Pregnancy: 3rd Trimester in Review

I began my 3rd trimester at the end of May 2025. One thing I want To say is that so many people told me I would be miserable and just wait until summer blah blah blah. I seriously did not think it was all the bad being pregnant in the summer. Yes I was hot and sweaty but I typically run warm and it wasn’t overwhelming or anything. It is however important to stay hydrated in the summer. Lack of fluid can mean dehydration which causes muscle cramps. Your uterus is a muscle so it can contract when you don’t hydrate enough. Anyway, at our last appointment baby was transverse breech but they told me not to worry about that so I carried on as normal. I was still lifting 3 times a week and trying to go for walks everyday. The third trimester was pretty uneventful until around 36 weeks.

At your 36 week appointment or somewhere around that time you will recieve the GBS (Group B Strep) swab in your vagina and rectum. They are testing for the bacteria because the baby may catch it during delivery. If you are positive you must go on antibiotics for delivery which is not ideal for many reasons. This test is why I was taking a probiotic during my pregnancy which helps you have good bacteria and not bad bacteria in your vagina. Anyway, I was terribly nervous about this because I did not want to test positive and they were checking babies position to see if they were breech, which was also scary. I got into our room and they took my blood pressure. It was slightly elevated and I requested that they take it again when I had been sitting for awhile. (I had good BP my whole pregnancy but the other provider I went to would take it as soon as I got into the room so it was always a little high from walking but when they retook it, it was always good.) Then they did my swab and said the doctor would be in shortly. When she came in she said that my blood pressure was high and asked me if I was feeling okay. I explained that I was very nervous and she told me that nerves do not cause BP to raise that much. She then ultrasound me and we discovered baby was still Transverse breech. Womp womp! My doctor told us we had to go to the ER to get a NST to make sure baby and me were okay and that I may have pre-eclampsia! She then explained that if baby doesn’t flip they will c-section me within the week and if baby did flip they would induce me because of the pre-eclampsia. As you can imagine I was stressed and upset. All I wanted was a natural birth and now things were blowing up in my face.

When we got to the hospital they took blood samples and had me pee to test my urine for protein (which is a symptom of Pre-E). Then they hooked me up to a monitor to check for the baby’s heart rate and contractions. Baby was perfectly healthy and no in distress at all. My blood work came back perfect as well. My urine however showed some protein in it. In fact a significant amount. The doctor came in to talk to us and basically said that they can diagnose me with Pre-E because I show two of the symptoms one being high BP and the other the protein in my urine. They wanted to also schedule me for an ECV where they manual flip the baby by pressing on your stomach (which they also said they do not feel very confident about). If it is successful they will induce me immediately and if it was not successful they would schedule my c-section asap. I was so overwhelmed and upset and I felt like they were just giving up. My husband and I requested to come back on Monday and get retested to see if I still had the symptoms because we couldn’t believe they were going to do all of this and pull my baby out weeks early just because of one test. They said if I had one more high BP they would diagnose me with Pre-E. Yeah okay let me not have high BP when you tell me something like that.

The following week now 37 weeks pregnant we went back to the ER for an NST of course my BP was high but they took it multiple times and it was fine after a few minutes. They didn’t even want to test my urine but my husband requested they did to confirm. Like why would you not test again?!?! My urine came back with ZERO traces of protein and baby was perfectly healthy. We decided to cancel or ECV and switch doctors immediately Because baby was still presenting breech. While I was at home over this week and a half I was doing all the exercises to flip the babe, driving an hour to get acupuncture and chiropractic adjustments and swimming to flip this baby. At this point we named the babe Flippy lol. None of it worked. Baby actually flipped to Frank breech (head up and feet by head) which ended up being helpful but not enough. Basically our provider said theres no way they will deliver breech due to the fact that they don’t know how and if he continued breech and I continued care there I would receive a cesarean.

We switched to a different provider at 38 weeks that was known for their success with ECVs as well as having a breech team that delivers breech baby’s naturally. We had our ECV procedure and it was unsuccessful of course. It was not pleasant in the slightest but Flippy was stubborn! We had our first appointment at the new doctor the following week. Our doctors were very optimistic about us being able to have a natural breech birth and we were excited to have a provider that would support our wishes even though things were not going as planned. We monitored my BP and tested my urine and we never had any more signs of pre—E so let that be a testament to standing up for yourself because if we listened to the doctors we would have had a c-section at 37 weeks!

The rest of the story will be in my birth blog since this sums up the end of my pregnancy journey!