Suze, we'd just found out. Monday the midwife felt the bony little apple under my ribs I'd been thinking of as a bottom for the past five or six weeks, and said 'Hum, this is flexing as if it's on a - neck.' She wrote 'Ceph - ??breech??' in my notes, and referred me for a scan, just to be on the safe side. On Wednesday, a scan confirmed footling breech, thus catapulting this pregnancy straight into the high-risk category, and on Thursday I went in for an ECV only to be told that due to the position of his feet, it was too risky to even try to turn him.
Went home and had a good sulk, spent Friday and Saturday trying everything I could think of to try to turn the little rotter (including headstands in the swimming pool!) On Sunday, the painful low-down Braxton Hicks I'd been having all week refused to go away when I had a long hot bath, so I got out and checked my cervix. I found it was effaced, I was dilated at least three fingertips, and the bag of waters were bulging down with a cheery little foot pushing down and flexing at my fingertip. He was in an oblique lie (on a diagonal across me, not engaged) and shoving his feet down. Had a quiet moment of 'Oh my Christ', and shrieked for DH.
I'm still glad I changed hospitals, because I can't fault the care I had that week - if they hadn't booked the scan so speedily or if they'd mucked about when the ambulance brought me in, things could have been a lot grimmer. The caesarian was not exactly a barrel of laughs, but everybody in the theatre treated me like a person and not a fleshy incubator, so it definitely wins out over my previous birth. I haven't had any nightmares this time as I did after DS's birth for months. And hey, given that my two biggest worries about this birth were lack of attention from medical personnel and the possibility of tearing myself a lovely assgina, I can say emphatically that neither of those occurred!
Scarlotti, I hope you'll join me in the endless sleepless nights very soon. 10 pm, 12.30 am, 2.30 am, 4 am, 6.30 am...