Happy Endings

Happy ending #1

We visited Mama #1 on Monday. It was her 36 week home visit. Last week, she asked what her options would be if the baby was breech. Although I am always happy to provide info, I don't like it when my mamas get "a feeling" about a breech baby or some other complication. Call me superstitious, but I just plain don't like it. Last week I was thrilled to find baby in a clearly head down position. Just where he was supposed to be.

You can imagine my dismay when she *again* said that she was worried about baby being breech. He was so tucked my hands weren't entirely sure about his position but the location of his heartbeat confirmed his mama's suspicion. Breech. We went over some activities for encouraging the little guy to shift his position and I promised to stop by today, Thursday, with a homeopathic remedy to help the process along.

Mama said that Daddy had been massaging her belly in the direction we wanted baby to turn when she felt a big movement. She was pretty sure that the little guy had shifted to a head down position night. She said that they had apparently turned him twice but that he seemed to keep turning back to breech. When I palpated, he was quite tightly tucked but his heartbeat was loud and clear just where I wanted it to be, which is well below his mama's belly button. Hurrah! Answered prayer & happy ending #1.

Happy Ending #2

The phone rang at 8:20 pm. My senior midwife was calling to ask if I could run over and check heart tones on a mama who was spotting. Mama #2 is about 13 weeks along with her 5th pregnancy and has seen enough blood in the past 2 days to make her anxious for her baby. I threw on some clothes, I was already in my jammies when D called, and drove over to have a listen for baby. The door was answered by her 7 year-old son and the other children, ages 9, 4 and 2, were playing nearby. The mood was decidedly worried. I brought out my doppler and started hunting for baby. The children clustered around me as I knelt by the couch and probed their mama's tummy. For the longest time I could only hear mama's strong pulse. By longest time I mean 3 - 5 minutes- an eternity if you are waiting to learn if your baby is still alive.

We were all growing a bit solemn as I tried angle after angle in an attempt to hear that quick and reassuring thump-thump-thump-thump. It occured to me, a bit late, that it was possible her uterus was higher than I expected for 13 weeks. Yep. Her fundus, the top of her uterus, was more where I might expect a 16 or 17 week pregnancy to be. Once I began listening near the fundus, we heard a delightfully strong and fast little heartbeat. Baby is absolutely alive and quite active, too, to judge by the amount of chasing I had to do to track him down for a second chance to hear his heartbeat.

Relief flooded the room. Mama looked straight into Daddy's eyes and smiled.

Definitely a happy ending.