Posterior babies

Not a lot is said or heard of optimum baby positioning. Pregnant Mums have heard of breach babies (babies that are feet first instead of head first out the chute) or transverse babies (ones that prefer to lie perpendicular to your waist than parallel) but there are other ways that babies can sit which can cause drawn-out births.

I know this now, because I did a lot of research after Avalon's 47 hour labour. 

Your uterus turns a baby clockwise around in your belly until it fits perfectly in your pelvis, at which time, usually your body will respond by opening up and pushing it out (I'm trying for an intermediate level of detail for the male friend readers out there).

So If a baby sits with it's head down, but it's back lies on your right side, not on your left, it needs to undergo almost a full 360 degree rotation until it can be birthed well, where it's back can lie straight down your belly button. Most babies prefer to lie in a good birthing position, on a mother's left hand side. But some want to cause trouble, and for various speculated reasons, aren't positioned this way.

The births that are explained in books are those who follow the rules and whose baby lies in that optimal birthing position. According to those books, first births take a maximum of 17 hours. That's like, less than a day! And according to those books, contractions are regular and get closer together whereas posterior births are often preluded by days of 10 minute and then 3 minute contractions.

So my friend Sarah and I were quite unprepared for our births, which both went on for days. Unlike Sarah, whose little Noah was actually born posterior, Avalon eventually turned all the way.

But this word posterior is what I dread now. Because it means a more intense labour, stronger contractions for a much longer period of time than a common labour, crazy back pain along with the regular muscle tightenings and a feeling of being in transition from an earlier point in the labour.

All of which leads to an exhausted Mum and Dad and a long, long labour until the baby eventually turns past your back (hence backpain as their spine scrapes yours on the way through) so it can be birthed.

All I can say is that I've read up on it A LOT. If my midwives can find out if I'm posterior, I'm going straight for the epidural. There's no way I'm deliberately planning on going through 6 hours of transition like pain again (unless God has other ideas of course).

I also know that this baby I carry prefers to be in a posterior position now. All of her kicks come out the front of my belly. So I'm praying that she moves a little to my left sometime soon and gets nice and comfortable there. Because there's so much appeal to me in experiencing a regular, run of the mill type birth.

Is there anything wrong with just wanting to be normal and not always the exception to the rule?