The Fort

The countdown is really on. The baby will be born in a week or less. How can I crystal ball such activity? It all comes down to stubbornness. Kelly and I could have one such child on our hands!

Ever since week 30 this chungarian of hours has been looking out of his/her mother's belly from a kangaroo position. It moves to the left, it moves to the right (no, it doesn't do the hokey pokey) but the little monkey refuses to hijack it down south. These past eight weeks have been, well, interesting. Things that we have tried to unbreech our baby have included:

- Reverse bridge poses. Pillows (the more the merrier) are placed underneath my lower back overcome the baby with gravitational forces

- Walking squats. Think of yourself as a duck.

- Standing on my head. This one I didn't do but I thought it should be added since my boss gave such a lovely demonstration in the office

- Accupuncture. Igniting my baby toes with needles, calming music and massage. Baby sloshed around in there a bit but with no affirmative actions

- Moxabustion. Kelly would like these chinese herb sticks to my baby toes. They smell like pot. Try explaining that one to your work...

- The Webster's Technique. A chiropractic manoever where they adjust your sacrum to relieve tension in your uterus. Baby moved lots afterward but maybe it couldn't understand why we paid 40 dollars for five minutes...

and finally...

- External Cephalic Version. My obstetrician manually grabbed the baby's butt, lifted it out of my pelvis, held fast onto it's head and tried to move it, somersault style. Needless to say, a very painful procedure. We tried four different ways but the baby's heartbeat went low once we reached 3 o'clock (or 9 o'clock on the backwards one) so it was stopped and the baby was happy to return to it's little fort beneath my ribcage.

Now the baby will be coming out through planned cesarean section, which is not what I had imagined at all but I figure since it will be born before Christmas, we can dress it up as an elf and put it under the tree. That solves the shopping dilemma at least....