Week 35

We're now in Week 35.

Beef has very little maneuvering room now and isn't likely to try somersaults anymore. He should be around 18 inches and 5+ pounds. His kidneys are fully functioning and his liver can now produce waste. Yummy. Since most of his basic development is done now, he just needs to focus on packin' on the pounds (which should be coming at a rate of about an ounce a week).

Went to the doctor today with Molly. He's still facing the wrong way. His head is towards the top left side of the uterus, with his bottom towards the bottom right hand side. We're going to continue (and probably step-up) the exercises to coax him down, but he's got about two more weeks to get his act together before we need to discuss alternatives.

Option One:
Accupunture. The Chinese culture has been doing this for thousands of years. No one is quite sure why, but accupuncture combined with the burning of specific herbs has a 80% success rate of getting the baby the turn around. The doctor gave us a business card to a local accupunturist who can help us with this. Not sure if our insurance will cover this or not. (Since I typed this paragraph---found out that it is NOT covered under my insurance and it costs like $400---not gonna happen---too bad, it sounded cool)

Option Two:
External Cephalic Version (ECV). This is the intense belly massage I mentioned last week. It's supposed to be pretty uncomfortable and has some risks:

1. It might not work. They may make some progress, but he might decide that his original position is simply more comfortable and go right back to where he was.

2. The membrane that holds the amniotic fluid (and Beef) could break.

3. The placenta could become dislodged/damaged/ruptured.

Both 2 and 3 would require an immediate emergency C-Section, which is why this is always done at a hospital with staff at the ready to do it.

Option Three:
We could just schedule a C-Section. We would of course prefer that he be born normally, but the ball is pretty much in his court. Our doctors won't even consider trying a "regular" birth if he's not in the right place.

At this point, we're trying not worrying about it, but we'll have to take his cues when the time comes.

We asked the doctor about getting copies of the ultrasound pictures from the last visit, but they've already been sent out to whoever rights up ultrasound reports and are in storage there...the only way to get new pictures is to have a new ultrasound. So, probably no new pictures until he's born, unless there's a need in the next couple weeks to have another ultrasound.