This handy ticker pretty much sums it up:
The little guy is still breech, and this is what I'm opting to do, assuming he doesn't turn on his own (not likely, and I'm not interested in trying an external cephalic version, just so you know). I'm frightened, but I'd be frightened regardless of how this birth happens.
I'm Clancy Ratliff, an associate professor in the Department of English at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, where I am also the Assistant Director of First-Year Writing. I'm married with three children.
See my vita to find out more about where I've been and what I've done.
Email me: clancy.ratliff, gmail
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Clancy Ratliff.
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Comments
maybe
Well, V turned sometime around there. But, even if he doesn't, it'll be okay. Labor isn't all it's cracked up to be. At least you won't have to sit on an ice pack for your inflamed hoohah for a week.
superstar.
Getting close! The younger of my two older sisters just had her first baby two weeks ago--a girl named Winter. Of course, I'm immensely happy for her and Chad, though also pleased that I get to play the "Guess the Hippie Name My Sister and Her Husband Gave Their Daughter...in Three Guesses or Less" Game with all my friends around town.
They've had dogs and cats for ages, much to my mother's chagrin. I think I'm going to make a construction-paper diploma for when I see them next...something like "A Diploma for Your Graduation from the Care-taking of Pets to that of People."
You know...something classy.
In unrelated Niece News, my oldest sister's daughter is starting college up here in the Twin Cities next year. Crazy.
I may not blog anymore (at marcoe), but now I have time to make music.
Scheduled C
It is scary! Glutton for punishment and information hound that I am, once I knew a scheduled C was in the offing for child #2 (now eight, and charmingly toothless), I went and read all about the procedure, viewed the pics and so forth. Lucky me, the day of the procedure was a med student viewing day, so the doc described every step in detail as he went along. Oddly comforting, because I of course had the steps memorized, and was mentally checking them off. (Yes, it is strange and difficult--though oddly fun--being me.) Far freakier for the partner, in some respects, because of course he had blithely gone along not knowing a thing, really, about it, but he had by far the better view. In any case, here are the things I mostly remember, lo these many years later, fwiw: 1)seeing her for the first time, in all her breathtaking beauty 2)getting (yes!) to sleep on my tummy again, and 3)the pleasure of the shower afterward.
And here's the only wisdom I can offer, which is really no wisdom at all, but as close to true as I suppose I can ever get: your experience will be utterly unique, utterly yours, part of your story in this relationship and with this child forever even as it is also part of the shared story and shared experience of birth and mothering that flows always around us, and that you've already become a part of, and this simultaneously singular and shared thing will be a narrative and a poem of the highest order. (That's all I know--not much.)
Fears
2 Board Alley
I am glad to hear you express your fear--it always has seemed to me that fear expressed is halfway overcome. Never having had a baby, I can't offer much useful advice, but just know that I'm thinking about you three and sending positive thoughts to you all.