Despite bringing the full power of the Internet to bear on the problem, and despite the lengthy gaze of D’Atumbo, our fledgling fetus has stubbornly held fast to his/her head-in-ribcage position. With the ECV (or external cephalic version) set for Monday, we spent the weekend before preparing as if the ‘arrival’ was imminent. This mostly consisted of frantic cleaning, various gadget assembly, and lots of conversation that involved words like “end” and “life” and “as we know it.” We went to bed Sunday night, assuming that sleep would come fitfully, at best. In actuality, we both slept well. Well, in my case it was more like “passed out” but still it was more restful than I would’ve thought.
We rose early on Monday, Kim making me a wonderful breakfast of eggs benedict (with a marvelous hollandaise sauce) while we sat out on our veranda, watching the sun rise and cherishing potentially our last moments sans-children together. Actually, I stumbled out of bed at the last possible moment, fell asleep in the shower and wolfed down a couple pop-tarts while Kim gathered all of our things for the hospital and spent a few minutes staring longingly at all the food she was not allowed to eat because of the procedure. We piled our stuff into the car and headed off to the hospital.
It was a bit unnerving to take the elevator right up to Labor and Delivery. While we both had a gut feeling that today wasn’t ‘the day,’ we still had to go into this procedure assuming that it would be. For all we knew, we’d be coming back down this elevator in a few days with a screaming baby rather than in just a few hours with all of our unused gear. Needless to say, the elevator ride up was pretty silent.
The nurses station quickly put us in a room and began the laborious process (no pun intended) of completing all the various tasks that necessitated our early arrival (again, no pun intended). There were, of course, questionairres to fill out, more paperwork to sign, even more blood to be drawn. By far the worst thing they had to do was to put an IV into Kim, should the need arise in the event of an emergency. Kim had never had an IV before and had assumed that it was pretty much the same as giving blood. Turns out in this particular case the IV they put in had to be, for various reasons, about the size of a garden hose. Ouch. Kim was also hooked up to a fetal monitor to make sure everything was good down there.
We got to meet all sorts of folks while we waited for our diminuitive OBGYN. Suzanne, our nurse, was absolutely wonderful, and talked to us at length, answering our questions about nearly everything. She handled most of the pre-procedure stuff. We also met an anesthesiologist, who scared the crap out of us (which is apparently what anesthesiologists do) with a wide variety of worst case scenarios. (“Should a lightning bolt strike your gurney during an emergency procedure in the operating theatre, we immediately knock you out with an ether-infused rag.”) Our last visitor before the procedure was “Mark,” (no relation) a medical student who “won” the opportunity to observe the version and was “very excited” to do so.
Just minutes before the procedure, in came a resident with a fancy ultrasound machine, to both a) make sure that Chi-Baba had not suddenly come to his/her senses and rolled over and b) to provide some fancy visuals during the version. She gooped up Kim’s belly and waved her magic wand, and then this confused look came over her face – not something you want to see a doctor do. See, apparently our fetus was in a very, very odd position. She figured out, with no help from “Mark,” that the baby would not be able to move the 90 degrees down to lock into position, but would, in fact, need to roll 270 DEGREES to get where he/she needed to be. Kim and I figured out at this point that this probably wasn’t going to work.
Finally our OBGYN arrived, and wasted little time getting into position to do the version. She was going to push on the head, while the resident would push on the butt. The medical student’s task was to keep the ultrasound wand on top of the baby’s heart to monitor it during the move. We were ready.
Well, at least Kim and I were. We both noticed that the two women were about to push in the SAME direction. I’m no geometry expert, but i doubt something will rotate if you push both ends of it the same way. We mentioned this to them (rather forcefully) and they went back into the huddle. After some ‘chalk talking’ and a review of the playbook, they were on the same page. “Mark,” on the other hand, had absolutely no idea what he was doing. One of the key’s to successfully ultrasounding is “firmly pushing” the wand into the gut – something our med student seemed to think really meant “feather touch”. Thus, detecting a heart beat was at best a hit or miss affair for him. One would think his ability to do this would be key to this whole affair, but the doctor’s seemed non-plussed about it, and so we didn’t worry. Well, maybe a little.
With everyone set now, the version began. I was shocked. It’s hard to describe what they do. Well, actually it’s kind of easy. Our OBGYN pushed REALLY HARD on the top part of the womb while the resident pushed REALLY HARD on the bottom part of the womb, while Kim looked to be in A LOT OF PAIN, while I tried to calm her down with A LOT OF PRAISE and “Mark” looked like a “DEER IN HEADLIGHTS”. I’m amazed that what they did to my wife is a) an accepted medical practice b) apparently ok for the baby and c) not illegal. I looked down at one point and Kim’s tummy was basically compressed into an 8 inch area and both doctors looked like they were moving loaded bookcases. Frightening.
As quickly as it began, it was over. It became obvious that this stubborn little monster had no intentions of moving. It was an emotional epiphany for us, because it meant for sure that a C-Section was in our future, something that we had considered a ‘worst-case scenario.’ Our doctor assured us it wasn’t anything that we did, that these things happen, that things are darkest before the dawn, there are many fish in the sea, and a variety of other colloquialisms that weren’t germaine to the situation at all. After a bit of consoling, the room emptied out and we were left to ourselves to pick up the pieces and wait as they monitored the health of the baby after the ‘violence.’
After about an hour, we were released, and took the long walk back down the hallway to the elevator.
The way is now clear for us – we will be back to finish this journey. And soon.
Humpty Chi-Bumbty sat head up in the womb,
Humpty Chi-Bumpty soon ran out of room.
All the hospital nurses and our OBGYN,
Couldn’t turn Chi-Bumpty around again.
