After 2 long years of wanting to be pregnant, the news finally came back! We were so excited. With a due date of April 9, 2005 I was already picking out names and wanting to shop for clothes and strollers and carseats. But we had a few bumps along the way. With a rough start (very low numbers in the blood test - like 2 above the positive pregnancy mark), and some bleeding (blamed on a blood clot discovered in my uterus) the pregnancy with Meredith seemed fairly normal by the time I got to 10 weeks or so. Then at 15 weeks, that blood clot had had enough and decided to pass, which caused quite a panic. My ob graciously offered to meet me at his office at about 6 pm on a Sunday night (leaving his family bbq - he showed up in a hawaiian shirt, shorts, and sandals) because when he called the ER the wait was just too long. So after a few minutes of him figuring out the sonogram equipment, he reported that everything looked fine and if he was a betting man he'd say it was a girl. I went home to take it easy and after a few more days all bleeding stopped and didn't come back again. I even continued working until just a few days before Meredith was born. At about 36 weeks we learned that Meredith was in a breech position, head up and feet down. The ob asked me to try an ancient Chinese herbal treatment (click to learn more) that he has had great success with ("only once has it not worked!"). So I went home with a bag of herbs and a copy of a journal article with instructions on what to do. It looked like a bag of marajuana. But what could it hurt, right? I went to the corner gas station and bought a pack of cigarette papers, and came home to roll my first 'joint'. Instructions were to burn the joint while it was positioned between the two smallest toes while standing up. The heat that was produced at this pressure point was supposed to cause the baby to be very active, and hopefully flip into a head down position. Well, we tried this for several days (and no, we did not get a picture of it) and now this ob has to say "only twice has it not worked!" So my c-section was scheduled for April 6th, and the ob said that we could discuss a possible External Cephalic Version at that time. I never had a good feeling about trying to turn the baby, and just wanted to proceed with the c-section. And I guess that was God's plan because as I laid in the hospital bed awaiting my epidural, I started having contractions - and you can't try to turn a baby when the mom is contracting! So at 7:47 am Meredith was born - and was just perfect. Turns out the cord was wrapped around her neck several times and there was a blood vessel on the outer part of the uterus (not within the uterus like it's supposed to be, if I remember this correctly) which could have ruptured had I been in labor, so it all worked out for the best. And after a couple days in the hospital, we brought home our first daughter!
Meredith Brooke
April 6, 2005
7 pounds 12 ounces
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