May 22nd, 2013
I rarely write anything personal on this blog, trying to keep the focus on DIY ideas and practical solutions, but I decided to write about my recent experience with having a breech baby because I really couldn’t think of a time when I was more of a stalwart than the past two weeks, trying like hell to DIY flip my baby over! Also, for some reason, women have an unfortunate tendency to skip over the parts of pregnancy that are tough to admit or talk about, like miscarriages, gender disappointment, depression or a feeling of detachment from all of it.

First attempt at a full inversion. I had to tie my legs to an ironing board to keep them from falling off…we did this until I bent the ironing board in half!
Maybe we judge each other too quickly, too loudly or use the wrong words to comfort, creating an unsafe place to be more open. I know that when I expressed my own bout of gender disappointment with some close friends and family, I often heard “Well, I’m sure you’re just happy he’s healthy, right?”…which actually only made me also feel like the worst person on earth!
We found out at my 38 week appointment that our son was breech. This late catch was a mix of mistakes made by me and my doctors. While no one checked this via ultrasound during my rotations, shuttling me in and out of appointments in sometimes less than a few minutes, I also had no idea that I shouldn’t be feeling large movements above my belly button and the smaller kicks in my pelvis so I never even mentioned it. Continue reading