Exit strategy

On Little Christmas Eve we had a session at the hospital with a doctor to discuss the baby exit strategy. Now of course we know there is still lots of time for the baby to turn and it could well do that but it is best to be prepared for that not to happen and then what a wonderful bonus it will be.

We are going to try for a normal birth, not c-section.

The appointment went well, and the scan showed a perfectly averaged sized baby (phew, must be a W baby - T babies are legendarily large) and I have a pelvis x-ray on Monday to make sure there is enough room (because I am a first timer and don't have a proven track record).

So pending that there is no reason at all that I shouldn't have a normal delivery. They have a lot of experience at the hospital here (also, attending at least 20 breech births was a requirement of training for OBGYNs here until recently) and normal birth is currently seen as best practice for breech babies here in Norway. To the point that the hospital in Bergen (bigger city south of us) doesn't even offer c-section solely on the basis of a breech presentation. Of course this is only for frank (bum first) breech, not footling (feet first) breech.

The main differences are that if my waters break I will have to go to hospital in an ambulance (I asked Mr T why the car was parked so far back today and he said "In case an ambulance needs to come right to the door"). Once I have regular contractions, regardless of the length or time between, I have to go to hospital where baby and I will be monitored the whole time. Breech births tend to take a lot longer, it will be doctor led, not midwife led, and they have a lower threshold for c-sections. I do have more gory details but don't need to write them here!

The doctor was great and we both left feeling very relaxed and confident about the whole thing. We'll see how quickly that evaporates when I go into labour! Because the actual birth part is so intangible I am most concerned about how boring it will be to be in hospital for the whole duration of a long labour and about how hungry Mr T will get! And when I read my weekly updates and they have the pictures of the babies head down and say that the baby's head should be engaged now etc I get a little irritated.

Oh, and have to add - the whole appointment was in Norwegian. How crazy is that!

And here are some horrible morning photos of me - I have to say am rather amazed at how not very pregnant I look from the front while wearing black. The satin boxer shorts were a strategy to try and make turning over at night less painful and were amazingly difficult to find - where is The Warehouse when you need it! Now I am off to clean the bathroom mirror - it doesn't look that bad in real life, honest.







Wow, turns out I am really vain and just couldn't handle how horrible I looked there!