Busy Making Other Plans

There’s a reason why it takes nine months to have a baby, and it isn’t just because this is the amount of time that the female body needs to develop a human being. The way I see it, these nine months are a gift that mother nature bestows upon future parents, a precious yet rapidly narrowing window of time for us to prepare for the biggest job of our lives; parenthood. 

Nine months can go by surprisingly quickly. There’s plenty to do to keep busy; countless hours spent deciding among the plethora of nursing chairs, strollers, bassinets, and car seat choices, each selection more complicated than the next. Nine months of buying and washing baby clothes, of building cribs and swing chairs, of reading books on everything from breastfeeding to vaccinations to making-yours-the-happiest-baby-ever-how-tos.

The fact that everything in my pregnancy has gone exactly according to plan has only served to speed up this process. The changes in my body have played themselves out like clockwork, at least as specified in every pregnant woman’s meccas of information; the weekly babycenter newsletter and the fourth edition of What to Expect When You’re Expecting. I was sleepy and lethargic during the first trimester, energetic and productive during the second, and simultaneously restless and exhausted during the third. As zen as I’m attempting to remain throughout these last few weeks before the big day, it’s tough to stay cool and collected when a protruding belly, a squished bladder, and disturbing dreams prevent you from getting any kind of uninterrupted shut-eye (props again to mother nature for giving me a head start on sleepless nights). 

Restlessness aside, the third trimester has by far been the most instructive. For starters, I’ve developed a new-found appreciation for my laid-back Miami lifestyle. One weekend in the Big Apple was all it took to discover how not fun it is to ride crowded subways filled with New Yorkers oblivious to the work that comes with carrying a tiny human being in your belly. 

Now that I’m finally big enough for people to notice that I’m pregnant, I’ve also learned what a great asset this can be, especially when it comes to traveling, skipping long bathroom lines, and getting seated quickly at trendy restaurants (Carlos and I have taken full advantage of Zuma’s we-don’t-make-pregnant-women-wait policy). As with everything, these benefits come with drawbacks; for some reason a big belly seems to give perfect strangers the urge to hurl all kinds of unsolicited advice my way, from the nosy FIU med student scolding me for ordering a decaf cappuccino in the campus Starbucks to the supermarket bagger at Publix chiding me for carrying my own groceries.

But the biggest lesson of all has come in preparation for labor. The fact that everything I knew about childbirth up until a few weeks ago was shaped by what I’d grown up seeing in movies meant that I was in for a steep learning curve. The same went for Carlos, whose biggest fear was the fact that our hospital is a 25-minute ride from our home. “What if you have the baby in the car?” he wondered out loud, eyes frozen with terror. If only babies came out in 25 minutes.

There’s a whole new set of words that become an inextricable part of your vocabulary once you start preparing for labor. Mucus plug, effacement, pitocin, epidural, midwife, doula, birth plan, meconium, pelvic floor...and in my case, the most unexpectedly relevant of all...breech.

By the time that Carlos and I went in for our 36-week sonogram, we had all of our childbirth plans figured out (or so we thought). After briefly considering a home birth, I decided to stick with my doctor and hospital, but complemented this more conventional route by hiring a doula. I had my doctor sign off on a birth plan, interviewed and selected a pediatrician, and soaked up every last word of Birthing from Within, my natural birth bible.

As Carlos and I busied ourselves preparing for the birth, we remained totally oblivious to the fact that Sofia was making plans of her own. At 36 weeks, she was still sitting upright, in breech.

Most babies are head-down by week 30; this is the position that they naturally gravitate to, since its typically the most comfortable way for them to settle in the womb as they grow and space becomes restricted. It also happens to be the only way that babies are delivered naturally in Miami-Dade County. Because breech deliveries are rare and complicated, these days most doctors deliver these babies by Cesarian.

By the time I found out that Sofia was in breech, I was so heavily invested in my natural birth plan that the news came out of nowhere and hit me like a brick. I was devastated.

As the unwarranted input of family, friends, and absolute strangers began to flow in, I resolved to take the advice of anyone willing to to offer it. I crawled around my house on all fours until my back and knees hurt. I lifted my legs up into a “pelvic tilt” until I had trouble breathing. Even Carlos became involved, patiently burning a Chinese herb called moxa near the outermost corner of my pinky toes for 40 minutes per day (the process is called Moxibustion, and the heat from the moxa activates energy linked to the uterus which has been proven to give babies the extra pep they need to flip).

At some point in the midst all of the madness, I eventually came around to the realization that I was losing sight of the ultimate objective; having a healthy baby. Hence the first of many parenting lessons; as much as I try to give Sofia the space and energy that she needs to get out of breech, she is ultimately the only one who can decide how she is born. And as much as I continue to hope that at some point she will flip, I am now finally at peace with whatever path her birth ends up taking.