As I neared my due date with this little girl, we had to start looking at potential for surgery. Not only for her, but myself as well. They had me scheduled to be induced the week before my due date, which was fine with me. Of course we all have that so called “birth plan” that completely goes out the window the minute you’re in the delivery room, so this time round I was game for whatever was going to be best for her. But there was also the potential for a c-section depending how she handled the stress of labor.

Naturally, leave it to my little girl to go breech and stay that way. She was quite content with her head in my rib cage and was having no part in turning herself around. So they OBGYN tells me they can try to turn her, excuse me!?!? You can do that?! Yes, apparently they can and let me tell you, after doing it, I would rather go through natural labor with no drugs, than to EVER have to go through that again and they even give you an epidural. Nothing I would ever recommend to another mama unless it was absolutely necessary. The epidural did nothing for me, she was too high up, so it literally did not numb the area I would have needed numbed. Once we scheduled this, it meant a whole day basically in the hospital myself with my husband, the epidural, being put almost upside down in the bed and extreme pressure as they pushed on the outside of my belly to try and get her shifted. Again, she is my daughter and was having no part in this and would not budge. After about 3 tries, they let it go and we scheduled to do a c-section instead the week before my due date. Seriously, never, ever would want to go through that again. I swear as soon as I was back upright and laying down I knew she had moved right back to where she had been, and could almost see her flipping off the doctors hahahaha.

As for our baby girl, we also talked to the heart surgeon a few weeks before my due date to get an idea of what our next few months/years may look like. Most of our trips to the doctors usually ended in a “we have to wait and see how she does once she’s here.” So of course the same was said from the surgeon. We had a few potential scenarios though which gave us a little better idea of things. She could potentially need surgery within her first few days/weeks or we could be able to wait up to 6 months before she would need something. Again, it all depended on how she was once she was here. Either way we were looking at a several step process to get her heart in good working order, which meant at least more than one open heart surgery. Not quite what we were anticipating, but again, whatever she was going to need, we were trying to prepare for. The best case scenario looked like 3 potential heart surgeries in her life with plenty of doctor’s appointments to help keep an eye on things.

Keep in mind, during all of this I was still working full time, going to all of these appointments and trying to balance time with our son. Thank goodness for both of our parents who helped with watching him when needed along with his regular daycare provider we had at the time. With the plan for surgery in the air, we also needed to think about what we were going to do long term since she would be in the hospital a good bit. Do we drive back and forth, do we try to get a room at Ronald McDonald house or the Children’s House, both were near Hopkins. It was just more added to the endless list of things we had to think about.