Webster

Pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood in general have forced me to become more familiar and comfortable with otherwise unknown, funny or strange words. To name a few: lightening, effacement, linea negra, Weissbluth, nipple, breech, anterior fontanelle, craniosynostosis, and my newest vocab addition is the "Webster Technique" (which I'll get to in a minute).

I've used this blog to write about mostly sunny and wonderful moments of motherhood. I am not really one to mass communicate on the hardships. Like almost a year ago when we saw a pediatric cranial plastic surgeon for a possible diagnosis of craniosynostosis (aka scariest time so far in my mothering career). Sophie is fine, by the way.

The second most paralyzing moment in my mothering career happened yesterday. We had an ultrasound to check on baby Barber's progress at almost 39 weeks and the technician told us we have a big, healthy BREECH baby. I kind of checked out at that point. In the contiguous United States, this presentation of baby equals Cesarean delivery. I know - women do it every day, it's safe, it's routine, blah blah blah. The last thing I want is scheduled major surgery to extract a baby from my body, at the risk of offending anyone that reads this. It's just not for me. I mean, I cried when I got my flu shot.

In coming to terms with my new potential reality, I reached out to my very best resources who gave me some excellent advice. I immediately scheduled an appointment with a highly recommended chiropractor for first thing this morning. He's had a great success rate with something called the "Webster Technique" which involves small adjustments and encouraging some involuntary muscles and ligaments to relax and stretch giving baby any extra room available to get head-down.

A chiropractic adjustment called the Webster technique is a specific sacral adjustment to help facilitate the mother's pelvic alignment and nerve system function. This in turn balances pelvic muscles and ligaments, reduces torsion to the uterus and offers a greater potential for optimal fetal positioning.

So I'm freshly home from my first treatment and feeling relaxed and hopeful. There has been a lot of activity in my belly (fingers crossed), and I go back in on Monday for another round. Tuesday my doctors are going to want to make a plan that minimizes risk for safe delivery. If it doesn't work, I will know that I tried. Head down, head up, surgery or labor... healthy baby. Thank you to my friends and family for prayers, thoughts and words of encouragement!