Flashback: Countdown to the birth

This is part of a series on my pregnancy with Lilly.

Lilly continued to insist on staying in the breech position in my womb. It amused me that she was staying in what they called "Frank breech position." (Those that know us will see the humor in that.) My midwife M. said this was the best breech position for delivery. M. had gotten permission from the doctors to let me try and deliver naturally, even though Lilly was breech. (It was only because she was Trisomy 18, and not expected to live, that this was going to be allowed.)

But I still tried to get Lilly to turn into the right position. I swam, I used moxi sticks, I did all the hanging upside down exercises. Lilly was sneaky from the beginning though. I would often feel her turn as I did these things. Then a bit later she'd flip back into breech position. (I do think that my having a bad diastis in my stomach that had not healed after my son's birth, contributed to this, because my stomach muscles were so stretched. I still have quite a diastis now as I type this, but it is slowly healing. And it should - I'm doing about 1000 of the exercises for it a day. Whew!)

Not only was Lilly being stubborn about the breech position, but she decided that she didn't want to be born on her due date of June 17. Not only did she not like that date, but she didn't like ANY date in June.

Finally on July 1st I had another ultrasound. It showed Lilly was a little over 5 pounds. YAY! This was a praise God moment! We went to see my midwife next and get a stress test. It showed things were still fine with Lilly's heart.

By this point, time was standing still. Every day was literally dragging as we just wanted for Lilly to be born so we could face what was to come. I had never expected to have a July baby! But we didn't want to induce, until it became medically necessary. I was afraid that Lilly would die at birth. And then if I had had her induced, and she died right after being born, I would have felt guilty that I hastened her death. So we put it off.

Soon I was scheduled to be induced at 11:00 a.m. on that coming Sunday, July 4. But Lilly would have other plans . . . .