So I seem to be recovering from the intense round ligament/muscle pain I experienced this weekend, as I’ve been feeling a little better each day. It’s a good thing, too, because after my midwife appointment last night I have something new to worry about 
After we talked about all my symptoms and how we are going to get Rhogam, I lay on the table for our midwife to feel the baby and listen to the heartbeat. We found the heartbeat on the left side, accompanied by a hard bump which was the head. The butt was down, and the legs/knees were on the right side (accompanied by the biggest kicks). So basically, as my midwife put it, my baby is sitting like a taco. This is also known as a frank breech position (but his legs aren’t all squished up by his head because he still has some space in there), and also kinda transverse I guess. Not a big deal at this point. BUT… she said I might have a bicornuate uterus or a partial septate uterus. Might. It could seem that way because of the position baby was in, or baby could be in that position because of the way my uterus is shaped. At our next appointment (four long agonizing weeks from now!), if baby is still favoring the taco position, our midwife will probably recommend an ultrasound (something we weren’t planning to get) just so we can see exactly what’s going on. The two things that could happen with a heart-shaped uterus (as it is commonly called) are preterm labor and a breech presentation. Reasons for this: as the baby grows, he must choose one side or the other to occupy and there isn’t as much space in there as there would be in a normal one-roomed uterus. So as the baby runs out of space he may irritate the uterine walls and cause contractions. Also, it’s difficult for a baby to turn during third trimester in a bicornuate uterus, so he will basically be stuck in whatever position he gets into during second trimester.
Great. Neither of those things are things I anticipated or want. And even though she told me not to worry about it yet, I did. How could I not? I know that she will tell me ahead of time of any possible problems she anticipates (like when my bloodwork came back with platelets on the very low end of normal and she told me about a possible autoimmune disease where your body destroys your platelets during pregnancy, but that we wouldn’t know if there was actually a problem until later in the pregnancy when we test them again), and I do appreciate this because it means that any complications won’t just be suddenly thrown at me without warning. However, I will worry about things. The platelets, not so much. I haven’t had any symptoms of super low platelets- like frequent nosebleeds, easy bruising, or bleeding gums. The possibility of a bicornuate uterus, however… Yeah, it freaks me out. I stayed up half the night last night researching it. What drives me crazy is that, although I don’t know for sure yet if I have this issue, I should begin now to encourage a vertex position if I do. I’m afraid that by the time I knew, it would be too late to change it. Would I give birth vaginally to a breech baby? I’d sure as heck try. Would I do it at home? Not as sure, but I do know that the home environment is the one I very much long to birth in. I just don’t want to have to make a difficult decision like that. I also don’t want a preterm baby. I suspect my baby will be tiny anyway, and I really feel like anything less than term just wouldn’t be good.
So my midwife told me: ” There’s nothing we can do about it if your uterus is heart-shaped. All we can do is deal with the issued as they come.” If I have any contractions at all or other signs of preterm labor, I should call her immediately and she’ll tell me what to do- even from Hawaii. There was one encouraging bit in there, I guess, because she didn’t think that going to Hawaii was a bad idea (our babymoon/honeymoon trip starts next week!!!). And if my uterus ends up being bicornuate or septate, we’ll then work on getting baby head-down. She’s very confident and reassuring, which is really nice. I just wish that my husband could have been there with me. He is really the best person to calm me and help me to focus on positives. I really need him right now because the truth is that I feel very discouraged. I had a night filled with dreams that were all about turning breech babies….
I feel that I am probably rambling a lot about this, but I have more to say. About a year about I had a transvaginal sonogram (yes, the fun on where they take you into a dimly-lit room and stick a condom-sheathed wand into your lady parts and move it around) to check for ovarian cysts, and wouldn’t they have seen and told me then if there was anything funky about my uterus??
I came across a page on Spinning Babies last night about a bicornuate uterus. Basically, I need to be doing all the balancing exercises immediately, including the breech tilt, and drinking 12-16 glasses of water a day (yowza!). This is where I wish I already knew if I have this issue or not, but most of this stuff is good to do now anyway, so I’m just going to do it. I guess I wouldn’t be surprised if I did have a bicornuate because I have suspected for awhile that baby is sideways/taco-ish, and I really only feel her on either side and not in the middle. Is she still flipping around this way and that? Possibly? I do know that often she slides around more so that her head is kinda down and most of her body is on the right. That’s when it hurts like heck because she’s right on my poor aching right ligaments. I’ve stopped trying to push her out of that corner, though, because now I’m thinking it might be the easiest side for her to occupy head-down and I’ll not be stopping that action- to heck with the pain!
Has anyone else been told they had a bicornuate or septate uterus?? I desperately want to some non-breech, full-term, home birth success stories to give me courage, but this isn’t a common condition- only 0.1%-0.5% of women ever have the diagnosis…
Pregnancy, as I have been discovering throughout, is an exercise in trust. Trust in my body, and trust in God who designed it. Trust in my baby, and trust in God who gave this little one life. But sometimes it is so difficult. I called my mom last night and told her my worries. Before we hung up, she prayed with me a beautiful prayer and claimed this Bible promise: “Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my praise.” Jeremiah 17:14.
Natural Birth and Parenting 