A Funny Turn
I'm not sure whose body I'm carting around, but it's sure as hell not mine. I have my suspicions that it belongs to a cat-burgling bowling enthusiast as I seem to have somehow secreted a large and exceedingly heavy bowling ball about my person. I'm not doing a spectacular job of hiding it, either.
At my last midwife appointment, all was well. Blood pressure normal, pee normal, measuring precisely where I should be, and Bad Boy's heart rate was good. The only problem at this point is that he is still in the breech position. There's still plenty of time for him to turn, I'm told, but it does raise the issue of a possible Ceasarian section. Nevertheless, everything looks good, and I should be basking in these last few weeks of pregnancy, right?
Um, no, not so much.
The ghosts of my dead babies apparently have not yet been laid to rest so I have spent the past week becoming more and more anxious, peaking at terror on Tuesday when I was convinced that Bad Boy had died. I hadn't felt movement for several hours, it seemed, and usually I am pummelled on a fairly regular basis from within. I ended up in my office, door closed, prodding my belly and begging him to move. He did. I cried.
I honestly thought I had come to terms with my earlier losses. After the unrelenting anxiety of the first trimester, I had spent the second trimester and 6 weeks of the third feeling good about everything; confident, even. I have no idea why suddenly I should feel this sense of doom. Maybe it's the small skull and crossbones magnet that appeared mysteriously on the floor last week. Mr Badeggs stuck it on the fridge, assuming it belonged to the teenager (I think he's secretly hoping she's a latent Goth; I believe he still has some black nail varnish from his own youth that he can share). But Badeggs Daughter professes to know nothing about it, and it's definitely not mine or Mr B's. The really spooky thing is that a similar small skull magnet made an appearance in our old house and that one, too, belonged to no one. Mr B disposed of said skull and crossbones this morning. (I asked him to remove it from the house, but he tossed it in the bin. I can see I am going to have to dig it out tonight and hurl it into a field somewhere.)
I suppose at the root of the matter is the fact that I am still angry that we ended up losing so many babies in a row, something that happens to only 3 women in a thousand. When someone tries to reassure me now by telling me that something is exceedingly rare, I just laugh bitterly. Rare maybe, but someone still has to suffer it, and God has indicated in no uncertain terms that I am his bitch. So I guess I am waiting for the sword to fall.
I wake up in the middle of the night for yet another trip to the loo and end up lying awake worrying about cord accidents and excess amniotic fluid, and not enough amniotic fluid, and the excessively cruel incidence of 'unexplained stillbirths' and it's all I can do not to race to hospital and insist they remove my baby from my womb so that I can physically watch over him. Not being able to see what is going on inside me is a source of extreme agitation, and I know I must be passing those feelings on to Bad Boy. The poor child will be a nervous wreck by the time he's born. He'll come out like some tiny Woody Allen, looking pale and slightly terrified of life.
I have decided that if he stays breech, I'm definitely going for a C-section. The hospital would support a 'natural' birth (read stirrups and forceps), and my midwife has even said she'd support me doing it at thome (ass pointed skywards; very dignified). But for the latter, as much as I'd like to do it, I'd also need to hire an independent midwife who has experience of breech birth and at £2500 it's out of the question. And, frankly, given my (admittedly irrational) worries, I just want a quick swipe of the scalpel and to have my baby in my arms. If it means 6 weeks or more of pain and discomfort, so be it. I have people to help.
I hope this anxiety quells itself, I really do. I've been going back for acupuncture to try to turn the baby, but next session I am going to ask for treatment just for me. if Bad Boy doesn't want to turn, I'm not going to try to make him.
Wish us luck.
