Scares

Kelsey Breseman
5 min readOct 10, 2024

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See this story on Substack: https://ifoundtheme.substack.com/p/scares

At three in the morning, the palms of my hands and soles of my feet are itching furiously. I'm still itchy from scabies (it takes a month or so after you kill the mites for them to work their way out of your skin), but this is new.

It's one of the things you're meant to look out for: a potential symptom of pre-eclampsia, an issue of placental origin that could cause breakdown of my liver and kidneys, among other things.

I double check that it's not go-in-immediately urgent, get back to sleep, and head in to get it checked out once the hospital opens in the morning.

My blood pressure is fine, there's no protein in my urine, and baby's heart rate (continuously monitored for several minutes with two big straps around my belly) varies in a normal range from 140-170 bpm.

The blood test results will take overnight, but as far as the immediate tests, I seem to be fine. But now there's something else on my mind.

"Can you tell," I ask the midwife idly as she puts on the monitoring straps, "is this hard bit here the head?"

I poke the hard lump that's been hanging out above my belly button for the last few weeks. It's been nice to be able to feel the baby so consistently, a way to connect.

She touches it. "Baby is breech," she replies brusquely. "They don't usually turn after thirty-six weeks." And then she walks out of the room.

I'm thirty-six weeks now. Or rather, "thirty-five plus six," as the midwife corrected me, scoldingly (because babies—and the system of counting weeks from the last period—are precise like that). So... is baby's flip now too late?

Yes, according to spinningbabies.com, the website both my doula and my prenatal yoga teacher point me to. Or rather, low-touch intervention would have been a lot more effective before thirty-four weeks. It should have flipped by then, and likely 2-4 weeks before that.

I've attended every medical appointment and asked questions, read more books on pregnancy than most people read in a year, scoured NHS and American websites, and paid both for antenatal classes and a doula. So why am I only learning about this now?

It's amazing how quickly I blame myself. Obviously, I should have been walking more. Or belly-down more of the time. Better informed, better prepared, better "balanced," whatever that means (spinningbabies.com again).

I think about all the times I've crossed my legs, or lain on my back. The baby's head is the heavy bit, which is why it tends to turn down. So if you're not upright enough, it might not turn.

Now, according to the website, my best bet is to get inverted as often as possible to get the baby to flip. "Head down, just like you want baby to be." Something in this logic isn't sound; is this bullshit? The idea, I think, is to disengage the legs from the pelvis so that it can flip around.

That's the basic premise of the more hands-on intervention, ECV: somebody manually manipulates the fetus from the outside, getting it free from your bones and then turned the "right" way.

It's all a bit confusing. On the one hand, the baby is getting more space-filling all the time. On the other, it might still flip on its own, so NHS won't actually offer this for another week.

ECV has potential side effects: fetal distress, and issues with placenta and umbilical cord that could lead to blood and immediate C-section. It's not a gentle process.

ECV works, apparently, about 50% of the time: not very good, though my understanding is that this is an average across providers, and a good one might have a better rate. I get educated fast.

The next morning, at my 36-week midwife appointment, I'm meant to go over my birth plan. Most of it is straightforward, but I ask about the breech thing.

"I know that it's possible to deliver babies breech," I start, "but also that it's not common because most people are advised to get C-sections. At the Royal London, if my baby is breech, will there be a midwife on hand who knows how to deliver it?"

"We are all trained on breech delivery," she informs me, "but usually it only happens when it's undiagnosed. So there aren't a lot of people with experience."

"Undiagnosed," I clarify, "means you only find out when you see baby's bum coming out?" As in, everybody else goes to C-section.

"Exactly."

This is not heartening. But the next thing is.

I climb up onto the bed for the usual check on baby's heartbeat. Then, because I'm concerned about breech, the two midwives in the room decide to double check by feeling around my abdomen.

"The hard spot is usually right here," I indicate helpfully. But it isn't at the moment.

She feels my sides, and the wiggling there. "The extremities," she comments.

Her hands go low to check for a bowling ball towards the top of my pelvis. And she finds it. "The head is here."

The hard spot I'm used to has resurfaced, and she squishes it around. "It wouldn't move like this if it was the head."

The two midwives confirm: baby's not breech after all. False alarm.

We go over the rest of the birth plan: who to have in the room, how I would like to stay mobile or rest, pain relief options.

This midwife has a habit of sprinkling "obviously" into every sentence: not a great trait for anybody, but especially egregious in healthcare. There's a bit of friction between what I want and what she thinks I should want; I'm glad we'll have a doula to do my advocacy.

"So, I'm cleared, then, at thirty-seven weeks, to try all the natural ways of inducing labor?"

"Obviously," she smiles. "Dates, pineapple, raspberry leaf tea..."

"Is any of that real?" I ask dubiously.

"Well, lots of people think it helps."

"We love a placebo," I mutter, beginning to pack up my things. "Thanks." I'll find my own medical advice.

"I'll see you in two weeks," she tells me. "Unless you give birth before then. It'll be in the system, so you won't have to call and cancel."

I nod. Sounds fine.

Baby's not breech, and I get a call in the afternoon telling me my blood results are normal too. So we're back to regular, no-worries waiting: as soon as this Saturday, or as late as mid-November. Sooner is better, I think. Less time for weird scares.

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