Baby Update (and Maternity Pics!)

Just to update you all on baby Graham, we found out this past Wednesday that he'd turned breech; I also had high blood pressure at the Wednesday appointment. We attempted an external version to try to get Graham turned head down at the hospital on Friday; we also did tests to make sure I didn't have preeclampsia.

So we went in Friday, I got hooked up to monitors, so they could make sure Graham and I were doing well and not in distress. They monitored us for 1 hour before doing anything. They stuck me with a bunch of needles to take blood for some of those tests I mentioned above. They put in an IV just in case the procedure caused contractions to start or caused distress to me or Graham. They gave me some medicine to relax my uterus so contractions would stop and they could manipulate it more easily. The medicine automatically made me pretty dizzy and everything was spinning; I was pretty loopy.

They brought in an ultrasound machine so they could see where Graham was to help them during the procedure. They put a lot of gel on my belly (they'd already checked to make sure he was still breech before they put the IV in) and got to work. My doctor pushed and pulled and manipulated as much as she could but Graham just didn't want to budge. In fact, he is completely the left side of my belly and has his arms and legs out straight so he's wedged in there pretty good! The doctor mentioned several times that Graham looks like he's long; not sure which of us he got that from, but interesting to hear! We'll see if that's true soon enough. After the procedure, they monitored me and Graham for another 2 hours to make sure we were okay and labor hadn't been kick-started.

I must say it was painful and I'm even more sore today than I was yesterday. So Graham is part of the special 3% of babies that are breech at full-term. I have heard again and again from different people that babies can turn really late in a pregnancy or even during labor, so I know it's possible that he still might turn and I hope that's the case. But we're preparing for what's to come either way. It's a little strange to have gone through all that in the hospital and only have this soreness to show from it; makes me even more ready for him to be here!

The good news is that Graham looked "awesome" the entire time according to my doctor and the nurses. Also, I passed all the blood pressure tests, so no preeclampsia for me! Continued prayers for both of us would be very much appreciated. Thank you all for all the love and support you've shown me through this.

On a brighter note, I don't have all of them yet, but here are a few maternity pictures our friend, Yesie, took for us: