I love you, Towel Baby!

Peach,

Here's what Dr. Pei has been doing to get you to change and then maintain your position, Peach. I go for an hour of acupuncture. You seem to move closer and closer to a head-down position each time. To get you to maintain the new position, Dr. Pei rolls up towels and puts them alongside your body so that you won't go back to where you just were. The towels are held onto my abdomen with a very tight belly band. I am supposed to keep this tight belly band stuffed with towels on 24/7 for 2-3 days at a time---through the night! Now, if I thought the 3rd trimester of pregnancy was uncomfortable, try adding on this "towel baby" treatment! And if I thought it was getting harder and harder to breathe, try adding on this "towel baby" treatment! And if I thought bending over was just becoming a far-off memory of long ago, try adding on this "towel baby" treatment! And if I thought I moved past my feelings of self-consciosness about the shape of my body, try adding on this "towel treatment"---my belly is even more gigantic and now square and misshapen---like I had an affair with Sponge Bob Square Pants. And if I thought it was getting difficult to sleep, try adding on this "towel baby" treatment! Dr. Pei described to me how she first introduced this treatment to some colleagues when she first moved to the U.S. 20 years ago. They were thrilled and they deemed it "Towel Baby".

So, thankfully, seems like you are staying head down, Peach. Nice job. Good choice. Thank you! You don't seem to want to be straight up and down yet--you are preferring a bit of a diagonal position--makes me sing that Phish song about laying diagonal in my bed.... But Dr. Pei says no doctor will fuss about this. Let's hope so. We see a doctor for 36 week ultrasound on Wednesday morning. Even though Dr. Pei has been reassuring, I'd say I still have about 10% of my less-conscious brain doing intricate gymnastics over the possibility of navigating a breech birth.

Papa and I had a good talk. I was apprehensive in approaching the conversation, yet resolute, in stating my desire to go to Dr. Hall (he's one of the only doctors in Colorado who will facilitate a vaginal breech delivery) if you decided to go back to breech position. See, it'll cost a lot more money. But in the end, it's my body and your birth we're talking about, Peach. And the money will take care of itself. So, we have an appointment with Dr. Hall scheduled for next week--just as a back-up. If the ultrasound on Wednesday is satisfactory for our OBGYN team at Kaiser, then we'll cancel our appointment with Dr. Hall and stick with our plan. Stay head down, girlie, OK?

I have to praise Dr. Pei yet again. In our most recent visit with her, she palpated your home, my belly,  and "dopplered" your heart to more precisely assess your position. She declared that your head was at 5 o'clock and your bum was at 10:30. As she told me this, she exclaimed to you, Peach, "I love you, Baby!" This lovely 65 year old Chinese woman has been an invaluable source of reassurance for me throughout this "breech pathway" that we've cruised along together. I told her that she is a much better care provider than any of the doctors I've seen in 8 months of prenatal care. She became very serious and said, "Thank you."

Sleep has been really just awful lately. There is that 10% of my brain doing worrisome gymnastics and there's also this "towel treatment" with Dr. Pei. Weekends have become a time to catch up on sleep, lest I become a Zombie on Thursday and Friday of the workweek. It is a practice in letting go, because there are oh-so-many things I'd like to do and get done on the weekend. I suspect this is just the right practice for the letting go I'll keep doing as a parent.

It's been a while since we've done belly shots. Here's where you live, Peach. Livin' large.

35 weeks and 3 days 

As Mark snapped the camera, he says, "It looks fake."

Visualize "Head down, back to mama's tummy, chin tucked, hands on your heart!"

I love you, Towel Baby. Sleep or no sleep, I'll keep my chin up. You keep your head down.