I just had a feeling that Binary Boy wasn’t going to be able to flip on his own. I was told several times, by a few different people that I was somewhat small and it might be tough for him to fully turn around without some assistance.

So, first thing this morning we drove to the hospital. (more…)