I made the mistake yesterday of googling "posterior labor" and scared myself. So. As long as I'm still waiting to go into labor, I figured I might use the time trying to spin the baby around from posterior to anterior.
Let me digress with a quick review of fetal positioning for anyone who isn't familiar with the terminology, since not a few of the folks I've mentioned this to have thought I meant the baby was breech when I described him as posterior. Skip this if you know all that.
- "Breech" would mean the baby was head-up, feet- or butt-down, and that is potentially a more serious malpositioning which frequently requires cesarean section and almost always is delivered by c-section these days whether necessary or not.
- "Vertex" is the opposite of breech: head down, ready to be born headfirst. You can see why we don't refer to babies as right-side-up and upside-down. Too ambiguous. Even when the baby's definitely not breech, he can assume a variety of positions; here is a good diagram showing the possibilities and the abbreviations.
- "Posterior" means that the baby is facing the mother's front, not her back. Yes, posterior means "back." It's short for "occiput posterior" (sometimes "occipital posterior") which translates roughly to "the back of the baby's head is towards the mother's back.") Sometimes this is called "sunny-side-up" which, I assume, refers to the way the posterior baby would face at birth if the mother were in the obstetrical semi-sit or on-her-back delivery position, either of which would be a pretty crappy way to deliver a posterior baby.
- "Anterior," really occiput anterior, is the opposite of posterior: baby faces the mother's spine, back of the baby's head to the mother's front.
The usual manner of birth is vertex and anterior. My baby is vertex but posterior. Most of the time posterior babies turn during labor at some point, though often not until after many hours. If they don't turn, they do come out that way, but it's more difficult — labor tends to start later and take longer and be more uncomfortable, or at least that's what they say.
I'm a little anxious about it.
So I spent some time yesterday crawling around on hands and knees, feeling like I ought to say "Moo" every now and again. Originally I thought I might use the time constructively by scrubbing the floor or something (it needs it; Mary Jane dumped a box of baking soda on the floor last week and tried to clean it up herself, with a wet mop, before she was discovered), but the hard floor hurt my knees, so I settled for circling the armchair on the area rug.
It's hard not to blame myself for the malpositioning. I have spent too much time in front of the computer and leaning back in rocking chairs. I am now sitting in front of the computer perched on the front of a rocking chair to tilt it as far forward as I can without sliding off. Last night I arranged all the pillows I could find (Mark had to wad a blanket under his head) so I could sleep all night on my left side with my belly button pointed down, or at least as down as I could point it without cutting off anybody's oxygen. Before that, while Mark was reading stories to MJ and Milo, I spent some more time doing pelvic rocks on hands and knees.
Oscar, who's nine, peeked around the door with an alarmed look on his face. "Is the baby coming out?" I suppose I looked a lot like some of the pictures in the birth books. I said no and he said "Are you sure?"
I assured him that, if the baby were in fact coming out, I would know before he would. After he went back to his bedroom, Mark laughed at me, or maybe at him, and told me I needed to get in the habit of closing the door all the way. Which is true.
I woke up very achy from sleeping on the same side all night.
I guess I can turn my impatience to have the baby into thankfulness that, since he's not quite engaged yet, there's still room for him to turn around. Think rotational thoughts.
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