Saturday, April 9, 2011

Ultrasound

Our ultrasound on Wednesday which was scheduled because the doctor was concerned Eliza wasn't growing fast enough yielded the opposite results - now the doctor is getting antsy that she's too big!
It was really fun seeing her all smooshed in there - when we had our 18 week ultrasound her face looked very skeletal so I was not expecting to get to see her face in such detail. Her cheeks are super chubby which I, of course, think is adorable. At this stage she is so big that you can only see one part of her at a time. She was holding one hand in front of her face, which she did at the last ultrasound, and the other hand was grabbing onto her toes - how cute is that??
They calculate a percentile based on the femur length, the head circumference and belly circumference. Eliza's head and femur measured average for 37 weeks, but her belly was huge and measured at 40 weeks! This pushed her up into the 90th percentile. The machine "calculated" her at 8 lbs, but even the ultrasound tech said she didn't think she weighed that much. The doctor expressed concern, but conceded that these tests can be totally inaccurate. If I haven't delivered in two weeks, we will do another ultrasound. He said if both of them put her at the 90th percentile, we'll talk about "moving things along". I smiled and nodded - I'll talk to him alright, but that doesn't mean I'm going to do anything. Jeremy and I both would really like to avoid an induction if at all possible.
With her chubby cheeks and enormous belly, it can't help but make me think that we are going to have a little girl version of Jeremy's favorite chubby man . . .
The ultrasound confirmed what I had suspected, which is that little miss has her head facing up towards my abdomen. This isn't a big deal for delivery if you have an epidural, but since I'm going the all-natural route, if she comes out face up, the back of her skull pressing against my tailbone will lead to back labor which sounds absolutely miserable. My doula and my yoga instructor both swear by a chiropractor in town who specializes in flipping babies in the womb. I talked to several women who have had him work on them and they sung his praises. So on Monday I am scheduled for a baby flip. I am intrigued and skeptical at the same time, but if it works it will be the best sixty bucks I could spend right now. It's supposed to be uncomfortable for me just because I have to lay on my back but other than that completely painless. Basically one person will press up on my tailbone which will make Eliza uncomfortable and cause her to pull her chin to her chest. Once she does that, as soon as she moves, the doctor will push in the direction she is moving until she flips. They said depending on how active she is it could take anywhere from 5-20 minutes and this late in the game she is very unlikely to flip back. I will report next week on how it goes!

2 comments:

  1. Wow! Baby flipping party! Sounds fun! Good luck! BTW, look for a little sussy from me in the mail in the next couple of days!

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  2. Should be really interesting! My cousin's baby was breach towards the end of her pregnancy, and she went to a chiropractor who was able to turn him all the way to head down, saving her from a c-section...so it can definitely happen! Hope it goes well tomorrow and the Miss Eliza gets herself sunny side DOWN!

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