It wasn't too long ago that we were sitting in our doctor's office going through our regular baby check-up when I happened to mention that the baby likes to rest on the right side of my wife's stomach. The doctor leans in to feel around for the baby and the way it lays and then let's us know that the baby is in a breached position.
Shocked that our baby didn't want to do what normal babies do and go head down, we listened to the doctor give us advice on what to do and what the process going forward will be. My wife had to go get acupuncture & chiropractic work done. We had to buy these hippy slow-burning sticks called Moxibustion and if all else fails, we have to go to the hospital where they try to flip the baby.
These Moxibustion sticks are a traditional Chinese medicine therapy, whereby you light one end using a candle or torch and then point the lit end about 1 cm away from the corner of the little toe. This is, apparently, where the acupuncture point is located in order to enlarge the uterus. The point is to be seated in a position where the baby can flip while holding the lit end near this acupuncture point on both feet for a combined 20 minutes, twice a day.
In addition to these methods, my wife has also took to the internet, searching for any sort of recommendation there is out there for flipping a baby. So far, we've come across different ways to sit and inverting yourself using the couch. Luckily, I had bought my wife an inversion table for Christmas that's just been sitting in our storage unopened. We unpacked it last week to set it up and she's been on it every day since.
Another method we learned about was to dive into or do handstands in a pool. Thus, last Friday my wife picked me up from work and we drove the 5 hours east to my families condo in Osoyoos, where we have a pool. It being Father's Day weekend plus my Dad's birthday made it better as my parents were up there as well as my younger sister and her boyfriend.
The weather wasn't really co-operating as it was mostly cloudy and raining the two days there. However, we challenged the sun to come out by getting out to the pool anyways and trying the handstands on land and in the pool along with a couple dives. The pool was a little chilly, but luckily the hot tub was working, so I was able to go in there and my wife could dip her legs in.
We don't know for sure if our baby has flipped and by all accounts it doesn't feel like it has. So, this week we are in our 36th week meaning we will have to head to the hospital some time soon in order for the doctors to try to flip it...
... stay tuned!