I shared about my ECV with my third baby a couple of years ago but now we’re back with my ECV experience with my fourth baby! First of all, isn’t it crazy that I’ve (almost) had four babies, and three of them have been breech? My doctors predict that I have an odd shaped uterus that causes it to lead my babies to be more comfortable in a head-up position as opposed to the desirable head-down position. Lucky me, huh?

So anyway. Lets chat about this ECV, shall we?

First of all, ECV is short for External Cephalic Version. What does that mean? Basically, it means…ouch. Haha. But for real. Owie. Ok, but really an ECV is when a doctor externally moves your baby from a head-up to a head-down position. Essentially, they just push on your stomach really, really hard, moving your baby to the position they need to be in.

Now onto the story.

We got to the hospital about an hour-ish before the procedure was to begin. They get you all set in your hospital gown, check one last time with an ultrasound to ensure that the baby is indeed breech, hook you up to the monitors, put an IV in you and talk you through what’s going to happen. Finally, its time for the actual ECV.

My doctor came in, checked the ultrasound again to sort of make a game plan and began. My baby has been sitting at a bit of a diagonal angle, so this whole time I’ve believed the route from head-up to head-down would be slightly shortened since his head wasn’t completely straight up. Buuuuut turns out the safest way to move him was around the other way, so it was actually a longer turn. However it was what was safest for our baby, so obviously it was all ok.

Now it was go-time. I got a shot in my arm (I can’t completely remember what its for – maybe its a muscle relaxer? you want that uterus nice and relaxed so its not quite as difficult to move the baby) and just like last time I got this, it stung so dang badly. Then a small group of medical staff gather around, and in my case I also had a few students in there to watch, and then my doctor got to work.

My baby was very stubborn this time around. My last ECV lasted maybe five minutes. This one was a little over twenty, I believe? His little bum was nestled comfortably in a spot that he did not want to move from so my doctor had to first lift his bum out of that spot and then start moving him with his hands.

He had to push really hard. Craig said during the whole procedure my doctor was white knuckled he was pushing so hard and after the procedure he showed us that he’d actually broken a sweat! Like I said, baby boy really put up a fight!

Every once in a while we had to pause and wait because babies heart rate would drop lower than they wanted – something we hadn’t experienced before. One of the medicines they’d given me made my heart rate go really high, so they said monitoring our hearts was kind of interesting because mine was so fast and his would drop down so slow. Luckily though, every time we’d pause, his heart would go back to normal and there never was a real issue there. It did make me nervous as we’d sit and wait for it to get back to a regular pace, but I found a lot of peace in knowing I was in good hands (I quite literally trust my doctor with my life…and my babies) and I knew if it got real bad, I’d be taken right into a c-section and it’d be ok.

Finally, he was head down. The doctor had got his head in a nice, snug place where he’d be able to settle until it was time to deliver him! As he told me, with how hard it was to get him into that position, he was sure it’d be nearly impossible for him to move out of his new position (spoiler alert: he stayed head down!)

After everything was done, they kept us for an additional two and a half-ish hours to monitor us, but mostly baby. With my last ECV they only kept us an hour, but this time with babies heart going up and down every once in a while during the version, they kept us just a little longer to watch. Thankfully everything looked just as it should and we were freed to go home.

Recovery from this is a bit uncomfortable for sure. I describe it as feeling as if my entire stomach is a very sensitive bruise. It hurt to touch, especially in a couple of spots he had to push particularly hard on. It also took me a good 24 hours to stop feeling the effects of the drugs they’d given me, but other than that it was really just fine!

Then finally I allowed baby watch to officially begin with the hopes that I’d have another successful v-bac!

Sometimes good, amazing things happen and are just too good not to share. In fact, this past week at church we were kind of challenged to share our testimonies or spiritual experiences with people. As I pondered how I could do this, I kept thinking of my social media platforms and wanted to think of a way to share on those. Then Tuesday happened and I knew exactly what I could share.

I have two quick stories that will really stick with me for a while and I am excited to share!

Lets start at the beginning.

FIRST STORY

On Monday evening and all through the night, a lot of Utah, our area included, was hit with a crazy thunder and lightning storm accompanied with TONS of wind and rain. The boys and I had stayed up late that night watching the storm and listening to it from their bedroom window. The next morning it was evident that the wind had done some pretty significant damage around our town. For some reason our area was spared from much damage, but as we drove to the grocery store that morning we drove through a neighborhood that had been hit hard by the wind. Some streets you couldn’t even drive down because trees, huge ones and small ones alike, were strewn across the road. Fences were ruined by these trees, some light poles were down, play houses and trampolines weren’t in their original spots.. It was a mess.

But it brought about some amazing sights. There were so many trucks pulling trailers coming into this neighborhood and trucks and trailers already there. People, strangers, friends and neighbors scattered these neighborhoods and were helping chop these trees into smaller pieces and haul them out of the neighborhood. I watched a man standing in a yard with his arm around a little frail old woman who seemed pretty upset about the damage to her big front yard trees. I saw people working together to lift big heavy tree trunks into trailers. It was really incredible and humbling to see.

It was a beautiful reminder that there are so many good people in the world. It was amazing to see these people coming together to help their community. I felt really honored to witness it.

SECOND STORY

I have been (pretty silently) stressing out about body image this pregnancy. Not necessarily my pregnant body – I’m actually really confident in my pregnant body. I love what its doing and I’m truly proud of it. I’m more obsessed and nervous about my after-baby-body. If you remember, before this pregnancy I’d got my body to a place I was super proud of. I’d lost weight and got into great shape. I know very well that once Baby Boy is here I’ll very likely be starting back at square one with my body. I know I’m gaining weight and I’ll have to put in a lot of work again to get my body back to that spot I loved before I got pregnant. I keep getting so fixated on this. I’m not in a bad mental state or anything, its just frustrating and consumes my thoughts from time to time.

So on Monday evening, pretty casually in my prayers before bed, I asked Heavenly Father to help me accept my future post-baby body. I know it sounds kind of silly, but I knew God knew what I was talking about.

The next day we went to the grocery store (where we saw all the amazing stuff from story one). While there, I ran into a girl I knew from an old neighborhood. We hadn’t seen each other in a while, but one thing I remembered about her is that she isn’t able to have children of her own. However two months ago, she and her husband were able to adopt their first baby – a beautiful little baby girl she had wrapped around her chest. It was exciting to see her be a mother and we had a nice little brief conversation and caught up.

As she turned and walked the other way after we chatted, she ended up running into someone else she knew. I remained on the aisle trying to find salad dressing that was taking forever to be located (something I know now was no coincidence). I could hear my old friend and this lady she knew chatting for a second and then the adoption was brought up.

Clear as day during their conversation, I heard the girl start talking about how she’s still having a hard time accepting that her body will never look like…and then she pointed down at me. Then she told the woman she was talking with she would kill to have her body “look like that,” one day.

The brightest, most amazing lightbulb went off in my head then. My post-baby body, whatever it may look like, is something that some people would do anything to have. And I’ve been taking it for granted. I’ve been dreading it. I’ve been disrespectful to it. But in that moment, my prayers were answered and I was reminded of just how special, sacred and wonderful my body is – even the body that I’ll have in those following weeks and months after giving birth to my fourth child. I love how the Lord works.

So now I’m going to do my best to hold tight to those feelings I had in the grocery store. I’m going to try to remember the epiphany I had and the reminder I was given that even a post-baby body is absolutely beautiful and worthy of lots of love and respect.