The Birthday part one

It's early in the morning, about 6:00 a.m. I'm 34 and 1/2 weeks pregnant and barely awake.  I'm exhausted from the day before (see The Flood) but feeling better than I did through most of my pregnancy.  Planning on going for a walk this morning, but that's not going to happen.

I wake up fully about 6:20a.m. My water broke.  I'm freaked out!  This is really early. I wake up Ryan and he calls our midwife.  I'm sick to  my stomach, not just because the baby is going to come early, but because the baby has been breech!  It still makes me a little sick when I think of that morning.  

I've been doing exercises to try to get the baby to flip and go head down without any changes yet. My midwife comes to our home and we transfer my care to a Doctor at the hospital. No home birth now.  We're too early and we have an upside down baby.  So stressed!

Ryan makes a few calls and drops our kids off at a friend's house and we head to the hospital.

We check in and have an ultrasound to check the baby's position.  I tell them we don't know what we are having and don't want to know till the baby comes out, so PLEASE don't spoil the surprise.  (We thought it was a boy.) Ultrasound tells us baby is. . . HEAD DOWN!  I ask if they can see the placenta, if it's in a good place, they said it looked fine. I'm trying to rule out a c-section. Maybe my water broke when the baby flipped, we don't know, but we are so relieved! The likelihood for a c-section practically eliminated, I'm just so elated. Not many doctors are comfortable delivering breech babies these days, this is big news!

I finally have a minute to call my mom.  She wants to know if it's a boy or a girl, I told her I still didn't know.  She's going to pack like crazy and come out with my dad, 6 weeks earlier than they had anticipated.  She asks me to call when the baby comes to tell her if we had a boy or girl.

Relieved about baby's position, but now a new stress surfaces, no amniotic fluid means we want the baby to come within the next 18-24 hours.  I'm not in labor, so no pressure, right?  Wrong.  How am I going to do this?  I want to avoid any unnecessary meds if I can, including pitocin and epidurals.

I start walking around the hospital with my husband and my midwife.  Walking can help jump start your labor - but I couldn't feel any change.  Still stressed, but my midwife, who was now acting as a doula, had a few tricks up her sleeve.....