Podcast appearances and mentions of braxton hicks

Welcome to the Entering Motherhood Podcast. This week, our host Sarah Marie Bilger, alongside co-creator Katelyn, delves into the world of labor contraction patterns in a lively Doula Talk session. Discover crucial insights about prodromal labor, Braxton Hicks, and real-world labor experiences that may change how you navigate pregnancy and childbirth. Learn how mental preparedness plays a significant role in the labor process and explore strategies that can empower you throughout this transformative journey. Join us for engaging discussions that are designed to keep you informed and in control, backed by our comprehensive O.W.N. Your Birth online course. Don't miss this opportunity to deepen your understanding and confidence as you prepare for the arrival of your precious little one. Find the Full Show Notes Here: https://www.enteringmotherhood.com/episodes Relevant Links: Register for the O.W.N Your Birth Childbirth Education Course 5 ways to prepare for an Unmedicated Birth Download the FREE Comprehensive Birth Vision Planner Hypnobabies is a great tool to use hypnosis when preparing for childbirth. Use the code MOTHERHOOD20 to receive 20% off today! Truly fuel your body with FOND Bone Broth a verified regenerative by land to market company dedicated to serving you rich and handcrafted items. Use code ENTERINGMOTHERHOOD for 10% off. Looking to become a doula yourself and get into birthwork? Check out the Online Doula Training Program to get started on your path today. Become certified through Postpartum University and help clients learn more about how to nourish their bodies in the postpartum period. Want a baby carrier you can snuggle your baby tight in? Check out LoveHeld for their handwoven ring sling carrier you'll be sure to love. In need of nursing tops and postpartum items? Kindred Bravely is the place to shop for all of your attire needs and more.  Connect with Katelyn: @encaul_birthservices Connect with Entering Motherhood: The Entering Motherhood Website @entering.motherhood (IG) Entering Motherhood (FB) Contact us Directly

With just three weeks until our baby girl arrives, this episode captures a tender season of transition. I reflect on the sacred time spent during our baby moon, the waves of Braxton Hicks contractions, our intentions of co-sleeping and the emotional conversations that are shaping us as parents. It's a vulnerable look into the beauty, fear, and hope that come with standing at the edge of a brand new beginning.References: Sarah Buckley

This podcast covers episodes 11,531 to 11,536. After having symptoms mistaken for Braxton Hicks, Dee Dee has a complicated labor and her troubles are only beginning once the baby is born. When Debbie takes a spill in the ginnel and can't remember how it happened, Ronnie's suspicions immediately turn to Mick. Betsy in encouraged to forgive her mother when she speaks with her new best friend Nina. Daisy and Jenny have a heart to heart in an attempt to piece together their broken relationship, but Daisy is concealing darker ideas. Steve realizes he jumped to the wrong decision regarding his future with Cassie, but that ship may have already sailed. Todd and Theo's attempts at restarting their relationship have mixed results. Kev's chemotherapy leaves him in an irritable mood, which he takes out on the loved ones around him. Hope's on the brandy. George loves a good signal box. Fiz is in a grounding mood.

If you are pregnant with your first baby, there are a lot of unknowns about what labor feels like. Many expecting moms will experience Braxton Hicks contractions. These can not only be uncomfortable, but they may trick you into thinking you are going into labor. Learn what Braxton Hicks contractions are and why they happen. Find out the key differences to tell Braxton Hicks apart from true labor. Get tips on how to manage and alleviate Braxton Hicks. We also cover when to call your doctor or midwife and warning signs of preterm labor to watch for. Thank you to our sponsor AG1 is offering new subscribers a FREE $76 gift when you sign up. You'll get a Welcome Kit, a bottle of D3K2 AND 5 free travel packs in your first box. Even with the best diet, some nutrients can be hard to get. AG1 delivers optimal amounts of nutrients in forms that help your body thrive. Just one scoop contains essential vitamins and nutrients, supports gut health, helps you feel sharp and focused, and supports a healthy immune system. Check out DrinkAG1.com/pregnancypodcast to get a free welcome Kit, a bottle of D3K2, and 5 free travel packs in your first box.  (As a friendly reminder, pregnant or nursing women should seek professional medical advice before taking this or any other dietary supplement.) Read the full article and resources that accompany this episode. Join Pregnancy Podcast Premium to access the entire back catalog, listen to all episodes ad-free, get a copy of the Your Birth Plan Book, and more. Check out the 40 Weeks podcast to learn how your baby grows each week and what is happening in your body. Plus, get a heads up on what to expect at your prenatal appointments and a tip for dads and partners. For more evidence-based information, visit the Pregnancy Podcast website.

This is one of my favorite episodes that I have ever done. Carissa is about to give birth. I mean she's literally just a few days away and she's having contractions and going through Braxton Hicks. I mean it's a site to see. I love every second. I wish I could've played you guys everything that was recorded, but I can't. Since this episode was recorded, Josiah had a beautiful baby boy on the of 14th February. That means he's a Cupid baby. It's been pointed out to me that Josiah did not actually have the baby himself. His wife did and that's just fine. Go women!! Enjoy the show!

In this episode of The VBAC Link Podcast, join Julie as she sits down with Ambrosia to discuss her journey from a teen pregnancy to achieving a VBAC after two C-sections. Ambrosia shares her unique experiences, the challenges she faced, and the importance of advocating for herself in the medical system. Julie and Ambrosia give insights into the myth of a small pelvis and preeclampsia. How is a small pelvis really diagnosed? Does preeclampsia always mean a medically necessary C-section? Listen to find out!The VBAC Link Blog: Overuse of the CPD DiagnosisCoterie Diapers - Use Code VBAC20 for 20% offHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Julie: All right, Good morning, good morning, good morning. It is Julie here today with The VBAC Link Podcast, and I'm really excited about our story today. I have with me Ambrosia. Is Ambrosia how you say it?Ambrosia: Yes.Julie: Okay, good. I didn't want to go the whole episode without saying your name wrong. Okay, we have it. Ambrosia. I'm really excited because today we have a VBAC after two C-section story. I love especially these stories. Her first pregnancy was a teen pregnancy, and I am really interested in hearing her experience about that because I know that it's a very unique circumstance and a very different journey as a teenager, and there are unique challenges associated with that. So I'm excited to hear more about that and about all of her journey through all of her births. But before I do that, I'm going to share a Review of the Week. This one is a throwback to 2020. I was looking through our spreadsheet and saw that we haven't done that one yet, so I'm going to throw all the way back almost four years ago. This review was on Apple Podcasts, and it says "Meagan and Julie and the women sharing their birth stories are amazing. They share real life stories of all kinds of births and helpful, useful, practical information that has really helped me feel prepared for my VBAC which I hope will happen very soon. I highly recommend listening to this podcast to be informed and encouraged. I also highly recommend their online VBAC course. It's self-paced and offers so much valuable information and good resources. It has really helped me feel ready and empowered to birth my baby. Thank you for all you awesome ladies do for women and the birth world."I will say thank you so much for sharing a review. If you haven't already, take some time, pause the podcast right now. Go ahead and leave us review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen, and we might just be reading your review on the podcast one day.All right, let's get back to it. I'm really excited to meet Ambrosia today and hear her stories. Ambrosia is a 27-year-old mother of three boys. Boy Mom, that's super exciting. They are ages 11, 5, and 1 month. I'm really excited to hear, especially, about a fresh VBAC after two C-section story. She is from El Paso, Texas, and she is very excited to share her story with us today. So, Ambrosia, why don't you go ahead and share your journey to a VBAC after two C sections with us?Ambrosia: Cool. I'll start off with my first pregnancy. I got pregnant at about 16. And with that, I just wanted to mention that I wasn't really raised by my mom. I had my grandma in my life most of my life since I was two. So with her, I had a lot of freedom with her, in a sense. I did fall pregnant very, very young. But she did support me in so many ways. She helped me out through all of my pregnancy, but it was more providing shelter and food and stuff like that. When it came down to me knowing what to do, that wasn't really a thing. I found myself watching YouTube a lot and getting my information from the Internet, but still, I was just completely naive to what birth was and all of that. I just went straight off of what my doctor would tell me.Once I did find out that I was pregnant, I chose a doctor and didn't really do any research with that. I just chose a female because that's who I was more comfortable with. But little did I know, the doctor that I did choose, she was, from what I've heard around El Paso from other women and their experiences and doctors too, they were like, "Oh, she's really good at C-sections. She's one of the top ladies that you would want to have to do your C-section because she's really good at it." That was later on that I figured that out. But at the time I was just like, however my baby comes out is how it comes out, but I did want to have like a vaginal birth. I didn't want to do no surgeries or nothing because I've never even broke a bone in my body, so just the thought of surgery kind of scared me. My first visit with her was good, but she automatically told me, "Your pelvis is too narrow. You won't be able to push your baby out. There's a chance that he could get stuck," and this and that. I had my grandma with me, so we just gave each other that look of like, "Oh well, whatever is best." I ended up having a C-section with him, and she schedules the C-section. Then on that day that I got it, after everything was done, she mentioned to me, "You want more kids, right?" I told her, "Of course." She told me, "Well, if you wait a couple years, at least one to two or two-and-a-half years, then you could have a vaginal birth if you would still want that."Julie: That is so funny. Hold on. Can I interrupt for a second?Ambrosia: Yeah, of course.Julie: I'm so sorry. I think it's so funny that she told you that after she told you your pelvis was too small.Ambrosia: Exactly.Julie: Isn't that silly? Anyway, we're gonna talk more about that at the end of the episode, but I just had to call attention to that. Anyway. Sorry. Keep going. Thank you. Ambrosia: You're okay. Yeah. I thought that was weird, too, because knowing what I know now, I know that a lot of doctors get more money, in a sense, out of the C-sections rather than a vaginal birth. So I'm like, yeah, that's probably why. And not necessarily that, but it's more convenient for them. They don't have to really wait around and whatnot. And then with my second pregnancy, my son was already about 5-6 years old. And so I was like, well, of course I can. I was pretty excited. I did want to push for vaginal birth, but I did end up going back to her for that pregnancy. I should have known better. But honestly, I didn't know really how to advocate for myself still because I was 21. I feel like I just wasn't adamant enough. I didn't have that confidence yet be like, no, this is what I want. I don't want another C-section. This is what I want. I would mention it to her that at almost every appointment. With the first initial appointment, I told her, "I do want to try for a VBAC." And she's like, "Well, yeah. We can talk about that in your next appointments." As I kept going back for my appointments, she was just kind of like, "It's just an in-and-out type of thing and transactional experiences trying to see if you're healthy and whatnot." I started noticing at around 20 weeks pregnant that my hands would feel pretty weird. They would feel kind of stiff and a little swollen. I started getting very, very swollen. I worked full-time. I'm a nail technician, and so I work at a spa full time, or I did at that time too. I thought, maybe it's just stress from work or normal pregnancy symptoms. But I started feeling very noticeably swollen. I would see a lot of flashes and little stars just floating and bad headaches. Toward the end of my pregnancy, I would start feeling indigestion depending on what I ate. I thought it just wasn't sitting right in my stomach, and sometimes I would end up vomiting. But at the time I just thought, oh, this is just normal pregnancy symptoms or whatever. But knowing what I know now, I'm like, no, that was definitely signs of preeclampsia. But the thing is at every doctor's appointment that I would go in for, my blood pressure was always normal. So it was pretty weird that I had that. I would tell my doctor, I'd be like, "Hey, girl." I'm pretty swollen, and I don't really feel like myself." Obviously you're not gonna feel like yourself with pregnancy, but I felt not what I felt with my first pregnancy. It didn't feel good at all. So she looks at me, and she goes, "Oh, no. I mean, you're swollen, but you're also very slim," because I am very skinny naturally. But she's like, "Maybe your family isn't used to seeing you pregnant, you know?" So I was like, "I don't think that's what it is, but okay." Again, me being not very adamant about sticking up for myself in a sense like, no, I don't think this is. So I just told her. I was like, "Okay, we'll keep seeing." I kept going for my appointments and at 38 weeks, I had one of my appointments, and then I was feeling super bad. That's when I was just like, "No, I really don't feel good. I'm very swollen." She told me during that appointment, "Yeah, I mean, you look a little more swollen than usual. I'll have you go across to the hospital to get some bloodwork done." So I was like, "Okay." So I went. I remember telling my grandma at the time, "She wants me to go do some blood work." She just gave me that looks like, "I don't know," like she knew something. I was blindsided too. So I was like, "Yeah, yeah, I'm just gonna go get this bloodwork done real quick." I took my son with me, and then she ended up having to come pick him up again because I had to be admitted. They wanted to monitor me. She came and picked up my son, and then I went and got the bloodwork done. They took a urine sample, and then a couple of hours later, they're like, "Oh, yeah, you have preeclampsia." I was like, "Oh, no." I kind of knew it was that because I did a little bit of research, but at the same time, I didn't want to self-diagnose myself either. I was like, I don't want to say this is what it is when it really isn't, but I did a little bit of research and every symptom was matching up to that. So when they told me that, I was like, hey, I knew it in a sense, but I didn't really advocate for myself. I was just like, no, maybe it's normal. They did find protein in the urine too. So with that, since she found out, she was like, "Oh, no, we have to do the C-section tonight. There's no way." It was around 4:00 or 5:00 when I went in, and then that around 11:00 or 12:00 at night. That's when they started the C-section. But I was like, "Oh my god." When they did the ultrasound, my baby's head was down, so I was like, "Oh, I wanted to go through with a vaginal," and I was already a centimeter dilated too. I should mention that. I did want to do a vaginal, but she just kept saying, "No, since you have preeclampsia, there's no way we can do a natural delivery. You can start having seizures and your body's already under stress. We just need to get your baby out now." So I was like, "Okay." I ended up having to do another repeat C-section, but I felt like she just put the blame on the preeclampsia for the C-section, and then she has the audacity to say, "Oh it's a good thing I caught this right away. It's a good thing I caught this," and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, yes."Julie: You were trying to tell her almost the whole pregnancy, "I don't feel good. This is not really normal." Ambrosia: And then right when I finally told her again, that's when she was like, "Oh, I'm so glad I caught this." I was like, "Girl, no. If I wouldn't have told you, who knows how the rest of the pregnancy would have gone?" But it was wild to me. That really struck me right there. So I was just like, if I ever got pregnant again, I would not go back to her. Thankfully, my son was good. He was born and healthy. He did have to do a little NICU stay for a while just because he was under stress. And once he was born, like they said, he was grunting a little and having trouble breathing. He did go into the NICU for a little bit, like four or five days. But that whole experience was hard. It was really hard to go through with the NICU stay having a C-section, and then walking back and forth to the NICU. It was also my first time breastfeeding because when I was 16, I didn't have any guidance really. My grandma never breastfed. My great-grandma had never breastfed. My mom didn't breastfeed. I was just new to the whole experience. I didn't have a lot of people to help me out with that. My mother-in-law did breastfeed. She tried to help me, but it was new for me, so I was like, I don't even know. I was still shy in a sense. I was like, oh, people seeing every aspect of me was just weird. But I ended up breastfeeding my second for up to three years. That was the one thing that I took from all of that. It was a super nice bonding experience. But at the time, learning how to do it under the stress from having the C-section and all of that was just so much, but I stuck through that. I was really proud of myself at that time because I had really no guidance or anything with my first. I mean, I did want to breastfeed, but I just didn't know. I thought they were born, and they already knew how to latch and all that.Julie: I know. Sometimes it's hard work, for sure.Ambrosia: Yeah. I didn't know it was a learning experience for the baby and mom to breastfeed and stuff. So that, I missed out with on my first and a lot of other things. So it was nice. But that's what happened with my second. From that point on, I was like, no. If I get pregnant again, I'm going to have a vaginal birth. There's no way that my pelvis is too small. I already knew in the back of my mind that all that was just noise to me. It wasn't anything. I already knew that VBACs were possible just because my mom ended up having a C-section with my brother, and then with me and my sister, she had us vaginally. So I knew it was possible and that people can do it, but it's just finding the right provider that actually wants to take that on and support you through every step of the way. It was another thing, especially from where I am from here in El Paso, because most of the hospitals, will push and push. So this time around, when I did get pregnant, I was like, okay. We're not doing that again. I'm not going back to her. I did all my research and even spoke to some of my clients because 2024 was a really weird year where it seemed like everyone was pregnant in a sense. I was like, oh my god. A lot of my friends were pregnant. My clients and celebrities that I would even see, I'm like, okay, yeah. Everyone is pregnant around here. I would even ask some of my clients who their doctor was and what they were doing in a sense as far as birth with a natural birth or a C-section.One of them just like, "Oh, I had all of my babies as C-sections, and that's what I'm gonna keep doing." I guess it was more convenient for her. So I was like, "Oh yeah, that's that's good for you, but that's not what I want." Another one was telling me that she also wanted a VBAC too because she had a C-section with her first, and then for her second, she was going to Texas Tech University. I guess it's a hospital where they also have the students there, too. Texas Tech. So she said she was going there and that they had OB/GYN and midwives there, too. She was like, "One of the midwives who I'm seeing is totally on board with me having a VBAC." And she was like, "You should go to her." I was like, "Okay," but I don't know what happened with the scheduling. I didn't get her midwife. I ended up getting scheduled with OB/GYN. When I went to that first appointment, she did an exam and everything, and she was like, "Oh, no. Your pelvis is too narrow." I was like, oh my god. I wasn't going to find anybody who was VBAC-supportive.Again, I felt a little bit more comfortable just with a female, so I was limiting my search in a sense. I was just looking for female doctors or midwives who would do VBAC. And then I searched around birth centers, but the idea of that did freak me out because I was looking at one of them. They don't necessarily let you get an epidural. It's totally natural. I was like, I don't know if I could do all that. It just kind of freaked me out. So I was like, I don't know if I can do that. What if I'm in so much pain? That was not an option for me at the time. I ended up just Googling "VBAC", and then a doctor in my area did pop up. When I clicked on the website, it was blasted all over his site, like, "VBAC. Vaginal birth after Cesarean is possible." It was just really positive.Yeah. He had a really good success rate of VBACs and even VBACs after two C-sections because after two C-sections, doctors are a little bit more timid, in a sense, if they want to take that on or not. So I found him, but I was also like, oh, but it's a guy. I don't know how this is going to work or anything.But me just being so adamant in wanting the vaginal birth, because I knew in my heart, I can do this. I'm not too narrow or small. I'm a petite woman, but I'm not tiny. I knew I could do it. I ended up just trying him out. I went to my first appointment with him, and then everything was pretty good. He wasn't invasive either. He just looked at me. He was like, "What are you wanting for this birth?" And I told him a VBAC. And he was like, "Okay. And you've had two previous C-sections?" I was like, "Yep, two C-sections." And then he was like, "And the reason for the C-sections?" I was like, "The first one, basically no reason at all. It was just because the doctor thought my pelvis is too narrow. He chuckled. He was like, "Oh, okay. And the second one?" I was like, "She blamed it on preeclampsia, in a sense," which I feel like she really did. But who knows? I mean, maybe. I know it has its risks and all that doing a vaginal with preeclampsia, but she just wasn't willing to take those in a sense. So I told him, and he was like, "Okay." And then he just was like, "Yeah." He measured my stomach and all that. He didn't do those the pap smears or anything. He wasn't invasive. He's like, "There's no need for me to check and see and all that." That's what the doctor over there at Texas Tech did. Right away, she stuck her fingers in me and she's like, "Oh, no. You're too narrow." I'm like, oh my god. He didn't do none of that. He just looked at me. He's like, "Yeah, you're good. I mean, you're not tiny. I think it's possible." He gave me a lot of reassurance in a sense. I just kept going back and back, and every visit was really fast and simple. He didn't really didn't say much. My pregnancy was pretty healthy. No preeclampsia this time which was really good because I was scared that would happen again and that would be another cause for concern and then end in a C-section or something. There were a couple of little scares. Once I saw my baby here, I was like, no, it was literally just a bunch of scares for no reason, but they have to monitor stuff. But one of them was with the ultrasound, they found an EIF in his heart. I didn't know what the heck that was, so that scared me. But his heartbeat was real strong, so they were like, No, that's nothing to be concerned about or anything. Once he's here the pediatricians will check him out and everything, but it's nothing to be concerned about." So that they found that. And then in another ultrasound, they were telling me that the lower extremities weren't matching up with the upper extremities. So that scared the poop out of me. I was like, oh my god. My baby has these two things. So I was real scared that he was going to have something wrong with him. He told me, and I would ask a lot of questions. I'd be like, "Whoa, what are these things that you found? And what could that mean?" He's like, "Honestly, it's really nothing to worry about. We're just going to keep monitoring you." He had sent me to a specialist, so I would go get my ultrasounds with them. And then also they were like, "You're really small. There's not a lot of room in there for him," because they were seeing that his foot was really squished. They were afraid that he was going to be born with a club foot or something. It was just a bunch of little scares where I was like, oh my god. This is crazy. They always reassured me, "Don't worry if anything comes out," not wrong, but if he does come out with that, it could be corrected and always reassuring me as well. So those were just the only little scares that we really had. But overall, my pregnancy was pretty healthy. No high blood pressure, nothing. None of that. And then when it came closer to my due date, which was September 28th, he was asking me again, "Okay, so you still want to go through with the VBAC?" I was like, "Of course I do."And then he's like, "Do you want to wait for your body to kind of go into labor on its own, or do you want me to induce you?" I just wanted to go through all that naturally and let my body do its thing because I know my body can do it. But my son was just comfortable in there, in a sense. I don't know. I know a lot of women go to labor a little bit early, around 38 weeks. So at 38 weeks, I was just like, okay, you can come out now. I was getting really uncomfortable. Everything was aching. So I was just like, I really don't want to be induced though, because I also knew from my research, because I did a lot of research. I listened to this podcast, too, so much. At the time, I felt like if I can go into labor naturally, I'll have better success with having my VBAC. I know I could do it. The induction part scared me because I was like, I don't want anything to counteract with each other, like the Pitocin and then the epidural and all that. I was being not negative in a sense, but weighing the risks out in my own head. I was kind of overthinking it, too, in a sense. But when that time came, he was like, "All right." Toward the end, he would do cervical exams to see if I was dilated or not. At 38 weeks, I was a centimeter dilated. I stayed like that until 39 weeks. I think maybe even at 37 weeks, I was already a centimeter. I was hoping I could dilate even more and by the time my due date comes, which was the 28th of September, maybe I'll be ready to go. But no, like I said, he was just really comfortable in there. So by the 27th, I was the 27th of September. I had my last doctor's appointment, and he was like, "All right, if you want me to induce you, I can induce you." But I forgot what he said. He was like, "If you want to wait for your body to go into labor naturally, I'm going to be out of town." I was so disappointed. Like, what do you mean you're going to be out of town? That type of thing. He was like, "If you do wait for your body to go into labor naturally, then there's a chance. You'll have the doctor here at one of the local hospitals. It's Del Sol. You'll have one of those doctors, but your chances of having a C-section, like go up higher because it's not me." He stated again, "I have a 95% rate of VBAC success." So I was thinking and thinking, but he told me, "Go ahead and think it over. Talk with your family about it and just let me know what you want to do. Give us a call, but I do want you to go and be monitored." He didn't really mention why for me to go to the hospital to be monitored. He wanted me to get a sonogram and then I forgot what else it was, but he wanted me to go into the hospital to get monitored. I was like, "Okay." I think it was for the next day. So I think it was actually the 26th that my appointment was. And then on the 27th, I had to go to the hospital to be monitored either way. They made it a point to me. They were like, "You need to go to the hospital for that sonogram or whatever." And I was like, okay. I thought it was kind of weird, but I was nervous, too. I was like, okay, whatever. I'm going to go. I end up going. I got myself admitted and everything. They hooked me up to the machines. They checked me with a cervical exam. I was still at a centimeter. The baby's heartbeat was doing good. They came in and did the ultrasound, and then they were like, "Oh, you're having contractions. You don't feel them?" I was like, "No, not really." I really didn't feel them because I guess I had been feeling them for weeks on end. My stomach would tighten. Again, I didn't know what they felt like really just because with my past, I had C-sections, so I was like, no, this is all new to me. I don't even know what contractions even feel like. I just thought the tightening of the stomach-- obviously I knew it was something, but I thought it was like, oh, those are Braxton Hicks contractions. They're fine. They're fine. I guess they were coming on pretty strong, but they were just like that for a long time. They didn't hurt or anything. My stomach was super tight. So, with every contraction, they'd be like, "Oh, you didn't feel that? You didn't feel that? Okay." Well, they ended up telling me, "We are going to keep you overnight just because you are contracting a lot. The doctor sent you in because he wanted us to check your amniotic fluid." He didn't have a lot of amniotic fluid in there, so that's why they wanted me to go in. I ended up staying the night. And then the next day, that's when they were like, "Okay, so do you want us to induce you?" Actually, I think it was on the 27th. I did go in because I ended up staying the night. And then the next day, that's when they were asking me. And I mean, I was just like, "Okay." I guess, honestly, a lot of factors played into that. My mom was coming in from out of town, from California over here, my mom and my sister, and I wanted them to be here. If I would have waited, my thing was if I wait to go into labor naturally and my mom and sister come down and nothing happens, they have to go back, and they would miss a whole birth and everything, and they wouldn't be able to see my son. So I was weighing out all the options, and I ended up agreeing to be induced. Around 11:00 on the 28th, that's when they started Pitocin. And then another thing that I thought was he didn't really mention this to me, or I probably should have asked, too, that when he was doing the induction, it's one of his policies that he has that he would prefer to just have the epidural put. Because I had it in my mind that I want to try it without the epidural, but I wanted it to be there too. Like, if I do end up giving in and being like, oh well, this is a little bit too much pain for my comfort, I have that option if I wanted to get it or not. But my doctor had mentioned before, "You can have the epidural put in, but none of the medicine." I was like, okay. So when the time came, they were like, "Oh well, we can't start the Pitocin without the epidural placed in first." I guess it was for that reason just because if anything were to go wrong or anything and I would need an emergency C-section, that was already placed so they wouldn't have to put me out completely, and I would miss the whole birth." So I was like, "Okay, all right, you guys can place it." Once they did, they're like, "No, we're going to have to run at least just a little bit of the epidural." And I was like, "What the heck? I thought no medicine had to go through or anything." And they're like, "Well yeah, we kind of do. Just because if we don't, there's a chance for it to be a clot, and then we would have to place it all over again." And they were like, "I don't necessarily think that's exactly what you want." I'm like, "Honestly, no, but okay." It was just a little shock to me. I was like, oh, okay. That's not what I wanted. I wanted to be able to get up and walk around to push through the labor in that sense and the contractions because I feel like they would have been more tolerable if I was able to move around. But once the Pitocin started kicking in and the contractions came on, at first they were okay. I was laughing with my mom and my sister because they did come in. They had just gotten there. We were just talking, and my husband was there too. We were all just laughing. It was a nice little beginning to the labor and filled with a lot of laughs. But once I wasn't able to laugh through nothing, I just wanted to focus and for everyone to not even talk. I was like, oh, this is intense. I would have preferred to be up and moving around and stuff, but that was not the case, which I kind of expected before I had went in. You can't really plan for things to go your way because there's always going to be something that ends up not going your way. So I was just going with the flow type of thing. Whatever happens, happens. It's for a reason. So the Pitocin was definitely kicking in, and I was contracting, and then I wasn't really dilating, fast. They didn't really want to do cervical checks a lot because of bacteria. My water wasn't broken yet, so I think I was at a 1 still. They checked and they were like, "Oh, you're at 2." And then., "Oh, you're at 2 still." The doctor ended up coming in himself, and then he ended up breaking my water. He didn't really necessarily, ask or anything. It was just the type of, "Okay, I'm gonna check you," and then, "Okay, we're gonna break the water." I was like, "Oh my god. What the heck do you mean? Like, break my water right here, right now?" It was kind of shocking, too, but I was just kind of like, okay, if this is what's needed to progress the labor, then I'll just go with it, in a sense. Nobody even asked me. That was rude and not really, but I was just like, that's so weird that he came in and just broke my water. And then after that, honestly, things started getting more intense. The contractions were very intense, and I wasn't able to get up or anything. I could feel them because I didn't want them to pump any more than three-- I don't know if it's milliliters or whatever of the epidural. I wasn't pressing that button or anything. I just wanted to do it without it as much as possible, but I could really feel everything. So once the water was broke, I was just like, okay, this is really it. There was a peanut ball there. So I was like, "Get the peanut ball. Let's try to put it in between my legs, and let's see if it does anything." We did that, and it really, really made things worse for me just because it was not comfortable at all. The pain was bad, but it ended up dilating me more and pretty fast too. But it was very, very uncomfortable. I would have to switch positions and just kind of lay on one side and then lay on my other side. I felt all the contraction pain just in my back towards my butt, in a sense. It just felt intense. I'm just grateful I was even able to experience that just because I didn't feel anything with my other ones. You feel just cold in comparison to the C-section and tugging and pulling. It was a weird experience with them. They weren't really traumatic or anything for me, thank God, but it just wasn't what I wanted. So to even be feeling all of the labor pains and all that, I was just grateful to even be there and experiencing that as a woman. It was pretty exciting for me. But like I said, things didn't really necessarily play out the way I was envisioning or how I wanted it to a T, but I was able to experience all of the other things. And then they would do cervical exams. Once I was at an 8 or whatever, that's when I was like, okay, I'm getting closer because I was afraid that I wasn't even going to dilate and I would just have to end up getting a C-section. But I was dilating. And then once he came in, because I guess the nurses were like, "No, yeah, baby's talking to me. He's letting us know that he's moving down and he's gonna come out." One of the nurses was like, "He's going be out by the end of my shift. Watch, guys." We were just looking at her like, "Okay, if you say that, let's see." Eventually, I want to say it was around 5:00 or 5:30, that's when I finally reached 10 centimeters. That's when the doctors came in. They started getting everything ready. And then I was like, oh, my god, I think it's time to push. My body felt like I needed to go to the restroom and I needed to poop. So I was like, oh, my god. I feel like that. They told me before, "If you feel like you need to poop, then you need to push. Let us know." And then I was like, "Yeah, I do." My husband calls them and he's like, "Yeah, she said she feels like she needs to poop". And then they're like, "Okay, yeah." That's when he came in and all the nurses too. They started getting everything ready. I want to say I started pushing and he told me he's like, "It's literally going to feel like you have to use the restroom, so don't hold back or anything. Just push." So I was like, okay. I think after four or five times of pushing my son, I could feel him come out. The head first came out and then finally, the rest of the body. I had that huge relief of like, oh my god. I cannot even believe that I just did that. I did it. Even though all these doctors would tell me like, "No, you're too small. There's no way," I actually did it. I didn't even have any lacerations, no nothing. I didn't tear or anything. It was just unbelievable because I had the biggest fear too, that I was going to tear into two holes. There was no way I was going to not tear at all. But I didn't end up tearing or anything which was good because I know that's an additional recovery in a sense. But after a couple of pushes, he was out. I was just so happy. I was crying. My mom was crying because she was in the room with me, and my sister was in the room with me holding one leg. My husband was holding the other one, and there was just tears. Tears everywhere. It was really, really nice to actually experience that for this birth. I feel like a lot of women, too, can relate. Once you finally do that after people saying, "No, you can't," or not even giving you a chance to try, it was very, very rewarding and a completely different experience to a C-section. I'm just very grateful that I found this doctor and that he actually took me on and was like, "Oh yeah, you'll be fine. We'll do this. You can do this." It was really nice. So my son was born. He was only 6 pounds, 8 ounces. And so he wasn't a really big baby either. But still, I was a petite woman myself, so I thought it was gonna be challenging, but it was good. I didn't have any problems. No, nothing. He was born very, very healthy. Even all the nurses, too were really excited. They're like, "Oh my god, she's a VBAC. She actually did it." I kept hearing that over the course of my stay. They were just like, "You did a VBAC. That's so amazing. Congratulations." It was just so nice to hear. And the recovery, oh my god, was so much better than a C-section, just 100 times better because I was able to get up after the epidural had worn off. I was able to get up because after those contractions started getting really intense, I was pressing that button. I was like, you know what? I need more of the epidural. There's no way. Those Pitocin contractions were just more intense than natural contractions and they really were. So I did only bump up myself from three milliliters to six, I think. I didn't really feel so much pain, but I could still feel things. After the epidural wore off, I was able to get up and walk, and it was nice. It was really nice to get up and do things and not have to have that pain of a C-section and leave the hospital after just a day, the very next day. We were able to leave by like 5-6:00. I was able to go home and was just enjoying my baby. That was pretty much it. But I was very grateful for the experience.Julie: I love that story. That's such an incredible and inspiring story. There are so many things that I could talk about, but we're running a little short on time, so I want to talk about two things. The myth of the small pelvis and preeclampsia. First, I know that preeclampsia is really tricky because the induction is necessary. Preeclampsia is one of the things where you need to get the baby out sooner rather than later. It's a medically indicated thing. If you have a doctor telling you that, you don't have to question it or worry about it because it's really important to get that baby here quickly. However, there are instances where an induction may be appropriate compared to just going straight to a C-section. And again, provider preference is going to play a huge deal into that. But also, as long as your blood pressure is holding steady through an induction and you're progressing well and mom and baby are doing fine, then an induction can be a safe option as well for preeclampsia. So the biggest thing they're just going to make sure is the stress of the induction is not too much on your body because sometimes your blood pressure will go up just naturally with labor because it's a lot of work. But as long as you keep an eye on that, I know that it's a reasonable option at times. So don't think that having preeclampsia just means you automatically have to go to a C-section. But again, talk about your options with your provider. If your provider is not telling you something that you feel comfortable with, question it. Seek out another opinion. But definitely trust your intuition and lean into that. I think that if you've been around with us for long enough, you will know how we feel about the idea of somebody's pelvis being too small. Now, I think it's really sad. I think maybe sad's not the right word, but I feel like with teenage pregnancies, these teenagers who arguably need more help than most because teenage pregnancies are oftentimes unplanned and unexpected. They are in a very vulnerable situation. They need more help and more guidance. But I feel like oftentimes a system will take advantage of that vulnerability, maybe probably even unknowingly. But I feel like it's very easy for teenagers in a hospital system to get railroaded more because they haven't gone through a lot of the experiences that we do later on in life and learn how to navigate through trickier situations and stand up for ourselves and advocate. It's harder and more challenging. And so I'm really sorry that happened to and your provider used her vaginal exam to determine your pelvis is too small. Now let me tell you, there's only one way to determine an actual pelvis size and that's with a pelvic telemetry scan. It's kind of like an X-ray. Vaginal exams are not evidence based. And not only that, we know there's so much more that goes into a pelvis being too small because pelvises move and flex as the baby's being born. Our baby's head squeezes and molds in order to fit through the pelvis, so even a pelvis that might be "too small" before pregnancy can change and shift and expand and grow through the pregnancy, but especially as labor happens. So it's very, very rare for a pelvis to be actually too small or deformed, and usually that happens when mother grows up either incredibly malnourished and their bones are not able to grow properly or through a traumatic injury to the pelvic area. Those are usually the biggest or the most likely times where you'll see a pelvis that is truly too small. A lot of times, it's failure to wait. Maybe the body is just not ready for maybe a too-early induction and things like that. So I would encourage you to ask questions, ask questions, and trust your intuition. We do have a blog al' about CPD which is cephalopelvic disproportion that we're going to link into the show notes. And that just basically means it's fancy words saying your pelvis is too small or maybe your baby's too big to fit through the size of your pelvis as it is. But I'm so glad that Ambrosia was able to stand up for herself and find a provider who would support her in getting a VBAC after two C-sections. So I'm very proud of you and thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today.Ambrosia: Thank you so much. ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

While we can't control many parts of birth, there is so much we CAN do to quite literally change the trajectory of our birth outcome. First: Feel safe with where and with whom you will give birth.Second (but just as important!): Prepare yourself mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. During her first VBAC attempt, Maria hired a midwife. Her second birth had so much more advocacy, progress, and positivity, but there were still missing pieces, new traumas to process, and things she wished had gone differently.You will NOT WANT TO MISS hearing all of the things that changed for Maria from her first two births to her third. The proactive work, the passion, the prep, the healing, the research, the manifesting, the surrendering, the trust, and to top it all off, the beautiful, unmedicated VBA2C outcome. Just like Maria, our greatest hope is for all of you to unlock this birthing power that is already within you, no matter the birth outcome. Needed WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello, hello, you guys. It seems like a common theme lately. A lot of people are wanting to submit their VBA2C stories, and I love it. I love it absolutely so much. We know so many of, these listeners in our community are wanting to know, is it possible? Can we VBAC after two Cesareans? I'm sure you've been noticing the theme in January and February, and now here in March, we have another VBAC after two Cesarean stories coming to you today from our friend Maria. Hello, Maria.Maria: Hi.Meagan: Thank you so much for being here and sharing your stories. We were just chatting a little bit before we got started about kind of where her birth took place, and she'll tell you more. But the VBAC was in Texas, right?Maria: It was. Yes, it was in Texas.Meagan: It was in Texas. So Texans. Texans? I don't know. we have Floridians, Utahns. Is it Texans?Maria: Texans. Yeah. Yep. And you know, Texas is a huge state, so this is central Texas in the Austin area. Yeah, because it's such a big state. It is.Meagan: It is very huge. We know people have to sometimes drive really far away to find support. And when it comes to VBAC after multiple Cesareans, we know sometimes that can be really challenging. And when I say sometimes, it's often. It is often challenging to find that support. So I really like to show everybody where you are in a way because we want people who are in Texas or who can get to Texas or who find it manageable, that they know that there is a supportive provider there. We'll learn more about that. But also, just a reminder, guys, if you're looking for a supportive provider, we have a supportive provider list. How many times can I say "supportive provider" in three seconds? A lot, apparently. Go to Instagram and hopefully at this point we'll have it on our website, so check our website too, but we will have that list.If you want to submit your provider, please let us know. Okay. We have a Review of the Week, so I want to get into that. This is by Whitney Goats, and the review title is "Amazing" on Apple Podcasts. It says, "I've been wanting to write a review for a while, but wasn't sure what I could say that would explain how much The VBAC Link meant to me. I had an unplanned Cesarean with my first and for the longest time, I felt broken and defeated. When I heard Julie and Meagan share their VBAC stories on the podcast, I cried. It was the first time that I felt understood and like I was not alone. Listening to their podcast has lifted my spirits, healed my emotional scars from the previous birth, and given me the confidence in myself and my body again. "I am now 28 weeks pregnant and preparing for my VBAC. Instead of being scared for this upcoming birth, I feel excited sometimes. I never thought it would happen. Thank you, Julie and Meagan, for the work that you have done connecting and educating all these amazing moms, and thank you for reminding me that I am a Woman of Strength even when I doubted it myself." Oh, that gave me chills. That gave me chills reading that. Oh my gosh. We love your reviews. That is amazing. And girl, Whitney Goats, I hope that you had the most amazing birth ever, and thank you for being here. Just like Maria and all the storytellers that have become before her, you guys, they're amazing and so are you. These storytellers are here to do that- uplift you, motivate you, educate you, and find the healing within yourself because it can happen, right Maria?Maria: Absolutely. 100%.Meagan: It absolutely can happen. Okay, you guys, as always, if you do not mind and if you are enjoying the podcast, will you leave us a review? You can go to Apple Podcasts. You can go to Google even and leave us a review there. You can go on Spotify or really wherever you listen to your podcasts, leave us a review. If you feel extra special and the platform that you're listening on can leave a comment, leave us a comment. You never know, it may be read on the next podcast. Okay, Maria, I want to turn the time over to you to share these stories.Maria: Thank you so much, Meagan, and I just want to say again how excited I am to be here. I agree 100% with that reviewer. This podcast was so impactful for me, and I hope that it can continue to be that for other women. I was also so excited that you're getting so many VBAC after two stories because I hope that that will continue to normalize that instead of it being this crazy thing that we're doing. Meagan: Yes.Maria: That's so exciting that it's becoming more common.Meagan: I know. It's actually making me smile so big because in the beginning, back in 2018, we had to search, and I mean search. We had to go on forums and type in "VBA2C" and really look for stories and almost had to seek them out. We had to go and ask, "Hey, would you be willing to share your story on the podcast?" And now we're just getting a flood of submissions which is so awesome. I love seeing it, and I would love to hear even more VBAC after three or four or five Cesareans because it is possible. It's not as easy to navigate through, but it is possible. And yes, there are risks. There are risks with anything that we do including a repeat Cesarean, but I want to help normalize this because, I mean, there are so many women just like Maria and myself who have gone on, done the work, got the education, and been able to have a vaginal birth. So. All right, well, we know with every VBAC or VBAC after two Cesareans, there's at least one Cesarean involved, so let's start with that story.Maria: Yeah. Okay. Thank you. So when I got pregnant with my first baby, this was in 2018, it didn't take me very long to find my way to the natural birth world. I watched The Business of Being Born like a lot of women, and I was fully convinced that I wanted to birth vaginally and naturally if possible. So, when my husband and I decided to move to Costa Rica halfway through my pregnancy, the very first thing I did was research the C-section rate versus natural birth rates in the country. I was pretty disappointed, although I wasn't surprised, to find that the rates there are pretty high. I mean, they're about the same as the US but a bit higher in the private hospital setting which is where I was going to give birth.I didn't want to let that deter me, and I was determined to build my team. From when I was still here in the States, I started researching the best OBs and doctors in the area and hospitals. I found two in the city of San Jose which is where we were living, the two most quote unquote natural OBs.Another interesting thing I found out was that midwives are actually not legally permitted to work in Costa Rica independently.Meagan: Really?Maria: Yeah, at least back in 2018. I don't know if things have changed since then, but they are not allowed to work independently. They are allowed to work alongside an OB. So I was like, okay. I went with one of these OBs, and there was one midwife who practiced in the city of San Jose, and they worked together as a team. And so I was like, okay, all right, well, I guess this is it. I have my team, and I thought I was done. I don't think that I fully understood the intensity of birth or the mental and physical stamina that would be required of me because it was my first baby.Meagan: You don't know what you don't know.Maria: You don't know. Exactly. I took a Bradley birth course with my husband, and I just assumed that everything would be fine as long as I had a good team, and I'd be able to escape the dreaded cascade of interventions that I'd heard so much about. I wasn't informed, but I don't know. I was very intellectually informed, but I didn't really know how intense labor is. So intellectually, I knew what I had to do. But anyway, we were living abroad. I went into labor naturally at 40 weeks, and I had a very long labor which began in the middle of the night which was a common theme in all my birth. They always started in the middle of the night which I think is pretty common. And because it was my first baby and I was so excited, I was unable to really stay calm and rest.I got very ramped up way too soon.I burned through a lot of my energy in the first 24 hours of what I now know was very early labor. So by the time it was actually more intense and I made it to the hospital, I was exhausted because I slept so little. We get to the hospital and my labor slowed down, which again, I know is not uncommon, but I think I was also just not feeling very relaxed. I started actually feeling uncomfortable with this midwife /doula as she told me she was. She said, "I'm a midwife/doula." I later learned that is not a thing. It's like, either you're one or the other. I just didn't feel like she was really supporting me as I expected she would. It seemed to me like she wasn't really a doula. I started realizing, okay, this is not what I was expecting. She was more of a quasi-nurse, really, for the OB and just assisting him. She was like his private nurse, basically. She was sitting there in the room either watching me. She'd come in and give me a position, but then just sit back and she was on her phone. At least that's how I was perceiving it. I just started kind of not feeling very safe with her, and I just shut her out. In hindsight, I think I should have asked her to leave. But at the time, I didn't really know that I could do that, and that I could really advocate for myself in that way, so I just kind of shut her out. She probably felt that it just wasn't a good click. So then I began to feel pressure by the team because I'd been there for probably, what is it, maybe 8 hours or so? They started pressuring me to get things going. And so the OB approached me about using what they call natural oxytocin which is what they call Pitocin.Meagan: Pitocin, yeah.Maria: Yeah. But they're like, "No, no, it's natural oxytocin." And I was like, "Okay, I know what that is." I could already see that I was being slowly kind of backed into this corner. I refused it several times, but I finally agreed to it. Of course, my contractions became excruciating, but I just was just determined to not have the epidural so that I could walk, even though I was already plugged into the IV and really not walking as free as I wanted. Eventually, one of the nurses, after a while, came in and she asked me when the last time I peed was. I couldn't remember. That's when I was like, "Oh yeah, it's been a long time." Nobody reminded me. I just didn't think about it. I had been drinking water, so they had me try, and I just couldn't pee. It's like my body just kind of shut down. So they decided to try and insert a catheter to see if it would empty my bladder and help baby descend. So I was laying on the bed. I had five people around me trying to place this catheter in me. I was on Pitocin, so I was having these intense contractions, and they weren't able to insert it. They said it was because of the way my body was. I guess my urethra was towards the back or something, and they just weren't able to do it. That was really disappointing because I was really hoping that that would be the magic thing that would help baby descend. Finally, the OB came in and was like, "Listen, if you want to avoid a C-section, you should just do an epidural so that your body can relax, and maybe that could help us place up the catheter and then, baby will descend." I was like, "Okay, all right. Let's do it." They did it. It felt amazing for a couple of minutes, and then immediately, my baby's heart rate dropped. The OB basically just called in an emergency, and I was whisked off to the operating room for an emergency C-section. I was traumatized because I legitimately thought I was dying. I thought it was a true emergency. I was like, oh my gosh. I can't believe it. I'm gonna die. Of course, I've learned since then that a baby's heart dropping after an epidural is pretty common.Meagan: Pretty common, yeah.Maria: And that it wasn't really a true emergency that merited a C-section right then and there. That's been a really hard thing to process.Meagan: And frustrating, too, because he was like, "If you want to avoid a Cesarean, this is what you have to do," and then you did that, and then it immediately went that way.Maria: Yeah. I honestly thought he was. I think he was probably just prepping me in advance to just have the epidural so we could just go there.Meagan: Yeah, that's hard.Maria: Yeah. After baby was born, the hospital policy required me to go into the post-op room for 30 minutes to recover, and I would then be rejoined with my baby.Meagan: Oh, so your baby wasn't allowed to be with you?Maria: No. Meagan: What?Maria: Yeah. So my first 30 minutes as a mom, I was separated from my baby. He was with my husband. I was taken to this room where I was recovering alongside other people that I didn't know who were also recovering from other types of surgeries.Meagan: Whoa.Maria: Yeah, so I was like on this bed paralyzed still because of the epidural and shivering. It was a really surreal moment because I felt like, oh my gosh. I just had a baby. Wait, why am I here? What is happening? It was really, really traumatizing, and that was just their policy at that hospital. So it was really traumatizing for me. I was eventually joined back with my husband and baby, but needless to say, it really affected me.I did struggle with postpartum depression and anxiety for a long time. I had a very hard time bonding with my baby for that first year. I felt really robbed of that dream birth I had envisioned, and I felt robbed about the golden hour right after when you get to enjoy your baby and celebrate the fact you just had a baby. I felt like I never got that.Meagan: That would be very difficult. There are a lot of people who get their babies taken away, and it is so frustrating. I just wanted to give a little reminder that if you don't have your baby and you want your baby, it's okay to demand your baby and find someone who will do anything in their power to get that baby back to you.Maria: Yeah, so that was my first birth. So the second birth took place about two years later, and we were back in the US due to the pandemic. As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I was actually in Costa Rica when I found out I was pregnant, and then we moved back to the US halfway through my pregnancy. I just knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was going to try for VBAC. I was extremely confident that I could do it because I felt that if I found a truly supportive provider, there just was no reason why it wouldn't go smoothly. I had a lot of unprocessed anger and trauma that I hadn't fully worked through. I was still very angry at my OB, at the midwife, at the hospital, even though I did do therapy actually in Costa Rica, but I don't think I fully worked through this part. Even though none of it was truly 100% their fault, I still felt really let down, and of course, I felt anger at myself even for my perceived failure of my body to birth my baby. My way, at the time, of avoiding a repeat of this was to just completely avoid the hospital setting and go the complete opposite direction. So I opted for full midwifery care and home birth. I just didn't want anything to do with the hospital. It was traumatic. I was like, no hospital. At the time, we were living at my parents' home in their hometown. I basically hired the only midwife that I knew in town. I didn't really interview anyone else. I just went with her. I think in my mind at the time, as long as you were a midwife, she would be 100% better than an OB. Again, I was very angry at OB at the time. But also, I did meet the midwifery team and they seemed experienced and I liked them, so I felt really confident that everything would work out like it was going to work out. There was no plan B. Meagan: Yeah. Maria: In terms of preparing for my birth, I didn't really do much outside of remaining active. I did prenatal workouts. I walked. I was healthy. I thought that was pretty much what you had to do. I just thought again that not being in a hospital would solve all my problems, and that was the only ingredient I was missing for my dream birth, which, of course, I later learned was just part of the equation.So this time, my labor started actually pretty slowly. I had a premature rupture of membranes. It was a very slow trickle. It took over 24 hours of that for my labor to actually start. That was even after some homeopathic pellets. I don't really know what it was, but my midwife gave it to me and some castor oil that I took. I'm a pretty anxious person, so I was getting very anxious about my labor not starting because I had it in my head that I couldn't go too long without my water breaking. In my mind, I was on this timeline. I don't do well under pressure, so right off the bat, I was already in my head about it.Meagan: Yeah.Maria: I was so antsy to get labor going that I just wouldn't let myself rest. I actually went walking in the middle of the night with my husband instead of trying to rest. I was like, I will get this labor to start. I was just not really saving my energy. I was getting revved up again too soon. So again, once labor got going, I was exhausted.This time, I'd opted to give birth at my parents' home which in hindsight was probably not the best idea because I felt their presence in the home. I'd sense their worry and their concern over me, at least in my head. I was mostly in their bedroom, so I started getting claustrophobic in there. I felt like a caged lion at one point. I was like, ah. Now nobody was actually pressuring me, but I felt it. I just felt like my whole family knew I was in labor. Everyone was waiting for me. Again, hindsight is 20-20, right? I was like, man, I could have asked them to just leave for a while, but I just didn't feel like I could.Meagan: Yeah, it's their house. It's their house. It's their space. Yeah, it's weird. But I will just point out that who you have in your space and where you labor can impact your labor for sure because you're in your head.Maria: Yes, 100%. It took me two labors to learn that. Especially if you're a sensitive person and feel energy and if you're anxious, you have to be really aware of is somebody helping you or not? And if they are re not, then you can say you can ask them to leave. I just didn't know that I could do that.Anyway, I powered through it. Even despite that, I think labor was better in my home than it was at the hospital. I definitely felt more comfortable. I was more free. I was trying all these different positions and shower, bathtub, you know, everything. I felt really powerful. It was really positive at first. It was, despite the fact that I was really tired too. But it was a very long labor. Once again, my body shut down and I could not pee even though everybody was trying to remind me to go. I was trying to go, and there just came a point when my body just stopped wanting to go. We got to that point where they were like, "Okay, well let's try and place a catheter." They were not able to do it. I guess I have a very small urethra or something. Something happens in my body during labor. It's hard to get to it. This was a home birth, so they had their equipment on hand. They didn't have all the options that maybe they would have in a hospital of different sizes or something, so they just weren't able to place it. It was very, very disappointing. They also felt that I was getting weak, and I didn't want to eat anymore. They hooked me up to an IV. They gave me oxygen. This started triggering this fear in me that this was heading in a direction that I didn't like. It wasn't feeling like the peaceful home birth I had envisioned. I eventually got to 10 centimeters, and they said I could start pushing even though I didn't really feel much of an urge to push but I was like, okay, I'm 10 centimeters. I guess I'll try pushing. I started pushing for multiple hours, but the baby just wasn't descending. And at one point, the midwife could see the baby's head higher up, and she actually attempted to pull the baby out with her hands.Meagan: Kind of went in like a soft forceps.Maria: Yeah, exactly. It was very painful. Super traumatic. I was like, oh, my gosh. This is not what I envisioned. But she wasn't able to do it. He was just too high up. After that, I just remember seeing her throw up her hands and with her body just kind of say, I give up. There was nothing more that she could do for me. At that moment, with a surprising amount of clarity and conviction, I decided to call it and request to be transferred to the only hospital in my town that accepted VBAC, any other hospital would have had me go straight for a C-section. So this was my last chance because I wasn't done trying to VBAC. I was like, okay, home birth isn't gonna happen, but maybe VBAC will at a hospital. And so, we got to the hospital. When I got to triage, they checked me, and they actually said I was nowhere near complete and that I was 8 centimeters dilated, and that I was very swollen.Meagan: That's what I was gonna just ask. I'm wondering if you got swollen.Maria: I was definitely very swollen, but they also said I wasn't 10 centimeters. I was like, "What? What do you mean?" Because in my mind, I was like, I'm almost there. I'm 10 centimeters. Maybe all I need is an epidural maybe. Maybe I just need that final little push. At that point, I was okay with drugs. I was like, "Give me whatever." I'm so close, right?Meagan: Yeah, yeah.Maria: But no, they were like, "No, you're 8 centimeters." And also, my contractions had really spaced out, so they gave me an epidural. They gave me Pitocin, and they let me rest.Meagan: Did they give you a catheter and empty your bladder?Maria: Yes, they gave me a catheter to empty my bladder, but baby was just not coming down. And also, the epidural did not sit well with my baby again. They didn't whisk me away to a C-section this time, but they were starting to bring up, "Okay, it's been a long time." They also were pretty concerned that my water had broken two days before, and that was a big red flag for them. They started mentioning C-section as the safest route for me. After, I don't know, probably 8 hours there, I just kind of said, "Okay, let's just do a C-section, and we just went with it." This time was less traumatic because it wasn't an emergency. I chose it. I was also never separated from my baby, and that was very huge.Meagan: Yes.Maria: That was huge. Yeah, 100%. Like, I got to carry him immediately after birth. I was able to breastfeed him. I was like, nobody is separating me from this baby right now, and they didn't. So that was very healing, and I was very grateful for that. That was that birth. After the birth, the midwives did come to see me at my house, and when I asked them what happened, they weren't really able to give me an answer. The final consensus was that my hips were likely too narrow. At the time, this diagnosis actually gave me comfort because at that point--Meagan: It validated you.Maria: Yeah, it validated me. I felt like, okay, I tried everything. It felt like an answer. It was a neat and clean end to this journey. There was a lot of mourning still. It was a heavy weight on me, this disappointment of a failed VBAC and something that I would need to process for a long time because I felt really cheated. I really felt like I'd run an entire marathon, and that I could see the finish line only to find myself pulled back to the starting line again and have to run another marathon.I felt like I had gone through two whole births, the super intense home birth and then C-section. So I felt like, oh my gosh. I was wiped out. So, yeah. Those are my two C-sections.Meagan: Yeah. I mean, lots of really forward-moving progress with the second for sure and still work to be done. But also, you had some validation for you at the time. It felt better. Overall, it went better.Maria: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It definitely was better. It was better, but it was, in a way, almost more frustrating though because I got so close. I was like, I'm so close and yet I was pulled back to the exact opposite birth.Meagan: Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about swelling because swelling can happen. You can be 10 centimeters. Swelling can happen. It causes puffiness and causes our cervix to swell which then presents as not 10 centimeters. There are a lot of different factors like a baby that is maybe not putting equal pressure on the cervix during pushing or pushing before our body is really ready for us or going in there and doing that, I call it, soft forceps. This is just me making this up, but my fingers are a lot softer than forceps. So her doing some soft forceps was in effort to help baby come down and move but could have disturbed the cervix a little bit and then sitting in on the way. So I just wanted to point out that is it possible that you could have been 10 centimeters? Yes. Is it possible that swelling could have caused the regression? Yes, there are some hem-- oh my gosh. How do you say it? Hemopathic. Is that how you say it? Hemopathic. They're little tablets.Maria: Homeopathic.Meagan: Homeopathic. Why do I say hemeo all the time? Homeopathics. Just like they had given you those little tablets that can actually help with swelling of the cervix. So if you have a midwife or you want to look into that and have that in your bag at the hospital, if that happens, you might want to check that out. While you're telling your third story, I will see if I can find the exact name because I cannot place it in my mind right now, but I've seen midwives use it, so that's another thing. And then sometimes Benadryl. A lot of the time, I'll see moms be given Benadryl for swelling.Maria: Yeah, I don't think they gave me any of that. I think at the hospital they were just kind of like, "Oh, 48 hours. Okay, let's--".Meagan: Yeah, the typical.Maria: And yeah. I think they knew from the beginning probably that I'd end up in a C-section. I don't know.Meagan: Might have. Yeah. So baby one, baby two. How did things change with baby number three?Maria: Everything changed. So when I found out I was pregnant for the third time, I, was very surprised and excited. But as soon as I actually thought about the birth you, I felt dread. I knew I was out of options mostly because my fate had been sort of sealed with this diagnosis of narrow hips. I was pretty much certain that my only choice was a third C-section. That really filled me with dread because I had a really rough recovery with my second C-section. I was really unhappy with my scar. I just felt really not looking forward to a third C-section. So I was like, okay. It felt very scary. I decided to approach my husband about trying for a VBAC again. I was sort of certain he would be nervous about supporting me about that. I felt like it was gonna be like, "Maria, you've tried twice. Let's just accept it. Let's move on." But surprisingly, he was actually supportive and he told me to just start with doing some research about VBACs after two and to get some opinions. So I did. The first thing I actually did though was I looked into gentle C-sections because I was like, "Okay, I'm going to get my kind of worst-case scenarios out of the way just in case. If I'm going to have a C-section, I want it on my terms." I looked up the best gentle C-section OB in the area. I was like, "Okay, I've got something there." Then I reached out to my midwife for my second birth and asked for her opinion about going for a VBAC again. I reached out to a few birth centers in the area, and my midwife pretty much told me that she did not think I was a good candidate for VBAC again and that I would end up likely in a C-section. Again, because she was like, "You did everything you could. It just didn't work. I just don't think you're a good candidate." And then most of the birth centers in the area declined me because they only did the VBACs after one.Meagan: After one. Yeah.Maria: Only two birth centers in the area accepted VBAC after two. I was like, "Okay, I'm gonna go see one of them and just get a second midwife opinion."Meagan: Yeah.Maria: When I got there, this place inspired a lot of peace and comfort. It was this really cozy little space. It was a little cottage near hospital. The midwife I met with, her name is Galyn. Can we give you the name?Meagan: Yeah, yeah. Uh-huh.Maria: Yeah. So this is called The Family Birth Center. It's just amazing and Galyn is amazing. So she just was very confident. I told her my entire birth story. I was sure to add every single complication and also tell her what my previous midwife had said. I honestly painted a really dire picture for her. I was like, "I have really long labors. I can't pee." You know, blah, blah, blah. I was prepared for her to tell me that I was not a big candidate. Honestly, I almost wanted her to say that so that I could just close that chapter and go get my scheduled gentle C-section and move on because that felt easier and safer. Yet her response was not a no. It was actually a non-hesitant, "Absolutely, you can do this." I was shocked. I mean, she obviously asked for my op-reports and everything, but she said that she didn't see why I wouldn't be able to. She had a ton of experience with VBAC after multiple C-sections. She even said that she had a very special place in her heart for these mamas because, as she called us warrior mamas, who really, really wanted it. She did not believe that I was too narrow because that's actually quite rare. She thought it was likely that the baby was simply badly positioned. So right off the bat, she was like, "Okay, I would start you on some Vitamin C to strengthen your bag," which I didn't even know a thing. She was like, "Pelvic floor therapy right off the bat, and you need a proper doula." I was like, "Yes, yes, yes." I'll do all those things because I realized I had not really had a proper doula in my previous birth. And honestly, every concern or worry that I brought up, she was able to talk through it with me, provide a solution or just remind me that no birth is the same. She couldn't really control or predict the outcome of the birth but there were lots of things that we did have control over.One of the things that I was really worried about was my inability to pee during labor. She was like, "Okay well, we'll place a catheter." I was like, "Yeah, but they tried both times and it didn't happen." And she was like, "Well, I'll get you a really tiny one." I was like, "Okay." So she didn't seem worried about that. I just went with it and went with her confidence. I think I decided then and there that I wanted her because I just felt really heard and I don't know. She provided lots of practical and realistic solutions that we could control. Anyway, this time around, I hired a doula. Shout out to Jenna, my doula. Also an amazing, amazing woman. I went to pelvic floor therapy. I also did therapy again to process my past births. I worked really, really hard on radically accepting whatever this birth came to be. So unlike my first two births where I had a really rigid idea of what it would be, this time I worked really hard to just sort of surrender to whatever it ended up being. I also read several books, including how to Heal From a Bad Birth.Meagan: Yes.Maria: A really good book, and Birthing From Within which I also loved. It was a really impactful book, actually. I started doing some art therapy just to process some of my feelings and just about this pregnancy and birth. I listened to every single episode you guys had on VBAC after two. I took The VBAC Link course. Honestly, I hardly worked out mostly because I had two little boys under four, and I just did not have it in me. But I was still very active with just normal life and taking care of two little kids. I did walk a bunch and did some gentle, prenatal yoga. I also did some exercises recommended by my doula from Spinning Babies. The other thing which was different was that I was really mindful of my body positioning throughout my pregnancy. I was always trying to listen to my body and be mindful of my alignment. When I was watching TV or sitting at my desk, I'd sit on a ball. I'd sit on the floor. I love to go on my hands and knees. That felt really good on my back. So just kind of listening to what my body was asking me to do and just being more aware of my body. My whole motto was, throughout the whole time was, "Get out of my head into my body." Preparation felt really different for me this time. I felt like I was preparing my body from the inside out physically speaking. Like I said, I was going to pelvic floor therapy. I was also making room in my uterus for my baby with these exercises to be in the best position possible but I was also really focused on my mind, my spirit, processing all my fears, my traumas. It felt just so much more holistic. I did HypnoBirthing with an app. I wrote down my own prayer affirmations which actually became a really central anchor during my labor. I felt just really ready this time in a new way. And not just because of my dream team but because I was really just ready to surrender to whatever was to come. And also, what was driving me was this new goal which was this idea of just giving my body a chance to labor was the best thing both for me and my baby regardless of the outcome of the birth. Even if it ended up in a C-section, I was still doing what was best for my body and my baby. That's what I kept repeating to myself. It just gave me a lot of peace because the success of this birth was not tied to what kind of birth it was. You know what I mean?Meagan: Yes, yes.Maria: It removed a lot of that pressure, a lot of that fear, and that was just such a game changer for me. Yeah, that was the preparation. A few weeks before the birth, I'd been starting to get more intense Braxton Hicks, but nothing really consistent. I was really just trying to practice the art of basically ignoring them because my goal for my early labor was to just pretend like they weren't happening. I didn't want to get too excited too fast. I wanted to ignore them for as long as possible especially if they started in the middle of the night which is kind of a theme for me. It ended up being really great practice to do that because on Labor Day, of course, I started getting my first contraction at 2:00AM and I just denied it. I was like, nope, they're Braxton Hicks. I just wasn't allowing myself to get riled up. I managed miraculously to doze off for 20 minutes at a time until they started coming on stronger. Once I realized that this was early labor, I had decided before that I wanted to labor alone for a while. This was actually something that I'd been wanting to do just to have this early early labor be a sacred moment for me and my baby. I wanted to be able to pray, to talk to my baby and to prepare together for the work which we would be doing together, both of us. I went into the living room. I let my husband sleep a bit longer, and it was a really special time for me. I'm so happy that I did that.Meagan: Yeah, I was just going to say that is a very powerful moment. Our babies are so connected and if you can have any time, even if it's just like 20 minutes. "Hey, I'm going to the bathroom." Take 20 minutes in the bathroom and connect with your baby. I just think it's so powerful.Maria: Yeah. Yes. It was amazing because I did feel connected the whole labor in a way that I did not in my previous ones where I was very disconnected to what was happening in my body. I was in my head a lot. So at about 6:00am, my contractions were getting stronger and I was like, okay, it's a reasonable time. I'm going to go ahead and wake my husband up. I also knew that my boys would be waking up soon, so I wanted my husband to focus on them and get them breakfast. And then I explained to my boys that baby was coming soon, that they were going to go stay with their cousins for a night or two. I knew that I wasn't going to be able to fully relax if they were still in the house. It felt really important for me to say goodbye and to make sure that they were going to be happy and in a safe place. As soon as my brother-in-law picked them up, I just really felt my body, okay, let go and things just started picking up. I took a shower. I had breakfast. I knew it would probably be a very long labor, so I wanted to eat. I called my doula. She came over and her presence was just such a game changer because she was just this calm, comforting presence. Not to say my husband was not, but she's just more-- this is her job. She's more objective. She was able to suggest different positions. She knew when to let me be. She pushed me when I had to be pushed and let me be when I had to be left alone. But the best thing she did was she did not let me head to the birth center too soon. I wanted to go and she'd be like, "Okay, let's just wait for 30 more minutes. Can you do 30 more minutes? Yeah, let's try this position. Let's walk a little bit. Let's do this and that." That was so important because I would have gotten there way too soon. She and my husband were in touch with Galyn, the midwife. Everyone was just super chill and relaxed. Everyone ate lunch. I don't think I did, but everyone else did. It was just a nice day. It was a cool rainy day. And then at about 2:00 PM my contractions were about 2-3 minutes apart. They were lasting about a minute, and they were getting intense. I was like, "Okay, I need to go." They were like, "Okay, yeah, let's go." We got to the birth center. I was just wrapped in this fluffy blanket. I just picked it up like I was in this daze. I was listening to my HypnoBirthing app. And Galyn, she was so relaxed about everything. Everyone was just very relaxed. It was during the daytime. She'd come in. She'd leave. I got in the bathtub at point. At one point, she checked my dilation and asked me if I wanted to know. And I said, "Nope, I don't want to know because I don't want to get in my head." She was like, "Even if you're 9 centimeters?" And I was like, "No." Okay. That was so amazing. That was such a push of encouragement. And so that was very helpful. Once again, I ran into the issue of being unable to pee. Of course, not surprisingly. So Galyn asked me want if I wanted a catheter. I said, "Okay, let's try it," but I was super nervous about it.Meagan: Yeah.Maria: But this time it was super easy. It was amazing. It went in right away. She had the right size. I don't know what it was, but--Meagan: Right size, pelvic PT.Maria: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was easy. I had a ton of pee. After that I was like, oh, my gosh. I surpassed these two huge obstacles of being really well-dilated and also, an empty bladder. Like, I got this. It's amazing. I felt this new surge of energy. After that, I just focused on one contraction at a time. Each one lasted four breaths for me. Each breath coincided with a short prayer that I would say to myself. The hardest breaths were always breath two and three because it was the peak of the contraction. But I knew the pattern in it, and so I knew what to expect. I just remember opening my hands every time and surrendering and just trying to just relax my body and just accept it, and let it wash over me. I was doing a lot of visualization of my body, my pelvis opening, my baby coming down. I was so connected to my body and my baby. I just remember communicating with her and visualizing her coming closer to me. And this, like I said, was something so new for me, this connection. After about two hours of labor, there I was fully dilated. They had me do some focused pushing. Unfortunately, I never really felt that overwhelming urge to push that I'd read so much about and that I had wanted to feel. My pushing was more directed, but it felt a lot less forced than with my second birth. I decided to push on the bed on my hands and knees. My husband and doula were each holding a hand. Galyn was encouraging me. Every time I pushed and she would feel the baby come down, she'd let me know. That was really encouraging to know that it was productive pushing. I was just so focused. After about 40 minutes of pushing, she told me, "Okay, the next push, you're going to feel a burn." Before I knew it, it was the ring of fire I'd heard so much about. Although it was painful, I was just in awe that I was feeling it. I was like, oh my gosh, this means something. I'm so close. It was surreal. I was experiencing it in this weird, out-of-body way. And then the next push, baby was born. I was just in shock. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't fully believe that I did it. They passed her to me immediately. I was still on my hands and knees. I will just never, ever forget the feel of her body and her skin when I held her for the first time. It was the birth of my dreams. I think one of the other things I just loved was just that time afterwards that I never got to experience and that moment of coziness where we were just laying in this queen bed, my husband and I and my baby, and just eating together, holding her immediately, breastfeeding her like it was just a dream. I got to take a bath with some healing herbs. It was amazing. And then, after several hours, we just drove home with our baby.Meagan: Just amazing. That is what birth is about right there. All of those feelings, all of those smells and experiences and bonding moments. I am so happy for you. Let's just say you debunked the myth. Your pelvis was great. Your pelvis and your hips were just fine. It really just took someone educated to know that your baby was in a poor position and that okay, instead of doing this size catheter, let's do a smaller catheter. It's just these little things that made such a big difference. I think it's really important to vet our providers when we are interviewing them. I love that you were like, I gave her all the bad. Like, all of it. I just laid it on her. I wanted her to know everything that I was being told or that was said or that had been done. And then for her to be like, "Okay yeah, I hear those. I see these op-reports, but still don't believe there's anything that makes you not be able to," is just so powerful. So those are the types of providers, and if there really, really, really is a medical reason, they can back it up. "Okay, let's consider something." But I do love that you just came in with all of it, just all of it, and expecting her to be like, "No." And then when she said yes, you're like, "Wait, what?"Maria: What?Meagan: "Wait, what? Can you repeat that?" We really are getting more of that flack and doubt, so it's so great to hear that there's such a supportive provider out there in your area because every area needs it. I would love to see more support coming in because the fact of the matter is, it can happen. It can happen. It is possible, and really, the risk is relatively low, right? It's low, and it's something. And then we do know that to some people, it's not acceptable, and that's okay. But know that the risk is relatively low and that the world paints it to be so much bigger than it is.Maria: Right. Well and also, nobody talks about the risks of repeat sections. Right? Nobody mentions it. I'm like, why is this not being even mentioned at all?Meagan: We talk about it here because it isn't talked about. We have providers say, "Oh, uterine rupture, uterine rupture this and that," but they're not like, "Hey, dense adhesions connecting to your bladder for life, scar tissue gaining for life, back pain that you may discover in your 50s that is related to your Cesarean adhesions and pain." And then, not to mention there are a lot of things like hysterectomy, increased blood loss. You guys, there are things to talk about and complications that can come forth in the future pregnancies as well. We don't talk about those to scare you. We don't talk about uterine rupture here to scare you. We don't talk about uterine rupture or share uterine rupture stories to scare you. We are here to educate you. We want you to know there are pros and cons on both sides. If you find a provider who is all about sharing the risk about VBAC instead of repeat Cesarean, you might not want to be with that provider because there are risks for both sides so if you're getting a one-sided risk, there are some concerns there.Maria: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.Meagan: Well, thank you again so much for sharing your stories. Congratulations. I'm so happy that you found the right provider. You found the dream team. Everyone was on your side and supporting you along the way.Maria: Thank you, Meagan. Again, I think that's only one part of the equation. We as the moms have that other responsibility of really healing ourselves and our past traumas and doing more than just, I guess, working out. A lot of people don't think about the inner work that we have to make for our pelvic floor and even the uterus with making space for your baby in there for optimal positioning. I never heard of these things before you. All of that knowledge was very helpful.Meagan: Yeah, there's a lot of work. Before we started recording you were like, "With my second birth, I just hired a midwife and put it in her hands and was like, hey, I did the work. I hired a midwife," but there's so much more than that. And yeah, finding a supportive provider, getting the education, but there's so much work. We talk about this in our VBAC course-- mental and physical prep. We talk about it early on in the book because it is such a big part of how things can go and if we don't do those things, it can impact us. That doesn't mean you can't get through it and have a VBAC. I don't want to say if you don't go to therapy, you won't get a VBAC or if you don't do these things, but these things will impact you in a positive way more than a negative. I also want to talk about trauma and birth and going through and working through it from the inside out. It's not even birth. It's life. It's affecting us for life. We hold trauma in our body. We hold emotions. We pent them up and yeah, it's just you. We gotta work through them. We can't just shove them in and be like, "Well, that was that. I'll let it go," because it's not going to be let go. It's inside of us.Maria: Yeah.Meagan: Yeah. It'll show up. It will show up. It might be years. It might be months, you never know, but it's important to work through it. Okay, well I will not take any more of your time because I know you've already been with me for a bit, and I just wanna thank you again.Maria: Thank you so much, Meagan. It's been such an honor.ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

“I don't think anyone pushes like a VBAC mom pushes.”In this episode, we chat about premature rupture of membranes (PROM) with Noel, a stay-at-home mom from Texas, as she shares her personal experiences and successful VBAC story. We dive deep into the importance of finding a supportive provider and the realities of induction. Noel was never able to fully dilate during her first birth. She and Meagan talk about the impact of meaningful milestones (like reaching 10 centimeters!) during a VBAC labor. Also, it's never too early to hire your doula!Premature Rupture of MembranesPreterm and Term Prelabor Rupture of MembranesNeeded WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello, Women of Strength. It is March which means it is my second C-section baby's birth month. I love March so much because it's also when the sun starts feeling a little bit warmer, and you start hearing some birds chirp. We're kind of getting to that spring season, depending on where you are. Let's be honest, I'm in Utah, so it's still probably snowing every day in March. But I love March so much. And we're kicking it off with a really great episode. We have our friend, Noel. Hello, Noel.Noel: Hi.Meagan: I am so excited for her to be on today. She is actually in Texas, and tell us where again in Texas.Noel: The Woodlands, Texas. It's right near Houston.Meagan: Okay, perfect. And this is where you had your baby?Noel: No, so I actually had my baby in Dallas. That's where we were living at the time.Meagan: You were in Dallas. It says it right here on your little form. Okay, so she was in Dallas, you guys. So Dallas peeps or really just Texas peeps or really anybody. We know people travel for support and things like that. This is definitely a story to listen to. And then we are going to be talking a little bit about PROM. If you haven't ever heard about PROM, PROM is P-R-O-M and that means premature rupture of membranes, which means your water breaks, but labor doesn't really start, so it breaks prematurely to labor beginning.There's also PPROM, premature rupture of membranes, which means your baby is preterm. So we're going to dive into that in just a minute. But I wanted to tell you a little bit more about Noel. She is a stay-at-home mom with two boys. One is 3.5 and one is 5, so it's been a little bit since she had her baby. She actually submitted a while ago. We found this and I was like, I really want to talk about this because one, we talk about PROM, two, we talk about finding a supportive provider, and three, we talk about induction. I think it's important to note that if VBAC is more ideal without induction stereotypically, but it is still very, very possible with induction. I think there are so many people who are told that it's not possible out there or don't think it's possible or think that the risk is just astronomically increased when it comes to induction, and that's not true. So Noel has been doing lots of great things. In fact, she just told me a fun thing. She just started a company. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?Noel: Yeah. So we just started a travel agency. It's called Noel Mason Travel, and I'm specializing in Disney. I love Disney, Disney cruises, Universal, all-inclusives, and then eventually just catch-all travel.So yeah. I'm excited. Meagan: Love it. Fun fact about me that you might not know, and it's even more about my husband, we're a big Disney family. In fact, we just went to Disney World for the second time this year. We just got back literally two days ago.Noel: Oh my gosh. We're about to go.Meagan: We love Disney World so much. And my husband is a die-hard Disney fan.Noel: It's so fun.Meagan: It's exciting.I was just told recently by a friend that we definitely need to try a cruise, so maybe we need to connect. But yes, if you guys are looking to take your family to Disney World, definitely reach out to Noel. Of course, you can ask VBAC questions. Noel: Yeah.Meagan: Okay, so I'm going to go back. In addition to starting a travel agency, she loves cooking and is very passionate about pregnancy. She actually started an Instagram documenting her VBAC journey. In addition to fun and travel, I wanted to see if you could tell us more about your Instagram page where people can go and follow that page from when you were doing that.Noel: Yeah, so it's called Docnoelmason. I'm obviously not a doctor, it was just kind of a joke. But I created that Instagram at a time when I was grieving my first birth. After therapy, I realized how important it was for me to just talk. It didn't matter if anyone was listening. I just wanted to talk and educate. I created this Instagram basically just to educate my friends, none of them who were pregnant yet, on how to avoid a C-section, C-section recovery, if you have one. It was just a video diary. There's so much content of me just sitting on the couch to my camera, ugly views, just talking about what was currently going on.Meagan: I love that. I think that's going to be something that people will connect with because that's where we're all at. We just want to sit there and hear where someone else who's going through the exact same thing is. I just feel like we connect so much and that's why I love our community on Facebook, and I love this podcast, and of course, we love our Instagram pages and things and hearing everybody connect. We've been told that people have made actual friendships through this community. It's so awesome. So thank you for sharing that. We will have all of the links for the Instagram page and her new travel agency in the show notes if you are interested in checking that out. We do have a topic of the week instead of a review of the week. If you're just joining us, we have, for so many years, done a review every single week where people comment and leave reviews, and we share them. We're still loving those, and we're still sharing those. So if you haven't yet, leave us a review on the podcast. It really does help us so much in so many ways and truly helps other Women of Strength just like you find the podcast. You can check that out at Google. You can Google "The VBAC Link" or on Apple or Spotify or wherever you're listening to your podcast, leave a review. It'd be greatly appreciated. But today, we do have a topic of PROM. So like I mentioned, Noelle had PROM. I had PROM. She's gonna tell you more about her story of PROM. And I've shared my story a million times about PROM, but they say 10% of pregnancies will have PROM, premature rupture of membranes. I was 3 for 3. It just happened for me. That can be sometimes hard because water breaks, and what do we do? I mean, Noel, what were you told to do if your water broke? Did anyone say anything?Noel: With the first pregnancy, I was told to go straight to the hospital. Don't delay. Get there immediately. With the second pregnancy and a better team, I was told, "Just keep doing what you're supposed to do." Walk if you want to, but just act like nothing's happened.Meagan: Go carry on with normal life.Noel: Carry on. Yeah.Meagan: Yes. That is definitely something that we would suggest. Now, there are certain things that we want to watch out for. If our water breaks and it's green, nasty, meconium-stained, it might be a reason to go in to your provider or call your provider and have a discussion with them. There's prolapsed cord. That can happen, and that is a very serious situation where we need to get on our head and get our butt in the air and get to the hospital. If there is a cord coming out after your water breaks, it is an emergency situation and is not something to just hang out and carry on with normal life. But when water breaks, what I was instructed to do with my third pregnancy, also like you with a better team, a more educated self and I had doulas and midwives and everybody. It was your water breaks, you do a little check-in. What does the color look like? Okay, is it clear? How are you feeling? Do you feel like you have a fever? Do you feel flu-like symptoms? Maybe take your actual temperature and see if you have a temperature. Okay. We don't have a temperature. We're not contracting. All is well. Put a pad on. It's probably going to keep coming. Just to let you know, you will keep leaking and then keep going. Keep going. Now, it is important to know that it can take hours. I'm serious. Hours and hours for labor to start. And Noel's going to share her story in a second. But for me, it really took 18 hours until I was really going with my second. And then with my first, I actually started contracting soon-ish. So it might not be technically PROM, but I started cramping and contracting, but it really took until 12 hours for me to even be 3 centimeters dilated which was very normal as a first-time mom. Know that if your water breaks, it is not like, run to the hospital. We're having a baby right this second. You're gonna have a baby in the car. It's not always like that when your water breaks and contractions aren't starting. So just to let you know, about 95% of all births will occur within 28 hours of PROM when it happens at term at 37 weeks. Now, PPROM is, like I said, preterm premature rupture of membranes. That is something that you will probably want to go in for if your baby is preterm. That happens at about 3% of pregnancies. I just think it's important to note that it happens. Noel and I are proof of that. If it happens, it doesn't mean run. You don't have to run to the hospital. You don't have to think you're having a baby right this moment, but it's something I suggest checking in with your provider about beforehand saying, "If my water breaks, what would you suggest?" They might suggest go straight to the hospital. We know it's not necessarily what you need to do, but at least you know your provider's suggestions. Okay. All right, we are going to take a quick break for the intro, and then we're going to get into Noel's story. All right, Ms. Noel. I have taken so much of your time already, so thank you so much for talking PROM with me. Yeah, let's turn the time over to you.Noel: Okay. So with my first birth, I was the first of my friends to get pregnant and I just had this very fairytale view of pregnancy and birth. I really just knew what happened in movies. So like you said, the water breaks, it's water everywhere, and you run to the hospital. I just had no idea what to expect. I had listened to some birth stories enough to know that getting a doula would be important, but at the time, I thought that is way too expensive and something that I, in my first pregnancy, don't need which is so silly looking back now, especially with my C-section bill being what it was "too expensive". It would have saved me a lot of money. But yeah, I did no techniques like Spinning Babies, no chiro, no PT. I just felt very unprepared. And looking back now, I think my doctor really preferred it that way. I think she didn't ever push me in that direction. I also had SPD and it basically felt like a knife was jamming up anytime I would walk. And again, my doctor never pushed me in any direction. She just said, "Rest when you can." That was awful. I was also told I had an anterior placenta which is a weird thing to remember, but I remember being a little bit scared by that. I guess that's why I logged it. They told me there was no risk to having one. It didn't really matter. But now looking it up, of course I know that can really affect the position of your baby. So flash forward to my growth scan. No surprise, I was told that he was sunny-side up. Of course, I asked, "Is there anything I need to do? Does that matter?" And the doctor said, "No, totally fine. Doesn't matter." You'll have a healthy Baby. So I said, "Okay." They found my fluid was low on that scan as well. Of course, I didn't ask what the level was. I just said, "Okay." They said, "We want to induce you in the next few days." So again, I was so excited to have this baby out. With my first one, I was like, let's get it on the books.Meagan: That's very common.Noel: Yeah. Yeah. So many of my friends I see doing the same thing. Again, you just don't know any better. You're ready to not be pregnant. We scheduled it for July 3rd, which again, I think was a huge mistake a day before a holiday. But again, I wasn't really thinking. I was put on Pitocin. I was already a little bit dilated, put on Pitocin and I was dilating about a centimeter every hour. Pretty uneventful. I would have to move positions. The baby's heart was acting up a little bit, but nothing really to worry about. I got to 9 centimeters. They brought out the table, all the fun vacuum forceps, and I was ready to go. That was probably 4:00. Well, every hour they kept coming in and checking me, and I was still a 9. So a couple hours into that, my doctor came in and said, "We're going to have an emergency C-section." That was that. No questions, just this is what's happening.Meagan: Can I ask why they called an emergency? Was baby struggling or did they just use the emergency to justify as being a Cesarean?Noel: Yeah, I think at the time of day, "Let's get this baby out of you before it's midnight. We want to go home." But no, aby was fine. Like I said, the heart was acting up a little bit, but no one was concerned. She just said, "This is too long to be dilated like this and not have any movement." Again, a first-time mom, I was just like, okay. I remember crying. My mom's crying. I'm crying. We're both just a little nervous about what's about to happen. The doctor came in and sees us crying and goes, "Don't worry, I'm going to have you back in that bikini by the end of summer." It still just has stuck with me what a routine moment this was for her and not a big deal to her. She just thought I would be worried about my body. It was just so ridiculous. The birth was fine. You know, we talked about the Bachelorette. It just was not what I thought would happen as they were operating.Meagan: During your birth?Noel: During my surgery, both the JOBs are talking about the Bachelorette, and I'm chiming in, and I'm just thinking, this is not what I had planned. This is not the moment I envisioned. It was really weird. So that next morning I'm recovering and my mom comes in and is like, "Hey, I don't know if you know, but one of my friends had a VBAC after her C-section with her second baby. She had a VBAC." And I asked her what a VBAC was and we talked about it. Right then I decided, this is what I'm going to do. I'm not doing this again. I am not doing this again. I'm going to have a VBAC. Flash forward about a year, I decided we would get pregnant again or would start trying, and we got pregnant right away. Thank God. In this time, I happened to find this article on Google listing hospitals to avoid for C-sections in the United States. Yep. You know, the article. Mine was number eight. Number eight. I could only laugh at that point, like, okay, all right. This time I'm going to be doing my research.Meagan: Yeah.Noel: So when it came to choosing my provider, I really felt like that was the biggest thing that could set me up for success. I knew I wanted to have the baby in a hospital again. I wasn't sure if it was going to be with a midwife or OB. I joined a Facebook page. It wasn't ICAN, and it was a group our of Dallas. It was a C-section Awareness Group, the Dallas page. There was a supportive OB who was mentioned there.  I had an appointment with him and he was fine. Nothing to write home about. This was also during COVID, so all of those rules were in place and work mattered. I also started searching for a doula at 8 weeks because I just figured, if I'm going to have one, let's have one. I'm going to have them the whole time. One of those doulas suggested moving practices to a group called Dallas Midwife Associates, and now they're Midwife and Co. They are known for supporting VBACs, and the hospital that they deliver in Baylor is also known for just being a very VBAC-supportive hospital. So I switched to that group, and the coolest thing about them is you see a different midwife every appointment you go to. They just cycle you. So by the time you're ready to have your baby, you know everyone on the team. They all know you. You're not worried about your provider being on vacation. There's no pressure for induction or anything. They were so amazing and awesome cheerleaders. The OB who they are in practice with who would do a C-section if I needed one or became high-risk and had to go see him, he was also supportive. So that was awesome. I could not recommend them highly enough. But yeah, just preparing this time, I think, being so clear with myself about why I wanted this VBAC. For me, it was the biggest thing at the time was the recovery. My kids were going to be 21 months apart, and I did not see how I was going to be able to have a baby and another baby if I can't lift up the first one. He was still in a crib. I didn't see how that was going to work. And so the recovery was super important to me. The experience was important to me. I wanted to do everything in my power this time to know that if I had a C-section, it was a true emergency, and that I could look back on that birth and say, "Well, this is what was supposed to happen. This is why C-sections exist," and not, "Oh, gosh, I could have done XYZ differently this time." I also had the SPD again and was not about to let that fly. With a toddler, you're constantly moving, so I couldn't be in pain all the time. I went to go see a chiropractor. I went to physical therapy. They both recommended Spinning Babies as well as my doula. So I did Spinning Babies. I was kind of crazy about it. The whole don't recline more than 90 degrees, the flashlight trick thing, that was everything to me. So 30 weeks on, you would not catch me reclining. I sat with the best posture or just laid flat on the couch because I was not about to have a sunny-side-up baby.Meagan: I can totally relate to that. I didn't sit on a couch. I didn't even sit on a couch because I was like, I'll sink too much and it will turn my pelvis in. I remember driving all back up and pelvis tucked forward.Noel: On the tip of your chair.Meagan: On the tip of my chair not wanting to have a posterior baby at, all. And then I got one.Noel: It just shows you-- yeah, exactly. You're not really in control of it. I asked about my placenta this time. Again, that's nothing you can prevent, but I knew I had lower chances if it wasn't anterior. That was good for me to know that if it was, I would need to work even harder. I don't know how I could sit up any straighter, but do my best. And then I also had what's called an overactive uterus. I guess I just had constant Braxton Hicks. Google would tell you to go into the hospital, you are in labor. So many Braxton Hicks. My belly was just constantly hard. So because of that, I didn't do any of the tea. That would make it worse. Anytime I tried, I would have more Braxton Hicks.Meagan: Because it's a uterine toner. So that's what it is. It is made to help a uterus that is contracting be more efficient. If your uterus is hyperactive already contracting, it's going to try and make it contract.Noel: Yeah, it would go nuts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I did do the dates. I'm a big believer in the dates. Plus they taste awesome. So there was really no harm in that. Okay, so flash forward. It's 38 weeks. I was off and on higher blood pressure. But on that day, I had a reading of 137/95. They began to get a little worried and just said, "Okay, you should monitor this at, home that whole week, and then at 39 weeks, we can figure out if this is still a problem." They did mention an induction if the blood pressure continued to rise or stay the same. I came in at 39 weeks. I was planning on not getting my membranes swept. I wasn't into the risk of that, but with the induction looming, I guess I should say. They did test my blood pressure that day, and it was 137/100. The protein in the urine was negative, but they were still a little worried because it wasn't really going down. I went out to the parking lot. I called my doula, and we decided that I would get swept at that point. The induction was just going to be a few days away, so we figured the risk was probably worth it at that point and went ahead to get checked for how dilated I was. I really wanted to start with the Foley bulb instead of Pitocin if it was possible, but they ended up finding I was 4 centimeters dilated and 70% effaced. Meagan: Okay, that's great.Noel: It looked like I was ready to go. I got swept that same day. Again, I said this was COVID, and the shots had been out for like a month. I found a place for my husband to go get a COVID vaccine because I was crazy pregnant, hormonal, and I kept hearing all these horrible stories about husbands not being able to be in the birth because of them having COVID or something. He's a Baylor sports fan, and Baylor been awful for forever but happened to make it to the national championship that day and that night. He was like, "I don't want to feel sick for this game. I'm not going to get it." Of course, me being almost 40 weeks pregnant could have cared less how he felt and if he was going to feel sick, so the poor guy gets his shot. I'm having contractions at that point, thinking that it worked. So I'm walking around the living room like we're about to have this baby, and he starts shaking and drops his water. Glass shatters all over the ground. He came down with a 104 fever in the middle of this game he has been waiting for his whole entire life. I'm contracting. It was so stressful. So I called my neighbor and was like, "Hey, I think I'm having this baby tonight. I might need you to drive me to the hospital. I don't know if Luke's going to be able to be there." I mean, he was in bed, not okay. Awful, huh? It was so awful. I was just praying, "Lord, I know I've been asking for this baby to come, but please, please, please, can you stop all of this?" I woke up, and completely, everything had stopped. So thankfully, his fever went away throughout that next day. My doula recommended I go to get acupuncture. I thought acupuncture was the same thing as acupressure. I was expecting to go in for a massage.Meagan: Yeah, very different. Very different.Noel: Very different. Very different. I was a little freaked out by all the needles. The next morning I woke up and thought, "Oh, crap, that didn't work. What was the point?" That morning was the 8th. I had an appointment later that day to talk about the induction. I dropped off my son at school. I always heard on this podcast, labor will start when you put your kid to bed or they go to school. I always thought that was so funny. I didn't think it would be me. I dropped off my son at school. I go to my chiropractor's office, and I text my doula and I'm like, "I think my thighs are wet. I feel like maybe my water broke." But, you know, there's so much nasty stuff going on down there at the end of pregnancy. I kind of talked myself out of it. I went to the bathroom and was like, no, I'm just not in control my bladder anymore. I don't know what's going on. On the whole drive home, I just felt more and more liquid. And then getting out of my car, my neighbor and I were getting out at the same time, and I start walking and could just feel more and more wetness. I just stopped and waited for him to go inside. And finally it hit me like, okay, this is my water. Yeah. So I called my midwives and my doula and everyone said, "Just continue doing what you're doing. Everything looked normal. The liquid was clear. I really did not want to be induced. They knew that. My doula knew that." So that whole day, I did everything I could. I did curb-walking. My doula gave me a circuit to work on. I did the Spinning Babies, and nothing happened. My blood pressure was still high, so they wanted to see me that afternoon to do a stress test to make sure the baby was okay and check on blood pressure again. So I went in, did the stress test, baby was fine. But they said, "We'd like you to go to the hospital tonight around 9:00 if nothing has started." Nothing started, so I was upset. But again, I trusted my team and that was the difference here. They were still great with me having a VBAC with Pitocin. There was never a moment where they considered not letting that happen. So I got to the hospital, asked if I could labor until 3:00 AM and just see if it started. Didn't start. They got me on that Pitocin. And at this point, I was still hoping to do things as natural as I could while being in the hospital. I was really hoping to avoid an epidural. I again was not happy about the risks of an epidural, but those Pitocin contractions really were coming on strong. I remember going and trying to labor on the toilet and sitting on the toilet and feeling and hearing what felt like a bowling ball, like a dunk, and I think it was probably the baby settling into a better position. At the time, I hated it. I hated that feeling. I literally looked around and was like, "Did you guys hear that?" It felt internally so loud. At that moment, the contractions started coming on even stronger than before. At this point, it had been 24 hours without sleep. I was not taking the contractions well. I said, "Let's do a check. If I am an 8 or higher, I'm having this baby with that epidural. If not, we'll see what happens." I was still a 4. And so again, I don't think I would recommend it if you would like to go without an epidural. Don't get checked. Just don't get checked. I knew that. I knew that, but it was a different moment when I was actually in labor. So the upside is I was finally able to rest whenever I got that epidural. A couple hours later, I was a full 10 and ready to go. They had me labor down for a little bit, but I will never forget that moment as a VBAC mom when they told me I was out a 10 having never gotten to the 10. Oh, I get chills just thinking about it. It was so special. I labored down for an hour. They turned down the epidural. I could not feel my legs. And so again, Baylor is a teaching hospital. So I had a nurse in training, I guess I had my midwife and then they had a midwife in training at the time, and then husband and my doula all in my room just surrounded. My husband hates it when I say this, but it was the feminine energy. It was just so amazing. Everyone was so hyped and excited for me. I don't think anyone pushes like a VBAC mom pushes. I felt like I was in a throw up. I had this ugly rag on me, but I could have cared less. I was just so excited to get to push. The baby came out with my first. My first baby was 7 pounds-12 ounces, 21 inches long, a normal-sized baby. This baby came out and was 10-pounds, 4-ounces, and 24 inches long. I grew a mega-baby compared to this first one. It was just so great. I didn't do the growth scan with this baby because I was so afraid that if they told me that the baby was big that I might be tempted to get a C-section or scared out of having a VBAC. I knew our bodies were made to do this. No matter how big this baby is, my body can do it. So yeah, that was that.Meagan: Oh my gosh, that is amazing. I am so grateful that you had that team and that energy because that energy is so important, and I do believe that it helps us VBAC moms, and really any mom get through that end stretch that sometimes can be intimidating or it can be longer, and then I love hearing that you got to not only have your VBAC, but then it was like, "Not only did I VBAC, I VBAC'd with a baby that was almost three pounds heavier, bigger than my other baby." So many Women of Strength listen to this podcast. I'm sure you've seen it in your forums. People don't believe that they can do it because our providers and our system tell us we can't because we go through these growth ultrasounds and they create some fear. I love that. I love it so stinking much. That's so amazing. Congratulations.Noel: Thank you. Thank you. It was amazing.Meagan: Are there any other tips that you would suggest in you finding a provider or dealing with PROM and not getting frustrated? I think it said one of the best tips that you would give to someone was making sure your provider and the providers they work with are not just VBAC-friendly, but they're really supportive. Do you have any tips to that?Noel: Yeah. That is, again, what I always tell my friends because if your team doesn't trust that you can do this, that's going to really set you up for failure. I just know so many people who are like, "Oh yeah, I asked my doctor if I could have a VBAC after my C-section and they said, "Sure, we'll just see how this will go, and my heart drops." I'm like, this is not going to go well.Meagan: Actually, that's a red flag.Noel: It's a huge red flag. It's a huge red flag. Yeah. I know me who can be a warrior. It was really important to me that everyone who would be around me was supportive because if I had one person come in there and try to poke my bubble, it could start getting in my head and that I don't need that. So, yeah.Meagan: Yeah. Not even just your providers, but your team and your atmosphere around you. I mean, sometimes in that end of pregnancy when we're being told, "Oh, you why haven't had a baby yet?" or "Your baby's gonna get too big," especially if they were ever given a diagnosis of CPD where their pelvis is too small or anything like that, the things that people say can really get into our mind, so we have to protect that bubble and not let anyone try and poke it and pop it because you deserve to feel safe, love, supported, heard in that bubble.Noel: I think listening to the podcast. I listened to this podcast every single day while I would walk with my firstborn. That helped give me the security. I knew, okay, this other mom had this story that's similar to mine. I can do this. If she could do this, I could do this. So it didn't matter whenever I had people come in who had no idea what a VBAC was try to talk me out of it. You have no idea what you're talking about. I have equipped myself with so many other women's stories. Meagan: You're like, "I actually do."Noel: Yeah, right. I'm Dr. Noel Mason. I know it.Meagan: So yeah, I love that. I am Doc Noel. Another thing that I pulled out from your story was you reaching 10 centimeters and having that feeling and not even maybe realizing how badly you needed to get to that point or hear those words. They're just milestone markers. I was in that too. I needed to get past 3 centimeters because I was told that my body couldn't. Once I was past 3 centimeters, it was like, okay. Okay. Even though I knew in my mind I could dilate past three centimeters, I knew I could. There was still this weird hang up, so once I heard that number past 3 centimeters, I can't explain to you this utter relief and aha moment of like, okay. It gave me this surge of power and strength to hear these words. I think it's really important while we're preparing for our VBAC to process our past births and realize what might be triggering and what might be milestone markers that help encourage you and communicate that with your team. Let them know, "You guys, I have never made it past 9 centimeters. I hung out there forever. I was told I needed an emergency C-section. The number 10 is going to be a big deal for me. I need you guys to help me with that," or whatever it may be. Or, "I really don't want this to happen. Can you help me avoid this?" I think communicating with our team comes with preparing for a VBAC, but also processing things mentally and understanding those big moments that you need is okay to be like, "Yeah. That actually was a big deal for me. This is a big deal for me." My water breaking was a trigger for me. But then to hear that my body could get past 3 centimeters on its own was a huge deal. So I just love that you were like, "I felt that," because I could just really remember back when I felt that moment, of like, yes, yes, I can.Noel: I can do this.Meagan: I can do this. And Women of Strength, as you're listening, I want you to know you can do this. Noel and I are two of thousands and thousands and thousands and hundreds on this podcast who have come before you who have done it. It is possible, but you do have to set yourself up in all the right ways. We know even then, sometimes you can do everything right and still not have the outcome that you want, but our goal here at The VBAC Link is to help you have a better experience. So getting that information, building your team, finding that supportive provider, all of that, and then also knowing your options if a Cesarean is needed, I just think it's so important to know that you deserve it. You can do it. You are worth it. You are worth it. And like Noel mentioned in the beginning, I didn't hire a doula because of costs. I just thought it could be by myself, and then she had this massive Cesarean bill. Sometimes these doulas or education courses or whatever, going to PTs and chiropractors may seem like it's too much financially or you can't do it, but in the end, it really pays off. I'll tell you, there's not a single day in my life that I look back and be like, I can't believe that I went to this two chiropractors and paid this much for that, paid for my doulas, paid for an out-of-hospital birth. I never even questioned that. That money was well spent. Even if I didn't have a VBAC and had to transfer and have a Cesarean, it still would have been well spent because I had a better experience. I felt empowered. I'm also going to plug Be Her Village. I'm sure you guys have heard me talking about it before. I love that company. If you are in that situation where you don't feel like you can financially do it, go register for Be Her Village. You guys, it's a registry for doulas and postpartum and PT and chiropractor and all these things. It's a place where you can go because I'm sure Noel will say it's worth it.Noel: Definitely. Yes, definitely.Meagan: Yeah. And hire a doula early on. I think having a doula early on in your pregnancy who can literally walk through this journey with you is so powerful. It might not be something where you talk to her every day. It might not be like that, but having that person in your corner, I love that you were able to go outside and call and be like, "This is a situation. Let's walk through it," and have that sounding ear and extra opinion and in the end supporting you in whatever you decided, and you decided together that you wanted to do that.I think it's so, so powerful. So as a reminder also, we have a whole registry of VBAC doulas. You can go to thevbaclink.com/findadoula. They are literally trained in VBAC and know the options and want to help you navigate that. Any other tips that you have?Noel: No, but thinking of the doula thing, again, at eight weeks, that is so important. I know a lot of people are like, "I don't even know if this baby is viable yet." I don't even think I had had my first--Meagan: Ultrasound?Noel: Yeah, yeah. I had no idea. But if it weren't for interviewing those doulas, I probably would have stuck with that original provider that I had in mind and gone the whole pregnancy with them. Because if they would have told me to switch at 20-something weeks and my provider was fine and supportive, there would have been no reason to switch. I'm so glad I talked to them when I did.Meagan: Yes. Oh, that is such a powerful thing to remind people of because doulas know the area. Doulas work with these providers all the time. It's outside of our scope to be like, "This provider is garbage. Don't go," or tell you what to do exactly. But at the same time, and maybe it's not really outside of our scope to say that. Maybe it's not really. It's maybe just not appropriate to be like, "This is garbage." But at the same time, we can be like, "Hey, this is what I've seen. I would encourage you to check these people out also. Hey, here are some questions to ask for your provider."Noel: Yes.Meagan: I love that. The doulas know the providers in the area, and they can help guide you through what really is that supportive provider.Noel: Yeah. And supportive hospital or birth center, whatever. They know. They've been there. They have been to more than we have. Yeah. Yeah.Meagan: Yeah. There is a hospital here in Utah that anytime someone wants to VBAC, at first, for a long time, I was like, "Okay, you know, just do whatever feels best," until I saw too much and now I was like, "Listen, I'm gonna be straight with you, and you don't even have to hire me if you don't like my honesty. But if you want a VBAC, you're going to the wrong place."Noel: That's powerful.Meagan: I have said that. You're going to the wrong place. Trust these people. They know. They've seen it. They're there. They're really there.Noel: Yeah. Yeah.Meagan: Yes. Okay, well thank you so much again for your time today and your stories and congratulations on your cute, chunky baby.Noel: Thank you. ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

“I am not a TOLAC patient. I am a VBAC!”Julie sits down with Colleen, a mother from Long Island, New York, who shares her journey towards achieving a successful VBAC despite facing challenges such as gestational diabetes. Colleen recounts her traumatic first birth experience and the uphill battle she faced with her second pregnancy. She was bombarded with messages that her baby would suffer permanent nerve damage from shoulder dystocia, but her intuition told her otherwise. Though her baby's weight was predicted to be off the charts, Colleen's daughter was born weighing just 7 pounds, 15 ounces. This episode emphasizes the importance of understanding your options, having a supportive team, and trusting your instincts during birth. The VBAC Link Blog: The Facts About Shoulder DystociaEvidence Based Birth® - The Evidence on Big BabiesEvidence Based Birth® - The Evidence on Induction for Big BabiesCoterie Diaper ProductsHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details ​​Julie: All right. Good morning, Women of Strength. It is Julie Francom here with you today. I am super excited that we have with us Colleen here today. Colleen is going to share her story about her VBAC with gestational diabetes and the struggle that she had working towards her VBAC. Now I am really excited to introduce Colleen to you. She is from Long Island, New York. I do not have a Review of the Week. I forgot to pull that up, so we are going to just do a little fun fact about birth preparation instead of a review because I forgot to look at the review. So sorry, Meagan. I think probably the best thing that you can do to prepare for any type of birth is to find out what all of your options are. I feel like that's like such a good tip for first-time moms or going in for a VBAC or even if you want to schedule a repeat C-section or even an initial C-section. I think that one of the biggest disservices we can do to ourselves is not knowing the options that are available to us and not standing up and speaking up for ourselves when the things that we want are not what is done, normally or typically in whatever setting we're choosing to birth at. I love the phrase "if you don't know your options, you don't have any". I think that that is true. And I think that there's never a circumstance where we can be too prepared going into any type of birth experience. So if you're listening, I know that you're already on top of that because you want to get educated and inspired about either VBAC or what your options are for birthing after a C-section. So stick in there. We have a VBAC prep course for parents and for doulas to learn more about VBAC as well. You can find that on our website, thevbaclink.com.All right, let's go ahead and get into it. I would love to introduce you to Colleen. She is a mom of two. She's a teacher living in Long Island, New York. Her first birth and postpartum experiences were incredibly traumatic. She says, "The moment that they wheeled me to the OR for my C-section, I knew I wanted a VBAC. After being diagnosed with gestational diabetes in my second trimester, I faced an uphill battle to achieving my VBAC." And finally, after delivering her daughter, it was the most healing experience she could have ever imagined. We're going to talk a little bit more about those struggles and gestational diabetes and maybe a bait-and-switch, it sounds like, from her new provider at the end of the episode. So hang in there. I'm excited to hear from Colleen. Colleen, are you there?Colleen: Hi.Julie: Hi. All right, you go ahead and get started, and I am super excited to hear your story.Colleen: All right. I guess I'll start with my C-section because that's, I guess, where every VBAC starts. So my pregnancy with my son was textbook perfect. Everything that you want to go right did go right, so I naively expected my birth to follow that same pattern. Hindsight is 20/20. I know I shouldn't have, especially since I've been listening to different birth podcasts for a while, and I know that's really not how it goes, but I guess as a first-time mom, I didn't think about that stuff. So when I went into labor with him, I think I was 38 weeks and 5 days, just shy of 39 weeks. It was an incredibly long labor. I was in labor with him for 40 hours. We stayed home that first day, and then when things started to progress the next day, we headed to the hospital. When I got there, they checked me and did all of the administrative type of things, and I was already 4 centimeters dilated, so they kept me. The first thing that they asked was about an epidural. I knew that I had wanted one, but I didn't know when in my labor I had wanted one. I just heard from a bunch of different people that sometimes anesthesia can take a very long time to get there. So I requested it immediately, not anticipating them to show up five minutes later. I think my husband walked out of the room to fill out another piece of paperwork when he came back there. The whole anesthesia team was in there. I got it at about 4 centimeters dilated, and then just expected for things to go as birth is "supposed" to go. I ended up dilating very, very quickly. Within 10 minutes, I was 8 centimeters dilated. But with that, because it was such a rapid jump, my son's heart rate wasn't able to keep up with it. So there were a ton of people in the room in a matter of seconds. They ended up giving me shots in my thighs to slow my labor. I'm not sure what the medication was. They just did it, and then that was that. And then I stayed in the bed for about 10 hours. I'd asked my nurse to come in and help me move a little bit, and she told me no. She told me because I had an epidural, I could not move. But things were taking a very long time. So at one point, she came in. She's like, "I'll just give you a peanut ball." But at that point, I was still on my back. They had me laboring on my back. She told me to just shift my legs over, and she draped them over the peanut ball, and then left again. And then later on, I started feeling pressure. They came in and they were like, "Okay, yeah, we can do some practice pushes," or, no, let me backtrack. I'm sorry. It took a while, so they ended up pushing Pitocin before I started feeling the pressure, and then a little bit after that, that's when that happened. So they came in and they were like, "Okay, we can do some practice pushes." And I think they let me do two. During those pushes, my son's heart rate dropped dramatically. At that point, it was me, my husband, the hospital OB, not even my OB, just the staff one, and a nurse in the room. But when his heart rate dropped, I think there were 30 people in the room. So at that point, they flipped me over on all fours and just ran out of the room with me. They didn't tell me what was going on. They didn't tell my husband what was going on, so he was in the corner panicking. They were really shoving him back into the corner. I remember being so, so terrified of what was going on just because I didn't know what was happening. All I knew was they were rushing me to the OR. This was 2022. So it was the end of COVID. I remember crying so hard that my mask was just absolutely disgusting. When I got into the OR, there was still no information on what was happening, and they just pushed the full dose of the epidural or spinal, whatever it was, for the C-section. My OB was in the OR at that point. So the practice I was with was so large that even though I had met with a different OB every single appointment, I'd never met this one. She ended up being absolutely phenomenal, but it was very intimidating not meeting the person who was delivering my baby ahead of time. So they have me in the OR, and she says, "Okay, if you are okay with it, we can try to deliver him vaginally with a vacuum." I agreed to that because the last thing I wanted was a C-section. The idea of major surgeries really freaks me out. I definitely didn't want that if I could avoid it. With the vacuum, they let me push three times to try to get him out. Obviously, that did not work. So I ended up having a C-section. The first thing that my OB had said to me after I delivered was that I was a perfect candidate for a VBAC. She said the incision was low. Everything went beautifully. She told me that the C-section was not my fault, which I didn't realize how supportive that was in the moment because I was already beating myself up from it. So then we move into recovery and the mother/baby unit, and everything seemed to be going okay. And then the day that I was supposed to be discharged, I started having, like, I wouldn't even call it a headache because I get migraines so a headache to me is different than to other people, I guess. But I couldn't move. I couldn't walk. When I would stand up, I felt like I was going to fall over. So they added a couple of extra days to my stay, and I ended up having a spinal fluid leak, but the anesthesia team didn't want to say it was that. They were saying it was everything other than that. They said I pulled a muscle when I was pushing. You name it, and they said it was that. It was everything other than a spinal fluid leak. I ended up having some-- I don't even know what kind of procedure it was. It was like a COVID test on steroids. They put long swabs up my nose and essentially numbed my sinus cavity and sent me home because it helped a little bit. And then five days postpartum, I had to go back to my OB because my liver numbers were elevated. She took one look at me and she said, "You have a spinal fluid leak, and you need to go back for a blood patch." Five days postpartum, I was away from my son for literally the entire day. The hospital did not offer me a pump or anything like that. It was just very scary and traumatic, and it set the tone for my whole postpartum experience. Looking back on it now, I describe it as like being in a black hole in comparison to where I am now. So after that whole experience, my husband and I knew that we wanted more kids, but we also knew we needed to change some things because I didn't want to end up with another C-section, and he was very on board with whatever my birth wishes were because he wanted me to have a very different experience than I did the first time around. So then when I was pregnant with my daughter, at the beginning, they were fine, but also the pregnancy was very, very different. While my son was textbook perfect, this one felt like what could go wrong was going wrong.  I know there could have been worse things, but in the moment, it felt very big. I ended up having a subchorionic hematoma. The early bleeding was very, very scary, and my OB still wouldn't see me even though I'd been bleeding for a while. Everything ended up being fine with that. I stayed with the same practice at that point. I was going through everything. Later on in my pregnancy, I obviously did the glucose test and ended up with gestational diabetes. That was in the back of my mind. But then as I was going forward with it, there was very little support or information about gestational diabetes. I got a phone call on a Friday that said, "You have this, and here's a number for you to call, and good luck". The first meeting I had with a diabetes educator, I was under the assumption would be a one-on-one meeting. I didn't realize until 10 minutes before the meeting that it was a group meeting. In bold, capitalized, underlined lettering, it said, "You cannot talk about anything personal because of HIPAA." I had so many questions that I knew were specific to me, and I couldn't ask them. We were sitting in this meeting, and the educator is just going through a PowerPoint of doom and gloom situations of what could happen if gestational diabetes isn't controlled. Then she emailed us all a PDF with like a specific carb goal for the day or whatever it was, and then gave us all prescriptions for the glucose monitors and all of that stuff, but no direction or anything, and was kind of just like, "Okay, well let's make a follow-up appointment for individuals with you guys." And then that was that. I still had no idea what was going on. I picked up the prescription and was just like panicked the whole time. I didn't know what I could eat, what was safe and what wasn't. And then on top of all of that, I felt like I did something wrong and there was just a lot of guilt and heavy feelings surrounding it. When I started to try to research things for gestational diabetes, there was very, very little that I could find. It just felt almost like gestational diabetes wasn't something that we can talk about. It's just something that happens and you've got to deal with it. So eventually I figured out what worked for me and I realized that it was very, very different from that blanket carb gold sheet that they had given us. Their goals were like 60 grams of carbs or something like that for certain meals, and my body just couldn't handle that. My goal was to try to avoid medication if I could because I knew that could impact my chances of having a VBAC because of different providers' thoughts about it. So after I got diagnosed with gestational diabetes and started navigating all of that, I was still talking with my provider about a VBAC and how that was the goal, that was the plan, and I didn't want anything else. I started finding that some OBs okay with it while others weren't. They wouldn't say that they weren't okay with it. I would go back and look over my notes, and there would be a line that said we talked about a C-section. I'm like, no, we didn't. What are you saying? A C-section never came up. I don't know what you're saying. I got a call out of nowhere one day to schedule a C-section. I'm like, "I have no idea what's going on here, and that's not what I want. That's not what I want to do, so I'm not doing it." At my next appointment, the doctor I had met with was saying like, "Oh, since you had a C-section before, we just schedule one just in case. It's what we do with all previous C-section patients." So at that point, I was like, okay, whatever, I'll schedule it with them, but I'm also going to start the process of switching because I wasn't liking how it was very inconsistent.I thought I wanted a smaller practice. I ended up switching to one that my sister-in-law used. At first, everything was fine. I met with two of the three doctors who could potentially be delivering my baby. One of them was very supportive right off the bat. "Yeah, I'm looking at all of your notes, you seem like a great candidate as long as gestational diabetes stays under control, then there's no problem. You can have a VBAC." And then the other provider had a completely different view on it. My first appointment with her, when we were going through everything, she was kind of just like, "Well, you have gestational diabetes, so you should really think about how important a VBAC is for you, and you might need to switch practices." That really caught me off guard. I had never left an OB appointment feeling that upset. I remember crying in my car for a half an hour before I could even pull out of the parking lot because I was just so overwhelmed and upset and had just so many different feelings that I couldn't put my finger on. At this point, I had hired a doula. I was talking to her before I left, and she was really helpful in calming me down. As my pregnancy went on, that was really the role that she ended up playing before I gave birth was really just keeping me and reminding me what I wanted because as things went on, there were the growth scans and all of the other good things that they do during pregnancy. The first growth skin I had, she was measuring big. And they're like, "Oh, she's in the 80th percentile. As long as she stays here, it's fine, but if she gets to be any part of her gets to be over 90%, then you have to have a C-section. You will have to deliver at 39 weeks and there is no shot of anything else."Julie: Oh my gosh, that's overwhelming.Colleen: Yeah, it was a lot thrown at me and this is where the uphill battle started because every scan that they did after that, she was measuring big. Toward the end, she was over the 90th percentile. And in the last month of my pregnancy, I had the weekly non-stress tests and scans, measuring my fluid and all of that stuff. But every single week was a conversation about the risks of a VBAC. They really, really, really were pushing a C-section, but they didn't talk about any risks of a repeat C-section which I find interesting now. But something else that I thought was unkind was the way that they were explaining their risks of a VBAC. They really were focusing on shoulder dystocia. So when my mom had me, I was a very big baby and I actually did have shoulder dystocia. I am physically handicapped from it. So them hammering on the risks of shoulder dystocia as if I didn't know and I was unaware of what could happen was really offensive. One of the providers actually at one point had said that my birth injury wasn't that bad. I was so caught off guard by that comment that I didn't even know what to say.Julie: Wow. Can I ask what it is? Do you mind sharing? You don't have to share.Colleen: No, that's fine. I have left herbs palsy. So it's like a nerve damage essentially. The way that they had to get me out of my mom without using forceps or anything like that, they just put too much pressure on one side and ruined the way that the nerve endings are connected. Julie: Oh.Colleen: Yeah. So when I was born, the doctor told my mom I wouldn't have any use of my left arm. My mom had me in physical therapy from the time I was 6 weeks old until I was 12 years old. Because of that extensive physical therapy, I do have a really decent range of motion in my left arm. It's one of those things where I think about it and I'm like, if I had lost the use of it at some point, I think I'd be more upset. It's annoying, but it's my normal. It's my everyday, and it really doesn't impact my everyday lifestyle, I guess.  I'm able to take care of my baby. One of the comments that the provider made was actually along the lines of like, "Oh, well, yours is fine. You can actually do things. But what if your baby has shoulder dystocia and your baby can't use their arm at all?" They kept bringing up the risks of stillbirth with it, and it was just very scary. Especially because I personally know what can happen with shoulder dystocia. I guess going through it, I had like this deep, deep sense that that was not something that I was going to experience. I don't know what that feeling was, but I knew in my bones that it wasn't happening. But every week, they were talking about the risk of shoulder dystocia and really expanding on how serious it could be. And my last appointment before I gave birth-- so that appointment was on a Wednesday and I had my daughter on Friday. So that Wednesday appointment, my doctor is going through everything again with the risks of shoulder dystocia. They had made me schedule a just-in-case C-section for the day after my due date. They were really trying to get me to switch it to some time in 39 weeks. Every week they were like, "Oh, just give us a call if you change your mind." I was not changing my mind at any point. So the last appointment, right before I was going to leave the room, my doctor was like, "What was your last growth scan?" And then he looked it up, he's like, "Oh, it's been a month. Let's have another growth scan today."Julie: Oh no. Colleen: Two days before I gave birth.And think you back. I'm like, who does that? There's no room for anything in there so obviously, the baby's gonna look huge. I go in. They do the scan. My fluids are fine. But her belly was what was constantly measuring huge which is why they were so insistent that she was going to have shoulder dystocia. The way that this practice is run, they do the scans after you meet with the doctor. Typically, you don't even talk about the scan until the following week which I found very strange. They did this scan. I was like, "I'm not even going to talk about it with my doctor, so whatever, you do what you want." But he had forgotten to write me a doctor's note, and when I asked about it at the front, they had to call him forward. It was at the same time that the ultrasound tech was logging all of the measurements, so he was asking her about it. They ended up having me go back into the office. And in that moment, I knew it was not going to be a good meeting at all. They're going over it, and the ultrasound tech is talking about the way that the measurements work. They do the diameter of the belly and it'll spit out whatever week gestation that matches. She was essentially like, "This baby's belly is off the charts. I can't even get a gestational week because it's so big." Yeah. So I'm standing there like, this is not going to go how I want it to. So my doctor pulls me into a different exam room, and we're talking about what the ultrasound tech had said. And again, shoulder dystocia. Before that appointment, I had gone in and I was like, "I don't even know if I want a cervical check. I know that they really mean very, very little." So before I had the cervical check, I asked, "If I'm dilated at all, instead of jumping right to the C-section that we have scheduled, can I come in that day and can we try for a Foley induction?" And he was like, "Yeah, I'm okay with that." So then he sees the results of the growth scan and backtracked and was like, "No, I'm not comfortable with that. If you walk in in active labor on your due date, we are going to send you right to the OR." It was very devastating. I'd already talked with him about my previous birth and how I was very scared of another C-section. I was scared of an epidural. My plan was to do an unmedicated VBAC because I didn't want to even risk another spinal fluid leak. He brushed all of that off and was like, "Oh, well, it's a planned C-section, so it's going to be very different. The needle they use for a spinal is so much smaller than an epidural, so the risks of that are so much lower." He was not acknowledging anything that I was saying. He was just still pushing, "You need a C-section. You need a C-section. You need a C-section." A week or so before that, he had even told me if I had wanted to go to 41 weeks, that he was going to give me my files and tell me to find another provider because he did not want to be a part of malpractice. At that point, I think I was just so thrown off and confused by everything that I didn't see it as big of a red flag as it actually was. But also when he told me it was too late to switch, no other provider would have taken me at like 37-38 weeks, especially with the gestational diabetes. I went home after that appointment feeling absolutely devastated. It was the pattern of the last month, just completely devastated talking to my doula about it and her reinstalling that confidence in me. That night, I went to sleep and was starting to be like, "All right, I guess I have to start really thinking about, what if this is another C-section?" The following morning I woke up and I guess because the last thing that I had talked about regarding my birth was with my doula and her telling me, "You can do this. I've never seen somebody as confident. You can do this. Your body grew this baby. Your body can birth this baby. You can do this." I had that in my mind when I woke up. And I was, I guess, a little bit extreme in my thinking because I called a midwife group and was going to switch at over 39 weeks pregnant. I'm like, I'm gonna make this work. Some way or another, I'm doing it. I planned on not showing up for the C-section that I had scheduled the following week because when I woke up, I was just like, they cannot cut me open if I don't consent to it. If I walk in in labor, legally, they cannot deny me care. I'm having this baby the way that I want to, and everyone else can just get on board or they can get out. That was Thursday morning, and I had taken off of work for Thursday-Friday because I just couldn't do it. I couldn't teach and give my students the all that they deserved. I was coming home so exhausted. I took that Thursday as my last hurrah with my son. We ended up walking around. I took them to a local farm, and we had a really good day together. The whole day I was like, I'm walking all day, so maybe I'll go into labor. It did not happen. So then the next day, same kind of thing. I had originally intended to go out with my son, but I woke up and I had this overwhelming feeling of, I just can't leave today. I need to stay near my house. I had listened to an episode of The VBAC Link, and I think the woman whose podcast episode it was, it said that either her midwife or her doula told her to go for a two-hour walk. I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna go for a very long walk. They can't hurt anything.I ended up walking for an hour. While I was walking, I started having some contractions, but they weren't consistent. I really wasn't convinced it was anything because I'd been having such intense Braxton Hicks contractions for a month or so that it was just like, this can't be it. So we got home, and I was just going about the day with my son. Nothing was going on. I decided to pump a couple times, so I did that, and by the time his bedtime rolled around, I was having fairly consistent contractions, but I still was not convinced. I was like, this is prodromal labor. There's no way this is actual labor. I'm just gonna have to be mad about this for another day. I even texted my doula, "If this isn't actually it, I'm going to go build a hut somewhere and hide there until I give birth," because I was so tired of talking to my doctors and seeing them and being upset by everything they were saying. So the night's going on, and my contractions are picking up and getting closer together. I still was not convinced that I was in labor. I got to the point where I was like, "All right, well, if this is actually it, I should rest." So I tried to lay down, but I had one contraction, and I could not stay on my back for it. I had to get up and move. I decided to get in the shower, and I didn't think anything of it, but after I had a contraction or two in there, I asked my husband to just keep an eye on how far apart they were. At that point, I wasn't paying attention to the clock at all. I was in there, and my husband opened the bathroom door, and he's like, "Colleen, your contractions are three minutes apart." I'm like, "Oh, okay. Maybe we should call the doula." So we did that, and I'm still laboring. I listened to podcasts where women talk about being in labor land, and I didn't understand what that was until looking back on my birth experience because after I told my husband to call my doula, I have very little recollection of interacting with him or talking to her on the phone or anything because the contractions were just so intense. I got to my bedroom and was leaning over the side of my dresser. I didn't move for I don't even know how long it was, but I was there. I couldn't move. I was drinking a little bit of water, and then all of a sudden my water broke. I guess at that point, that's when I was like, oh, okay, I guess I am in labor, and this is happening. So my husband was on the phone with his brother asking him, "Hey, potentially, you might need to come over and watch our son." And while he's on the phone, my water broke. So he's like, "No, you need to come now." In that time, he had his brother on one phone, my doula on the other, and he's trying to corral me to the car, but I was paralyzed and could not move. I was there until all of a sudden I had this mental break almost where I was like, "I need to move right now. If I don't move, I'm having this baby in my bedroom. and that is not the plan." So I waddled myself to the car, and it was hands down the most dangerous car ride of my life. I didn't buckle my seatbelt. I was backward on the seat just trying to like get through everything. My doula had given me a comb, so I was squeezing that during every contraction. I lost my mom when I was pregnant, so I had a very deep connection with her at that point and was talking to my mom, like, "Don't let me give birth in the car, Mom. Do not let me do that." So we eventually get to the hospital, and I had no recollection of this car ride. I remember being at the last major intersection before the turn for the hospital, but other than that, no idea that we were even in the car really. We get to the hospital, and things were picking up so quickly that my husband didn't even find a parking lot. He just pulled into the drop-off area and stopped the car, turned it off, and we made our way into the hospital. My doula met us there, and we had an off-duty nurse end up bringing us a wheelchair, and one of the security guards at the front ended up literally running us back into labor and delivery. That was around 11:00.When I got into the delivery room, it was three or four people, but it felt like a lot of people were there, and they were all trying to get my information and all the forms that I would have filled out beforehand. So at one point, somebody had mentioned a C-section. I remember saying, "I'm not having a C-section." The OB who was on call had said something about me being a TOLAC patient. I yelled at her, "I am not a TOLAC patient. I am a VBAC."They got me onto the bed finally, and they're trying to get the monitors on me. When they finally did, the way that I was kneeling on the bed, the baby's heart rate wasn't liking it. Again, the OB was like, "Okay, maybe we need to think about a C-section." When she said that, I said, "I'm not consenting to a C-section if I'm not guaranteed skin-to-skin afterward." The nurses were kind of a little nervous with the way that I was responding there. My doula was like, "Okay, before we jump to that, let's turn her over and see if things change." So after that contraction, they moved me, and the baby's heart rate was fine. In that moment for me, I didn't really recognize what was happening. But afterward, my husband said that he was very nervous, and he was just yelling for the doula to help in that situation because he didn't know what to do. At that point, when they finally got me situated, I was ready to go at 10 centimeters, fully effaced. Baby was at a zero station, ready to go. And somebody was like, "Oh, do you want an epidural?" And me, my husband, and my doula were all like, "No, there's no epidural happening." So, they got me situated, and I think I pushed maybe five times before the baby was born.Julie: Wow.Colleen: Yeah, I came in hot.Julie: Yeah, you did.Colleen: I pushed. I felt the ring of fire. And the most incredible feeling was after that, feeling her body turn as it came out. It was the ring of fire, and then she flew out after that. There was absolutely no shoulder dystocia there. She was born at 11:38. We parked the car at 11, and she was born at 11:38. At my last scan, they were saying she was going to measure over 9.5 pounds. She was born, and she was 7 pounds, 15 ounces. My doula looked at me and she's like, "If you had had a C-section for a baby that wasn't even 8 pounds, I would have been so mad for you." I got my golden hour. I got skin-to-skin for that entire time. They did all of the baby's testing on me, and they were so respectful of that mother/baby bonding time that I really lost out on with my son. I didn't realize how much it impacted me until after I had my daughter, and I got what I had my heart set on. It was the most healing thing. I didn't realize I had things that needed to be healed in ways that they were. I felt so incredibly powerful, especially after everything was said and done. The nurse who stayed with us and then ended up bringing us to the mother/baby unit, I had asked her, "How often do you see unmedicated VBACs?" And she was like, "It's very, very rare because the providers are nervous about it. They want to have the epidural in place as a just-in-case." But I knew, for me, the fear of a repeat spinal fluid leak was bigger than the fear of any of the pain that would have happened. I know from listening to The VBAC Link that if it were a real emergency, having an epidural ahead of time wouldn't have done anything because it takes a while for the epidural to kick in. Even if I had gotten an epidural when I got to the hospital, it would not have helped me in any way. But she was completely healthy. There were no issues. She passed all of her blood sugar testing which I was really worried about. And then, my blood sugar was fine afterward also. Even still, it's very confusing trying to navigate this super strict diet that I had for so much of my pregnancy to now just being like, "All right, you're fine. It didn't even exist. Go back to eating however you wanted." I don't know. It's very, very confusing. Out of all of the things from my pregnancy, having no support from my providers on the VBAC side of things, and then having no guidance, I should say, with gestational diabetes, those were hands-down the most difficult things. But I did it and I'm still feeling very powerful for that.Julie: Yes, I love that. How old is your baby now?Colleen: She's four weeks.Julie: Oh, my gosh. You are fresh off your VBAC, girl. Colleen: Yeah.Julie: Ride that high as long as you can, man. I still feel really awesome. My first VBAC baby is 9.5 now. 9.5 years old. Okay, so this might sound really weird, but I wish that it wasn't something that we had to feel so victorious about. Does that make sense? I wish it was just way more common and just a normal thing, but it's not. Lots of people have to overcome lots of challenges in order to get the birth experience that they want, and that is sad. As empowering and incredible as it is when it happens, it's also kind of sad that, you know what? I don't know. Does that make sense? Colleen: It makes complete sense. I was going back and trying to research things on VBAC statistics and this, that, and the next thing and listening to other podcasts.Julie: You have to work so hard. It's sad that we have to work so hard.Colleen: A lot of it came down to providers being scared of the consequences that they would face if anything went wrong. I'm like, well, that's not fair because you're not even giving somebody a chance. Everything that I read was if the quote-unquote problem is on the baby's end, then mom has no reason to think that she can't have a VBAC, but so many providers don't see it the same way.Julie: Yeah. Yeah. I have 500 things that I want to talk about right now. First of all, I feel like this is the gospel according to Julie. This is not, I don't think, anything that I could find any evidence for or not. But I think sometimes when we, we as in the medical system. We have a parent who has gestational diabetes and change their diet drastically and so completely and eliminate carbs and sugars and all of these things. I feel like when that happens more often, I see babies with significantly smaller birth weights than if we were to make more subtle adjustments to their diets.Colleen: Yeah. I had a couple of gestational diabetes groups on Facebook. So many of the women who would post, after their baby was born, they had either very small babies because they changed their diet so drastically, or their babies were larger because of the insulin, so I agree with the gospel according to Julie.Julie: Yeah, thank you. So that's two of us. I'm pretty sure Meagan would agree as well. So three out of however many. Okay. Let's just leave that right there, first of all.Second of all, just saying that ultrasound measurements are grossly inaccurate. It's not uncommon for them to be. My sister-in-law, right now, is going to get induced on Monday as a first-time mom, completely ignorant to a lot of the birth process and everything and doesn't have a desire to-- she's completely the opposite of me. They're inducing her at 38 weeks because she has gestational diabetes, and they expect her baby's going to be big, and they don't want shoulder dystocia, etc. etc. etc. We know the whole thing, right? I was looking up evidence on shoulder dystocia, and it's really interesting because there are some studies that say first of all, Evidence Based Birth has a really great article on the evidence for induction for C-section or big baby. That will be linked in the show notes. Now it's really interesting because I was looking up rates for shoulder dystocia for big babies versus regular-sized babies. There are some studies that show that smaller babies have up to a 2% chance for shoulder dystocia, and larger babies have anywhere from a 7 to 15% chance of having difficulties with birthing their shoulders. There are other studies that show half of shoulder dystopias occur in babies that are smaller than 8 pounds, and 13 ounces. I feel like there's a little bit of disconnect out there in the research. However, like Colleen, permanent nerve damage occurs with shoulder dystocia in 1 out of every 555 babies, Permanent nerve damage will occur due to stuck shoulders in 1 out of every 555 babies who weigh between 8 pounds, 13 ounces, and 9 pounds, 15 ounces. I'm curious, Colleen, how big were you? Do you know what your birth weight was?Colleen: Yeah, I was 9 pounds 2 ounces.Julie: Okay, so you were barely a big baby.Colleen: Yeah, I was born three weeks early.Julie: Oh my goodness, girl. Yes. Okay, so yes, that was definitely large for gestational age too. But that's okay. Honestly, that means 1 out of every 555 babies will have permanent nerve damage from shoulder dystocia. When we get babies that are 10 pounds or bigger, it's actually 1 out of every 175 babies. I don't want to discount when that happens, but I mean, 554 out of 555 babies don't have that permanent nerve injury, too. I think it's really important that when we look at risks, that we have a really accurate representation of what those risks are in order to make an informed decision. So just like with uterine rupture, we don't want to discount when it happens because it does happen, and it's something that we need to look at. But what are the benefits compared to the risks? Why? What are the benefits of induction compared to the benefits of potentially avoiding a shoulder dystocia? The Evidence Based Birth article is really amazing. I don't want to go on and on for hours about this, although I definitely could, but most of the time, when shoulder dystocias happen, they're resolved without incident. I mean, it can be kind of hard and kind of frustrating and difficult to get the baby out and maybe a little traumatic, but yeah, most of the time everything works out well. Colleen, I'm glad that your birth injury is--I mean, I just feel so proud of your mom for putting into therapy and stuff like that earlier on because it could have had the potential to be a lot worse if she didn't do that. So kudos to your mom. I'm super excited for you. When you were talking-- not excited for you. That is the wrong word to say. I'm grateful that you had access to that care to help you. When you were telling me about your injury, it reminds me of my oldest who has cerebral palsy. It's really, really mild. Most people don't know. He has decreased motor function in his right arm and his right foot. He walks on his toe. He can't really use his right hand too well and his ambidexterity is a little awkward for him. But you said something that really stuck with me. That's just your normal. That's just what you know. I feel like that with my son too. While his disability is limiting in certain ways, he's also found lots of very healthy ways to adapt and manage and live a very full and happy life despite it. I might be putting words in your mouth, but it kind of sounded like you had said similar to that.Colleen: Oh, absolutely. It's just what I know. I don't know anything different.Julie: It's just let you know and yes. It's really fun. It's really not fun. Oh my gosh. Words are hard today. Please edit me out of all of these words. Gosh, my goodness. So not to discount any of that because it does happen, but we also want to make sure that we have accurate representation of the risks. Also, I want to touch on Colleen leaning into your intuition and following that and letting that guide you because I think that's really important as well. Sometimes our intuition is telling us things that don't make sense, and sometimes it's telling us things that makes absolute perfect sense and align right with our goals and our vision. I encourage everyone to lean into that intuition no matter what it's telling you because those mama instincts are real. They are very real. I feel like they deserve more credit than sometimes we give them. So, yeah. I don't know. Colleen, tell me. I know that you had a really awesome doula helping you. Besides hiring a doula and doing your best to find the best support team and advocating for yourself, what other advice would you give people who are preparing for a VBAC?Colleen: I think, like you said at the beginning of the podcast, looking at your options. I didn't know what my options were with my son, and then this time around, I had a better idea of what the options were. And then listening to positive VBAC stories. So, like, I remember maybe six weeks before I had my daughter, just trying to find anything. I searched VBAC on Apple podcasts, and this was the first thing that came up. I listened to two episodes a day until I ended up giving birth.Having all of that positive information was really helpful, and then having my husband so be on board with everything and my doula really talking me off those ledges of absolute devastation after my appointments to the next morning having that confidence again. So those are the things. Julie: I love that too. Yeah.Believe in yourself. Not everyone that tries to VBAC is going to have a VBAC. That's just the unfortunate reality of what it's like. But I think believing in yourself to not only have your best birth experience and having that belief in order to have a VBAC, but also having belief that if your birth doesn't end up in a VBAC that you can navigate those circumstances in order to still have a powerful and satisfying birth experience. Trust yourself. I think that's really, really important.Coleen: Yeah, I agree with that.Julie: Cool. All right, Colleen. Well, thank you so much for spending time here with me today. I loved hearing your stories. I love hearing the little baby noises in the background. Those always make my heart happy. And yeah, we will catch you on the flip side.ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In this episode of the MamasteFit Podcast, Gina and Roxanne discuss the top five prenatal discomforts experienced during pregnancy: pelvic pain, nausea and GI distress, fatigue and insomnia, Braxton Hicks contractions, and shortness of breath. They outline the causes of these discomforts, provide tips for alleviating them, and emphasize the importance of seeking medical advice when necessary. They provide practical advice on strength training, hydration, and other remedies while also sharing their personal experiences and professional expertise to help expectant mothers navigate a comfortable and empowered pregnancy journey. 00:00 Introduction to Prenatal Discomforts 00:31 Hosts Introduction and Podcast Overview 01:22 Understanding Pelvic Pain During Pregnancy 07:17 Managing GI Distress and Nausea 21:06 Addressing Fatigue and Insomnia 21:36 Understanding Early Pregnancy Fatigue 22:33 Dealing with Pregnancy Insomnia and Anxiety 23:21 The Importance of Rest and Self-Care 26:40 Managing Braxton Hicks Contractions 31:45 Shortness of Breath During Pregnancy 37:58 Common Prenatal Discomforts and Remedies 41:21 Final Thoughts and Resources Links: Episode 5: Overcoming Pelvic Pain: https://spotifycreators-web.app.link/e/jNxjJ5HgJQb Episode 67: Pelvic Pain Relief Tips: https://spotifycreators-web.app.link/e/tLmn3XGgJQb YouTube Workouts: SI joint pain: https://youtu.be/TvS-12sl9Kk SPD pain workout: https://youtu.be/NAVgnM4b_2Q Overall Pelvic Pain Relief workout: https://youtu.be/_tzwSiiQaFo === Get Your Copy of Training for Two on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3VOTdwH

Julia knew something was off during her first pregnancy and birth experience. She knew she didn't feel right about consenting to a Cesarean, but it wasn't until she started diving into research that she realized how much her care lacked informed consent. She discovered options that should have been offered to her that never were.Julia's research led her to choosing the midwifery model of care in a home birth setting. She felt in control of her experience and free to birth the way she felt she needed to. Meagan and Julia discuss stats on uterine rupture, stillbirth, continuous fetal monitoring, induction, due dates, and how our birthing culture can highly influence what we think is safe versus what scientific evidence actually tells us. Evidence-Based Birth: The Evidence on Due DatesThe Business of Being BornNeeded WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello. Women of Strength I am so excited for today's guest. Our friend, Julia, is from Texas. She is a wife and a stay-at-home mother living in, it Spring, Texas, Julia?Julia: Spring, Texas.Meagan: Close to Houston, yes, with her two sons. And she has had a Cesarean and then an HBAC. We get a lot of questions in our inbox every day, but a really common question is dates. "Hey, I'm 40 weeks. My doctor is telling me I had to have my baby by tomorrow or even approaching 39 weeks." People are being told they have to have their babies or really bad things will happen. And Julia's story is proof that you don't have to have a baby by 40 weeks or 41 weeks, would you say? Almost 42 weeks is what you were. So we are excited to hear this story. And I know if you are one that goes past your due date and you're getting that pressure, you're definitely gonna wanna listen. Julia: Thank you so much for having me, Meagan, I'm really, really happy to be here.Meagan: I'm so happy that you are here. I would just love to have you share your stories.Julia: Okay, so my firstborn, he came during the height of the COVID pandemic. It was August 2020.I just saw my OB who I had been seeing for regular gynecology visits. And from the very first appointment, it just, I just kind of got an off feeling. She had seen a small subchorionic hematoma on my ultrasound at my very first appointment at eight weeks. And she just told me, "Don't Google this. It's going to scare you." She basically just said, "Just enjoy being pregnant now because when you come back next week, you may not be." So as a first-time mom, it was obviously pretty upsetting and caused a lot of anxiety. When I went back for my next appointment, she just kind of shrugged it off after she saw the ultrasound. She just said, "It cleared up on its own." There really wasn't any explanation of how it resolved.But that being said, that start to my prenatal care kind of set the tone for the rest of that pregnancy and birth. From then on there was just a lot of fear-mongering going on, and a lot of problems were brought up that really never turned out to be an issue. Around 20 weeks at the anatomy scan, they saw that my son was in the bottom 10th percentile.She had said that she classified that as IUGR, intrauterine growth restriction. We had a lot of extra testing done. Everything was normal. I felt confident and very comfortable just waiting it out. And that really wasn't what she wanted.Actually, starting around 35 weeks, she had started talking about delivering early. I was pressured at each appointment by my OB and the nurses to stay that day and deliver solely because of his size, even though everything was looking great on the monitors. Keep in mind, you know, during COVID, I wasn't able to have my husband or anyone with me during these appointments. And so just being asked that question each time I came in as a first-time mom by myself was just really hard and made me second guess a lot of things and second guess my intuition. I had explained that, "I think he's just a small baby. He needs more time to grow."She basically just said at my 38-week appointment if I didn't deliver that day, it would not be her fault if my baby died and that she or the hospital was--Meagan: What?! Julie: Right?Meagan: She said that she or the hospital, if I walk out that day, they're not liable if something happens because I'm going against her recommendations. I was even seeing a high-risk doctor as well at that point. And even he was saying, "Everything's looking fine. There's no problem with waiting if you want to."The reason she wanted to schedule the C-section because he was breech. I knew that I wasn't even going to have the opportunity to go into spontaneous labor. There were really no alternatives presented at the time. I knew nothing about out-of-hospital birth or about midwives. She offered an ECV, but she said she didn't recommend it because of his size.She didn't really explain why. So I just kind of felt backed into a corner. I remember I had left the office that day at 38 weeks and called my husband immediately and explained what she had said. We felt like, "Okay, well, I guess, we obviously don't want our baby to die, so maybe we need to just stay." I remember pushing my gut feeling aside the whole time. As they were prepping me, I just felt, This isn't right." I wanted to give my baby more time to grow and also to flip so that I wouldn't be backed into a C-section. Had I known then what I know now, I definitely would have opted for a home birth with my midwife who's trained in breach delivery.Just at the time with COVID, I didn't have the resources or the information, so we went through with the C-section that ended in a four-day hospital stay. I didn't sleep at all. Meagan, I'm not even kidding you. I did not sleep those four days. The nurses were really concerned about the baby's size, even though he was growing. He was actually back to his birth weight by the time we were discharged.But I'll never forget this one-Meagan: That's quick!Julie: Right? I know. And so there was so much fear-mongering, so much uncertainty by medical staff, despite how great my baby was doing. And I remember this nurse frantically coming into the room just a few hours after my C-section with this Medella hospital-grade pump. She was just like, "You need to start pumping now on top of breastfeeding because your baby's small. He's not going to grow."It just kind of left me feeling like, I feel confident in what I'm doing, but now all these medical professionals are telling me like, I'm in danger, my baby's in danger. It triggered a lot of feelings of postpartum anxiety. I really struggled that first year. And so it wasn't a very good experience.I just felt like my power had been taken away in the birthing process and felt defeated and like I didn't have a say for my first birth.Meagan: Yeah, I was just listening to an episode the other day, not on our podcast, on another podcast about that experience after baby is born and that postpartum within the hospital and how crazy it is that sleep is one of the best things we can get when it comes to energy, milk production, getting our babies fed and helping them grow, and doing all these things. But then we're not allowed that time. And then on top of it, it's all the fear-mongering and the doubt when it's like we should be being built up like, "Oh my gosh, look how good you're doing. Look how good this baby's doing. Look how good you're doing. Let's keep doing this." Instead of making you doubt that what you're doing isn't good enough and not letting you sleep and doing all these things. It's just weird to me. It doesn't make sense.Julia: Right, and as a first-time mom, you're just like, okay, they know what's best, obviously. I'm going to listen to them and what do I know about birth? They're the doctors. But yeah, it was just really eye-opening, and I really knew I wanted a completely different experience the next time around.Meagan: Yeah, I don't blame you. I don't blame you for wanting a different experience.Julia: So after I had my C section, pretty soon after that, I started digging and doing a lot of research and realized I felt really cheated by the lack of informed consent. I had mentioned that my doctor just had said, "You need a C-section because he's breech."I had no idea that there were even midwives and out-of-hospital birth options where they delivered breech vaginally and not only that, but were highly trained and qualified to do so. I had no idea that in other parts of the world of similar economic status to the US that they were routinely delivering breech babies vaginally with better outcomes than we have here in the US hospitals. So I really didn't feel like there was informed consent there. Even the fact that she didn't even want to try the ECV was upsetting to me. I just felt like I really wish I would have done more research at the time. But I just put all my energy into this next birth. I knew even before I got pregnant that I wanted a VBAC.Pretty early on in the process of my research, I became really fascinated with physiological birth and I knew that I really wanted to experience that. For someone who may not be familiar with that term, physiological birth is natural unmedicated childbirth with no intervention unless medically necessary. It sees birth as a safe biological function rather than a medical event or something that that's inherently dangerous which is how I felt I was treated my whole first pregnancy and birth. I felt like a walking hazard, to be honest, when in reality I was an extremely healthy 25-year-old, first-time mom with a healthy baby with no issues. So the fact that I was gaslit into thinking there was a lot of danger was sad. So I knew that for my next birth I wanted to do a physiological birth and I knew that it would kind of be a fight to achieve in the hospital. I did a lot of research, I watched The Business of Being Born. I read a lot of natural childbirth books. I also knew that on top of the regular hospital policies, I would have some excess restrictions because of the fact that I was a VBAC.Meagan: Yeah, yeah. Julia: I did go back to that same OB at first. I presented my birth plan early on to her and it included things like I didn't want an IV. I wanted freedom to eat or drink. I didn't want any drugs whatsoever for pain relief. I didn't want them pushing an epidural. I would have liked a water birth, but I knew that wouldn't have been possible in the hospital. But I at least would have liked water immersion in labor, minimal cervical checks. I wanted to go into spontaneous labor. I wanted no coached pushing and fully delayed cord clamping.I could tell, right away she was more so just VBAC-tolerant rather than supportive. She really used a lot of fear-mongering. Right away she mentioned the uterine rupture risk. She had said, I think she had said she had just had a mom die from a VBAC not too long ago.Meagan: Goodness. Holy moly.Julia: Without any explanation. Who knows where she was going with that? But she had also said, it may be better to just have a repeat C-section because with the risk of rupture, you may need a hysterectomy after giving birth. She commonly used the word TOLAC which also I didn't really like. I didn't want to feel like I was having to try. I felt like I'm planning a VBAC. I don't need to try for it. It is what it is. I wanted someone to encourage me. She really also highly, highly recommended I got an epidural because she said, "Well, with your increased risk of rupture, if something should happen, then they're just gonna have to knock me out."She also said, "Unmedicated moms tear the worst," which was not at all the case for me. She was saying that because it hurts so bad that you just can't control your pushing. I knew all of this was not true. I was kind of in a funny position because I didn't want to be fighting with her, but I knew the evidence in the back of my mind and all of that scary language. I knew it was not evidence-based. I really wanted someone on my team who was really going to believe in me, who knew the evidence, and who believed in my ability to have a VBAC.  I didn't want to spend all of my energy and labor fighting for this VBAC and for this birth experience that I knew was possible and that I knew that I deserved.My heart really had always deep down been set on a home birth from the very beginning. I loved watching home birth videos and hearing positive home birth stories. I just loved everything about it and also about the midwifery model of care and how much more comprehensive that was. I had heard about a local group of midwives on a Facebook group that I'm in for holistic moms in my area. I found out that this group of midwives offered a HypnoBirthing class. So my husband and I signed up for that. We took the six-week course and we just never looked back after that. We knew that a home birth VBAC would be the way to go. I felt deep in my heart confident about it and that's really what I wanted. I just knew I had found my dream birth team.My midwife was just amazing and I just really couldn't imagine birthing anywhere other than in my own home with her and my husband by my side and someone that didn't look at me differently because of my previous Cesarean.Meagan: Right. And I love that you just pointed that out. Someone who didn't look at me differently because of my previous Cesarean. This is the problem, not the problem. It's one of one of the many problems when it comes to providers looking at VBAC moms. We talk about this in our VBAC course. We should just be someone going in and having a baby, but we are not viewed that way. And it's extremely frustrating because not only do they not view us that way, they make us know and feel that they don't view us that way.Julia: Right, right.Meagan: It's just, it feels crummy.Julia: Absolutely. We knew we were making the right decision. I was really excited about the whole thing. That was another thing that I talked to my OB about. I was like, "I'm excited to be in labor. I want to welcome all these sensations of birth. I know it's going to be hard work, but that experience means something to me and I want that." And she had said, "Well, if you ask other moms who had been through labor, they would say it's painful, it's hard." She was basically saying, I shouldn't want this birth experience. I just didn't want to be fighting that or dealing with someone who had this view on birth that it's just this dangerous medical event. I didn't want to go through feeling defeated like I did last time.Meagan: Absolutely. Good for you for recognizing that and then doing what you needed to do to not have that experience.Julia: Right? Thank you.So I had mentioned that I really wanted to go into spontaneous labor. I didn't want to be induced at all. That's another reason why I'm so thankful that I was with my midwife because I went almost all the way to 43 weeks pregnant. I went into labor at 42 weeks and 5 days in the middle of the night. Had I had been with my OB, I'm positive that I would have had to deliver much earlier and I would have probably been scheduled for a repeat C-section. So I'm just really happy that I was with my midwife and I felt really confident about waiting. I had NSTs and BPPs, non-stress tests and biophysical profiles done daily starting at 42 weeks just to monitor baby's health and to make sure that everything is normal and it was.So we just opted to wait for spontaneous labor. I'm really glad that I did so that I could go through with the home birth.Meagan: Absolutely. What you were saying, yeah, I know I probably would have been scheduled Cesarean and definitely would have been pressured. I mean, even if you would have said no, the pressure would have been thick, especially going over 41 weeks.Julia: Right.Meagan: And then, let alone 42.Julia: Right. Yeah. The pressure was there. Everyone was well intentioned, asking, "Have you had your baby yet?" But I was getting these questions as early as like 38 weeks, 39 weeks. I'm like, "Whoa, I'm not even at my due date yet."Everyone was just excited to meet the baby and had friends asking about that. But my immediate family was so supportive and I'm so, so happy that I had that support because just feeling that from my midwife and from my parents and my husband, knowing that they all really believed in me and we were confident with waiting. As long as everything looked good with baby, that was really what was most important. So I just kind of tuned everything else out and tried to relax as much as possible.We just went out to dinner a few times and cherished these last couple weeks as a family of three. It finally happened in the middle of the night at 42 weeks and 5 days. I remember when the contractions were first starting. I'd had some contractions on and off for the past few weeks, but nothing consistent. So I just kind of thought, okay, well, this is just some Braxton Hicks or something like that.I noticed that around 2:00 AM, they started getting more consistent. I told my husband and they were getting more intense and a little closer together. We called our midwife around 6:00 AM and she was like, "Yeah. Sounds like you're in early labor." I was just so, so happy and grateful to be in labor.Yes, it was hard work, but I can honestly say I really enjoyed the experience. I thought it was extremely empowering. I just remember thanking God through the surges. We called them surges in HypnoBirthing. Just knowing the awesome work that my body was doing from within to give birth to my baby. I really, really enjoyed the freedom of just being able to eat and drink in labor freely wherever I wanted in my home without any restricting policies. I wasn't tethered to any IVs or monitors. I think that's another thing. In the hospital, that would have added anxiety seeing the monitor constantly. We know that continuous fetal monitoring isn't really evidence-based and leads to more C-sections. I knew in the hospital that would have been something that would have been required so I'm really glad that that wasn't the case at home. I just think the freedom and the autonomy is really what helped my labor to progress so smoothly without any complications.There weren't people coming in and out of my room, and I just really enjoyed the whole experience. Listening to birth affirmations helped me. I was swaying through the surges. My husband had helped me put up twinkle fairy lights in our room, and we had some flickering votive candles on my dresser. It just created this really nice ambiance and a calming atmosphere.It just felt so good to know that my husband really, truly believed in my ability to do this. I mean, I really have to give him a shout-out because he was right there with me not only through all of labor, but when I knew that I wanted a VBAC from the very beginning, he was right there with me reading all the natural childbirth books, doing all the research on VBAC with me.He was just really supportive. That's something I would say is very important for a VBAC mom is to have a support person who's not just present, but truly supportive of you and knows what you're going to need and does the work with you ahead of time so that you can just focus on laboring and they can be there to make sure you have water, and you're fed if you're hungry, so I was really blessed to have him and to have his full support.Meagan: Absolutely.My husband told me, he said, "I just don't understand." He just didn't understand. I get that he didn't understand, but I love hearing this where we're learning together. I want to say to couples or to partners, even if you don't understand, understand and trust that it's important to your partner and be there for them because, like you were saying, it can make such a big impact in the way you feel, the way you view your birth, and your overall experience.Julia: Right. No, and that's so true because I feel like, most people's support person is their husband, and a lot of men feel like maybe they can't really help as much or just say, "Well, the doctor knows what to do. I'm just here, like, for emotional support."But it's so much more than that. My husband learned ahead of time how to do counter pressure, and I actually really didn't need it. I think he had done it once, but what really helped me the most was just leaning on him. I did that most of the time. Just leaning into him, and letting him support my weight. He also did a really great job of reminding me to just focus on my breathing techniques and just relaxing between the surges.All of those natural pain relief remedies were really, really helpful. I bought a TENS machine and a heating pad, but I ended up not needing any of those.Meagan: But you at least were prepared with them.Julia: I was. Yeah, I was definitely prepared. We also had hung up all my birth affirmations. We had done a lot of meditation and visualization exercises throughout pregnancy, and so I used some of those as well. He was really great at reminding me just saying, "I love you. You're doing it. You're doing a great job." That was very helpful just feeling him there.Meagan: Yeah, absolutely.So with postpartum, this is also another common question. Is it better postpartum from my Cesarean versus my VBAC? What would you say? And any tips that you have for healing through your VBAC?Julia: Yeah, so my postpartum experience this time around is so much better. It's a night and day difference, not just physically healing like that. My VBAC is nothing compared to the C section. I think a lot of people fail to realize that a C-section is major, major abdominal surgery. Anyone else who had major abdominal surgery would be sent home to be on bed rest for weeks and you have to care for a newborn on top of that. With my C-section, I was a first-time mom. It was so overwhelming. Everything was new to me. I had a lot of pain with breastfeeding at first. I attribute a lot of that to the nurses making me pump. I was never sized for flanges. I just used the ones that came with the Medella and they weren't sized to me.I think that caused a lot of nipple damage. I ended up getting mastitis at two weeks postpartum the first time around and had to go back into the hospital for that and just had so much pain with latching that I ended up exclusively pumping for my son. I'm really proud because I was able to do that for two years, so he had breastmilk for two years.Meagan: That is a commitment.Julia: Yes, it was such a commitment. But I'm really, really happy that I did it and it was worth it to me. I just didn't want that negative experience of the birth and all that damage that happened early on from the pump to affect this because I really knew I wanted to breastfeed, and I was able to do it with exclusive pumping.And then this time around, it was just so much better. Breastfeeding is going great, and I've seen some research on that too. When you have a positive birth experience, that can also affect breastfeeding and even the first latch and everything.Just your emotions surrounding postpartum, when you go through something like that and you feel supported and in charge of your birth, you go into motherhood feeling the same way.Meagan: Yeah.Julia: I can't explain how much better it is this time around. That's why I really encourage all moms to know that you can do your own research and especially VBAC moms, there's so much out there about uterine rupture, and when you look at the relative risk versus the absolute risk, these are the kinds of things that you may not know to do because your doctor is just going to present the statistics one way. But we know that the way that those statistics are presented really greatly impacts what decision you make. And it's important to understand that.And so I would say my biggest tip for VBAC moms is to just really do your own research and find a provider who you feel like in your gut is going to be there for you, and is going to really believe in you. Meagan: Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's what I was looking for with my crazy interview process was someone who I didn't just think would be there to be there, but be there to support me and really root for me and really be on my team, not just be there. I just think it makes such a big, big difference. And kind of going away from provider but coming into due dates and waiting longer. When I say longer, past the traditional 39 to 41 weeks. Now you were mentioning, people were even saying at 38 weeks, "Hey, have you had your baby? When are you gonna have your baby?" Oh my gosh. And these people, most of the time, I would say 99% of the time, they really just are excited for you to have your baby. And so if you're listening and maybe you have this situation, do say things like, "Hey, oh my gosh, I'm just so excited for you," not like, "When are you going toa have this baby?" Because it does start taking a toll sometimes on mom's mental health at the end.I wanted to also talk a little bit about due dates because Evidence Based Birth-- Rebecca Dekker, she's incredible. If you guys don't know them yet, go check out Evidence Based Birth. They've got a lot of really great blogs. But there is just a little part of a large blog that I wanted to read about and her little bullet point says, "Is the traditional due date really your due date?" I think this just fits so well here because you were 42 weeks and which day again?Julia: 42 weeks and 5 days.Meagan: 5 days, that's what I was thinking. So 42 weeks and 5 days. So obviously your traditional due date that you were given weeks before wasn't really true. Right? So it says, "Based on the best evidence, there is no such thing as an exact due date, and the estimated due date of 40 weeks is not accurate. Instead, it would be more appropriate to say that there is a normal range of time in which most people give birth. About half of all pregnant people will go into labor on their own by 40 weeks and 5 days for first-time mothers or 40 weeks and 3 days for mothers who have given birth before. The other half will not." Then it says, "Are there some things that can make your pregnancy longer? By far, the most important predictor of a longer pregnancy is family history of long pregnancies, including your own personal history, your mother, your sisters, etc. and the history of the baby's biological father's family history as well." In 2013, there was a large study that was looked at with more than 475,000 Swedish births, most of which were dated with an ultrasound before 20 weeks in that they found that genetics had an increasingly strong influence on your chance of giving birth after 42 weeks. Okay, there's so much more you guys. It talks about if you've had a post-term birth before, you have a 4.4 times more likely chance of having another post-term, if I can read, with the same partner. If you've had post-term birth before, then you switch partners, you have 3.4 times the chance of having another post- term birth with your new partner. And if your sister had a post-term birth, you have a 1.8 times the chance of having a post-term birth. You guys, it goes on and on and on. This is such a great article and eye opening in my opinion. I'm going to attach it in the show notes and it does continue to go on for risk for mothers, risk for infants.What about stillbirth? We know that is a huge topic when it comes to going past your due date just like uterine rupture is a huge topic for VBAC. I feel like when due dates come in, it's stillbirth. And she actually says that. It says up until the 1980s, some research thought that the risk of stillbirth past 41 to 42 weeks was similar to the risk of stillbirth earlier. She's going to go back and talk with how it definitely is a different measurement here, but the stats are there. The evidence is there. But look at you. You went. You trusted your body. You went with your body. You did what you needed to do to take extra precautions and had a beautiful, beautiful experience.Julia: Yeah, I'm really happy that I did trust my intuition and I did the research. All those things that you were talking about like risk of stillbirth and everything that you hear, there's a common thing that goes around social media like, "Oh, nothing good happens past 40 weeks." But that's just not the case.If you look at other countries that are like very similar in economic status to us in the US, due dates are calculated differently everywhere, so who's to say that this mythical 40-week due date is the end all be all? A lot of other countries won't even induce prior to 42 weeks unless there's like an issue. In the US, we see so many people routinely getting induced at 39 weeks, so I just think's it's really a cultural thing, so we we come to believe that it's the safest thing.But when you step back and do your own research, you can get a full picture and you can see, why are we inducing without any, any contraindication? Like why are people being presented Cesarean section as if it's just a minor procedure?I feel like in the Business of Being Born documentary, if you haven't seen it, I would highly recommend everybody watching it really, because it shows how C-sections have become so much more popular and the reasons why they think that is and just the flaws in the medical system. It was just really eye opening and really encouraged me on my VBAC journey. It gave me a lot of tips and information and led me to find other resources. VBAC Facts was another really great thing that I referenced a lot. Evidence Based Birth like you had mentioned, and then of course, listening to The VBAC Link Podcast and podcasts of moms who have really positive VBAC stories because you only hear the negative a lot of the time.With birth in general, I feel like, it's just presented as such a scary thing. I really want to encourage women to know that birth is made to be this way. It doesn't have to be some scary out of control thing where you're at the mercy of a doctor or a provider telling you when to push or telling you to do something that you don't feel comfortable doing. When we trust nature and we surrender to the power of labor, it's really sacred. It's beautiful. It's normal, and most of all, it's safe in most cases.We don't have to fight it or medicalize it. And in the words of Ricky Lake, who gave birth in her bathtub in that stellar documentary Business of Being Born, she had said, "Birth is not an illness. It's not something that needed to be numbed. It needed to be experienced." For anyone who's planning or would like to plan an unmedicated birth, you can get a lot of resistance or people who don't understand. But I really encourage you to know that you can do it, that women have been doing it for generations. And just keep those affirmations in your mind and believe in yourself. You have to do that.Meagan: Exactly. I love that you pointed that out. There are so many times that we do treat birth as this medical event, this illness, this problem, and it's just not. It's not. It's not. I don't know what else to say. It is not. And we have to change our view. And just like you were re saying, it's a cultural thing. We have to change or it's just not going to get better. It could get worse. We're seeing the Cesarean rate. We're seeing these things happen. And there's a problem. There's a problem out there. We have to start stepping back and realizing that birth is not that medical event and we can trust this process. And our bodies were meant to do this. And they do it every day. Every day, all over the world. Every single day, a baby is born, probably thousands. I don't even know the exact number. But we can do this. We don't have to, we don't have to treat it like that.Julia: Right. That's what I really liked about the midwifery model of care. It was just so different to my experience with, with my OB. I think a lot of people fail to realize that in most other parts of the world, low-risk women are attended by midwives and the obstetricians are there to take care of the percentage of women who are having issues. With home birth, you can think, oh well, what if something goes wrong and you're not in the hospital setting?But what a lot of people don't realize is that oftentimes these interventions that are routinely done in the hospital that most of the time they don't even ask for permission to do, or they present it in a way that they're helping you actually lead to some of these devastating consequences, like low-risk women going in and then ending up with a C-section for reasons that they often can't even understand.And so that's something that I really feel passionately about is just encouraging women to advocate for yourself and to know ahead of time, what is routine and why are they offering this? Is this for your benefit or for the doctor's benefit? With all these risks of these different things that can happen, like Pitocin, which is commonly used to induce or augment labor, you might not need that. Or did you know that if they started that you can ask for them to shut it off?You should be in charge of your birth. When you're in that setting, it can be intimidating and you might feel like you don't have a voice, especially when you're already in a vulnerable position in labor. So I was really confident with my midwives' ability to look out for anything that may go wrong. But I love her hands-off approach. She didn't intervene. She just stood back and was just there to witness. There was no telling me when to push. I was able to experience the fetal ejection reflex which was really cool. I just felt my body pushing for me and surrendered to that. She was there to make sure that everything was going smoothly. I was the one who picked my baby up out of the water and she just stood back while my husband and my baby and I met each other for the first time. It was just all really special. That's something I want to say. With the risk of uterine rupture that you hear about with VBAC, that wasn't even in my mind. I didn't have someone there constantly telling me, "Oh, well, we're seeing this on the monitor," or scaring me with the very, very slim chance of rupture.Meagan: Exactly. Oh, so many good tips, such a great story. I am just so grateful that you are here today sharing it with us.Julia: I'm really grateful to be here and to share my story with everybody.ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. 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Aisha's episode is full of wisdom and inspiration! With her first two births, Aisha worked so hard to deliver vaginally, but ultimately had two undesired Cesareans. She was told in the operating room that she had uterine dehiscence, was given a special scar, and should never try to deliver vaginally. But her intuition was telling her a different story. She dove into research. She found a community and listened to podcasts like The VBAC Link. She knew a VBA2C was possible, and she knew she had to try. Aisha's VBA2C journey involved interacting with supportive and very unsupportive providers, hiring a fantastic doula, being proactive with labor comfort measures, planning for the unexpected, staying firm in her desires, asynclitic positioning, and pushing her baby boy out in just 45 minutes with a nuchal hand!Aisha's WebsiteThe VBAC Link Blog: VBA2CNeeded WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello, Women of Strength. It's The VBAC Link, and we have a VBA2C story coming your way. Have you ever wondered what VBA2C means? If you haven't noticed, in the VBAC world, there are a lot of acronyms. VBA2C is one of them. That means vaginal birth after two Cesareans, meaning that you have had two Cesareans and want to go for a vaginal birth. Big question, what are the chances of having a vaginal birth after two Cesareans? Is it possible? The answer is simply, yes. It is totally possible. Myself and Aisha are living proof today that it is possible. In fact, your chances of a successful VBA2C are similar to those of just a VBAC with one Cesarean. ACOG recommends that VBA2C is a safe option, so today, I want to quickly go over a little bit more instead of a review about some education on vaginal birth after two Cesareans and share a little bit more of our blog. Like I said, ACOG recommends that vaginal birth after two Cesareans is actually a safe option. They say, “It is reasonable to consider women with two previous low transverse Cesarean deliveries to be candidates for TOLAC.” Now, again, there's another one of those acronyms. TOLAC- trial of labor after a Cesarean. I know that is triggering for some. It is pretty much just the medical term of saying that you are having a trial of labor after a Cesarean, so try not to let it impact you too much. But, “for TOLAC and to counsel them based off of the combination of other factors that affect their probability of achieving a VBAC.” There are lots of things that people might go look through to see if you are eligible for a VBAC after two Cesareans. Now, I'm sure you have probably heard this before, but proven pelvis. If you haven't had a proven pelvis, meaning that your baby has come out vaginally before you've had a vaginal birth or a Cesarean– now when I say this, sometimes we have a vaginal birth, then we will have two Cesareans, and someone wants to go for a VBAC again, so they would be considered a proven pelvis or cervix to a medical staff. But if you haven't had a “proven pelvis”, I hope you guys can imagine my air quotes right now, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't be considered as someone who should have a VBAC. It says in our blog, “More important to note, there is no mention of a requirement to have had that previous vaginal delivery.” I wanted to point out that it really is not a necessary thing. I hadn't had a vaginal birth before. My cervix also hadn't made it to 10 centimeters before, so just know that it is still possible. Quickly, there are things that you can do to reduce uterine rupture, and there are also things you can do to increase your chances of VBAC. Again, it's going to be in our blog. I'm going to send you over there after the episode so you can go and read more about it, but some of the things that you can do to minimize the risk of uterine rupture is staying away from induction. Now, can VBAC be induced? Yes, they can. Yes, yes, yes, yes, you can, so I don't want you to totally freak out right now. But, staying away from induction for VBAC is better than going to get induced. It does increase our chance of uterine rupture, and it does increase our chances of other things like interventions that are unnecessary. Unless it's absolutely necessary or totally desired, try to stay away from induction. Avoid augmentation of labor so things like Pitocin and other drugs to cause the uterus to contract more than it naturally would. Okay, let's see. Avoid providers who aggressively intervene or want to manage your labor or come at you with fearmongering tactics. You guys are going to hear some of that here, and honestly, I think it's a common thing with these stories. We are getting a lot of fearmongering here. Providers, if you are listening, knock it off. Goodness gracious, we do not need to add fear to something that has been looming over us because VBAC has such a bad rap in the world, and it's so scary. Again, air quotes, guys. Just stop with the fearmongering. Avoid providers who are going to build you up with things– I should say tear you down, but fill you up with things like, “Your baby is looking too big. I don't know. We should probably induce. I don't know if your baby is going to be able to come out because you are really small, and that baby is looking really big. Oh my gosh, you have to have an epidural. Oh my gosh, you have to have your baby by 39 weeks.” There are so many things. It's annoying. Okay, going back to avoiding rupture. Avoid or delay things like getting an epidural until at least the end if possible because we do know that sometimes when we get an epidural early in labor, it can bring things like interventions, and we are getting Pitocin that is too high and other things like that. There are so many other things here, you guys. I'm going to make sure that the link is in the show notes. I don't want to take too much of our time, so we can make sure that Aisha can share her beautiful VBAC after two Cesarean stories and all that she had done to lead up to this experience. You guys, it's a good one. Something that is very different about this episode is that she actually had a dehiscence with her second which in a lot of the studies and literature for rupture, a dehiscence is often confused or combined with uterine rupture.I really love that this is a different type of story here, so gear up and enjoy. All right, Aisha. Thank you again so much for being here. As we were talking about earlier, VBAC after two Cesareans is so highly requested in our community. So without further ado, I want to turn the time over to you. Aisha: Thank you so much for having me. This is surreal. I feel like this pushed me in some ways. It was a goal of mine. I'm like, “If I make it and do my VBAC after two Cesareans, I'm going to send my story to The VBAC Link.” Yeah. I've listened to you guys. It's been literally almost four years listening to you guys all of the time trying to visualize my birth after hearing other people's stories. It's such a blessing, and I'm honored to be here to be honest. Meagan: Well, thank you so much. Aisha: Of course. Yeah. I mean, if we start from the beginning with my whole birthing journey, I got pregnant in 2018. I really wanted to try out the whole natural route, so I went with a midwife here in Canada. It's covered by the government so whether you go to a midwife or OB/GYN, it's honestly the same thing. It depends on what type of care you want to have. I chose to go with the midwife, and I chose to give birth at a birthing center for my firstborn. Labor started. I never ended up giving birth naturally obviously. I ended up having a 60-hour labor. Yeah. After 60 hours, they declared me failure to progress, and I think my cervix was a bit swollen at that point. The baby had made the meconium in my tummy. Meagan: Oh, yeah. Stressing out is common. Babies poop sometimes, and it doesn't always mean an emergency or anything like that, but when it's happening and other things are happening–Aisha: Exactly. I think I started having a fever and other things like that. At that point, they came to see me. They were like, “Before things turn into an emergency, let's go and have a simple C-section.” I felt very defeated. I worked very hard for a natural birth. I did 40 of those 60 hours all-natural, but after seeing I wasn't progressing– when I was with my midwife, I was 2 centimeters after 40 hours, and at that point, I requested to be transferred to the hospital to get an epidural. When I got the epidural, it worked a little bit on half of my body, but I was having back labor. My baby was posterior, so it did not do much for those pains there. I can say in the moment, I was quite relieved to have the C-section, so everything could be over, but I know afterward, I know womanhood is not defined by how you birth your baby, but I think at that point because that's what I envisioned, I never envisioned a C-section ever in my life, and it affected me. It affected my self-esteem a little bit. Right after that, me being me, I'm such a planner and such a researcher. I researched to see if it's possible to have a vaginal birth after a Cesarean, and I discovered the whole VBAC world. I signed up in all of the Facebook groups that I could find about VBACs all around the world. I was reading stories. I discovered The VBAC Link at that point. I started listening to the podcast. I also requested, through my midwife, my notes to see what happened. Meagan: Your op reports. Yes. Aisha: I'm like, “Okay. I need to know why I had a Cesarean, why a Cesarean was made, etc.” I checked. I sat down with my midwife at six weeks postpartum. Honestly, it wasn't anything really. They just said it was failure to progress. I had dilated to a 7, and that was that. She was like, “Okay. You can come back when you get pregnant again. You need to wait 2 years or 18 months before you get pregnant again.” Meagan: Mhmm. That's very common.Aisha: That's what I did. I got pregnant when my firstborn, I think, was 15 months. I gave birth exactly two years later almost to the dot. That labor started. Everything was going great. I remember for that pregnancy, I tried to always sit leaning forward, doing all of those exercises because my baby was posterior. I wanted a good posture. I did all of the things. It was in winter here, and in winter, Canada is not the best. I wasn't walking as much and it was COVID too. It was the COVID lockdown. With my first, I was going to the mall a lot, but during the lockdown in 2021, all of the malls were closed. I wasn't going outside much, but I was doing rounds in my house going up and down the stairs and stuff like that. When labor started, I really tried to focus. I think I was doula-ing myself. I never got a doula, but I was doula-ing with all of my research what I knew to do. At some point, I felt like it was time to go to the midwife. I was going there. They checked me. I was at 2 centimeters again. After laboring for 15 hours, then I was a bit defeated. I was like, “No, the same story is going to happen twice.” I continued laboring there. At some point, the contractions were back-to-back with no breaks. At that point, I was like, “Let me be a smart girl and get the epidural again.” She checked me. I was at 3 centimeters. I wasn't progressing fast enough for me. I think I was just in too much pain. I wasn't getting any breaks.I went to the hospital. I think the car ride there did something because it was a 20-minute car ride from the birthing center to the hospital. I was 7 centimeters. Meagan: Whoa. You went from a 3 to a 7 in 20 minutes? Aisha: In 20 minutes. Then I was like, “Okay, it's happening.” I got there. My midwife had already called the hospital and sent my papers. The anesthesiologist was waiting for me. I got the epidural within 5 minutes. They checked me. I was at a 9. Yeah, it went really fast. I was like, “I'm getting this VBAC.” Everybody was excited. I was giggling and laughing. My midwife came in. We were waiting for the last little bit. They checked me. I was 9.5, but baby was stationed pretty high. They were like, “Okay, let's try to bring baby down.” They made me change positions, but as they were doing that, the baby's heart rate dropped. It wasn't picking back up. At that point, it turned into an emergency C-section. The doctor looked at me. She was like, “Your baby is in distress. We don't know why. Nothing is going on. Nothing is changing. We are bringing you to the OR and get baby out. We don't have a choice.” I was so sad. I was at 9.5. I was almost there, but it did not happen. When I was in the operating room, the doctor screamed to me, “Aisha, never do this again.” I'm like, “Why?” She never gave me any more explanation, so me being me, when I was done giving birth, I requested the notes again.Meagan: Hey, listen. This is what I would suggest for anybody and everybody who has had a C-section. Go get your notes. Go get your notes. Aisha: They give so much insight because nobody knows unless this is the only thing that remains with you. You don't have the people to talk to. I saw the notes. I saw that my C-section scar had started to open. I think they called it a dehiscence. Meagan: Dehiscence? It was past a window. It wasn't just stretched. It actually had dehissed. Aisha: Yes. My midwife was like, “Probably that's the reason why she told you to never do this again and not to go for a VBAC again because the uterus had started to open.” Because it had started to open, when she cut me up, it gave me a J-scar so my scar–Meagan: You have a special scar too. Aisha: I have a special scar too. At that point, I'm like, “Okay.” My midwife told me, “If you have a third baby, unfortunately here, we can only follow a VBAC after one Cesarean. We cannot follow a VBAC after two C-sections so you will have to go the OB/GYN route.” Then I got scared because I'm like, “My God, I'm going to have to go to the medical professionals. They're going to turn me down,” and stuff like that. Me being me, I contacted my own personal OB/GYN. I went to see her. I wasn't pregnant or nothing. I wasn't planned on being pregnant anytime soon, but I knew I wanted a third child. I went to him. I was like, “Listen. This is my story. This is my situation. I really want to try for a vaginal birth. I know it can happen.” I went on the Facebook groups again. I registered in all of the VBAC after multiple Cesareans. I went and checked VBAC special scars. I went into all of those groups. I saw it was possible. Women were doing it all over the world. I was like, “Why not me? My body is also capable. Plus, I got to 9.5. That means my body is working. I just had unfortunate circumstances.” That's what I thought. My doctor was like, “You know what? Get pregnant. Come back, and we'll talk about it.” She wasn't closed off to the idea. Fast forward, I got pregnant earlier in 2023. I lost that baby due to miscarriage. I got pregnant again in September. That was a surprise pregnancy. I wasn't really planning for it. When I got pregnant, I was like, “Okay, this is it. This is it. We're going to try to do everything we can to make it happen.” I know for the first 20 weeks, I also tried to relax and release. I felt like my body held so much tension, and I feel like that can hold up to birth. I was trying to go and deal with all of those traumas and things like that that I hadn't dealt with in my previous births. Meagan: Traumas, triggers, past experiences, the tension that is being harbored in our body. It's weird to think that, but really, we can harbor tension whether we relate to it as trauma or not, and it can really impact us. Aisha: It can really impact us. After my second birth, I had gone to pelvic floor therapy. I had been to that for a couple of months, then stopped 6 months prior to getting pregnant officially with my last baby. When I got pregnant, I went back to see my pelvic floor therapist. I'm like, “Listen. I'm pregnant. This is what we are planning. Right now, I just want to make sure that my muscles down there are okay. I want to do the exercises. I don't want to do too much, but just prep my body slowly and surely.” We did exercises. That was the first 20 weeks. The second 20 weeks, I'm like, “Okay. Now is the time to ask the questions.” I would see her every 6 weeks, and within those 6 weeks, every question that would come in my head, I would write in down in my notes and go and ask her the questions so she could answer. I asked her to review my op reports so I could have another opinion. I was asking her a lot of questions about VBAC after two Cesareans. I got that my doctor wasn't VBAC-friendly, but I think she's pro-women's choice. She goes with what you want, and she supports you wholeheartedly in your decisions. I remember asking her questions about VBACs after two C-sections. She kept telling me, “Aisha, I think you need to realize that new studies have shown that there is not much risk after one or two Cesareans. It's almost the same. The percentage doesn't go up. There's not much difference. If you've had a C-section, you have the same chances as if you've had a second C-section. That's what the studies are showing.”I asked her about my dehiscence, and she's like, “A lot of women who didn't have a C-section can have a dehiscence, but with some women, we don't see it because they're not getting opened up.” She's like, “It happens more than you think. It doesn't mean that it's because of your scar that you had the dehiscence. It could have been that's just how your body reacted.” After all of those affirmations, that reassured me a little bit. I was not risking my baby. At the same time, you read stories, and you just don't want to make foolish decisions even though in your heart, you know what you want. When you listen to the outside world, it can influence a little bit of how you are thinking, and you are trying to make a wise decision. That was me in that second part of my pregnancy. However, the one thing she told me was, “The one thing that can make or break your VBAC, though, is getting a doula.” Every time she would see me, she was like, “Did you get your doula? Did you get your doula? Did you get your doula?” So I went. I got a doula who also had a VBAC. It was very important to have someone who had the experience of having a VBAC. I feel like when your team knows how badly you want it and what it means to you, I feel like it changes a lot for your game. I remember having my little prebirth classes with her, and she kept telling me, “You need to build a team who believes in your goal more than you believe in your goal because at some point during the birth, you're going to doubt yourself, and you need people who are going to reinforce you with confidence and positivity.” Meagan: Positivity, yes. Aisha: Yes, and that you can do it and that your body was meant for this. Of course, within that too, we also prepped for the occasion of a possible C-section, how to have a gentle C-section, and things I wanted to have. For me, it was very important for me to see my baby's being born. That's something I never experienced with both of my daughters. I heard them cry, but it was this wall in front of me. I never saw them come out of me. We also prepped for that, but yeah. We did a lot of prepping. She suggested that I go see an osteopath. With my second daughter, and my first VBAC, I had seen a chiropractor, but she told me that an osteopath might help loosen up some muscles. I went to see that person. It felt good, then I did acupuncture at the same time which I think was maybe just to release and relax and let go. I think there were a lot of little things that I did in order to just not hold on to all of the stress– writing letters and closing up chapters. I feel like it allowed me to just let go of the traumas that I had. Fast forward to my due date for my second baby. I lose a good part of my mucus plug. I sent it to my doula. She was like, “Okay, I think your body is starting to work.” Now, I can say I was starting to have contractions, but my way that I think I handled this birth was denial. The whole time that I was having those contractions, I kept saying, “They are painful Braxton Hicks. They are painful Braxton Hicks, and that's what we are going to do.” I kept walking a lot and every day, I was taking an hour walk. During those hour walks, that's when I was listening to the podcast and listening to stories and literally looking for VBAC after two Cesarean stories and hearing what women went through and their tips and tricks. That happened at my 40-week due date. Then the contractions kept going. During the daytime, they would spread out a little bit. At night time, they would be every 10-15 minutes. They would wake me up from sleeping, so I knew deep down that something was going on, but I was not trying to put my heart into it. I'm like, “They are just Braxton Hicks.” That kept on going for two days. At 40 weeks and 3 days, I had my doctor's appointment. I remember waking up that morning and being like, “Oh, those Braxton Hicks are really pushing.” I remember my husband was like, “Do you think we should go and drop of the girls at their godmother's?” I'm like, “You know what? No. I don't think this is it.”I had my appointment that afternoon. I have a friend of mine who lives next to my doctor's office. She had a 6-month-old baby at that time. I'm like, “Let's drop the girls off at my friend's, then afterward, I can snuggle up the baby because I heard oxytocin might help everything get going.” I went to see my doctor. My doctor asked if I wanted to get checked. That's one thing too, I went through the whole pregnancy not wanting to get checked. I knew that dilation means nothing. Meagan: Yes. Aisha: There is also how effaced you are and the baby's station. Those are also other things that you must know. You can be at a 10 and be stationed at a -2. It doesn't mean your baby is still coming. There are a lot of little details that I discovered. Meagan: We don't talk about it. We don't talk about it. We focus so highly on that big 10 number when there is so much more. It's funny because with my clients, they'll be like, “Oh, I got checked, and I was only this centimeter.” I'm like, “I don't even care about the centimeter. What were you effaced?” They're like, “I don't know. They didn't say anything.” Next time you get checked, ask because that number is a cooler number. Let's get effaced. Let's do that. Even then, we know that can change. We can go from thick, hard, and posterior to completely open and thin. It all varies, and it varies quickly, but there are so many other things to focus on than just that big 10 number. Aisha: Exactly. That's why I never asked to get checked the whole time. I'm like, “I'm going to go like that without checking. That will be bad.” When I got there, my doctor knew. She was like, “You're not getting checked, right?” At every appointment, she would ask, and I'm like, “No, I'm not getting checked today.” She asked, “Are you having contractions?” I'm like, “I lost my mucus plug last night. I'm having painful Braxton Hicks.” She's like, “How painful?” I'm like, “Well, people contract and call it Braxton Hicks.” She's like, “Keep doing what you're doing, however, when you go to the hospital if ever you don't give birth by 41 weeks, we have to send you to do a non-stress test to the baby, and the hospital will read your report, and they're going to force you to have a C-section. Be ready.” She was prepping me. She was like, “I'm going to write in your file that it's VBAC after two Cesareans. We've talked about it. You're going to do a trial of labor. I'm letting it go.” She was okay with letting me to go at least 41+5 and 42 weeks. Meagan: Or what evidence shows, okay. Aisha: She wasn't giving me any stress. She told me that the one thing that was giving me confidence was the fact that my body went into labor twice, and my body knows what to do. I left that appointment. I went to my friend's house. I snuggled up with the baby. Every time I would take the baby, my contractions, the painful Braxton Hicks, would be every 5 minutes. They would come more often than not. The moment we left her house, I'm like, “Okay, I don't have the baby no more, but the painful Braxton Hicks keep going.” In the car ride, it was a 20-minute car ride to my house. I got to my house. I didn't say nothing to my husband. I took my daughters. I went to give them a bath. I was showering with them actually. It was a shower. I was showering with them. I was on my knees, and at some point, I had to stop and be like, “Okay. Those Braxton Hicks are quite painful.” I gave the girls a shower. I dressed them up. They went to bed. I came downstairs to my husband and was like, “You know what? Yeah. The Braxton Hicks are becoming more and more painful.” He was like, “Okay. Do you want me to pack up the car?” I'm like, “No, they are still Braxton Hicks. We are not there yet.” Then what really made me believe that I was in labor was whenever I am in labor are my bowel movements. I think my body releases and cleans out.Meagan: Common. That's very common. Aisha: I went to the bathroom twice in the span of 30 minutes. I looked at him, and I was like, “I think we're in labor.” That's the moment I used contractions for the first time. The contractions were there. I just went to the bathroom twice. Okay. Eat and drink because those are two things I never did with my previous labors. One thing my doula told me during the prep was, “You need to hydrate your body because the muscle that is dehydrated is a muscle that is going to contract even more. Maybe that's why you were contracting and your contractions with your second labor were back to back with no breaks.” I'm like, “Yeah, I wasn't drinking water. I was so dehydrated. My lips were all cracked. I was not drinking an ounce of water.” When my husband heard, “Okay, labor is starting,” we started drinking. I ate dinner. It was around 9:00 PM. We bought those maple waters because we heard maple water is filled with electrolytes. I started drinking that. Then we went upstairs. I'm like, “I'm going to get some rest and try to sleep a little bit since it's nighttime.” I went to bed. It wasn't comfortable. I stayed for 15 minutes, then I'm like, “Okay, I'm going to go in the shower.” My husband ran a shower. It wasn't helping. We ran a bath. I went in the bath. I stayed there for maybe 30 minutes. It was not comfortable, then I got up. I went to pee, and then I had my bloody show. Everything was out. I sent a photo to my midwife and my doula. She was like, “Okay. Get ready. I think your body is really doing a lot right now.” In my head, I'm like, “Since my body is doing its work right now, let me help it. I'm going to sit on the toilet.” I heard it's a dilation station, so I'm like, “I'm going to sit there, then hopefully, if I'm in pain, let me make it effective.” I go. I sit there. Believe me or not, that was the best position for me. Meagan: I loved it too. I loved it too. Aisha: I loved it. I was at peace. I had the light turned off, the rain sound going, and I was literally sleeping. When I say sleeping, I was snoring. I was waking up slightly just for contractions, then I was going back to bed. I never timed any of my contractions. We were not going to focus on timing. We were going to go with how we feel, and the sounds and stuff like that. Yeah. I stayed there, I think, for 2.5 hours or 3 hours on the toilet. Meagan: Wow.Aisha: It felt so good. I had a pillow. I slept there. At some point, you can hear in my sound that it was a bit more there. My doula was hearing me. She told my husband, “You know what? I think this is time. You guys need to pack up the kids and go to the hospital.” We are about 35-40 minutes away from the hospital, so we had quite a drive. My husband packed up the car, and around 2:00 AM, we left to the hospital. I remember prior to labor, I told myself, “I'm going to give myself a coping mechanism. As long as I'm home, I'm just going to do nothing and try to take it in.” Once I'm in the car, I bought those combs. I was going to have the combs in my hand for the car ride, then once contractions are really unbearable, I'm going to grab the second comb. In the car ride, I had that one comb. I took it.  We went to the hospital, but the contractions were so great. I had time to do curbside walking around the hospital when we got there. My girls' godmother came and met us at the hospital so we could transfer the girls. While they were doing that transfer, I was doing curbside walking. I was taking photos. I was like, “I need to take photos of my girls.” I was in such a happy mood. The contractions were spread out which was a first for me because with all of my other labors, the moment I got to the hospital, it was an emergency and I could not control myself. We got there. We got to the hospital. I was able to give them my name and fill out my papers. I was really clear-minded. I went into triage and I was a bit scared because with my other labors, when I got checked, I was at 1 centimeter or 2 centimeters. I was going to see what I am, but you know what? We can handle it because the contractions were still spread apart. If I was a 2, I would still be good. I lay down. I got checked, and they told me I was at 5 centimeters. I thought, “Oh my god.” I asked, “What is the station and how effaced am I?” Then they were like, “You are 80% effaced, and you're at the station -2.” I'm like, “Okay. This is it. We're doing it.” They were like, “We are admitting you. You're not going to go home.” I was so excited. However, that's when the battle started. They took my file and came back. Meagan: Darn it. Aisha: They said, “We see you had two Cesareans already. Usually, you need to have a C-section after two C-sections.” I'm like, “I discussed with my doctor, and she was okay with me doing a trial of labor. They were like, “Well, no. This is not usually how things go. We usually don't do that. There's a lot of risk for your baby.” I'm like, “Yeah. I know the risk and I'm okay with it. It's something my doctor and I discussed. We are very at peace with it.” Then they sent me the doctor on call. The doctor came, and she was like, “I need to explain to you the dangers of what you are about to do. Your baby might die when you have a second C-section.” Then they brought up the dehiscence. “After a trial of labor, you had a dehiscence. This is not good for your body to have a dehiscence. You are more prone to uterine rupture.” All of those notes were observed by my doctor, and she was completely fine with it. Literally, the doctor looked at me, and she was like, “I can see nothing I'm going to say will change your mind. You're quite informed.” I'm like, “Yeah.” She was like, “I'm going to have you sign these release papers so you can release the hospital of anything.” At that moment, you feel like you're doing something not great because you're like, “They're making me sign this paper.”Meagan: Yeah, you feel like you're pushing against everyone in the professional world who have done multiple years of school and what they are suggesting. It feels off. Aisha: It feels off, but you what? That's why I was talking about releasing and really listening to me. That made me feel so much more at peace because I'm like, “I have to listen to that voice inside. Aisha, you can do this. You have prepped for this literally for four years in the making since your first C-section. You're educated. You know the risks. This paper is not going to make the risks change. You were okay with it before they presented that paper to you. You can still be okay with it after.”They gave me the paper. I signed everything, and then they asked me, “Well, we need to keep you monitored, however. We need to keep you monitored, and we need to have the easy access port installed in case.”Meagan: The hep lock, mhmm.Aisha: I told them that I didn't want it because it wasn't in my birth plan. I was like, “I don't want that.” I also had a super cute pink, floral hospital gown. I was like, “I'm going to wear that. I don't want to wear their hospital gown.” I think it was just mentally to feel like you are the birther, and you are the principal actor in the event. I didn't want to feel like a patient.They came. They were like, “You need to change.” I'm like, “I don't want to change. I want to keep my gown.” I had to sign a release paper that it was okay if they cut off my gown. I said, “Listen, the gown is made for that. There are buttons all around the back, but if you have to cut it off, cut it off, but I'm keeping this on.” At the end, I felt like I had to be somewhat political a little bit and give them a little so they could stop bugging me because they were breaking my bubble with the constant questions and the constant arguing.Within all of that, I was still having contractions. I'm like, “You know what? I'm going to let them monitor the baby, and I'm going to let them do the easy port so they can stop casting their opinions on my VBAC.” I know my doula was a bit scared especially for the monitoring because they were like, “The second the heart rate drops, they're going to use it as a way to send you to the operating room.” I know the second they put the monitor on, the baby's heart rate went down during the contractions, and it went right back up after. One of the nurses was like, “See? Your baby's heart rate is already going down. This is why we need to keep it.” I had the doula on the other line. She was coming to the hospital. I asked, “The baby's heart is going down.” She was like, “Aisha, it's normal that your baby's heart rate is going down during a contraction. He's literally getting squeezed. It's just normal practice. If it comes back up, it's completely fine.” Every time, they would pass those comments. The baby's heart rate dropped a couple of times, probably 7-8 times over the whole labor process, but every time, they would make a comment, “Oh, see? It dropped again. Oh, see? It dropped again.” But it kept picking back up the whole time.Anyway, I got admitted to my room. They tried to do the easy access port. I have small veins, so it literally took the anesthesiologist to do it. The whole nursing team failed to do it. I kept telling them to do it in one spot that people usually have better luck. They did it everywhere else, and in the end, it was that part that functioned.By the time they did the easy port access, it was around 7:00 AM. I got to the hospital around 4:00. It was around 7:00 AM. I asked to be checked again because, at that point, I was doing dances. The contractions were so intense, I was not happy. I was not laughing no more. I was still having breaks between them, but it was really taking everything out of me. At that point, the whole time before that, I was really enjoying the contractions. They were coming. I was like, “Oh, this is nice. I'm getting to meet my baby.” I loved the feeling to be honest. People find me weird when I say that I love contractions, but at that point, it was not fun anymore. I was going against the wall and doing those squat dances and moving my body left to right. I requested doing a check. They checked me. They were like, “Oh, you're at 9.5 and 100%.” However, baby was still stationed at -2. I'm like, “Oh no, baby is pretty high up.” My doula and I started to do some positions to get baby down. We did those for 30 minutes, but like I said, the contractions were really, really, really pushing it. I requested to get checked again. I know my doula was like, “Nothing probably happened.” She was right. Nothing happened. It was still the same, 9.5 and effaced at 100%, and still stationed to -2. At that point, I'm like, “Okay, I'm going to request the epidural.” I was seeing stars. Every time I would go through a contraction, I would see stars. At that point, I was literally, I think, mentally checked out. I was fighting against the contractions because every time a contraction would start, I would tell myself, “Okay, now you need to survive this next one.” It was no longer about enjoying it. Meagan: Surviving it, yeah. Aisha: It wasn't, “You know what, Aisha? It's four breaths. Take four deep breaths and it's done.” It was more of a survival mindset. I was like, “I'm going to take the epidural and be calm and be good.” They came. They gave it to me. They gave me a very tidbit because I was still walking. I could still feel. Yeah. I was still walking with the epidural. I could still feel everything. It just took off the edge. I think the contractions and the pain was in the front of my belly, and the back pain was gone, but I could still feel the pressure. While the anesthesiologist was giving me the epidural, my body was starting to push. I would have that feeling and everything. I think he gave me a tiny bit. Anyway, the second epidural was done, it was already shift change, so the night nurses were gone. The new nurses were in, and I think when I say the team makes a difference, they were angels sent. They were so kind. My doula went to see who was the doctor on call for the daytime, and she came to see me. She was like, “If you didn't have your own personal OB/GYN, this is the one who you would have wanted to have. This one here, that doctor here.” Then she came. She was super happy.She was like, “Okay, I see you're trying for a VBAC. The whole floor, when I heard about your case, they were saying that you had a uterine rupture. I'm like, ‘That's not right. Her doctor wouldn't have let her do a trial of labor after a rupture.' I went through your file, and I saw that you only had a dehiscence. It's very common.” She literally repeated the same thing that my doctor said. She was like, “A lot of women who didn't even have a C-section end up having a lot of dehiscence. It's just that we never know because they are never opened for a C-section to mark it down.” She was like, “It's completely common. We're going to do this.” She was like, “You've been at 9.5 for 2-3 hours, and your baby's station hasn't descended. Let's see what's going on.” She brought an ultrasound machine, and she performed the ultrasound on me. She literally saw that it was the baby's head's position. His head was slightly crooked to the left. Meagan: Asynclitic, mhmm. Aisha: Exactly. That's when I'm telling you that I love these people. I'm still having butterflies thinking about them. They came with the Miles Circuit. They came with the sheet with the images, and they're like, “We're going to do those.” I'm like, “The Miles Circuit!” They're like, “Yes.” I'm like, “Oh my god. You guys are my people.” We started doing the Miles Circuit. I did every movement for 30 minutes. I held it for 30 minutes. I did the cowgirl, I think they call it. Meagan: The flying cowgirl. Aisha: Exactly. Then after that, they came back. My doctor thought the baby's position had changed, but my water hadn't broken yet. She was like, “I'm going to break your water. The worst case scenario is that your baby's heart doesn't handle it, but I think that's going to make us go to the next level.” She broke my water. Literally, within the time she broke it and went to check, I was ready to go. That was literally all it took. She was like, “Okay, we're going to start pushing.” I know in my birth plan, I said that I was not going to push on my back lying down. I went on my four knees. I went first in my knees. I was holding onto the bed, and I was pushing that way. But I was so tired. I hadn't eaten in a while. I was still drinking, so drinking was good, but I hadn't eaten. My doula gave me candy. That helped me, but I remember in that exact moment, in my thoughts, “Aisha, your baby did it. This is your time now to help your baby. This is it. You've waited four years for this moment. This is it. This is all you've wanted. You need to find strength somewhere and make it happen.” I looked at them. I'm like, “I'm going to lie down.” I laid down, and my doula gave me this blanket. They attached this. Meagan: Mhmm, some tug-of-war. You did some tug-of-war, mhmm. Aisha: I was pulling on it when I was pushing, and my mom and a nurse were pushing my legs up. Yeah, then I pushed. I pushed. I pushed, and at some point, my body was pushing automatically whenever the contraction would come. It would literally do that. I would bear down by myself. I know the doctor kept looking at me. She was like, “Wow. This is awesome.” Yeah. I think I pushed for 45 minutes, and then he was born. My husband is actually the one who caught the baby. Meagan: Oh, yay. Aisha: That's what we wanted. We caught him. We did not know the gender, so it was really fun to see that it was a boy after two daughters. Once he was born, they put him on my chest. Everybody was crying. I know the nurses were crying. The doctor was crying. I've never had a hug from a doctor, and she literally came to my bedside and hugged me. She was like, “This is the moment. We don't see this often, so thank you for letting us experience this.”I know for a lot of the nurses, it was almost the shift change. It was almost 3:00 PM when he was born. One of the nurses looked at me. She was like, “My shift is ending in about 30 minutes. I need to see this. I need to witness this happening.” Then, yeah. He was born, and I think I had a first-degree tear, but it was on the outer labia. It was because when he was born–Meagan: Superficial. Aisha: Yeah, he had his hand on his face like a Superman. Meagan: Oh my goodness, so you had a nuchal hand, too? Oh my gosh.Aisha: Yeah, in the photos of it, it's so precious. My doula took photos, and you can literally see his hand coming out. Yeah. It was great because that evening, that night, the doctor came back on her shift. She heard that I gave birth. She came to apologize, literally. She was like, “I heard that you gave birth vaginally. Congratulations. I'm so sorry for not supporting you in that sense. There is a risk, and not every woman ends up having great stories like yours.”Meagan: Oh gosh. Aisha: “But we are happy for you.” I was just happy that I proved them wrong and that I made history in that hospital having a VBAC after two Cesareans. It happens. It's possible. I'm just happy that I listened to that voice inside, and that all of the noise around me did not affect my initial desires. Meagan: Yeah, and overall, your final decision, right? We've talked about this. I call it static. There's a lot of static that, I feel like, looms over VBAC moms. At least it did for me, and I do see it sometimes with my clients. It's their friends, their family, their providers, or whoever it may be, they are looming with this unnecessary static. Aisha: Yes. Meagan: A lot of it is, “Well, there's risk and what if's.” Oh, you name it. So many of these things, and really, I took a whole bunch of notes of little nuggets of your story. I can relate in a lot of ways with your story. It's similar to mine with how things unfolded. From the very beginning, you started off right. You started off right. You found the provider. You found the team. You got the support. You got the education. You dove in, and like you said, this was four years in the making. It took you four years to learn and grow and have this experience that you wanted. Sometimes, it takes one time to try. I say “try” with quotes, but to go and have a trial of labor, and it maybe not work out like mine and your situation. And then, okay, we learned from those two situations. Now how can we learn and grow from those situations and change and develop this next situation? It's so weird. My mind right now is really heavy on my daughter's reflections. They do reflections at school. It's a big art thing. Her topic is overcoming imperfections. Sometimes, in the birth world and especially as women, as you were saying earlier in your story, we have this thing that if we don't do it this way or if it doesn't happen this way, maybe our motherhood is stripped away, or we failed, or our baby failed. We can go as far as our baby failed us or whatever it may be. Overall, no situation is perfect. There are just always imperfections, and what do we do with the situation to grow and transform?I mean, really. I went over some of it, and then just learning more about hydration and how important food is and fueling our bodies. Aisha: Yes, yes. It's a marathon. You cannot run a marathon without an ounce of water or without food. You see it when you see people doing half marathons. There are people on the sidelines giving them water. Meagan: They're fueling. Aisha: Right. They're fueling. It is important and necessary. Knowing that the providers, as much as yes, we do have faith in them, they are there to help us, and they are there. I don't want to say this in a bad way, but they are working with us and for us. Do you know what I mean? They don't have the final say. We have the final say. That doctor who was there, when I told you about the dream team, she never ever does hospital rounds. She usually just does prenatals. Even the nurses said, “We usually see her once or twice a year. She never comes.” That ended up being the one time a year that she came. She looked at me and said that she is a pro-choice woman. She was like, “When a woman makes a choice, even if they fail, she will be happier, and she will be able to cope with the results way better than if someone strips her of that choice and obliges her to do something she did not consent to do. The outcome of that will be way harder to overcome than if she is the one who made the decision regardless of the result. That is way better.” Meagan: It's so true. Aisha: I wholeheartedly believe that. I know I had to really see in myself if that doesn't work. I know sometimes, we go into labor very naively. I feel like every first-time mom and even second-time sometimes, that can happen especially if let's say you were going for a vaginal birth, then you have a C-section, then you're trying for another vaginal birth, it's still in some sense the first time that you are going to experience this sort of experience. You're still going into it naively and blindly. Like I said, I never knew a C-section could be an option. The second time, I'm like, “It cannot happen to me twice.” After it happened to me twice, I planned for it. I planned in the circumstance that there would be a C-section, what do I want to happen? I knew I had my guidelines, and at least it wouldn't be a shocker and a hard pill to swallow. I would have been okay because I had my trial of labor.At the end of the day, your baby does decide how they want to be born. I feel like one thing I would advise all mamas and even fathers or partners, we need to include them to that. I feel like talking to your baby makes a whole lot of a difference. I got that advice from my osteopath where he told me a story about his wife about to be wheeled into a C-section. He came. He spoke to their daughter who was in the womb. He was like, “This is your moment. You decide. If you want to go to a C-section, do it. If not, this is the moment to change things.” His wife ended up having a vaginal birth right at the moment that they were going to. I pulled my husband up at some point I remember when I was starting to push. He came and saw the baby, then he was like, “This is your moment. You decide how you want to be born. You choose, and your mama is going to help you do this.” I feel like having that communication, our babies sense everything, so being connected to that too is so important. It's so important. Meagan: Absolutely. Absolutely. Circling back really quickly, if we do all of the things, if we take the VBAC education course, listen to the stories, learn more, read more, learn the stats, hire the team, and all of the things, we do our fear clearing processing about past experiences and all of that, and then we go in and be fearmongered like they were trying with you, and fearmongering by definition is that “it causes fear by exaggerated rumors of impending dangers”. There were big things that were said, but if you hadn't done the research and the education, you easily may have been fearmongered. Sometimes, it's even easy to be fearmongered even with the education. I will say that straight up. When you are being told that your baby could die, that word is very, very triggering. But you were able to have the education and be like, “No. I understand what you are saying. I respect what you are saying. I am going to continue moving forward this way.” But if we would be fearmongered and not have the education and then later learn the education, overall, our experience and view and our feelings postpartum would be a little bit rougher because we are learning these things that we could have learned before. That's why education is one of the biggest tips that we can give because you need to be educated along the way because it is easy for someone to come in. Look at you, Aisha, “No, no, no, no.” How many times did you have to say, “I understand, but no, no, no, no.” It sucks that that's the reality, and trust me, it ticks me off so much. Aisha: It is. Meagan: I wish it would change, but if we aren't educated and armed with that team, with that power, with our experience, then we are more likely going to fold in those situations. Aisha: It is completely true. At some point, even one of the nurses told me when they were trying to do the easy port that I needed to stop moving because this was going to end up with a C-section, and they really need to do the easy port. I had to tell her to never repeat the word “C-section” in front of my face. It sucks that for women or people experiencing multiple Cesareans or even one Cesarean when they are trying to do a vaginal birth that they need to constantly fight for it. Meagan: Yes.Aisha: But you do need to stand your ground and really focus on what you want. The fears will come, but that's a moment where you need to rely on the education that you have and all of the process. You spent 9 months preparing yourself, and all of those months must count for something. You're not going to be that one person. That's what I was telling myself. In the case that yes, the unfortunate happens, I was at the best place at the best time, and I had the best team. That was my thing. I trusted in my team that everything would be fine. But no, definitely. Yeah. You need to believe in yourself and in your project. Meagan: Yes. Oh my gosh. Well, this episode is just jampacked with all of the nuggets of information, guidance, suggestions, and empowering feelings. Oh my gosh. Thank you so much for being here with us today and sharing with us your beautiful story.Aisha: Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much. It's a dream. Meagan: Oh my gosh. Well, congratulations again.Aisha: Thank you so much.ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.  Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Abigail's first pregnancy turned into a life-threatening birth experience with undetected gestational diabetes and a traumatic ICU stay. On top of that, she unexpectedly had to move homes just two weeks postpartum. Abigail quickly developed intense postpartum depression and struggled to make sense of what happened to her. She was sure she would never have kids again, but after therapy and healing, she and her husband found themselves wanting another baby three years later. Abigail became pregnant right away, and she knew this time would be different. This time, things would be better. From the meticulous monitoring to the candid conversations, Abigail felt heard and supported throughout her entire pregnancy. Her gestational diabetes was detected and very controlled. While a scheduled C-section seemed to be a logical choice, she knew her heart wanted a VBAC. She was able to go into spontaneous labor and pushed her baby girl out in just 13 minutes!How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Welcome to the show, everybody. We have our friend, Abigail, from California with us today. She is a 27-year-old stay-at-home mom with a 4-year-old daughter and a 7-month-old son. She experienced a very unfortunate, traumatic experience with her first which really left her not really sure that she wanted any more kids. She's going to dive more into her wild experience, but she had a COVID pregnancy. She had a lot of different stresses through the pregnancy, especially at the beginning– gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, and so many things with her first that really taught her a lot, and had a wild birth experience. Then the second time, she ended up getting gestational diabetes again, but did a lot of different things to improve her outcome like hiring a doula, getting a supportive provider, and all of that. We are going to turn the time over to her in just one moment, but I do want to quickly in place of the review share a couple of tips for gestational diabetes. If you guys have not heard about it so far, check out Real Food for Gestational Diabetes by Lily Nichols. It is absolutely incredible. It is less than 200 pages long. It is a fantastic read and filled with a lot of really great information and studies. She also talks about prenatals, so I wanted to remind everybody that we have a partnership with Needed who we just love and adore. We do have a promo code for 20% off. You can get your 20% off by using code VBAC20. Definitely check that out.Then we are going to be including a lot of things in our blog today like third-trimester ultrasounds, sizes of baby, and gestational diabetes so make sure to dive into the show notes later and check out what we've got. Okay, my darling. I'm so excited for you to share your stories today. I feel like there's part of your story that I want to point out too before you get going, and that is that sometimes you can plan the most ideal birth scenario, and I'm not going to talk about what this scenario is, but a lot of people are like, “Do this. Do this. Do this.” Sometimes you plan it, and then your care falls short or something happens and plans change. If you guys are listening, I just want you to dive in. As you are listening to Abigail share her stories, listen to how sometimes things change and what she did, and then what she did differently to have a different experience. Okay, Abigail. Abigail: Hello. First of all, I just want to say that I'm really happy to be here today. Thank you for having me today. Meagan: Me too. Abigail: Yeah, I guess let's just dive right in. Meagan: Yeah. Abigail: First thing is I am a stay-at-home mom, so my mom is out in the living room with my babies right now, and at this point, my son is 7-months-old, and we are having a really good time over here. I just want to start by saying that. Basically to start with my story, I got pregnant for the first time in January of 2020. Everybody knows what else happened in 2020. I was, I think, about 12 or 13 weeks pregnant when everything completely shifted. Everything started to shut down. There was a chance that I was going to get laid off of work which I did end up getting laid off of work about a week later. It was not a fun time. My husband and I had an apartment. We lived in a place we had just moved to. We had been there for about 3 years. We had a roommate, and everything was totally fine. Everybody worked full-time. I was working out regularly. We had a pretty chill life. Go to the farmer's market on the weekend. I was really excited when I found out I was pregnant. I was like, “Okay, yeah. We are going to bring a baby into this. Let's do it. I love what we're doing.” So again, everything completely shut down and shifted. Our roommate decided he wanted his own space, so he gave us a 30-day notice. We were stuck in a situation where they were raising our rent because our lease was up. We would have had to re-sign. It would have cost us more and everything, so we were looking at having to move because our roommate was moving out. It was all not a very fun time, so we decided to move back to where we were from, rent a room from a family member, and stay with them for the time being. They had a little bit of extra space for us. We thought it would be totally fine and everything. We moved when I was about 20 weeks pregnant. Up until that point, I had regular OB care at a regular office. I had done all of the blood work and everything and the ultrasounds and the anatomy scan and everything up until 20 weeks. When we moved, I decided, “Okay, I think I want to have the baby at home, especially now since the pandemic.” I don't know that I really wanted to go to the hospital, but I wasn't sure that I wanted to do that to begin with. I grew up in a community where home birth was pretty normal. My mom had my younger brother at home. Several of my friends were born at home and their siblings when we were younger. It was a pretty normal thing to me. I reached out to a team of midwives. I talked to them, and got everything set up. I started doing appointments with them. They were coming over to my house fairly frequently. It was pretty nice doing the regular blood pressure checks and the urine samples with the little sticks, and all of that stuff. When it came time for the gestational diabetes testing, I was like, “Okay, is this something I have to do?” I didn't have my insurance set up at that point or anything because we had just moved so we would have to pay out of pocket for it. I would have to go sit in some lab or office some place. Again, during COVID, while I was pregnant, I was like, “I don't know. If I don't have to do it, I don't want to. If I have to, I will. What are we doing here?” They were like, “Well, you're low-risk. These are the risk factors. If you don't want to do it, you don't have to. You just have to sign this form.”I was like, “Okay, cool. I'll sign the form. Seems easy enough.” I totally skipped the gestational diabetes testing. That was on me, but it wasn't on me at the same time because I don't feel like I was given proper informed consent. There was a team of three midwives plus a student, so a total of four that I was seeing. One of the midwives ended up getting switched out at about that point, so it ended up being the student, the same original two, and then one newer one. Everybody was really nice. They were coming over and checking on me and doing all of the things that I thought they were supposed to be doing. I was not weighing myself. We did not have a scale. Again, they didn't tell me that it is important to make sure that you're not gaining too much weight at a time or anything like that. What happened was, I started gaining a lot of weight, but I didn't really realize just how much weight I was actually gaining. I was like, “Oh, I'm pregnant.” I quit going to the gym. I can't even hardly do anything. It's hot out. It's summertime. I was pregnant from January to September, so the bigger I got, the hotter it got.I didn't do much, so I was like, “Whatever. I've gained some weight. It's not a big deal.” I was a pretty small person to start with. Just for reference, I'm 4'8”, and I was 95 pounds when I got pregnant initially, so really small. It started becoming concerning because toward the end of my pregnancy, and toward I guess not even the end, the beginning of my third trimester, I started getting really swollen. Like, really swollen. My feet and my legs up to my knees– not just my feet, but my calves and everything were pretty swollen. Toward the end of my pregnancy, I had swelling up to my thighs. I'm being told this is normal. I'm 23. I've never been pregnant before. I don't have any support groups or anything going because it's COVID. Nobody wants to talk to anybody or do anything. It was a little frustrating for me because they were like, “Just put your feet up. Soak your feet.” If I soaked my feet, they got more swollen. I was not taking proper care of myself either. I went from exercising and eating right and doing all of the things that you are supposed to do to sitting at home and eating a lot of fast food and not walking. I was not having a great time mentally either. We were living some place I didn't want to be living. It was all of it. I didn't think too much of it. Again, I'm like, “Well, I'm being told this is normal. I'm gaining some weight. It's fine.” At one point, one of my urine tests that they did came back positive for glucose, and they were like, “Well, what did you eat for breakfast?” When I told them, I was like, “I had some waffles. I had some orange juice,” and whatever else I had, they were like, “Oh, you just had some orange juice before you got here. That's fine.”I was like, “Okay.” They didn't think to check it again. I didn't think to get a second opinion or anything. At one point toward the end of my pregnancy, I had a blood pressure reading that I checked myself at home with the little wrist cuff. That was really elevated. It was the end of the day. I texted the midwife. I was like, “Hey, my blood pressure is really high.” She was like, “What did you do today?” I was like, “I didn't really do much. I ate this for lunch. I had some soda.” She was like, “Okay, well that's probably fine. Just rest and check it again in the morning.” I checked it again in the morning, and it was still relatively normal, so they didn't do anything. One of the midwives came over at one point and dropped off some herbs for me that they wanted me drinking like some tea or something like that because I was getting swollen. I was standing outside talking to her, and she was like, “Oh my god, I can see your feet swelling up while we are standing here. You need to go back inside and put your feet up.” Again, nobody thought anything of it. How four people missed all of this, I don't know. I feel kind of like the student may have been more concerned, but didn't really know how to say anything or anything, just looking back on the facial expressions she would give and things like that. I go into labor right at 40 weeks. I am planning a home birth. Everything is set up for that. I've got the tub at my house. We've done the home birthing class and how to get everything set up. We've done all that. There was no backup plan in place. They did not suggest that I have one. Again, I did not know any better at the time. I was told that if there was some kind of emergency, I would go to this hospital. That was as far as it went. I didn't have a backup bag ready. I didn't have a hospital bag ready. I didn't have anything planned. There was no, “Hey, this is what we watch out for. This is what you might go to the hospital for.”I go into labor at 3:00 AM. Honestly, contractions started, and they were immediately painful. I've never done this before. I'm like, “Okay well, maybe we're just starting out harder than I thought. That's fine. Maybe there's not going to be early labor.” I labored for a couple of hours. I was really uncomfortable, so I called the midwives. They came over. They checked, and they were like, “Okay, you're only at 2 centimeters, and this is seeming like early labor.” I'm like, “This really painful. I'm not having a good time. This does not feel okay at all.” They checked my blood pressure. My blood pressure was through the roof. They waited a little bit, checked it again, and it was even higher the second time. They were like, “Okay well, this is out of our care. You've got to go to the hospital now.” I'm like, “What do you mean I've got to go to the hospital? That's not part of the plan here. We don't even have a plan B or anything.” Through tears and contractions and everything, I was having contractions maybe every 10 minutes or so, 5-10 minutes. Somewhere around there, I don't remember exactly. I got a hospital bag ready. I got some clothes for the baby together. I got my phone charger, my toothbrush and everything, and we headed to the hospital. I sat in triage by myself for 4 hours because they did not have a bed available for me. They would not let my husband into triage with me because it was COVID. The entire time, I was so uncomfortable. They had me immediately start on blood pressure medication to try to get my blood pressure down. They started me on magnesium, and they told me that the magnesium was going to make me feel yucky which is the biggest lie I have ever been told by a nurse. I don't know if she just never had it or what, but I felt like you have the worst flu you've ever had. My whole body hurt. It made everything feel worse. I felt groggy. I felt sick. It was not fun at all. At that point, I think I got to the hospital at 11:00 AM. They didn't get me into a room until 3:00 or 4:00 that night. So at that point, I'd been in labor for 12 hours. I was still hardly dilated. The doctors, initially when I got there, said, “Your notes say you are only 2 centimeters. Why are you here?” I was like, “I don't know. I was told to be here. I was told that my blood pressure is high or whatever. I don't know. I don't want to be here.” They did all of the things. They ran all of the tests. The doctor comes back in and says, “You are severely preeclamptic. Why did you not get here sooner?” Meagan: So why are you here and okay, why weren't you here sooner?Abigail: Yeah. I was like, “I'm so confused. I don't want to be here.” I'm freaking out. I'm stressing hardcore. My blood pressure went down for a little bit, but it stayed really, really, really high. They put me on fluids and everything which of course, did not help with the swelling. They get me into a room and everything. Things are moving along. It's going fine. I was okay for a little bit, then it got to the point where my legs were so swollen that I felt like they were going to pop. My legs felt like balloons that were going to explode. They were trying to put compression boots on me and stuff in the bed. Every time I was having a contraction, I was trying to get up and get moving because it felt better to get up and move. They were taking the boots on and off. It was miserable. After, I think, 28 hours of labor at that point, I was like, “Okay. I would like an epidural, please. I really don't want to have to get out of bed. I can't do this. I want my legs up. I don't want any part of this.” They got me an epidural. I don't know exactly how many centimeters I was at that point, but things had not moved very far in 28 hours. The doctor kept pushing to try to break my water. I kept telling her, “No, thank you. I don't want that. It will break on its own. I would like to take a nap.” I took a nap. My water did break on its own. That was nice. The water was clear. Everything was fine. We are still moving. I have an epidural. It's working great. I'm laying in bed. My blood pressure was still high. The swelling was still bad, but other than that, everything was maintaining. We were fine.I continued laboring for a while. I was getting checked pretty frequently because the doctors were uncomfortable with the situation. Again, looking back, I realize why they would be uncomfortable with the situation. They kept checking me and trying to want to do stuff. I was on Pitocin at that point. They had started it at some point, I think, shortly before I got the epidural. I had been on that for a while. It had been from being okay to all of a sudden, I was not okay. I don't remember exactly what hour that happened. It was somewhere between probably 36-ish. I was dealing with some stressful stuff with some family members. I was not having a good time. My phone kept going off. I was just trying to rest. It was a miserable time. They said that I was getting a fever all of a sudden. They were like, “You're getting a fever. We're going to see what we can do.”  They tried to give me Tylenol to bring it down. They tried putting a cool rag on my face. They were trying to get me to eat ice. At that point, they had completely stopped letting me eat because initially when I got there, they were letting me eat a little bit, but that stopped. They wouldn't let me drink anything, so they were giving me ice chips and stuff. I started getting to the point where I was feeling really sick, like more sick than I already felt. They checked me again, and depending on which doctor did it, I was at a 6 or a 7 still. They finally called it. They were like, “You have an infection. You are not doing okay. This is not okay. You need to have a C-section now.” Crying, I was like, “Okay, fine. That's not what I want, but let's go.” They prepped me for the OR, got everything moving, got me back. By the time I got in there, it had been 38 hours. I had an epidural for about 12 of those hours, I guess. At that point, it wasn't working super well anymore. It was not working well enough that they could do the C-section, so they put in a spinal as well. I had both of those done. To my understanding, they are two different pokes. Again, I didn't want either initially, and I got both. I was not thrilled about that. I'm laying on the operating table. I was so thirsty. They wouldn't give me anything to drink. They kept giving me this moist sponge. They said that I couldn't suck on the sponge. I could moisten my mouth with it. They gave me some stuff to drink that said it was going to make it so I didn't throw up. I wasn't nauseous at all the entire time. I hadn't thrown up at any point at all. I was like, “I don't want this. I don't need it.” The stuff that they gave me tasted awful, and they wouldn't give me anything to rinse it down. My mouth is dry. I'm gagging from how dry my mouth is, and the stuff tastes bad. They have me strapped to the table. My arms are down. I just laid there crying. The C-section went fine. They got my baby out. She was okay. She was 7 pounds, 12 ounces. For somebody who is my size, I was like, “Wow. That's a really big baby.” That was surprising. So they get me sewn up and everything. They let me look at my placenta, and it was four times the size of any placenta I have ever seen. It was like a dinner plate sized, but a couple of inches thick, like really thick. I was like, “Okay well, that's really weird.” They moved me and the baby to recovery. My husband was with me. Everything was okay. Everything calmed down. We were okay now. We've got this. It's fine. Then all of a sudden, the nurse was like, “I don't like your bleeding.” This is the same nurse I had for two or three nights because at that point, I had been in labor for 46 hours. It was 46 hours by the time they took my baby out. I started labor initially on the 28th at 3:00 AM, and my baby was born on the 30th at 1:00 AM, so almost a full two days. She's like, “I don't like your bleeding.” I'm like, “Okay.” I'm really out of it. I'm not really paying attention. I'm trying to nurse my baby. I can hardly move. I'm uncomfortable. Next thing I know, there are more people coming in, more doctors coming in, more nurses coming in. They take the baby from me. They hand the baby to my husband, and they shove them out. I'm just screaming, “Please don't give my baby formula.” I don't know what's going on. I don't know where they're taking her. I was trying to nurse her, and I'm so confused now. Next thing I know, there are 10 people surrounding my bed. It's three doctors and seven nurses. I had one IV in my hand initially, or in my arm or wherever they put it. Next thing I know, I had two more IVs. There was one in my other arm and in my other hand. They put some pills up my backside, and I'm so confused what's going on at this point. I'm still numb from everything from the spinal and the epidural and everything, so I can't feel what's going on. She's pushing on my belly. She's changing the pads under me. Everyone is freaking out.Meagan: Wow. Abigail: I am fading in and out of consciousness. I don't know what's happening. My husband's freaking out. My blood pressure had dropped to 25/15 I think. Meagan: Whoa. Abigail: I was about to die. They finally got me stable. I don't really know what happened exactly. All I know is the next thing I know, I woke up and I was in the ICU. They wouldn't let my husband come see me. They wouldn't let me see my baby. I'm with a bunch of COVID patients and everything. They gave me two or three blood transfusions. They put a balloon in my uterus to apply counterpressure so that it would stop bleeding, and they had a bucket attached to it. I'm watching them just empty buckets of my blood. It was so scary. I'm laying in the ICU by myself, and the balloon in my uterus hurt so bad, like, so bad. I didn't end up moving. I laid there for the rest of that night, the entire next day, the whole next night, then I think they moved me the next day. It was a night and a half plus a whole day that I just laid there by myself. Meagan: Wow. So scary. Abigail: It was so scary. The nurses came in at one point and were trying. I think it was the lactation consultant maybe. They were trying to get me to pump and everything. I think I pumped once or twice, but I was not up for doing anything. If they didn't come in and sit me up, they didn't really do it. I finally get the balloon taken out because that was what I kept begging for. I was like, “Please take this out. It hurts so bad. The pain medications aren't helping.” I didn't want to give the pumped milk to my baby as it is because I was on so many pain medications and so many antibiotics and everything else. I get the balloon out finally, and I think they took it out that night then they moved me the next day. They moved me to high-risk maternity, and they let me take a shower and eat some food and stuff before they brought my baby back from the nursery because she was fine in the nursery. That was nice to be able to take a shower and wash off all of the blood. I was so covered in blood and everything. I looked at my C-section scar and everything for the first time, and I realized I had a reaction to the tape that was on it and stuff too, so my skin all around it was all irritated. All up and down my arms had been profusely poked and prodded because they were checking my blood every four hours because of the infection and stuff. Depending on the lab tech's skill and everything, it was not going well for some of them. They kept having to poke me. The IVs weren't working for them to take blood from or something like that so they just kept having to poke me more. Again, I was having reactions to some of the tape, so my whole arms are just completely raw and everything. I was still very swollen. I was very, very, very swollen still. They had compression socks and stuff on at this point, not boots at least. They finally bring my baby to me, and then we ended up spending three days in high-risk maternity, so total, that was two days in labor, almost two days in the ICU, and three days in the high-risk maternity. Total, I spent seven days in the hospital. I get home, and they had me on blood pressure medication for a few weeks until I think my six-week appointment when I followed up, and then my blood pressure was back to normal, so I was able to quit taking the blood pressure medication and stuff. I dropped 30 pounds instantly because it was all of the swelling that just came off. I had still gained a lot of weight, but it a huge chunk of it was swelling which is so bad. It was finally over. I was settled. I'm in bed with my baby, and then the family member we were living with decided that they didn't want us living there anymore, so at three weeks postpartum, we had to move. I had only been home from the hospital for two weeks at that point. I didn't know what was going on. I didn't want to be around the situation. My husband was dealing with it. I ended up going on a road trip with my grandma to go stay with a different family member out-of-state just to make sure my baby wasn't anywhere near anything that was going on. Three weeks after a C-section and almost dying, I was driving and doing a whole bunch of other stuff– going out, walking around, and trying to put jeans on. I couldn't figure out why my clothes didn't fit. I didn't realize just how big I had gotten. It was not a fun time. It was about five days out of town, then I moved into a different family member's house temporarily where I was completely isolated by the people that I was living with. They did not understand what I was going through. They thought that I was choosing to be difficult intentionally, so that created additional problems. I ended up getting pretty bad postpartum depression which is really not a surprise. I still didn't understand what had happened to me. I still didn't understand why I had almost died. I still didn't understand. I didn't know if I had done something wrong. I didn't know what was going on. I spent a lot of time really upset over the fact that everything went wrong, and I didn't know why. Life was falling apart around me. I was not doing okay. It turned into really bad postpartum depression pretty quickly. My husband and I got our own apartment when my baby was four month's old. I was like, “Okay, things are finally going to get settled. Things are going to be okay now.” It did not settle. My depression got worse, and I didn't even know what to do. I was eating a lot because I was like, “I'm breastfeeding. I need to eat.” I basically just sat at home, didn't do anything but eat and nurse my baby. I was very thankful I was able to successfully breastfeed my baby after everything that happened to me. All of the nurses at the hospital were surprised about that and stuff. Meagan: Yeah, with the amount of blood loss and everything, that's pretty rare. It's pretty rare. Abigail: Yeah. I never ended up giving my baby a bottle or anything because I was so scared that if I tried to give her a bottle or something that it would mess up my breastfeeding, and that was the only thing that had gone right. I was doing okay for a little while, I thought, but it was not okay. I was really not okay. I was very, very sad. I was fully convinced for a period of time that they should have let me die at the hospital. I was fully convinced that the doctor did me a disservice by trying so hard to save me. Meagan: I'm so sorry. Abigail: Yeah. I finally started therapy. I started trying to get up and do more and not eat so much and get moving. I think finally around the time my daughter was a year or a year and a half, I started to feel a little bit better, and things slowly did start to get a little bit better for me, but I was fully convinced that I did not want more kids. I was like, “I am never going through that again. I do not want another C-section. I don't know what happened to me, so obviously, I would have to have another C-section because we don't even know what went wrong.” It took me until my daughter was almost three. She was about to be three when all of a sudden, my mindset shifted, and I was getting mad at myself for feeling like I wanted another baby because I was like, “I don't want another baby. Of course, I don't want another baby. I made that very clear.” We got rid of all of the baby stuff. I told everybody I wasn't having more. What was wrong with me? I was fighting internally with myself because I wanted another baby, but I did not want another baby. It was insane. I kept it all to myself. I didn't say anything. All of a sudden, my husband was like, “I think we should have another baby. I was like, “What are you talking about? You're insane.” He was like, “No, really. I think we should have another baby.” I was like, “You shouldn't have said that because I want another baby.” Meagan: Yeah. I have been actually thinking the same. Yeah. Abigail: Yeah. I was pretty surprised that I got pregnant right away. Literally, within a couple weeks, I was pregnant. It was a good thing and a bad thing because it didn't give me a chance to overthink it, but also, it was like, “Oh no, I haven't even had a chance to think about this. This is definitely what's happening.”I started going to the doctor right at five weeks. They started doing ultrasounds right at five weeks. They were checking me for everything every time, all of the time. I had so much anxiety. I made that very clear to them. I think that's part of the reason that they checked everything all of the time and were trying to be more reassuring. They did ultrasounds at almost every appointment. Most people don't even get an ultrasound until 12 or 20 weeks. Meagan: And then that's the only one. Abigail: I had four of them before I even went for my anatomy scan. They were trying to watch everything and make sure everything was fine too because again, they didn't do my care last time. This OB place did my follow-up care afterward. They saw the aftermath of everything, and they were concerned and stuff. That's what we were dealing with. I was dealing with some nausea, so they gave me some pills for that. Come to find out, one of the side effects of one of the medications they gave me was anxiety. I was fighting a losing battle with myself because I was taking these pills for the nausea. I wasn't eating because I was anxious, and I wasn't eating because I was nauseous, then I was getting more anxious. It was a rough first 20 weeks I would say. Then I did start feeling better, thankfully, so I was able to start eating and stuff again. Once I felt better, I was eating ice cream and all of those things that I wanted and all of that. It was fine. I was doing fine. I was doing all of my appointments and stuff, then it comes up for my gestational diabetes testing. The doctor says, “You need to do this,” and immediately, I was like, “Yes, please. I need to do that because that's one of the things I didn't do last time. I need to do everything to make sure I'm good.” I need to backtrack a minute, I'm so sorry. At my first intake appointment at five weeks when I met with one of the– they're nurses, but it's not the nurse who actually checks you and stuff. They have an office at the OB's office, and they check in, and they ask, “Do you have transportation for your appointments? Do you need help with anything? Do you have access to food? Are you in a safe relationship?” I let them know what had happened previously with me, and she was like, “Oh, well then you might be interested in this. This is something new your insurance covers. You could get a doula if you wanted since it sounds like you wanted to have a more natural experience last time.”Meagan: That's awesome. Abigail: Yeah. Immediately, I was like, “Hell yeah. Let's do that.” I didn't have a doula last time. Again, last time was COVID. I was already trying to pay for the midwives. It wasn't something I thought about one, because I thought I was having a home birth with a couple of midwives. I didn't think I needed a doula. Also, I didn't fully understand what they were and the actual extent of the benefits of them. I was like, “Yeah, totally.” The first thing I did when I got home was call. They were like, “Yeah, we take your insurance. We can get you set up. We're taking new clients. Let's get you in for an appointment.” I started seeing a doula sometime in my first trimester. I don't remember exactly when, but I remember I pulled up the office and I got out. I was like, “This can't be right. This is too nice. There's no way my insurance covers this.” I was shocked at the care I received from my doula service. I'm just going to go ahead and give them a quick shoutout just because they are amazing, but it's Haven for Birth in Sacramento, California, and they do amazing work for a lot of different things. I still attend lactation meetings and stuff with them monthly. Meagan: That's awesome.Abigail: It's such a great team of people. I got the doulas that they set up for me because there are two of them. There's a main one and a backup one. My main doula's name was Heidi, and the backup doula's name was Francine. They were both so sweet and wonderful. Heidi has been doing doula work for a good amount of time. She owns a chiropractic business and Haven. She's the main one, and she's the one who has dealt with higher-risk pregnancies and things like that, so she was my main source of support and throughout everything. I would text her if I needed something. She was so reassuring. She was like, “Yep. You can totally have a VBAC if that's what you want to do.” I was like, “Really? I can do that, okay. I'm going to talk to the OB about it.” The OB was like, “Yeah. It's completely up to you. As long as you are fine and we watch everything, that's fine.” I really did feel like they were supportive. It wasn't like, “Well, if you are okay, then you can.” It was like both of the OBs that I had seen, one of them was a guy and one of them was a girl, and both of them were like, “Yeah, as long as we keep everything in check, you are totally fine. I don't see why you couldn't.”I started to feel a little more confident in that. I had a lot of anxiety about it and for a couple of weeks, I did contemplate scheduling a C-section just to ease my own anxieties, but I didn't feel right with that choice. I really didn't. I was like, “I need to try.” It was tough, though, because I was like, “I don't know how I'm going to deal with the feelings of trying and not succeeding,” so that was the struggle of, “Do I want to just have a C-section that way? I get what I want no matter what,” but I didn't feel like I wanted to do that. I worked really, really, really hard to get my VBAC is basically what ended up happening. Back to where I was, I get my gestational diabetes testing done, and the first-hour one comes back really high. I'm like, “Okay, that's concerning.” I texted my doula about it. She was like, “It's okay. You're going to do the three-hour one. You'll probably pass the three-hour one, but even if you don't, it'll be fine.”I failed the three-hour one really bad. My fasting number was fine, but the rest of the numbers were very elevated, not even just a little bit. I was like, “Oh, okay.” This is all starting to make sense. I had a lot of anxiety initially about what I could or couldn't eat because I didn't feel the greatest, and I was letting myself eat what sounded good to make sure that I was eating. It was a rough week initially when I got that, then it took them a minute to get me the referral in for the program, the Sweet Success program where I was actually able to talk to nurses and dieticians there. Once I finally got in with them, I met with them a few times throughout the end of my pregnancy. I did feel very supported by them. They were very nice. The dietician was willing to meet with me one-on-one instead of a group setting because I was having issues with eating and not wanting to eat and feeling very concerned that I was going to hurt myself or hurt the baby.They did a very good job making sure that I was cared for. We completely changed up my diet. I started walking after every meal. I started checking my blood sugar four times a day, so first thing in the morning, then after breakfast, after lunch, and after dinner. I basically, immediately after eating, would get up and do the dishes or clean up the food I had made or pick up the house or start some laundry or something so that I was getting up and moving. Only a couple of times, there was only once or twice where my blood sugar numbers were higher than they really wanted by more than a point or two. I did a really good job keeping those in check with what I was doing and watching what I was eating very closely and monitoring my portion sizes and realizing what I could and couldn't eat. Once I got to the point of 36 or 37 weeks or whatever where they were like, “Okay, this is the plateau. It's not going to get worse than this,” and I realized I was able to keep it under control and things like that, I would let myself have a couple of bites of a cookie here and there. It wouldn't spike my blood sugar or anything because I was doing everything I needed and that made me feel really nice because I was able to eat the stuff I really liked as long as that was within reason.We met with the doula multiple times. She came over and did a home visit at 37 weeks. I had been having Braxton Hicks contractions from the time I was 19 weeks because we got COVID. We got RSV, and we got a cold. We got a cold. We got COVID, and we got RSV. Meagan: Oh my goodness. Abigail: Yeah. That was the whole first half of my pregnancy along with dealing with nausea and everything else. I found out I was pregnant the beginning of September. We got a cold in October. I got COVID in November, then in December, we got RSV, and my daughter who was three at that point spent five days in the hospital, so I spent five days in the hospital right next to her dealing with RSV while I was pregnant. I feel like the coughing kickstarted Braxton Hicks contractions almost because at that point, I started having them pretty regularly. From 19 weeks on, I had tightenings all the time. Some days, they would be worse than others, but because I was so active, it definitely– I never got diagnosed with irritable uterus or anything, but I think that's what it was because it would get really irritable when I would do pretty much anything, and I was doing things all of the time. At 35 weeks, my contractions started getting fairly intense-ish. They weren't painful at all, but it was every 3-5 minutes, I was contracting. I drove myself to the hospital. I was like, “I'm fine. I'm not concerned.” I didn't bother my husband or my doula or anything. I let her know I was going, but I was like, “Don't worry about it.” They hooked me up. They checked me and everything. they were like, “You're hydrated. We don't need to give you fluids or anything.” They were like, “How are you feeling? You've got to tell us if they hurt or not because we can see them on the monitor, but you've got to tell us how you're feeling.” I was like, “I just feel annoyed. They tighten up, and it's uncomfortable when they do, but nothing hurts. I'm annoyed.” They were like, “Okay, let's check you.” I was still completely closed with no baby coming down. So they gave me a single pill to stop them and sent me home. It worked. It slowed them down for the rest of the night, then they kicked back up to their normal here and there the next day. But for the next couple of weeks, I kept it fairly easy. If I noticed I started I was having more of them, I would try to go lay down. I was able to have my baby shower at 36 weeks which was wonderful because I had not had a baby shower for my first baby because of COVID. I feel like 36 weeks was almost pushing it because my family had asked if we wanted to have it later to have somebody else be able to join us and I was like, “No, no. Please don't push it later. I don't trust that.” It was like I knew that he was going to come just a little early, but I was doing all of the things and still having the regular Braxton Hicks contractions and everything. They were doing multiple growth scans on my baby because he started measuring small at 28 weeks, I think. At his 28-week scan, they noted that his kidneys were slightly enlarged, so they wanted to follow up on that. They followed up on that at 28 weeks. His kidneys were completely fine. We never had another incident with that, but they noticed he was measuring a little smaller so they started doing regular checks. By the end of my pregnancy, I was having a growth scan every week, so they went from, “Let's check you in six weeks. Let's check you in four weeks. Let's check you every two weeks. Let's check you in a week.” They noticed he was measuring small, and he continued measuring small. Meagan: They were regressing, or he was staying on his own growth pattern but small?Abigail: He was growing but not a lot. Meagan: Okay, yeah. He was staying on his own pattern. Abigail: They didn't want him to drop below the 10th percentile, and if they did, they were going to be concerned. He did get right to the 9th or 10th percentile, so they did start to get concerned. They labeled him IUGR. They were doing non-stress tests on me twice a week. Basically, by the end of my pregnancy, I was seeing the OB, the place for the non-stress tests, the gestational diabetes program, the place for the ultrasounds and growth scans, a therapist, a hematologist because I ended up having to have iron infusions and B12 injections, and the doula's office, so seven places. Almost all of them wanted to see me every week. Meagan: Whoa. Abigail: I was running around, super active towards the end of my pregnancy. I was still taking my daughter out and doing all of the things with her as well. I noticed after my baby shower at 36 weeks that my feet were just a little puffy, and I was like, “Huh. That's funny.” It hit me all of a sudden. I was like, “My toes are kind of pudgy.” I'm 36, almost 37 weeks pregnant, and this is the most swollen I have gotten. It was not up my legs. It was not even in my whole feet. It was my toes and the top of my feet, not even my ankles. They were the tiniest bit puffy. I had this moment of clarity where I was like, “How did nobody notice that something was so wrong with me?” I was shocked because I'm looking at myself and I had gained a total, by the end of my pregnancy with my son, of 25 pounds, and that was it. With my daughter, by the end of it, I had gained 70 pounds. Again, how did nobody notice? I am shook. I thought on that for a long time. I'll come back to that, but I thought on that for so long. I ended up emailing the midwives who had provided me care. I was having a day. I went off on multiple people that day. I was not having it, and I emailed them, and I sent them a four-paragraph email about how they let me down. They should have known better. Somebody should have noticed something was wrong. They should have asked for a second opinion. It was ridiculous. I was shook that they didn't push harder for gestational diabetes testing, and all of the things because clearly at this point, I realized that my blood sugars being in control has made all of the difference. Not knowing, you can't do what you need to do which is why I'm such a big advocate for informed consent and gestational diabetes testing. I know sometimes I see people saying that they want to skip it because they are fine. I had zero of the actual risk factors, and I still had it. I'm just putting that out there. That's my main thing for this. Definitely get checked, and stay active, and watch your blood sugars because it's a really, really serious thing. I literally almost died. Sorry, I keep jumping around. My son was measuring small, so they started doing all of the tests and everything, and they couldn't find anything wrong. They were like, “Your cord dopplers look great. The blood flow looks great. Nothing specifically is measuring small. His head is not measuring smaller than the rest of him.” He was very, very, very low in my pelvis. I was waddling from 32 weeks on. He was low the entire time. I could feel him moving regularly. He was super active. I felt confident in myself. I felt safe. I felt good. they were telling me he was fine. Everything was looking fine. My fluid levels were looking good. My non-stress tests were always good. They make you sit for a minimum of 20 minutes, and if they don't see what they need to see in 20 minutes, then you need to stay longer. I never had to stay longer than 20 minutes. It was always in and out. He was always moving. His heart rate was always good. When they started mentioning induction at 37 weeks, I was like, “I don't want to be induced. I don't. There's really no reason.” They were like, “Well, he's measuring small. Your other baby last time was so much bigger. He is so small. This is such a concern.” I was like, “But I think there was something wrong with me and my baby last time. I don't think she should have been that big for me.” I thought that was the problem. I tried explaining that to them that I think they had it backward. They should have been concerned about how big my last baby was because they didn't check my blood sugar when I was in the hospital or anything. They didn't check it. Everything was fine. I was feeling fine. I was having pretty regular Braxton Hicks still. I was convinced I was going to have him early. I told him that. “I will have him early, and you're not going to have to induce me. I promise you. You're not going to have to induce me.” I told the doula that I promised the doctors and the specialists that I was not going to have to be induced. She was on my side. She was like, “Okay. We can try some midwives' brew if we get to that point. We'll talk about it.” I didn't end up getting to that point, thankfully. I had another scan at 37 weeks and 36 weeks. At 37 weeks, the doctor was like, “Okay, well, I specifically want to see you next week. I want you to come out to my other office next week because I specifically want to see you. I don't want you to see the other doctors. I want to follow up with you.” I was like, “Fine. I'll drive to Rosedale. No problem.” It wasn't farther than the other office I had been going to. I didn't get that far. I went into labor at 37 and 6. It had been a normal day. I had taken my daughter to the jumping place and had gone to the grocery store. I messed up when I went to the grocery store and the jumping place. I parked too far out, and I didn't think it through. I jumped near the jumping door, not the grocery door. Walking in was super close, but then I had to walk all the way back carrying my groceries. The carts didn't go out that far or anything. I'm like, “Oh my gosh. This is so heavy.” I'm still having Braxton Hicks the whole time. I'm feeling fine. I haven't had any kind of mucus plug activity or none of that. There was no swelling in my feet or legs. My blood pressure had been good. I checked it regularly. My blood sugar had been good. I had checked it regularly. I get home, and I'm like, “Man, I'm tired.” I got up, and I kept doing laundry and stuff. My husband gets home from work. He's like, “Hey, do you want to go out to dinner? We can go to the restaurant up the street.” I'm like, “Yeah, it's a beautiful day out. It's the beginning of May. That's a great idea.”It's a 3-minute walk from my house to the restaurant. I'm not kidding. About halfway there, I stopped, and I was like, “Oh. Well, that one was a little more uncomfortable than they have been. Okay. I actually felt that.” It felt like a bad period cramp, but also tightening with the Braxton Hicks at the same time. I was like, “I'm fine.” I kept walking. We get to dinner, and I notice at that point, I'm having mild contractions every 10 minutes. We ate food. I had sushi, and I know that rice spikes my blood sugar, so I try not to eat too much of it, but I was like, “You know what? I feel like I'm going to have them. I just need to make sure that I eat.” I ate my dinner. We walked back home. It was still about every 10-12 minutes that I was having mild contractions. We went about the evening as normal. I put my daughter to bed and stuff. I took a shower. My husband and I were watching some TV. I was bouncing on the ball. I wasn't really telling my husband that I was super uncomfortable at that point yet. It hit all of a sudden. It was 11:00 PM. At this point, it was 6:00 PM when I felt the first slightly uncomfortable contraction. It's now 11:00 PM. I'm like, “Okay. This is actually starting to get a little bit more uncomfortable.” I got up, and I paced around the living room. My husband was like, “Uh-oh. We should probably go to bed.” Yeah, we should probably go to bed. That was a good idea. We went to bed, and I did not sleep. I think I slept for about seven minutes because at that point, it went to seven minutes, not 10 minutes. I started timing them on my phone. I texted my doula. I made sure I had all of my stuff ready just to be safe. I made sure the house was picked up. I tried to sleep. I let the doula what was going on. She was like, “Don't worry about timing them, just get some rest.” I was like, “I'm not trying to time them, but every time I have one, I look up and I see the clock. This is happening.” She was like, “Okay, well I'll start getting up, and I'll be ready to head over if you need me. I want you to take a shower.” It took me a good 45 minutes or a half hour or something like that to actually get from hanging around my house to getting in the shower because I started shaking really bad, and I was starting to have contractions pretty quick together. They started getting closer and closer together. My husband ended up texting her at that point, “Hey, she's int he shower. I think contractions are getting closer together. They are two minutes apart at this point. You should probably head over.” She gets here pretty quickly. My daughter is still asleep. At that point, my doula was like, like, “Yeah, I think you're in active labor. We should think about heading to the hospital.” I'm only 10 minutes from the hospital, but my daughter needed to get picked up. I put my bag in the car. We call family. I get my daughter picked up. She hadn't heard anything. She hadn't noticed I was in labor. I wasn't being necessarily loud, but I wasn't also being super quiet or anything. She gets picked up. She's mad she's awake. It's 2:00 AM. We get ready to go, and by the time we get down the stairs, because I live in an upstairs apartment, so I'd been pacing the whole upstairs in my apartment and everything, I was super afraid my water was going to break in the car so I put on a Depends because I was like, “I'm not going to have to clean that up later because I'm going to be the one cleaning it up later, and I don't want to have to deal with that.” My doula was like, “Chris, get her a bag in case she throws up in the car. Let's go.” She tried checking my blood pressure, but I kept moving and stuff, so we couldn't get an accurate reading which made me that much more anxious. I was so afraid that by the time I got there, everything was going ot go bad. I had convinced myself that it was fine, but there was this nagging voice in my head that was like, “No, no, no, no, no. Everything went wrong last time, so surely, you are going to die this time.” I was like, “Nope. I am fine. Everything has been fine. They are aware. They have blood on deck for me. It's going to be okay. I've got this.” We get to the hospital. It's 3:00 in the morning. It's fairly quiet. We parked in the parking garage which was across the street. We walked through the parking garage. We take the elevator. We take the walk bridge across. We get into the hospital, check in with security and everything. they were like, “Oh, sweetie, do you want a wheelchair?” My doula was like, “No, no, no. She's fine. She will walk.” I'm like, “Yeah, okay Heidi. Walking is a great idea.” I mean, that's what she's there for. It's fine that I kept walking, honestly, because we had to walk from one side of the hospital to the elevator to take the special elevator that goes to the 6th floor. We're about halfway to the elevator, and I'm like, “Oh, I think my water just broke.” My water broke walking into the hospital which was that much more convenient. We get in. We get checked into triage. The nurse is so nice, and she was like, “It's okay if you want to give me a hug,” because they wouldn't let my husband or my doula in at first. I gave the nurse a hug. She was so nice. They were like, “We need a urine sample.”At that point, basically, from the time labor started, I couldn't pee. That was an issue, so they were like, “Don't worry about it. It's fine. Let's get you back on the bed. Let's check on you, and see how you are doing.” They said I was a 4 or a 5 depending on who checked and who assessed.They asked me about pain medication and stuff, and I was like, “I'll get back to you. I'm doing okay.” Contractions are about every 2-3 minutes at this point. My water had broken on the way in. They tried doing one of the swabs to check it was my water and not that you peed, and the nurse was like, “I'm not even going to send this in. It's fine. I know that it's your water.” They got me in pretty quickly. By the time I got into a room, I was like, “I would like some pain medication please.” They were like, “Okay, do you want an epidural? Do you want IV medication?” I remembered when I was in labor with my daughter, the nurse had initially offered me what was called a walking epidural, so I asked because I remembered declining that with my daughter. I was like, “No, no, no. I don't want to do anymore walking. That's the point. I don't want walking. no walking.” This time, I was like, “That actually sounds like I wanted to know more about that.” I asked the nurse more about it. She was like, “It's still an epidural. It's put in your back the same. It's just different medication. It's lower doses or different medication or whatever it is. It's going to provide some pain relief, but you're not going to be numb. You're still going to feel everything.” I was like, “Honestly, that sounds like what I would like. That sounds like it's a really good idea.” I was having a very hard time taking a deep breath. I was having a very hard time relaxing because I was so afraid that something was going to go wrong. At that point, my blood pressure was fantastic. Everything had been normal. No protein in my urine, no swelling, no high blood sugars, nothing. I was like, “Okay, this is going to be fine. I'm going to be fine.” I felt a little weird about asking for pain medication because I was adamant that this time, I was going to do it without it, but they called the anesthesiologist. He comes in, and he says, “Okay, are you sure you want the walking epidural? That's definitely not going to get you were you want to be pain-wise.” I was a little ticked off, but I was like, “Just get me what I asked for, please. If I change my mind, I will tell you.” That's the thing. If you change your mind, all they have to do is switch up your medication. It's not continuous with what I got. It's just a bolus of medication, and the little thing is taped on your back. You're not actually hooked up to medication or anything, but if I wanted to be, all they had to do was hook it up. I was like, “I'm fine. I don't need that. Thanks, dude.” They get me that, and they made me stay in bed for the first hour just to make sure I was okay and my blood pressure was fine and everything. My blood pressure was fine. Everything stayed fine. My blood sugar was a little high at this point. It was two points over the max where they want it to be. My husband ran down to the gift shop and got me some trail mix, cheese, and meat things. I ate that. They checked my blood sugar in a little bit, and it was back to a healthy, happy, normal range, so they weren't concerned. I was like, “I ate rice the night before, guys. That's all it was. You checked my blood sugar in the middle of the night after I had rice. Of course, it's going to be a little high.” At this point, it's 4:00 AMish. I stayed in bed for the first hour. My doula was like, “Okay, let's get you out of bed. Let's get you moving.” I was out of bed almost the whole time. I did spend a little bit more time in bed at one point. I had the initial bolus of medication. That was all I had, so at this point, I can feel the contractions are getting stronger, and I can also feel that the medication is also starting to wear off. It started getting more intense. I was on the toilet for a minute. I was still having the issue where I still could not go pee. My doula kept feeding me water after every contraction, so they were keeping an eye on that. My doula was keeping an eye on that and stuff. It got to where it was 8:00 AM, I think, so at this point, I had been in labor for a total of– from the time contractions actually started being painful at midnight to 8:00 AM– 8 hours. I was on the side of the bed leaned over the bed. They had it at my height. My husband was rubbing my back. The nurses were there taking care of me and making sure I was good. All of a sudden, she's like, “Okay, honey, I think it's time to get you back in the bed.” I was like, “What?” She was like, “We've got to get you back in the bed. With the noises you're making, and squatting down, we've got to get you back in bed.” With every contraction, I was bearing down. Meagan: And they just didn't want you pushing standing up, type of thing? Abigail: I think they wanted to check me and see how I was doing and everything. They had me on continuous monitoring, which initially I didn't really want, but up until that point, I hadn't minded the monitors. It was just at that point because I kept moving, and I was so sweaty. I was so sweaty. My IV kept slipping off. The monitors kept slipping off. My gown was drenched. My hair was drenched. They kept re-taping my IV, and I was like, “Can you please just take the IV out? It's bugging me.” At that point, the IV was somehow more painful than the labor. I was coping with labor, but I kept feeling the IV in my arm because they kept having to poke it and mess with it and stuff because it wasn't staying in. They ended up leaving it in which I was annoyed with, but I was in and out of at that point.They get me back in the bed, and they check me. They're like, “Okay. You're already starting to push. Let's get the doctor in here. Let's do this.”I'm on the bed. I've got the squat bar. I'm up on the bed on the squat bar. I'm kneeling in a lunge position. I've got one knee up and one knee down. Every contraction, they were having me switch my knees which started getting really uncomfortable for me. I felt so heavy, and I was falling asleep in between each contraction it felt like. I wasn't all the way there, but they ended up saying that my son's heart rate was dropping just a little bit, and they were like, “Okay, let's get him out. Let's move this along.” They pulled the squat bar, and they had me on my back. The bed was propped up. I was upright, and they had me holding my own legs. I was having a hard time because I was so sweaty that my hands kept slipping off the back of my thighs. They were like, “Okay, you need to push. Let's push.” I wasn't really listening to them. They were trying to do coached pushing, but if I didn't feel like it, I just wasn't doing what they were telling me. I was more listening to my doula than anything else because I felt like I trusted her and what she was saying more than anything else. I told them, I was like, “I feel like it's pulling up. I feel like it's pulling up.” They were like, “Okay, lower your legs a little bit.” It was really nice that I was able to feel everything. I put my legs down a little bit, and that helped a little bit. I don't know exactly how many pushes it was. I don't know if anybody counted, but it ended up being 13 minutes that I pushed for from the time they got me in the bed and were like, “Okay, you're pushing,” to “Let's get you on your back. Give a couple good pushes.” I think it was two pushes once I was on my back and he was out. Meagan: That's awesome. Abigail: He came right out. I had a small right inner labial tear, no perineal tears, and then I don't think I actually tore up, but I noticed I was sore afterward up toward my urethra, but they ended up only giving me one stitch on my right labia. That was fine. They did numbing shots and everything for that, and I could feel the numbing shots and everything, and I didn't like that. It's uncomfortable, but it was fine. I felt fine. I felt good. They put him right onto my abdomen because his cord was so short that they couldn't put him any further up. I wish they would have waited just a little longer to cut his cord, but they were like, “He's hanging out down here where we need to be,” because his cord was so short, which makes sense that he was head down the entire pregnancy and didn't move. He stayed right there. He flipped and rotated. Meagan: Transverse. Abigail: Sideways. He would put his butt back sometimes and toward the side sometimes, but that's all he would do. His head was in my pelvis the entire time. He comes out. Once they cut his cord, they moved him up to my chest and everything. They got me cleaned up and everything. Everything was fine. I got my golden hour, and he didn't want to nurse right away, but he was fine. They were taking bets like, “Does he look like he's over 6 pounds or what?” He ended up only being 5 pounds, 5 ounces. Meagan: Tiny. Abigail: He was a little, tiny guy. He was barely 18 inches. I had him right at 38 weeks, so he was a little small. He was closer to the size of a 35-week baby. Meagan: Mhmm, and he had IUGR. Abigail: I don't think there was anything wrong with him. I think I'm a very small person, and I think my first baby was too big because when I look at pictures, my daughter's head was coned off to the side, and I know that she did not have room to move around in there. She was stuck where she was stuck. Meagan: That would mean it was asynclitic probably. Her head was coming down wrong. Abigail: Yeah, which is probably why it hurt so bad. I know that now, initially, it started even with early labor. I don't think that even once I had an epidural with her, they were using the peanut ball. They were changing my positions. They were doing all of the things, and she wasn't coming down any further. She wasn't moving, and I wasn't going past a 7. I think that she was too big which I think is from having unchecked gestational diabetes. Even though she was considered an average-sized baby. I'm not an average-sized person. I'm really, really, really small. Me having a 5-pound, 5-ounce baby seems about right.He came out perfectly healthy. There was nothing wrong with him. His blood sugars were good. His blood pressures were good. Everything was great. And now at seven months, he's still slightly on the smaller side, but he went from being in the 2nd or 3rd percentile or whatever he was born into all the way to about the 20th. He's almost caught up. He's healthy. He's chunky. There wasn't actually anything going on with him. I think that says a lot to the fact that I'm just really small and my first baby was the result of an unhealthy pregnancy. I didn't have a postpartum hemorrhage. I didn't need any extra medication. I didn't need Pitocin. I didn't end up getting a full epidural. When they asked me about my experience, I made sure to tell them that the anesthesiologist should choose his words more wisely. It went well. I waited two months afterward to see how I was feeling and everything, and I do not have postpartum depression. Meagan: Good. Abigail: No more anxiety than what I regularly deal with. I have had a great time. Everything is just completely different, and my son is already seven months old, and I am already at a point where I'm like, “I want another baby.” I don't know if I'll actually have another one or not. I mean, there are financial reasons to consider and actually giving birth to another baby and raising another human. It's not just a baby. It's a whole other life. It's a lot, but I have baby fever already. I would absolutely do it again, and I just had him. Meagan: Oh, that makes me so happy. I am so happy that you had such a better experience that was more healing and positive and has left you having a better postpartum for sure. Abigail: It was a completely different experience. I mean, night and day. I'm just trying to make sure that I didn't miss anything. I think the only thing that ended up being different was like I mentioned, I couldn't really go pee. I did end up having to have a catheter at the end of my labo

Pregnancy is hard enough, but what happens when you sprinkle some complications on top of it all? Sarah finds out she's breech this week and learns that labor might get complicated. She shares some ways to flip your baby, combatting Braxton Hicks, and how to wrap your brain around a delivery that might look different from what you planned for. She also talks common Week 34 symptoms, baby's development, tips for the week & a to-do list to help keep us all on track Some Resources Mentioned in Today's Episode: Moves to help "flip" the baby: SpinningBabies.com Medication used to manage preterm labor - Nifedipine Want more from Sarah? Personal Instagram: @SarahMerrill_Hall Share some Laughs: @bigkidproblems Check out the NEW IG @bottleserviceBKP Shop Sarah's Pregnancy/ Postpartum Must Haves on Amazon Shop Bottle Service MERCH!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, Women of Strength! We have another beautiful VBAC birth story for you today from our friend, Georyana. Georyana shares how she went from having an unplanned Cesarean with her first birth to a planned HBAC but unexpected breech delivery!During her first postpartum period, Georyana experienced postpartum preeclampsia, depression, and anxiety. She and Meagan dive into coping tools and resources available for anyone else going through the same.While prepping for her VBAC, Georyana also talks about the power she felt while listening to other stories on The VBAC Link Podcast. She knew she had to give her body the chance to show what it was capable of. “If it could happen for her, it could happen for me. Why disqualify myself? Why disqualify my body?”Needed WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello, Women of Strength. Merry Christmas to you. It's so fun to be recording today. It's actually not even October. It's September when we are recording, but it's so fun to think how close we are to Christmas. I hope you guys are having an amazing day, and if you are listening the day after Christmas, I hope you had an amazing Christmas. We have our friend, Georyana, with us today, and she is from Florida. Hello, love. How are you? Georyana: I'm doing well. How are you? Meagan: I am so, so great. I was going to say that as you may hear, she's got her little one on board, so we may hear all of the little baby coos and noises. What is your baby's name? Georyana: Her name is Sophia Victoria. Meagan: Sophia Victoria. I love it. I'm so happy she's here. I actually love when we have babies because I don't really hear those noises anymore. I hear them as a doula for a minute, but I miss those little coos. It's so fun. Okay, like I was saying, she is from Florida. She's a stay-at-home mom of two beautiful babies, a three-year-old and this one-month-old that she's got with us. She works part-time remotely and is a Christian and serves as a worship leader for the youth group worship team. Is that correct?Georyana: Yes. Meagan: Awesome. I love that. She says that she's officially started homeschooling her toddler this year which is super exciting. That is exciting. We've had so many moms on the podcast lately who are like, “I've quit my job. I'm homeschooling,” or “My full-time job is homeschooling.” That's amazing. Georyana: Yeah. Yeah. It really is just to be able to soak in all of these moments with your kids. Time flies so fast. You just want to treasure everything. Meagan: It's so true. It really does. I have a 7th grader which is crazy, so yeah. Super crazy. Remind me, you used Needed's iron?Georyana: Yes. I've actually used it for postpartum.Meagan: Yes. I wanted to talk about that because we talk about their prenatals and all of the other things to do during pregnancy. We haven't really talked about the iron, so can we talk a little bit about why you're taking iron and how it's been?Georyana: Yeah, so after this pregnancy funny enough which is something I'll tell during my story, but I passed out after I gave birth. I believe it was due to a lot of blood loss and low hemoglobin, so after I gave birth, I kept taking my prenatals, but my prenatals only had 15 milligrams of iron in them. That's when I decided to go for Needed. I had heard of a lot of amazing reviews. I had heard about it too on The VBAC Link. I'm only taking one additional per day, so I'm taking around 30 milligrams of iron. Meagan: Have you noticed a difference?Georyana: Tremendously. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely less fatigue, more energy. I was getting dizzy a lot during the early days of postpartum and breastfeeding, so that helped a lot too. Meagan: That's what I was going to say. It's probably helping you breastfeed as well. Georyana: Yeah. It's definitely an amazing supplement. Meagan: That's so awesome to hear. I believe in Needed's products wholeheartedly, so it's so fun to see that other people are loving it too. We do have a Review of the Week, so I want to get into that really quickly, then we are going to turn the time over to you to share these stories. This is from nnoah and it says, “Generational trauma”. It says, “This podcast and the Facebook group have been a godsend to me. After my 56-hour failed induction and emergency C-section due to very low heart decelerations with my daughter, I told my husband I would be happily scheduling my C-sections from now on. My sister-in-law told me I could VBAC, but I had no hope that my body could birth after such a drawn-out process that ended in ‘failure'. My mom had three C-sections herself with the first being highly traumatic, and I never realized how much her birth experience has influenced my own physiological state as I approached labor and delivery. I researched everything with my first from breastfeeding to infant development and sleep, but I did not read a single book or take a single class on birth. Now, I realize it was because of how much fear and trauma I was carrying around with me from my mother's experiences. I walked into birth ready to fail because I didn't think I could do it. I wasn't tough enough.”She says, “After listening to this podcast, it has me believing in my body and preparing my mind even more before we try to conceive our next baby. I have begun working through my birth with How to Heal a Bad Birth,” which we absolutely love if you want a good book on how to heal a bad birth. That is one of our favorites. It says, “I've already interviewed a VBAC-Link certified doula to assist me in my next birth when we conceive. The resources, podcast, and recommendations here have had me anticipating my next birth with excitement rather than dread. I couldn't be more grateful for this resource. Thank you.” Wow. So many things within that review. I one, am so thankful for that amazing review, and I want you to know that we are here for you and this community and these stories are here to help empower you even further going into your next birth. I love that she said that she had a doula before she was even conceived. She's found the doula she's going to hire, and as soon as she conceives, she can hire that doula. As a reminder, just like she said, we have a VBAC directory with VBAC-certified doulas. You can go to thevbaclink.com/findadoula and look for a doula in your area.Okay, mama. Oh, look at this cute little baby with a full head of hair. Georyana: Yeah, she had a lot of hair. That's how she was born, with a lot of hair. Meagan: Her hair was probably born first. It's so long, oh my gosh. Oh, I'd love to turn the time over to you to share these stories of yours. Georyana: Okay. Well, just like every VBAC, it starts with a C-section. Mine was in 2021 with my first son. It was an overall healthy pregnancy quote-on-quote. Every prenatal visit was normal for the most part. There was nothing out of whack. I do want to be transparent and say that I did not eat healthy or exercise knowing that I was supposed to. I remember working at this part-time job, and literally after I was done clocking out, I would go straight for the Chick-fil-A. It was Chick-fil-A every day. I ended up gaining around 87 pounds during my pregnancy. Meagan: Wow, okay. Georyana: I was 215 when I delivered. At around 39 weeks with my OB/GYN, she was like, “I want to schedule a C-section because your baby's measuring really big.” We did the whole– I forget the word– where they actually check the baby's weight. Meagan: Oh, like a growth measurement in an ultrasound. Georyana: Yeah, she was like, “This baby is already a 10-pounder.” I was like, “Oh my gosh.” I was freaking out because I really wanted to give birth naturally. That was something I had told her about, but she was like, “No, let's schedule a C-section.” We were going back and forth, and she was like, “Okay, well at least we are going to get an induction date.” She set up an induction date for March 15th. It was a Monday. I started going into labor. I started going into labor on Friday spontaneously. I went into spontaneous labor. I didn't really know that much about laboring at home and all of the things like right now that I know you're supposed to do. Yeah. I had labored at home for an hour or two until contractions started getting intense. I went to the hospital which was an hour away. I checked in. They checked me. I was 2 centimeters dilated, and they took my blood pressure. They were like, “You have high blood pressure.” They didn't give me a reading or anything, but they were like, “We're going to make you stay. We're going to have you stay. We're not going to send you home.” I was like, “Okay. You guys know what you're doing.” I started laboring for an hour or two, and then a nurse came in and I had explained, “I really want to try and go for a natural birth.” She was like, “Okay. I'm going to give you an hour. I'm going to give you an hour.” Meagan: What?Georyana: “I'm going to give you an hour and see where you are as far as dilation and as far as progressing.” I was like, “Okay.” An hour went by. Mind you, I was strapped to the chair because there's something that you're never really taught, to move around while you are laboring. At the one-hour mark, she comes in. She checks me, and I've gone nowhere. She goes, “I'm going to put you on Pitocin.” Things started getting really crazy at that point because it was my first time feeling contractions, and those contractions were horrible. They are so intense, and now having had experienced these natural contractions from my VBAC, you can automatically tell the difference. She puts me on Pitocin. I labor and I had my husband with me. It was back-to-back contractions to the point where I could barely breathe. I had taken one birth class, but it was the standard information. They never really teach you how to breathe or the importance of getting your mind right, and the importance of your mind and how it plays such a huge role in birth.I just kept laboring. I kept literally squeezing my husband's hand. I couldn't allow him to go anywhere. It was horrible. As the hours passed, things started getting worse and worse. They ended up breaking my water. Then it was more Pitocin. It was already Saturday the next day. I hadn't drank anything. I hadn't eaten anything. There was no ice. There was nothing. Yeah. It just felt horrible. I just stayed. At one point, I couldn't handle the pain anymore so I asked for an epidural. Crazy enough, when the anesthesiologist came, he was with a student. He had asked the student to put the epidural inside of me. They had me sign a consent form. I was like, “Oh my gosh, what is this?” I had heard about the epidural and that it was supposed to numb you, but I never expected to get to that point.I got the epidural, then I just started feeling numb. It numbed me completely down. The day went by. It was Saturday, then I eventually reached a 10. It was 10 PM on that Saturday. I was like, “Okay, well I want to try and push.” I tried to push for an hour or two, and basically, that went nowhere because they had me pushing on my back. They were trying to tell me, “Just try and push as if you are trying to go to the bathroom and poop.” It was just so frustrating because I was trying, and nothing was working. Eventually, they were like, “Your son's heart rate is dropping. We just have to do a C-section.” When she told me that, I felt like my world came crashing down because I didn't want it at all. But in that moment, as a mom, you are so vulnerable. You are going through so many emotions mentally, emotionally, physically, and so many things that it's just so hard to make a decision. Obviously, you want what's best for your baby. I was like, “Okay. Let's just do a C-section.” They didn't put me to sleep entirely. It was just my legs, but I just remembered that when they did that, I lost it. I had a very severe panic attack. I was like, “I can't feel my legs. I can't feel my legs.” There were all of these nurses around trying to calm me down. Eventually, we went to the C-section room. My husband was with me, and they did the procedure. My son was born thankfully. They made sure he was okay. They put him near my chest for a minute. They cut the cord and all of the things. But I didn't know what to expect. I thought that was what I was supposed to expect, to have him for a minute and to have him take him away. I didn't have anything else. So nothing, I stayed at the hospital for an entire week because my blood pressure rose drastically. Meagan: Did you have postpartum preeclampsia?Georyana: Yeah, technically. Without the seizures, thank God, but the blood pressure was crazy high. There was a nurse coming in every 2-3 hours to check my blood pressure. I got medication. Yeah. It was just a horrible moment because right there, you just gave birth to this human being while your body is out of whack going through all of these things, and you just feel like you failed. You feel like you failed, and you just did a horrible job. But you know, I just kept in-hospital, and one week later, I was released. The C-section recovery was horrible. It was very, very painful. I couldn't even walk or anything. Taking care of the baby was just really hard for me. Yeah. Eventually, my blood pressure got back to normal, and everything was well. I suffered from postpartum depression and severe anxiety to the point where my husband would go to work, and I would stay alone in the house. I would think that I was going to die of a heart attack. Meagan: Oh, yeah.Georyana: Yeah. My mental health was bizarre. I constantly felt like I was dying. I remember one night, I woke up in sweats. I just felt like I couldn't breathe. We had called the emergency 9-1-1. I literally felt like I was dying of a heart attack. They checked me and were like, “No, you're fine. It's just an anxiety attack.” Postpartum was definitely not the greatest experience for me for the first. Meagan: I am so sorry to hear that happened. Georyana: Yeah, but other than that, I'm so grateful to God that my son is healthy. He's currently 3 years old, and he is just a joy to be around. Meagan: Yeah. Do you have any resources or suggestions for someone who may have experienced that before or just in general for someone listening in case they have any symptoms or anything like that that you want to share?Georyana: For what specifically?Meagan: For postpartum anxiety and panic attacks and stuff to maybe help recognize what it could be or resources that helped you. Georyana: Yeah, definitely my biggest resource was God, the church, and prayer. I think that helped me a lot and just having a community of people who you can count on whether that's a friend or your mom where you can say, “Hey, mom. I'm going through this. Hey friend, I'm going through this. Pray for me. Come over. Please help me. Please help me do some chores,” or anything like that. The weight is a lot. Once you've given birth, you're thinking about a million things– the baby, the diapers, yourself, the kitchen is a mess, and you definitely need to have the support group to lean on. But as far as anxiety, learn where your mind is going. Be able to detect those thoughts that creep in and that tell you, “Hey, you're not doing a good job. You're going to die. This is going to happen.” Learn to stop those thoughts or reframe. Reframe your mind. We have so much power in our minds. Meagan: Yep.Georyana: If we only knew where it could take us. Meagan: Yeah. I agree. Our minds are so powerful, and there is something about that community that can really, really help. There are even more resources like deeper resources. There is postpartum support, Baby Your Baby, and so many things. We talk about this in our course, and I won't go through all of them, but I think it's so important to do a self-care checklist after. Think about, “Have I eaten enough? Have I slept enough?” You want at least 5 hours of sleep. Most of us with newborns can say no to that automatically, so maybe doing something like hiring a postpartum doula, having our mother-in-law come, having our community come in to help and hold baby so we can get really good and effective sleep. Have a bath or a shower. Just getting ready for the day is weird but can help us mentally. It can help us get out of that mental funk. Exercise– now, we can't really do that in the beginning. But have I exercised is another question. Have I allowed myself to laugh today? Have I allowed myself to smile today? These are things. There are many more. Like I said, we talk about those in our VBAC course because it is so important. It's not talked about enough, so I'm so glad that you were able to take this space to feel vulnerable enough to talk about this experience. Georyana: Definitely. I agree. Right now, for this postpartum, I have my mom. She lives 30 minutes away. She comes twice a week and helps me cook meals. Meagan: So good. Georyana: Yeah. They are delicious. You just have to be willing to take the help. There is definitely help. Yeah. It's important that we don't feel alone. Meagan: Yeah, I agree. Well, thank you so much for sharing that. Sorry, we can go on to this next birth story. Georyana: This next birth story– my husband and I knew that we wanted another baby, but we just didn't know when would be the right time. 2.5 years passed. We got pregnant. It was a surprise. It was a surprise and a blessing. All I knew inside of me was that I wanted a VBAC. I wanted a VBAC. I was like, “You know what? I'm going to try for it again.” I was obviously open to the fact that it could end in a C-section. I didn't have a closed mind in that sense. I ended up searching for supportive providers. After finding one, I found an OB/GYN. The first thing that I had asked was, “Do you support VBACs?” They were like,”Yeah, we do. We do.” They had five doctors on board, so basically, every prenatal visit had a different doctor so that eventually when I would go into labor, one of them was going to be assisting my birth. To each one, I would always ask the same thing, “Hey, I would like to do this. Do you support it?” They were like, “Yeah, we do that.” My blood pressure was great at every prenatal visit. There were no concerns. I did change a lot of what I had previously done in my previous pregnancy which is that I started exercising. I started walking 30 minutes 3 or 4 times a week. I started eating healthier because I think that's one of the things that most people don't talk about too is the importance of nutrition. It is important in pregnancy. You're always told that you have another human being and you have to eat for two. You're like, “Yeah, let's eat for two,” and you gain 10, 20, 30 pounds. I tried to be mindful of what I was eating. Long story short, everything was going great. At my 32-week appointment, I met with a provider. I meet with one of the doctors on the team, and my same question pops up. She's like, “Oh, you can't really go past 40 weeks here. You can't.” I'm like, “Why? I'm perfectly healthy. My blood pressure is fine. Why can't I go a day past 40 weeks?” She was like, “No, you can't. You actually have to schedule your C-section date right now. You have to sign a consent form. You have to put your due date as your C-section date.”My due date was August 1st. I was like, “Well, I don't understand.” I was just feeling led on because, during the prenatal appointments, there were subtle signs, but I guess I didn't really want to pay attention to them because I was like, “Oh my gosh. I can't imagine switching providers.” I was 7 months pregnant. I was like, “Okay, thank you. I'm just going to call back and schedule that C-section.” I remember going home and being like, “Wow. This really just happened.” I remember that I started praying. I told God. I expressed how I felt. I was just very overwhelmed and, “Is this really the path that you have for me?” I felt that he just told me, “Do a home birth.” I was like, “What? A home birth? That is not–” Meagan: That's not what I've been looking at at all. Georyana: That is insane. Funny enough, I started researching, is that truly an option for me? After researching, I found a midwife. She is actually Chrisitan, a pastor, a worship leader, and a midwife. Meagan: Wow. She wears a lot of hats. Georyana: She wears a lot of hats. I don't know how she does it, but I expressed to her, “Am I able to do a home birth if I had high blood pressure during my previous pregnancy?” She was like, “Yeah. We will monitor you. We will make sure you are taking care of yourself.” She did tell me, “During labor, if your blood pressure skyrockets, we'll have a plan in place and we will go to the hospital.” We had plan A and plan B. I spent the last 2 months with her. She would come to my house, and check my blood pressure. She had me drinking lots and lots of water which is another thing that we underestimate or is not often talked about. Meagan: We do. We really don't. We usually drink water, but we're not getting enough of the hydration.Georyana: 100%. She was like, “You need to be drinking at least half of your weight in water.” All I remember was that every day, I was chugging water. She actually advised me to take Calm as a magnesium supplement. Meagan: MagCalm? Georyana: Yeah, MagCalm. That helped tremendously. That helped tremendously. Everything was safe and sound. I was doing all of the things at 37 weeks– the Miles Circuit, the red raspberry leaf tea. I was eating the dates and all of the things that they tell you to VBAC. I was listening to a lot of birth stories, especially on The VBAC Link which just helped me tremendously because I was able to get in a right mindset. The birth stories edified my faith to a whole other level. I just remember every day doing dishes and I was plugging in a story. Every story was different, and I was like, “Wow. If it could happen for her, it could happen for me. Why disqualify myself? Why disqualify my body?” That's another thing that we do a lot. We often hear, “Oh no, your body wasn't meant to do it” or “Your body can't do it”.Meagan: Yep, yeah. We hear those things, and then we believe them. Georyana: Yeah, that's the sad part. I think I was 39 weeks and 3 days. I go into labor. My water broke at 3:00 in the morning, but I need to backtrack that. At 38 weeks, my midwife checked me. I had asked her to check me. She checked me, and I was 3 centimeters dilated. The baby was head down. The baby was head down. Everything was normal and everything was looking good. She came back at 39 weeks, and I was like, “Can you check me again to see if I've progressed?” Even though that doesn't really mean anything, I was just so excited. She checks me, and she's like, “I don't know what I'm feeling, but I'm not feeling the head anymore.” Meagan: Oh, okay. Georyana: Yeah. I'm like, “What do you mean you're not feeling the head?” She checks, and she's like, “I don't know if that is her hand or her knees or something like that, but it's definitely not the head.” She tells me, “I think I'm going to have to send you to get an ultrasound to see the positioning of the baby.” We spend a couple of minutes just trying to sink that in. She was like, “But you know what? Let me check again. Maybe I was wrong.” She checked again, and she is still feeling the same things, but then she was like, “Is that your coccyx (the tailbone)?” I thought it was. I genuinely thought it was. I tell her, “Yeah. I think that's it.” We were like, “Okay, I think we should be fine.” We were going a little loopy. I don't know. Fast forward to when my water breaks at 3:00 in the morning, I started feeling contractions, but nothing consistent, so during the day, I just remembered that I texted her. She was like, “What other symptoms do you have?” I had my bloody show. My mucus plug fell out. The contractions were different from the Braxton Hicks that I had been facing all of these weeks. I was like, “Yeah, there's definitely some type of shift here because I feel like they are stronger. They are lasting longer.” Fast forward to Saturday, I ended up walking with my husband. His family was in town, and that also helped pick up the contractions. At around 6:00 PM, I gave her a contraction timer app on my phone so she could see. By the way, I had a doula, so she had the app as well. She was an hour away, and she was like, “Please text me so I can come out on time.” At around 7:00 PM, they both arrived to my home. Contractions were 6 or 7 minutes apart. She had me actually do nipple stimulation with my husband. They went out of the room. We did nipple stimulation, and that just skyrocketed everything because I had all of the oxytocin flowing. Meagan: I was going to say that's natural oxytocin flow right there.Georyana: I had natural oxytocin. I was like, “Whoa. Now I'm in a whole other dimension.” Contractions were 3 minutes apart. I just remember breathing. I had worship music playing in the background. The lighting was dim. It was so different from the hospital. It was so intimate. It was something unforgettable what I experienced on that day and when I compare it to my hospital birth, I had so much tension. All the bright lights, it was so different. She set up the birth pool. I went in, and I sat down. She was like, “Okay. I think it's time to push. You're at a 10.” She had checked me. I was trying to push, but I didn't really get it. I was trying to feel my intuition because they always tell you, “Your body knows when it's going to push.” She had me stand up, and she coached me. She said, “Try standing up and seeing if you have the urge to push.” When I stood up, I got that urge. A contraction came. I did a push, and nothing happened. Then another contraction came, and I did. I just remember breathing in, and I just let it out. She sees knees. Meagan: What? Knees? Georyana: Knees. She sees the baby's knees come out. She screamed. Meagan: What?!Georyana: She was like, “Oh yeah. She's breech. She's breech. She's coming out breech.” Meagan: Oh my goodness. Georyana: I just remember I was moaning during that period. I was just like, “Ooh.” I didn't look at anyone, but my husband tells me that at this moment, I just looked at the doula and she had her jaw on the floor. She was like, “Okay, well, you have to breathe in, and push in during the next contraction.” I remember that during the next contraction, I just let out the biggest roar. It was a roar. She came out entirely. My husband caught her. I just fell. I just fell, and yeah, she was breech. She came out knees first, then her legs, then her whole head just popped out. Meagan: I am dying right now. This is amazing. Oh my gosh. Once her knees came out, her whole body slipped out? Georyana: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Definitely. It was such a moment of shock. Meagan: Yeah, I bet for everybody. Georyana: Yeah, for everyone because we thought she was head down. I kept telling her, “You were right. You were right. What you were feeling was the knees.” She was like, “Thank God I didn't send you to do the ultrasound because you would have gotten a C-section automatically at the hospital. That would have been an automatic C-section.” Meagan: Yeah. They wouldn't have entertained that at all. Georyana: Yeah. He put her on my chest. It was so surreal. I was like, “Wow. My body did this. God really did this to me.” We went on over to the bed. They weighed her. She was 6 pounds and 3 ounces. Meagan: Aw, your tiny little thing. Georyana: Yeah, she was tiny which also helped me. Yeah. Shortly after, I started breastfeeding. With my first, with my son, that was something I really wanted to do, but he never really quite latched so I just pumped for 2 years. For this one, I didn't really expect to breastfeed, I was like, “If it happens, good. If it doesn't, then whatever.” But when she started breastfeeding, I was just like, “Wow, my body is doing this too.” The connection that I just feel with her that I have is just out of this world. That was my experience. Meagan: Wow. Had your midwife done breech before? Georyana: She says that obviously when she was in training with other midwives before she went solo, she had experienced breech births, but this was her first time solo and alone. Technically, she's not allowed to deliver breech babies under law. If she knows, she needs to automatically send me to the hospital. Meagan: But if the baby's knees are coming out, and baby comes out like that, what are you going to do?Georyana: Yeah, exactly. You don't really have any other option than to just deliver the baby.Meagan: Oh my goodness. Wow. That's an amazing story. This is so awesome. Oh my gosh. This postpartum has been much better?Georyana: Yeah, it has. During the first one, like I said, I suffered from anxiety and panic attacks. I didn't really get that this time around. What I got this time around was anger. Meagan: Hmm, okay. So some postpartum rage? Georyana: Yeah, it was rage, and I guess just handling two kids and the transition from one to two hit me hard. I didn't really know how to understand that. But the same thing around, just being able to give myself grace, I had a postpartum session with my midwife and my doula being able to let them know how I felt was very good. It was very helpful. Speaking with my pastor and just letting them know my feelings and how I felt really helped me. It really helped me. I'm doing so much better now. This postpartum has been amazing. A lot of breastfeeding, a lot of cuddles and snuggles. Seeing my son play with his sister was something I always dreamed of, being able to have two kids. Meagan: Oh, what a beautiful story. Thank you so much for sharing. Huge congrats. This little ball right here is just stunning. Her head, oh my gosh– her head of hair is just insane. She has so much hair. That is just so much fun, and I'm so happy for you.Georyana: Thank you so much, and thank you for having me. Meagan: Absolutely. ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

“In that moment, I knew that was the last time I would see her. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I knew I could not go back to her.”How do you feel when you meet with your provider? Are you excited for your appointments? How does your body react? Are you tense or calm and relaxed? Jessica's first birth began with an induction that she consented to but didn't really want. Her waters were artificially broken, and her baby just was not in a great position. After over 4 hours of pushing and multiple vacuum attempts, Jessica consented to a Cesarean. Listen to Jessica's VBAC story to find out what she did when she realized at 37 weeks that her provider was NOT actually VBAC-supportive.Sometimes difficult situations actually work out even better than we hoped!How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Welcome, Jessica, to the show. I am so excited that you are here and excited to hear your stories and actually talk a little bit more about what you do. Do you do it for a living, or is this just your passion project or whatever they call it? Is it your side job?Jessica: It's on the side. It's volunteer. My main job is a stay-at-home mom right now. Meagan: Yes. You're homeschooling, right? Jessica: I am. Meagan: Oh my gosh. One of my best friends homeschools. I just praise you guys. Homeschooling is legit. It is very hard. That seems so hard. Jessica: It's definitely a lifestyle. It's different. It's not for everybody, but it's definitely for us. My daughter is only 5 so we are just getting used to it. Meagan: So Kindergarten?Jessica: She just turned 5 a couple of weeks ago, so we are technically doing 4-K right now. We are just getting into it. I'm still wondering every day, “Am I doing everything I should be?” I know as it goes on, I will get more comfortable and confident with it. Meagan: Yes, you will. That's what I've seen with my friend. She was like, “This is what feels right. This is what we are going to do.” It took a little bit of a learning curve, then each kid added in, but she kills it. Yes, you are just a stay-at-home mom, but a full-time teacher. Holy cow. That's amazing. Then yeah, you are doing La Leche League. Jessica: Yes. I have been a leader now for 2.5 years, just over that. I became certified. I think it was on my due date. I was trying to get everything done before my toddler was born. It's been going really great. I really like it. Meagan: Yes. Tell us more about it because when I was– this was in 2014– pregnant with my second daughter. That's when I heard about La Leche League. Tell us more about it and why someone would want to find their local leader, and then what all the benefits are and how to find them. Jessica: Sure. I first heard about La Leche League when my oldest was maybe about 9 months, so right away in my breastfeeding journey, I had no idea about it. I wish I had because it would have been great to have a community of support. I started feeling really passionate about breastfeeding and knew I wanted to help other moms with it because it can feel really isolating, especially because it was in the middle of the pandemic. I started researching ways that moms can help other moms with breastfeeding because I had no other background in it. I'm not a nurse. I didn't work in the labor world. I just stumbled upon it, and I lived in Madison at the time. I saw that Madison had a chapter. They weren't doing meetings at the time because everything was virtual. But I just reached out, and I said, “I want to be a leader. Tell me what I need to do.” They emailed me back, and I got in touch with another local leader there who had been there for a while. She was surprised. She was like, “You want to be a leader, but you don't even know what we do. You've never been to a meeting.” I just said, “Yes. That is what I want to do.” It was kind of a long process to become a leader because everything was virtual. They didn't know how to go about that. Meagan: Yeah. Jessica: So it took a little bit of a long time to become accredited as a leader. Meagan: Does it now or is it in person? Did it stay virtual? For someone who may want to?Jessica: I think everything is back to in-person. At least where I live now, Madison I know is back to in-person now too. Everything is probably running a little bit more smoothly now in terms of if you are interested in becoming a leader. Basically what leaders do is that we get some training within La Leche League, but we are your cheerleaders. We are here to support you. We are the middle ground between if we need to refer you somewhere for some additional help if it's beyond our scope of practice of basic breastfeeding positioning, latching, or if you have questions of, “My baby is doing this. Is it normal?” That's what we do. We have support groups every month for anybody to really join. Meagan: Awesome. Jessica: It's fun. Meagan: Where can someone find it if they're wanting to learn more? When it comes to breastfeeding, it sounds weird because you don't have your baby yet, so why are we talking about breastfeeding? Why are we thinking about it? But I really believe that connecting before we have our babies with an IBCLC or a La Leche group is so important before you have your baby. If someone is looking, where can they find information or try to search for a chapter in their area? Jessica: You can just look up your state La Leche League. There should be a website that has all of the local chapters. They are all over the world, so you should be able to find somebody near you. Even if there's not one near you, you can contact anybody. Let's say they are 2 hours away. You can still call or text or email. They'll usually, if you want to do something more in person, you can do some type of Zoom meeting. You can definitely find anybody to talk to. You're right. It's really important to get support before you even start breastfeeding if you know that's something you want to do. I always say that breastfeeding is natural, but it doesn't always come naturally. You don't know what to do in the beginning unless you talk to somebody. Meagan: Yes. We will make sure to have the website linked in the show notes too, so if anyone is wanting to go search, definitely go check it out. Okay, now we are going to give a little teaser of what your episode is going to be about today. So, with your C-section, give us a little teaser of what your C-section was for. Jessica: So, my first birth went really smoothly and my pregnancy. I really liked my doctor. I really liked the hospital. It was a group of OBs of all women. I met with each of them. I really liked all of them, to be honest with you. They were all very supportive of whatever you wanted to do.Meagan: Which is awesome. Jessica: Yes, it is. I knew I wanted to have a vaginal birth. That was all I really knew, but I was also really young, I think. I was 23 for most of my pregnancy. I didn't really educate myself beyond my doctor's appointments. I trusted them to pretty much tell me what I needed to know, and that was it. That was my bad. Meagan: Yeah. Hey, listen. That is something I can relate to so much. I was also in my young 20s and just went in. Whatever they said, or whatever my app said, is what happened. I think that's a little tip right there that says, “Let's not do that.” Let's not do that. Then for your VBAC, you had a bait and switch. I'm really excited, when we get to that point, to talk about bait and switch because it is something that happens. It can feel so good and then feel so wrong within minutes. It's really frustrating, but I want to talk more about that in just a minute. We do have a Review of the Week, so I want to hurry and read that, then get into Jessica's story. This reviewer is by diabeticmamawarrior. It says, “A podcast to educate the mind, heal the heart, and strengthen the soul.” It says, “Hi. I am writing this podcast from Seattle. We are currently pregnant with my second baby due in March of 2022.” This was a little bit ago. It says, “My first son was born at 28 weeks via classical Cesarean due to severe IUGR.” For anyone who doesn't know IUGR, that is intrauterine growth restriction.“--and after hearing I would never be able to VBAC, I decided to do as much educated research as I could and to find my options was truly needed. I am also a Type 1 Diabetic and have successfully found an amazing midwife who not only feels comfortable and confident assisting in care through my pregnancy with my diabetes, but also with my special scar, and we are aiming for a successful VBAC. I am also receiving concurrent care with an OB/GYN as well to make sure appropriate monitoring of baby looks good throughout pregnancy. Listening to this podcast was one of the first resources I found, and it was a total GAME CHANGER.” It says, “Thank you, beautiful women, who bravely and shamelessly share your stories so that other women can also feel confident in making empowered decisions for their baby and their body. I am soon to join the legacy of women who have fearlessly VBAC'd happy and healthy babies. Much love, Ellen”. Meagan: Wow. What a beautiful review. Jessica: That was powerful. Meagan: Yes. What a beautiful review. That was a couple of years ago, so Ellen, if you are still listening, please reach out to us and let us know how things went. Okay, girl. It is your turn. It is your turn to share, just like what Ellen was saying, your beautiful stories, and empower other Women of Strength all over the world. Jessica: That review just reminded me that a long time ago, I reviewed the podcast, and you read it on one of the episodes. Meagan: Did we?Jessica: We did. I remember thinking, “This is so cool. I wonder if I could be on someday.” I'm sure you hear this all the time, but it's very surreal being here knowing I listened to this podcast to help me heal. I'm just super excited to share my story. Meagan: I am so glad that you are here, and I'm so glad that we were able to read your review. We love reading reviews. It is so fun when we can hear the review, hear the journey, and then now here it is hearing the stories. Jessica: Yes. Meagan: Yes. Okay, well I'd love to turn the time over to you. Jessica: Like I said, I was introducing my story with my first. I just clicked through a birth course breastfeeding course that the hospital provided for me. I clicked through it to get it done and to check it off my list. Meagan: Birth education– yes, I did. Jessica: That's exactly what I did. I'm prepared, whatever. I'm just going to go into this, and everything will happen like it's supposed to. Mentally, everything was going well in my pregnancy. I wasn't super eager to give birth. I wanted to wait to go into labor on my own. I think what started to bother me or what made me a little bit more antsy was when I was 37 weeks. I agreed to have my cervix checked for dilation, and I was 3 centimeters already. I was so excited, and the doctor said, “I don't even think you're going to make it to your due date,” which made me think, “Wow. I'm going to have this baby in the next 2 weeks. I'm not even going to make it to my due date. This is so exciting.” If any of your doctors ever tell you that, don't let it get into your head because that doesn't mean anything if you are dilated. I was 3 centimeters continuously. Meagan: Yeah. You can walk around at 6 centimeters, not even kidding you. My sister-in-law was at 6 centimeters for weeks, and nothing was happening. She was just at 6 centimeters. It can happen when you are just walking around. Try not to let them get into your head, or to get nervous when you're like, “I could have a baby at any second.” It gets in our heads, and then when we don't have a baby, it's infuriating and defeating. Jessica: That is pretty much what happened. When I got to my 39-week appointment, I was still 3 centimeters. I just expressed how I was frustrated. I was tired of being pregnant. My doctor said, “Well, let's set up your induction.” I had never even thought of being induced at that point. It was never mentioned. It never crossed my mind. It sounded so intriguing at that moment to just get this over with. I don't want to be pregnant anymore. My sisters had been induced, and they had a good experience. It will go the same for me. Everything in my head was telling me, “Don't do this. You know you don't want this,” but I did it anyway because I had it in my mind that I should have had my baby already anyway based on what they told me a couple of weeks ago, so it would go so smoothly. She said, “You are a great candidate. You are already 3 centimeters.” We scheduled it. I think it was that Friday I went. It was Monday, on Labor Day, that we had my induction scheduled for. I didn't have a lot of time to even process that. Meagan: Yeah. Did they say how they wanted to do it, or did they just say, “Come in. Have a baby”?Jessica: They briefly told me that they would start with Pitocin and see how my body responded to that. They would probably break my water which is exactly how it happened anyway. Meagan: Yeah.Jessica: Yeah.They started me with Pitocin at 3:00 PM. They kept increasing it, then by 6:00 PM, my body was just not responding to it. I didn't feel anything. The doctor who was on call wasn't my normal doctor, but I saw her a couple of times. I was comfortable with her. She came in and said, “Well, we could break your water. Is that what you want to do?” I said, “Sure. If that's what you think we need to do, let's do it.” Meagan: Yeah, I'm here to have a baby. What's going to get me there?Jessica: Yeah. She was head down, so I thought, “What could go wrong? She's already head down.” I didn't know at the time that just because she was head down doesn't mean she's in a great position. She wasn't. She was– what do they call it?Meagan: Posterior? Jessica: ROT. Meagan: Right occiput transverse. Okay, so looking to the side. Sometimes, when we say transverse, a lot of people think the body is transverse which is a transverse lie, but ROT, LOT, left or right occiput transverse, means the baby's head is looking to the side, and sometimes, that can delay labor or cause irregular patterns because our baby is just not quite rotated around or tucked. They are looking to the side. Jessica: Right. That was pretty much what the obstacle was because when they broke my water, she engaged that way, so her head never was able to turn properly which we didn't know yet. I feel like the doctors could have known that because aren't they supposed to be able to feel and know maybe a little bit of where they are? Meagan: Yeah. So providers can. They can internally, and it depends on how far dilated you are. If you were still 3 centimeters, probably not as well, but at 3 centimeters AROM, where we are artificially breaking it, that's not ideal. Usually, the baby is at a higher station at that point too. I call it opening the floodgates. We get what we get however that baby decides to come down, especially if baby is higher up and not well-applied to the cervix.If baby is looking transverse and hasn't been able to rotate right during labor, then they come down like that, and then we have a further obstacle to navigate because we've got to move baby's head. I will say that sometimes a baby might be looking transverse and mainly through pushing, a provider can sometimes rotate a baby's head internally vaginally, but you have to be fully dilated and things like that. Can they feel through the bag of waters? If they can feel a good head, yes. Sometimes they can. Sometimes they can't, but again, there are all of these things that as a doula anyway, I help my clients run through a checklist if they are going to choose to break their water. Sometimes within your situation, I'd be like, “Maybe let's wait.” But their view was, “Let's get labor going. We are starting Pitocin. The body's not responding,” which we know is a number-one sign that the body isn't ready. Sometimes we still can break water with better head application and with the water gone, it can speed labor up. That's where their mind was. Their mind probably wasn't, what position is this baby in? Where is this baby at? What station is this baby at? It's like, let's get this baby's head applied to the cervix. Jessica: Yes. I mean, it did work. As soon as my water broke, I immediately when into active labor. The Pitocin contractions were very awful. I felt them immediately because not only did my body start going into labor, but then the Pitocin also was making it worse. Meagan: Yes. Yes. Jessica: So I begged for an epidural right away even though I knew that's not what I wanted. I didn't do a lot of preparing for labor, but I know I didn't want an epidural right away. I remember the very sweet nurse I had saying, “Do you want me to run the bath for you?” I said, “Are you crazy? That is not what I need right now.” Meagan: She's like, “I'm trying to help you with your birth preferences.” J: I know. She was so nice. I apologized to her after later on when I saw her. That was the head space I was in. I just needed that pain to be gone. They ended up turning the Pitocin off eventually because my body just did what it needed to do on its own. Meagan: Good. Jessica: I didn't get much rest after that. I couldn't really sleep. I was too excited. But it wasn't very long until I was ready to push after that. I think at about 7:00 PM, I got the epidural, and at midnight, I was ready to push. I kept trying and trying. 4.5 hours went by until she was just not coming over. I don't know if it was my pelvic bone or something. That's when we knew she was not going to turn. They suggested that we try the vacuum. I didn't know what that was. That was very traumatic because the lights were bright. Everyone was in there. I remember my doctor saying, “Okay, we have one more attempt with this vacuum, and that's our last attempt.” Of course, it didn't work because in my mind, I knew it was my last chance. It was not going to work, and it didn't. I was really upset after that. I remember crying saying, “I don't want a C-section.” I was really afraid of it. But, that is just what we had to do to get her out at that point after attempting the vacuum. I remember being wheeled down to the OR and just being so tired and not knowing how I was going to take care of a newborn after having surgery and being so tired. I had been up for 24 hours. The C-section went fine. I was out of it though. I was passing out here and there just being so tired. They had to tell me to actually look up. “Your baby's here. Look up.” I remember opening up my eyes going, “What?” I was forgetting what I was doing. Meagan: Out of it. Jessica: Yeah. I was very much out of it. But after that in the hospital, I wasn't too upset about having a C-section. I was just so excited about having my baby. It really didn't hit me until we were on the way home from the hospital. I started crying and was so upset. I felt like my experience was stolen from me because I felt like  I was so mad at my doctor for bringing up an induction at that point knowing if she didn't, I would have never asked for one anyway. I had a lot of regrets about everything. In those couple of weeks after having her, your hormones are very up and down anyway. One moment, I would be fine. One moment, I would be really, really upset crying about it. I wanted to redo her birth so badly that it almost made me want another baby. “If we just have another kid, we can try again,” even though I had this 3-week-old next to me. Meagan: Yeah. Jessica: I was not thinking very clearly. Meagan: You were craving a different experience. That's just part of your processing. Jessica: Yes. And looking back, I wonder if I was struggling with some PTSD because I would lie there at night not being able to sleep, and I would suddenly smell when they were cauterizing the wound. I would suddenly smell that again and think I was back in the OR. It wasn't very fun. Meagan: Yeah. It's weird how sometimes the experience can hit you in all different stages and in different ways, but right after, you're like, “No. No, no, no. I need something different. Let's have another baby right now. Let's do this.” So once you did become ready to have another baby, what did that look like? What did that prep look like? Did you switch doctors? You liked your whole practice. How did that look for you?Jessica: Well, we moved. I knew I had to find another doctor. I would have anyway in Madison. I would have gone with a group of midwives that somebody I knew had a good experience with, and after listening to the podcast, I wanted a midwife. But unfortunately, where we moved, we live in Green Bay now. I was so limited on which provider I could go with. In one hospital, one group, that was all I could do locally. I couldn't go with the hospital that everybody was recommending or the midwives that everybody was recommending for a VBAC. Meagan: Why couldn't you go there?Jessica: My insurance was very limited. It still is. We can only go to this one hospital and one facility for doctors. Meagan: Okay, so it was insurance restrictions. Yeah, not necessarily a lack of support in your area. It just was insurance which is another conversation for a later date. Stop restricting everybody. Jessica: I was very surprised because when we were in Madison, I could go wherever I wanted and see whoever I wanted. I ended up just choosing somebody. I liked her. She was initially very supportive of having a VBAC. I had mentioned it in my very first appointment that this was what I want. She said, “Oh, I'm so excited for you. This is going to be great.” I even mentioned that I was still breastfeeding my daughter when I was pregnant. They just seemed very supportive of all things natural and all things birth. Meagan: Everything. Jessica: Yeah. There were no issues whatsoever. I had already hired my doula when I was 6 weeks pregnant. I had already talked to them before I had even saw my doctor. I told them about how I was really limited and this was where I had to go, but I felt very supported knowing I had a doula and knowing I had somebody on my side It didn't really bother me at the time that I just had to pick whatever doctor I could. This was also a practice where the doctor I had wasn't going to be probably who I would give birth with. That also didn't bother me because I thought, “I have a doula. I have support. I know after listening to this podcast what I need to do to defend myself if that time were to come.” Meagan: Advocate for yourself, yeah. You felt more armed. Jessica: I did. I really did. I ended up seeing a chiropractor as well which was very helpful throughout my pregnancy. I loved going to the chiropractor. Not only did it help get her in a good position, but I also just didn't really feel body aches as much as I did, so there were a couple of benefits to going there. I definitely recommend a chiropractor. Meagan: I agree. I didn't go until my VBAC baby. I started going at 18 weeks, and I'm like, “Why didn't I do this with the other babies?” It was just amazing. Jessica: Yeah. It really is. But my doctor's appointments this time were very different. They were very rushed. They felt robotic. “How are you feeling? Great. Let's get the heartbeat. Any questions? No.” I really kept my questions for my doulas anyway because I really trusted them. I don't know. I didn't feel like I had many questions anyway because I knew what I wanted. I knew I wanted to show up to the hospital basically ready to push. One of the red flags, I will say, that looking back now with this provider that I had initially is that she never asked for any type of birth plan. She knew I wanted a VBAC, and I thought it was a good thing that she wasn't really asking details. I felt like, “Oh, she's letting me do my thing.” But looking back, I think it was just because she knew that's not what was going to happen. She knew. Meagan: Yeah. You know, it's interesting. We've had providers who have told people here in Utah. The client will say, “Hey, I really want to talk about my birth preferences.” The provider will say, “You're really early. We don't need to talk about that right now. We could talk about that later.” Or, “Hey, I was thinking I want to talk about this. Can we talk about that?” “No, not today. It's fine. Whatever you want.” Then it comes, and we'll hear more about your experience. I'm sure it will relate to a lot of people's bait-and-switch stories. Jessica: Yeah. They sound so supportive in the moment, and then it's not looking back. It continued on through my whole pregnancy. Even when I was 35 weeks, she suggested a cervical dilation check. I denied it at that point. I thought it was too early. 35 weeks is very early. Meagan: 35 weeks? Yeah. Jessica: I'm really glad that I stood up for myself and said no, because I was having one of those moments of, do I just do it anyway? I said no, and she was very fine with it. She said, “That's fine. You don't have to if you don't want to. We don't have to.” I also thought that was a good sign. Meagan: You're like, “Yes. If we don't have to, why are we suggesting it in the first place?” But I can also see where you're like, “Well, sweet. She's respecting my wishes. I didn't want to. She's saying, ‘Okay'.” Jessica: Exactly. But I made the mistake of agreeing to it at my next appointment because my curiosity got the best of me. I knew that it wasn't important for me to be dilated, but I was trying to compare it to my last pregnancy. At 37 weeks, I was 3 centimeters with my first. I wonder if I'm going to have a different experience this time. Let's see where we're at. I was at 0. I just thought, “That's totally normal. I have a lot of time left.” Her demeanor changed very much. It was like at my appointments before, she was a different person now. Meagan: Oh. Jessica: She said, “Well, if we're not showing any signs of labor by 40 weeks, we need to schedule your C-section.” Meagan: Oh no. Jessica: She must have noticed I was surprised. I said, “But I don't want a C-section. Did you not remember that I'm going to have a VBAC?” She said, “Well, you don't want to risk your baby's life.” Meagan: Bleh. Barf. No. Jessica: Yes. Yes. I knew that was just a scare tactic. I luckily was not phased by it. I was educated. I mentioned something along the lines of, “Well, wouldn't we try to induce me before we jump ahead to the C-section? There's no medical need.” My pregnancies were so boring. There was nothing that would indicate anything, not even an induction, but I thought, “Why not even just mention that before a C-section?” She said something like, “There are too many risks involved.” That was the end of the conversation on her end. She pretty much wrapped it up and said, “It's pretty slippery out there. Be careful,” and walked out. Yeah. The conversation was over. In that moment, I knew that was the last time I would see her. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I knew I could not go back to her. I went back to the parking lot. I was crying. I texted my doulas right away what happened. I said, “I need to figure something out very quickly. I'm 37 weeks. I know I can't go back to her. Can you please help me figure something out?” They were so, so extremely helpful with helping me figure out my options. I thought that at this point– in the beginning of my pregnancy, I knew, “I'll just stand up for myself. I know what I want,” but when you are very big and pregnant, and you are very vulnerable, you don't want to do all of that arguing. You just want somebody who is going to support you. I just knew I couldn't go back to her. I didn't have the energy to try to defend myself or advocate for myself. I just needed somebody who was already going to support my decisions. They encouraged me to look a little bit further out of Green Bay which I didn't initially want to do. I wanted the hospital to be close. I had a 2-year-old. I didn't want to be far away from her. But knowing I had limited options, I looked a little bit farther out. I texted them, “Hey, there is this doctor who I can go to in Neenah. It's pretty far. I said her name. I don't know if I'm supposed to say doctors' names. Meagan: You can. Yeah. You can. People will actually love it so they can go find support themselves. Jessica: Yeah. I said, “There is this doctor, Dr. Swift, who is down in Neenah. That's the only one who is really popping up on my insurance who I can go to.” They immediately texted back, “You need to go see her. She's amazing.” My doula had actually had her VBAC with Dr. Swift. They were like, “You need to go see her. This your other option.” Meagan: Oh, Sara Swift is on our list of providers. Jessica: She is. She's amazing. Meagan: She is. Okay, so you're like, “I've got this doctor's name.” Jessica: I called them to make myself an appointment, and I wasn't able to get in until the following Friday. It would have been after I was 38 weeks. I told doula– Meagan: That's when you had your last baby, right?Jessica: No, actually my last baby was at 39 weeks, but I didn't know what was going to happen. I told them, and my doula was actually personal friends with her. She said, “No, that's not going to work. I'm going to text her, and I'm going to get you in sooner.” I think it was a Wednesday at that time. I was able to go see her Friday. Yeah. Meagan: A week earlier than you would have been able to. Jessica: Yeah. I helped me to feel more relieved knowing that if I had gone into labor before that next appointment, I would have known where to go. I would have had a doctor established. I was very, very relieved to see her. It was such a different experience than my other doctors. I had to bring my two-year-old with me, and at that point, she was getting antsy, so Dr. Swift actually sat on the ground with my daughter and was coloring with her while we were talking to keep her busy. I just remember thinking, “There's no other doctor out there who would do this for a very pregnant patient.” It felt very much like a conversation between friends. It didn't feel like a robotic type of conversation I had with my previous doctor. She very much upfront said to me, “Our hospital has VBAC policies. Here they are. You can deny anything you want. They're not going to allow you to eat food, but if you say you want to eat food, you can eat. They're going to want continuous fetal monitoring, but if that's not what you want, tell them what you want.” It felt like she just was supportive of what I wanted to do. She said something along the lines of, “I'm going to trust you and your body to make the decisions that you need to, but also know that if I need to step in, trust that I'm going to do what I need to.” It felt so mutual there. I was so excited to go back and see her every week. I'm actually kind of mad that I waited that long to see her. Meagan: Yeah. Mhmm. I'm sure you felt like you were breathing in a whole different way. Jessica: I was. I felt very excited. The drive was longer, but it didn't even matter at that point. I went from a 15-minute drive to 45 and it didn't feel like there was any difference. It was all worth it. Meagan: I agree. It's sometimes daunting with that drive or the time, but you guys, it's so worth it. If you can make it work, make it work. I'm so glad. Okay, yeah. So you found this provider. Everything was feeling good. Jessica: It was feeling great. I actually ended up going past my due date. Meagan: Okay. Jessica: I was feeling a little bit– not defeated– I wanted to make it to my due date because I wanted to make it there with my first. I was excited when I got to my due date, and then I thought, “Okay, when is this actually going to happen? I've got a two-year-old.” My in-laws were coming up to watch her when we were going to the hospital. They live 2.5 hours away. I was starting to worry about, how is this all going to work out? But it really did. I felt my very first contraction two days after my due date. It was a Friday night at 6:30. We were getting my daughter ready for bed, and I felt that first contraction. I knew it was different than Braxton Hicks. I just knew, but I don't even know to say if that's when my labor started because that continued all throughout the weekend every 15 minutes. It was not a fun weekend. I kept thinking things were going to pick up, and then they would die down. Meagan: Prodromal labor maybe. Jessica: Yeah, I think so. At one point, I had my doula come over in the middle of the night. I didn't know when to go to the hospital. I didn't know if it was time or whatever. She came to my house in the middle of the night just to help me with the Miles Circuit and just the different position changes I could do. I believe that was on that Friday night that I started labor. I was also able to get into the chiropractor that weekend. They were closed, but again, my doula was very close friends with the chiropractor and texted, “Hey, Jessica could really use an adjustment. She's not in labor, but it's not progressing. Can you help her?” I went to go see them on Saturday and on Sunday just to get things moving. She was in a really great position. Everybody could feel that she was just in the perfect position. It was just that these contractions could not get closer together no matter what I tried. Something told me, “Hey, you need your water broken for this to progress,” because I couldn't do it anymore mentally or physically. I was exhausted. I didn't want to initially because I knew that's what prevented me from having the birth that I wanted in the first place with my first experience, but something also told me, “Hey, you need to go do this.” My intuition was super strong in those moments where I knew. My intuition was strong enough to switch doctors that late in my pregnancy. There wasn't another option. This time also, my intuition told me, “You have to go in, and they have to break your water.” I knew Dr. Swift would be supportive of that because she was supporting any type of birth plan I really wanted. She told me at any point, I could be induced, but that she wouldn't bring it up again. It was my decision. On Sunday night after we got my daughter to bed, we drove to the hospital. We let them know we were coming. Our doula met us there, and we just told them our plans. Dr. Swift, I remember, said, “Well, if I break your water now, you're so exhausted from the whole weekend. Do you want to try sleeping for a little bit and we will do it in the morning?” I said, “I can't sleep. I'm having these contractions every 15 minutes.” It was really funny. She said, “Well if you want to sleep, I'll give you something to help you sleep.” If anybody has ever met her or knows her, she's got a great personality. It was just funny in that moment. It's what I needed in that moment to have a good laugh. I was like, “Yes. Give me anything I need right now to rest just a little bit before the morning.” In the morning, she came back in around 8:00 or 8:30. I don't remember what time it was. She said, “Yep. Let's do this.” They double-checked me again to make sure she was in a great position. At that point, I was actually 4 centimeters. I forgot to bring that up. Meagan: Yay, okay. Great. Jessica: Yes, so those contractions I was experiencing over the weekend were productive. I felt better about that. I didn't want to break my water with being one of two centimeters. I felt good. Again, my intuition was telling me, “You need to do this.” Yeah. They did, and once again, it immediately put me into active labor. My doula was helping me with counterpressure, then they ended up running a bath for me which was very helpful. I was skeptical. I did not think that was going to work. When they were filling it, I remember thinking, “This is a waste of my time. This is not going to work,” but it was very helpful. At one point in the bath, I just remember feeling, “Okay, now I have to get out and I have to start moving around.” As soon as I got up, I just remember feeling things intensify. I got that feeling in my head like, “I can't do this anymore.” I knew that at that point, it was getting close because of that feeling of, “I can't do this anymore.” Meagan: Yeah, mhmm. Jessica: I had just a moment of weakness and I said, “I want an epidural right now.” Even though I knew in my mind that it was too late, I couldn't help but ask them for that epidural. Thankfully, my doula knew that's not what I wanted, so she helped prolong that process. She said, “Well, why don't we start with a bag of fluids and we'll see how it goes from there? We can ask them, but they might be busy.” That's exactly what I needed. I knew that's not what I wanted. Meagan: She knew that, and she knew how to advocate for you, and she knew you well enough what you needed to prolong it. Jessica: Yes. I'm very thankful for that because she could have said, “All right, let's get it right now.” But she knew and I had made it very clear that was not what I wanted to do. We started with a bag of fluids, and at that point, I could feel my body start to push itself. This was about 3 hours after my water was broken. It was a very quick process from then until that moment. While I was pushing, the anesthesiologist did come in the room. I remember the anesthesiologist did come in the room, and I remember he said something like, “Who's ready for the epidural?” My doctor said, “No, we're having a baby. Get out.” He came in in the middle of me pushing, and I feel like I scared every other mom there with how loud I was, but I couldn't help it. Meagan: Sometimes you just have to roar your baby out. Listen, it's okay.Jessica: I really did. I really did roar her out in 20 minutes. Meagan: Wow. Jessica: After that, I don't remember feeling any other pain. The pressure was gone, and I remember just feeling like, oh my gosh. I did it. She's here, and I get my skin-to-skin with her which I didn't get the first time. I get to have this experience. I can't believe I actually did it. Meagan: And you did. Jessica: I did. Meagan: You did it. Jessica: There is so much more than you just having that VBAC. Throughout the journey, you grew. You grew as an individual. You grew as a mom listening to your intuition. You really, really grew, and then to have that baby again placed on your chest, oh, how amazing and how redemptive. Meagan: It was so redemptive and healing. In that moment, I didn't feel any type of way about my C-section anymore. I wasn't upset about it. I really had a feeling that it happened for a reason because if it didn't, I don't think I would have tried to educate myself about birth. I would have probably done it a second time, an induction, if it went well the first time. I also don't think I would have fought so hard the first time to breastfeed because I felt like I had to make it work. I didn't get the birth I wanted, so I had to make this work at least. I personally think that my C-section happened for a reason the first time. In that moment, I remember feeling a wave of, “I'm not upset anymore. I got this experience.”Meagan: Yeah. You know, it's interesting. I kind of had that same view to a point. I do feel a little grumpy with how my births went because knowing what I know now, I am realizing that they didn't need to happen that way. I likely never needed a Cesarean ever. I just probably didn't. But, it's the same thing like you. I wouldn't have focused so hard on this. I wouldn't have done this. I would not be the person I am today. I would not be the birth doula that I am today. I would not be the podcaster today. I don't think I would have ever started a podcast on any other topic because I'm so deeply passionate about this topic and birth and helping have better experiences, so I really hold onto those experiences and cherish them. It sounds weird because it wasn't the birth we wanted, but it's what brought us here today. Jessica: Yeah, exactly. I also wouldn't be where I am today if I didn't have my C-section. I don't think I would have been interested in birth. I love it now. I think in the future, I would love to be a doula. I just recently took an exam to become a certified lactation consultant. I haven't gotten my results back yet, but I don't think I would have gone down that path yet either if I wouldn't have had my C-section and fought so hard for breastfeeding to work. I felt like I found my passion within that circumstance that was very unfortunate, and it shouldn't have happened, but it did. Meagan: But it did, and you've grown from it. We want to avoid unnecessary Cesareans. If this podcast is for VBAC moms, it's just as much for first-time moms in my opinion because we obviously have an issue with the Cesarean rate. We do. It's a serious issue. Jessica: Yeah, it is. Meagan: But with that said, I encourage you if you are listening, and maybe you haven't been able to process your past experience yet, or you are fresh out of it, and it's very thick, and it's very heavy and dark because we know that can sometimes be that way, I hope and I encourage you to keep listening, to keep learning, and to keep growing, because that darkness will become light again. Those feelings– I don't know about go away, but they will lift. I don't know how to explain it. Jessica: You might feel different about it. You might feel different about it than you did originally. Meagan: Your perspective will change. It's going to take time. It's going to take processing. It's going to take healing. It's going to be finding the education, finding the right team, finding the right support system, but it is possible. It is really, really, really possible, and take Jessica and my word right now, because we really have been there. We really understand so many of the feelings. I know that we all process feelings differently, and we're all in different places, especially depending on the types of births that we had. I know that there are way more traumatic experiences that happen out there, but this community is here for you.We love you. We are here to support you. Keep listening to the stories. Find the groups. Find the healing, and know that it is possible to step out of this space and to grow. It's weird to think, but one day, you're going to look back and say, “I might be grateful. I might be grateful that happened.” Yeah. Like I said, I'm not happy. I'm not happy it happened, but I'm going to cherish that. I'm going to try and flip it. I've made it a positive experience that it's brought me to where I am today. It's brought me to be in a place where I can share my story just like Jessica and all of the other Women of Strength before her to help women feel inspired and to avoid those future devastations and unfortunate situations. Jessica: Yeah. Don't let anybody try to tell you not to feel a certain way about it because I've had plenty of people tell me, “But you're healthy. But you have a healthy baby, you can try again next time.” I just said, “You don't understand. You're not in my position. I know there are people who do understand me.” Most of you who are listening will understand that yes, you have a healthy baby and you're fine, but it was still not what you wanted. That experience is so personal. You want what you want. Meagan: You want what you want, and you're not selfish for wanting it. You're really not. I think that's really important because sometimes I think we are made to feel that we are selfish for wanting a different experience especially out there in the world, a lot of people say, “Why would you want that? Why would you risk that? You are selfish. Just be grateful for what you have. Just be grateful that you do have your baby and that you and your baby are okay.” No. No. The answer is no. Last but not least, I really wanted to share a little bit more about the bait and switch and how to recognize that because you guys, it can be hard to recognize. I don't ever believe that these providers are sneakily trying to fool us, but maybe they are. I don't know. I'll tell you, they do. They do fool us. I don't know if that's because our judgment is clouded or what, but I think it's important to feel that inside. What does your heart do when your provider walks in? What do your hands do? Do they clam up? Do they clench? Do they freeze? What does your body do? Are your shoulders rising up? Are they relaxed? Does your face have a smile on it? Really tune into who your provider is making you be. Are they making you a tense ball, or are they making you relaxed and excited?I mean, really Jessica, the way you are talking about Dr. Swift, it sounds like she is amazing. She's like, “Here. Here are the policies. I want you to know these. These are things that you are going to be up against. You might have to fight for intermittent monitoring instead of continuous. You might have to fight for this and this, but hey. I'm here. I'm on your side. We have these policies, but I'm here. Use your voice.” That was just so amazing. Jessica: It was amazing. I'm sad that I'm not going to have another child because I don't get to go see her for appointments then. I really wish I would have met her sooner. That's the type of doctor your need is when you actually want to go see them. That's a big difference. You're not thinking ahead of your appointment, “Well, I wonder if there is anybody else.” Meagan: Okay, I love that you said that. Check in with yourself and see if you are excited to see your provider. That's how I was. I would look forward. I would look at the calendar and be like, “Oh my gosh. I get to see my midwife this week. This is so exciting,” because I would remember the way that she made me feel when I would get there. She would embrace me with a hug. “How are you doing, genuinely? How are you doing? How are you feeling?” We would chat, and it was a conversation like you said, like two friends. It really should be that connection. I know sometimes, providers don't have the actual time, but tune into how you are feeling about seeing your provider. Are you dreading it? Are you worried about what you're going to say? Are you worried that you're going to have to be educated and come at them and say, “Well, I don't want this, and I don't want that”? What are they making you feel? If they are making you feel those genuine warm fuzzies, lean into that. Jessica: You have a good doctor then. Meagan: If you are feeling tense and anxious, I don't know. It's never too late to switch. You were switching later on. You had a further drive. There were obstacles that you had to hurdle through, but it is worth it. It is so worth it. We have a provider list, everybody. If you are looking for a provider, go to our Instagram. Look at our bio. Click on it. The very first block is supportive providers. If you have a supportive provider that you want to share, I was literally going to put Dr. Swift on this because of your testimonial of her, but she's already on it. Jessica: She was already on it too when I checked. Meagan: Yeah. If you have a supportive provider and you checked this list and they are not on it, guess what? We have made it so you can add it. Definitely add your provider because Women of Strength all over the world, literally all over the world, are looking for this type of support. Jessica: Absolutely. In case you're wondering if my other doctor ever reached out to me, I never heard a single word from her ever again. I canceled all my remaining appointments. Nobody reached out to say, “Hey, we noticed that you're not coming back. What's going on?” Anything could have been wrong when you're that pregnant and you just disappear. It was upsetting that nobody said, “What's going on, Jessica?” I was ready to let them have it because I was wanting them to reach out to say, “Why are you not coming back?” But they never called ever. Meagan: A lot of us stay because we are so worried about how our provider will feel or we have been with our provider this long. They deserve for me to stay. No. Do what's best for you. I love that you pointed that out so much. I just want to thank you again so much for sharing your journey with us and all of these amazing nuggets. I know that they are going to be loved.Jessica: Thank you so much for having me. This just feels amazing to be able to share my story when I've heard so many on here before that were so helpful.Meagan: Yeah, and here you are. I love how full circle this always is, so thank you, again. Jessica: Yeah. Thank you for having me.ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

“Getting that VBAC meant everything to me. It helped so much with the trauma of it all.”At 36 weeks along with her first, Ashley started to have intense carpal tunnel pain. At 38 weeks, it was unbearable. Her provider said that delivery would be the only way to find relief and recommended a 39-week induction. Ashley had a difficult labor and pushing experience. Her provider recommended a C-section due to a cervical lip and no progress after just an hour and a half. Ashley consented and felt defeated. She started her VBAC prep the day she got home from the hospital. At 29 weeks with her second, Ashley had plans for a beautiful trip to Saint Thomas with her husband and toddler. She began contracting the night before her flight but didn't think much of it and made it to their gate– while still contracting. As the plane was boarding, she passed a blood clot in the airport. She knew she needed to go to the hospital. In spite of many interventions trying to stop labor, Ashley birthed her baby via VBAC just hours later. She later learned that she had a possible placental abruption that wasn't detected until her doctor examined her placenta after delivery. Though Ashley's postpartum experience was tough balancing life with a newborn in the NICU for 8 weeks while having a toddler at home, the victory of having a VBAC carried her through. The power of a positive birth experience is real and worth fighting for!Pregnancy-Related Carpal Tunnel ArticleHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello, Women of Strength. It is Meagan with my friend, Ashley. Hello, Ashley. Ashley: Hi. Meagan: How are you today? Ashley: I am good. How are you doing?Meagan: I am doing great. I'm loving all of the stories we are recording and so excited to hear yours. You have a more unique VBAC in the sense that it was a very premature VBAC. Ashley: Mhmm, yep. Meagan: Yes. We are going to talk a little bit more about that. You're going to share information for NICU moms because your baby did go to the NICU. You are a mom of two and a children's therapist. Can you tell us a little bit more about what you do for work? Ashley: Yeah. I work with kids ages 4-18. Right now, I'm Telehealth only. I actually work in Tooele, Utah, but I live in North Carolina. Everything is Telehealth. It happened with COVID. I was out there during COVID. We moved and continued to do Telehealth since I've moved. I really only see 10 and up at this point. Yeah. I see a lot of teenagers all through Telehealth and it's really wonderful that I get to keep that up. Meagan: That's so awesome. That's awesome that you got to keep doing it, and that you are serving our children. I'm sure that you have lots to say about our children and their mental health that is going on out there, but there is a lot. It is a lot of these kiddos of ours. Ashley: Absolutely, yeah. It's hard and challenging, but it's also really wonderful and rewarding. I love that I get to do it. Meagan: Yeah. Well, thank you so much for all of your hard work out there. Ashley: Yeah, absolutely. Meagan: We do have a Review of the Week, so I want to get into that, then I really want to turn the time over to share both of these journeys. This review is from Sienna. It says, “After having a very hard conversation with my OB where I learned she was in fact not VBAC tolerant or friendly, I texted my best friend through tears pouring down my face and she immediately sent me a text back with The VBAC Link Podcast. Ever since, I have been listening to every episode of the podcast. It is so beyond helpful and inspiring for anyone preparing for a VBAC. I'm due at the September, and have made the goal to listen to every single episode before then. I can't say enough for what Meagan and Julie are doing for women like me. I can't wait to rock my VBAC.” Oh, I love that review. Thank you so much, Sienna, and I can't wait for you to have an incredible VBAC. Way to go for realizing that your provider may not be the right provider for you. I think there are so many people who walk through the VBAC journey who think they may have a supportive provider, then at the very last minute, they are having those conversations and realizing, “Oh, shoot. I may not be in the right place.” It is okay to switch and keep interviewing and discussing with your provider. If your provider doesn't feel like talking to you about your VBAC or says, “You've got months to go. We don't need to talk about that right now,” those might be red flags and things you might want to reconsider. Thank you, Sienna, for your review. If you haven't yet, please leave a review. You can Google us at “The VBAC Link” or you can leave it on the podcast platform that you are listening to us on.  Okay, Ashley. Thank you again so much for being here with us. Ashley: Yeah, absolutely. I'm so happy to be here. I never thought I would be. When I was preparing for my VBAC, I was listening every single day during my walks and I just thought, “Oh, if I get a VBAC, that would be wonderful,” but I never thought I would ever be on the show. It's crazy and wild to be here. Meagan: I love it. The more and more that we record, we learn that it goes full circle. We're in your ear all pregnancy with all these Women of Strength sharing their stories, inspiring you, building you up, and now, here you are inspiring and building others up as well. Ashley: Yeah. Yeah. It's cool to be here. Do you want me to talk about my first?Meagan: Yeah. Yeah. Every VBAC starts with a C-section, so let's start with your C-section story. Ashley: Yeah, for sure. For my first birth with my son, it was a pretty easy pregnancy for the most part. There were a couple of hiccups here and there. I had morning sickness in the beginning in the first trimester, but everything else was pretty smooth. At 13 weeks, I had a spell where I had a lot of bleeding. That was terrifying. I thought I was miscarrying. I called my provider and panicked. That was just the worst 4 hours of my life because I continuously bleed. They finally got me in for an ultrasound. They checked me and he was just really active and bouncing. They never knew why it happened, but I was fine. Meagan: Did they ever say anything about a subchorionic hematoma or anything like that?Ashley: That kind of sounds familiar, so that could have been it for sure, but I don't remember. But it stopped. After my ultrasound, the bleeding was done, and everything was fine. It was the weirdest thing, but definitely so scary. Yeah, it was terrifying. That was bad, and after that, after the first trimester, my morning sickness went away and everything was good for the most part. What happened though, I took birth classes. I took breastfeeding classes. I didn't do a ton of research. I just took my little birth class, and I thought that was enough. I actually think I skipped the C-section part. I was like, “I'm not going to need that.” I don't know why I was so weirdly confident that I was going to be able to have a vaginal birth, but it literally was something that I'm like, “I'm good,” and I didn't put much thought into it. I don't know why I did that. Meagan: A lot of people do. It's not what we want. It's not what we think is going to happen, so we just push it aside. Ashley: Yeah. Yeah. I didn't do any research at all, so I didn't need to know about that. I didn't want it obviously, so yeah. Everything was good until about 36 weeks I would say. I started to get carpal tunnel and it just got progressively worse and worse. It was bad. The last month of my pregnancy, it was unbearable. My fingers and wrists were numb 24/7. It was waking me up at night how painful my hands and fingers were. I couldn't do little things. I couldn't put a necklace on anymore. I couldn't put my earrings in because I couldn't use my fingers. It was so bad, and it was something I didn't know happened. It was pregnancy-induced carpal tunnel. I had so much swelling in my body. That's what they said it was. My midwife who I had found and really loved, she referred me to PT. I did that. I did wrist braces every night, and nothing helped. I kind of knew that was going to happen just doing some research. They say the only thing that gets rid of it is delivering your baby basically. Meagan: Do they know why it really starts? Is it something within the blood flow? Do we know? We don't know. Ashley: I don't know. My midwife just chalked it up to the swelling. My carpal tunnel was being squeezed by the swelling. I'm pretty petite as is, and then I was carrying so much water and so much weight that I think for me, my body just didn't respond well. I had the carpal tunnel. That was at 36 weeks when it started getting pretty bad. There wasn't a lot we could do about it. I really didn't want to have an induction. I didn't know much about it either. I didn't do a ton of research, but I knew I didn't want it. I just knew I wanted it to all go as naturally as possible and for my baby to come on his own timeline. By 38 weeks, I was miserable. I was like, “I don't think I can do this.” I was pretty big and uncomfortable, but that wasn't the part that was killing me. It was the carpal tunnel. It was bad. My provider said that we could do the membrane sweep each week. We did it at 38 weeks. We did it at 39 weeks, and we decided that if nothing happened after my second sweep, we would think about an induction. I was ready. I had to stop working a week before I even wanted to because I couldn't type anymore. It hurt to type, and I do a lot of assessments with my job where I am typing all of the time, using my mouse and keyboard. It was just awful. We did the membrane sweep at 39 weeks and nothing happened. I was curb walking. I was eating the dates. I was doing the things and drinking the tea. Nothing. So at 39+5, I got admitted for my induction at 8:00 PM. They did a Foley bulb, then they did the Cervadil I believe. That was all fine. I think they also gave me morphine. I think that's when they did that to manage pain. I looked at my notes, but it's kind of hard. Some things aren't super clear. But either way, I got a really bad rash. At the time, they thought it was PUPPS, but looking back, they thought it was a reaction to the morphine. Meagan: Oh shoot. Ashley: Yeah. I was so horribly itchy. Meagan: Yeah, that's miserable. You're in pain and itchy. Ashley: Yeah, and the carpal tunnel was still active. That was still happening. I don't remember it being super uncomfortable with the Foley bulb. I was more scared of it. I was more scared than it actually was painful. I was okay. I handled it okay. So then my water broke at 2:00 AM I believe. The Foley bulb came out and they started the Pitocin by 8:00 AM I believe because I wasn't moving enough. I wasn't dilating enough. My water broke at 2:00 AM. It was in at 8:00 AM. I started an epidural, I think, at 5:00 AM before the Pitocin because I was just in a lot of pain. That epidural, though, was done by a resident which I didn't know at the time. That was one thing I really didn't want. It wasn't placed correctly, and I had a ton of breakthrough pain. It was horrible. They actually ended up rethreading that at, I don't know, 4 hours later. They had to rethread the epidural, remove it, and put it back in by someone else. It was so bad. Meagan: You just had all of the things coming at you. Ashley: Yeah. I just say everything was botched from the start. It was during COVID. There wasn't a lot of staff. I felt ignored. There were hours when I didn't see anybody. The Pitocin wasn't managed very well either. I feel like they never really increased it. Like I said, after they started Pitocin, I didn't see anybody for 4 hours. It was absolutely horrible. Meagan: Wow. So they were just outside watching your strip, and you were doing okay so they were like, “All right, we'll just leave her.” Ashley: I think so. There were no providers. There was barely anybody on staff. I shouldn't say nobody was on staff. I should say that every single room was booked. They were at capacity, and they were low-staffed. It was just not great. I started Pitocin. I finally got to 8 centimeters. I had really, really bad back pain still, and then that was when the epidural was rethreaded or redone. So then it was just waiting for me to progress, but I couldn't feel anything at that point. I think I was just maxed out on pain stuff on the epidural being rethreaded. I had no control over my body whatsoever. I couldn't feel my legs. I couldn't get up and move. It was so awful. I couldn't feel contractions. I could see it on the monitor, and they would tell me I was having a contraction, but I couldn't feel anything. By 5:00 PM, they told me, “Okay, it's time to push.” I had no urges to push because I couldn't feel anything. I started pushing. I remember just being really out of it because of the epidural. That, and I'm sure there was morphine still. I was just out of it. I did not feel good or in control of my body. I just remember they told me to push. I was pushing for an hour and a half. Every time, they'd be like, “Okay, it's time to push.” I would try to push, but I felt like nothing was happening. I couldn't feel anything. Meagan: Yeah.Ashley: Yeah. I think that was probably the biggest reason why I had a C-section. I blame it on the no feeling and no control of my body. They had me push for an hour and a half, then they said that it wasn't happening enough. I was at 9.5 centimeters. They could see his head, but they said there was a cervical lip. They told me I wasn't getting past it is kind of what they said. They said, “You're not going to be able to get past it.” So after an hour and a half, they told me– well, my midwife, and she wasn't my midwife. She was whoever was on staff. She said, “I think we should talk about different options.” C-section came into it. She didn't think I was going to get past the cervical lip. I stalled, so they had an OB come in and talk to me. They said, “Let's bring him in and get his opinion.” He said the same thing, “I just don't think you're getting past this lip, and I think a C-section is the best course.” Looking back, I'm like, “I pushed for an hour and a half and they never tried to move me.” Given I couldn't feel my body, they never tried to reposition me. Now, I know that if that had happened, give me some pressure. Help me sit up. Maybe I could put some pressure on it. I know it's swollen, so putting pressure could have made it worse, but I just think there could have been so much more done that wasn't done. Meagan: Yeah, and sometimes those cervical lips are baby's head positioning. We've been pushing and aggravating the cervix, so rotating and getting the pressure off of the wrong spot and equalizing the pressure, or getting it over can help. Or sometimes that's what it needs. It's not the swelling, the cervix is just there, and it hasn't progressed all the way, so pushing, and pushing, and pushing against that is what causes that swelling. Then movement, time, or rest– there are so many things. There are things like Benadryl or things like that and things to help swelling, but that's unfortunate. They were understaffed, so I bet they were like, “We just have to have this baby.” Ashley: I think that's a lot to do with it. I felt a lot of pressure to just get the C-section. No other interventions were offered. Nobody talked about moving. Nobody talked about letting me rest. Now I know, afterward, when I was prepping with my second birth, I was like, “Yeah, I should rest. Yeah, I should let my body move. Yes, there are things I should do.” I didn't want an epidural, or I didn't want one that strong. That was a huge mistake in my eyes. I had an epidural with my second and it was great, but with my first, they just overdosed me. They gave me way too much. I went to the OR. I had my baby via C-section. I was so out of it. They gave me more pain meds back there because they were going to cut me open, then I couldn't feel my arms when I pulled my son out. They kept trying to hand him to me, and I could not move my arms. I was like, “Please stop.” It was so traumatic because I couldn't hold him, and they kept trying to give him to me. Everything was a blur for a while. I woke up in the recovery room. I didn't get to hold my baby for 2 hours after he was born just because I was so out of it. Then I got to hold him eventually. We were back in my room. I was there for a couple of days. Yeah. Recovering from that emotionally and physically was so hard. I didn't prep for it. I didn't expect it, and looking back, I was angry that it went the way it went. I feel like it didn't have to. He ended up being 9lbs, 1oz. His head was in the 97th percentile. He had a massive head, and he was a big baby, but I do think things could have gone a lot differently. Meagan: Did he have any swelling on any part of his head that would have indicated things like asyncliticism or a bruise or anything on his head from pushing?Ashley: No, but he had a cone head. He had a very– Meagan: Okay, so he was coning and getting caput. Okay. Ashley: That's it, yeah. Meagan: Okay. I was just wondering if there was anything specific to a positional thing, but it might have just been that your cervix wasn't fully progressed before you started pushing. Ashley: Yeah, I think that had a lot to do with it. When you think about it, I was admitted at 8:00 PM. He was born at 8:00 PM. It was 24 hours and I was on my back the whole time. I was not being moved. I was not being repositioned. Like I said, there was not a lot of staff around. I was ignored. I didn't know any better. I didn't know what I should or should not be doing. I didn't know that I should be moving. I think that had a lot to do with it, a lack of moving around and I was just on my back. Meagan: Yeah. Yeah. So had him and did you immediately know you wanted a different experience or were you just such in shock with everything that you couldn't even process that? Ashley: I knew I wanted a different experience. I remember being in my bed the day we brought my day home in the bassinet, and I remember being on Instagram just looking up C-section groups and support. That's when VBAC came to mind. I was like, okay. I can have a VBAC. I can do it differently next time. We only wanted two kids, so I knew that was my chance. For my second pregnancy, I really had to dedicate myself to how my body would allow, but that was so important to me right away, to have a VBAC. Meagan: Yeah. Did you immediately find a lot of resources? Ashley: I did. I believe that's when I started following The VBAC Link. I believe that's when it happened. There were some other C-section mama groups and stuff that I followed. That was really helpful. I would read people's comments and it brought me so much relief to know other people had experiences like mine and the way I was feeling was normal. That was super helpful. Meagan: Yeah. There's something about having that community behind you, validating you, helping you feel like you're not alone in this world going through this, you're not alone in this world wanting something different. A lot of people will say, “Why can't you just be grateful? Why are you trying to figure out a new pregnancy and birth when you're not even pregnant? You just got this beautiful newborn.” It's not that I don't love my newborn, and I don't want this time with my newborn, but I'm starting my journey now to have a different experience. It's okay that I didn't like my experience. I still love my baby. Ashley: Yeah. That was what I heard a lot. I heard, “At least your baby is here and they're healthy.” I know that was just well-intentioned, but yeah. That was really traumatic. My baby is here. My baby was healthy, and it was wonderful that he was born happy and healthy, but I didn't feel right about it. I felt like I didn't have control. I felt like I didn't have a choice. I felt really pressured, and I didn't have the birth that I expected to have. That was just really, really difficult. Meagan: Yeah. You also went through a lot between the reaction, but then also with carpal tunnel. You were restricted to even move your fingers, then in your birth, you couldn't even move your arms. It went heavier. My spinal also went higher with my second up into my lungs and into my arms. I remember feeling that panicked feeling just laying there. Everyone was doing their thing and I was like, “Oh, is this going to stop? How am I going to hold my baby?” and all of those feelings. Ashley: Yeah. Meagan: Well, okay. So you had this precious baby. You decided you wanted a different experience and how did that experience start? Ashley: Yeah. The second time around, I should say with my first that it took us a while to get pregnant. It took us 13 months. I was thinking– I don't know why it took so long. We were really trying. I was thinking that maybe that would happen again. I was mentally preparing for that. We had been trying for a couple of months. We moved. Right when we started trying was when we moved another state to North Carolina. I needed to find a provider. After getting settled for a couple months and had been trying for a couple of months, I found a provider who had really great reviews. I thought, this is great. I got in with her. That was really just to first get checked up, and then second, to have a plan for if we can't get pregnant in the next couple of months, what should we do? I was thinking about that one medication you can take that releases more eggs. I wanted to ask about that because almost 35 and I wanted to be on top of it. I met with her. She was really nice, but immediately, she didn't read my chart. She didn't know about my first birth. I had to tell her about it and give her that information. After I explained what happened, she basically said that it sounded like it was an anatomy thing for me. One, it was anatomy. I said right away, “I want a VBAC. This is my goal, absolutely.” After I told her my story, she said, “Well, that sounds like anatomy. When it's that, you're more likely to have a repeat C-section.” She was like, “I'll let you try, but the odds are that you're probably going to have a C-section.” I felt so defeated when I left that appointment. I kind of just accepted it and thought, okay. That's probably what's going to happen. She's the expert. She's got great reviews. She must know. I left that appointment and again, did some research, and I started seeing that it was not really true. You still can have a VBAC. What she was telling me was not true. I needed to find a different provider. That's what that meant. I just left it at that and waited. The next month, we got pregnant which was amazing. It only took us 5 months that time which I wasn't expecting. It was super exciting. I did research for VBAC-friendly providers. I found the most wonderful doctor. Her practice is pretty much all women doctors and midwives. They're all VBAC-supportive. When I met with my doctor, she said, “That's what I prefer. 100%, I prefer to do a VBAC. I think it's safer. I would much rather do that than a repeat C-section.” She was very gung-ho and it was great. As soon as we met, she already knew my chart. She read my previous birth. That was super refreshing. I didn't have to tell her anything and she had a plan for me. She said, “If you want a VBAC, this is going to be the plan. We're going to do everything we can to avoid any type of induction and intervention. That's what we want to do.” About the carpal tunnel, it was likely to come back because it was about my body, and it was more my body and my anatomy, and how I handle swelling. The carpal tunnel was likely to happen again, but the problem was the first time around, I got induced because of carpal tunnel. If this comes back, what are we going to do? She started me on a baby aspirin right away. That was more because I ended up having preeclampsia after I gave birth. Meagan: Postpartum-eclampsia. Ashley: Yes, yep. That didn't didn't affect me that much, but yeah. She said, “We want to prevent that, so at 10 weeks, I want you taking baby aspirin.” She said, “If carpal tunnel comes back, I think we should do steroid shots and that should be able to help with the pain. It will help you manage the pain, so we can get to birth without induction or interventions.” Right there, I felt so much relief because that was the reason induction happened the first time around, but I also was a little angry because I was like, why didn't my first midwife ever talk about that? It was never brought up. It was only PT. I don't know why that way, but again if I would have had that, I think I could have had a much better pregnancy the first time around. Meagan: Yeah, and gone through a lot less pain. Ashley: More manageable. Yeah, so I left that appointment feeling really good. I found this wonderful provider, and things were going to go differently this time around. I asked about this time if my baby was bigger, and she said, “No, it's not about weight. It's not about how big your baby is. It's about the way the head is positioned and the way the head is coming out. Big babies can be delivered vaginally.” She just said all of the right things. Meagan: Yes. Yes. When you were first telling me the story from the other provider who you met, I was shaking my head. With this one, I'm throwing my hands up like yes, yes, yes. Ashley: Yeah, that's how I felt. She was wonderful. That was such a relief. It was everything for me. I left that and right away started prep for a VBAC. I already exercised lightly every day, but I started exercising. I made that a priority. I did my 2-mile walk every day. I was drinking the red raspberry leaf tea. I was meeting with the chiropractor. I met with a doula and interviewed a doula. I got that set up. Yeah, everything was pretty smooth. I had horrible morning sickness. This was worse this time around with my second pregnancy. I got horrible pregnancy acne. I had never had acne in my life, and then during my pregnancy, it was just horrible. That's the worst. Everything else was smooth sailing. Meagan: Interesting. I wonder why. Ashley: I don't know. I thought for sure I was having a girl because I never had it with my first pregnancy, so I was like, maybe I'm having a girl this time around. And my morning sickness was worse, so with my pregnancy being so different this time around, I thought it must be a girl, but it wasn't. It was another boy. Meagan: It was?Ashley: Yeah, yeah. Meagan: Maybe the testosterone. I sometimes get testosterone acne. Maybe it was the testosterone. Maybe this baby had extra testosterone creating acne or something. Ashley: Yep, perhaps. I was just so convinced that I did everything. I bought baby girl clothes and all of that.Meagan: You were convinced. Ashley: Yeah, when I found out it was a boy, I was shocked. Everything was good though for the most part. There were no big issues once we got through the first trimester. What kind of happened was, I had never truly felt contractions before because with my first, I already had an epidural when I started to have contractions. I didn't know what they would feel like. I was exactly 28 weeks. I went to the bathroom and there was mucus. I didn't know. It was a lot. I ended up looking it up a lot and it looked like my mucus plug from what I saw. I had a doctor appointment the next day and after reading a bunch of things online, people didn't seem to think it was a big deal. They grow back and sometimes that happens, so I wasn't freaking out at all about that. I saw my doctor the next day, and she said that it was okay. It probably was just part of my mucus plug. She didn't seem very concerned. The next week, I was leaving for St. Thomas on our last vacation as a family of three. It was very important to me. I wanted to go to the beach with my toddler and have uninterrupted time with him before my baby came. This was in March. My baby was coming at the end of May, so I was going to be 29 weeks. It's a good time to travel I thought. We would get this great beach vacation with my toddler. I was cleared to travel. Everything was fine, and then the Monday when I was 28 weeks and 6 days, that night was horrible. I had so much pressure and I was tossing and turning all night. I just kept thinking I had to pee. I kept getting up, trying to go to the bathroom, and coming back to bed, but there was a lot of pressure. I didn't think much of it, and I just knew I didn't get good sleep. The next day was a Tuesday. All day long, I was having tightening on my stomach and pressure, but it wasn't consistent. I feel like it was every 20 minutes to every 40 minutes. I would feel a little bit of pain. It wasn't really bad though. I wouldn't even call it pain. I would call it discomfort. I looked it up online. I was exactly 29 weeks at that point. I saw Braxton Hicks, and I was like, “That's it. I'm just having Braxton Hicks.” It didn't happen with my first, so I didn't even know the difference. I was fine. I just went about my day. We were packing for vacation. We were leaving the next day. That night, that Tuesday night, we went to bed by 11:00 PM. We had to wake up at 5:00 AM for the airport. That night was excruciating. I could not sleep. I was in pain. I was having contractions every 10 or so minutes and tossing and turning. There was lots of pressure. I woke my husband up at 2:00 AM and we started talking about, “Should I go to the hospital?” I was like, “No, I think it's Braxton Hicks. I think it will go away,” which is crazy now that I look back. It was really painful, and I was really trying to–Meagan: Talk it down to Braxton Hicks, and you're early. You don't want to think about it. Ashley: Yeah, I was 29 weeks. There was no way. Again, it did not cross my mind that it was actually real contractions because I was so early. Yeah, then there was a huge degree of denial going on. There was gigantic denial because I just wanted that vacation so badly. Not that I wanted a vacation, but I wanted that time with my son on the beach. We had been talking about it, so I just wanted to make it happen. At 2:00 AM, I woke him up. We talked about it. I was just like, “Okay. I'm going to get a heating pad and put it on my belly. I'll just lay here and hopefully that will kill the pain.” I took some Tylenol as well, and it didn't do anything. By 4:00 AM, I was like, “I'm getting in that hot bathtub, and I'm just hoping that stops this.” I was in the bathtub, which again, should have been my sign that you should leave for the hospital if you have to get into the bathtub and use the heating pad. If all of this stuff was happening, I should have gone in. By 5:00 AM, I was up. We were loading the car, and we were off to the airport. The whole time I was walking into the airport, I was stopping myself in my tracks to have a contraction. Meagan: Oh my goodness. Ashley: I was walking through the airport stopping, catching my breath, then I'd keep walking. It is absolutely wild that I got that far. It was a far walk to our gate. I was doing that a lot, and finally, we got to the gate. We were waiting to board. We were 5 minutes from boarding. People are actively boarding the plane. We are waiting to board last. I was like, “I'm just waiting to go to bathroom.” I go to the bathroom, and that's when I passed a quarter-sized blood clot. I had light bleeding on top of that. I came back, and I looked at my husband and said, “I can't get on that plane. I have to go to the hospital,” but I said, “You guys get on the plane, you and our son. Get on the airplane, and I will drive myself.” We had our car there. I was like, “I'm going to go to the hospital, and I'll just rebook my flight for tomorrow. I'll come out and meet you guys in St. Thomas.” Meagan: Oh my gosh. Ashley: We debated that. My husband went back and forth for a couple of minutes. He was like, “I don't think that's a good idea.” I was like, “No, it's fine. They're going to check me out and release me. I'll meet you guys tomorrow.” Thank God he was like, “No. Let's not do that.” Meagan: Yeah, seriously. Ashley: I still just thought everything was fine. I really thought that. I wanted to go so badly. We ended up that they had to get all of our baggage off of the plane. The crew was really annoyed with us, but so be it. Meagan: Whatever. Ashley: Yeah. We held up the flight a little bit for sure, and then I couldn't even at that point walk back to the car. We called a wheelchair. Someone came and wheeled me out to our car. The hospital was only 20 minutes from the airport which was great. We got to the valet and we couldn't bring my son in, so while my husband talked to the front desk, I waited in the car with my son. They said that my son couldn't come into triage, so me and my husband obviously couldn't leave him in the car. I just walked myself into the hospital. I got seen by triage, and right away, they took me back to the room. I said I was having contractions. They were monitoring me, and they were like, “It doesn't really look like contractions.” I was like, “Okay, well something is happening. I'm in a lot of pain.” They put the monitor on me and didn't see anything. Then they admitted me to one of the rooms in triage. They really wanted to check me, but I was not having that. I did not want to be checked. They really wanted me to go home. They ended up giving me an ultrasound, and everything came back normal with baby which was great, but they were like, “We don't understand why you're in so much pain,” because they still weren't seeing contractions. They ended up seeing them on the monitor, and the doctor said, “I have to check you.” At this point, it was 11:00 AM. Meagan: I have to check you. Ashley: Yeah. She said, “We have to. We don't know what's going on with your body. You're in a lot of pain, so we won't know unless we check you.” She was really kind about it. I didn't feel pressured because I had already turned it down. They had asked me and asked me, but they were like, “We don't know what's happening. We have to know where you're at.” She checked me and when she was done, she looked at me and said, “You're at 3.5 centimeters.” I just burst into tears because at that point, I knew that it was not good. I was too far dilated for 29 weeks.She said, “You're not going to leave tonight. You're not leaving until you deliver basically because you're dilated. We have to keep you until your due date.” My due date was 11 weeks away.That was the hardest part because I knew I wouldn't see my toddler until I gave birth. That was horrible. That's what I cared about at that point. Obviously, I cared that my baby was healthy, but it was excruciating to think about that. Meagan: Mhmm. Ashley: They admitted me right away. They took me to Labor and Delivery. I told my husband because he took my toddler home. I told him, “They're keeping me.” He came back to the hospital. At that point, the plan was just to stall labor as much as possible. Let's get as far to your due date as possible. They did the magnesium drip immediately. They gave me steroid shots to help strengthen my baby's lungs. They gave me one oral medication. I can't remember what it was called, but it was supposed to help stall labor. That was all started and up and running by 1:00 PM. By 4:00, my water broke. With all of the interventions, my water still broke at 4:00 PM, and baby was coming. My water broke by 4:30, and then I was pretty much having contractions from that point on. They were pretty consistent and pretty painful. At 3:00 AM, they really started to ramp up. They were 3-5 minutes apart. They were really painful. At that point, I asked for an epidural. I was really clear that I needed it to be the lightest possible epidural. I talked about my past experience and how awful it was. I was going to try to not do an epidural, but the contractions were so intense that I was like, “I don't think I'm going to be able to push because I'm in so much pain. I can't imagine pushing through these contractions.” I had a great anesthesiologist who came in. He listened to me. He was absolutely wonderful, and he knew his stuff. He gave me the lowest possible dose just so I would be able to take the edge off of pushing. I could feel everything. That was in place by 4:20. I was complete before they did the epidural. I said that I would sit really still but to please give me the epidural. They did. I pushed for a couple of times, and he was born at 5:00 AM. I got to hold him. My husband got to cut his umbilical cord, and then I got to hold him for 30 seconds, then they had to take him up to the NICU. Meagan: Wow. Wow, wow, wow. What a change of plans dramatically, so dramatically. So once baby came out and went to the NICU, what were the next steps for you and baby? You got your amazing VBAC, but also, if I could ask, did VBAC matter at that point? Were you happy that you got a VBAC but your gears changed again to my baby is in the NICU? Tell us about that quick shift of events and what it entailed mentally. Ashley: Yeah. That relief of getting my VBAC was still so important to me. I did not want to have a C-section. I still didn't. That was still top on my mind. I was really scared when I started pushing. I kept having that fear that he was not coming out and they were going to make me have a C-section. The fact that he came out when he did, I felt relieved. That feeling of being able to actually give birth vaginally was such a great relief. It was amazing. Meagan: Yes. Ashley: But yes. I was very, very happy about that. The recovery was so much easier. He was born at 5:00 AM. By 8:00 AM, I was standing and using the bathroom. I was fine. I felt wonderful. Even with him going to the NICU, he was healthy. I knew that right away. That helped a ton, but I feel like the trauma was lessened because I got my VBAC. I can't even imagine what hell it would have been for me if I had a C-section. Meagan: Good. Ashley: He was perfectly healthy, other than being a premature baby. They didn't have any concerns at all at the beginning. He just needed oxygen basically, and he needed to be in the NICU under supervision and watched. He was 3,3 when he was born, so he was pretty tiny. Meagan: Teeny tiny. Ashley: Yeah. Even with that, it's surprising how painful that was. I thought because he was a smaller baby, it would not be as painful, but it was very painful. It was still worth it and amazing. The pain was all worth it. Yeah. Getting that VBAC meant everything to me. It helped so much with the trauma of it all. It was one thing I got to control in a situation where I couldn't. There was so much out of my control. Meagan: Yeah. It was the one thing that you had planned, prepped for, and saw happening when everything else– you should have been on the beach hanging out with your family. All of those things that you saw happening didn't happen, so to have that one thing happen, I'm sure felt amazing. Ashley: Mhmm, yeah. For sure. On that note, every single doctor we saw and nurse who came into our room was like, “Thank God you didn't get on that plane.” Everybody knew that story knew that we were supposed to literally be boarding a plane when I was actually at the hospital. I almost did. I almost did. It's wild. Yeah. Meagan: It is wild. Was there any indicator why you were having the blood clot in the airport and why you were having the bleeding? Ashley: So not until I delivered my baby and then I delivered the placenta, and the neonatal surgeon took my placenta and looked at it, and at that point, he said it looked like placental abruption. He found a 2.5-inch blood clot in my placenta, so he thinks that's why I went into preterm labor. After I learned that, I looked it up and realized that it can be deadly to my baby. It can be deadly to the mother as well. That helped with the trauma of it all to wrap my head around it and to think that if I had gone longer, something so drastic like that could have happened to myself or my baby. At that point, I was definitely thankful that I had a preterm labor because that's what brought me a healthy baby.Meagan: Yeah, wow. They didn't even discover it until after. Ashley: Yeah. They had no idea. I don't know if you typically see it in an ultrasound. I had a normal ultrasound at 20 weeks, and then they had one when I got triaged. They didn't see anything, but the surgeon who looked at my placenta said that's what it was. Meagan: Wow. Ashley: I'm so thankful. I really am. Being able to have that information helped me process it all and feel better about what happened. Meagan: I'm sure it offered some validation and took out a little bit of the why. Why did this happen? Why am I 11 weeks early? Ashley: Yeah. They sent the placenta off for, what's the word? Meagan: Testing? Ashley: Yeah, they sent it off for an autopsy. It came back inconclusive and the doctor said that can happen with placenta abruption too so that was inconclusive, but again, the surgeon said that's what he thought it was, so I'm going to accept that and be so thankful that my baby is here. When I think about what could have happened if I would have waited or if my pregnancy would have continued to progress, I really feel so lucky that it actually happened. That helped. Meagan: You know what? It just confirms to me how amazing our bodies are. When something happens outside of the norm, it responds. It's like, “Okay. This is happening. Now my job is to get this baby out.” How incredible is that? It's just crazy. Ashley: Yeah. With all of the interventions, he was coming. I just say that he's a smart guy. He knew he needed to get out. He knew he needed to vacate, and he did. I'm just so happy for that. Meagan: Good. I'm so glad too. So then, having a NICU baby, how long did he stay in the NICU?Ashley: They anticipated 11 weeks which would have been his due date. He ended up getting out at 8. He was there for 8 weeks. He was 37 weeks when he was released which was surprising. He did wonderfully, so that was just so great that he got out when he did a couple of weeks early. But yeah, 8 weeks in the NICU. It was a long time. Meagan: That's a very, very long time. Do you have any tips for parents who may have a NICU baby in the future or anything like that? Ashley: Yeah. I think the biggest thing for me, the first couple of weeks, we went every single day, but we didn't put a ton of pressure on ourselves to stay for too long. At that point, he really just needed his rest, and he didn't need to be stimulated by us at all. They didn't want him to be stimulated. They gave us a couple of hours which was great, but I really let go of the guilt of being there 24/7. There were parents I saw who were there 24/7, and I would compare myself and feel guilty that I wasn't doing the same. I also had a toddler at home. That was a big thing. In the beginning, he didn't really need me to be there. He needed his rest. That's one thing. Give yourself a lot of grace, and do what you need to do. Your baby is getting taken care of under the best supervision. We had the best doctors and nurses. We didn't need to feel guilty about that. The other thing I didn't know until a couple of weeks before I was discharged is that we could request a lead nurse. That made a huge difference too because every day, we had a different nurse, a night nurse, a different daytime nurse, and different weekend nurses. We found out from another parent that if we liked a nurse, we could request a nurse to be with our baby every single shift they had. Meagan: That's awesome. Ashley: Yeah. When we learned that, we got to request nurses that we loved, and it was night and day. They obviously only worked three shifts a week, both of the nurses we requested, but I knew the days that they worked, and I felt so much relief because I knew that they knew my baby, and I knew how they took care of my baby. Meagan: Yeah. That actually sounds like it would be so amazing because you do. You can be cycling through quite a few people in those 8 weeks, so to have that familiar face and that relationship that you can get established, I'm sure meant amazing things for you guys. Ashley: Mhmm, yeah. Absolutely. That's a tip I wish I would have known sooner. I really think it helped him progress too. I think people had said that having that consistent provider would be really helpful for the baby, and I really think it was. So there's that, but I think I read a lot of support groups. Again, I was in them and reading different comments. Again, I think just relying on other people. We had a friend whose baby was in the NICU, and she was wonderful. They were wonderful. Again, I think it's just finding support, and everybody said it feels horrible in the moment, but it's going to be a blip in this story. It's just going to be a blip. It was so hard to actually believe that, but now, it's like, yeah. It went by so quickly. Now he's here. He's perfect. Yeah. Meagan: It was all worth it. Ashley: It was all worth it, and I got my VBAC. It was not exactly how I wanted it, but I got it. Meagan: Yeah. You know, we've talked about it on this show where even when we get a VBAC, sometimes it's not the ideal birth or the ideal scenario or situation or even experience that we wanted. In the end, sometimes people are like, “I actually don't know if I would have chosen the VBAC,” but most of the time people are like, “It was definitely not what I expected, but I'm still happy with the outcome.” Ashley: Mhmm, absolutely. It made me want to have another baby. I've heard that on this podcast. In order to have another VBAC or to have that vaginal delivery, it was just wonderful. Meagan: Yeah, it's funny because I had my VBAC, and it was a really long labor. I'm like, “Okay. I want to do that again, but faster.” Ashley: Yeah. Meagan: Yeah. Maybe someday I'll have another one. I think we're done, but yes. Such great info that you've shared and such a beautiful story. I'm so glad that he is okay, and that you did not get on that plane and all is well. I was thinking about inflammation during pregnancy and how sometimes people can react differently. I wanted to learn more. I just looked it up really quickly about carpal tunnel affecting during pregnancy. I was shocked. This is quick research, so I don't know the deep, deep depths of studies around this, but it says that it occurs when the median nerve in the wrist is compressed causing pain, numbness, and tingling in the hand, and it's actually common during pregnancy. I didn't think it was as common, but it says it affect about 60% of women during pregnancy. Ashley: That's wild because I've only met a handful, not even a handful– I know other people. I was pregnant at the same time as a long of friends, and only two people that I know who I had talked to had experienced that. I had never met anybody else who said they had carpal tunnel. I'm sure to degrees, sure. Probably maybe mild carpal tunnel is 60% and maybe that severe is not as common. Meagan: Yeah. I'm not digging deep in because I wanted to see what it is affecting. It does say that the hormones can cause you to retain fluid, which can soften the ligaments and forms the roof of the tunnel and inflammation which also brought me down to Omega-3s. I don't know if anyone ever talked to you about Omega-3s, but Omega-3s can help because fatty acids can reduce inflammation. I struggle with inflammation just from daily activities in my joints with working out and lifting and these things. I take Needed's Omega-3's. I thought that was interesting, too. I wonder if you've struggled with some form or severity of carpal tunnel and inflammation and things like that or things swelling around the joints causing pressure and pain if Omega-3's can help. It's worth asking your provider, right? Ashley: Yeah, for sure. Meagan: I know. It just seems so crazy and like such a high number. But obviously, it happens. There are things that you can do. Sometimes it just gets so severe like in your case that you just needed to have a baby to be done with that. Well, thank you so much again for sharing your stories with us today, and congrats on your VBAC. Ashley: Thank you so much. I am so appreciative of this podcast. Literally, everything I learned about what to avoid and what to do, I got it all from The VBAC Link, so I appreciate it so much. I really think it's the driving force in me getting to have a VBAC. Meagan: Oh, that makes me so happy. Listen, Women of Strength, if you are still listening and you have recorded your story, listen to just how impactful your stories have been and the things that we share because each of these stories has nuggets of information and education along the way in addition to what we share within the podcast and the blog and on our social media. And here you are. You are just going to help someone else out there get the information and the motivation to go out and do it. Also, a reminder to not get on the plane if we are having symptoms like that. Ashley: Yeah. Meagan: Don't even consider it, and don't send your husband and your son. Ashley: Yes, thank God. Meagan: Okay, thank you so much. Ashley: Thank you. ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Rebekah's first Cesarean was a birth center transfer after her baby boy unexpectedly flipped breech during labor. Though she was confident in her decision to consent to a Cesarean, she was devastated and left with a lot to process. Right away, Rebekah's midwives instilled confidence that she was a great VBAC candidate and introduced her to The VBAC Link. Rebekah thoroughly researched and prepped for her VBAC knowing it was the path she wanted to take. She decided to stay with the same birth center as she felt so loved and supported by them. Her second pregnancy was filled with physical, mental, and spiritual preparation for her VBAC. Rebekah developed a deep connection with her baby girl and shares precious stories during both her pregnancy and labor when she knew just what her baby was trying to communicate. Rebekah's VBAC was healing in so many ways. It was particularly special to birth in the same suite that she labored in with her first and have such a different outcome. All of Rebekah's intentional work paid off to help her have a very sacred birth and postpartum experience!How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello, everybody. Welcome to The VBAC Link. We have our friend, Rebekah, here today and she is local to me here in Utah so it's always so fun to hear a Utah story especially because I usually know the provider and the location and things like that or I've served with them so it's fun to hear the stories that I have served with the people who are serving these amazing VBAC mamas. We have our friend, Rebekah, like I said and she is a mama of two. She is a stay-at-home mom and is in Spanish Fork. She is passionate about birth and hopes to one day pursue birth work. She hired one of our VBAC Link certified doulas so just as a reminder, if you guys are looking for a doula, let me just tell you that our doulas are amazing. These doulas truly love birth and love VBAC and are all certified in VBAC so you can check that out at thevbaclink.com/findadoula if you are looking for a doula. Rebekah left us a note. It says, “The after-birth high doesn't always happen. I have heard so many stories of women who experienced it and I was expecting to feel that. I however did not.” She says, “Don't feel robbed of it.” She was confused why she didn't feel it but she is going to talk a little bit more in her story. I love that message because I didn't feel the birth high with some of my kids either and it is weird. I remember sitting there thinking, Wait, aren't I supposed to be crying right now or aren't I supposed to be screaming how happy I am right now? It just didn't come. Please know that if you didn't have that immediate birth high, it's okay. It's totally okay. We do have a Review of the Week. It is from Yulia and this is actually on our VBAC Course. It says, “This is an amazing VBAC Course that helped me understand how I can educate and support families in the best way.” She is actually one of our VBAC doulas so again, if you guys are looking for more information on VBAC and you really want to learn just all of the history of VBAC and Cesarean and how you can increase your chances of VBAC, check out our course at thevbaclink.com and let us know if you take it. Let us know what you think about it. All right, Ms. Rebekah. Your hometown is Utah, same as me. We are here together. You're in Utah County. You're probably 45-50 minutes away from me so just shy of an hour. Where did you give birth for your VBAC? Rebekah: It was the Utah Birth Suites in Provo. Meagan: Okay. Awesome, awesome. Well, I'm so excited to get into your stories today. I know that with your first one, you went through it. It was spontaneous labor turned unplanned Cesarean. Now if you are listening, I'm sure you can raise your hand. How many of us are having the same situations? We are going into labor and we have that unplanned Cesarean. It's so, so hard. Before we get into your story, are there any suggestions that you would give to the listeners or any tips for moms just like us for moms who went into labor and had an unplanned Cesarean?Rebekah: The heartbreak and the trauma that comes with that is really hard to navigate so in planning a VBAC, my number one piece of advice is hire a doula. Hire a VBAC-certified doula and do all of the hard work you can to mentally prepare. Try not to blame yourself for the C-section because I know we all do that at some point if it wasn't planned. Meagan: Yeah. I love that you said that. Don't blame yourself but at the same time, let's arm ourselves up with information and even first-time moms, there are so many times that we go in and we think we sort of educated ourselves but we didn't. If we can try and educate ourselves a little bit better, we can hopefully be a little bit more armed for the unexpected and even then when the unexpected happens, it's not easy to be armed. It's not easy to be prepared. Okay, so let's talk about that first birth that was an unplanned Cesarean. Rebekah: Yeah. I got pregnant in 2020 so COVID insanity and I had known even before I got married that I didn't want to be in a hospital. I'm number 6 of 7 kids and my mom had all of us unmedicated. I was a home baby. Some of us were born at home. Some were in a hospital. Some were in a birth center. I just really felt that in my bones and in my genes that I can give birth. It's not scary. My mom did this this many times without medication. My sister did it 5 times so I really felt confident. With everything happening in hospitals during COVID, I just was like, I don't even want to try to mess with that so let's go the midwife route. I got in contact with a friend of mine who was a doula and she recommended the Utah Birth Suites in Provo. I reached out to them. We toured a couple of different birth centers and that birth center just felt right. We met almost the entire team that first day in the interview. They spent almost an hour just chatting with us. I was about maybe 18 weeks, 20ish weeks. I was about halfway through my pregnancy. I had two or three meetings with an OB because I didn't have a midwife and it just wasn't my favorite. It was so long between visits and they lasted about 15 minutes. I saw a different person each time. It felt very impersonal and I don't like repeating myself over and over again to all of these different people. It didn't feel right. It wasn't really what I was looking for. I found the Birth Suites and they took care of me for the rest of my pregnancy. I had a little bit of hypertension issues toward the end so the last three or four weeks were really juggling this game of, are we looking at induction this weekend? My blood pressure would read really, really high then I would do all of the things to bring it back down. I was watching my nutrition and taking the vitamins and everything to bring it down. It would come down just within a safe enough range to keep giving me care. Legally, if it crossed that line into worries of preeclampsia, then legally they had to transfer me into the care of an OB. My midwife was really working hard with me to keep it down. It was doing this up/down thing and by the end of each week, it was like, “Okay, we might have to induce you in a couple of days if you want to stick with us.” I was okay with that. My midwife had talked with me about that so it wasn't pushed on me. I was doing everything to stay within their care. That was my whole goal so if I had to be induced, that's what I would do. But every weekend came and passed and my blood pressure would come back down. Finally, it was the day before my due date. I went into labor in the middle of the night. It was maybe 2:30 in the morning. I felt my first contraction. I could tell it was labor because it was different than all of my Braxton Hicks. The only sign I had that labor was going to start was that I had cramping the day before. I was like, “Oh, this is kind of uncomfy.” I didn't think anything of it. As a first-time mom, I didn't know a ton. I did as much research as I possibly could but labor is so random with every mom and baby. There really is no way to tell. I go into labor early in the morning and I woke up my husband. I said, “I think I'm in labor. I think these are contractions. They're not stopping. They're getting really intense.” Intense compared to the Braxton Hicks I had been feeling. I let him sleep and I went into a different room and classic first-time mom mistake. Instead of resting, I got up and started moving and trying to get things going because I was all excited. I didn't want things to slow down. I was timing them and texting my midwife. She said, “See if you can lay down. Take a Tylenol if they are super uncomfortable and try to get as much sleep as possible because you've got some time.” I tried doing that. It wasn't working for me. I was super uncomfy laying down. I did not like it at all. I felt good when I was up and moving because I think that slowed things down but I didn't know the difference. I just knew it was less uncomfortable. I was like, “I'm not going to be sleeping. Let's just go do something.” We went on a drive. We did a little shopping. We walked around. We went back home. We hung out for a little bit. Then my husband was like, “Do you think I'm okay to go to work?” I was like, “I think you are. You can go to work. I think we have plenty of time. Things are still pretty spread out right now. We can call our doula and she'll come hang out with me at home.” So that's what we did. Our doula came over and my husband went to work and everybody was like, “What are you doing here? Your wife is having a baby. What's going on?” He was like, “She's fine. She has our doula.” Our doula was with me for a couple of hours and things had picked up enough to where I felt like he needed to be home so we called him back home. Things were moving on not slowly but slower than I wanted. I was just trying to be patient and let things go–Meagan: Trusting the process. Rebekah: Yes, exactly. I'm not a very patient person so this really was a big learning experience for me. So my doula is keeping contact with our midwife and eventually, it was like, “Okay, I think you're good to head to the birth center. It looks like things are pretty steady now.” We got to the birth center. I really wanted a water birth so they drew a tub and I relaxed in the water and tried some different positions. Hands and knees in the water were hard and uncomfortable. They gave me a towel to keep from slipping around but it was really uncomfortable. My knees didn't like staying in that position and I didn't want to be laying back. So I just wiggled around in the water a little bit. They were like, “Let's see if we can get you in a different position and try to get things moving a little bit.” So they got me out of the water. We tried the birth stool. I did not like the birth stool but it helped me progress a ton so that was good. I think I lost my mucus plug on the birth stool. I was feeling tons of pain in my lower back, like lots and lots of pain in my lower back. My thighs were shaky and I felt a lot of intense sensations in my thighs whenever I would have a contraction. There was a lot going on with my body that I wasn't really prepared for or expecting. I got back in the water to help relieve my back a little bit and I ended up getting stuck on my back lying back in the tub. It was getting to the point where I was almost passing out between my contractions because I was so, so tired. My body had been working for so long and it just felt like things weren't quite where they needed to be with how long I had been working. Again, my midwife said, “If you pass out, we will have to transfer you.” They gave me the oxygen and some essential oils to smell to keep me awake. They were trying to help me as best as they could. I guess my husband was out in the hall with the midwives and it was student midwives who were taking care of me and there was the head midwife who was overseeing them. They had a little pow-wow about what they thought we should do. The midwife was very big on mother-led labor. She was like, “Well, she's a first-time mom.” I had been in labor for so long that things were concerning at this point so it was just, “Let's give her a little bit more time and try to keep her awake and see how things are going. She's doing great. She's tired and this is normal.” A bit more time passed and one of the student midwives was like, “We need to check her. She should be farther along by now. She says she's pushing. She feels like she's pushing but we are not seeing the water separation and as much opening as we would like to see.” They got me out of the water and onto the bed and the head midwife performed a cervical check to see what was going on. I had a contraction while she checked me and my water broke. It was just full of meconium. She said, “I can feel his bum. He's breech.” It was crazy because we thought he had been head down the entire time but when I was in the water, there was a big movement in my belly and I was like, “Oh, that was kind of crazy.” We thought, did he flip? When we realized he was breech, was that movement him flipping while I was in labor?Then my midwife also made a comment later, “Well, maybe he was bum down longer than we thought he was. Maybe that wasn't the flip.” It had everybody baffled. My midwife has been practicing for a couple of decades. She's very experienced and this had everybody stumped. She had never really seen anything like this happen before so at this point, she said, “Well, you have two options. We will send you home and send you a midwife who can deliver breech babies,” because she was licensed and in Utah, licensed midwives aren't allowed to deliver breech babies which I think is silly. She had the training and experience. She just legally wasn't allowed to do it. She said, “We can send you home and send you a midwife or you can go to the hospital where they will definitely do a C-section.” She gave us a couple of minutes. We weren't in any emergent situation. The baby wasn't in distress. His heartbeat had been great the whole time so there was no reason to believe that he was struggling at all. She gave us a couple of minutes to decide. Earlier in my pregnancy, I received a blessing from my husband and was told something like, “However our child is supposed to come into this world–”, and I was like, “Well, that's silly. He's going to come how we are planning on him to come.” I remembered that in this moment and said, “I think this is what that meant. I think he was always supposed to be a C-section.” It was a very interesting combination of feelings happening at the same time, remembering that and knowing this was how it was supposed to go but also being beyond devastated that this was the path things took. So we chose the C-section not because first of all, the thought of having more contractions in the car was like, I'm not going to do that. I just knew it wasn't safe. I was almost passing out and I knew that a breech baby can sometimes be a bit more work. I was in no position to do that. So my husband drove us to the hospital and I had maybe three contractions in the car. Our midwives called the hospital to tell them what was going on and that we were coming so they were ready for us. It was very quick. We got there. They took great care of us and had me in the operating room and the rest was history. We had the C-section. The anesthesiologist was so sweet. He was this old man who spoke really softly and assured me that everything was going great. He stayed with us the whole time through the surgery. I heard him cry and it was great. They wrapped him up. They held his cheek against mine for a minute and then they took him out. My husband followed him and then they stitched me up. That was my C-section. We spent 3 days in the hospital. My birthing team came to visit me one by one in the hospital and every single one of them told me that I was a great candidate for a VBAC. They told me about The VBAC Link so that's when I started on my whole journey listening to you guys and started to really plant those seeds that, “You are capable. You didn't fail. You are able to do this still.” I know that some moms after having a birth experience don't really want to hear these things and they weren't in a place to hear those things, but for me, it was really great to immediately have that confidence spoken into me. That was my C-section. Meagan: Yes. I love that your team knew you so well to know that that was what you needed to hear in that time. Those were the things that you needed to hear. So knowing right away that you were a good VBAC candidate, was it something that stayed with you and you were like, this is what I want to do?Rebekah: Yes, absolutely. It wasn't ever a question if I was going to have a repeat Cesarean. That was never part of my plan. You can't really plan birth but I had never really had that fear of, Am I going to need another C-section? There's always a little bit of it there, but it was always, I'm going to have a VBAC. That's what we're going to do from that point forward.Meagan: You knew. You felt that it was right. You found out about us at The VBAC Link. You had your providers already. Did you stay with the same providers or did you switch? Rebekah: Yeah. Meagan: Okay, stayed. Rebekah: Well, technically yes. I stayed with the same Birth Suites and the head midwife who was overseeing the student midwives who cared for me in my first pregnancy was the one who cared for me during my second. I got to know her a little bit better during my second pregnancy and she was ahead of everything at that time. Meagan: Okay, awesome. So you are pregnant now for the second time. Tell us about this amazing VBAC journey. Rebekah: Yeah. So I got pregnant– when was it? It was probably late summer, early fall when I got pregnant with my second. I immediately reached out to– she's a licensed midwife now but the student midwife who was in charge of my care the last time. I reached out to her because I loved her so much. I said, “I'm pregnant again and I would really love for you to take care of me.”She said, “Well, when you are due is right when I go on leave.” I said, “That's great timing.” I reached out to another girl who was on our team who I loved and the same thing. They were taking their leave at the same time. She was like, “But it's within a week. You're due within a week of when I go on leave. If you end up having your baby before I go on leave, are you okay with me being there?” I was like, “Yes. I would love for you to be there if you can to support.” That's not what ended up happening, but it was fine.I reached out to Melissa. She's one of the owners at Utah Birth Suites. She started that whole business. I got to know her with my first so I reached out to her and said, “I'm pregnant again and would love to be in your care.”It was really great that she already knew my history with my first pregnancy and first birth. I had stayed in contact with them. They do a lot of things in the community and they try to stay in touch with their moms who they take care of. It's not like it had been 3 years since I had seen her. I had seen them here and there so I felt really comfortable with her. I had a couple concerns with this pregnancy with the hypertension issues and stuff that we had with him being breech. There were just things that I really wanted to stay on top of and keep an eye on. My blood pressure was fantastic throughout this entire pregnancy. It was at such a healthy level the entire time. We never had that concern of preeclampsia or hypertension because it just wasn't a factor. It was really nice. I was doing all of the things this time around with the vitamins and supplements and nutrition and water intake and all of the things that I neglected with my first pregnancy. I was super, super determined to have this VBAC. My midwife really pushed protein– lots and lots and lots of protein. We really wanted to strengthen that uterus and try to be as strong as we possibly could so I really took that to heart and tried my best. I got really excited when I came up with a new recipe that had a ton of protein. I would take a picture and send it to her and write up the recipe. I was like, “I'm so excited about this one.” It's like when a kid draws a picture and is so excited and their parent sticks it on the fridge. That was how I felt. I was like, “Look at me. I'm working so hard this time.” I was worried about her flipping breech but that was never an issue either. She stayed head down the whole time. This was a little side note that was interesting. During my anatomy scan to find out the gender, the ultrasound tech was looking over everything and he said, “There's no way to really tell for sure because your uterus has expanded now,” but he said, “I wonder if you have a bicornuate uterus.” He said, “Because your birth was breech, right? He flipped?” We had seen this ultrasound tech for the first so he knew everything that happened there. So I said, “Yeah. He flipped breech.” I had never heard that word before. I didn't know what that was. He explained it to me and said, “It's really common for women with a bicornuate uterus to have babies who flip breech.” So I was like, “Okay, that's interesting.” He said, “After you have this baby and your uterus shrinks back to normal, we should take a look at it.” I have yet to do that but I'm curious too. She never flipped breech so I don't know. Maybe I just have a goofy-shaped uterus. I don't know.Meagan: Maybe or it was just a freak thing. Baby needed to be head up. Rebekah: I don't know. That was interesting and I'm curious to see what the results of that are. But anyway, we got in contact with a doula, a VBAC-certified doula in the area. Her name is Isabelle and she is fantastic. She is absolutely phenomenal. She is also a birth assistant so she is fully immersed in this birth world. She is so knowledgeable and has tons of experience. We clicked really fast and I knew that I wanted her to be our doula. She really just was invaluable the whole time. She recommended that I do some fear-release exercises and meditations to work through some of the trauma that I didn't really realize that I had from my first birth. I thought I had processed and accepted as much as I could but I think healing isn't a linear process and being pregnant again and having another baby brought up a lot of stuff and a lot of fears. On a personal note that I won't really get into, I had a different set of fears surrounding this pregnancy for different reasons so there was just a lot to work on emotionally and mentally. I took that very seriously. This was a very sacred and spiritual pregnancy for me. Maybe it's just like that mother-daughter bond. I don't know. I felt way more connected to my baby this time and I really wanted to do my due diligence in making sure that my mind and my spirit were in a good spot for this pregnancy and this birth. One of the fear release exercises she sent me was one provided by The VBAC Link. It was a little worksheet to get your mind going and there are specific questions on there about what are some fears you have and where do you think those fears come from? It was that kind of stuff and toward the bottom, it helps you reframe those a little bit. Meagan: Yeah. Rebekah: It had me write out what my fears were and then to write an affirmation to counter each fear. I had 20 affirmations all written down just to go along with this list of fears. Then I actually used a couple of those and printed them out as my visual affirmations for when I was in labor. So fast forward, we're about 38 weeks and I was thinking for whatever reason that this baby girl was going to be early. So 38 weeks came around and I was starting to get excited. I'm like, “I think she's going to be here pretty soon.” I was starting to have some prodromal labor which I didn't experience with my son so that really reinforced the idea that she would be here soon and that was not the case. I had 2.5 weeks, well yeah. I guess it was about 2.5. Normal labor started around 39 weeks. So every night on the clock from 8:00, I would start getting really intense contractions that felt like early labor with my son but I also had much stronger Braxton Hicks this entire pregnancy so I was like, “I can't really tell the difference.” I told my doula that. I was like, “I'm afraid I'm going to miss you and I'm not going to reach out to you in time or you're not going to make it to us in time because I won't know when labor is actually happening.” That was a big worry of mine this time around. It was so different than with my son. She said, “It's okay. You can just text me as much as you need to and as much as you want.” So I did. I texted her a lot the last few weeks and she was like, “Your body is doing great.” She told me that in her experience, she said, “Just from what I've seen with my VBAC moms, I actually see prodromal labor happen a lot. I personally think that it's the body's way of being more gentle rather than doing all of the labor hard and fast at once. It's lots of little bits of labor to get your body ready and ease into it so it's not as intense on your body.” I was like, “You know, that makes sense.” I don't know. I don't think there are any studies around that that I know of, but that made sense to me. I really tried to just internalize that and not get too discouraged when things would stop as soon as I went to bed which they did every time. At 8:00, they would pick up and be there for a couple hours then it would stop when I fell asleep then I'd be fine until the next night when it would pick up again. My husband and I would go on a walk every single night and on these walks, I could have sworn that she was going to fall out. I could feel that she was right there. I could feel that my body was literally opening. I could tell that I was dilated. I never got cervical checks this time around which was oddly empowering. I really trusted my body and knew that things would happen regardless of the number that my body was dilated. I had no idea but my midwife was like, “You know, it wouldn't surprise me if you are sitting at a 4 right now.” So if anyone has experienced prodromal labor, you know how exhausting it is and how discouraging it is mentally, physically, emotionally– all of it. It had been a couple of weeks of this and I had officially gone past 40 weeks. I'm officially overdue and my son being born right on time, it was really frustrating that I was going past my date with this one. I didn't want to be induced. There was really no reason for it other than I was getting tired of being pregnant. My midwife was supportive if I wanted an induction. After I hit 40 weeks, I think she would have done it. She said, “Oh, we can do this,” but she also was really encouraging and assured me that my body was doing what it needed to. It was normal to feel discouraged, but let's just give your body time, especially with a VBAC. Induction can come with its own set of risks. I knew that. It was just such a mental battle trying to remember that. I know the risks sometimes can be small, not that it would worry me personally. For some moms, I know it would but for me, the risks that came with induction weren't enough for me to say no to it completely. But also, you never know so let's not play that game. Let's just be as patient as we can. A couple of days before I went into labor, I had it. I was over it. I was in the middle of a breakdown in tears just exhausted. I was with my husband and I said, “Why isn't she here yet? Why doesn't she want to come?” I was just processing things out loud and I said, “I know my body is ready. I can feel it. My body is open. She is so far down there. I feel like her head is going to pop out any second. What is going on? Why have I not gone into labor?”Then he just was really comforting to me and letting me process how I needed to and then I said, “I feel like she's scared.” That was a really interesting feeling. Like I said, I felt more connected to this baby and it was like a lightbulb that was the answer. Your body is ready but your baby is not. We were overdue at this point so I said, “I feel like she's scared. I'm not quite sure why, but I'm almost positive that's it.” So I took a moment to kind of then go into myself. I went into a different room by myself and again in tears was just sobbing and praying and spent some time talking with the Lord and then I spent some time talking to my baby. I told her, “We're ready for you. We are so, so ready for you. I know you are scared. I don't know why but you're not going to be alone. We're going to go through this together. You're going to be safe. Mommy and Daddy are going to take care of you. You're going to be okay.” It just was a really, really sweet moment. Two days later, I went into labor. Meagan: Ohh. Rebekah: I guess she just needed that reassurance that things were going to be okay. Meagan: She needed the okay. Yeah. Rebekah: Yeah. I think she felt that something was coming with all of this prodromal labor. She knew that things were picking up and she just needed a little pep talk. So this time around, again, around 3:00 AM– I guess that's when babies like to come. I hear that so, so many times between 2:00 and 3:00 AM is when things start to happen. I don't know why that is the magical hour, but it is. This time, because we know I was afraid I wouldn't know when labor had started, this time is started with my water breaking. My water didn't break until after 17 hours of labor with my son. I was asleep and woke up to re-situate myself and I felt this pop inside my body. It kind of hurt a little bit. I was like, what was that? It was a really weird sensation. I thought, Was that my water? I reached down and I feel around. I'm like, Well, I'm not wet. I stood up just to see what was going on and there was this huge, giant gush. I was like, Well, yep. There it is. This was probably my favorite part of my entire labor. My husband was asleep and I said, “Honey, honey, my water broke.” He was still half asleep and he said, “Do you want me to fill it up for you?” He thought that I had dropped my water bottle or something. I was like, “No, honey. My water broke.” He jumps up and he's like, “Oh, oh.” He started freaking out and he was like, “What are you supposed to do?” He was frantically looking around. He was still half asleep. I was like, “Okay, take a breath. Go get me a towel first of all,” because I was gushing all over the floor. “Get me a towel and then text Melissa (my midwife)” or my doula. I didn't know who it was. I said, “Let them know.” He said, “Are you okay? Do we need to go somewhere? What's going on?” I said, “No, we have time. Water breaking is not a big deal.” I had done lots and lots of research and listened to a million birth stories so at this point, I feel like a pro because I am fully immersed in this birth world. I said, “No, I'm okay. I'm just going to change and lay back down because I'm not having contractions yet. I feel fine, but I do need to rest so I'm going to change myself and lay down.” That's what I did. I wasn't going to repeat the mistakes of my first birth of moving too fast. Meagan: Getting too excited and yes. Rebekah: Yeah, especially with the exhaustion that I was feeling toward the end of my labor with my son, I was like, I don't want to feel that again. I lay back down. I know myself well enough that I wasn't going to fall back asleep. There was no way that was going to happen, but I was like, But I need to stay as relaxed as possible. We kept the lights really low. I put my birth playlist on and just really did some breathing to keep myself relaxed and as open as I possibly could. That's how I labored for the next several hours but things got intense really fast. As soon as my water broke, I knew that my contractions were going to be more intense. Even though labor had technically just started, I had a feeling that I wasn't going to be in labor for very long because it had been 2.5 weeks of prodromal stuff. I was like, I think this is going to be quick. I was really unsure of what to do though because I was timing my contractions. I have screenshots and was sending them to my doula. She said, “Oh, those look great but let's wait an hour and see how that goes.” But I was feeling like things were picking up. I felt like things were getting more intense but people kept telling me to wait. My midwife was like, “Oh, you have time.” My doula was like, “Oh, you have time.” I told my husband, “I don't know what to do because everyone is telling me that I have time but I don't think we do.” Every time I stood up to go to the bathroom or get in the shower– I tried the water in the shower because my doula said, “Sometimes that can make things a little bit more comfortable. Some women like to labor in the shower for a little bit.” I thought I'd try that. I loved the water but I did not like being upright. I did not like standing because it made contractions so, so intense but they were short. They were half the length than when I was lying down. I think they thought I had time because there were still several minutes between contractions and they were still pretty long. They were like, “We want them just a little bit shorter and a little bit closer together,” or longer contractions. I don't remember. I was like, There is something in me that is telling me that this is moving pretty quickly. I don't like being upright and I feel like I need to rest. It was a lot of weird stuff going on in my head trying to figure out how to handle things. I stayed in bed. It was this instinct in me, “You need to stay lying down.” Any time I stood up, it picked things up and for any birth with other moms, that's what you want, right? You want things to pick up and you want things to progress and technically standing upright was progressing things, but it didn't feel right to me for whatever reason. I knew I needed to be resting and lying down. I was starting to get tired. I texted my midwife and said, “I'm starting to get worried because I don't feel like I should be this tired this early, especially with how much I've been lying down and resting.” She said, “I think you need a little boost of energy.” She said, “Eat a snack and go outside and take a walk. Get some fresh air. Get some sunlight.” In my head, I was like, I don't want to do that. I don't want to be up. Every time I stand up, I can't explain it. Everything in my body and spirit was like, “You need to stay lying down.” I was like, “You know what? She's been doing this longer than I have. I'm going to trust her. I'm going to do it.” I make my way upstairs and as I'm getting a snack, I have a contraction that just had me seeing stars. I almost passed out. It was so, so intense and I told my husband, “I'm going to throw up. I'm going to pass out.” I leaned against the counter. He rubbed my back and when it was over, I ate my snack really, really quick. It was a sugary snack to give me a blood sugar boost. I ate my snack really fast and then immediately went to the living room and got on my knees and leaned against the couch. Again, I can't be standing. Meagan: Yeah, and gravity is causing it to happen too much. Rebekah: Yeah, and I was like, I don't have the capacity right now to handle these standing. I need to be more grounded. I got on my knees on the couch and my husband was like, “Are you okay?” I was like, “Yes, I just can't stand up.” I had a few contractions on the couch because everyone was telling us to wait so I was like, “Okay, let's just do a few more contractions and see how these were going.” That's when I hit transition. It was a little before 9:00 AM or it would be 8:30-8:40. I had a few contractions and they got really, really intense really quickly. It was starting to get a little bit more painful. I was feeling a lot more pressure in my bum and I had to physically relax my pelvic floor and open it because things were starting to feel a little bit pushy. I say that's when transition was. I actually don't know. I feel like I breezed through the transition phase because things just happened so fast. I would guess that's when it was. We called our midwife. Our doula hadn't come to us yet. I called maybe an hour before and said, “Why don't you make your way to us because things are starting to pick up?” She said, “Okay.” She lives maybe an hour away. So she's on her way to us and hasn't made it to us yet. We call our midwife and say, “Things are pretty intense over here.” She listened to a couple of contractions over the phone and she said, “Those sound great. You're doing awesome.” These contractions, I was getting really, really vocal through them, and having gone through labor unmedicated with my son, I knew that I was pretty close just based on the noises that I was making and the way my body was feeling. I was like, We're pretty close here. She said, “Okay, do you want to meet me? Let's meet at the birth center at 10:00,” which means we would have had to leave 20 or 30 minutes from that time or from the time we were at. I said, “We can't do this at home for another 20 minutes.” I had another contraction and my husband and I both go, “No, we're coming now. We can't stay here and do this for another 30 minutes. Things are moving too fast.” She said, “Okay, great. I'll meet you there.” We called our doula and we said, “Go straight to the birth center.” The birth center is kind of in the middle of us so she didn't have to backtrack. We get to the birth center. Our doula met us there. She said, “You had one contraction after you got there and the next one, you were pushing.” My midwife was there maybe less than 10 minutes after we showed up, between 5-10 minutes but I had a couple of pushing contractions with just my husband and my doula at the birth center. When I got to the birth center, I assumed the position. I got on my knees and leaned against a chair because that's how I had been doing it at home. I loved it. Every time I would have a contraction, I would put my hands on the ground so I was on hands and knees and I would lean back a little bit. Everything in my body just told me to get as low to the ground as you possibly can. Any amount of pressure or sensation on my body was amazing. It just kept me feeling grounded because of my son, when I was in the tub leaning back, I kept reaching up like this saying, “Help me. I need help. Help me.” I felt so untethered and nobody knew what to do for me because I was in the tub. They couldn't do counterpressure on my hips or my back because of the position I was in. It was just like, there's nothing we can do for you. I refused to move so it was like I got stuck in this position where I felt so ungrounded and untethered. But this time around, I was solid. I loved it and I actually had a bruise on my forehead the next day because I was pushing my forehead against the chair every time I had a contraction. But it was awesome. I loved that feeling of feeling so solid and grounded. I had pushed for maybe an hour before she was born and I felt that ring of fire. It made me say a bad word. I was like, “Oh my gosh,” because I didn't feel it with my son. When I leaned back during a contraction, I could see some blood on the chucks pad on the ground that I was moving on and I asked them, “Am I tearing?” There was a pause and my midwife said, “Your body is stretching exactly how it's supposed to.” So that was tearing. She was not going to tell me, “Yeah, you are.” She was really encouraging and she was like, “Your body is stretching the way it is supposed to,” but in my head, I was like, I know I'm tearing. I could feel it. It wasn't horrible, but I could tell. I had this memoir going on in my head the whole time where I literally had to tell myself, You're not going to break. You're not going to break, because those sensations on my pelvis while pushing her head out were so intense. Meagan: Intense, yeah. Rebekah: It just felt like my pelvis was going to crack but I knew that wasn't the case. My body was made to do this. It was doing what it was supposed to do. It was really a big mental battle. I've heard a lot of women talk about how they go into labor land and it was this out-of-body experience, but when I tried to do that and let go I guess is the term, that's when I started to feel fear set in and I felt really uncomfortable when things got more painful so I really had to keep myself in my body. I am not the type that can just close my eyes and say, “Okay, my body is just going to do the work.” I couldn't do that. I had to really stay fully present. I guess I needed to feel that sense of control so I was talking myself through it the whole time. “You're doing okay. Keep your voice low.” I was very, very loud. “Keep your screams and your moans in a low tone and keep yourself open. You're not going to break.” I had to keep telling myself these things. My husband was talking to me, “You're doing so great. You're amazing. Our daughter's going to be beautiful. You're doing such a great job.” My doula was scratching my back and doing counterpressure. Everybody was just amazing. The vibe in the room was just absolutely incredible. She started to crown and my midwife said, “Rebekah, why don't you feel down and you can feel her head? That might be encouraging to you.” I think she could tell I was getting frustrated. Every push I was sure she would come and she didn't. I would get so mad and I would push harder than I probably should have and maybe that's why I tore because I was being impatient. I feel down. I could feel her head crowning. I started talking to her. I started crying. I'm like, “Sweetie, I'm so excited to meet you. Hi, sweetie. You're doing great.” A couple of contractions later, her head came out. Then we chilled with her head out. We chilled between contractions. One of the girls on our team got an awesome shot just from right behind. She took a picture of her head sticking out so it was just a straight shot of my bum with her head and it was just a beautiful, beautiful picture. So I feel down and I feel her head. I'm rubbing her head. I'm talking to her and I'm breathing. I got water between every single contraction. I took a drink of water. I took some electrolytes. Oh, between contractions, I would sit up and lean on my husband. I would lean on his lap and then during a contraction is when I would go down on all fours. It was just this up, down rhythm that I got into. That's what I did. Meagan: That is awesome. Rebekah: It was awesome. I really got into a groove. I felt safe and comfortable. After her head came out, the next contraction, her entire body just slipped right out and I got to reach down and grab her and pull her up onto my chest. It was just amazing. But I didn't feel that birth high. I was expecting to feel it. Everyone talks about this incredible rush of endorphins and “I wanted to do it again. I had just done this amazing thing and I got a rush of these feel-good hormones”. I was expecting to feel that and I didn't. It was a beautiful moment and I was so happy to be there but I kept waiting for that high to hit me and it wasn't hitting me. I was like, “Oh, that's weird, but okay.” I had hemorrhaged after my placenta came out. It wasn't enough to really be emergent, but it was kind of concerning. They were doing the fundal massage. They were putting pressure on it. I was holding my baby the whole time leaning on my husband and my husband was like, “Is she okay? What's going on?” I asked him to say a prayer and to pray for us. So the midwives were working on me quietly. My husband says this quick, beautiful prayer just that everything would be okay and that things would go the way they were supposed to. My midwife asked if I would be okay with Pitocin to help stop it and that was fine with me so we did a quick shot of Pitocin and a couple of minutes later, it completely stopped and I was good to go. It was just a few minutes of this and even hearing the word “hemorrhage” or “You are losing more blood than we would like,” I still never really panicked or felt afraid because I trusted my team so much and I knew that if things were emergent, things would be going differently. There would be a different energy but no one was concerned. No one was rushing around. No one seemed panicked. It was just like, “You're losing a little bit of blood, but–”Meagan: We're taking care of this. Rebekah: “We're taking care of this.” It was so quick. It was so quick. It was taken care of and I'm so blessed that that was how things go because I know sometimes that's not the case for other moms, so in my case, it really wasn't that big of a deal. Meagan: Yeah. Rebekah: I got to take a postpartum bath. Well, I guess they did the stitches first because I had a second-degree tear that required stitches, and when they were checking my tear and they told me, “You're going to need some stitches,” I immediately burst into tears because for whatever reason, that sent me back to my C-section because to me, stitches meant, “We're stitching you up. We're closing you up.” Meagan: Yeah, yeah. Rebekah: It was this weird flashback moment that caused me to panic and I started crying. I told them it reminded me of my C-section and I know that sounds silly. It's just a few stitches from tearing in comparison to stitches from a C-section.Meagan: It doesn't sound silly. Rebekah: But to me, it wasn't. Oh, also, I was in the same birth suite that I was laboring in with my son the first time around. I was on that same bed when the midwives told me, “He's breech. We have to do something else.” So it just was like I was back in that same space where I was being told that I have to do something that I don't want to do that was scary to me. My doula was really sweet and talked me through it. My whole team talked me through it. They were like, “You're fine. It's okay. It's not a big deal.” They were very validating like, “I understand. That's why you are scared and why this is bringing things up again but you are safe. We're going to take care of you. You're not even going to feel it. We're going to numb you.”Meagan: Numb it up, yeah. Rebekah: Yeah. My doula stayed with me through my stitches and she was like, “Let's put on some music,” because I was talking about this music that I loved. She was like, “Let's find this album and let's listen to it.” So she found this album and she talked with me the whole time through the stitches. Then I got to take my beautiful postpartum bath in the salts and the flowers and stuff. It was just beautiful. My doula got a picture and she was like, “You look so angelic like a mermaid.” I was lying sideways and my hair was all draped. She was like, “There are flowers in the water. It is beautiful.”Again, it was a healing full-circle moment when they handed me my baby to take this bath together because the tub was another source of stress and anxiety from my first birth. I felt stuck. I felt abandoned. I felt like I didn't have a ton of help. I had help but it didn't feel like it. So just a lot of little moments throughout this suite that I was in that helped heal me a lot from my first birth that were all of these trauma points from my labor with him. They did the newborn exam. I got to hold her and be in the same room as her the entire time. I held her the whole time they did my stitches. We waited to cut the cord until it was white. My husband got to cut the cord. It all was incredibly, incredibly beautiful and healing. I did have to have two bags of IV fluids because of the blood that I lost which kind of helped rebuild that. My doula fed me soup while I was in the tub snuggling my baby. It just was a night and day difference. Meagan: Yeah, such a different experience. Rebekah: She's 7.5 weeks old and we're doing great. I healed very well, so much faster than with a C-section. Again, night and day. I don't even feel like I had a baby. Healing this time has been incredible this time especially having a toddler and worrying, Am I going to be able to do these things?Meagan: Yeah, that was actually one of the reasons among many that I did want a VBAC too. A lot of people were like, “What are your reasons?” One of them was that I want to have a better postpartum experience physically as I'm recovering because I just remember being so– and it can happen with vaginal birth too. Vaginal birth doesn't just eliminate your chances of not a great experience. You can still have a not-great experience with that with a vaginal birth, but yeah. I was like, “I want to be able to pick up my kids. I want to be able to drive if I needed to. I want to be able to–”. Rebekah: Go to the bathroom and shower by yourself. Normal human things. Meagan: Right, not have my husband holding me up showering. Yeah. That, for me, was such a big difference too in my recovery. That alone. Yeah. I'm so happy for you. I'm so glad that you were able to not only just have a different experience that was healing just in general but then all of these little things that you were able to heal from in addition like you said with the tub and these peaceful experiences and your connection with you and your daughter like, “Hey, I think she's scared and I need to go talk with her. I need to be with her.” And even during the pushing, you had that connection again. “Hey, honey, we are excited.” You were touching her and talking to her. It just goes to show so much how much more connected these babies are than we think they are. They really, really are and your body was ready. Your baby wasn't ready and sometimes that is the case and we have to understand that usually when spontaneous labor is going on or whatever, it's a team effort– body and baby together. Sometimes it's not and we have to help them. Rebekah: Yeah, exactly. It was crazy actually pushing a baby out. I don't want to say that I'm scared of doing it again but I wasn't expecting it to be as intense as it was. With my son, I was complete. I had dilated to a 10. I was fully effaced. His bum was right there. I think if we hadn't known sooner that he was breech, I wonder if we would have had an accidental breech delivery at the birth center because I was complete. I was ready to push a baby out. My body was already pushing. I had done all of the labor up to the pushing a baby out part. I think I had just built it up in my head, “Oh, you've done this before. You've done this before. You'll be okay.” I had done everything but the pushing phase. Feeling her actually coming out of my body was such a bizarre sensation. After her head was out, I actually felt a little wiggle. She wiggled her body in there and I said, “I can feel her moving.” My midwife was like, “Yep. She's getting ready to come out.” It was incredible that I was able to actually feel all of these things even though it was painful and it was hard. That's the only thing I wanted. I wanted to feel what it was like to actually birth my baby out of my body and do what it was designed to do. It just was incredible and it doesn't take away from the experience with my son at all. Both labor experiences and both birth experiences taught me so many things in completely different ways. When I tell my birth story with my daughter, I really hope that it doesn't come off that I was trying to rewrite history or trying to erase the way things happened with my son because it's not the case. The stories don't exist without the other. It's just been incredible to see how their personalities are different just based on how labor went with them. I really believe that the way your labor goes and the way your pregnancy is, you can almost tell what your baby's personality is going to be like based on those things and how they go. Definitely with my kids, that has been true. Meagan: Yeah. A lot of people especially with breech are like, “Oh, this stubborn baby. This baby wouldn't flip. This baby threw us a curveball,” then they come out and they're like, “They're still throwing curveballs. They're still stubborn.” I mean, I've heard that is definitely something that can happen. The babies set the stage. Rebekah: Yeah, absolutely. I kept saying when I was pregnant with her that I felt like she was going to be a feisty baby and be fiery. That is how she is. It was beautiful. Meagan: Well, I'm so happy for you. I absolutely love, love, love your birthing team over there. They are just so amazing and I'm so glad that you had a doula and you had the support and that you were able to find healing through this birth experience. You know, every single birth is unique. You're going to heal and grow through every single experience. It's the most beautiful thing. Rebekah: This podcast helped a ton. That was another thing that I did during my prep. I was listening to The VBAC Link Podcast and a couple of other podcasts. I watched lots of birth stories so for VBAC moms, it is another piece of advice I have. Really just soak in all of those VBAC stories and instill that confidence in yourself because I have heard some moms who stay away from podcasts and they like to just have their thoughts and their experiences be their own. That's great and that's fine, but for me, I really needed that support and I really needed that constantly spoken into me. So hearing birth stories, especially VBAC birth stories for VBAC moms is invaluable. It was incredibly empowering. I'm so thankful for your podcast and the fact that you do this and put this community together for moms who listen to it.Meagan: Thank you. It's definitely something that I missed out on in my pregnancies and wanted. I was searching and searching and searching. There would be VBAC stories here and there but I really needed something more. That's why we started this so we could hopefully help people along the way and have more and have that community and that support and just that drive. I feel like you hear these stories and it really helps you be like, “Oh, okay wait. These hundreds of women before me have done this. These are not even half of the women out there.” The amount of submissions that we get and the amount of stories on social media, there are so many stories out there. You are all Women of Strength and you can do this. I think you are right. Listening to these stories, you're going to find something. You're going to find connection and nuggets. You might even find healing through other people's stories. It's weird to think about that but truly, yeah. Rebekah: Even the repeat C-section stories, I loved hearing those and that was what my mental and emotional prep this pregnancy revolved around. I was like, If we're going to have a VBAC, we're going to have a VBAC. That's not what I was worried about. It was that I wanted to make sure that my mind and my spirit and my body were in a place to receive another C-section if it needed that. If I have to have another one, I'm going to make sure that it's a positive experience this time around. So hearing those stories from women who had repeats and even that was healing for them was awesome to hear. Meagan: Yeah, and you were talking about that in the beginning with that unexpected. Your unexpected was that you had an unexpected breech, surprise baby and you were exhausted. That was the route that felt right and some people go into spontaneous labor and it turns into a Cesarean for whatever reason or they go into an induction and the body wasn't responding and baby wasn't responding. We have these unexpected experiences and it's hard because when we are preparing for unmedicated vaginal birth or a medicated vaginal birth or vaginal birth in general, we don't want to think about that Cesarean. We don't. It's easy to push it aside. That's one of the reasons why I think sharing CBAC stories and scheduled C-section stories on the podcast is so important because it does happen and it's important to learn your options there. We just share stories here and we want everyone to find what's best for them and if we limit what we can learn, I think we are doing ourselves a disservice. Rebekah: Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. I hope to get into birth work someday. Ever since I got pregnant with my son, I have been completely immersed in all of it. My Instagram feed is 90% birth workers. So I have learned so much and I used to do that. I used to only really pay attention to the holistic, natural, unmedicated side of things but now, I follow several labor and delivery nurses and OBs and take little pieces from here and little pieces from there. As you are preparing for a new baby, you can't possibly know everything or prepare for everything but knowledge is power and knowledge helps to dissipate fear. As much as you possibly can, learn and arm yourself with it. Like you said, I think that's why doulas are so important too. They can help you in that process of figuring out what education you can focus on or should be focusing on based on what you want. Yeah, it's just incredible. Birth is incredible no matter how it happens. It's hard and it's gritty and beautiful. Meagan: Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. Well, thank you again so much for being here with us and sharing your stories. Rebekah: Thank you so much. ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In this episode of Real Talk with The Vagina Docs: After Dark, Dr. Jocelyn has heartfelt conversation with Kaitlin, a new mom, about her pregnancy, labor, and postpartum journey, focusing on the vital role pelvic floor therapy played throughout her experience. ❗️EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS❗️ ❇️Kaitlin shares her decision to have a home birth and how pelvic floor therapy significantly helped her manage discomfort and prepare for labor. ❇️The challenges of the final weeks of pregnancy, including Braxton Hicks contractions and unexpected physical sensations, are discussed in detail. ❇️ Kaitlin's birth story offers insights into her natural labor process, the importance of having a strong support team, and how she navigated labor without medical interventions. ❇️She emphasizes the importance of postpartum healing and how pelvic floor therapy allowed her to reconnect with her body, regain strength, and manage postpartum challenges more effectively. ❇️Kaitlin provides practical advice for new moms, encouraging them to prioritize rest, seek support, and allow their bodies time to fully heal after childbirth. Guest Information: Kaitlin is a passionate advocate for pelvic floor therapy and shares her journey as a new mom who utilized physical therapy to ensure a smoother pregnancy and recovery. Hosts Information: Dr. Jocelyn and Dr. Jordan are the co-hosts of Real Talk with The Vagina Docs and founders of The Vagina Docs. They specialize in pelvic health and empowering women to reclaim their bodies and sexual wellness through holistic care. Instagram: @vaginadocs Website: www.vaginadocs.com Tune in for an intimate and informative discussion about the transformative experiences of pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum recovery!

Katie is a newborn and family photographer based out of Chicago. After going through IVF, Katie was surprised to find out that her first pregnancy was with identical twins. At 33 weeks, she had an unexpected bleed and then another at 35 weeks. Because of placental abruption, she went straight to a Cesarean and her babies were in the NICU for 7 days.Katie wanted to know what a singleton pregnancy and VBAC birth could be like. She found a supportive midwife group through her local ICAN chapter that had around a 90% VBAC success rate! She also hired a doula. As her due date approached, Katie decided to opt for membrane sweeps to avoid a medical induction starting at 38+6 weeks.After four membrane sweeps over the course of two weeks, spontaneous labor began. She arrived at the hospital and her sweet baby was born vaginally just 5 hours later!Though she said she has a low pain tolerance, Katie's VBAC was unmedicated and she also shares her experience with a retained placenta and a second-degree tear. Katie, that is no small feat-- we know you are an absolute warrior and woman of strength!How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Welcome to the show, Katie. Thank you so much for being here with us. You guys, Katie is from Chicago, right? Chicago. Katie: Yep. Meagan: She is an IVF mama. She's got three girls. She is a girl mom and two identical twins and then a baby girl. How old is your baby girl now? Katie: She's going to be 3 months tomorrow. Meagan: 3 months so still little tiny. Oh my gosh. I love it. So yeah, and then you guys, when she's not doing the mom thing with all of her girls, she is also a newborn and family photographer which is awesome. Can you share with us your handle so we can come follow you?Katie: Yeah. On Instagram, I'm at katiemichellestudios. Meagan: Okay, katiemichellestudios and we are going to make sure to have that in the show notes so you can go follow her and follow her amazing work. And if you're in Chicago and you need newborn or family photos, hit her up. Is there a specific– Chicago is big. Is there a specific area that you serve?Katie: I'm in the northwest suburbs but I do in-home sessions wherever. I use a studio in Oak Park. Meagan: Okay, awesome. Then with your stories today, we've got a couple of highlights. We have IVF, placental abruption, and sticky placenta. I'm excited to talk about sticky placenta for sure because it's not something a lot of people talk about that could happen. Then, of course, the twins and all of that. We are going to get into that but I do have a Review of the Week. You guys, I know every single week I know you are probably sick of me asking but I love your reviews. Thank you so much for your reviews and remember, we always accept your reviews. Okay, this is from cassie80. It says, “Extremely educational and super empowering.” It says, “After a traumatic C-section in 2016, on my research journey about VBAC, I came across this podcast and instantly fell in love.” You guys, that just says something to me. 2016 is when she had her C-section and 2018 is when this podcast started. It's crazy to think that it's been going for so long but I'm so grateful for all of you guys sharing your stories like you, Ms. Katie, and helping this continue. It says, “I am currently trying for number two and am on a mission to VBAC. Hearing all of these wonderful stories of strength has given me the confidence that I can do it when the time comes. You and all of the women who courageously share their stories are just amazing. You all provide healing and support for all of us mamas.” Thank you so much, Cassie, and I'm so glad that you are here with us and have been with us for so long. Okay, Katie. Thank you again for being here. Katie: Thank you so much. I am so excited to be on this podcast myself because I listened to you guys nonstop my entire pregnancy even before and I always had it in the back of my mind that, Oh, if I get my VBAC, I'm going to come on here and tell my story. I am super excited and thank you for having me. Meagan: Oh my gosh, thank you so much. Let's talk about these twins. Let's talk about that birth. Katie: Yes. They were IVF but they were obviously surprise identical twins. My embryo split into obviously identical twins but they were an interesting pregnancy because usually with IVF, the twins are mono-di which means they share a placenta and have two sacs but my girls are actually di-di so they had two placentas, two sacs, so that meant they were a little bit less of a risky pregnancy and a vaginal birth was a possibility. That's what I was planning on. Everything was pretty smooth up until 33 weeks which is when I had my first bleed. It was just the middle of the night. I got up and I just started gushing. The doctor said that it was a marginal placental abruption. That means it was on the edge of the placenta and it wasn't a risk to them. Obviously, it was super scary. I thought that I was going to lose them both but everything with them was fine. They sent me home after a few days at the hospital. They just told me to take it easy, but they said it might happen again. It did at 35 weeks and 3 days. I had another bleed. At that point, they said, “They are almost to term for twins.” It's technically 37 or 38 weeks is when they like to induce for twins so they just said not to risk going any further and let's just get them out right now. I was planning on a vaginal birth, but because of that abruption and we didn't know what state the placenta was in and what would happen if there was an induction process that was started, so with the doctors, we decided I didn't want to risk induction and then needing a C-section anyway for the other twin so we did the C-section. It was a really, really rough recovery and they were in the NICU for a week. One of them needed breathing support and the other one was there for growing and feeding. Meagan: How big were they?Katie: 5 pounds, 3 ounces, and 4 pounds, 13 ounces. Meagan: Okay, okay. Katie: They were a good size. They were overall healthy but it was for me, super duper rough as a first-time mom to twins especially. The breastfeeding journey was really hard. I dealt with low milk supply and they were so tiny that it was hard for them to latch so I ended up exclusively pumping for 11 months. That's their story. Meagan: Wow. That's a lot of work by the way for someone maybe who hasn't pumped a lot. Holy cow. Good job. Katie: Yeah. So when we decided to have a third which was a tough decision for us, my husband was not on board. We ended up deciding that we wanted to experience what it's like to have a singleton baby and just having a singleton pregnancy hopefully and a VBAC. I definitely knew that I wanted a VBAC and started doing all my research. I found a very VBAC-supportive midwife group in my area. They have a 90-something percent VBAC rate in the hospital which is crazy. Meagan: Wow, yeah. That's amazing. What do you think they do so differently that a lot of other groups don't do that makes them so successful? Or are you going to share about it?Katie: I'm not sure. I think the hospital might be part of it, like the hospital policies might be more supportive. They deliver at Evanston Hospital if anyone is interested. Overall, I think the doctors that they work with because it's a midwife group that they work alongside doctors that when there is a delivery for the midwives, the doctors are also in the hospital. I think the doctors are also very VBAC-supportive so I think that helps when they are working together. Meagan: Yes, absolutely. Katie: That's that story. Meagan: So you found them. You found the providers. Did you go and ask them questions? How did you feel like you realized that they were supportive? Katie: Yeah. I went on– what's that group that have a Facebook group all around the country for different areas about lowering the C-section rate?Meagan: Oh, cesareanrates.org? Katie: I'm not sure. They are an organization. Meagan: Oh, ICAN?Katie: ICAN, yes. I went on my local Facebook group for ICAN and I asked around. I got their info. I first went for an appointment with one of the doctors at that practice before I was even pregnant because I was planning for the transfer and I liked that doctor, but then I realized that they have midwives and people really raved about the midwives. They said if you are looking for a more holistic experience and they spend more time with you than the doctors do. I just decided to go that route and somehow picking the midwives made me dive into the whole unmedicated birth side of things as well. I ended up hiring a doula as well. I never thought I'd be someone interested in unmedicated birth. I consider myself to have very low pain tolerance. Meagan: So tell us more about the birth. You have a low pain tolerance but you did go unmedicated?Katie: Yes. I ended up doing it. Meagan: Okay. Did you go into spontaneous labor?Katie: Yeah, it was interesting. I ended up having four membrane sweeps which is not that spontaneous. Meagan: Well, hey. This is the thing. A lot of people ask about membrane sweeps and sometimes people feel, Hey, this is worth it. Let's do this. Some people don't. Sometimes it works and sometimes it takes many and sometimes it doesn't. It's whatever feels right. So do you remember where you were with the first membrane sweep cervical-wise and how many weeks and things like that? Katie: Yeah, so I wanted to start them. Remember, I had never been pregnant past 35 weeks. Meagan: Right, yeah. Katie: I really thought that I was going to have an early baby again, but that really wasn't the case. I had her at 40 and 5. So the membrane sweep, I started the first one at 38 and 6 so basically at my 39-week appointment. I had no change after that one. Nothing happened. That's kind of what I assumed would happen so I had another one the next week at 39 and 6 and at that point, I was 2 centimeters, 80% effaced, and -1 station. Meagan: Okay, so pretty good cervical statistics there for a membrane sweep. Katie: Yeah. So then it was my due date and I was starting to feel more pressure. The mucus plug was coming out and baby was acting super active which I heard can happen close to when a baby is ready to be born but nothing really happened at that point. So then I decided to get my third sweep. I think that was 40+2 and at that point, I was 2.5 centimeters but the same for everything else. But things were starting to happen. I was having more stuff come out and I was like, Oh my gosh. How much longer am I going to be pregnant? Meagan: I'm sure. This is the thing. When you had either preterm or just early deliveries before and then you go past that, it feels like, No. I cannot be pregnant longer than this. This is eternity. Katie: Yes. It was really hard because I had the two-year-old twins also. It was getting to be a real mental and physical struggle. Meagan: Yes. Yeah. Katie: Also, I was doing pumping to try to induce labor and that wasn't doing anything. Meagan: Yeah. Was it causing contractions at all or was it just causing them and then you'd stop and it would stop?Katie: Yeah, basically it would just cause the Braxton Hicks contractions and nothing else. Meagan: Then it would go away. Katie: Yeah. So I had my third sweep and that one really started to do something because I went into prodromal labor which was a doozy. Meagan: Yeah. You know, that can be a risk of trying a membrane sweep. It can cause some prodromal labor but again, a lot of the time, prodromal labor still does stuff. It's tiring and it's exhausting but it's still doing something. Katie: Yeah, and it definitely did for me. My prodromal labor was a nighttime thing. The sun would go down. I'd put the kids to bed and it would start with irregular contractions. It felt like period cramps then I wouldn't sleep all night with that. I had that for two nights and then I was finally– Meagan: Typical prodromal. Katie: Then it would go away during the daytime. Meagan: It's so annoying. It's like, seriously? Fine. If you're going to do prodromal, at least do it during the day when I'm awake but don't take away my sleep. Katie: I know. At that point, I was getting super disheartened. I decided to schedule my induction because if this was going to happen every night, I would have zero energy for this VBAC. I did schedule my induction for 41 and 3 I believe if I made it to that point but I decided to go back and get my fourth membrane sweep June 3rd so the day before she was born. That started something. The midwife was like, “Okay, if I do this, I might see you back here later tonight.” Meagan: That's a promising thing to hear. Katie: Yeah, so once she did that sweep, I was actually already 4.5 centimeters dilated. That prodromal labor was doing something. Meagan: Um, 100%. Katie: Yep. That morning I had that sweep. We went to get lunch. We walked around. I was starting to right away have contractions and these were during the day so I knew something was up. By 4:00 PM that day, I was feeling it. I was starting to need counterpressure and had to stop what I was doing. Based on what the doula had said, that was when I should call them. I texted her and I told her, “I'm having these contractions that I'm having to stop and breathe through but they are still 10 minutes apart so I don't know what's going on.” She's like, "Okay. I think you need to stay home a little longer. You're probably not in active labor yet.” I'm like, "No, I think I'm there. Things are really intense.” Despite what she said, I headed to the hospital.It's a good thing I did because by the time I arrived at 10:00 PM, I was already 6.5 centimeters. Meagan: Okay, nice. Katie: I was very surprised because usually what the doula community says is sometimes when you head to the hospital when you are not in active labor, things can slow down because of the change of scenery and yeah, your body just shuts down. But in my case, it actually was the reverse. I went from super irregular contractions to walking up to the hospital doors and they started coming super regularly like 2-3 minutes apart. Yeah. Meagan: I do feel like the opposite can also happen where our body gets to that final destination and it's like, Okay. You can do this now. You have this sense of release. What you were saying, yes I've seen that too where the mom has to reacclimate to the space and labor stalls a little bit then it goes on, but this one it sounds like it was the opposite where it maybe brought you relaxation and safety. Katie: Yeah. I think maybe part of it was that this hospital experience was so different than my last one. At the last one, it was rushing to the hospital while I'm bleeding. I get there and there's this rush of nurses. Everyone's checking me and this time, I waddled up to the hospital. The room was dark. There was one nurse checking me in. I'm just chilling on the bed. I was just relaxed. I think a lot of the things that I did with the doulas to prepare, like they did classes about comfort measures and things like that and I was really trying to use those. I got the twinkle lights set up and got the music so that really helped. By 1:00 AM, I was already feeling the urge to push and I was feeling so much pressure, especially in my butt. I needed counterpressure for every single contraction up to that point then I was like, “No more counterpressure.” I was screaming for my husband to stop doing it because it was starting to hurt. I knew that something was happening. I was on my side trying to get some rest in between and I was starting to give up at that point. I know what they say is when you are starting to give up, you're starting transition. Meagan: You're right there. Katie: For me, I was thinking, I need an epidural right now. Meagan: A lot of people do though. A lot of people are like, “I can't do this anymore. I'm done. That's that. I need that epidural. I need relief now.” Katie: Yep. I hadn't had a check since I was admitted. It had been about 5 hours since I showed up or 4 hours since I showed up to the hospital so I was like, This can't be it. I can't be ready to push because I've only been here 4 hours and it's my first labor. I was in disbelief but I was like, “I need a check right now because if I'm not close to pushing, I'm getting the epidural.” The doula was trying to talk me out of it. She was like, "Are you sure? What are you going to do if you're not there?” I'm like, "I'm going to get the epidural.” I was 9.5 centimeters at that point. Meagan: Oh yeah. Right there. Katie: Yeah, and I was like, "Oh my gosh. This is actually happening.” My body was starting to push on its own and it was such a weird feeling. It was so different than my friend's birth that I photographed. She had an epidural and it was an induction. That's the only other birth that I've seen and this was so different because my body was pushing. I can't control it. Yeah. That was about an hour of pushing which felt like an eternity and the contractions were actually fine at that point. I couldn't feel them. I could just feel loads of pressure and the ring of fire which was intense, super duper intense. Then my water broke about 10 minutes before she was born and yeah, she was born. Meagan: You get to 10, your water is probably going out through breaks and baby comes down. Katie: Yeah, I had a bulging bag at the end which is really interesting to feel. She was born at 2:34 AM. Meagan: Aww, that's awesome. So pretty dang quick. Katie: Yeah. If you don't count the two nights of prodromal labor. Meagan: Prodromal labor, yeah. But your body was doing it slowly and surely. Each sweep did give you that extra nudge. It maybe gave you some prodromal labor along the way, but it seemed like it was helping and doing something. Katie: Yeah, if that helped me avoid a medical induction, I'm super glad that I did those. Meagan: Yeah, that's something when it comes to someone facing an induction or facing that hurdle, a membrane sweep might not be a bad idea. But too, with that said, if we go in and we are barely 1 centimeter or our cervix is really posterior and we are 30% effaced, we need to know mentally that if we go for a sweep, the chances of it working is a lot lower. It's just lower because our body is maybe not ready. It also doesn't mean it's not going to work. So like I said earlier, you had that ideal cervical stat. You were that 2 centimeters and 80% effaced. Things were looking good and softer, starting to open and they were able to get a really good sweep but even then, it took time. Katie: Yeah, definitely. My midwives never pressured induction on me. I was pressuring myself mainly because IVF pregnancies– there are differing opinions but some doctors say that you should be induced at 39 weeks and some say you shouldn't go past your due date because of the placenta not being as good. Meagan: Well, yeah. It's so hard because– so twins were IVF and was this baby IVF too?Katie: Yeah. Meagan: Okay, that is hard because there are a lot of people who do say that you should induce at 38-39 weeks with IVF and we do know out there that with IVF, the chances of having placenta issues and abnormalities like abruption are increased. Accreta, previa, and things like that. But if everything is going okay, all is looking well, it's that battle of do we induce? Do we not induce? What do we do?Obviously, your providers weren't pushing it so they didn't see any real medical need but then we have other providers on the complete opposite end where they are pushing it hard. Katie: Yeah, in some of my IVF groups on Facebook, basically every single person is induced or has a C-section. It's pretty rare for a provider to say you can go to 42 weeks like mine did. Meagan: Interesting. I actually don't know the real stats on IVF placental issues after 38 weeks. Had anybody ever talked to you about what your chance of issues really were after a certain point?Katie: No. The abruption was I think more of a risk factor was that it was twins and my uterus was so stretched but no one really mentioned placental issues or even said, “Let's look at your placenta after 40 weeks.” They do have the standard ultrasound to look at baby and do the BPP test, but they said that there is nothing really you can see from an ultrasound after your due date. Meagan: We know that ultrasounds can be off by size and by all the things. Katie: Yeah, and she was measuring bigger. She was 85th percentile which was actually true. She was born 8 pounds, 4 ounces so she wasn't tiny like my twins were. Meagan: Yeah. I Googled really, really quickly. This isn't even a study. This is just an article on it. I'll try to get some more studies and things in here but I'm going to include this article. It's from the Real Birth Company. It looks like they are teachers of birth classes. It's highlighted. It says, “What do you need to know if you are pregnant through IVF and you're being advised to have an induction because you are told that there is a higher chance of stillbirth?” It says, “The only study that we found that gives us the information also noted at higher risk of stillbirth for IVF pregnancies, but crucially, they said no increase in their rate of stillbirth after 28 weeks of pregnancy. It just says, “This research therefore tells us that induction at terms would not necessarily reduce stillbirth rates for babies who are conceived by IVF.”Katie: Yeah. From my understanding, it's hard to do studies on this because a lot of women who need IVF have other health factors which can increase the risk of obviously stillbirth and other issues in pregnancy. Meagan: Yeah, it's showing that sometimes IVF moms have placenta accreta and placental abruption at a higher risk. It shows that IUGR babies have a higher chance for being smaller. It also says that gestational diabetes and preeclampsia have an increased chance. So like you said, there are other things that they may have. I'm just going to throw this in there in case anyone listening is an IVF mama and wants to know more. It's interesting that you're saying that in that group– are they scheduling C-sections?Katie: Yeah. Most women get scheduled C-sections, not scheduled C-sections, scheduled inductions but they end in a C-section because they aren't ready. Meagan: Okay, so they aren't necessarily scheduling them right off the bat just because they are IVF. Katie: Right. Meagan: But again, like you said, they aren't ready and inductions are happening and people are ending up in a Cesarean. Katie: Yes. Meagan: Interesting. Well, this article was written in 2021. I'm also going to put a couple others in here that says actually 2024 so I need to look more into this but it's something to consider because again, this is a space where we are trying to reduce unnecessary Cesareans. We're seeing that it's happening so it might be something that you want to research if you are out there and you are doing IVF, research that and see if it's something that really is necessary for sure. Katie: This is just my personal story, but my placenta looked perfectly fine at 40+5 with this baby. Meagan: Yeah, so everything was looking good at that point. We did talk about that in the beginning– sticky placenta or really retained placenta. Did you have that with this? Maybe you can talk to us more about the placenta. You gave birth to babe. It was a VBAC that was a lot faster than anticipated and you went unmedicated when you didn't think you could. I kind of love that so much that you were like, “I have a low pain tolerance,” but then you did that. It just goes to show how possible it is, right? But yeah, talk to us about your placenta. Katie: Yeah. That was actually worse than the pain of the entire birth and something I didn't expect because I had asked about this because it can be an issue with IVF pregnancies. I had asked about this in one of my prenatal appointments and the midwife said, “We don't know if you're going to have that or not. IVF is a risk factor for it,” but since I had the opposite of a sticky placenta. I had a placenta that was coming off the wall. With my last pregnancy, she was like, “I'm guessing that you're not going to have that,” but I did. After baby was out, my placenta was not coming out after 10 minutes and around 30 minutes, I think they like to have it out by then. So they gave it 10 minutes for it to come out naturally, but my contractions completely stopped. Nothing was happening at that point. My body wasn't expelling it. They were trying to pull on it. Eventually, it came out but I was still having bleeding when they were pressing on my stomach than they would like to see. They gave me the Pitocin and that didn't work and then they tried two or three other medications. Meagan: Did they give you Cytotec at all? Katie: Yeah, I think so and another medication that goes in the back in the booty. Meagan: Oh, yes. They usually will insert it rectally. Yes. Yes. Cytotec is not okay when we are pregnant and we are trying to go into labor, but because it makes the uterus contract so hard which is the whole issue with Cytotec and VBAC, it can help reduce bleeding and help the placenta and all of these things. Yeah. Katie: Yeah. They gave me the max dose of Pitocin in my IV and none of that worked. They gave me the Pitocin in the leg and that didn't work, the Cytotec. Then they brought out the ultrasound machine and scanned around and saw that there were some pieces left inside. So she had to stick her hand up and get them. That was horrible. Meagan: And you were unmedicated. I'm just going to tell you right now that you have a high pain tolerance. I think you might be incorrect on that. Not saying that really, but holy cow. Unmedicated and a retained placenta retrieval scrape– they are essentially scraping and fishing for your placenta. Katie: Yes and she had to go in two or three times. They gave me some kind of IV medication and all it did was make me feel drunk. Meagan: Probably fentanyl. Katie: It was something with a D maybe. Dimerol.Meagan: Dilaudid. Katie: Maybe Dilaudid. It made me feel loopy and nauseous but did nothing for the pain. I was holding my baby the whole time and I just want to forget that horrible experience. Meagan: That is rough. Sometimes placentas “stay sticky” and it really can take up to an hour even for a placenta to come out. Sometimes we don't know why and like you said, IVF stuff maybe could have helped but the placenta usually is in that 5 to 30-minute period and providers do start to worry if it's more than that because after we have our baby, our cervix was 10 centimters. It dilated and everything was open and thinned and then it starts coming back and closing again which is the normal process. Katie: Oh my gosh. I didn't even think of that. Meagan: Yeah, it's just that normal process where it starts closing so providers start fearing that if the cervix is closed or too small, the placenta can't move through and then we've got the placenta inside and retained placenta is a very serious thing. You want to get your placenta out. It's an amazing organ and functions amazingly. It raises these amazing babies through these 9 months. It supports them and feeds them but we need to get it out because retained placenta can make you very sick. They start fearing that and sometimes when they are tugging, it can make it so the blood vessels get ripped off or they weren't ready so then we have bleeding and retained placenta and all of these things. They start fearing it and things like breastfeeding, Pitocin, Cytotec, and all of these things that they are trying to get to help you contract more is an effort to help get that out. But yeah. That is a lot. That's a lot. You had this beautiful birth and then whoa, quite a lot right there. Katie: Yeah, a bit of a turn and in addition to that, I had a second-degree tear that they also had to stitch me up. I don't remember if that was before or after the whole extraction. Meagan: Your provider fishing could have caused more tearing. Yeah. There is also a possibility that if for some reason it doesn't come out that you will have to be taken to an OR which is a more rare circumstance but I've had one client in all the 10 years of doing this and she was a VBAC client too actually. She had a beautiful birth and then had to go in and get it manually removed. So yeah, breastfeeding as soon as you can, changing positions and also emptying your bladder is something that you can do because if your bladder is full then it can hold things up so sometimes it's detached but not coming out so there are things we can do and then of course, taking medication and going a step further if we really need to. Katie: Yeah. Overall though, I don't regret any of that. It was still such a beautiful birth even though the end and the golden hour took a turn, it still was more than I had imagined. Meagan: Yeah. I was actually going to ask you. Even with that which is a lot, would you still suggest doing it or would you have done it differently if you could go back?Katie: No regrets. The recovery was a million times easier even with the tear and all of that. I was going to the botanical garden 4 days postpartum with my family. Meagan: Oh my gosh. You were out walking around. Katie: Yeah. Meagan: Oh my gosh. That is amazing. That is amazing. Katie: With toddlers, you've got to get back to real life. Meagan: I know. It's so hard to take that break and recover when we have life that is still moving around us. Katie: Definitely. Meagan: Remind me, you said you took Needed's collagen, right? Katie: I did. Yeah. Meagan: That actually probably helped healing as well. Katie: Yeah. I love that stuff because I wanted to get more protein in. I just put it in my shakes along with all of the other things that I did like the chiropractor and the dates. I did all of the things. Meagan: Yes. And your doulas, do you want to do a shoutout? Katie: Yeah, 3-1-2 doulas and I worked with Heather. Meagan: Awesome. Katie: Yeah, and they have awesome classes too. If you are a doula customer, they are free and if you're not, you can still sign up for them and they are super great. Meagan: That is so awesome. We love our doulas and to all of those listeners out there, just a reminder. We have a major doula directory from literally all over the US to outside of the US if you are looking for doulas too. You can go to thevbaclink.com/findadoula. We love our doulas so dang much. Obviously, I love doulas so much I became one. Doulas are so amazing. I love that you said you did chiropractic care and dates and all of the things. Are there any other suggestions or tips that you would give our listeners as they are going through their VBAC journey? Katie: Yeah, just listen to these podcasts a lot and you'll learn so much. Join The VBAC Link group on Facebook. Meagan: Yes. I love that community. Isn't it just amazing? Katie: Yeah, it's great. There's also another VBAC Facebook group that I loved as well. Meagan: Do you remember the name?Katie: I don't remember. Meagan: There are a few on there. We love– Katie: VBAC Support Group. Yeah, that one's great. Meagan: Awesome. Katie: Yeah, just believe in yourself. You can do it. You are a badass. Meagan: You are a badass and you can do it. I agree. We'll end on that note because that is such a true statement. Girl, you are amazing and I'm so grateful for you sharing these beautiful stories today. Katie: Thank you so much for having me.ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Rachel is a professor, an author, and a VBAC mom who is here to share her story from a traumatic C-section birth through a VBAC. This episode really dives deep into how picking the right provider is key to improving your chances for a VBAC. They give practical questions to ask your providers, more than just yes or no, to really get to know their birth philosophy and what qualifications and experiences your provider might have that would make them a better fit for VBAC chances. Rachel and Meagan also give a lot of validation and advice on how to start the process of overcoming birth trauma; it's reality and to not be ashamed of it. You're not alone. Through the many important messages of this episode, they both mention many times to trust your intuition. If something feels off, listen to that. And if a change in provider is necessary…it is never ever too late to change. Invisible Labor: The Untold Story of the Cesarean SectionHow to Naturally Induce LaborHow to Turn Prodromal Labor into Active LaborMembrane Sweeps for VBACHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello everybody! Welcome to the show! I am so honored to have Rachel Somerstein on with us today. She is a friend of ours from New York. She is a writer and an associate professor of journalism at SUNY New Paltz. She is an author of Invisible Labor: The Untold Story of the Cesarean Section.  And her writing has also appeared in the Boston Globe, The Guardian, The Washington Post, and Women's Health. She lives in Hudson Valley, NY with her husband and her two children and is here to share her stories with you today. Rachel had an unplanned Xesarean section with her first child and the experience was anything but routine. I know that there are many of us who have been through this journey and on this podcast, maybe listening today, that also had an unexpected experience and it may have left us with trauma, or doubt, or fear, or all the feelings, right? And so she is going to be talking to us today about her experiences, but then also we're going to talk about some guidance on how to find peace and to offer ourselves grace and to set ourselves up for a much better experience next time. We do have a review of the week, so I want to get into that and I'm going to turn the time over to Rachel.This review is by Deserie Jacobsen. The review title is “Thank You.” She actually emailed this in and it says, “This podcast and parents course is amazing. I am not a VBAC mom, but I have been listening since 2020. I binge listen near the end of every pregnancy to remind me of everything I need to remember in birth and process through my previous births. This time around I felt more prepared than ever before, having plans in place just in case. We were able to have a quick birth of my 5th baby. I love the education, passion, and love this podcast gives. I recommend it to everyone I know, and I have learned so much from it. I am so grateful for this podcast, thank you.”Thank you so much Deserie for your review! Seriously you guys, I just love hearing that people are finding the information that they need, they're finding community, they're finding that they can do this too. Just like them, and all these reviewers and all the people that have shared their stories and all these reviewers you guys can too. This birth, VBAC, is possible too. Better experience is possible. A healing CBAC; it's possible. You guys, all it takes is getting the information, the prep, finding the provider, to have a better experience.Meagan: Alright Ms. Rachel, welcome to the show and thank you again so much for being here with us. I kind of talked about this a little bit before we started recording about how I think your episode is going to be so powerful and deep and raw too. You've got these feelings and these words. I love it. I love reading your book and I can't wait to hear it from your own mouth. Which speaking of book, can we talk about that a little bit? What kind of just inspired you, jumpstarted you into writing a book about this?Rachel: Well, I'm a writer. And I wrote an essay about my birth about two years after I had my baby, my first birth, my C-section. And I realized I had a lot more to say and also I heard from a lot of moms when that came out and that made me start thinking that I think there was a bigger project. Meagan: Absolutely. And an amazing project that you completed.Rachel: Yes.Meagan: And remind everybody before we get into your stories where they can find your book. I actually have it here in my hands. It's Invisible Labor. So where all can they find that? And we'll make sure that we link it. Rachel: Sure, thank you! Yeah, so it's Invisible Labor: The Untold Story of The Cesarean Section. And you can get it on Amazon, you can get it from Barnes and Noble, you can get it from your local bookstore, you can get it as an audiobook? Or you can also get it as an ebook.Meagan: For the audiobook, did you record it?Rachel: I did not. The narrator is Xe Sands and she did a great, great job. It sounds excellent. Meagan: Awesome. We'll be sure to link that. I think it's definitely a book that everyone should check out. There's a lot of power in that book.Rachel: Thank you.Meagan: And it's not even just your story. I mean there's a ton. Like if you go through the note section there's a ton of research in there, and history and studies, and so many really great things. Well okay, let's hear about the story that started the inspiration and behind this amazing book.Rachel: Sure! Thank you. So like so many moms, I had an unplanned C-section that I was completely unprepared for, which is another reason I wanted to write this book because I think a lot of people go into pregnancy just assuming they're going to have a vaginal birth and like me, I didn't even read the parts of the books about C-sections, I skipped them. Because I was not going to have a C-section. Which is whatever, hindsight is everything, right? But I had a totally textbook pregnancy. I switched to a different group of midwives and OB's about halfway through because I just didn't have a connection I felt with the providers in the first one. And frankly, I didn't have a connection with the providers in the second one either, but by that point, I was like well whatever, it's fine. Which I think is actually, if I could go back and do it again I would have changed that. But you kind of are like, I don't want to, could I possibly change again? And I think that for people who are VBACing, yes you can and sometimes you actually really need to, even like late on in your pregnancy, people will switch groups or providers even late in the third trimester, so. Meagan: Even if you're changed already, you can do it multiple times.Rachel: Exactly.Meagan: It's not a bad thing to find the right provider for you. It's not. Rachel: It's not. And It's hard. And you can feel like, Oh my god. Am I really going to send all my records over? It can feel like so much effort and it can really be worth it. I just wanted to say that as someone who switched once and then was like, Okay, I'm done, and wished I'd switched again. So anyways, it was late in week 39 I went into prodromal labor but I didn't know that prodromal labor even existed because nobody told me about it.  And it was my first baby. So I was like is this labor? I think I'm having contractions, these are not Braxton Hicks. And in the end, we talked to the doula I was working with, and in the end they ended up petering out. And at that, I think that that for me marked the beginning of, this is not going to look like the way I had expected it to look. And again, hindsight is everything. What I wish I had known at the time– and I think this is really relevant to some VBAC moms is that sometimes prodromal labor means that your baby is not in the best position for having a vaginal birth. And I can't exactly say oh I would have done this or that differently if I'd known it, but it would have helped me understand what I was going into with the labor and the birth. So anyway, I eventually went into labor in the middle of the night. It was exactly my due date and I knew it was different. I could just feel this is labor. And I was really eager to get it going quickly. And again, I wish someone would have said, “Rachel, rest. It's early. You're going to need your strength. You're going to need your energy however your baby is born.” And instead I quite literally was running up and down the stairs of my house to try to push labor along. Which is, I have compassion for myself, I understand why I was doing that. What I really needed to do was get in the bath, or I don't know, lay over the birth ball. Watch a silly movie, right? The feelings I was having were real pain and I was scared. But you kind of can't run through this, especially a first labor as we all know, those take a long time, right?Meagan: Yeah. And if we were having prodromal labor, our body may be kicking into labor, but still might need some time to help that baby rotate and change positions. Rachel: Exactly, exactly. And this is the kind of education that is so missing from birth classes. And that is one reason why this kind of podcast is so helpful because that's how I learned about these different things. I didn't ever learn about them from a provider being like, “Let's talk about what will happen in your birth, and let's talk about why you had prodromal labor.”So anyway, we went to the doctors office where we met a midwife and my doula for a labor check. And I was hardly dilated, I was at a 2 but I was in extreme pain. And I have to say, I have a very, very high pain tolerance and I now know I was having back labor. Meagan: Baby's position.Rachel: Exactly. And the contractions were like boom boom boom boom. They were not, I didn't have any rest in between them. Which again, I think my baby was like I gotta get in the right position, this isn't working out, I'm freaking out, ah! Plus my mom is running around, ah! Right?Meagan: Yeah. Rachel: So we went to the hospital and I was checked in and the midwife who checked me in was like, “Oh you're actually not even 2 centimeters, you're just 1 centimeter dilated.” And they checked me because I was in so much pain I think. And I don't know that that was necessarily wrong,  but again, no one was sort of explaining, “Here's what we think is going on.” And it's partly because I believe those providers thought I was exaggerating what I was experiencing physically. They didn't know me. Well, they didn't know that I'm usually pretty stoic. They didn't know that I'm not a squeaky wheel. And I wasn't like screaming or crying or pounding. I was like quiet and I was like I'm in a lot of pain.Meagan: An intense quiet.Rachel: Intense quiet. Exactly. But that doesn't look like what we think pain looks like to people. And the fact is that people are very individual and how they express pain especially during labor where you're already kind of like leaving the regular plane of reality.Meagan: Yes. Rachel: So an important takeaway is like, even experienced providers cannot read your mind and make mistakes in assessing what's truly going on with you. And this comes up later in my second birth, but my husband now does a much better job of saying, “You might look at Rachel right now and think she looks like she's doing great, but this is what's really going on with her.” And he does that in a way that's not like he's speaking for me in a way that's annoying, but it's like I actually can't advocate for myself, I can't express this. So anyways, I asked for an epidural. They said that the anesthesiologist was busy. Which may have been true, but may have been they were trying to put me off because I was hardly dilated. And they told me to get in the birth tub. And I remember hanging over the side of the tub and staring at the clock on the wall and being like, I actually don't know if I'm going to survive this hour. I was just in so much pain. Incredible pain from back labor that was incessant. Eventually he showed up. They hooked me up to all the monitors. At that point, one of the nurses was like, “Oh, you are having monster contractions.” Like the contractions that were being measured were so intense they were going each time to the edge of what was measurable. And now that the computer said it it was like oh…Meagan: You're validated now. Rachel: Exactly. Right. And the anesthesiologist, it took him three tries to get the epidural working properly which would echo problems to come. But he did, and it took away the pain. And then I was just in the bed and kind of left there. And the nurses and the midwife did not use a peanut ball, they didn't move me around. And obviously, listen, I'm attached to the monitors. You know you cannot really move that well, the belt slips, and that increases the chances you'll have a C-section. And there are still things that can be done. It's not like you're a loaf of bread, you just lay in a bed. But they didn't do that stuff and I wasn't dilating. The nurse and doula eventually basically were like, “Well, we're going to go out for dinner and we'll be back in a few hours and we're going to give you this thing to sleep and if you haven't dilated by the time we get back you're going to have a C-section.” And at that point I was exhausted. It's evening now, I've been up since the middle of the night. I'm totally like, what is happening with this birth? No preparation; I took birth classes, I read books, no preparation suggested that this series of events could take place. I felt completely abandoned by my providers, including my doula who I was paying out of pocket. And one thing that came up at this time also was I had this colposcopy in college, like scraping of cervical cells. I didn't hide it from anybody, I was open. And the midwife said well maybe that's why you're not dilating is because of this colposcopy.Meagan: Do you think you got scar tissue?Rachel: That's what she said. And I remember at the time being like why are we only talking about this now? Why has nobody brought this up in any of the prenatal visits that I've done? And I felt blamed. This thing about your body is defective. After a few hours when the midwife and the doula came back and I rested and it was quiet, I had dilated to a 9. And I think what that's about is that I had been in too much pain to dilate. I was so frozen up and tense and also extremely scared.At this point people are like, “Oh wow.” And finally my water broke,y water hadn't broken. So you know, things are kind of continuing and I am starting to actually feel even more fear and my room is getting really crowded with people. And the midwife asks me to start pushing. And I was afraid and I was excited. They turned on the baby warmer, and they were like, “Okay, your baby is going to come out.” And I started to push but I couldn't feel what I was doing. I had no idea. And the midwife was like, “Do you have an urge to push?” And I was like, “No.” The epidural that hadn't gone well from the beginning had then come down with a very heavy hammer and I felt total numbness. It was not helpful. I needed someone to have turned it off or something, or turned it down so I could feel an urge to push and feel how to push, where to push, what muscles to use. And at a certain point I could tell something was going not right and it turned out that my baby was having heart rate decelerations. So just to sketch the scene. At this point it's 1 o'clock in the morning, I've been awake for 24 hours. I'm exhausted. My husband is exhausted. Neither of us has any idea that things could have gone like this. The midwife says I think it's time to do a C-section. And I don't disagree with her. I don't even know what to think at that point. I'm also feeling tremendous fear. I was like I'm afraid I'm going to die, I'm afraid my baby's going to die. And the overall sense in the room…and people were like, “Oh no, you're going to be fine”. And the sense in the room was that I was hysterical and I was not in my right mind. Which I wasn't in my right mind; I had been awake for a long time, I'd been trying to have this baby, nobody really told me what was going on and I felt totally unsupported. Actually, my response was completely reasonable given the circumstances and nobody really attended to that and saw that and recognized that as completely valid. Plus, I don't have evidence to stack this up absolutely, but I have since come to find out that there is a medication that some laboring women are given to help them rest and one of the side effects is an impending sense of doom. And I have a friend who had a baby at this same hospital and had the same response after having been given something to rest during her labor. I could go back and look at my records and I may do that but I'm like, well that would explain also why I had the response I did. Meagan: Mhmm.Rachel: Anyway, we go to the OR. I hunch my back for the spinal that the anesthesiologist has to do a couple of times to get it right. I'm still contracting at this point. My body is still like, Come on, let's get this baby out. Let's get this baby out. And I'm so uncomfortable. And you know that advice to not lay down flat on your back when you're pregnant, but that's what you have to do when you're in the OR. The whole thing felt like I was going to choke under my stomach and very exposed like you are in the operating room. Meagan: Yeah, it's cold and it's bright and you're very exposed. And you can't move your body normally, especially if you've had a spinal. Rachel: And also in retrospect, again I'm like I cannot believe that the first time I learned what happened in a C-section was in my C-section. I really should have at least learned about this even though it would have still been scary and I still would have been surprised. So when the OB goes to operate, he starts his incision and I say, “I felt that.” And he says, “You'll feel pressure.” And I say, “I felt that.” And he continues operating and I was not numb. I felt the operation. And according to his notes..parts of this I don't remember…but he wrote it down and my husband has also told me that I was screaming, my legs were kicking. There's no question that I was in tremendous pain. And I was moaning and it was horrible. And it was horrible for the people in the room too by the way.Meagan: I'm sure. Rachel: Right? Like it's really important to say that. My OB didn't listen to me. That is a super common thing that happens in healthcare, especially for women. Especially for pregnant women. He's not a sociopath. He didn't want to be evil, but he didn't listen and the consequences were so steep and so dire. And I think that it was traumatizing to him and I know it was traumatizing to some of the other providers in that room, the nurses to watch this. He kept going and when the baby was born, which I don't remember, apparently they held her up to my face and they put me under general anesthesia and sent my baby and my husband away and stitched me up. Then I woke up in recovery. The doula and the midwife had gotten the baby to latch while I was unconscious and were talking about me without knowing that I was awake about her latch which really, really bothered me because it just underscored how it felt like I was just a body. And even people who were supposed to be there to take care of me and be tender and advocates, I felt they disregarded me. And under other circumstances I really would have wanted to breastfeed my baby like right away. But I wasn't even there to say yes I want to do this or no I don't want to do this. It was a terrible birth and I would not wish it on anybody. Meagan: And I think, kind of talking about what you were just talking about with breastfeeding and stuff, these people in their hearts and in their minds were probably like this is what she would have wanted. We're trying to help. But in whole other frame of mind over here, I'm not present. I haven't said those things. And I know you're trying to help and I know that's where your heart is, but I'm not okay with this. Rachel: Totally.Meagan: And I think sometimes as doulas, as birth workers, as any one of you listening, remember that words matter. Actions matter. These moms' feelings matter and it's sometimes in our minds we're trying to do what's best, but it might not be. Rachel: Totally. Absolutely. Yes and I again, it's so important to point out. Yes they were coming from a good place. They really were coming from a good place. But it wasn't the way that I felt it or experienced it. Meagan: And it left you with trauma and angst and heartache. Rachel: Absolutely. Totally. Yeah. Meagan: Well that definitely sounds like a really rough birth. And it's so crazy because it's like you went from not progressing to baby in a poor position, to getting an epidural. I love that you talked about that. That can be an amazing tool. A lot of people are very against epidurals, and there are pros and cons with epidurals. We've talked about those. Fetal heart decels is one of them. I don't think, maybe in this situation it sounds like a lot of other things happened; baby's position being one of the biggest ones. But that can really be a tool that helps you just relax and be more present and have less trauma. We talk about this in my doula practice of where there's a difference between pain and suffering. And pain, progressive positive pain that's bringing our baby to us that's one thing. But when we're suffering and we're so tense that our body's not even able to try; that epidural could come into great play. But again, we're not that loaf of bread in a bed and it is important to move and rotate. And it doesn't have to be drastic. It doesn't have to be crazy big movements. Just subtle movements to change the dynamics of the pelvis and to encourage our baby to keep coming down. So there were so many things that just went poorly but also went well, and then poorly again and then well and then real poorly there at the end. Rachel: And I think like to your point, I went into my birth I should say, I was planning on having an unmedicated vaginal birth. I was like I'm not going to have an epidural. And I think that if my providers had different skills I would have, I may have been able to have that baby vaginally. And I say that based on what happened in my second birth. So it's not just like wishful thinking, right? And I'm really glad I had that epidural. I really needed that. I was suffering. The pain I was experiencing was not productive pain. And an epidural can help you with suffering, alleviate your suffering. But it can't and doesn't substitute for emotional support. And I think that's what was missing for me, throughout that first birth. Even if I had gone on to have ok fine, a cesarean, or even a vaginal birth, I still think I would have been like that wasn't a good birth because I didn't feel emotionally supported. And an epidural can't do that. Meagan: Yeah. No an epidural cannot do that. And I, for anyone listening who supports birth, or even who are going for a birth you kind of mentioned it. You're in this other land and sometimes it's hard to advocate and open. You might be thinking something and you might so badly want to say it. It's right here, coming out. And you can't say it for whatever reason. It's a weird thing, it doesn't make sense sometimes but it can happen. But really being heard, validated, understood; which are so many things you weren't. Right? And when we're not heard and when we don't feel safe, and we don't feel supported, those things leave us with PTSD. In fact there was, in your book, I'm just going to read it. It says, “2022 study by anesthesiology and obstetrics professor Joanna and colleagues found that what's important about women who feel pain during childbirth is how mothers feel about their pain. And how their providers communicate with them overall…”You were communicating, and no one was communicating to you. “...feeling positively about pain and heard by providers protects a mother from developing PTSD.” And I mean it goes on which is why you need to get the book so you can read more about it. Rachel: Yep. Meagan: But really, feeling heard. Rachel: It's not just crunchy whoo-hoo feels good, feels right, sounds good. It really matters. And I have to say that I'm participating in and helping to work with providers on designing some studies about providing different pain options for moms during C-sections. We literally had a conversation about this yesterday. And one of things we were talking about is it's not just the pain. It's not just pain relief. It's also being listened to. Because there will be people who are like, I might say I'm in pain, but that doesn't mean I need an epidural or want an epidural. But I'm feeling pain and I want to be heard and I want somebody to…even if you can't express this. You can't even express it because you're the one having labor. What you're needing is someone to see you and look you in the eye and be like you're going to be okay. And I think as mothers we totally are experienced with that all the time. When your child is hurt or sick, part of your job obviously is to get them the help they need, but it's also to assure them this nosebleed is going to end. You're not going to have a bloody nose for the rest of your life. Which, when you're going through something really hard you can sometimes forget, right? And you're pointing out from the studies this helps to prevent people in birth, in labor, from developing PTSD. The stakes are really high. They matter so much. Meagan: When you were just talking, I don't know if you saw my eyes kind of well up a little, but I connected a lot with my first birth when I was clinging to a bed, literally clinging. And I was looking at my husband and I'm like, “Do something!” I had a baby in a poor position. I was being jacked full of pitocin. My water had broken, there was a lot of discomfort going on. I had told him I didn't want an epidural and he's like what do you want me to do? And I was like I don't know, I just need something! And I was terrified and desperate. And he was just like… It wasn't fair for me to put him in that position either but at the same time he was like I don't know, I don't know what to do, right? And the nurses were just like we'll just get you an epidural. And I was like no, I don't want an epidural. And then it just was like epidural, just went down from there. And I wish so badly that there was something else. Let's get you out of the bed. Let's get you in the shower. Let's give you some nitrous. There was so much more that I could have had, but wasn't even offered. And I think too, I needed someone to tell me that nosebleed was going to end. Rachel: Yes. Meagan: And it was going to end and it was going to come back every five minutes and it was going to end again and I was going to be okay. And I was going to survive that. And just hearing you talk about that, why my eyes got all welly, is that I don't know if I realized how much that impacted me until just barely. And here I am, my daughter is almost 13.Rachel: Just like how powerful these things that, I don't know, this is part of why we have these conversations. They shed different corners of light on our experiences that it's like oh my gosh, I didn't even know I knew that. And that's so why we, even though I'm not postpartum immediately, it's valuable for me to talk about it too; to hear what you're saying, you know?Meagan: Yeah. Ah, so after a not-so-amazing experience, going into that postpartum, you've talked a little bit about that in your book. Well, not a little bit, you've talked about that a lot. Tell us about that journey and then what led you to deciding on VBAC and ultimately going and having a VBAC. Rachel: So I should say, I was really…Talk about not realizing things right away. It took me a long time to figure out how traumatized I had been by that birth. And I was about two years postpartum and I was having a procedure for something else and I just completely, I had a panic attack. I had never had a panic attack before, I didn't know what it was and couldn't have explained what was happening. And when the anesthesiologist who did this procedure was like have you ever had any issues with anesthesia, which is exactly the question that should be asked, and I had said what had happened he was so taken aback. He was shocked and didn't know what to say and walked out of the room.Not in the way of, I'm abandoning my patient, but just like from his perspective here's this kind of routine thing. This patient is crying and shaking and talking about this very traumatic incident which I had not talked about. I didn't go to therapy. I had talked about it with friends and my family, it wasn't a secret, but I felt a lot of shame. I felt like I must have been this total freak of a person that this had happened to me. And after that I remember saying to my husband, I just don't know if I'm ever going to be able to get over this trauma enough to have another baby. And I didn't even know if I wanted another baby, like separate from the trauma. In therapy I started to see that I felt very stuck in my life and that included how and whether to grow my family. And that was actually because of the traumatic birth. It just like made this big block. I think one thing that's important to think about for those who have had a traumatic birth is that sometimes that can show up in your life in ways that you don't expect. Meagan: Yes. Rachel: And so to be compassionate with yourself about that and also to be open to that. We're in the era of warnings and trigger warnings and those are important, but sometimes for a traumatized person the things that are triggering or activating are not what you would think. Like for me, I couldn't watch a scene of a hospital birth even if it was happy without getting very uncomfortable and having to walk away and there wouldn't be a content warning on that. So it's just to say be patient with yourself. Accept that…don't, I guess if you've had a traumatizing birth you don't have to struggle against these things. As horrible as they might feel, as uncomfortable as they might feel it's normal and it's ok and it shows up differently for everybody. Rachel: Yeah so I had this big question and then I was like ok, it took awhile for me to be like I do want to have another baby. But I wasn't ready emotionally. And so I waited. And then about, let's see, October of 2019, I was like I think that I'm ready to try to have another baby. And we had met this midwife who lived in our community, who my daughter actually made friends with her niece at our public pool which is so beautiful. I ran into her one night while she was walking her dog. She was like your husband shared a little bit with me, if you ever want to talk. And this, I feel like, I could not be more grateful that this person came into my life. She just is, her skills are phenomenal. Just as a clinician in terms of trauma-informed care, and I've felt safe enough going to her for prenatal care to decide that I was ready to get pregnant. My joke is that I should tour high schools and be like it only takes once to have unprotected sex to become a parent. And I was really lucky that I got pregnant right away and at that point I was 37. So I should say I had my first baby at 33 and I got pregnant again at 37. And that's not always the case for people. Obviously it can take a long time and especially after a C-section, secondary infertility is real. Meagan: It is. Rachel: Yeah. Not talked about enough. Really not talked about enough. Meagan: There's a lot of things, right, about C-sections that is not discussed about. For personal, for the mom, for the individual, the infertility, adhesions, all those things. Just the emotional and the physical. Then even the baby. There's risks for the baby, the allergies, the microbiome getting messed up. All the risks, it's just not discussed. Rachel: No, it's really not. And you kind of only find out later if you've had a C-section and you've had a problem down the road that you're like, maybe that's because of my C-section. It's ridiculous.So we got pregnant and I was not sure if I wanted to have a VBAC, but I started thinking about it from the beginning. And I also was like, if I don't have a VBAC how am I ever going to get myself into an OR, I just don't know. And I really think that VBAC is the under-discussed pain point for moms. And I'm preaching to the choir here but we're talking about half a million moms every year have to make this decision, if it's even available to them. Meagan: I was going to say, if it's even offered. Rachel: If it's even offered. Which is totally not a given. But theoretically, they do have this decision and I really have not…I should say, in the course of writing this book, but also just being a mom who had a bad C-section and then had a VBAC, I hear from people a lot about their journeys just like on the playground. Every person I've talked to, they agonize over it. No matter what they choose, no matter what. Why is that not talked about more? I mean that part of what this podcast is doing that's so important, but I still can't believe how under the radar it is, yet it's such a big deal when you're going through it. So anyway, I told myself I did not have to decide right away about a VBAC or a C-section. My midwife was like you can totally have a VBAC, you can totally have a C-section. Even if you have a C-section you can keep seeing me. I was worried like oh would I get bumped out of midwifery care. One of the things I'm really fortunate about and that I think is really good about that practice is that she has a very close relationship with one of the OB's there. Like they kind of share patients, I should say that. And that's because she's worked with him for a long time and he really respects her clinical skills and vice versa. The other thing about her that's unique and that I didn't know how important it is she's a Certified Nurse Midwife, so she attends births in the hospital. But she previously had been a homebirth practice and at a birth center as a CNM. So her skills are, like I said are phenomenal. A C-section is truly like we have to do this. I've run out of my bag of skills or like the baby or mom's health suggests that like we need to do this now. She worked with me to work with the scheduler so that I saw her for every visit which helped me to learn how to trust her and she didn't pressure me. Either way she was completely open. She also worked with me to make sure that I could see her for virtually every visit so that way she earned my trust. And I got to show her who I am. She got to understand me which was really important to the birth. Meagan: Yes, which I want to point out. There are a lot of providers these days that are working in groups. And I understand why they're working in groups. They're overworked, definitely not rested. There's reasons why, both midwives and OBGYNs are working in these big practices. But the thing is it's really nice to have that established relationship but for some reason specially for VBAC it's so important to have that one-on-one relationship. So if you can, during your search for finding providers, if you can find a provider that is going to be like Rachel's midwife where she's just like I want to get to know you, I want to establish this relationship. Yes, we have this OB over here but I want to be your person. I definitely think it's impactful.Rachel: I totally agree with you and I didn't even know that was possible. And she works for a big group and even so she told the schedulers, hey make sure you schedule her with me. She didn't just do that with me by the way, it wasn't just a special favor for this traumatized patient. And frankly it's better for the providers too because they're not coming in cold. Like ok who's this person, and she's saying this. And what's her prenatal care like? What's her pregnancy like? Of course they're looking at the notes, but it's not the same. Meagan: It isn't. And I love that she said that. But I also want to point out that you can request that. If you're in a group and you can connect whole-heartedly with someone and you feel it's definitely who you need, it's ok to ask hey. I know that I am supposed to meet Sarah Jane and Sally, but can I stay with whoever. And maybe you might not get every visit, but if you can get more visits than only that one? It's worth asking. Rachel: Totally. And also then you know their style. So like she was not an alarmist. Let's say I was over 35; I had to see a MFM just because of my age. That went fine, but if something had come up, like let's say I had a short cervix or there was something I found in an appointment with an MFM specialist I would know her well enough to take that to her to be like, put it to me straight. How worried should I be about this? As opposed to maybe this one's an alarmist, this one is more like ahh let me put this in…And the only way you're going to learn about that is from meeting with them again and again. And for VBAC that's so so important. Meagan: It is. It kind of reminds me of dating. It's weird. I had said this with my provider when I didn't switch. I was like, I feel like I'm breaking up with him. Like he's my second boyfriend, it's just weird. It's not really boyfriend but you know what I mean. But it is, we're dating them. And anyone, in my opinion, can come off really great for that first date because they're wanting to make that impression. They're wanting you to like them. But the more you get to know them, the more they may show their true colors. And you also may realize, I don't think I'm the right person for you. My desires aren't something that aligns with you and so I don't want to put you in this situation. And so if we date our providers, “date our providers,” a little bit more than just one time it really will help us know. And like you said, if something were to come up you could have that trusted person in your corner, which is so important for VBAC, that you can go to. Rachel: Totally. Yeah. So yeah, so pregnancy went well. And then right as I entered my third trimester it started to be COVID. Meagan: Mhmmm. The joys. Rachel: Nobody saw that coming. And then you know, things for the entire society obviously went completely off the rails. Obviously something like COVID is, we hope, not even once in a generation. Once in a hundred years experience. But given all the stuff that was up in the air, boy was I glad that there was one provider who I trusted. Who I could be like ok what do I do, what do I do. And I have to tell you that she and my daughter's pediatrician…I'm a professor. So I should say I'm in the classroom with young people who, you get sick a lot anyways. They're living in dorms, like they're not taking the best care of themselves. So COVID was circulating, and we live right outside New York City, COVID was circulating early here and I have a lot of colleagues that ended up getting it. And both my midwife and my child's pediatrician told me early you need to stop going in person, it's too dangerous for you. And I trust my daughter's pediatrician a lot, you know we have a nice relationship and I really trusted my midwife. Right? So I followed that advice and was really fortunate because boy. You know what you don't want while pregnant? COVID. And you know what you really didn't want? COVID in 2020 when you were pregnant and nobody knew anything, you know?Meagan: Right? Rachel: So, the blessing in disguise was that I was able to work from home. And it was super stressful because I had my daughter and my husband was here and you know, my husband is a photographer…I mean the funny thing is that I ended up, not my head but my body, being in these different photos he ended up taking and my belly was getting bigger and bigger and we kind of had to hide it. I'd be holding a book, or cleaning something. It was an absurd, crazy, isolating, scary, and also funny time. You know the blessing in disguise was that I wasn't on my feet as much and I think that that was really good for me as a pregnant person. There is also data that preterm birth went down during the lockdowns because people got to stay home and they don't necessarily get to do that leading up to birth, which tells us a lot about what we need and the rest we need and aren't getting. So anyway, at first everything went virtual and then when I started going in again for my appointments I had met the OB who works closely with my midwife. And we talked about what would happen if I went over 40 weeks. And he was like well, we're not going to automatically schedule a C-section, we would talk about potentially waiting or induction. And I really appreciated having that conversation with him because I understood where he was coming from and it wasn't again like we're going to schedule a C-section right now. So we know if you get to 40+3 and you haven't had the baby, bing bang boom. And that was very important information about his risk tolerance and his stance. Just like with my first birth I went into prodromal labor a few days before my due date. I had had a membrane sweep with my midwife. My in-laws came to stay with my daughter and we went to the hospital on a Saturday night. I didn't know this but my father-in-law told my husband I think she's getting ahead of her skis. And he was right in the end. So we get to the hospital and my contractions stop. And I'm like oh no. And my midwife was like, they put me on the monitor to get a strip which is like you know, what happens. Meagan: Normal.Rachel: And my midwife was like listen, your baby, he's not looking that good on the monitor. I want you to rest for a little bit and let's see. So I'll check back in with you in like half an hour. And I was so upset. I remember being like I can totally see where this is going to go and I had learned about VBAC in terms of like what could increase the chance of rupture or not and I was like I'm going to end up with another C-section and I'm going to be caught in the net. I didn't even have a shot, is what I felt. And then she came back half an hour later and she was like, “He looks great. I think he was just sleeping, and if you want to go home you can go home.”  And it was like 1 o'clock in the morning. And I was like, “I think we should go home.” I just felt like he's not ready. He's not ready to be born.  And remember, I trusted her so much. She would not tell me this if she thought that there was something…Meagan: If there was something wrong. Rachel: Exactly. She wasn't trying to be my friend. She was my provider. And so it felt really weird to leave and come home and not have a baby. And I thought was this the wrong thing to do, because I live like half an hour from the hospital, and was like no this is it.And then everything was quiet for a few days. And then just like my first labor, my daughter, I went into labor in the middle of the night and I had intense back labor, and I knew like this is the real deal, here we are. And this time I tried to rest. I did like cat/cow and just like anything, child's pose, just anything to feel more comfortable. And I called my midwife at 7 in the morning and she was like, “Okay, I want you to come in and be prepared to go into the hospital from this appointment.” So we did that and at that appointment, I had a headache, I had higher blood pressure, I was dilated to a 6, and she said to me, “Listen. Just so you know, they're not going to let you go home. You're going to the hospital, no matter what if your contractions stop or not whatever. This is what's happening because of how dilated you are, the fact that you have this headache, this BP readings, whatever.” And I was like that's completely reasonable, I felt that way too. You know what I mean? But I really appreciated she communicated that with me so clearly and explained why. So I planned initially to try to have an unmedicated, vaginal birth. My midwife and I had discussed these saline boluses you can have in your, by your, what's it called. Like the triangular bone in your back? I'm totally blanking. Meagan: Your sacrum?Rachel: The sacrum. Yeah, that that can alleviate some pain. And very quickly the pain was, I found it to be unbearable. And I asked for an epidural. And the anaesthesiologist came right away and did a very good job. And the nurses and the midwife who were at the hospital were using a peanut ball and helping me move and really supportive emotionally. And I was still really scared, right? Because I had had this terrible birth before, I thought something would happen to me. And nobody treated me like I was exaggerating or you know like, unreasonable. And that mattered a lot. And I think what's important is you shouldn't have to have gone through a bad birth for people then to take you at face value. With your first birth, it should be the standard for everybody. Meagan: Such a powerful saying right there. Rachel: And they were wonderful, truly, clinically and beside.Meagan: Good.Rachel: And then my midwife surprised me by showing up. She was not on call, she came in at like 9 o'clock, no she came in at like 5 o'clock, like once she'd seen her patients and I was just like oh my god,  so moved to see her. And you know, I was pretty far along at that point and she kind of helped me get into different positions and then it was like okay, it was time to push. And they had managed that epidural so I could feel when it was time to push, and I could feel how she and the nurse were telling me to like push here, right? Like use this, make this go. The pain was really intense but it wasn't suffering, like okay, I'm getting instruction. And as I was pushing I could feel that it wasn't going to work. I was like he's not, his head…I could just feel it. Apparently he was kind of coming and kind of going back up, like his head forward and back. And my midwife was like do I have permission from you to try and move his head? I think his head is not in the best position. And I said yes, and she tried to do it and she couldn't. Her fingers weren't strong enough and then she went to the OB and she told me this later.She said to him can you come and move his head? He'd been trained by midwives in the military, by the way, which is one reason his clinical skills are so amazing.Meagan: That's awesome. Okay.Rachel: Awesome. And at first he apparently was like, oh she's a VBAC, like I can't believe you're asking me to do this. And my midwife, again they trust each other right, and she was like the baby's doing great and the mom's doing great. I really think this is going to work. And he was like okay. So he came in, asked my permission, I said yes and he moved my son's head. My water had not broken again, right? So it's like the same thing as the first one. And once he got in position and I started pushing my water broke in an explosion all over my midwife. That's why they wear goggles, now I know. And she went and changed her clothes. I pushed for 45 minutes and then he came out.Meagan: Oh my gosh. Rachel: It was amazing and I felt so proud and I was completely depleted. I was so high and also so low. And I think what's amazing to me is that it was almost the same labor as my daughter, which just tells me that's how my body tends to do.Meagan: Your pelvis. And some babies need to enter posterior or even in a weird position to actually get down. So that can happen. Rachel: Thank you. And also my water didn't break until the very end so there was buoyancy to be moved, right? And again who knows what would have happened if I had been with this provider the first time. Like maybe these decels really meant that my daughter had to come out like then. That is possible. And that first team did not have the skills of the second team. None of this was even brought up, wasn't even a possibility. And I should say that first birth, I didn't even mention this. The OB that gave me that C-section, later told me that my daughter's head was kind of cocked when he took her out. Which suggests that it was just like my son. And how I'm grateful for my epidural. I'm grateful for, you know, all the things that technological kept me safe, but it was these skills of facilitating vaginal birth that made the difference for me to have that VBAC. Meagan: Absolutely. And the hardest thing for me is seeing that these skills are being lost. Rachel: Yes.Meagan: Or maybe it's not that they're being lost, they're being ignored. And I don't know which one it is. I really don't know because I see people using them. So I feel like it's got to be there. But then I go to other births and I'm like, wait what? You're not going to do anything to help her right here? Or you know, it probably could have been a vaginal birth if we had a provider come in and be like we have  a little asynclitic head, why don't we change into this position and let me see if I can just ever so slightly help this baby's head turn. It just isn't even offered. Rachel: Yes. Meagan: And that's something that I think needs to be added to questions for your provider. In the event that my baby is really low and coming vaginally, but is in a wonky position, what do you do to help my babys' position change to help me have a vaginal birth. And then even further what steps do you take past then if it doesn't work and my baby's so slow. Do we do assisted delivery? What do we do, let's have this conversation. So if it does come up, you're aware. Rachel: I love that. Meagan: I was going to say if your provider says, I don't know/I don't really help, then maybe that's not your right provider. Rachel: And I think what's so smart about that framing is that it's not putting the provider on the defensive of like, what's your training, right? Then it's like, what is your problem? But you're actually asking about their skills and you're asking about their approach, without coming from a place of seeming doubt. Just like, I'm just curious. Meagan: Yeah. Like what could I expect if this were to happen, especially if in the past. Say your C-section was failure to descend, mostly based off on position, we know that this is a big thing. But if your past cesarean was failure to descend, ask those questions to your provider. What steps can you take? What steps can we do together, you and I, to help this baby come out vaginally? Rachel: Totally. And I think also, that way, let's say the VBAC doesn't work out, you won't then be looking back over your shoulder and being like I should of/could of/why didn't I/if only. And you know, what do you want out of your birth experience? Well a lot, but part of it is a sense of peace. Right? That I did the best that I could. That my team did the best that they could.Meagan: Yes. Yeah and really interviewing your provider. Again, dating your provider and asking them the questions, learning more about them and what they do and their view. Taking out the yes and no questions and really trying to get to know this provider and letting them get to know you. I think it's just so impactful. I also, kind of like what you were saying with your first birth, also learning the other types of birth that could happen, you know learning about assisted birth. This is a new thing. Learning if assisted birth trumps a cesarean for you. Would you rather go for an assisted birth, even if it may end in cesarean, would you rather attempt that? Or would you just rather skip that and go right to the cesarean. Really educating yourself and trying not to push off the scary even though it can be scary. Rachel: Yes, yes. I love that you're saying this and I was just thinking about this and talking about this with a friend; there's stuff we hope doesn't happen. But not talking about it or thinking about it isn't going to protect us from it happening, it's just going to mean you're not prepared. Meagan: Yeah.Rachel: If it does happen. And yeah. Meagan: It's a disservice to ourselves. And it's weird. And it's hard to hear those stories. It's hard to hear the CBAC stories, it's hard to hear the uterine rupture stories that we do share on this podcast. Kind of what you're talking about the trigger warnings earlier, yeah it might be a trigger. It really might. But if we know all the signs of uterine rupture leading up to, we can be aware. And it's not something to hyperfocus on. We don't want it to be like oh my gosh I have this weird pain, right now, I don't know. It's not to make you scared, it really isn't. It's to just help you feel educated. Kind of what you were saying too. I don't know what a C-section looked like until I was in my own C-section. Rachel: Yeah. I've been talking about this recently with an anesthesiologist, some anti-anxiety medicine which you might get during a C-section, can cause memory loss. That's a side effect. So the time to decide…Let's say you're not planning on having a C-section. And then you're having a C-section and you're really anxious, really reasonable. The time to decide whether to take that anti-anxiety medicine which might cause memory loss; you should have an opportunity to reflect on that and talk about that  and think about that not only in the moment when you're scared and should I take it right now or not. Meagan: Yeah.Rachel: It's just like that's not a good way to make a decision, you know?Meagan: Yeah. And also learning about alternatives. Okay, these are the side effects of this medication, and I don't think I'm willing to accept that. So let's talk about other medications and those side effects so we can see if we can switch it up.  They have a whole bunch of things in their toolbox when it comes to medication. Rachel: Exactly. Meagan: For nausea. You know I had a medication and it affected my chest. It went all the way into my chest and I had to consciously focus on my chest moving. It was the weirdest feeling. Rachel: Terrifying, yeah. Meagan: I wish I would have known the alternatives to that. Right? So having these educated discussions, learning as much as you can. It's hard and it's scary and it's intimidating to not learn what you don't want. It's understandable, too.Rachel: Completely, completely. But that's informed consent, right? The risks, the benefits, the alternatives. And to go back to the anti-anxiety thing. You might be like okay, what could you do for me non-pharmacologically? Let's say I have a C-section and I'm feeling really anxious. Can I have a doula with me there who's giving me a massage? Can I have a doula there who's maybe put some lavender essence on a washcloth to hold to my nose. Can the anesthesiologist hold my hand and tell me it's going to be okay? And then you start actually opening up real options. Like wow I can have a doula with me?Meagan: Yes. That is something that I am very passionate about. We need to get doulas in the OR way more than we are. And I understand that it's like oh we don't have PPE, or oh it's an extra body, and oh it's a very big surgery, like I understand that. But I have been in the OR a good handful of times. And I understand my position in that room. I understand and respect my position in that room. And I always let an anesthesiologist know, if at any point something happens where I need to leave this room you just tell me. I will leave. No questions asked. But please let me be here with my client. Please let me stroke her hair. Please let me talk to her when dad goes over to baby so she's not alone. When you were put under general anesthesia to be there by your side, whether or not you were waking up in the OR. Because sometimes you could wake up sooner, or waking up in post-operative. Let's get these people here. Let's play music. Let's talk to them. Let's communicate the birth.I mean with my first C-section, they were complaining about the storm outside, they weren't even talking to me, right? And it would have impacted my birth in such a more positive light if I would have been talked to. And I wouldn't have felt like, what's going on. You know and all those things, you talked about it in your book. This drape that is separating us from our birth, it's just wild. So one of the questions we ask when you sign up to be on the podcast is topics of discussion that you would like to share, and one of those things is you said, why it's important to balance preparation for VBAC with an understanding of the systemic forces that promote C-sections. We're kind of talking about that, but do you have anything else to say on that? Rachel: I think that there is so much self-blame for having a C-section, when you wanted to have a vaginal birth. And go back to pain and suffering, that causes suffering. And it's heartbreaking to see that and to feel that. And when I think about it, I think what's important to keep in mind is like there are the particulars of your experience, right? Like your providers had the skills or didn't. They listened or they didn't. Your baby had decels or didn't. Like all that is real. And you're not the first or only person any of that is happening to. So why are we hooked up to electronic fetal monitoring, EFM, as soon as we walk into the hospital? Well that is because of how technology reigns supreme right now in every aspect of our society, but medicine too. And also that like it's an efficient system and medical birth, medicalized birth is all about efficiency and making as much money as possible frankly. Meagan: And there's even deeper history, we talk about that in our VBAC course, about why that was happening around cerebral palsy and what it actually did for cerebral palsy rates. All of these things. It's pretty fascinating when you get into it and understand one, why they do it and does it work? Does it make sense? They do it and just became practice and norm, but it did it actually impact the things that, okay how do I say this. Does it impact the things that they were originally creating it to impact? Rachel: Right. Totally. And it's actually the opposite; it was supposed to bring down the number of C-section rates, or the number of C-sections, when the number was like 4.5% in the early seventies and it's just gone in the opposite direction.There's so much evidence that you use it and it makes you more likely to have a C-section. And so yeah, okay, not your fault. That's the system. And I don't mean it in this way like, that's the system, give up, lay down, don't try to make your own feet, but also just to accept that that's what you're operating in and that's what your providers are operating in too. Right? Use it as a way to let go of the guilt and the shame and the, I messed up. My body messed up. Meagan: Yeah. Because there's so many of us that feel that. Rachel: Yes. Meagan: And it goes into the next topic they were saying that I think really can help us walk away with less of, I messed up. My body messed up. My baby failed me. You know whatever it may be. And doing effective research about the hospitals and their employment patterns and the chances of you even having a VBAC. That does kind of go into the balls in our court where we have to get the education and understand. But even when we do that, even when we don't have the best experience, in the end we're still going to look back at it as we did, WE did, the best we could. Right? And it takes less of that blame on us in a way because we know we did everything we could. Rachel: Yes.Meagan: And sometimes it just still happens. Even if you have the doula. Take the VBAC course. Read all the VBAC books, listen to all the podcasts, understand all the risks. Sometimes it still happens. Rachel: Totally. And I mean I think about in my case, like let's say my midwife hadn't come in for me and my OB hadn't been the one who had been attending that night, maybe I would have had a C-section. Because maybe the people there wouldn't have known how to effectively move my son's head. Even though I like did my best and that's okay. It has to be okay because you can't kind of change it. And again, not to be defeat-ist. But to find peace, just to find peace. Meagan: Yeah. I wish that for our VBAC community is finding peace and giving ourselves grace along our journeys. Because we've had 100's of podcast stories and there are so many of us who are still searching for peace. And still not offering ourselves grace, and putting that blame on us, or whatever, right? Everyone's so different and again, we talked about this earlier, it's just different. But I would love to see our community offering themselves more grace and finding more peace with their experiences along the way. And I don't exactly know what that healing looks like and how that peace is found. Do you have any suggestions on ways you have found peace with a very very very traumatic experience that not only led to trauma in that experience, but even in future procedures, in future experiences you know. Do you have any tips on just, guidance on finding peace? Rachel: I mean, I struggle with this still. And it sounds counterintuitive, but I think like not pushing away your feelings. And in the sense of not wallowing, but also not like struggling against them, trying to quiet them, make them be like ugh I hate this. Ugh I hate that I feel this way. Ugh if only I could get over it. So I'll say like, when I go to the doctor now, I get really scared especially if it's a new person and my blood pressure goes up and sometimes my heart rate goes up and it just sort of happens. And I hate it. And there are times when I'm like ugh I hate this part of me. I just hate it.But then when I'm kind of more accepting and it's like, this is how my body responds. It's understandable that this is how my body responds. And I take a Xanax actually. I say that to really take away the stigma I think that still exists around medical trauma and taking medication to manage your symptoms. I take a low dose Xanax before I go to see a provider and it helps me with my suffering. And also just like accepting. Because also there's this saying, if you struggle against the feelings of suffering, then you kind of suffer twice over. Right?Meagan: You do. Rachel: So I would say that, and then specifically for people who feel they had a traumatic experience, I've found EMDR treatment to be very effective, to deal with stuff in the body. That was pioneered more to deal with people who've been in like combat trauma, but it's very effective for traumatic birth. Tapping is another thing that can be very effective. And you can find that online, like there are different…Meagan: I was gonna say, you can go to YouTube and google trauma tapping or anything like that, and you can actually find some pretty great videos for free on how to do that. And it's pretty wild actually how well it works. Rachel: It really is. Meagan: Sometimes it's like wait, how is this working? It really does work. Rachel: Totally. And also I would say like in terms of again, peace, I think it's really important to speak openly about what has happened to you. And to the extent possible, we're conditioned to be like I'm just going to tie this up with a bow and it's okay. Someone says to you, you've expressed something hard, and they're like oh I'm so sorry and you're like it's okay, I'm going to be okay. Like you don't have to worry so much about reassuring your listener. You can be like yeah I had this C-section, and I'm still kind of upset about it. And yeah, that's how I feel. You don't have to self-qualify that. You know, but my baby is healthy. But I'm okay. But I love my baby. We do that; there's a lot of pressure to do that. And it's okay not to do that. It's okay to be like these are my feelings. And two things can be true at the same time. You can love your baby, and you can also be like I'm not that thrilled with the birth. Meagan: Awe yes. Julie and I have talked about that for years. They don't have to be separate. They can go together. You can love your baby and feel connected to your baby and really not like your birth experience. And you can also, we have found that people prep and then they have a vaginal birth and they're like I actually didn't really like that either. So you know, they don't have to just always be separate. You can be really happy and really be upset at the same time. It's okay to have those feelings, right? I have had things in my life where I've done something and I'm like dang. I really like how it turned out, but I hated the journey to getting there. And that's okay. So I love that you pointed that out. Rachel: Yes. or if you think about how you feel on your children's birthdays. So like I have very different feelings on my daughter's birthdays then my son's birthday. I had a good birth with my son. And it was good not because it was a VBAC, but because I was respected and I felt safe. That's what made that a good birth. Right? Just to be totally clear. I'm really glad I had a VBAC, I'm happy I got what

“Inhale peace, exhale tension.”Did you know that the cascade of interventions can not only contribute to a Cesarean but may cause one? Melanie believes that was the case with her first birth. Her difficult recovery included going to EMDR therapy to help with her PTSD. Her OB/GYN did mention that she would be a great VBAC candidate. Not knowing VBAC was a thing, Melanie's research began. Cue The VBAC Link!Melanie vigorously dove into VBAC prep before she was pregnant again. Her journey is one that shows just how powerful intuition and manifestation can be. Melanie went from having PROM with her first to arriving at the birth center at 7 centimeters and even being able to reach down to feel her bulging bag of waters as her baby began to emerge en caul!Other talking points in this episode include:Achieving a VBAC without a doulaHusband support Birth affirmationsRecommended podcasts and booksSpecific ways to avoid PROMHypnobirthing by Siobhan MillerThe VBAC Link Blog: 9 VBAC Books We RecommendThe Birth HourDown to BirthNeeded WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello, everybody. Happy VBAC Link Podcast day, whatever day it is that you are listening. We are so happy that you are here. We have our friend, Melanie, from Texas. Texas, is that where you are? That's where my mind is thinking. Melanie: Yep. Yep. Wiley, Texas just outside Dallas. Meagan: Perfect and did you have your VBAC in Texas?Melanie: Yes. In Dallas. Meagan: In Dallas, okay. We have her sharing her stories with us today you guys. At the end, we're going to be talking about PROM. Right before we got recording, I was talking about how important I think talking about PROM is which if you haven't heard lately what PROM means, there are all of these acronyms all over the place when it comes to VBAC birth, but it's premature rupture of membranes. We are both PROM moms here and so we are very passionate about the topic. If you have had your water break before labor really started and got going in the past, definitely hang on in the end because we are going to be talking more about that and maybe some ways that could or maybe not, we are hoping these are the ways that helped us avoid premature rupture of membranes. We are going to be talking about that and of course, her beautiful VBAC story. I do have a Review of the Week and this is by milka. It says, “VBAC Podcast Review.” It says, “Hi. I love listening to your podcast. I had an unplanned C-section with my first birth and am preparing for my second birth now. I didn't know what to do to make sure I didn't end up with the same situation. Hearing so many women's stories and experiences validated mine but most importantly, I learned so many tips and ideas to help my VBAC. I had a successful VBAC and now recommend this podcast to all expecting moms. Just such a great no-pressure and enjoyable way to learn.” I love that she talked about no pressure because that is what this podcast is about. This is a place where people share their stories, where they share information both on VBAC and CBAC, and all topics when it comes to birth. We want you to just be here, be in this space, and have it connect with you how it connects with you and take these women's stories and these providers who are coming on and the information given and apply it however, it looks for your journey. Melanie and I were just talking a little bit before the episode about how it just feels so full circle. So many of these Women of Strength who have come on before Melanie here and have shared their experiences and people listening, it really is so impactful. Right, Melanie? You were saying that I was in your ear. We were in your ear and these people's stories were in your ear doing what? Empowering you. Melanie: Mhmm. Oh yeah, it's incredible. It feels very full circle to be here. Meagan: Yes. We are very excited that you are and you guys, we are going to jump right into her story in just a second. Okay. The table is yours. Melanie: Okay, so happy to be here. Meagan, like you said, you guys have been in my ear for over a year so it just feels incredible to be here. As I was listening to these stories, I was always hoping to find that birth story that was like mine just to find out what went wrong with mine and also on the flip side, what did people do? What were people seeing in things that went right and how they were able to get a successful VBAC? I was very motivated and inspired by the podcast. I listened to every episode so hopefully, my two stories out there can hit home with anyone. But yeah. I'll start with, of course, the C-section just briefly. I got pregnant in March 2021 so everybody remembers it was COVID times still. Meagan: Wild times. Melanie: Wild times. Actually, at the beginning of my pregnancy, my husband wasn't able to come to the appointments. But thankfully, it being 2021, by halfway he was able to come. That pregnancy, I was really healthy. I ran. I'm a big runner so I ran every day. I had no morning sickness. I was very active. I never even until the very end– I ran the day my water broke and I never had that feeling like I didn't want to be pregnant.Not the case the second time as we'll hear, but the first time—Meagan: And you do that competitively, right? Did you compete during pregnancy at all? Melanie: I've ran my whole life so I ran cross country and track division one in college. Now, I do more marathons. Yeah. I ran both pregnancies. Not anything too crazy. During the second pregnancy, I did run a half marathon. I was 16 weeks but then it went downhill after that. But yeah. I run pretty competitively. I take it really seriously and it's a passion of mine. Yeah, the only thing I got the first time and the second, but I did. I've heard it before on the podcast is SPD, symphysis pubic dysfunction. The first pregnancy, so the one I'm talking about, a prenatal chiropractor literally cured it. I had to go back a couple of times because it would get out of alignment again, but for anyone who is suffering from SPD like I was both times, it's amazing. I would just call them witches because they would literally cure it and it would get me back to running. It was amazing. So my birth education the first time around, I thought I was educated like so many women here. I read the typical What to Expect When You're Expecting. I did a podcast but it was more so of what size is your baby? What's going on in utero? I didn't listen to many birth stories and I became so obsessed with that the second time. And truly, I feel like you get the best birth education through birth stories because you just get the whole shebang. We did take a hospital birth class and now I know that a hospital birth class is really just the hospital policies. I remember there was a section that they had mentioned very quickly in passing, “If you're going to have a C-section, you should take this class. Okay, the next thing.” I thought like so many women, That's not going to be me. I'm not going to have a C-section. I'm healthy. I feel great. Most C-sections are not planned so I feel like it really did a disservice to not even mention anything about a C-section in that class, but anyway, I just assumed that you have a baby in the hospital. You get an epidural. You take a nap and then you wake up and you push out a baby. I was not against hospitals or anything. I was not against the epidural or anything like that. I mentioned that I ran the day my water broke. This was past 40 weeks. 40 weeks came and went. A couple of cervical checks I got I was not dilated at all. They had scheduled a 41-week induction date. When I was checking out at the front desk at the time, I just remember it feeling really, really wrong scheduling that date. Meagan: Your intuition was speaking right there. Melanie: 100%, yeah. Of course, I didn't realize it at the time. It was my first baby and everything but when I look back, that just felt so wrong. 41 weeks came and I was supposed to go in at 9:00 PM that night but the interesting thing is that my water broke actually 4 hours before I was supposed to go in. It was 5:00 PM and I was supposed to go in at 9:00. Like you mentioned Meagan, it was PROM so it was a trickle. I was like, Wait. Am I peeing? What is happening here? No contractions at all. And with the little education I did, I knew that just because your water breaks, it doesn't mean that you have to go in and you should labor at home as long as possible. However, because I was set to go in and I guess because I was 41 weeks, I called them and I just remember they were like, “No. You're in labor. Come in.”I was like, “Okay.” Meagan: This is labor? Melanie: Yeah, I was like, “Oh, okay.” So I got to the hospital literally not dilated at all. I was maybe half a centimeter and they inserted the Cervadil at 9:00 PM which hurt really bad because it turns out if you are not dilated, it really hurts to get Cervadil inserted. Meagan: And if your cervix is posterior, it's hard for them to get it into your cervix so that can also cause a lot of discomfort. Melanie: That's exactly what it was too because I think they had a hard time. I didn't even think about that. It was probably posterior. Man. Yeah, see? My body just wasn't ready for that. But contractions did come eventually. I don't know if Cervadil can cause it or if it was just time. I was going into labor but that was around 1:00 AM. The contractions started to get uncomfortable. I had not practiced coping with contractions at all because I was planning to get an epidural. I never had any inkling of going unmedicated or anything so this is where I think everything went south.This is where I just think it was the cascade of interventions. First I had fentanyl which I don't know why because I think I was trying to delay the epidural for whatever reason. I don't know why. I had fentanyl first. It was awful. It felt like I was so drunk. The room spun and it was terrible. Then an epidural, which has fentanyl in the epidural. That was fine. After the epidural, of course, you feel amazing, but you are stuck on your back forever. I just think this cascade of interventions, being stuck on my back, not moving, I never ever take medicine as it is. I think my body and my baby just hated all of this. So then eventually, terbutaline was given around 6:00 AM. Meagan: To stop the contractions. Melanie: Yep. I think that's when some decels started happening then they did pull the Cervadil to stop the contractions. There were some decels then yeah, eventually it's all a little bit fuzzy but at 6:45 AM the decision was made for a C-section. At 8:01, he was born. They called it an emergency C-section and now I look back and I'm like, yes. I do believe that it was needed. However, I'll never really know but I really think it was caused and also, if it's an emergency, I understand that they don't wait hours like they did for me and they usually put you under. I think it was more unplanned and I look back and I really think it was caused. Meagan: That is the hard thing to know. A lot of these Cesareans, I would agree with you that they are caused by the cascade of interventions and things like that and then a lot of providers will say “emergent” so there are emergent Cesareans where we need to get this baby out quick and then there is a crash where they do put people under with crash Cesareans. But if they are waiting for hours, it's almost like they gave the emergency title to make themselves feel better or make it look valid to justify that Cesarean. Melanie: Yeah, I definitely agree with that. That experience was really awful for me. I think for some women, I think it's awful for a lot of women and then I think for some, it's not that awful. For me, no skin-to-skin. I know that's not very common at all. It felt like it was forever for them to bring him to me. No one was talking to you in this moment and I just don't think these doctors realize in the moment that you're being robbed of something that you envisioned and a really important experience. It just felt like forever for them to give him to me. It was 30 minutes or so. He was fine. He came out completely fine with great APGARS. I was fine. It just ended up in the way I didn't want it to. I did have PTSD from that experience because I was having a lot of flashbacks to it. I went through some EMDR therapy. I had a great therapist and of course, I talked to her about it. She was there for my VBAC as well. But yes. That postpartum was just– the healing sucked. I just felt really awful and I think mentally, it took a really big toll on me. Breastfeeding was really hard. A lot of that I attributed to my C-section. It was not desired. It was just not great. So that was the first birth. I never knew VBAC was a thing or a big deal at all. I don't even think I knew the term VBAC. I went to the 6-week post-doctor's visit and I remember she was like, “Yeah, you'd be a great candidate for a VBAC. However, you have to go into spontaneous labor by 39 weeks.” I'm sitting here like, okay. He was just a 41-week baby. My mom has a history of going late. I don't think that's very likely that I'll go into spontaneous labor by 39 weeks so I already made up my mind that I wasn't going to go with her. I learned later that that is a very common thing that hospitals and OB/GYNs will say to you. Yeah, that was the first one. So then cue The VBAC Link. I started listening to The VBAC Link Podcast before I was pregnant. Maybe my son was a year old and I binged every episode. You and Julie were in my ear a ton. The thing that I heard from The VBAC Link was that the likelihood of a successful VBAC for many of these women did happen out of the hospital and like you yourself, Meagan. That's not to say that of course, you can be in the hospital. You can have an epidural and get induced and have a successful VBAC, but when I just heard the overwhelming thing was how much of a better chance you have. I should also mention that my husband works in medicine too. He's a physician assistant. I will talk about that. He had a little bit of a hard time just with the safety aspect of it. But once I let my mind go toward the possibility of an out-of-hospital birth– because I wanted a VBAC so badly. I was so motivated. Then I realized that it was something that I actually really desired, a physiologic birth and unmedicated. When I look back, I think that's why I had such a hard time mentally with my first birth because I think I didn't know that I cared how my babies come into the world and I wanted to experience that. I don't know and in some weird way too, it felt like doing an unmedicated out-of-hospital birth made me almost feel connected to my ancestors. It seems really weird, but I was like, this is what they did. I just think it's something really cool that our bodies do. I wanted to experience that. But I do. I recognize that it was a trauma response for me for sure to become obsessed with research. I binged all of the episodes. I would look for anything related to VBAC. I read so many books and I actually toured. I had a neighbor and a friend who was pregnant at the time and she was going with the birth center that I ended up going with. We would go on walks and she would talk about her experience and how amazing and wonderful it was. I was just like, man. I want that, especially knowing that we were planning to most likely have just one more child. I hated to have that thinking of, this is my last chance, but I did. Meagan: I understand that so much because my husband told me that too and I was like, “I really want this VBAC. I really want this VBAC.” Melanie: Yeah and that's okay. We're okay. It's okay if we have these desires and these wishes. You only get one life. It's okay to want what we want. I'll never forget. I toured the same birth center that my friend was at and again, I was not pregnant yet. It was an education class. I was like, let me just see what these midwives are all about and what birth centers are like. It just immediately– again, it's that intuition. It immediately felt so right. I remember I walked in and just before even finishing the class, before we even really heard them out, I just knew that this was where I wanted to give birth in my next pregnancy. It felt so right. And also, I'll never forget. I had asked questions about VBAC because unfortunately, not all birth centers support VBACs which I don't understand, but I had asked a lot of my questions related to VBACs and I remember the midwife saying, “Well, unfortunately and fortunately, we do a lot of VBACs.” I'm thinking, why would I not want to be with a provider who does the most VBACs? Hospitals don't do a lot of VBACs comparatively. A lot of people are like me. They go to a birth center because they really want a VBAC. That just was really calming to me. I felt like I was with experienced hands. I was safe and there also was not really anything different about a VBAC. I'm with people who understand and trust birth. I brought this up to my husband and I mentioned that he had his reservations because he's a physician assistant and he works in orthopedic trauma but he was in PA school, he had to do OB/GYN rotations. He unfortunately saw some bad birth outcomes so to him, the hospital was a safety net but I was so, so grateful that he was supportive of my desire to go out-of-hospital even though it seemed kind of crazy to him. He came to– we had one meeting with the midwife so he could ask questions and everything. She was so great and answered all of his questions and I actually was unknowingly pregnant at the time. I didn't know it.Meagan: No way. Melanie: It's really weird. I toured the birth center first by myself and it's almost like my body needed that to be like, boom. You found the place where you are going to give birth and then I got pregnant. It was really weird. We were trying but also, it takes my body after coming off birth control some time so it still was a shock. I was like, oh wow. So anyway, the second pregnancy was much harder as I mentioned. I was not able to be nearly as active. I ran that half marathon like I mentioned and then– it was the Dallas half– then my body just went downhill. It was much, much harder. My sleep was horrible. I have an Aura ring and it tracks your sleep and everything then at the end of the year, it will give you a summary of every month's sleep. I will never forget because I got pregnant in September and it's like, January, February, March, April everything is fine and you look at the bar graph time series and it plummets in September. It stayed that way. It was my deep sleep. My deep sleep really, really decreased a ton. Maybe that's normal and I just didn't know that the first time, but I did not tell many people I was going with a birth center. I lied about my due date which I learned from this podcast which is very smart to do. I highly recommend it just because I didn't want to let in any of that negative energy or anything. The couple people I did tell, I did get a couple of people who would be like, “Oh, they're going to let you do that,” like the “let you” language. Meagan: We both did the same thing at the same time with the air quotes. The “let you”. Melanie: Yeah, exactly. I don't blame them. I just think that a lot of people don't have that birth education. And in hospitals, it's very normal to do a repeat C-section even though we all know it's not evidence-based. So very briefly, I want to talk about the prep that I did in this pregnancy that made such a huge difference for me. Number one, all of the podcasts like I mentioned. This one, of course. The VBAC Link, I binged it. I found the Down to Birth podcast at the end and that's a really, really good one. I know everybody does The Birth Hour as well which is good but that one has everything. I loved the more VBAC-specific ones. Then also, they haven't produced any episodes in a while but the Home Birth After Cesarean Podcast was really good too because they were all unmedicated. I was hoping to do that and they were all VBACs. Then books– I read a lot but these were my favorites. Of course, Ina May's Guide to Childbirth. Emily Oscar's Expecting Better is really good. Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way is a little outdated but that one I really loved. It really taught me what productive contractions looked like because I didn't really experience labor the first time. I never made it past a 3 the first time. I didn't know what that meant. I didn't have coping mechanisms. They really focused on breathing. The best book I read and I hadn't heard this one on it. Maybe you know of it but I had never heard about it but it was Hypnobirthing by Siobhan Miller. There are a lot of books on Hypnobirthing but Hypnobirthing by Siobhan Miller. I was just thinking of Hypnobirthing as a possible way to cope. That book was the best book because I really like the science, the physiology, and what is actually happening in your body when you're getting contractions and how do you work with your body. It just had such a great way of explaining all of that.That was the last book I found. I was 3 weeks away from my guess date. That one was great. She also creates the Freya app if you've heard of that. The Freya app times contractions and it helps you with breathing. They give you a lot of mantras. Yeah. That book was amazing. I did get the Freya app too. I did not know I was going to rely on it so much in labor. Also, in that book, it was really big on affirmation cards. I would make affirmation cards then I would read them in the bath and sometimes practice my breathing through the app. I did some pelvic PT and then, of course, the prenatal chiropractor like I mentioned, I continued to do that. Like I mentioned, the care with the midwives was great. Very positive language. I noticed what was really important to me was not, “I hope I can do this,” because of course, I hope that. But my midwives were amazing because every time, they would just speak it. They would say, “You are going to have a beautiful, redemptive VBAC.” They would just say that. Of course, I know I am 50% of the birth story. The baby is the other 50%. Of course, I know that but it was so important for me to have that positive language. I really worked on my mindset this time around. I only followed accounts that served me. I unfollowed news accounts. I had to be very careful about what I watched and things like that. I don't think women realize how important our mental state is. I get very sensitive. Meagan: Yes. So talking about that, protecting your space, our bubble, or whatever it may be. Protecting our space is so important because mentally, like you were saying, I don't know if people really understand how precious our mental space is but mentally, if we are thrown off, it is sometimes really difficult to get back onto that rail. I had a situation on Facebook in a VBAC-supportive group. I've talked about it in the past. I was so excited to announce that I was going to birth outside of the hospital. I also wasn't telling people that I was birthing out of the hospital. I didn't really tell people my plan I thought I could in that group and I wasn't supported. I had to leave that. Sometimes it means leaving groups. Sometimes it means staying off social media. Sometimes it means muting people who may be sharing their opinions or telling people flat-out, “I appreciate you so much but unfortunately, I can't have you in my space,” because mentally, they are not serving you well. Melanie: 100%, yeah. I hate that that happened to you and I know that happens to so many women. It's just so unfortunate and I hate that there is such a stigma with VBAC because if you do the research which people who have really “easy” births don't have a reason to really do the research but if you are like us where we are all very motivated to have a VBAC because we already have this stigma going against us, it's all unwarranted. It's not evidence-based to not be supportive of a VBAC and if you really research and do the stats, you realize that it's not a big deal. The craziest thing that I heard on the Down to Birth Podcast was, “You have a chance of uterine rupture even as a first-time mom.” Meagan: Yes, you do. Melanie: It's not that much higher as a VBAC and first-time moms go their entire pregnancy never once hearing about uterine rupture but yet if you are a VBAC mom, that's all you hear about. So it's so crazy to me. Meagan: Yeah. Yeah. So mentally, you were unfollowing. You protected your space there. Is there anything else that you would give tip-wise to protect your mental space?Melanie: I think just believing in your body and believing that we are made to give birth. I think that's a really big one. Of course, like you said, unfollowing and maybe not talking about it with people, unfollowing accounts that do not serve you. I think the most important thing, I know we've heard it a million times on this podcast, but where you give birth and who you give birth with is the single most important thing because you want to be with a provider who believes that you can do it, whoever that is. Yeah, believing in yourself. I think that's going to look different for everybody of what they need. For me, I am a data person so I needed the stats. I needed to read the books and also listen to lots of women who have done it before me. Meagan: Mhmm, love that. Melanie: So okay, here we are. I was 40+5 so again, not 39 weeks with spontaneous labor but 40+5. I woke up at 5:00 AM to what I thought was contractions. I had some Braxton Hicks at the very end which I never experienced before. I didn't know if maybe it was prodromal labor but it didn't feel like Braxton Hicks because it was waking me up. I just tried to move through them a little bit. They were coming very, very sporadically. I would get a short contraction one time an hour and this went on for most of the day and they were not long at all, like 30 seconds. In my mind, I'm thinking, I'm a hopeful first-time vaginal birther. So I'm like, okay. This could be 24 hours. It could be 48 hours. Who knows? But I did not want to waste any energy timing the contractions so I was just guessing the whole day. It was a Sunday. I stayed home with my toddler. Yeah, I should mention that he is 2.5 so I waited about 2.5 years between the two births. So yeah. I just labored at home with my toddler and my husband. We are big track fans so it worked out perfectly. There was a Diamond League track meet on so I did the Miles Circuit while I was watching that. I texted my midwives and kept everybody updated but I think again, we all thought I still had a ton of time. Then I would say around 4:00 PM that day, I started to notice them a little bit more. They were still pretty inconsistent. I would say maybe 8-10 minutes apart and still only 30-45 seconds long. That was something I learned from again, that Bradley Method book I read is that productive contractions for most women– I will say not for me. We will get into that. But for most women, they are a minute plus. Those are the most productive contractions. I texted my midwife then that I felt like it would likely be that night. I felt pretty confident that they were coming but I was like, it could be the middle of the night. It could be tomorrow morning. Who knows. She texted back and she advised that I take some magnesium, take an Epsom salt bath and then go to bed and try to reserve my energy for when they are 4-1-1. We had a birth photographer this time so I texted the birth photographer. I texted our friends who I'm so grateful for. We had a neighbor and a friend who was going to come to our house and be with my toddler. So, so sweet. Yeah. I took the magnesium and then my husband, Brandon, drew me a bath and then disappeared with our toddler. I sat in the bath and I was reading my affirmation cards. This makes me so emotional but I discovered that my husband had snuck in his own affirmation cards into my pile and that's when I found them. Oh, it was so sweet. Meagan: That's adorable. Melanie: I know. It still makes me cry when I think about it because it just meant so much. It makes me so emotional. It was super sweet and one of the best things he's ever done for me. I found those and was reading through them in the bath and just trying to relax and really work with the contractions. I know from my research that you need to relax. To get them to be productive contractions, you have to relax. You have to get your body out of the way and it will go faster that way. They really started to ramp up when my husband was putting our toddler to bed around 7:30. I got in the bed and I put the pregnancy pillow in between my legs. I lay there and was trying to establish a pattern. Yeah. I know manifestation sounds pretty woo-woo but I want to say and this is where I'll start sprinkling these in because there were 10 things that I had manifested or really, really prayed would happen and I was very intentional that I really, really hoped that this happened. This was the first one. I don't know why I had envisioned laboring with my dog. You have a dog. You understand. My dog is my firstborn. She is my baby. I love her. You know, birth is so primal so I was just like, She's going to know. She's going to know when I'm in labor and she's going to know what to do. She did. She followed me. I didn't even realize it at the time. She followed me in my bed and I took a picture with her at 8:19. She was lying next to me on the bed as I was going through these contractions and it's a very, very special memory for me. I was already starting to get the labor shakes at this point. It's 7:30 and laying down in bed did really help to establish more of a pattern but they still were not a minute long. They were 40-50 seconds long. Then I moved to the toilet as many women do at this point, backward on the toilet. I lost more of my mucus plug because I had lost it sometime earlier in the day then at some point, I looked down and realized that I was having my bloody show. Again, none of this I had ever experienced before with my first. My husband was an absolute rockstar in this moment. He was so cute. He was running back and forth between the toilet and then packing up the car because I think he realized it was starting to get pretty serious. He brought me water and he put on the back of the toilet, cleaned it, gummy worms and things. That was not what I wanted at that moment but it was super cute. Oh, and I should mention that I did not have a doula so he was kind of like my doula. I was trying to prepare him as best as I could beforehand but he didn't need it. He did really well. I know the hip squeezes are great and I learned that from this show of course. As they were coming, I would scream at him, “Hip squeezes! Hip squeezes!” He would come over and do it and he did awesome. He was saying that I left my body in this moment and I was possessed because when I was having a contraction, again, I was trying to do the deep moans and really trying to relax but it's just funny. He was telling me about it after and he was like, “Yeah, it was like if you were looking at it from the outside, it's like you were possessed then you would scream at me and just moan.”Then by 9:24, they were coming. I mentioned they were not a minute long, but they were coming on top of each other. So every 2.5-3.5 minutes apart, but still not quite a minute long so my husband was calling the midwives and she still was like, “Well, they're not quite a minute. Just have her keep laboring at home until they are a minute.” Eventually, he called her back and I think he put it on speaker so she could hear me and that's what did it. Meagan: Uh-huh. She's like, “Load her up.” Melanie: Yes. Because we live outside of Dallas. The birth center was in downtown Dallas so it's pretty far. It's usually a 45-minute drive for us so I think my husband was just like, “I don't want to have a car baby.” Meagan: Sure. Melanie: Yeah. It was ramping up. So yeah. She called back. I mentioned the Freya app. I really relied heavily on the Freya app because when you are timing the contractions, it helps you with the breathing, in for 4, out for 8, and then one of the mantras I learned from that Hypnobirthing book that I did not know I was going to rely on so much– and I think you never really know when you're going into it and when you're in labor. You never know what's going to stick. My mantra that I must have repeated to myself 500 times was, Inhale peace, exhale tension. Every single contraction, I just repeated that over and over and over. I was trying to make it until 10:30 PM when we called them again, but that's when we got in the car and started heading there. He made it to the birth center in 33 minutes. The car ride was not fun like many women talk about. I think I hardly opened my eyes and I was just timing them, repeating my mantra, Inhale peace, exhale tension. I arrived at the birth center at 11:00 PM. I had a contraction on the step right there as I was trying to get out of the car and trying to make it. I eventually made it inside and I had my first cervical check of the whole pregnancy. I again, something I had manifested was that my two favorite midwives would be there and they were. One of them, she wasn't even on call but she came anyway. So many sweet things happened. I got on my back. She asked if she could check me and I was like, “Yes. I really want to know.” One thing again, I manifested that I really wanted to be at least a 6 when I showed up. The first thing she said was, “You are much farther along than you ever were with Rhett.” You are a 7 and you are very stretchy. I can feel your bulgy back of waters and the baby's head is right behind it. That's the other thing. We mentioned PROM. Here I am and my water still had not burst and it was amazing. Being on my back felt awful by the way. That's why I just don't understand. Being unmedicated in a hospital must be so, so hard because I know a lot of the times they want you to be on your back and I just can't imagine because that was the worst position ever. She started filling up the tub right away. Like many women, I was like, “I have to poop.” I get on the toilet and I was like, “I swear I do.” But no, I don't. Nothing was happening but it feels like I do. I got in the tub right away. I did a couple of contractions. They were still coming on top of each other. I was sitting down and eventually, I moved to hands and knees. Very shortly after, that was very fast. That was only about 5 minutes after getting checked. Very shortly after, my body was starting to push and I was like, “This can't.” I mentioned something. I don't really remember this but I mentioned something to my midwife about how it seemed to soon to push. I was like, “You just checked me and I was a 7-8. Why is my body pushing right now?” I was really wary of a cervical lip or a swollen lip which I learned from this podcast. I can't remember exactly but she said something to the nature of, “If your body is ready to push, let it push. This is your body getting ready to birth your baby,” which is again, something else I had really, really envisioned. I would have loved my body to do the pushing and it did which was amazing. My water had not broken still at this point and the really cool moment was that the baby was en caul for a while. I remember her saying something on the phone about baby being en caul. I was birthing the sac before I birthed the baby. It felt like a water balloon. She kept telling me, “Feel down. Feel the sac.” It felt like a water balloon coming out of you. It was so weird. Yeah, my midwife stayed behind me so quietly the whole time. I never knew she was there. My husband set up my birth playlist and music and he just was such a rockstar in this moment. He was getting a cold rag and putting it over my shoulders which felt amazing, getting water and electrolytes and continuing to help me with that. Yeah. My body pushed for about 30 minutes and I don't want to scare anybody, but truly, that was the worst part. I remember– I guess maybe it's the ring of fire, but I just remember feeling like my body was ripping in half. But then it goes away. Meagan: Yeah. It's intense. It's intense. Melanie: It's so intense. I don't think anything can really prepare you for that. I follow that account, Pain-Free Birth. I don't understand and I would watch videos of women who were smiling and they look great. I'm like, oh my gosh. That part was so, so painful. Handling and dealing with the contractions is one thing and I felt like I was really strong. I felt like I did a good job with that, but that pushing part is something else. His head was out. It was a boy. His head was out for a little while but nobody panicked and my husband was ready to catch him. His hand was right there. At some point, I remember my midwife was like, because again, my body was doing all of the pushing. I didn't do any of it. I guess after the head was out of a little bit, she was like, “You can try to push.” My husband told me because his hand was right there that my pushes were nothing. They were baby, tiny little pushes compared to the ones my body was doing. Then at some point, my midwife asked if she could help or something and I was like, “Yes, please.” I don't know what she did. My baby was kind of big which I'll say in a second, but I think maybe his shoulder was stuck or something. She did something that was pretty painful but then within a second–Meagan: A sweep. Melanie: Yeah, like a maneuver because I definitely felt more stretching then a second later, he shot out. He did have the cord wrapped around his neck one time but nobody freaked out and they just literally took it off then he pinked up right away, cried, and he ended up being 9 pounds, 5 ounces. My first was 6 pounds and 14 ounces. I'm like, “No wonder running felt awful. He was pretty big.” I look back and I just feel very proud. I was never once scared for myself. I never once thought about uterine rupture and I never was scared for my baby. I do have some memories of– they did the intermittent checking and I have this memory of the decels. That is why I ended up having the C-section so I was always very curious to see how he was doing during the check. He was always fine and I was never scared. Yeah. We got out of the tub quickly. They waited for me to deliver the placenta on the bed. It was about 30 minutes and yeah. My baby latched right away which was such a relief because I mentioned we had some struggles the first time. The crazy thing was– we sat there. We ate. We chatted for a little bit then once they did all of the newborn tests right there, we were home by 3:45 AM. My toddler went to bed as an only child and then he woke up to a little brother. And that's his story. The postpartum has been so different and it's been so much better. I can't help but think that a lot of that is because of such a smoother birth and the recovery has been so much better than a C-section. Different, but still so much better. Meagan: Yeah. Melanie: Yeah. I just thank this community so much. I also was on the Facebook page and I just got so much strength from all of the women before me. Meagan: Yes. Oh my gosh. Such an incredible story. I love– okay, a couple of things. One, we talk about it on the podcast. I love when people go and look for providers before they are pregnant. I absolutely love it. I think it's very powerful. But two, you were actually pregnant and you didn't know it. Melanie: I know. Meagan: That's so cool that you were doing that and it felt so right and not only was your intuition before pregnancy kicking in but you were actually pregnant and it felt right. You were like, this is the place. This is the place. Then you showed. You went past that 39-week date. You never had gone past 3 centimeters before. So much strength and power happened through all of this and then you pushed out a 9-pound baby. All of these things that a lot of the world doubts. Did you look at your op report? Melanie: I did and everything was normal. Then the main thing was the decels and that's why they said was the reason. Meagan: Decels. I just wondered if they said anything like CPD or failure to progress. Melanie: Yeah, no they didn't. I was looking for that specifically. I just barely made it. I was 2-3 centimeters before the decels started happening and then they called it. Meagan: Yeah. A lot of the time we are told and the world doubts us in so many ways so if you told a lot of people who are uneducated about VBAC the things that happened with the first and then the stats of your second, I bet people are like, “You did that?” But you guys, this is normal. This is beautiful. This is what you deserve. You deserve these experiences and these joyous moments. I'm just so proud of you. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of your husband. He sounds absolutely adorable. Shoutout to him. Melanie: He's so sweet. Meagan: Your midwives and everybody. You did it. Melanie: Aw, thank you. Meagan: I'm so happy for you. Melanie: Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm glad I didn't know how big he was before but also with my midwives, there was no pressure at all to even see how big he was. Meagan: Mhmm, yeah. Melanie: The second baby, I always say that he healed me because he really did. My first birth was really traumatic for me but then my friends all laugh because they say, “You're the only person who would say a 9-pound baby would heal you.”Meagan: Seriously, though. But how amazing. It's so amazing. Our bodies are incredible. Okay, we talked about PROM. This time, total opposite. Encaul for a little bit. I did some things. You did some things. Let's talk about if you've had PROM, premature rupture of membranes, there are things you could do to try to encourage no PROM next time. I am PROM, PROM, then with my third, I was contracting. My water did break way earlier than pushing but it still waited a little longer. I still feel like my efforts in a lot of ways helped. So anyway, tell us what you did. Melanie: Yes. So mainly two things. Again, being with providers who are more holistic, they are more likely to mention nutrition. We talked about nutrition a ton during the whole pregnancy. I think two main things. The first thing was collagen. They got me on collagen from the get-go. I know research shows that upping your collagen helps a strong sac. Then the second thing was Vitamin C. I didn't take any Vitamin C supplements or anything, but again, your body is amazing. I was craving oranges in my pregnancy so I think that's part of it. My body was craving oranges. I ate a lot of oranges so I think the combination of collagen and oranges really made my sac strong. And it was. It literally did not break until he came out. It was so different. Meagan: So incredible. I would echo that. Vitamin C and you can supplement with Vitamin C 100mg a day starting anywhere between 18-20 weeks. Some providers even say to do it from the very beginning as the placenta is forming and things like that. Collagen absolutely and protein. Protein and collagen. I know you guys have heard about Needed but I absolutely love their protein collagen. As pregnant women, we don't get enough collagen and we don't get enough protein in our daily eating habits so supplementing with that and getting more collagen really, really can create a healthier, thicker sac. Something that was interesting that I found out after my second– so back story. I had kidney stones. I don't know if you had any infections or anything like that with your first that made you be on antibiotics but antibiotics is what an OB told me can also weaken membrane sacs. I got UTIs and kidney stones and was put on antibiotics. The OB described to me that my OB was fighting in other areas so the nutrients that my body was getting was going to fighting and healing versus creating a stronger sac which is interesting. I've never seen any research about it but he was pretty adamant about avoiding antibiotics during pregnancy with my next one and I did. I didn't have what I had before. Melanie: That's interesting. I never heard that. Meagan: I know. I know. This is a doctor who doesn't even practice anymore. This was years ago but I was like, it kind of makes sense. It kind of makes sense. I haven't researched it. Melanie: Yeah. I can see that. Meagan: Antibiotics wipe our gut flora and things like that anyway so I can understand that but protein, collagen, Vitamin C, and possibly avoiding antibiotics. Nutrition is so huge with our bag of water. Then big babies. You guys, big babies come out of vaginas. I just have to say that. It happens. 9 pounds is a healthy, beautiful baby. Melanie: Yeah. When he came out, everybody was very shocked even before weighing him. He's thinned out now but he was swollen. Everybody was taking bets on how big he actually was. Meagan: I love it. I love it. I've seen so many babies when they come out and their cheeks are so squishy and you're like, that's a big baby. You can tell just by their face. Melanie: Yes. That's exactly it. Meagan: Oh my gosh. Well, thank you again so much for completing the circle, for helping other Women of Strength out there. I too believe that women listen to these podcasts and they want to find stories that are similar with theirs in so many ways. You didn't dilate past 3. An induction that didn't turn out to be a vaginal birth so an “unsuccessful” induction that turned VBAC. A lot of people, I think, do doubt their body in that way. They are like, “Well, I was induced. Not even medicine could get me there,” but there is a lot that goes into that. Sometimes our body is just not ready or our babies aren't ready or something is going on. It doesn't mean that's your fate for all future births. Melanie: 100%. Yeah. So well said. Meagan: Awesome. Well, thank you again so much and huge congrats. Melanie: Thank you so much, Meagan, and thank you to everybody. Everybody who has told their story, the community, and everything was so helpful for me. ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Proper hydration is important for physiology whether male or female, and if female… hydration in pregnancy is important for proper uterine blood flow and proper amniotic fluid production. Interestingly, water recommendations do not specify differential water needs or hydration status recommendations by pregnancy month or trimester, nor do they take into account body composition, knowing that overweight and obesity increase the probability of being underhydrated. During pregnancy, dehydration is thought to contribute to Braxton-Hicks contractions possibly due to lactic acid buildup in the myometrial cells or via reflex secretion of ADH (vasopressin). But this is theoretical. Here is where IV hydration comes into clinical practice. What's hoped for in administering intravenous (IV) hydration is that the fast fluid volume increase will stop uterine activity and hence avert cervical change. Theoretically, hydration may reduce uterine contractility by increasing uterine blood flow and by decreasing pituitary secretion of antidiuretic hormone and oxytocin. Does mild-moderate dehydration lead to preterm labor? Is IV hydration a way to prevent preterm birth. There has been data since the 1980s up until 2021 which says, “No”. Listen in for details.

*Hi guys! Liesel here. I wanted to let you know that the Mommy Labor Nurse podcast as you know it is currently getting a HUGE facelift! In the meantime, please enjoy this re-air of a fan favorite episode!! And stay tuned to my instagram for updates on when the new and improved Mommy Labor Nurse podcast will be back with all new episodes!* ****** In this episode, Malori shares her hotel birth story with us via c-section, and talks about her fertility struggles. Malori's Bio: Malori Mayor is a registered nurse, military wife to Mark, and new mom to Max!  After an almost 2-year struggle with infertility, holistic treatments, and surgery for endometriosis, Malori and Mark were finally able to conceive their first child.  Aside from being a wife and mom, Malori is passionate about helping other women also going through infertility who want to treat it holistically.  While going through infertility herself, she began helping others share their stories of infertility and miscarriage on her blog, and also started a podcast, Restoring Fertility Naturally.  Malori spent most of her pregnancy in Germany, where her husband was stationed with the Army, and then gave birth to Max after moving to California.  In whatever little free time she has, she enjoys reading a good book, baking, and going on neighborhood walks with her little family and their German Shepherd, Zoey. Malori's Birth Story: Other than moving from Germany to California in my third trimester, I had a pretty easy and normal pregnancy and planned on an unmedicated birth.  We lived in a hotel for most of my third trimester while waiting on military housing, so I was fully prepared to bring home our new baby to a hotel room.  But otherwise I expected all to go smoothly.  I got the biggest surprise of my pregnancy when I went to my 40 week appointment and it was found that baby boy was breech!  He had been head down just the week prior.  My doctor reviewed all the options with me and I opted for a version the next morning and then would wait it out for natural labor to start.  However, baby boy had other plans!  I went into labor that evening, as we were moving items into the house we had just gotten the keys to.  I was totally in denial that it was labor but finally realized that the contractions weren't Braxton Hicks anymore!  My doctor had me come to the hospital to get checked around 12:30am, and Maximilian John was born via c-section at 1:54am on January 8, 2020!  He was born healthy, pink, and screaming, and him being laid on my chest with my husband by my side was incredibly glorious.  Even though a c-section was my last choice, that moment was priceless and a beautiful culmination of all our fertility struggles.  Max is now 8 months old and is such a happy and active boy! You can find Malori on social media here: IG: @warriorlifewellness Blog: https://www.warriorlifewellness.com YouTube: http://bit.ly/maloriyoutube Resources from the episode: Malori's podcast where she goes into further details about infertility: http://bit.ly/podcastrfn This is the model of treatment that Malori used for infertility:  http://www.naprotechnology.com/ ****** Overwhelmed by the amount of pregnancy & birth info out there? I got ya covered! CLICK HERE to get helpful and supportive C-section tips, info, and resources from an L&D nurse sent straight to your inbox! CLICK HERE to learn more about our online birth classes that will help you feel prepared and in control - no matter how you deliver. And be sure to follow @mommy.labornurse on Instagram to join our community of over half a million for education, tips, and solidarity on all things pregnancy, birth, and postpartum!

Lauren joins us today from Australia sharing her two Cesarean stories and her surprise unassisted HBA2C story! Lauren's first birth was a crash Cesarean under general anesthesia at 40+1 due to nonreassuring fetal heart tones. Her second birth was a TOLAC going into spontaneous labor at 40+3 under the midwifery model of care. She labored naturally, had an artificial rupture of membranes at 6 centimeters, baby was posterior, and didn't descend. She pushed for an hour then had a spinal given to help baby manually rotate. Lauren's birth ended in a CBAC which she later learned included a special scar along with the diagnosis of CPD (Cephalopelvic Disproportion). Two years later, Lauren was vigorously planning for a VBA2C. She had her birth team picked out and was ready to go to the hospital for when baby would come at what she thought would be 40 weeks again or later. At 38 weeks and 2 days, her husband went on a work trip 3 hours away and her mom, who was planning on caring for her boys during the birth, was an hour away on a day trip. Lauren's labor began in the evening while she was alone with her two boys and ramped up extremely fast. With the help of her doula and paramedics supervising, Lauren labored and gave birth to her baby on the bathroom floor in just 2 hours from start to finish!Needed WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello, Women of Strength. You guys, we have another story coming from Australia for you today. We just recently had an Australian mama and I love our Australian episodes because I cannot get enough of your accent. I love listening to you guys. We're so excited. We have our friend, Lauren, and we have our little baby. Lauren: Yes. Little Wren's awake and joining us. Meagan: It's 11:00 PM there so she stayed up extra late to record with us today. We are going to get into her stories. You guys, she had two C-sections. Lauren: Yes, two Cesareans. Meagan: And then a surprise. I feel like you really had very unique things. You had an OB and you were under general– Lauren: For my first. Meagan: Then you were with midwifery care and then a surprise which you are going to be sharing here in a second. You guys, I'm really excited to hear her stories. We do have a Review of the Week and it's called, “So Grateful I Found This Podcast” by shinefortheworldtosee. It says, “After having an emergency C-section last year, I struggled with all of these displaced emotions. Here I was so grateful for my healthy baby but I found myself feeling hurt like I had something taken from me that I struggled finding a safe place to share and it felt as if no one around me had ever experienced the same thing I did. This podcast and group of women are my safe place. I am expecting baby number two and am so, so grateful for the empowerment that those stories told here have given me. I am so excited to try for a VBAC this time and the more I learn here, the more confident I become.“Thank you from the bottom of my heart for making this podcast.” You are so welcome. I love this podcast so much. I love all of the stories. I love the empowerment, the encouragement, the education, and also, I'm a big person who relates. I love relating. I think it brings validation to my heart when I can relate to someone because like this listener said, she felt alone. She didn't have anybody else in her space and this space is so amazing because even if it's a different outcome or there are different parts of the story, there are usually little blurbs of each story that you can truly relate to. Thank you so much for your review, shinefortheworldtosee. As always, if you haven't yet, please leave us a review. We are always so grateful for them. Meagan: Okay, cute Lauren. Oh my gosh. Thank you so much for staying up way late because by the time we are done recording this, it's going to be midnight. Oh my goodness. Oh my gosh, thank you. Lauren: That's okay. I got the time and said, “Oh, it is late,” but I was so excited anyway. I just can't wait. With that review, I was thinking the exact same thing. I remember when I found the podcast, I can't even remember. I was trying to think how it popped up. I didn't even know VBAC was a thing after my first birth. I just remember listening to it and so much of it resonated. I could relate to those little bits. It was like I was meant to hear it. I just had that strong feeling when I started listening to the podcast. I'd be crying in the car and it was just so powerful. It definitely was life-changing when I found the podcast. Huge. I feel like there are so many situations where you've never met them ever in your life. Sometimes we don't even know where they are at and it feels like they are literally sitting on the phone talking to you. Lauren: Speaking to you, yes. Meagan: Speaking to you. Yes. Lauren: Yes, exactly. I felt it. I was just like, This is what I'm supposed to be listening to at this exact time because it was speaking directly to me. It is so special what you have created. I think there is a podcast now in Australia for VBAC but there was never anything before and I would just eat them up. I'd be waiting every week for the podcast because I would be–Meagan: Is it Ashley's? Lauren: There's that one. I think I've listened to her podcast with you actually. There's the “Australian VBAC Stories” as well. They are only maybe up to 8 or 10 episodes so they are quite fresh. Meagan: Yay. Lauren: I just love all VBAC stories. I could listen to them all day. Meagan: Absolutely. Well, let's get going on sharing yours. Lauren: Yes. Okay, so my first birth was– I got pregnant in 2017. We've got three little ones now. Nate was our first baby. We had private health insurance. A few of our friends had gone private. Some of them had gone public. Some had Cesareans. Some had natural births. I hadn't really had a plan of what I wanted to do. I always knew I wanted to have children but I hadn't really given much thought to the pregnancy or the way of birth or anything like that. We just signed up with a private OB. I think from our GP, you get a referral then you start seeing them from about 16-20 weeks. You get all the regular scans. Everything was really straightforward. We were really fortunate with our pregnancy. We found out we were having a boy. We found out in– I think I've written it down– January. I had morning sickness for the first 3 months then I had a bit of Vitamin D deficiency so I had to take supplements throughout the pregnancy for that. I had a growth scan around 36 weeks. Now, I obviously know after doing a lot of research that there's no real need for it and it's just something to give them ammunition to schedule the big baby and the scan actually came back that he was measuring fine. I was like, “Yep, that's good.” Being a first-time mum, I was so excited to see him on the ultrasound anyway. Meagan: That's what I was going to say. I feel like they get you especially for first-time moms but really in general because it's so fun to see our baby. Yeah. Lauren: Of course I want to see him. Definitely. Meagan: We get in there and they're like, “We'll do this plus you'll get to see your baby.” You're like, “Well, I haven't seen my baby since 20 weeks, so okay. I'll do that.” Lauren: And you don't know any different so you're just like, “Yep, that seems fine.” I think we even did a gender reveal and I think my husband's cousin mentioned something about her friend doing Hypnobirthing. I remember I just wasn't in the right place to hear that at the time. I'm like, I wish I would have listened but it just wasn't meant for me at that time. I took maternity leave. I had 4 weeks off because I thought, Whoa, from 36 weeks the baby could really come any time. Looking back, I know 40 weeks is not even your due date. It could be any time, anywhere. Meagan: Estimated. Estimated. Lauren: A guess date I've heard a lot of people refer to it. And first-time moms tend to go over the 40 weeks so it's not uncommon. I remember it being such a mind game toward the end when I was getting closer to the due date. I think my OB offered me a stretch and sweep around 38-39 weeks and I was like, “Yep. I'm ready. I'm over it. Anything that we can do to get the baby.” I didn't really think of it as being an intervention. I didn't really know what the word intervention was at that time. I do remember her saying to me afterward something like, “Oh, I hope we're still friends after this,” after she did it. Meagan: Oh. Lauren: I was like, “Oh, that's a funny thing to say.” Then yeah. I think it was around 39 weeks and there was nothing. It didn't get anything moving. I was just automatically booked in for an induction at 40 + 1 for postdates which is not even near postdates but I was just like, “Yep, great.” I think like you said before, being a first-time mom, I was just ready to see my baby and over it so I was like, “Yep. That's great and exciting.” We got booked in. When I went back through my records, I saw on my induction paperwork that it even said, “Small mummy and postdates,” because I was small apparently. Meagan: Nuh-uh. Lauren: Yeah. I'm quite short. But they were already preempting that I probably wouldn't be able to anyway. We went in. I think we got admitted at 7:00 in the evening. We got ready to do a CTG monitoring and just an initial assessment. When we got in, they said I was having uterine activity but I couldn't feel anything. It was showing on the monitor I was having some Braxton Hicks or some contractions. They were concerned that the baby wasn't really reacting very well to that at the time so they called the OB who just happened to continue with the induction. They did a vaginal assessment and I think I wasn't obviously at anything. They did another CTG for the fetal heart rate and it had gone down, I think, to 90 BPM and had recovered within 2 minutes with a change of position and it had come back to what they were happy with. About an hour after that, they did an intravenous drip in and they did another exam. I was 1 centimeter and my cervix was posterior so obviously, I wasn't anywhere near ready. I think maybe half an hour after that, there was another decel and it said, with pointless uterine activity. It wasn't doing anything, but there was something. Then the OB was asked to come in for that. Obviously, the baby wasn't doing very well when I wasn't really even in active labor and they were a bit concerned with that thinking he wouldn't be able to tolerate full-blown labor at that point. So then it was 9:00– so two hours after we got there– when the OB was in the room. They did an ultrasound and were able to determine that I had a calcified placenta and a pocket full of fluid. There was discussion around maybe booking in for a Cesarean just because of the nonreassuring CTG they were having. I awfully now remember feeling a sense of relief and being like, “Oh, good. I don't have to go through labor and all of that,” because I think probably admitting to myself, I was a little bit scared about the whole labor because I hadn't done any preparation or any planning. The only thing we had done was the antenatal appointment– what's the word? The antenatal class at the hospital where they go through it. After we left, my husband was like, “That all sounds awful.” It was just really interventions and how to get the baby out. He was like, “None of those options sound good.” When they said “Cesarean”, I was like, “Oh, perfect. That will be great.” I think at 9:30, we got prepared to go to theater. My husband got in a gown. My mum had actually just arrived into the hospital so it was all exciting. We were going to meet the baby. This was at 9:30. We didn't know it at the time, but there were a few alarms going on outside our room and there were a few people milling around. I don't know. I don't think that was related to us. We got wheeled out on the bed to go to theater and then all of a sudden, Josh disappears and they were rushing us to the theater room. I was like, “What's happening?” I'll never forget. I remember– I don't know who was pushing me, but he said to me, “I don't think you understand. Your baby needs to come out right now.” We just thought we were going in for a normal Cesarean. We didn't realize it was changed to a general anesthetic so I started getting upset. I said, “Can I just say goodbye to my husband?” They rushed him back. I quickly kissed him and said goodbye. He gave them his phone and we went into theater. I was sobbing at this point because I just didn't know what was happening. There was somebody putting a catheter. They were putting the general anesthetic in then I think my OB popped her head in. At least, I knew some sense of calm. She said, “It's me. I'm here. We're just going to get the baby out.” I remember I could see them prepping my stomach under the mirror and the anesthetist was lovely. He rubbed my cheek and said, “It's going to be okay. We're just going to get the baby.” That's it. That's all I remember and then I was gone. After that, I think at the time, I read back on the notes that it was 9:45. It got upgraded to an emergency call. I went under at 9:50 and he was born at 9:52 so it was very quick. He came out. He cried. He was fine. His APGARS were 9 which are healthy. Meagan: That's great, yeah. Lauren: So fine, yeah. I think he was 3,000 grams which is 6.8 pounds and the surgery was complete at 10:05 so it was super quick in and out. Meagan: Wow. Lauren: He went to Josh straightaway. Poor Josh was obviously just waiting and didn't know what was happening. They brought Nate out and he said, “Well, that's great, but where's Lauren? Where is she?” So then I didn't make it into recovery until 20 minutes later which I know is still really fortunate compared to what some people experience. It was really quick. When I came to, I was still sobbing I think it must have been because I went under crying. When I came out, I was in tears and I could just see Josh sitting on the bed next to me holding Nate. Instantly, I knew he was okay and he was fine. I was able to hold him and breastfeed him so I think from then on, everything was really quite lucky. We got in straightaway. I think we were in recovery maybe another 20 minutes and then we got taken to the ward. At the time, I don't think I really registered how full-on it was. I just had a healthy baby. I was okay. Postpartum was a beautiful experience. We were in the hospital, I think, for 5 days together because we were private. Josh got to stay with us. It was like a second honeymoon. We were in there. It was like a hotel where we were getting food. That side of it, I think, was just beautiful and I didn't really feel like I missed anything birth-wise at that point. That was it I guess with that. Then in 2019, we started thinking about having another baby. I hadn't really thought too much about a VBAC or what I would do. I guess I was like most people where you just are once a Cesarean, always a Cesarean and there wasn't another option. I really wish I could remember how I came across it because I can't remember at all, but I must have found your podcast and I remember listening to it even before I was pregnant. I was just like, I have to try and do this because I never got to experience any labor at all with Nate and then with this pregnancy, I really felt like I missed that and I wanted to have something. I wanted to go into labor and at least try and be given the chance. We were really fortunate and fell pregnant straightaway. That was in 2019 and I knew I wasn't going to be doing private obstetrician this time so I did a bit of research before I was even pregnant actually with a public hospital that had a midwifery program attached to it. You attended all of your appointments at a clinic and they had a VBAC-specific clinic then you birthed at the hospital. Meagan: That's awesome. Lauren: Yeah, but you have to apply straightaway. As soon as I got the positive, I filled out the application form and applied directly with them. I got accepted and I was like, If I'm going to go for this, this is going to give me my best chance to go and have a VBAC. I think, I can't remember how far along I was but I still went. The hospital we were going to is a half hour away but all the appointments with the midwives were only 10 minutes away. That was really good. I knew the drive was a half hour but it was going to be okay. I also had signed up to do the VBAC course with you guys. I got my handout for that and I ate it up. I love that. I went through it and was doing it at night time. After listening to the podcast, I also knew I wanted to do Hypnobirthing so I did Hypnobirthing around 7 or 8 months which was when COVID started to come into the picture. It wasn't around in Australia but it was happening. The course was supposed to be a group environment with a few classes. We ended up doing an online course which was actually really lovely because when Nate was asleep, Josh and I would sit in bed. We would do all of the Hypnobirthing courses, listen to the tracks, watch the videos, and then we had one in-house visit where we went through all of the positions and acupressure and things like that that I wanted for pain management during birth. That was really good then I think from 37 weeks, I started doing all of the things. I was doing raspberry leaf tea, eating Medjool dates, and sitting on the birth ball. In my head, I felt like I was really getting prepared in the best way possible. Now I know in my third birth, I thought I was but I wasn't as prepared as I probably could have been. I was still doing more than what I did for my first birth. I had one chiropractic appointment at 38 weeks to get everything balanced and aligned. I never had chiro before so that was all new to me. Then at 39 weeks, I had an acupuncture appointment. I had never done acupuncture before and I loved that. I felt that was really nice. I think it was just my hands and my ankles and then they just put the music on and I felt so relaxed. I really loved that. That was good. I remember when I went in, I said, “I hope I haven't left it at too late.” They said, “You're pretty much a first-time mom. You've never had labor. Your body has never been through that.” He did some statistics and he said to me that from 40-41 weeks was the average time. I remember with Nate, when I got to 40 weeks, I thought the baby was going to come any day so with this pregnancy, I pushed it out to 41 weeks. In my head, that was when my due date was. I don't know what I would have done if I got to 41 and I hadn't gone into labor but I had that I was going to 41 weeks. I had an online hospital tour. We couldn't go in to see it because of COVID then I had an online appointment at 39 weeks. When you have midwifery care, you still have to be signed off by an obstetrician in the hospital to give you the okay and run through all of the stats and everything. I was prepared to be up against an uphill battle when I went to that appointment. They were pretty supportive. They just talked about postdates, the risk of rupture, and things like that. I said I was comfortable going to 41 weeks and reassessing then so I think that was around 39-40 weeks and then we were rebooked in for 41 weeks if I hadn't gone in. So then I think I was 40– oh, sorry. I'm jumping around a bit. My due date was a week after Nate's second birthday so in my head, I just wanted to get to Nate's birthday and then the baby could come after. We had a little birthday celebration for Nate a few days before I went into labor. We were happy that was done then at 40+3, in the afternoon at about 4:00 I felt a few little tinges but obviously, I didn't know what anything was so I was thinking this might be it or this could be prodromal labor or Braxton Hicks. I just wasn't sure. I was like, well, I know from the podcast that I don't pay attention to it. I'm just going to go about my normal routine with Nate. I'll get dinner, do bathtime, all of those things, and try not to focus on it too much thinking it might either go away–Meagan: Or fizzle out. Lauren: Yeah. In my head, I'm like, It can take days. By 4:00 it started, then by 7:00, I was getting Nate ready for bed. He was in a cot at this stage. I remember taking a big breath in and slowly exhaling like in Hypnobirthing. I noticed I was having to do that as I put him to bed. I remember being so excited like, This is happening. My body was doing it naturally. I really wanted to try to not get induced if I could avoid it. I remember I really had to focus on my breathing. I was leaning on the bed with my knees on the floor leaning on my bed and just breathing and really trying to relax and listening to my Hypnobirthing tracks. The plan was my mum was going to come over and watch Nate if I went into labor at nighttime. I think it was around 10:00 and I think someone said from one of the podcasts as well to gauge the distance you need to go with how well you are managing and how well the drive is going to take if you're going to be okay. I called my mum to come. I was like, “I feel like I'm not struggling but it is ramping up a little bit.” I was like, “I don't know how much longer I can be at home and sitting in the car for a half hour to go.” She arrived. We called the midwives and we let them know we were going into hospital. My mum came and you could just see she was like, “Oh gosh.” She had me naturally. She had three naturals and then her fourth was a Cesarean. She couldn't understand why I wasn't trying for a Cesarean because I already had one and why would I not just have another one?Meagan: Why would you not just do that, yeah? Lauren: She came and I remember walking out of my room to the front and I had to stop a few times on the way and stand in the garage and just take a few breaths between each contraction. I went to go sit in the car. In my head, I thought I was going to be on my knees leaning over the chair. I just couldn't even fit down in that area so I was up against the back of the chair. Obviously, it was not comfortable but I was just thinking if anybody was driving on the freeway and looking, it would have been such a funny sight. I still had my podcast in and I was really focusing on breathing. Josh was just driving. He had never been to any of the appointments with me because of COVID. He hadn't been to the hospital so we were almost there and his navigation was doing funny things. I had to in the middle of labor try to direct him on how to get to the hospital. We pulled up and I just automatically went to where I would park for all of my appointments which wasn't in the front of the hospital. I went to get out of the car and I was like, “I can't walk to the front of the hospital,” so I had to get back in. We drove right to the front and then we went in and we had to get assessed for the COVID triage which was a real pain. We had to wait and do that before we could walk in and get triaged. I think we arrived at the hospital around 11:00. We got admitted at 11:00 at night and then we were triaged maybe at 11:30. By that stage, my contractions were every 3 minutes and lasting about 40-50 seconds. I had a vaginal exam and I was 4 centimeters. I remember just being so excited because I was already progressing. I was hoping I would be further along, but I was like, “4 centimeters is good.” I was 90% effaced and I was thin and soft so I was like, “Oh, that's good.” I think by midnight we had gone to the labor and delivery suite. They dimmed the lights per my request. I asked to go in the shower because I really wanted to be in the shower. They told me I had to wait until my midwife had come because she wasn't at the hospital. Meagan: They checked you and got everything assessed. Lauren: Yeah, so I had to wait. That was fine. I was at the stage. I was leaning on the bed swaying. Josh was doing a bit of acupressure on my back and I was really enjoying it at that time. My midwife got there at about 1:00. I was still coping well through it. By 1:30, I don't think it was my midwife. I think it was one of the hospital midwives who came in and assessed me again. I was at 6 centimeters and I was -2. There were a little bit of complicated decels on the CTG and momentarily in my head, I was like, Oh no, not again. It evened out and it was okay so I think it just must have been a bad reading because of the bulky monitors that they had to put on. They didn't have the mobile ones. It was the bands that you had to be attached to and monitoring. They suggested to artificially break my waters and I hadn't felt too much about that in my prep. I think I was just focused on going into labor naturally as opposed to actually being in labor. They asked to break my waters. I had gas for that and I remember getting on the bed to do that which I think was one of my first bad things because then I never got off the bed once I got on there to do that. I couldn't manage to get back off. I wish I would have known or asked to be helped to get taken off but I was just not in the position to get off the bed. I was stuck there. Yeah. I didn't remember this but when I read in my notes, they offered me a Cesarean at that point and I was like, “No. I'm trying for a VBAC,” so they said, “That's okay.” We tried repositioning some fluids and then the CTG was back to where they were happy with it. Then at about a half hour later, I was on my side. I felt a bit of pressure and my sound changed a little bit. I remember my midwife saying to me, “Oh Lauren, that sounded a bit pushy.” It felt a bit pushy so I was like, “Oh, that was really exciting.” That was at 2:00 and at 2:30 in the morning, they assessed me and I was fully dilated. I was so excited. They were seeing some complicated decels on the monitor. I think they said– do you know what the normal heart rate is? I've written them all down but they were saying it was 140 without a contraction and then they'd ask the registrar to come in the room so the registrar came in to see what the CTG was doing for progress and pushing. I had a bit of a funny moment. When I was doing the pushing, I was on gas. I must have taken a big inhale of the gas and my vision went dark. I couldn't see anything. I remember getting a bit scared at that point. I didn't know what was happening. I could hear everything and I could feel everything but I just couldn't see. I think it was just from inhaling the gas and the contraction and something. Meagan: It was just too much all at once. Lauren: Yeah. It was really scary but it was a one-off and it was fine after that. Then I think at 2:40, the ped was paged to come in and attend delivery so I think at this stage they still thought things were happening and we were going to have a baby vaginally. 5 minutes later, they gave me an in-dwelling catheter to drain my bladder in case that was creating a blockage for the baby to come down. Meagan: Which is actually something that does happen. Lauren: Yeah. Meagan: If baby is not coming down, sometimes it's urine blocking. Lauren: Yeah. They said, “Only 50mL came out so it wasn't a lot,” but I was like, well that was good. At least they tried that. They said the registrar did an IV and said that it was ROP so right occiput posterior so not in a great position and at my spine. They said there was some descent with pushing but not enough. I think that's when they decided to call to be transferred to theater. The plan was to have a spinal and try for some instrumental assistance to get the baby out. I think at that point, it was quite quick. It was quite intense and I was relieved. I didn't think I had it in me to push anymore so I agreed to go up to theater and have forceps or manual rotation to help assist the baby out. We got up to theater and I think they called them at 2:40. We got to theater at 3:20 so it wasn't that long of a wait but it felt like an eternity when my body was contracting and pushing and they were telling me not to push and just to pant through the contractions. I just remember it felt like a really long time. I will never forget that we got to theater. I had to sit up on the edge of the bed and the person trying to put my spinal in asked me to scoot up the bed. I was sitting there mid-contraction and I just remember looking at my midwife and I was like, “You'll just have to wait until after this contraction and then I can just move up for the spinal.” I got the spinal and they discussed the options of an episiotomy and using forceps to aid the baby. At that stage, I said, “Yep, whatever we need to do,” I would really like to try to get him out. They tried a manual rotation while pushing and his heart rate dropped to 93. They assessed the position and then maybe decided to do the forceps. They must have said that then changed to apply a vacuum because then they did a vacuum and they went to do the first pull and his heart rate dropped to 67. They did another pull and his heart was up at 133. Then a couple of minutes later, they decided to do forceps. They attempted to do the forceps. They applied them and his heart rate dropped to 86 then they reapplied to get a better position around his head and his heart rate again dropped to 75. The baby, even though he had changed position and was now facing– I think his head was facing my back which was OA and he was at a -1 station, they obviously thought he was just not in a great enough position to aid him out so they decided to convert to a Cesarean. I remember at that point, I didn't feel like it was a failure or I hadn't done it because they had given me every opportunity to try and I still got to experience so much more than I had with my first birth. Even though I still didn't end up with a vaginal birth, I got 95% of the way and I was still so happy and proud of my body for getting to that point. I was just like, if they couldn't even get him out with forceps, there was no way I was going to be able to do it. I was quite happy and content with the decision. They did say he had been down there quite a bit so he might come out not great. Because he was so far down, they did have to– and they did write the word “extract” him which I thought was quite an interesting term to use but the extraction was breech because he was so far low. He came out. His APGARs were 8/9. He was 7.4 pounds and a similar size in length to my first. I think we were there maybe for an hour or two in recovery. He fed straightaway and then we returned to the ward. On my notes, it said, “Repeat C-section due to failed TOLAC.” I was just like, I had that word “failed” but I understand that's the terminology they used. It says that about an hour later, we had a debrief. They came back into the room and went through all of the happenings and made sure I was okay with it all. They actually discussed any future deliveries and the recommendation for an elective Cesarean. I don't even remember that conversation. Meagan: Oh really? Lauren: Yeah. I don't even remember so when I went back through my notes, I was like, “Oh, that's interesting.” Then in the notes, it also says, “CPD?” I can't pronounce that word either. Cephalic Pelvic Dysproportion. They said that and then they also said there was a small extension to the upper midline of my Cesarean incision. I had my normal scar and then it obviously had come farther up and it said it was sutured separately on the uterus. I'm reading it in real-time now but I didn't realize that until my recent birth when I went back through my notes with my midwife. I was like, Well, that's really interesting. They obviously told me but I must have not registered that at the time. Then obviously we were in hospital due to COVID so Josh wasn't allowed to stay with us. An hour after his birth, he had to leave and being a Cesarean, I was in hospital for a few days and my other son, Nate, wasn't able to come in to visit us. I really missed out on us being a family of four for those first few days. Yeah. We got home. I think I was in there for two nights then we got discharged. They met us at the hospital and that drive home was really special. That was the first time they met was in the car driving home. We always knew we wanted a third but it was a lot, the transition to two, and we probably weren't ready straightaway. We gave it three years then when Call was two, we decided we would try again for baby number three. We fell pregnant really quickly with the first two so we just assumed that would happen this time and we were trying for a few months and it just didn't really happen. We were trying for 6 months and gave ourselves a bit of a breather and just let it take its natural course because we took the pressure off and then the both of us were saying before the boys were born a week apart in May and we found out we were pregnant with our third in between the middle of their birthdays. It was really special. May has always been a special month but yes, we had Nate's birthday. I found out we were pregnant then a few days later we had Call's birthday. So it was really special timing. I knew I wanted to try again. It would be our last baby. If I was going to have a natural birth, it would be this pregnancy. I went to go through the same model of care that I was with Call, but they had changed their practice. The midwife group that I went to no longer existed. It was the MGP so Midwifery Group Practice. They were based in the hospital this time so all of my appointments were in the hospital and they were VBAC-supportive. I think we went in and then you still have to have your OB appointments around 36 weeks and we didn't find out our gender with this one. We had the two boys and for our third, we weren't going to find out what we were having. I had the same sort of morning sickness with my third. I was a lot sicker this time. I knew this time I was going to have a student-midwife and a doula. I got a visit. Obviously, The VBAC Community group on Facebook, I posted in there and I also posted in a Western Australia VBAC support group there about recommendations for student-midwives and doulas. Then I spoke to a few of them and then obviously whoever I felt that connection with, I went with them. The doula– I did research doulas with Call, but I don't know why I didn't do it that time. I think that would have made a difference. I was like, this is the time I'm going to do it and I'm going to have a doula. We did that. I did a bit of a refresher for the Hypnobirthing as well. I met my doula at about 25 weeks and we sat. We met at a park and we just chatted for hours. She had a VBAC as well herself. Meagan: Oh, that's awesome. Lauren: Her second was a home birth and a surprise as well. She had a boy and then she had a surprise for her girl. So much was similar with our situations. I just felt like she was meant to be our doula. Yeah. So that was at 25 weeks and I think at 6 months, we had a suggestion of a fetal growth scan again which was the same and I was like, they were already preempting that but I was more prepared even if I went to that scan and it was a big baby that I would be okay with that. Then at 28 weeks, I did the normal blood test and the fasting for gestational diabetes. I didn't have it with the two boys and I had it this time around. That was a bit of a surprise. I didn't really know much about gestational diabetes. You have to do your three blood sugars after your fasting and the third one had to be under 8.5 and I was 8.5 so I was just on the cusp. I remember my midwife saying to me, “Who knows? If you had waited another 15 minutes before your blood test, you probably would have been fine.” Meagan: Yeah, it could have been lower. Lauren: I started snowballing with all of the things. I thought it was going to mean I was going to be induced for bigger babies and I didn't want to be induced. I had gone to 40 weeks with the boys so I didn't assume I would be having an early labor so I started really worrying about my chances of having a VBAC at that point. I did a lot of research and listened to podcasts with people who had gestational diabetes. I tried to get in a good headspace again. I just took it as a positive to eat healthier and watch what my weight gain and things like that this pregnancy. I had to check my blood sugar four times a day– after fasting in the morning first thing when you wake up, and then every two hours after a meal. I was able to manage it with just my diet which was really good so I didn't have to have insulin. Meagan: Insulin, yeah. That's awesome. Lauren: That was really good and then the diabetes, they were checking with me and I could change to testing every alternate day. Thankfully, I was able to manage it from that side but it just meant there was increased monitoring of the growth of the baby and my weight and things like that.I also had low iron which I never had with my first two pregnancies but this pregnancy was just a real curveball from the start. Yeah. So then at 29 weeks, I went in for my next appointment. I checked diabetes and everything was still fine. My youngest tested positive for COVID so that was a little bit of an interesting one. None of us got it which was really lucky so I didn't know how that would go being pregnant and getting COVID. I had noticed I started to lose a bit of my mucus plug which I've never experienced before and it was quite early but my midwife said, “That's fine. It doesn't mean anything. It can happen. It builds back up again.” But that was a bit different and exciting. Then I think at about 32 weeks was my appointment with my midwife and that was when we went through all of my previous births just as a debrief. Meagan: Op reports.Lauren: Yeah. That was a bit of an eye-opener because I think those things that we highlighted in Call's birth weren't really brought to my attention until this one. You could see as my midwife was reading it that she wasn't really aware of that either in the notes. It just said there was a sign of obstruction, a loss of station between the manual and the vacuum rotation, an inability to place the forceps, and an understanding of why the labor was abandoned and the vaginal birth. Then it says that a VBAC was not recommended. The midwives would still support me if I wanted to try for a VBAC after two and if I wanted an elective that they would support with that. I remember leaving feeling so disheartened. I was only 4 weeks away from my due date. I came home and I remember Josh and I talking it over and I was like, “Is it worth going through all of that over again just to get to that point of pushing and not being able to fit through my pelvis and being through a scary C-section again?” We went through all of our options and Josh was happy to support what I wanted but I was so torn. I didn't know but I kept coming back to a VBAC. I just didn't feel content with a Cesarean. I just said, “I'll never know if I don't try.” I spoke to my doula and I said that I was just frazzled. My head was all over the place. I had a good chat with her over the phone that stuck with me. She said, “Different baby, different birth.” Meagan: Absolutely. Lauren: I just kept saying that to myself. I think I listened to one of The VBAC Link podcasts and they said the same thing. It just was the right information that I needed to listen to at the time and the whole CPD with the pelvis. She said, “You don't even have an official diagnosis.” She said, “That's just somebody's opinion as to why they are saying that the baby didn't descend. He just wasn't in a great position.” She highlighted that they broke my waters at 6 centimeters before he even descended which maybe led to him being even more stuck. All of these things, and then I remember just trying to focus on positive VBAC stories and get my head in the right space so I was listening to lots of podcasts at this point and I was following a lot of Instagram pages about pelvic mobility. I didn't really do a lot of research about that with my first or my second pregnancies about your pelvic inlet, your pelvic outlet, internal and external rotation. This was all news to me and I really, really enjoyed that. It made sense that the pelvis is not rigid. It can move and I just kept visualizing that when I was trying to be positive toward this labor. I was doing a lot of exercises for only a couple of minutes at night before bed. I was doing a lot of window wipers where you lay back and rotate your knees from side to side, deep squats in the shower, I was doing a lot of lunges and just creating a lot of space and room that I felt like I could in my pelvis. I did a lot of visualization. I remember I just kept putting my hands between my legs and imagining feeling my baby's head. I don't know why I did that and it probably might seem a bit strange but I just really felt that and I was imagining going through labor and having that moment. Yeah. Meagan: It doesn't. Lauren: That was really quite powerful at that point to get back on the right track for having a VBAC. There were two other podcasts I was listening to which are Australian-based– The Great Birth Rebellion and that's really, really good, and The Midwife's Cauldron. They just question a lot of things that are expected or standard and not to question. I thought that was really good. One of the ladies who does The Midwife's Cauldron has a book called Reclaiming Childbirth as a Rite of Passage. I didn't get all the way through it but it was another thing like finding your podcast. It just really resonated with me and everything I read, I felt was meant for me. It was really, really powerful. The two Instagram pages that I followed were The Body Ready Method and they have little reels of exercises and things to do to get your body ready. Then I got to 35 weeks. We went through my last appointment and I was happy to go through with the VBAC and that they would support me. They advised of the standard guidelines of having an IV, CTG monitoring, and regular vaginal examinations. At 36 weeks, I had my OB appointment and I had my growth scan. The baby was in the 90th percentile. I thought I was going to have to say, “I know they can be inaccurate.” But the OB wasn't worried about that at all and he said, “Yep. Baby's size is fine.” He discussed the pros and cons. He pulled out graphs and figures and I was like, oh gosh. Here we go. He's going to tell me all of these problems. He was so pro-VBAC and supportive. He was from the UK and he said, “I came to Australia and I didn't realize what the problem with VBAC is.” They are so supportive in the UK with VBAC and the hospital I was going to has a 60% VBAC success rate which I was like, well that's pretty positive. I did my GBS screening and then he rebooked me in for 39 weeks. I'll never forget he said to me, “I'll see you at 39 weeks if you are still pregnant.” In my head, I was like, Of course, I'm still going to be pregnant because I went to 40 weeks with the boys so we will see you at 39 weeks and reassess.You don't have a set obstetrician either so you get whichever one is there. I was really hoping he would be at my next appointment and when I went into labor. At 37 weeks, we went on a little holiday down south. It was a big drive. We came back. I was having regular chiropractic appointments I should say. I had my chiro appointment when I got back. I had been sitting in the car and she mentioned that the baby was sitting asynclitic which is the head tilted. I thought, Oh no. I was so focused on getting the baby in a good position. She said, “It's probably because you were sitting for such a long time. It's no concern.” She realigned me and then gave me some pelvic tilt exercises to get into the right spot. Then on the 14th of January which was around 37, just before 38 weeks, we had a meet-up with my doula again just pre-birth to run through everything. She got to meet Josh and we left feeling really positive and excited and happy with everything. She was on call. I got to 38 weeks. I had an appointment on Thursday with my chiro and then on Friday, I was working from home. I still had another week. I was sitting on the exercise ball pretty much all day doing lots of circles and pelvic tilts. I had maybe one or two twinges and I was like, Oh, that's interesting. Nothing eventuated from that. Nothing through the night so I didn't really read too much into it. The next morning which was the 20th of January which was 38+2, Josh had to go down south for work which was a 3-hour drive away. A lot of people were like, “Oh, that's a bit dangerous.” I said, “Oh no, I'd rather he go now and be back for my due date.” I said that. I said, “I'd rather have you go now and be around for 40 weeks.” He headed off first thing Saturday morning. He did the drive. He did a full day's worth of work. It just was a normal day. At 4:30 in the afternoon, I got two boys in the car. We went to the shops. I had to do a bit of shopping for a birthday the next day. Then at 5:00, I do Click and Collect. I don't know if you have that but you do your grocery shopping. You pull up. They just put it in your boots and then you drive home. Meagan: Yes. We do have that. Grocery pickup is what we call it. Lauren: They came out from COVID and I just haven't stopped doing that. It's so handy with children. That was at 5:00. We did that. We got home. At about 7:00, I'm getting the boys ready for bed. They were in the bath. I was just tidying up a few things. I squatted down to pick a few things up and I had a bit of a leak. I was like, I just felt like I wet myself a little bit, but not a gush. Not anything. I had a pad on so it was just a little bit of water. I called Josh. I said, “I don't know if this is anything, but maybe just have an early night. If things do start to happen, you might have to drive home early in the morning to get back.” This was at 7:00 then at about a quarter past 7:00, I sent a photo to my friends because they were out. I was just at home. I bought a special birthing robe. I just for some reason put it on that night. I was sitting on the couch in my birthing robe. I took a photo and sent it to them completely oblivious of what was about to unfold. I got the boys in their pajamas and brushed their teeth. We were getting ready for bed and it was about just before 8:00 and I had a little bit of a cramp so I was like, Oh. It was really weird because with my previous birth, I didn't notice the contractions or take note of them for a long time. But at 7:55 was my first contraction and then 10 past 8:00 was my next one. I was like, Oh. That's weird. It was 15 minutes later. The next one came 5 minutes later. I was like, That's weird. The next one was 4 minutes. I was like, That's weird. I stopped writing them down. I was like, Obviously, I'm not writing them down properly. I must be doing something wrong because that just can't be right. During that, I must have gone to the toilet and there was a slight tinge of red in the bowl. I remember taking a photo of it being like, I'll just keep it. Meagan: Like some bloody show?Lauren: Yeah, but not a lot. Really faint in the water. I took a photo because I wasn't even sure if it was there. Then at about 8:20, I called Josh again and said, “Maybe start heading back because things might be happening. The contractions don't seem like they are slowing down but we will just see what happens in the next few hours but it's 3 hours so maybe start heading back.” I called my mum at that point as well. She was an hour up north. She never goes up there but she had just gone for a day trip so she was away as well. At that point, the boys were still awake and I couldn't get them. I wasn't capable of getting them into bed and doing all of that. I said, “Just pop on the couch,” and they were watching Bluey which is a TV show they love. They were watching that and I just hopped in the shower. It must have been 8:30 at that time and I called Megan, my doula. The plan was I was going to labor at home as long as possible and she was just going to meet us at the hospital. I called her and I just said, “Josh isn't here. My mum's not here. I'm alone with my boys. I'm going to try and put them to bed and focus and get into my breathing techniques and then I'll check in and touch base with how I'm going.”That was about 8:30 then 10-15 minutes after that, I jumped in the shower and things started to ramp up quite a bit. I was really upset because I was in the shower thinking that would be my mode of pain relief and it just was not. Meagan: Uh-huh or slow it down. Lauren: Yeah, I've heard that as well. If you hop in the shower, it will slow down if it's not the real thing. It did nothing and I was like, Oh no. This is not good. I remember thinking to myself, I just need to press pause. I just need to stop this because it can't be happening right now because I'm literally on my own. This is not how it was supposed to happen. I was in the shower and then I had a little bit of a bloody show in the shower and then at that point, I called my doula again. I was like, “I think you need to come over. I just need a little bit of support just to watch the boys.” In my head, I was still thinking I had hours to go. In my head, I was like, If you could just watch the boys until Josh gets here, then you can head home and we can give you a call when we head into hospital. At that point, I got out of the shower because it wasn't doing anything. The contractions started to feel different. It felt like I was having to bear down a little bit. I was like, Okay. But I still feel like I was oblivious because I just– it was so quick. In my head, it wasn't happening that fast. I remember thinking, When I get to the hospital, I'm not going to be able to do this all night. I'm going to get the epidural because it's too much. I got out of the shower and Megan had given me a TENS machine. I was like, that is in the bedroom. I'll get the TENS machine. I couldn't even make it to my bedroom to get my TENS machine. I was like, oh goodness. I put a nappy on and then I went and I sat down. I think I must have made it to the toilet so then I sat back on the toilet and that was a really comfortable, familiar place that I was sitting and I was sitting down there. That was really nice for the contractions to break through. My boys wouldn't have known what was going on. They kept coming in and checking and asking if I was okay. I said, “Yeah, mummy is fine. I think the baby is coming.” They knew something was going on because I was making some noises. My eldest was a little bit scared but he was okay and then I was sitting on the toilet and I remember I had locked the whole house up. We've got a side gate security door and a front door. I thought, Oh my god. When Megan arrives, she's not going to be able to get in. Nate found the keys for me and he gave them to me. He was so happy with himself that he gave me the keys and I managed through contractions to walk. It was probably 5 minutes to the front door and I only had a nappy on at this point. I was completely naked because I just got out of the shower and had a nappy on. I unlocked both doors. I was in a little side area and I thought, Goodness if anyone walks past and hears me and sees me– thankfully, it was late and nobody saw it but I don't know how I managed to do that. I got back in and I was on the toilet. I think that was around maybe 8:50 at that point when I had moved to the toilet. The light was off in the toilet and the hospital bag I had packed had lots of candles and LED lights to have to set the mood. In the boys' bathroom, I have one candle on which is just for their nightlight if they need to go to the toilet. That was the little nightlight that I had on in the toilet. That was actually quite nice to have a dark room with a little candle on. At this point, I'm sorry. I unlocked the door at about 9:00 and then it was 9:23 that my doula arrived. She came in and my eldest son, Nate, ran into the door and he was just so excited that somebody was there to help mum. He's like, “Mum's there. She's in the toilet.” I remember Megan coming in and she was so calm and she was so relaxed. She looked at me and she said, “Lauren, are you pushing?” I remember looking at her and I was like, “I think I'm pushing.” She just said, “Okay. I'm just going to call the ambulance.” She was on the phone and she was calling. I think in my head at this point, I still hadn't registered it was that sudden. I still just thought I was– Meagan: And this has been maybe 2 hours. Lauren: Yeah. 2 hours. You can push for hours so in my head, I was like, We've still got hours. We're fine. It was intense, but I was just so excited. Things were happening and it was all going. Then I don't know how we got to it but we called my neighbor to come over because my doula was trying to support me but then the boys were there. She said, “I just need somebody else to watch the boys.” My beautiful neighbor came over. We are friendly but not in the middle of birth naked friendly. She comes and the toilet is off the hallway so I remember her walking in and she's like, “Hi.” I was like, “Sorry, Adrienne.” I was pushing and she was walking off the hallway to sit with the boys on the couch. I was about to have a baby. It was so crazy. Yes. I think that was just about 9:30. Megan gave me some water and she was rubbing my back. She put a cold towel on my back and I was still sitting on the toilet at this point and my legs were quite shaky. I just felt a bit sweaty then I instinctively just got up to move to sit on my knees in the toilet and that toilet's not very big. You can put your arms up and hold the walls. I was on there on my knees. I had one leg up and I was rocking, circling my hips. I was doing all of the things and just instinctively. I didn't really notice that I was doing them. Then I think she had towels and she had pillows. She was still on the phone to the ambulance that were coming. I'll never forget. The guy on the phone was just like, “Put her on her back. She needs to be. Can you get her on her back? You need to be able to see.” They were asking her to tell them when I was having contractions. I remember we were looking and each other and I'm like, “He can hear when I'm having a contraction. I'm starting to make the noises.” Megan would just be like, “Now.” He could tell when I was having contractions. Obviously, he had a script to read off but it was so obvious when I was contracting and when I wasn't. The head wasn't there but I could feel bulging. I remember putting my hand down there and I was just so excited and happy. I was just so calm. I don't know how because none of it was planned. It was happening so quickly. I guess there was no time to really process it or even think about it or get scared about it. It was just happening. There were two paramedics that arrived. This was just before 10:00 at this point. I was there. I could feel bulging. There was still no head or anything yet. They came in and they turned the lights on in the toilet and I was like, “Oh no.” It was too bright. They turned it off. They looked at me and said, “Lauren, are you okay? Do you need anything?” I don't even know if I could speak. I just shook my head. In hindsight, we couldn't have gone. It was too late. We couldn't have gone anywhere anyway but they just stood back. They turned the light off and they literally just watched which was so special. They didn't interfere. They didn't try to take over. They just sort of let me go and I don't know how it happened but the doula gave the paramedics my phone and they recorded the birth. Meagan: Oh that's awesome. Lauren: Yeah, which was not planned. I guess it was so special because Josh was still an hour away. Meagan: Yeah, and your mom? Lauren: My mum wasn't there so at least they could see it. I'm so glad that they thought to do that and to record it. They were recording it and I was getting close. I remember in the video, you can hear me say, “I can't do this anymore.” Obviously, I was very, very close and I put my hand down. I was just saying, “Ow, ow, ow, ow,” because I could feel the stretch. I know people call it the ring of fire but I tried not to think of it like that. I tried to just visualize the stretching of everything. Then I could feel the baby's head and then I just remember sobbing because I was so happy. I could feel and I was saying, “Ow, ow, ow, ow,” and then her head– I didn't know it was her at the time, but her head sort of popped out through my contraction. You could just see my relief. I was so happy and she cried. Her head was out and she made two little cries. Meagan: She did? Lauren: I've never heard of that happening before. Meagan: I have never seen that ever.Lauren: Yeah, it was incredible. Even the doula was like, “What in the world?” I knew she was fine at that stage. I heard the little cries then it was maybe a minute before the next contraction then I was like, “She's coming out.” The doula had her hand under. She guided her head to me and then her shoulders and I just pulled her up to me. It was just– yeah. The look on my face. I just could not believe it. I had done it. I think I just kept saying, “Oh my god. Oh my god.” I just held her. I keep saying her but I held the baby. I just could not believe that she had come out just so quickly and so easily. I was so worried in the lead-up that the baby would get stuck or I wouldn't be able to get the baby out and none of that was even in my mind at that point. She just was there. I was holding her and it was the most incredible, special moment. Even now, even when I hold the top of her head, I always remember feeling her head coming out. Yeah. I don't even know if I'm doing it justice because it was just the most incredible feeling. I was holding her. Our neighbor brought the boys down so within the first minute, she's walking down the hallway and she had Nate and Call and they were both in the doorway of the toilet looking at me holding their little baby. My youngest sort of looked in and was like, “No.” He just walked away. It was all a bit much for him. Then my eldest walked straight in. Stuff was everywhere and he was so brave. He walked straight in and was like, “Mummy had the baby. The baby is here.” I said to him, “We don't know what it is. Do you want to have a look and see if it's a boy or a girl?” He looked down and I said, “Is there a vagina or a willy?” He looked down and the whole time he said he thought she was going to be a girl. He goes, “I think it's a girl.” He looked down and I don't know what he saw, but he said it was a boy. I was like, “Is it another boy?” He must have seen something that he thought looked like a willy. Meagan: Maybe an umbilical cord or something. Lauren: Yeah, maybe the cord or swelling but they get quite swollen so he might have thought it looked like little testes so he said, “It's a boy,” and Megan whispered something in his ear and in that split second, I was just like, Oh my gosh. It's not a boy. I'm like, “Is it a girl?” I just couldn't believe it. The fact that she was such a surprise, her birth, and the way she came, and then that she was a girl as well and then we were just sitting there in the toilet for so long and then we were like, “Oh, we'd better call Josh.” Megan was like, “I'll call Josh.” She said, “You need to pull over Josh. Can you pull over?” He was on the highway doing 110 to get back to us. He was like, “Okay.” So we FaceTimed him and I'm just sitting on the floor holding Wren on the toilet saying, “She's here. We had the baby.” He was so happy. He was still an hour away. My mum– I think we just sat in the toilet. My mum arrived 20 minutes after she was born. She just came and sat on the floor of the toilet with me. We just sat in there. She couldn't believe it. Then about maybe 40 minutes after, we walked up and I was able to sit in my own bed and I sat in the bed. They were sort of a bit worried about the placenta and things like that. I hadn't birthed the placenta yet. They asked if I wanted to cut the cord. I said that I wanted to leave it as long as possible until it goes white. We were hoping for Josh to come at that point so then I was sitting down. I stood up for a little bit and I remember my mum was in the bed with me and my doula was there. I said, “Oh, I'm so sorry. I think I need to do a number two.” Then she was like, “No, I think that's your placenta.” Meagan: Probably your placenta sitting in there. Lauren: The placenta came straight out and she caught it in one of my mixing bowls because we didn't have anything prepared. She stayed attached to that for a while. Because they had gestational diabetes, they had to do a heel prick on Wren. Her sugars were fine. Josh was still about an hour away. We didn't even have a capsule for the car so I hadn't picked up the capsule so we got transferred because she came so early. We got transferred to the hospital in the amublance and Josh met us there at 10:30. I should say she was born at 10:09 which was just pretty much 2 hours. Meagan: So 7:40-something to 10:09. Lauren: I remember the midwives when we got to the hospital were like, “Why didn't you know?” I was like, “I just had no idea that it was happening that suddenly.” Now looking back, obviously, the signs were all there but it wasn't happening that quickly in my head. We got to the hospital and Josh got to meet us at the entrance and it was so special. I just still could not believe that it had happened and I was on this high. I was just so incredibly happy. We went in and they just didn't know what to do with us. They didn't know to put us in labor and delivery or to take us to the maternity ward. We went to labor and delivery. They did all of the assessments. She was my biggest baby. She was 7.8 pounds so 3.5 kilos compared to the boys so it's quite funny that Call wasn't able to come out but she was able to come out. I think it was just positioning and I was relaxed. I was at home. I didn't have any interventions or anything played a huge part in it. They did an assessment. I think her APGARs were in the hospital but she was 10 and 10. She was perfect. They did assess me for a tear and I remember saying, “Oh, I don't think I teared,” because in my head if I had torn, I thought it would have been a painful feeling. I actually had a 2nd-degree tear which I didn't realize so I had to have some local anesthetic which was probably the most painful part of it all. It was excruciating. I had to have stitches for that and then just a superficial tear at the top. Josh actually went home at that point because we still had a few hours before we could get discharged. He drove 3 hours in the morning, worked the whole day, drove 3 hours, hadn't slept for 24 hours. I said, “You go to your parents. Have a quick sleep.” He came back. They did a few checks on Wren. She had to go to the special care nursery just for some monitoring really quickly because there was a difference on some of her monitoring with her heart rate. They did an echo which came back fine so there was no follow-up. It must have been a funny reading. They were all fine so I think we got discharged at about 9:00 the next morning. She was born at 10:00 at night. We went to the hospital at midnight. We left there at 9:00 in the morning and were back home literally within a few hours with the boys. It was just so surreal and so special compared to the other two birth experiences that I had. One, to be able to get up and walk around and just do things without being conscious of a scar and recovery and things like that and even when I walked in home– because my mum had stayed at home with the two boys, she said, “You don't even look like you just had a baby.” I just felt like I was on top of the world. It was such a different experience. I remember saying to her that obviously I didn't know what it was going to be like but now that I've experienced it, I can't imagine going through life never having experienced that and having birth that way. It was just so– I remember a few of the midwives looked at me as if I had planned to have a home birth and I was like, “Absolutely not. There was no way I would have planned it like that with no support, with nobody here.” Meagan: Yeah. You're like, I would not have planned to do that. Lauren: My boys didn't know anything about natural birth. I was going to the hospital to have a baby and coming back with their baby brother or sister. There was no way that I was– that was a bit funny. I was like, no. It was not planned. It was all very sudden. I remember my doula said to me in the coming days after Wren was born, “How special for Wren to have been born that way and then also for you

“My birth stories are my testimony…I have never trusted God more with any situation in my entire life other than with the lives of my children and bringing them into this world.”Shelby's story is one of faith, trust, and surrendering. Shelby joins us today from Indiana sharing her wildly traumatic Cesarean story due to a placental abruption and her peaceful, healing home birth. Shelby was on vacation at a cabin in New York at 34 weeks when she woke up to regular contractions and heavy bleeding. She rushed to the nearest hospital, was put under general anesthesia for her Cesarean, was transferred via a separate ambulance from her baby to a hospital 3 hours away, and had a 23-day NICU stay in the height of COVID 800 miles away from her family and community.She and her husband were certain they would not have any more children. But as they fought for healing through faith-based counseling, their hearts yearned for another baby and a chance at a healing birth experience. She completely surrendered, found holistic prenatal care, and created a birth space for herself where she knew she felt safe. She was brave and vulnerable, and her second birth was everything she hoped it would be. As Meagan says at the end of this episode, “Get educated. Love yourself. Have faith in you and your body and your baby. You are amazing. You are a true Woman of Strength.”How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Women of Strength, we have our friend, Shelby, here with us today sharing her HBAC story. In addition to her HBAC story, she's got some other unique things that I think are going to be important for us to talk about today. One is placental abruption. That is something that is definitely a reason for a Cesarean and one of those absolute needed reasons for a Cesarean. We are going to talk a little bit more about that and then we are going to talk about faith and how faith in whatever faith looks like to you, it's so important to cling onto that. Shelby has some messages about that. Then we really want to talk about physiological birth. We hear it. We see it online. I mean, if you go on Instagram and you go into the birth world, you're going to see it almost 100% guaranteed but what does that really mean? We're going to be diving in with that today. Shelby, you are in– where did it say, Indiana? Shelby: Indiana, yeah. Meagan: I have to look at my notes. Indianapolis, Indiana. She's in Indiana so Women of Strength, if you are coming from her area, definitely listen up as well. Okay, so we have a Review of the week and this is by birthing confident. It says, “Invaluable information. I love this podcast. As a mom planning a VBAC and a VBAC-trained birth doula, the information shared on this podcast is invaluable. I have become so passionate about helping all women know their birth options and avoid unnecessary C-sections. I think this podcast is great for all expectant mothers” and I 100% agree with that. This podcast is for anyone and everyone because like she said we are wanting to help people avoid unnecessary and/or undesired Cesareans. We have a ridiculous Cesarean rate. It is through the roof. I would love to see it start dropping and I don't know if this podcast truly is going to impact the Cesarean rate the way I would love it to, but I do believe that it's a starting point. It's a starting place for you guys to learn your options for birth after Cesarean and to learn how to have a better Cesarean experience if you have one because that's also a really important factor that I think a lot of people forget about. Not only do we share just VBAC stories, but we do share healing, beautiful CBAC stories and repeat Cesareans. Thank you so much, birthingconfident, for your review. As always, please if you haven't yet, leave us a review. You can do so on Apple Podcasts. You can message us. You can rate us on Spotify and all of the places that you listen to your podcast. Meagan: Okay, cute Shelby. Welcome to the show. Shelby: Thank you. I'm so excited. Meagan: I am so excited. So let's dive in. I am actually really excited to talk a little bit more about placental abruption as well and hear about your experience. Shelby: Yeah. I don't think I even knew it was a thing honestly before it happened to me. I think it's something that people don't really talk about and it's probably a good thing because it's really scary but also, it would have been good to maybe know what was going on. I know it wouldn't have changed the outcome, but yeah. I just had no idea that was even something that could happen. With my first pregnancy, it was very run-of-the-mill. Everything was good and I was planning on birthing at a birthing center in Indianapolis so I was still going for that natural, unmedicated birth. I didn't really know anything that went into that as you do with your first and I feel like you do the typical making the baby registry and doing all of these things that don't really actually help you with your birth. Not that I would have gotten the chance to even try anyway. I feel like I just definitely didn't really have much knowledge and I think the problem is that you don't know what you don't know which is why I literally recommend this podcast to all of my friends who are even pregnant with their first baby because I'm like, “Just learn the things. Learn all of the things.” We took a very basic birthing course through the birthing center and it was just virtual, like four sessions and it was not super helpful honestly but we also didn't get to implement it. The pregnancy itself was just very normal. I mean, I have pretty much all of the symptoms which is the worst like really horrible rib pain and nausea and heartburn and all of the things. What was crazy though, this was in 2021 and I actually got COVID while I was pregnant also. Everyone I've talked to thinks that's probably why I had a placental abruption.Meagan: That's interesting to know. Shelby: Yeah. I had it in about my 5th month of pregnancy in September and I was due in January. It was horrible for a week but then I recovered and I was back to working out. I was totally fine. I didn't have any blood pressure issues after that. Everything reallly seemed okay. We decided at 33 weeks that we were going to go to New York which is really far away from Indiana on vacation for Thanksgiving to gather with all of my husband's family. My midwives cleared it. Like I said, I was working out. I was healthy. I was fine. The trip was going super well. I was working out while we were there. I was doing barre obviously so I was doing safe things. Fitness is a really big part of my life but also, it's not something I added in during pregnancy. It was just normal for me. Meagan: I used to take barre too. I took barre and was teaching barre with my second TOLAC. It's a very low impact but very, very good for strength and cardio. Shelby: Yeah, and my husband and my father-in-law were doing them with me so we have some really awesome videos of me at 34 weeks pregnant working out with my husband and my father-in-law doing barre. But yeah. Everything was going well and anything that was slightly risky which really even wasn't, I wasn't doing. They did this office chair floor hockey where they were pushing each other around in office chairs and playing hockey in a building and I didn't do it. I sat on the sidelines and observed. I was being really what I feel like was cautious. Meagan: Responsible. Shelby: Right, yeah. We even took family pictures on Saturday and everything, I have pictures of us smiling and laughing and then literally the next day we had a baby which was crazy. I start having Braxton Hicks contractions at 20 weeks. For both of my pregnancies, I just feel like I start having them really early so they are not shocking for me. But that Saturday, I remember several times looking at my husband and being like, “These feel a little stronger than I remember them being,” but with your first, you don't know anything. I kept mentioning that to him but they weren't super regular and there were no other signs of anything, just Braxton Hicks contractions. Then that night when we went to bed, I couldn't really sleep. I was laying there by myself the only one awake. We were all staying in this big cabin together which was great. My husband and I were in our room. At 4:00 AM– this is so funny to me now that I know what labor is actually like. At 4:00 AM, I started timing contractions and they were less than 5 minutes apart when I started timing them. I'm like, What was wrong with me?So after an hour of them being like that, I woke my husband up and I was like, “I think you should go get your mom,” because she is actually a midwife which was good. Meagan: Oh, convenient. Shelby: She was in the room next to us. Yeah. I was like, “I think you should go get your mom because this is not right.” They were not just less than 5 minutes apart. They were pretty uncomfortable. She came over and checked things out. I know now that she definitely knew that something was going on but she was really good at keeping her cool. She was like, “Why don't you go shower and try to relax?” When I went to go to the bathroom and shower, I started bleeding. Like I said, I knew nothing about labor, so I was like, “Oh, well maybe I am in labor” which was really scary because I was only 34 weeks but it was a lot of bleeding. I was like, “Well, I don't know what's normal,” but I know that obviously, my mother-in-law knew what was going on. She was like, “It's okay. We'll have Chad (my father-in-law) just go start the car and we'll go in and get everything checked out.” So we were in the middle of the Adirondacks which is literally nowhere. We had a 25-minute drive to the nearest hospital and this hospital, I mean we were probably the only people there. It was 5:30 in the morning maybe. They didn't have an OB there. They didn't have a surgical team there. They were all at home so we come in and the front desk lady is like, “What's your occupation?” She's typing like a sloth. I was like, “Girlfriend, I am bleeding and I am in full-on labor. Can we just go inside?” So that was crazy. She's asking me to sign stuff and I'm telling my husband, “You have to sign.” At this point, contractions were pretty back-to-back and they were super strong. I could tell I was bleeding with every one. I could feel it. They got me back into the ER and the poor nurse. I know that this was probably so scary for her, especially with an OB not even there but she was asking me, “Have you felt her move recently? I can't find a heartbeat.” I was like, “I don't know. I'm in labor. I don't know if she's moving or not.” Every time I'd have a contraction, she'd just be like, “Oh wow, that's a lot of blood.” I'm like, “Thank you. I know.” Meagan: You're like, “I can feel it.” Shelby: Yeah, it was wild. By the time the OB got there, she checked. She said I was fully dilated and effaced. Meagan: Holy cow. Shelby: This was maybe 2 hours. It was not long. Now that I've been through a full labor, I'm like, that is crazy. My body had to have just been in panic mode like, We have to get this baby out right now.She checked and something that was kind of cool was I knew that my baby was head down. She had been from 20 weeks. She was perfectly always in the same spot because I could always feel her kicks really high and one of the times the OB checked, she goes, “Oh, and she's breech so we're just going to have to go.” I was like, “She's not breech. Check again. She's not breech.” She checked again and she was like, “Oh, you're right.” I was like, “Yeah.” So the nurse brings in all of the scrubs and stuff for my husband to put on and as he's getting dressed and everything, he's fully ready to go. He's all excited because he wasn't really super scared. Meagan: He didn't understand what was going on. Shelby: Yeah, but also, he's like, “I'm going to meet my baby today. This is so cool.” And the literal most gut-wrenching thing of my life was when the OB was like, “No, we don't have time. It's going to be under general. You can't come.” She wheeled me out of the room and I looked back and saw him standing there fully dressed just like yeah. It was awful. In that moment, I wasn't even worried about myself and I wasn't worried about the baby. I was just like, He's going to be traumatized from this. This is horrible. They took me back there and I'm in labor holding onto the top of the bed. I was only in there probably for a minute, but it is scary. The whole room is white and there is somebody over here counting instruments. They stick a mask on your face and you can barely breathe and then the next thing you know you wake up in recovery. I woke up as the only person in this room. There were maybe two guys sitting at the desk but that was it. Nobody else was there. They didn't say anything to me. Nobody told me if she was okay. I knew nothing. Yeah. I was just laying here. Eventually, my husband came in and he showed me pictures of her. He was like, “She's okay. She's on oxygen but she's doing all right.” But yeah. It was totally crazy. Then they moved me to– I don't even know. It probably wasn't actually a postpartum room. I don't even know if they have those at this hospital. I feel like they probably try to send everybody everywhere else. Then basically, they told me, “Hey, you have 10 minutes if you want to go see her and try to hold her before the ambulances get here to transfer you guys,” because there wasn't a NICU there and they probably weren't even– they couldn't have cared for her. I think as soon as we got there, they must have called Albany Medical Center because it's 3 hours away. She was born at 7:30 in the morning. I started timing contractions at 4:00 AM. We didn't leave until after 5:00. The whole thing was so fast. I'm getting ready to get out of bed and get in a wheelchair to go see her and they didn't warn me how much pain I would be in and they didn't really help me get out of bed either. As I went to stand up, I leaned back a little and after you've had a C-section, I almost passed out. Meagan: Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Shelby: Yeah, so I get in this wheelchair and I get in the room where she is. She's got the oxygen mask on and she's got all of these tubes and all of the things and you could tell in the pictures I was barely with it. What I remember bothering me the most is I had obviously been intubated so I felt like there was stuff in my throat because it was so swollen. My mouth was all dry and I got to hold her for a couple of minutes but it didn't even feel real. Then the NICU team got there. She was on one ambulance and I was on a different one and my husband was in a car so we were all separated for 3 hours to Albany. Halfway there, my ambulance– so hers left first, and halfway there, we passed hers pulled over on the side of the road. I started panicking. There was no communication between the two ambulances. Meagan: Oh my heavens. I'm dying right now. Shelby: Yeah. The EMT, bless her heart, was amazing. She was like, “It could be anything. It could be one of the monitors isn't hooked up right and they're just stopping to do that or they need to change out an oxygen tank and they can't do that while driving.” She helped me calm down a little bit. She probably shouldn't have said this, but we got closer to Albany and she said, “We don't need to panic.” I don't remember if she actually said this but she said, “Unless they pass us again going fast.” I kid you not but we were 5 minutes out from the hospital and her ambulance went by us with lights and sirens on. I had maybe seen her for 10 minutes before this and she couldn't contact the other ambulance. So just traumatizing, all of it. Thankfully, when we pulled into the hospital, the first thing that the guy on the baby's ambulance did was come over and say, “Everything is okay.” It was just something. They had a lead or something come off so they needed to stop and take care of it so it wasn't a big deal but it made it feel like a big deal. We are in New York still for all of this. We get in there and I have to get settled in the postpartum section and she has to get settled in the NICU and then finally, hours later, I was still bleeding a lot so they were trying to take care of that. They were doing the fundal rubs and I remember texting my mom and I was like, “If they do it again, I'm going to punch someone in the face,” because it was so awful. They were saying, “It's because the EMT didn't do them on the ride over that you are bleeding so much,” so they kept coming over and doing them. It was so awful. So then we had a 23-day NICU stay in New York, just my husband and I because no one else could even visit us because it was 2021 in New York which was pretty bad for COVID. Once I was discharged after 4 days, technically, the only visitors allowed were my husband and I with our NICU bracelets to see her. Even if they had someone come, they couldn't even come into the hospital. We didn't really want to leave the hospital because we wanted to be there with her. We were Ubering to Target. We didn't have a car because we flew there. We are Ubering to Target and thank goodness they had a Ronald McDonald house there so we were staying there and they supplied a lot of dinners and housing which was the biggest blessing in the world. I literally don't know what we would have done otherwise. Getting discharged without your baby is super horrible and she was only 4 pounds, 10 ounces so she was really little and nursing just never took off for us. I didn't get to try for a while even because she was being tube-fed and she could barely stay awake because she was so tiny. Every nurse that you'd have would tell you their tips and tricks which is great but not helpful when every 3 hours you are being told something different. We tried so hard and eventually got to the point where it was like, “Let's just get home. We are 800 miles from home and if it takes a bottle, that's fine. We just need to get home.” Yeah. After 23 days, my amazing mom drove to New York because we didn't even have a car seat. It was all at home. She picked us up and drove us back home. Meagan: Oh my gosh. Shelby: Yeah, so then you are coming home with this little 5-pound baby and you are like, “How are we even allowed to do this? She doesn't even barely fit in the car seat.” It was so crazy. After that, we were really unsure if we'd have more kids. Especially right after, we were like, “I don't know if we can do that again.” My husband and I always wanted lots of kids and a big family. That has always been something that we wanted so after that first experience– and you do a quick Google search of placental abruption and they say, “Once you've had one, it's 15% more likely that you'll have another one.”You're like, I can't go through that again. That was horrible. I knew that if we got pregnant again, I was like, I'm going to feel like a ticking time bomb. All of these also quick Google searches tell you that it can happen as early as 20 weeks. Thank goodness we made it to 34 but I'm like, If that happens at 20, baby is probably not going to make it. Meagan: That's a scary thought. That's a really scary thought. They really have advanced the medical world so much to a point where even when babies are born really, really preemie, there are higher chances than there used to be, but the thought of that in general is just too much to think about. Shelby: Oh yeah, and my mom who drove to New York to get us– which is probably part of the reason they discharged us. She's a NICU nurse so she actually knew how to feed this litle 5-pound baby who was still causing us feeding issues and all of the things, but I've obviously heard from her too the stories of the really early babies. I mean, even 29 weeks and I was like, It's just too much. But we also knew that we couldn't stay in that place because we both were not in a good place with it. My husband was obviously so traumatized for different reasons and I was too. It was just a lot. We started seeking out some faith-based counseling basically like spiritual reconciliationing kind of to work through it all because I knew even if we weren't going to have more kids, I could not just live with that raw the way it was. Meagan: Both of you needed to process that. Shelby: Yeah. We were just praying for the release of that and we even prayed over our poor baby because I was like, She's probably holding trauma from that too. The losses that I was experiencing were also losses for her. She missed out on the golden hour and a peaceful entry into this world. It would drive me crazy thinking that her first moments in this world were with people she didn't know and it was bright in the room and being hooked up to machines. I was like, That was probably so scary for her too. We could tell for a long time, probably her first 7 months that she was so sensory. I mean, just screamed and hated the car seat, hated transitions, hated bedtime. I mean, it was basically non-stop screaming for 7 months. I was like, You were supposed to be in the womb for 6 more weeks and instead, you were in the NICU with lights and sounds and all of the things. We just started praying really hard over all of it and speaking to some really trusted friends who worked through trauma with people. I started listening to The VBAC Link. This is probably when it started obsessively. I was doing Amazon deliveries just for fun on the side. I could take the baby with me so I'd put her in her car seat. This was eventually when she stopped screaming in the car seat so it took a while. I would put my AirPods in and while I did all of these deliveries, I would just listen to back to back to back episodes forever and for months. I think honestly that was probably what started getting me thinking even about more kids. I started learning about VBACs and how really the odds of having a VBAC are not that horrible and that it's really not any riskier than a second C-section and I was like, I really don't want another C-section because that was– I mean, I couldn't even roll over in bed by myself. My husband told me, “You don't usually need me, but that was the one time you actually needed me.” He was like, “Honestly, that was really hard to see you in that much pain and struggling that much.” I was like, “Yeah. I couldn't even pee by myself.” Meagan: Oh, I remember my husband literally helping with my second. He had to hold me up in the shower. I was like, “I just can't stand the whole time in the shower. Can you just hold me up and shower me?” I remember feeling so vulnerable and I was frustrated because I'm like, This isn't my personality. I'm very independent. Why is this happening? Yes. Shelby: Independent and strong. Yes. But also in my fashion, I was walking to the NICU by myself very slowly by day two. I'm like, What was wrong with me? But also, we didn't have a choice. I was about to be discharged. We had to figure something out. Thankfully, I didn't need to stay for 4 days, but because I had nowhere else to go, they were like, “You can stay all 4 days if you want.” I was like, “Okay, great.” But yeah, so I just started learning everything and consuming as much information as I could about physiological birth and about VBACs and there really isn't a ton of information about placental abruption. There are risk factors which I had none other than COVID which no one talks about yet because it had just started, but I didn't have high blood pressure. I obviously didn't do drugs. Meagan: You didn't have multiples. It was a singleton. Yeah. Shelby: It never happened before. My placenta was in a good location. Meagan: Your membranes hadn't ruptured. Shelby: Yeah, my water never ruptured with her so it was crazy. But around when she was probably 9 or 10 months, I couldn't even believe it, but I told my husband, “I'm not totally opposed to having another baby.”He was like, “For real?” We talked about it and we prayed about it a lot and I told God over and over again, “If I get pregnant again, this is going to be the biggest test of my trust in You ever because I know that if I try to worry about it, I'm going to go crazy. If I try to control the outcome which I can't, I'm going to go crazy.” So it basically was like, “If it happens, I'm just going to have to trust you with it fully. No holding back.” Actually, before we were even pregnant, started shopping around for providers. Meagan: That is key. That is so important. Shelby: Yeah. We do have one hospital locally that has midwives and birthing pools. I was like, “Okay, that sounds like a pretty good option for a VBAC.” We went to talk to them– well, I went by myself. I had my list of questions ready. I walked in ready to not take any crap because I also knew a lot about what they were probably going to say and they said, “Yeah.” First of all, they wouldn't call it a VBAC of course because nobody wants to do that. Meagan: TOLAC.Shelby: That was the first thing. I was like, “No. I'm going to do this.” Yeah, so they were like, “We'll allow you to try.” I was like, “Okay.” They were boasting about their VBAC rates and it was 60%. It was not very high and I was like, “Umm, okay. That's not that awesome, but all right.” They started listing off the things you have to do because I had all of these questions ready because I knew. So you have to have an IV hooked up. I was like, That's annoying. I was like, “Can you at least have the hep lock?” They said, “Yeah, that would be fine.” Then they said, “But you have to have continuous monitoring.” I was like, “Okay. I really, really don't want continuous monitoring,” and they try to make it sound better like, “Well, it's waterproof and it's mobile so you can still move around with it,” but I also knew about the statistics of continuous monitoring and how a lot of times they indicate things that aren't actually an issue and then especially if you are a VBAC patient, they're like, “Well, time for another C-section because baby's heart rate is dropping.” Baby's heart rate is supposed to fluctuate as they are descending. Meagan: Just like ours. Shelby: There was that and then they also said, “You can labor in the water, but VBACs aren't allowed to push in the water.” I was like, “Doesn't that defeat the purpose?” Especially if it's a VBAC patient, we should be doing everything we can to ease the labor. Why would you make them get out right when they are feeling like they need to push? They were like, “Oh, well it makes the OBs uncomfortable.” I was like, “Well, the OBs aren't delivering this baby so I don't really care what makes the OBs uncomfortable.”So they made me schedule out all of my prenatal appointments and I went to one of them but I told my husband, “I just don't want to have to fight for it. I know I can. I know that I can go in there and say ‘No thank you' and be confident in myself, but I don't really want to.” So I had never ever even considered a home birth. I don't even remember how, but we somehow heard about the only home birth midwife in our area and I scheduled an appointment with her. I didn't even get established with her until I was 19 weeks. I pushed out the OB care for a really long time when we found out we were pregnant because I knew we didn't really love them. So I just didn't go for a long time. I felt like everything was good. I felt like I was pretty in tune with everything. But yeah, I skipped a little bit but when we got pregnant with our second, it was a lot more immediate where I started praying about it all like, Okay God. This is for You because You are the only one who knows how long this baby is going to gestate and you're the only One who knows if it's going to end how we hope it does. I started praying. This is something. I started praying really specific prayers. I believe that God cares even about the little things which really aren't little things in this, but I prayed that my placenta would be in a good spot and I prayed that my placenta would be strong and that it would make it all the way to term and I prayed that this baby would make it all the way to term. Literally every little concern I had, I pretty much sat in the shower every day and just spoke it aloud. I was like, God, I know that You are a God of healing and restoration and I know that You can do that for me. I believed that through this birth, He was going to heal the trauma from our first because I was like, that feels like this is how it has to go at this point. We went and we met this midwife. She didn't doubt for a second. She didn't say anything that was like, “I'll let you try.” She was like, “You sound like a perfect candidate for a VBAC.” I told her that I had COVID and she was like, “Well, that's probably why your placenta ruptured.” She told me that the placentas she had seen throughout COVID and recently, she was like, “They are not healthy and they are not sustaining a lot of them until the end of pregnancy or if they are, they don't look good by the time they get there.” She wasn't surprised. But yeah, she said, “You sound like a perfect candidate. I think you can do this.” At every appointment with her, we'd sit there for an hour and we'd talk and she totally respected all of my wishes. She'd ask me if I wanted to do something. I'd ask her for information and then she'd let me decide either way which was cool too. With our second pregnancy, we didn't use a Doppler until I was in labor. I could feel her moving first of all so I knew that she was well but we actually started using a fetoscope which was really cool. You can't start using it until after 20 weeks so we had to wait for a really long time to hear her heartbeat but our toddler would watch us do it too. It was really cute because she would walk around with this fetoscope around her neck and she would go put it on daddy's belly and say, “I'm listening to Daddy's baby,” or she'd put it on her belly and it was really sweet. Yeah, we took a full 180 with this pregnancy. I had learned so much at this point that I was so confident in my body and in my instincts and all of it. We didn't find out the gender which with our first one, we found out at 8 weeks with the blood test. We didn't find out gender. I didn't do much prenatal care. We didn't do genetic screening anyway with the first one either because that didn't really matter to us. But yeah, I didn't even do an ultrasound until we were 32 weeks or something. We waited a long time because I had learned a lot about ultrasounds and how we actually don't know as much about them as we might think we know. Meagan: Might think we know. Yeah. Shelby: I read about how sometimes the techs are like, “Oh, they're moving away from it,” because they can feel it and I'm like, “We're not going to do that.” We waited and just had the technician who worked in our midwife's office which was perfect because we could tell her we wanted a very minimal one just to check basically the heart and vital organs and the brain to make sure everything was okay. She would pause the screen and take the measurement she needed and take the Doppler off and everything so it was very minimal. I was like, “I don't really care if they have 10 fingers and toes. We'll figure that out later. Just check the important stuff. Don't tell us the gender.” We did that and she basically was like, “Everything from as far as I can tell looks good.” That was pretty much all we did. My lifestyle was still very active and I was eating as best as I could. I didn't really feel like I had anything that was anything of concern which was perfect. I remember at my 30-week appointment, my midwife looked at me. We hadn't really talked about specific expectations I think for the birth because I didn't really know what I needed or what I wanted but she looked at me at my 30-week appointment without prompting and said, “I think what you really need from me in this birth is for me to just be there and for you to just do your thing.”Meagan: I love that. Shelby: I was like, “That's actually perfect. That's exactly what I want,” because at that point, I had listened to hundreds of birth stories and watched hundreds of birth videos and shown them all to my husband. Everything I was learning, obviously I was soaking it in but if there was anything I felt was pertinent to me, I was showing to him too. He really benefited from that because we went into birth also with him not being afraid. He would watch birth videos with me and he'd be like, “Wow, that's amazing.” That's one of my things. Knowledge is power and educate your husbands too or whoever is going to be with you at your birth. Physiological birth especially, they should be comfortable with it. They should know what it looks like and how it progresses and how to best support you in that. That was huge for us. I made him watch a lot of birth videos and he wasn't even weirded with it by the time it came around. But yeah. She said that and I was like, “Yeah, you know, that sounds great.” We made it all the way to 40 weeks and I just felt completely at peace the whole time. I wasn't worried and I was like, “She's going to come when she's going to come.” Another thing they had told me at the hospital was, “We only let VBACs go to 41 weeks and once you go past 41 weeks, you have to have a C-section.” I was like, “I'm not going to do that. I don't even know what my typical gestation is because I haven't made it term.”Meagan: I was going to say, you didn't even make it to 40 weeks. Shelby: Yeah, so my midwife was like, “Well, if you get to 42 weeks, we'll do an ultrasound and make sure everything is okay,” but she wasn't putting a timeline on it which was so great. I did a lot of courses. I stay at home with my daughters so I just listened to a lot of courses. I did the Christian HypnoBirthing one, our midwives did a course. It was really cool. They got us all together at one of their houses and went through a course with us and our spouses with all the moms who were about to have babies. I also did the Free Birth Society course which I was kind of so/so on but I was like, “If I want to know how to home birth, I just want to know about everything. I want to know about the complications that could happen and what you should do in those situations,” so even though I wasn't planning to free birth, I still wanted to learn all of the things. That was one of the things that I did and I was just listening to constant everything. When we made it to– I guess it was two days before my due date, so July 29, I was having fairly consistent contractions in the evening and so we were all excited. We're timing them and we were texting our moms but then they stopped the next morning which was a Sunday before church so we were getting ready to go to church but then I lost my mucus plug in the shower. I was like, “Okay, just in case something is going to happen, we should probably watch online.” We stayed home, watched online, and nothing was happening all day. We knew that we shouldn't get our hopes up but also you make it that far and you're like, “I'm just ready.” Our church had a picnic that night at a local water park so I was like, “Well, nothing has happened all day. We might as well go because we didn't go to church.” We went to this picnic and we were doing the mini playground with our 1-year-old at the time who is water crazy. I think I jumped to get into one of the tubes and felt something kind of funny then around 8:30 PM, I had a really strong contraction. I was like, “Okay. That was unusual.” I went to the bathroom and had bloody show so I went back out and got my husband. I was like, “We've got to go home.” On the drive home, contractions were 8-10 minutes apart. I showered and we called the midwife and our photographer and my mom and grandma who were coming to get my daughter and the dogs because we didn't know how it would go so we didn't want anybody else there who needed care obviously. Meagan: Well and your last labor was actually pretty dang fast. Shelby: Right, yeah so I was like, “I don't know how this is going to go.” My mom came and helped us clean up the kitchen which is where we were going to put the pool and everything. The midwife and her student arrived at around 10:30 PM. At this point, I was between the coffee table and the couch on my knees holding a comb and my husband was pushing on my back. I labored just in that one position for a long time and that felt as okay as it can feel. Then at around midnight, the midwife heard one of my contractions and was like, “That one sounded a little different. Let's get in the pool.” So I got into the pool and that was instant relief. I was able to sit between contractions and try to relax then after a little while, I was too afraid to feel. We did zero cervical checks. I didn't want to know. I was like, I just want to go. After a while, it was so cool how in tune she was with it all. She goes, “Why don't you see if you can feel your baby's head?” I was like, “Are you serious?” So I reached up and I could feel her head. I was like, “Okay. That gave me a little bit of encouragement to keep going.” I would say probably about an hour after I got into the water, my body started pushing. I didn't push voluntarily once. It was wild. I felt something at one point. We were about to change positions again. I had been in the tub for a little while and they were getting the bedroom ready. I was like, “Hold on, something just happened.” I reached down and a big hand-sized bulge of my amniotic sac was sticking out still full of fluid.Meagan: Yeah, I've seen that. It's so cool. Shelby: I told my husband, “Do you want to feel it?” Meagan: It's like a water balloon sticking out of your vagina. Shelby: Yeah, then the midwife was like, “Okay, we're not going to move. We're going to stay here. Obviously this position is good.” I held a comb in my hand the whole time and I had my husband push on my back because with both labors, I have had total back labor. I don't know why. I just have. I mean, she said I pushed for less than 40 minutes which was crazy. I felt her head come out but we didn't know it was a girl yet so that was fun and then I tried to slow down because I knew that sometimes you need a push or a contraction between and you don't want to get pushed too hard and tear but I couldn't. My body literally just pushed her all the way out in one push. That fetal ejection reflex is definitely a thing. So at 2:14 AM was when she was born and my first contraction was at 8:30 PM. I caught her by myself in the water and pulled her up. She had her cord on like a backpack. It was around both arms and her neck so I had her head out of the water but I could barely get her up. The midwife came over and untangled her and I mean, my husband and I just sat there for probably over 5 minutes before we even checked what the gender was because we were just in awe. We didn't even care. We were like, “Whatever. It's fine either way.” So when we finally looked, we saw it was our girl and we already had a name picked out, Elowen Ruth so we got to hold her for a long time but obviously, my midwife could tell that I was bleeding a lot so she had me get out and I had planned not obviously to do Pitocin unless I really needed it especially before baby was born but it was a lot of bleeding. I tried one of our tinctures first and it didn't really slow it down. So we did some Pitocin. She just did it. I didn't even notice. I was sitting there holding my baby and I was like, “You can't make this moment not perfect.” So we did some Pitocin and delivered the placenta. Then we went out and just sat on the couch and my husband made a snack plate and we all– the photographer and the midwife and her student and my husband and I just sat there talking about the birth and eating snacks.Then after a while, my husband got to hold her while I got cleaned up. I did end up having a lot of bleeding.Meagan: I was just going to ask if the bleeding resolved or did it continue?Shelby: I mean, it stopped pretty well. I didn't end up having to go get checked, but about a week later, my mom and when I took the baby into her first appointment at our nurse practitioner, I wasn't even there for me and she was like, “We are running iron labs on you because you look super pale.” I was really anemic and we didn't know so I think that probably was something. Now I know for the future, if I have a lot of bleeding again, I need to get it checked out really fast because I think it really slowed down my healing. Other than the initial pain of a C-section, my vaginal birth recovery was much more difficult. I could barely walk or stand for 4 weeks. I could not believe it. I remember going to my appointment and I was like, “Is this normal?” The birth went so well. I know it was fast but I think it was because my iron was so low. My body just couldn't heal. I did end up having a little bit of tearing but we didn't stitch it or anything. It healed pretty well on its own. It was super painful when I would have to pee and all of the things but eventually, it healed up on its own. But yeah. I mean, we got to sleep in our own bed. Well, I mean, the husband and the baby got to sleep. I could not. That high we were on, my midwife told me, she was like, “Okay. She's probably going to sleep for the next 5 or 6 hours and you should try to also.” I laid there and I was like, “There is no sleeping. There is none.” After that, she's like, “It's time to nurse 24/7.” Meagan: Of course. Shelby: She's 9 months today and we are still breastfeeding which is huge because with my first, I exclusively pumped for 8.5 months and that was so hard. I was so determined. I also took breastfeeding courses leading up to this baby because I was like, “We are going to make this work because I do not want to pump again.” I love nursing. I have to leave for an Army training here in a couple of weeks and I'm planning to take her with me and still nurse her at night time. I'm like, “We're going to make this go as long as we can.” Yeah, I mean, it was wild but so good. Meagan: Wild but amazing. Shelby: Yeah. Meagan: Did you find it healing? Because sometimes I feel like when you have a harder postpartum where you're like, “I'm not walking as well and I'm feeling gross with the iron,” that can be defeating and frustrating. But did you find that healing or were you like, “I would still take this over the other?” Shelby: Oh absolutely. I mean, I definitely had times where I would just break down not only because of the hormones but everything else. With my husband, I'd be like, “I did it. Why is this so hard?” I had prepared for postpartum. I made sure we had help lined up for our daughter and for meals and for everything so I was really able to take the time I needed. I think if I hadn't done that, I don't know what would have happened honestly because I needed it. I couldn't even sit on the couch. I had to be laying down in the bed or I was in pain. Meagan: Dang. Shelby: I think preparing for it definitely helped and the birth itself made it all worth it. Now, I'm like, Yeah, that was really hard for a couple of weeks but that experience made up for it for sure. Meagan: Worth it. Shelby: Overall, with the recovery, I'm like, Man, that was really hard with the C-section. it was two really hard days with the C-section but everyday is a little better. With my vaginal birth, I was like, Man, everyday is gettig worse. It's hurting more. But it was still really good. Meagan: What was it that was in pain? Was it your pelvic floor? Was it your abdomen? Shelby: It was probably my pelvic floor honestly and also because I think I had torn and she came so fast and there was no slow stretching, I mean– Meagan: Fetal ejection. Shelby: From the first one, it was crazy. I think it really was pelvic floor. I remember one of my friends describing it as she just felt heavy. I was like, “Yes. That is what it is.” It just felt heavy and it ached. Yeah. That was hard. I mean, even being in the shower didn't fix it and that was how my husband and I had planned to bond postpartum was showers together and stuff and I would be in there and I'm like, “I cannot stand up. I have to go back to bed.” Meagan: Too much pressure. Shelby: Yeah, for sure. Meagan: That makes sense. Okay, so let's talk about faith and getting yourself through a really, really rough first birth and you finding that faith. Do you have any advice for the listeners to gain faith in their ability?Shelby: Yeah. I mean, for me it was just knowing that God created my body to do this. No matter what had already happened, my body knew how to birth. I think what helped was I was like, Okay, it's already gotten fully dilated and effaced in my first labor. Maybe not gradually or the way it should have, but I was like, I've kind of already done it. I didn't get to the pushing but just knowing that I was designed to do it and through a lot of prayer and speaking and speaking, “God, you created me to do this. You gave me this baby to grow and to birth,” and just the knowledge is the same thing. Learning about how your body was made to do this is just huge and like I said, just praying those specific prayers for me was so important and proclaiming the promises that God has that He is a healer and a redeemer and He cares about our birth stories. He totally does. That was part of His plan from the beginning. I think for me personally, my birth stories are my testimony. I feel like until these two babies, I really was like, Oh, I grew up in the church and I don't really have a cool story which is fine but also with these babies, I'm like, I have never trusted God more with any situation in my entire life other than with the life of my children and bringing them into this world. For me, that was something I didn't really realize until recently too. That same friend was like, “I think this is your testimony.” I was like, “You're so right.” Meagan: That's cool. Shelby: It totally brought beauty from the whole experience. From the first one, you are like, Why in the world did this happen to me? What good could possibly come of this? We're traumatized. My baby is having sensory overload and I'm not at home. It was all of these things and then realizing that I shared about my story and I was able to connect with so many other moms who were like, “I had an emergency C-section” or “I had a really scary birth story” and now when I hear that a mom had a baby, my first thought is, How did her birth go and how is she doing? Did it go the way she planned and is she hurting? Those are my first thoughts instead of, Oh, is the baby okay? Okay, the baby is okay. It's made me really passionate about postpartum moms and at some point, I'd love to do something with that not while I have a 9-month-old and a 2-year-old but just knowing that there can be beauty that comes out of every story because in the moment, it totally did not feel like it with our first baby. Meagan: Right, yeah. That is the case a lot of the time. It feels like there is no beauty at all anywhere in that story and then you go and you listen to these stories and there is beauty in every single story and growth in every single story. There is learning. I think there is just so much to take from these stories. Then I wanted to go over physiological birth. There's a women and infant's blog or website and it says, “A normal physiological birth and birth are defined globally by midwife organizations as a birth that is powered by the innate human capacity of the birthing person and fetus.” The innate human capacity. “This means that there are no interventions performed that disrupt the normal physiological process in the absence of complications that warrant interventions supporting the physiological process of labor and birth has the potential to enhance birth outcomes and experiences.”I do believe so wholeheartedly that there are sometimes here. You had a real thing happening, a real medical–Shelby: Right. Thank goodness for the medical system in that situation, you know?Meagan: Yes. Thank goodness for intervention in that situation but that doesn't mean that we always have to just get all handsy with birth. It does show the benefits of supporting and fostering physiological birth of individuals include reduced Cesareans, increased breastfeeding success, improved birth experience, and reduced cost of care. Now, this world is very cost-minded especially with insurance and all of those things, but in the end, if you look at the reduced amount of money that we are spending when we are not paying for all of the interventions that happen during birth– and they don't always happen. We know that this is not a blank statement where it's like, “Every birth ends this way,” but usually when there's one, there are more. That adds up. Right? In the end, it's like, is that experience worth another experience? Even if you're in the hospital, you do not– you can totally have a physiological birth in a hospital. I love that so much. Some people don't feel safe out of the hospital. Shelby: Right. That's physiological birth. The key is being where you are safe because your body cannot progress as it needs to if it doesn't feel safe. I majored in animal science and I think about how animals won't have their babies if they don't feel safe. I think that we are mammals and our bodies are the same way. If you feel safest at home, awesome. If you feel safest in the hospital where you know you can get care right away, awesome. Yeah. You definitely just have to make that decision for yourself. Meagan: Yeah. I had a client who really wanted a home birth really, really badly. She decided not to, but decided to labor at home as long as possible and she was laboring and she was laboring and she was laboring and I was like, This labor. Something is off. Something is off. It was going but it wasn't really going and through chatting with her and doing a fear-clearing and fear-release to see if we could get over to that next stage, she never said, “I want to go to the hospital.” She didn't say those words but everything else that she was saying to me, that's what I heard. I said, “Why don't we go to the hospital? If we end up coming back home, that's okay but let's go and let's just see how things are going.” She was like, “I don't know,” because she was steering off of her plan in her mind of laboring at home. I said, “Okay, cool. It's going to be your decision.” About 25 minutes later, she was like, “Yeah, let's do it.” I'm not kidding you. The second she got into that car, it was a game changer. Shelby: Oh my gosh. Meagan: Because her mind was like, I'm going. She immediately felt better and safe. She didn't realize that's where she felt safer. We went. We had a total physiological birth. In fact, we didn't know if we were going to make it. She had the baby on the bed and the doctor was not there. Shelby: There's so much mental work that goes into it and everything. For me, knowing that I was going to my house. I hate packing and knowing I didn't have to leave and go somewhere, that was how I felt safe but I know a lot of people who are like, “No, I want to be in the hospital.” I'm like, “Great. Do it. Just make sure you are informed.” Meagan: Make sure you are informed. That is the ending tidbit here to this story. Be informed. Take a VBAC class. We have our VBAC class online. If you have any questions online, you can always email us on Instagram or in our email at info@thevbaclink.com. Hire a doula if you can. Hire a provider that you really, really trust to support you. Find that birthing location. Get the information. Learn what is important to you because what's important to you is going to stand out that day that you are in labor. Get educated. Love yourself. Have faith in you and your body and your baby. You are amazing. You are a true Woman of Strength. Shelby: Yes. So good. Thank you so much. Meagan: Thank you. ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In this episode, Trey, Jake, and Katie discuss various topics including making technology serve you, hair transplant, wearing sunglasses indoors, Braxton Hicks contractions, living to 120, being a crunchy mom, gaining weight, and a woman who wants to have 100 children. Join the patreon! http://www.patreon.com/treykennedy Pre-order How You Got Your Name https://www.thomasnelson.com/p/trey/ Pickleball fan? http://www.fridaypickle.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode, Trey, Jake, and Katie discuss various topics including making technology serve you, hair transplant, wearing sunglasses indoors, Braxton Hicks contractions, living to 120, being a crunchy mom, gaining weight, and a woman who wants to have 100 children. Join the patreon! http://www.patreon.com/treykennedy Pre-order How You Got Your Name https://www.thomasnelson.com/p/trey/ Pickleball fan? http://www.fridaypickle.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode we give you a little update on Laura's anatomy scan experience as well as Remi's third trimester aches and pains, and we dive deep into third trimester symptoms, including Braxton hicks, sciatica pain, heartburn, stretchmarks, hemorrhoids, frequent urination, exhaustion, insomnia, swelling and much more; while also providing you with some easy home remedies, prevention methods and red flags to be aware of.A great episode for anyone going through the third trimester, or who will be going through it soon and wants to know what to expect and things to keep in mind to minimize these very common aches and pains.Send us a Text Message.Follow us on Instagram for more updates, bts and ask us episode questions @momfriendspodYou can also follow us on our personal accounts @rrayyme & @laura.gimbertAnd remember to subscribe so you don't miss any of our episodes, out every Tuesday!This podcast does not provide any medical advice. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or treatment and before undertaking a new health care regimen.

During her first labor, Emily experienced a hyperactive uterus where she had constant squeezing with no breaks and minimal dilation. She was at a birth center but after exhausting all coping options decided to transfer to the hospital. After receiving an epidural and Pitocin, then detecting meconium, Emily was ready to consent to a Cesarean. Emily's second birth was a planned Cesarean, then her third and fourth births were both VBACs. Emily describes how even though her provider was the same for both vaginal deliveries, her experiences were so different. With her third, Emily had a beautiful pushing stage and easy recovery. However, pushing with her fourth felt rushed and she experienced a fourth-degree tear. Meagan and Emily share the importance of making your preferences known in every aspect of labor and delivery so your support team can speak up when you are not able to. Needed WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello, Women of Strength. We have a 2VBA2C story for you today. We were just talking about it before we started recording all of the acronyms. I was like, “Oh, you're a VBAC after two C-sections story.” And your baby is 8– wait, did I see that right? 8 months? Emily: He's 9 months now. Meagan: 9 months. Emily: He's almost a year. 8 months, 9 months, 10 months, somewhere around there. Meagan: Still very little, still very fresh so I'm excited for you to share his story and your other babies' stories. We have Emily by the way. This is Emily. Hello, Emily. Emily: Hi. Meagan: Remind me. Where are you located? Emily: I'm in Texas. Meagan: Okay, you're in Texas. Awesome. Okay you guys, we're going to share her stories. We do have a Review of the Week so I want to hurry and get into that and then we'll jump into Emily's stories. This Review is from Rachel and it says, “Thanks for giving me the confidence to have a VBAC. I am glad I found this amazing podcast when I was newly pregnant with baby number two. After a long, traumatic experience that ended in a C-section, I was cautiously hopeful that I would have a VBAC. Using information that I learned from hearing other people's stories on The VBAC Link, I felt confident and prepared for the birth of my son. On October 9, 2020” so that was four years ago, “I had a beautifully redemptive VBAC and welcomed our boy into the world. Thank you so much for helping me achieve my dream.” Women of Strength, that review is for you. You and your stories and your participation in the community and on Instagram and all the places is seriously what builds this community up and helps these other Women of Strength find the courage just like she said and find the education.I'm so excited for you, Rachel. Congrats and as always, if you have time to leave a review, please do so. It helps other Women of Strength find stories. Meagan: Okay, Ms. Emily. Let's get into this. So you have four babies now. Emily: Yes. My oldest is about to be 7 and my youngest is 8 months or so. Meagan: Okay, so you were having your first C-section as I was pregnant with my VBA2C baby. Emily: Yeah, it was 2017. Meagan: When you had him? Emily: When I had her. I had three girls and then my youngest is a boy. Meagan: Yes. My VBA2C was in 2016 so just right before, yeah. Awesome. Okay, well I'm going to turn the time over to you. Emily: Sure. So my first pregnancy, I actually found out I was pregnant on my honeymoon when we were in Mexico. Meagan: Oh my gosh. Emily: Yeah. I was stressed out and working out a bunch and all of this planning the wedding. I expected my period to come while we were there so I'm like, “Oh, it's going to be the worst. I have all of these white clothes and I'm going to be on the beach and I'm going to have my period.” It just didn't come so it was right at the start of our honeymoon. I was like, “Let's take a test. I don't want to be drinking margaritas for the rest of the week,” then of course, I was. We came back from the honeymoon with another big announcement. I feel like a lot of people's stories is that you didn't know any better and you just showed up at the hospital and you did what the doctor said. I was the exact opposite at that point. I was reading all of the things. I read the Ina May book. I had a midwife at a birth center and I was going to the chiropractor constantly. I was doing all of the things to be ready to give birth at the birth center without medication and all of that. That's just not how it ended up. I think I was around 36 weeks and she was breech. I was going to the chiropractor all of the time trying to get her to turn. I was doing Spinning Babies. I was doing acupuncture. I was going upside down all of the time. I was finding swimming pools to do handstands and all of the things. I did moxibustion where you smoke–Meagan: Uh-huh, on your Bladder 6. Emily: She was still breech so my midwife set me up with the breech guy. People come to him from all over to do breech vaginal deliveries so I started seeing him. This was when we were living in Houston so I started seeing him and we did all of the things to try and get her to turn and ended up having a version. I went in. I had an epidural. They manually turned her and then afterward, they were monitoring me in the room and the nurses were like, “Okay, well do you want to be induced now?” I was like, “Nope. I've got a plan. I'm going home.” So I left the hospital after that. She stayed head down and then I went to 42 weeks and at about 42 weeks, I went into labor but my labor was weird. I was getting contractions but there was no break between them. It was just constant, squeezing pressure. I was texting my midwife asking, “I don't know what to do. I can't time them. There is no in-between.” It was mostly my back and after, I think it was 3 hours and I was like, “I can't do this. This is too weird.” I didn't have any guidance for what to do if you're not able to– they weren't broken up at all. Meagan: Were you dehydrated at all? Emily: No, I don't think so. I'm not sure. We finally went into the birthing center and it stayed that way for a really long time. We were there throughout the night. I was on a birthing ball and my husband was just elbow into my back for hours. I couldn't sleep because it was just constant pain. I tried the Rebozo scarf. We did all kinds of things while I was there. I will say though, I should have had a doula because my midwife kind of just left the room and was gone. She was somewhere in the center probably sleeping. I don't know. She would come in every once in a while and we were really just left to our own devices in there. We had done I think it was a six-week class. We went in every week trying to prepare. Yeah, we were just in this room together in the middle of the night really tired and in a lot of pain not knowing what to do to get this going. At one point, I was on an IV. She had given me all of the pain stuff that they can give you. At one point, she was like, “I've done all of my–” I wish I could remember. Meagan: I've exhausted all my tools type thing. Emily: Yeah, I've given you as many doses as I can in a time period. We did the catheter. That came out at some point. I think it was Monday when I went in there and then Wednesday when I ended up leaving there. At one point, she was checking to see. She was looking at my cervix and my water broke. There was a bunch of meconium and it was green crazy. She just looked at me and was like, “I think it's probably time for you to go.” I got back in the car in rush-hour traffic in Houston and headed to the hospital. There was a nurse in the back seat with me holding my IV bag. My husband drove us there. She had called the doctor who did my version so I had already met him and known him and known that he was pretty progressive as well doing breech vaginal deliveries and I know he did breech twin deliveries. He was a very cool guy so I felt good about that. We went. He was like, “All right. Let's do an epidural. You can sleep. You can relax and all these things.” That's what we did. I think I had the epidural for 8 hours and I was at 6 centimeters. They were like, “Okay, what about Pitocin?” I feel like they did give me a lot of time and I hate the saying “give me” but they gave me a lot of time and by the end of it, I was exhausted. I was done and ready to get her out. I only made it to 6 centimeters after all of that. It was 3 days of labor. By that time, just get her out of there. She was almost 10 pounds. She was big. Yeah. The C-section, that all went fine. I found recovery to be especially hard. My body was already so tired. Meagan: Exhausted. Emily: Exhausted. I wasn't prepared for it. I didn't expect it to be as painful as it was, but yeah. I know some people kind of just pop right up after and are moving around. That was not my experience. That was my first. I feel like I had 10 experiences in one. I did the midwife birth center thing. They tried to get my labor going with an epidural. I had already been there for an epidural once so by the time I was getting the second one, it was whatever, and then the C-section also all in that one pregnancy. Yeah. I feel like it was three births in one.But yeah, then we got pregnant with my second. I talked to my midwife again. She was like, “I don't do VBACs,” so the first person I called was the guy who did my C-section and my version. I said, “I want to do a VBAC.” He was like, “All right.” He was very cool about it and awesome. It was another really easy pregnancy. I got to the end. I was 41 weeks. Meagan: So you carry longer. Emily: Yes. I was 41 weeks with her and I went in for an appointment and they did a sonogram and I was like, “Please can you check my cervix? I just have to know where I'm at.” Yeah, I hadn't dilated at all and he was like, “Well, your sonogram's estimating that she's going to be 10 pounds also.” My mom had been in town at that point. They were trying to be there for the birth and helping me with my toddler and she had to leave the next day because my sister was being induced in Dallas. She had been staying with me for that whole last two weeks and it was like a now or never she's going to be gone. I'm already 41 weeks. I was also teaching and so every day, I was walking into work so pregnant. 1000 comments like, “You're still here? You're still pregnant?” It just felt like I was sick of it. Then hearing the 10 pounds, I was like, “All right. Let's just have a C-section I guess.” He left that up to me. I feel like he would have if I said. He wasn't even doing cervical checks at that point. It was me who asked for it. He left it up to me and he agreed when I said, “Okay. I guess we'll just do a C-section.” That one was different because it was scheduled. We went in the next morning. It was easy, breezy, and a little bit better of a recovery since I wasn't already so exhausted at that point. But yeah. I had a newborn and a toddler and a C-section again. It was rough. It kept opening because I was picking up my toddler. I went back to work I think when my second was six weeks old. Yeah. It was a lot. Those were my first two C-sections. Very different experiences for both of them with the same doctor. Then COVID happened and I finished the school year teaching online when COVID happened and my husband was working in oil and gas. We decided we were going to move to my parents' ranch. I finished the school year online from there and he was working with my dad. My dad does custom home building so that was something he wanted to get into. It was kind of the perfect segue out of there. Meagan: Mhmm. So where were your first two babies born? Emily: Houston. Meagan: In Houston. For people who are interested in breech, are you willing to share that provider's name? Emily: Yes. His name is Dr. Alfredo Gei. Meagan: Okay. Emily: Yeah. I mean, he was great. I don't know if he's still working or not down there, but he was awesome. He was a very, very cool guy. He was very calm, very respectful, friendly, and all of the things. Meagan: Yeah. Yes, good. Emily: Yeah. We moved up to my parents' ranch in Glen Rose, Texas. I finished the school year online. I decided I would stay home with my two kids. I think by the end of that summer, we were ready to have our third. It was perfect timing. I was staying home. We had my parents there. My husband had an easier work obligation working with my dad and all of that so I got pregnant with my third. That pregnancy was wild. We had a lot going on. I guess it was my first experience having a pregnancy that didn't go super smoothly and whatever test and all of the normal things you do like blood testing if you choose to do that. Everything came back weird so I'd have to go in and retest. I think at one point in the beginning, they thought she might have Down Syndrome so it was like, “Well, you can do the amnio to find out or you can wait until that anatomy scan.” I spent that time just waiting until 20 weeks to find out if she had Down Syndrome or not. I tried to do the gender test, one of those home ones. My first two were a surprise and with her, I just wanted to know. I needed something. I wanted to know what was going on in there. We did one of those gender tests and it came back inconclusive. Whatever could go wrong was going wrong with the pregnancy. I had found an OB/GYN who was VBAC-friendly who worked with a group of midwives so it was him and a bunch of midwives. I started seeing him and them because I thought– oh, I didn't even mention. When I had my second baby, they predicted her to be 10 pounds. She was 7 pounds. It made me so mad. It made me so mad. Meagan: Okay, so now I have a question for you because we talk about third-trimester ultrasounds. At 41 weeks, that is normal because they do non-stress tests and all of those things. Would you have chosen a different situation or would the scenario be the same because of your mom and convenience and all of that? Emily: That's a good question. I would like to say that I would have at least given myself a couple more days at that point, just a couple more days to see maybe. I always think, What if I had gone into labor in that next couple of days instead of the C-section? Would she have come out easier being 7 pounds and not 10 pounds? Of course, I thought, Maybe it's my pelvis. Big baby, small pelvis, and all of these things. I don't know. It's hard to say. I was really ready to have her. Meagan: Absolutely and you were given an opportunity. That goes to speak where you are in your pregnancy. That's a vulnerable state. That's a very vulnerable state. But you had her and it was an okay C-section and your mom was there and all sorts of things. Emily: Yeah. She came out and then they brought me back to the room and my mom was there. She got to meet the baby then drove all the way back up to Dallas and my sister had hers. They are a day apart. Meagan: Aww, that is so fun. Emily: Anyway, with my third, I was seeing him and I had some weird blood testing results and weird stuff happening at the beginning. It was the end of COVID sort of so COVID started around spring break. I got pregnant around that summer and by the next spring, it had been quite a while but hospitals and stuff still had all of those weird rules in place about people being in the room and all of the things. It was the tail end of that. My husband got to come in for the anatomy scan. He was there with me in the room when she did all of the scanning and everything and then he had to leave when the doctor came in. He went and waited outside in the car and the doctor came in and my first question obviously was, “Did you see any Down Syndrome markers?” They said, “No.” They didn't see that, but her head circumference and her cerebellum were measuring in the first percentile. The normal range is 1-100 and she was right there on the cusp of being abnormally small. He dropped that bomb on me while I was in there by myself. He waited until my husband had left. He told me that I was going to need to go and see a maternal-fetal medicine specialist and then I could come back after that. I left that appointment just in shambles not knowing what was going on or what to expect or what that meant and then I had to wait for an appointment to see a maternal-fetal medicine specialist. At that point, I just threw the whole VBAC idea out the window. It was all about what was going on with the baby and keeping the baby healthy and all of those things. My mom is a NICU nurse so I was like, “Well, I'm going to give birth at the hospital that she works with because if my baby goes into the NICU, I want her to be there, and all of these women that I had known her working with for 30 years.” I went to see a maternal-fetal medicine specialist. I switched providers and hospitals and I went to where my mom was working. I went in and they measured her cerebellum for the rest of my pregnancy. It was every other week or so I would go in and they measured. She stayed on that very tail end the entire time. I want to say that she might have reached the 6th percentile by the end in growth so it was still pretty precarious not really knowing what the deal was there. But by all accounts, she was healthy. They weren't giving me any kind of diagnosis or suspicions about anything. She kept falling in the normal range which meant they weren't going to do any further testing. They could have done an MRI or something on my stomach at one point but they didn't do any of that. I think around 34 weeks, I had an appointment and I was just like, “You know, if we're good to have a VBAC, I still want to do that.” I just looked at my provider and was like, “This was my plan. I don't see why it still can't be my plan. I've got two toddlers at home. I really can't have another surgery. I don't want to do that.” She was like, “Okay. Awesome.” I was expecting a fight. Meagan: You're like, you do. You really, really do. You expect this, “No” or “But, well–”. Those are the things that you automatically assume so when you have a provider who's like, “Okay, cool,” you're like, wait what? It throws you off. Emily: Yeah. I left there with a skip in my step. Meagan: I bet you did. Emily: Right after that, I contacted a friend of mine who is a doula and I started working with her. She shared your podcast with me so I was listening, listening, listening to as many episodes as I could in those couple of weeks and it was very helpful. I'm not a confrontational person or even a person who previously was good at advocating so I was mostly listening. I already knew what the hospital situation looked like. I already knew what a C-section looked like so I was really listening for how do these conversations happen with doctors and what does that look like when you're advocating for yourself? What are the words that I need to use? I listened for a lot of those kinds of examples of this is what I can say if she says this. This is what I can come back with or suggest if this happens. So that was very helpful for me to just go in and can we do a Foley? Can we do a Cook's? Meagan: To feel prepared to have that conversation. Emily: Yeah. I know at one point, they wanted to schedule an induction and I said, “Well, what if I just don't come?” She was like, “Well, we can't drive to your house and bring you,” kind of response. “What if I don't want to do Pitocin and all of this? Can you do a Foley or a Cook's?” I really came into those appointments with more of a two-sided conversation and not just “We're going to do this. We're going to do this. We're going to do this.” I remember I got there at my 36-week appointment and my nurse was like, “Okay, go get undressed.” I didn't get undressed. I just sat there with all my clothes. She came back in and I was like, “I don't want that. I don't want my cervix checked.” Meagan: Good job. Emily: Yeah, she didn't know what to do with that. She was like, “I think she's going to want to look.” I was like, “Well, why?” Meagan: I don't want it. Emily: “I don't want to know. It's going to get me in my head. What's going to change if I'm 36 weeks?” Obviously, that was the norm there to start doing that at that point. What happens if I'm 1 centimeter? What happens if I'm 3? I'm still going to go home. I remember that was the first time I did something out of the norm there. I didn't even say the whole doula thing since it was the end of COVID. They were still working out who was allowed in so I asked for a doula and they didn't know if they could even have them so we were asking the hospital for hospital policies and calling up there asking all kinds of questions. By the time we did show up, everybody there was like, “She's here. She's here.” My mom worked there too so it felt a little bit like maybe everyone else was walking on eggshells with me because– Meagan: Because of your mom too. Emily: Well, my mom too. She was working that day so I probably couldn't have had her if she had come in as an extra person with us, but she was working and so she just showed up in our room in her scrubs and everything. I went into labor. Meagan: What gestation on this one?Emily: I was 37 weeks. Meagan: Whoa! So way earlier. Emily: Yes, way earlier. It was Easter. I started having contractions during the whole Easter thing. I'm hiding eggs struggling around the yard and I went to bed that night thinking, This feels like it's it. They were not painful but they were stronger than the regular Braxton Hicks so I went to bed and I think at 3:00 or so in the morning, they started waking me up. I tried to keep sleeping until 6:00 in the morning. I woke my husband up and was like, “You've got to figure out getting the kids to school and stuff. We're going to be going into the hospital.” It was about an hour drive. So I got in the bath. My doula told me to get in the bath and she gave me some different positions and stuff to do so I did all of that and that sped things along a whole lot. I did some curb walking and then yeah, I showed up at the hospital ready to have her and I want to say I was in labor there for three or four hours. I asked to speak to the– is it the anesthesiologist who does the epidurals and stuff? Meagan: Yep. Emily: I told her that I wanted a walking epidural. A lot of people don't know that there is a range. You can have it on full blast or you can have just a little bit. She gave me a very light epidural. I was able to still move in the bed and get in different positions. They had the bar over the bed at one point. They wanted to do an internal monitor at some point because my heartbeat and the baby's heartbeat, they could not figure out where to put the strap. I declined that. The nurse really just had to stay in there with it pressed to my stomach for hours. Yeah, that's what we did. I moved around. There was a peanut ball at some point and then yeah. They checked my cervix and my water broke. I don't know if that was on purpose or not, but I then had another water break at a cervical check and things went pretty quickly after that. I think I pushed through three contractions. Right before I started pushing, my OB came in and said she was leaving and that another doctor would be coming in. I was like, “Does he know? Is he cool?” I was so confused. But yeah, he came in and he was great. He asked if I wanted a mirror. I know that he was using oil and he had a hot compress and whatever. Meagan: That's awesome. Emily: He let me pull her out so I reached down and I grabbed her. It was all very cool. We were blasting Enya's Sail Away. It was a whole vibe. Meagan: I love that. Oh my gosh, I can just picture it all. Emily: It was very easy. Hardest pregnancy, easiest labor and birth. Yeah, she came out. I would say she slid out, but pushing wasn't hard. I could see what was happening. I don't know. I felt very comfortable. Meagan: Good. Emily: I felt ready. Meagan: Good. At the end, was anything going on with her? Emily: Yes. That's another whole long story. She didn't pass her newborn hearing screening so when they do the hearing test, it's a couple of days after you have the baby. She didn't pass and they thought, Oh, she might have fluid in her ears and this and that. You'll have to go back and do it again in a week or so. We went back and did it again and she didn't pass again. We had to go to the Children's Hospital and they did another type of hearing test and we found out that she was deaf. Yeah, we went down the whole hearing aid route and that. Healthwise besides her hearing, she was having a really hard time holding her head up. I think we started having a PT come when she was 4 weeks because her head was just flopping all over. I guess she was diagnosed with a gross motor delay and so we did PT until she started walking at 2.5. We had the option of doing genetic testing and all of that to find out the reason for the hearing loss and we just kind of thought, What's it going to change? She's still not going to be hearing after all of these tests so whatever. We will just deal with what we've got going on right now. She got hearing aids at 4 months. We were going in and they would do all kinds of tests and stuff. She still wasn't responding to any sound so they wanted to do cochlear implants and in order to do that, you have to have an MRI. They look at everything structurally to make sure you are a good candidate for cochlear implants. They look at the nerve and the ear canal and all of those things. They came back and they said, “She can get them. She's a good candidate for that, but here's what we saw with her brain on the MRI.” She had white matter abnormalities which are just when they go in and they look, if you have all of these white spots, they indicate inactivity so she had a bunch of that that they couldn't explain and she had a cyst somewhere in there on some groove. I have forgotten all of the lingo at this point. They wanted to find out what the cause of all of those things were. They also didn't want to give her cochlear implants if they thought that these areas were going to grow so then we started doing all of the genetic and DNA testing. They wanted us to wait a year to do her next MRI and the cochlear implants to make sure in that year time period they didn't grow at all. We were just like, “We can't do that. One, we can't wait a year to find out if our child has this thing that's taking over her brain and two, it's a critical time for learning language and speech and all of those things.” We settled with 6 months so we waited another 6 months. We did another MRI. They checked. Nothing grew. She was still making growths and learned to crawl and all of those things. She just did everything about a year behind. Yeah, we did cochlear implants and we all learned sign language and that's how we communicate. Yeah, it's been 3 years now. She just started the deaf preschool last week. Meagan: Awesome. Emily: And now bringing it home with baby number four. Meagan: Baby number four who is 9 months old? Emily: Yes. He was a surprise. We had a lot going on with my third daughter. I've got Eloise who is 7, Violet who is 5, and Matilda who just turned 3. We thought, Maybe we'll have another. Let's see what's going on with her. Let's get her into kindergarten. Let's get her speaking and signing and all of these things. Then we had surprise baby number four. He ended up being a boy so that was fun. He was born in July of last year. Meagan: Okay. Emily: During all of that, our insurance had changed so I couldn't go back to the same OB/GYN and I went to another one at that same hospital. After I had my third, my hormones were just so wild and crazy and I had a lot of anxiety and obviously stress from all that was going on with her. I went in and I was like, “I just want to figure out what's going on with my hormones.” I remember the doctor asked me about my previous pregnancies and births and stuff. I told her, “I actually had a VBAC with Dr. So and so at this hospital.” She said, “Oh, if you want to do that again, you've got to go somewhere else because we don't do that here.” Meagan: But you're like, “But I did do it here.” Emily: I was like, “Don't worry about it because I don't want to have another one.” Of course, a few months after that, I ended up getting pregnant again so our insurance had changed yet again. If you have a baby who has special needs, you've got to get the insurance thing figured out all the time. We changed again. I was able to go back to the same doctor so when I was pregnant with him, I saw her and she was like, “I'm guessing you're going to want another VBAC.” I said, “You're right.” Same thing. I didn't let them check my cervix. I didn't have a late-term sonogram. I went into labor with him. I got induced. That's right. I got induced with him. Yeah, yeah. I was 41 weeks again. Meagan: Okay. Emily: I was so expecting another early one and then I got to 41 weeks and we started talking about inductions and stuff. I said, “If I come in and do this, I'm going to want to do Foley or something again.” So that's what we did. That put me into labor right away. I think I was 1 centimeter so they were able to put that in and it just went from there. I will say this about the fourth with the same provider. I specifically in my birth plan said, “No students.” I feel like I had already done all of that. I had already allowed all of them. I had paid my dues to society by letting them in. I had a student who did my epidural with my second. I was done. I was done with that. I didn't want a bunch of people in the room. When it was time to put in the Foley, she wasn't available so they were like, “Do you mind if a resident does it?” I'm like, “That's fine.” The question was raised about breaking my water. I think I was over 6 centimeters at that point when they were asking about breaking my water and I was like, “Eh.” I talked to my doula. She was there again. I talked to my doula about it and we decided that was okay to get things moving along. They said, “Oh, well she's not available still. Can a resident come in and do that?” I was like, “Okay.” Then it was time to push and deliver and a whole team of people came in. I was in the thick of it. I had another really low-dose epidural so I was still feeling a lot. I also thing one thing about the low-dose epidural managing pain and staying on top of pain is a real thing and you can reach a certain point where there's not much you can do about it where you are too far. That's where I got with that. Even though I had the epidural, I was too far along at that point for it to do much. I was like, “Turn it up. Turn it up.” It wasn't making any difference so just know that's something that does happen. When it was time to push, my doctor on her wheelie stool just scooted out of the way and someone else showed up. Meagan: What? Again? Emily: From the background and it was like, “Push, push, push!” The vibes were very different. I'm not sure why that happened because as far as I'm concerned, nothing was happening with me medically and nothing was happening with him medically to necessitate me to push vigorously. I had not been pushing for hours. I got him out in under 30 minutes. It felt like there was this need for me to get him out of there and get him out quickly. I'm not sure why that happened. So I guess it was a resident who was down there. There was no oil this time. There was no hot compress this time. There was more pulling during the pushing part and I ended up tearing fourth degree all the way. It was awful. Same provider, different experience. She's retired now. I wouldn't go as far to say that I'd recommend her to other people having a VBAC. I think she was more– what's the word? Not VBAC-friendly. Meagan: Tolerant. Emily: Tolerant. I think she didn't think I was going to get there so she said yes thinking that's not how it was going to go and we'd never get to that point where I was in labor there ready to push. That's what happened both times so it was thrust upon her also. She's not a bad doctor or anything. That's my one takeaway from that one. You're pushing and there's a lot of people in the room and there's a lot going on and you're very much focused. I wish that I or someone else in the room had said, “Oh wait, what's happening down there? Why is this person coming in? Why are we doing this so quickly? What's this need to rush?” Yeah. That's my takeaway from that one. At the end of the day, I had an easy pregnancy and an easy delivery. I did have another vaginal, but it also came with some bad as well. It was a bad recovery for me for sure. Meagan: You know, I think that's something to note. Like you said, you got your vaginal birth and everything, but not every vaginal birth always ends with an easy recovery or an easy experience or even a positive experience so it does help to have that support team but here you go. Still even then at the last second, you got switched out on like you did last time too. That's weird. I'm like, was she not confident in delivering babies or what? That's interesting. Emily: I don't know. I'm not sure. Of course, afterward, I'm like, If she had stayed sitting there, would I have torn as much? Meagan: Exactly, yeah. Emily: If I was pressured to go so quickly, would I have torn as much? I left that one feeling, What just happened? I talked to my doula afterward about it and she was like, “You know, I wish I had said something,” but unless we had talked about it before, for her to stop a doctor in the middle of what they are doing without me having already told her, “Hey, I don't want this,” it's weird. Meagan: It's a really tricky situation. As a doula, I will say it's very tricky when you're like, I don't like what I'm seeing, but she's not saying anything and didn't say anything to me before this. I would assume she doesn't like this, but at the same time, yeah. Like you said, it's tricky. You don't want to step on people's toes. You don't want to change the atmosphere. It doesn't sound like the atmosphere was exactly peaceful either, but yeah. Gosh. That's hard. Emily: Yeah. It was another unexpected thing. I hadn't prepared for that scenario. I had it in my birth plan that I didn't want students, but then I had said yes to them for these things, so I can see how we got there, but yeah. For those wondering, I pushed him out to Shania Twain's Man I Feel Like a Woman. There were some good vibes in there. Meagan: I'm loving all of your music choices. That is amazing. Oh my gosh. Well, I'm sorry that it was that type of an ending. I am happy for you that you were able to have both of your vaginal births. But it's such a good takeaway and a great note. Women of Strength, think about those things too even with pushing, what you are wanting. Talk about this to your team. “If nothing's wrong, if nothing is emergent, I need it to be this way,” because that is for sure tricky. I wanted to talk about way into the first birth. I wanted to give a couple of suggestions for people who are having a hyperactive uterus where the uterus is just too active. It's not releasing. Sometimes that can be a baby's position working through and trying to get into the right position and the uterus is trying to help but a lot of the time it can be due to things like dehydration or I know that sometimes if there's a UTI or an infection or something like that, that can cause a hyperactive uterus. Sometimes people just have hyperactive uteruses but with a uterus that is just not letting go like yours, something that a midwife a long time ago within my doula career suggested to a client of mine was called cramp bark. Cramp bark, yeah. It's a tincture and you can take it. It can try to help relax the uterus so if you are having really long prodromal labor or like Emily where her uterus just wouldn't give up and it was just constant– and you said it was in your back. Emily: I had that wrap-around experience. It was like, I'm in a whole lot of pain but it's right here in my back. It never eased up. No, and then I wasn't dilating at the same time after all of this time of being like that. I think it was definitely her positioning. She was sunny-side up by the time the C-section did happen. Meagan: That's what I was thinking. Were you dehydrated or was it a positional thing? A positional factor can do that. Sometimes the uterus needs to relax so we can work with position. I know you were working with position but your uterus wasn't giving up. Sometimes you can increase your hydration, but cramp bark and always, always, always ask your provider about it, but it was actually something that a midwife and I think Julie took it with one of her babies with her prodromal labor too and it helped her as well. I just wanted to bring back that note of if you're having that hyperactive uterus, there could be a few things like hydration, position, maybe it's an infection that is undetected or maybe you've just got a great uterus that likes to keep squeezing. Thank you so much for sharing all of your beautiful stories. I'm so happy for you and congratulations. Emily: Thank you for having me. ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In this episode, Ciarra and Samantha discuss prodromal labor with midwife Leonora of Home Birth Honey. They explain what prodromal labor is and how it differs from Braxton Hicks contractions or early labor. They emphasize the importance of managing expectations and rest during prodromal labor. They also discuss factors that can contribute to prodromal labor, such as malposition, dehydration, and a strengthening uterus. The hosts provide tips for dealing with prodromal labor, including rest, hydration, and intimacy. They highlight the role of mindfulness and the importance of ignoring the sensations until they become more intense.Leonora Colenwwww.homebirthhoney.comIG @‌HomeBirthHoneyATX   TakeawaysProdromal labor is characterized by contractions that come and go and may not progress into active labor.Managing expectations and rest are key during prodromal labor.Factors such as malposition, dehydration, and a strengthening uterus can contribute to prodromal labor.Tips for dealing with prodromal labor include rest, hydration, and intimacy.Mindfulness and ignoring the sensations until they become more intense can be helpful during prodromal labor.This episode is sponsored by Birth, Baby! Academy. If you've ever considered becoming a birth doula, be sure to check out www.BirthBabyAcademy.com for their in-person training workshops or their upcoming online self-paced program!IG: @BirthBabyAcademyPlease feel free to reach out to us with any recommendations for show episode ideas. If you'd like to be a guest, email us with some information about yourself and what type of podcast you'd like to record together. Thank you for all of your support and don't forget to follow and review our podcast, Birth, Baby!Instagram: @‌BirthBabyPodcastEmail: BirthBabyPodcast@gmail.comWebsite: https://birthbabypodcast.transistor.fm/Intro and Outro music by Longing for Orpheus. You can find them on Spotify! (00:00) - Introduction and Podcast Disclaimer (01:12) - Introduction to Prodromal Labor (04:59) - Differentiating Prodromal Labor from Other Stages of Labor (07:56) - The Role of Benadryl in Managing Prodromal Labor (16:50) - Using Strategies to Avoid Interventions (18:50) - Thinking Ahead and Making Informed Decisions (29:19) - Tips for Dealing with Prodromal Labor (33:15) - Conclusion and Closing Remarks

Jacqueline's symptoms of FSHD muscular dystrophy began at 16 years old. She shares with us today how she manages chronic pain and what that looked like throughout her pregnancy and birth journeys. Jacqueline is also a sexual violence trauma survivor and went through three pregnancy losses. Through her nonprofit organization and as a birth doula, she is a strong advocate for trauma-informed care for all women. Jacqueline shares inspiration and advice throughout the episode for women who also have a history of trauma as well as those who are trying to navigate birth with a neuromuscular condition. Her proactive approach to caring for her body and heart allowed Jacqueline to have a beautiful, empowering, and healing VBAC, especially after enduring so much.  Anesthetic Management for Dystrophy ArticleNeeded WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello, Women of Strength. Today's episode is a VBAC episode, but it has an extra topic that is a first for the entire podcast life. In 320-something episodes, we have never talked about this specific topic. The other day on social media, I had a couple of spots so I reached out and I am so grateful for Jacqueline. Are you in Canada? Jacqueline: Yes. Meagan: Yes. She's from Canada and she reached out and was like, “Hey, this is something about my story.” And I was like, “Yes, let's do that because this would be amazing.” One of the things that we are going to be talking about today is FSHD muscular dystrophy. Jacqueline: Dystrophy. Dystrophy. Meagan: Okay, yes. We are going to be talking about that a little bit more and the challenges that you have had to go through with all of this. If you wouldn't mind before we get to the review, will you tell us a little bit more about FSHD and one, what is it? Two, what are the things that we are told because you have it and how you had to birth if you were told?Jacqueline: Yeah, absolutely. FSHD is a form of muscular dystrophy. It's quite rare and it essentially affects the muscles in my shoulders and in my facial muscles as well. For everyone with FSHD, your symptoms present quite differently. Of all of the types of muscular dystrophy, it is one of the more common forms, but in the big scheme of conditions that you can live with, it definitely is still considered to be rare. I was diagnosed in 2018 officially though I had symptoms starting from the age of 16 and I gave birth to my first child when I was 21 years old. I didn't have too many symptoms at that time. Going into my twenties, I started to have more atrophy in my shoulders, my lower back, and sometimes in my feet. My second and third processes were a little bit different, but overall, in terms of pregnancy and birth, my specialist always shared that you're able to carry a baby and you're able to give birth. The atrophy that we experience doesn't necessarily affect that process thankfully, but I've always been someone who is very proactive in terms of minimizing my pain and trying to do different types of therapies to minimize the chronic pain that I live with so I'm very focused on that during pregnancy especially. In my most recent birth which happened 5 weeks ago now, I really focused on making sure that my body was very strong and at its optimal comfort level that I possibly could be while pregnant in order to achieve a successful VBAC. Meagan: Oh my gosh, thank you for sharing and we're definitely going to go in through your journies and I'm sure it's going to come up. We're going to learn more about how you did that, how you made sure your body was at its most comfortable spot that it could be while growing a baby and how it's impacted your life. Thank you for sharing. I do want to share a Review of the Week before we get too far into today's episodes. This is by Rachel Thornton and it says, “Thanks for giving me the confidence to have a VBAC.” It says, “I am so glad I found this amazing podcast when I was newly pregnant with baby number two. After a long and traumatic first birth experience that ended in a C-section, I cautiously hoped that I could have a VBAC. Using this information that I learned from hearing other people's stories on The VBAC Link, I felt confident and prepared for the birth of my son. On October 9, 2020, I had a beautiful, redemptive VBAC and welcomed our boy into the world. Thank you so much for helping me achieve this dream.” Girl, Rachel, you are amazing. Congratulations and thank you for sharing the story of your dream. I am so happy for you that you got your VBAC and as always, if you have opinions about The VBAC Link, please share them. Rate us. Give us a review and let us know what you think and maybe how we're changing your dream as well. Meagan: Okay, Jacqueline. Okay, so you have three babies. Jacqueline: Yes. Meagan: One is 5 weeks old. 5 weeks? Jacqueline: Yes. Meagan: Itty bitty, bitty. Wow. Thank you so much for taking the time 5 weeks postpartum and you could be taking a nap right now and you are here with us sharing your story. I'm going to turn the time over to you and let you share away. Jacqueline: Great. As mentioned, I have three kids but this was actually my 8th pregnancy so I am quite well versed on pregnancy and birth and I am actually a doula myself. I went through the training process after I experienced three consecutive losses when I was trying to get pregnant with my husband. This was back in 2020. With that, I sort of had a new sense of knowledge coming into pregnancy and birth. That was following the birth of my daughter. I had her when I was 21 years old and that process was very different than my other two pregnancies and birth stories. Unfortunately, when I was pregnant with her I was in an abusive relationship. It's a very unique story I guess you can say. I was living abroad at the time so most of my pregnancy care actually took place in Kenya where I was doing work with my nonprofit organization and then I moved back to Canada when I was 6 months pregnant and lived with my family at the time. They really supported me and just came to a level of peace before giving birth and mentally preparing for becoming a parent at a very young age and as a single mom. But going into that birth process, I really did no preparation at all. I found myself during this pregnancy and as I was preparing for the birth of my second son which happened just 5 weeks ago, I really found myself reflecting on my pregnancy and birth experience with my daughter. With her birth, I had no foundational knowledge aside from what I had seen in movies really and because of that, at 39 weeks, I ended up getting induced. It was a very long birth process. I was already in a very traumatized state because of what I was going through at the time and I had my mother and my grandmother there with me when I gave birth but my mother had also gone through inductions because my brother and I stayed locked in there until well over 42 weeks actually for both of my mom's pregnancies. She had never experienced anything different. I didn't think twice about experiencing an induction and to summarize that birth story really, I ended up giving birth vaginally after over 24 hours of laboring. I had a failed epidural which I got just before she was born about an hour and a half prior to her being born and I had no movement throughout the entire process. I quite literally just moved from one side of the bed to the other. I was watching Ugly Betty throughout my entire labor and delivery. That I do remember. It was my comfort show at the time. I largely just wanted the process to be over so that I could be with my baby and there were a lot of things that happened throughout that labor process that I didn't even reflect on as unnecessary interventions again until this pregnancy. Jacqueline: 7 years later, when my husband and I decided that we wanted to start the process of expanding our family, we were really conscious about making sure that I didn't have that same experience. I really opened up to him about how I was just in a state of survival with my daughter's birth and how I didn't want to go through that again. Again, at this time, I also was a doula as well. After we had experienced our losses, it was really important to me to just expand my knowledge and I felt really called to get that training because of the insensitivity that I experienced when I was navigating loss. Coming into the process of now having a rainbow baby and wanting for it to be a really redeeming birth as well, I tried to make sure again that my body was very strong coming into labor. One thing that I think stands out as a person living with a disability with FSHD muscular dystrophy is that often with conditions that are rare, you have providers who when they hear that you have a rare condition, they immediately want to turn you away. Meagan: Yeah, they get scared. Jacqueline: Exactly. I reached out to the midwives' team in my community. At the time we were living in Northern Ontario in Canada which is more rural and remote so we only had one midwife team in our area. When I put in my form stating that I had a form of muscular dystrophy, I was immediately turned away and that was a little bit deterring so I reached out to a friend of mine who was a midwifery student. She encouraged me to just call the practice and explain what my condition actually was and how it did not affect my ability to give birth at all. I was not high risk. In doing that, they changed my status in their system and put me on the waitlist. Within our community, you essentially have to call the midwives at 5-6 weeks pregnant if you want to get in. It's very unfortunate because they provide such incredible trauma-informed care and support, but it's something that is very heavily regulated and they are only allowed a certain amount of clients each month.Because of that, a lot of women who are giving birth don't get to access those services. Fortunately, I received a call about 2 months into my pregnancy that I was now able to be accepted as a patient. I was paired up with an incredible team. I'll give a shoutout to them, Meredith and Sara from Sudbury Community Midwives. They really helped change the way I viewed being pregnant. During my first pregnancy, I absolutely hated the process. I am the first to admit that. I was going through so many hardships on a personal level and I just really felt that I didn't have any sense of control or agency over my body at that time. That really translated into my birth experience as well. They really helped me to navigate through that and really connect with my body and feel empowered through the process. I really loved as well just in general with midwifery care that they allowed me to have the space to ask questions. I never felt rushed and I never felt that because I had a disability that I had to have a certain type of birth where I wasn't in control. I think sometimes for folks who have disabilities, that's often what you are made to feel like has to be the process. Obviously, everyone has a different background, but often that isn't the case. Often, you can still decide what outcomes you will encounter both in your pregnancy and in your birthing experience. Jacqueline: With that, I decided that I wanted to have a home birth. We did everything humanly possible to prepare for that process. I was going to a chiropractor quite regularly. I was seeing a naturopathic doctor. I had gone to my specialist to make sure that my body was ready for birthing and everyone was getting me into the best possible shape I could be in to give birth. The midwives' team were very aligned with what we wanted for our home birth as well.I really wanted my daughter to be a part of that process and again, being my birth following three consecutive losses and the first birth after a baby after having my daughter and not really getting to fully even embrace that first year of her life largely because I was navigating through so much trauma myself after leaving my abuser, I really just thought that would be a meaningful experience for us as well. But my son had other plans. At 39 weeks, I remember it so vividly. I was in the bath and I quite literally watched him flip from head down which he had been for weeks to transverse breech. I thankfully had a midwife appointment the next day and said to them, “I'm fairly certain that my son has turned.”They said, “There is no way. Statistically, this is so unlikely. You are so far along in your pregnancy. Don't stress. I'm sure you are mistaken.” Of course, very quickly, we learned that he had flipped. I think that too really speaks to as someone with a disability you are so in tune with your body. You feel every little change. You are so used to having discomfort and pain on a daily basis. I knew the minute that he had flipped so I advocated for myself in those moments and said, “Can we have an ultrasound to confirm it?” We did. Even in that process, I really made sure that I stayed a part of my birth. I had a strong feeling that I would probably be having a C-section. It wasn't what I planned for, but going into everything, I think my doula training did help in this regard. I was ready for whatever may happen. I had sort of a plan A and a plan B. Plan A obviously was that I would be able to have my home birth if by some miracle he flipped back, but plan B was that I would be involved in the decision-making process for a C-section. I spoke with my midwife team and we found one OB/GYN in my community who was willing to try and do an inversion, so to try and manually move him back into the head-down position. We did a consult at our hospital. This OB/GYN and I actually had a history. He had supported me through two of my losses and was actually part of helping us successfully get pregnant with my son. It was actually very full circle that he would then be a part of my birth. I felt comfortable in his care as well. He knew my history. Part of my story as well is that I am a survivor of sexual violence. That's actually what I do professionally with my work. He knew that a lot of elements of birth are very triggering for me as well so he really wanted to ensure that we would be as minimally invasive and as trauma-informed as possible. Unfortunately, our ultrasound showed that I had a limited amount of fluid. He was still willing to try and do the inversion, but he said, “To be totally transparent with you Jacqueline, this is going to be incredibly traumatic for you. I refuse to do it unless you get an epidural because it's going to hurt and you've gone through so many losses. This is the baby that you've been waiting for. Make an informed decision of what you think would be best for you, but I just want you to know everything going in.” I really appreciated that as well that he spoke to me from a very personable standpoint knowing my background and our history and ultimately, we decided that a C-section would be what was best for us. Jacqueline: Everything went smoothly with the C-section, thank goodness and I welcomed my son in a very powerful way. I still think because I was very involved in the decision-making process, I felt very at peace with the fact that I had to have a C-section. My midwives were still in the OR with us when we were going through that process and they were still with us for the continuation of care and I also had the connection with my OB. He made sure that he really congratulated us in welcoming our son and highlighted that it was really special that he was here now after he had seen our journey. It felt very good, but the recovery was just so incredibly difficult as someone who lives with a neuromuscular condition. I think no one at the hospital was really aware of the fact that I needed a different timeline in terms of when to get up and get moving in comparison to other moms who don't have the condition that I live with. Everything was very rushed. I literally left the hospital 24 hours after having a C-section which is the standard of care where we live. Meagan: 24 hours? I didn't know that. Jacqueline: 24 hours. It's appalling in my opinion. Meagan: Very quickly. Jacqueline: It's something that I don't think should be encouraged, but I returned home and really just wasn't prepared for what was to come. I didn't feel like I had even a full range of mobility for probably 6-8 months. It was just traumatic in that sense that I hear so many people around me sharing that after a few months, they felt that sense of normalcy again and reconnection with their body to some extent. For me, my timeline was just very different. For anyone who is going through the process of giving birth and lives with a condition like a neuromuscular condition or something similar, I think it's important to have in the back of your mind that your timeline will be different and that is okay. If it is possible for you to give birth vaginally or to try and go for a VBAC or try and avoid a C-section if not medically necessary, do everything in your power to try and make that possible because often even the care instructions that I was provided with in postpartum were not aligned with the realities of what I face as a person with a neuromuscular condition.Because it's so underresearched, my OB/GYN for example did not know what kind of recommendations to give me in terms of what to expect and how to prepare myself so I think that's just something to keep in the back of your mind if you are trying to make informed decisions about what to expect if you are someone who lives with a neuromuscular disease. Jacqueline: That being said, when my son was 2, or I guess we actually got pregnant 18 months postpartum so exactly at the time you are recommended to start trying again. This was not something that we necessarily planned for and we did not think it was possible to have another child without planning so we just took that as an unexpected blessing and my pregnancy with my second son went very smoothly. I did notice though with my pregnancy with my first son, I didn't seek chiropractic care and other services like massage as much as I probably should have. I also wasn't as active prior to giving birth as I probably should have been in order to help myself with mobility and also with my postpartum healing. So I was very proactive during this pregnancy. We had just moved from northern Ontario to southern Ontario for my husband's work so we were now about a 5 ½-hour drive from the majority of our family and support system. One of the first things that I did when we moved to the community was find a sort of new care team to help with FSHD– just the regular symptoms, not even pregnancy-connected. I found The Wellness Hub which is located in Hamilton, Ontario for anyone who is in the area. They are a practice that primarily specializes in women's health and so I just felt very at home immediately when I entered their clinic and I found an amazing chiropractor there who supported me from the very beginning of my pregnancy and then when I reached 20 weeks, I decided that I wanted to start going more frequently so I was going for weekly chiro visits. I made sure that I also did massage at least once a month up until 30 weeks and then I was going bi-weekly from 30 weeks onward. I think that's also very important for anyone who is living with a neuromuscular condition or something similar. Prioritize your care and don't put yourself in the back corner preparing for your baby to arrive. Really make sure that you focus on your care and healing as well. So to fast forward a little bit, everything went well with my midwife care team in this community as well and as we neared our 35-week mark, I said, “Hey, we should probably start talking about labor and delivery.” so they were actually quite slow to start having that conversation. I don't even think it came up until 36 weeks for us because I had always gone past 39 weeks. They thought I would have time. They didn't think I would go into labor early. I didn't, but I still thought we should be having those conversations. My husband is a pilot so he's actually gone every 2 weeks and so because I didn't have family close by and because I knew I may potentially not have my husband at home either, I hired a doula team. I also did this during my second pregnancy, well my second birth as well, but unfortunately at that time, it was COVID so we couldn't have doulas in the hospital. But she did support me mostly in preparing my husband for what to expect, but she had a background in kinesiology as well so she also helped prepare my body physically for the birthing process. She had studied with a training called the Body Ready Method. I really wanted to find a doula who had the same training background because I found it very beneficial. I did some research and found a doula team, Leanne and Roseanne, who are in the Hamilton area with Hamilton family doulas and they worked with me from around the 35-week mark as well to get ready for my birth. Largely because I had the knowledge background as a doula myself, they didn't have to go through too much about what to expect in your birth. We largely just discussed the different types of movement I would want to be doing in early labor and also really helped me to prepare for what I had hoped going in would be an unmedicated birth but also talked about the different options that we may have with a really strong focus on having a VBAC. That was my number-one priority even in selecting gmy provider. I really made sure that I called around and fortunately, in my area, every midwife practice I spoke to is very aligned with me having a VBAC. Meagan: Awesome. Jacqueline: Ultimately, the providers I chose, my team, Sara and Emily, were really aligned with making sure that I was very comfortable, that I wouldn't be moved around too much after giving birth. I really emphasized as well that I wanted to try and avoid giving birth on my back because I knew that any additional pressure on my hips and lower back would probably lead to a longer postpartum healing for myself just because of my condition. Everyone seemed very aligned. As we neared closer to 39 weeks, that's when we started to have discussions about induction and things of that nature. One thing that is standard practice where I live is that you would have a consult with an OB and an anesthesiologist from 20 weeks which I thought was crazy. At the time, I said, “I don't want to have an epidural. I don't want to have an OB involved in my birth process at all. I don't want a C-section. I'm not even meeting with these folks because I want to manifest the birth that I want.” So they were a little caught off guard by this. They did try and schedule me again. I believe it was around 30 weeks and I just declined again so being informed about what my options actually were in terms of what I can accept or say, “No thank you” to was very important and for anyone who is going through the process as someone who is living with a disability, I think you really need to make sure you do educate yourself on what you can say no to because you have that extra layer that people can always fall back on to say that you are kind of treading the high-risk zone. You can push back on that politely and say that you are not high-risk. That's why you are here and that you prefer to just stay with your current providers and your current care plan. Meagan: I was going to say too that Julie mentioned this on a previous episode that I loved and is sticking with me too. You can say, “How will my care change if I do this? If I meet with these people or if I have these extra visits?” You can say, “How is this going to change?” If they say, “Oh, it's just to let you know who they are,” then you're like, “I don't care.” Jacqueline: That's essentially what I did in person was saying, “Why do I need to meet with an OB?” They said, “It's standard practice here.” I said, “I really would prefer not to. I am working on a huge project right now with my professional career. I have two other kids. I just don't have the time or capacity to be having meetings with someone who probably won't even be on shift when I give birth anyway. So respectfully, no thank you.” At the 39-week mark, we discussed what would be our next steps if I did go over 41 weeks which in my province is sort of your cutoff time from when you can give birth without induction for a VBAC. So within my community, VBAC anywhere other than a hospital was just not even discussed. Because of my condition, I did agree that I would do a hospital birth. Now, if I ever had another child, I would probably actually want to try for a home birth. But yeah, I went into the process trying to keep an open mind, trying not to be too judgmental going into a hospital environment. I spoke about this a lot with my doula team. I got to hear a little bit about their experiences within this hospital because they had supported clients there to give birth. I had a friend who is a nurse there in the labor and delivery department as well. Ultimately, everyone gave me very positive reviews which put me at ease. I think it's important as well to do a little bit of research about the care team that you select and the hospital that they have privileges in. If the hospital where they have privileges isn't necessarily VBAC friendly, then maybe it's a good idea to get a different care team. That may be something that is very Canadian-specific, but our midwife teams only have privileges in certain hospitals, so you have to make sure that you do that extra little step of research. I also spoke to a lot of moms in a community called Mamaraderie here in Hamilton, Ontario. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. A lot of the moms shared very positive VBAC stories. I was actually referred to the podcast several times by moms who I spoke to which was great to hear as well. Yeah, basically from that time forward, the talk was really just how do we ensure that I have a successful VBAC with my midwives? They didn't really speak to me too much from their end about induction. They recommended that I have a consult with an OB at the hospital. I went in and I spoke with a resident. I believe she was a fourth-year resident. To be quite frank, the experience was terrible. She essentially told me that if I needed to be induced, my care with the midwives would end until my baby was born and that they would not be there with me when I was laboring because their care was redundant which I found to be incredibly insulting. Meagan: Yeah. Jacqueline: I was just floored that she would state that. She did emphasize that the decision if I wanted to be induced or I wanted to wait out labor was my decision. She spoke to me about C-section even though I expressed that I did not want it. She said, “Let me just cover my bases and tell you what your options are.” I respect that. It's probably what she was trained to to but it definitely put my guards up because I explained in detail why as a person with FSHD, it is not in my best interest to have a C-section, then when she provided all of my different options, and I was also big on hearing the statistical options if I waited to go into labor naturally or if I was induced in a more controlled environment type of situation what the best outcome would be, I had heard all of these statistics through the podcast but I didn't listen to one specific episode talking about induction yet so after I had a major breakdown after leaving the hospital, I spoke to another friend of mine who is also a doula and she recommended listening to the episodes specifically on induction. That helped a lot more than speaking with the resident to bring some clarity in terms of what the best outcomes will likely be if I were to wait versus if I were to go down the induction route again. I already knew from my birth with my daughter that induction using oxytocin doesn't even really necessarily work very quickly for my body. I wasn't really convinced that it would speed up the process. If anything, I remembered it being a 10 pain from the beginning with very minimal dilation and an incredibly long process. I knew that in my area as well, if I'm birthing in the hospital environment and I'm induced, I need to be monitored 24/7 and that meant that I wouldn't be able to move around. It meant my plan to have early labor in the bath would no longer be an option. It also meant that if I went over the 24-hour mark, I wouldn't even have a choice. They would just tell me that I would need to have a C-section per their policies. I said, “Okay. I'm going to give myself more time.” From 38 weeks, I had been going to chiro again weekly. I'd been doing massage weekly. I started doing acupuncture once a week and I also started doing things like the Miles Circuit and things of that nature to try and induce labor. One thing around the 39-week that started was that I was having contractions that would stop after a certain number of hours. Even if I did movement, I would take baths trying to check if they were Braxton Hicks. I'm still not entirely sure what they were because they felt a little bit stronger than when I had Braxton Hicks but they would just stop. Meagan: Like prodromal labor. Jacqueline: Yes, starting from pretty well the 39-week mark. Then there would be days at a time where I would have nothing. In week 40 I knew, Okay. my deadline is next week. I need to amp this up a bit. My entire care team at The Wellness Hub were all fixated like I was on my having a VBAC. Now at this point, when I would come into my appointments, everyone would be waiting at the door because that would mean I'm going into labor. I felt like I had a very supportive team around me and we started to do acupuncture twice a week during my 40th week. I also was going to chiro twice a week and doing massage as well. I think even in my 40th week, I did massage twice in that week. I took one of their cancellations. Meagan: Yay, good for you. Jacqueline: We did everything humanly possible to try and induce labor naturally. Because I had never experienced a sensation of natural labor, I didn't know what to expect in terms of the sensations. My doulas didn't necessarily describe it or know how to describe it either in terms of what was not labor and what was. We were all just waiting around. Every time I would have contractions start and stop, they would be like, “Okay, maybe it's going to happen but it's probably not because it's been many days of it starting and stopping.” Jacqueline: On March 7th around 1:00 AM, I started to feeling contractions again but much like my doulas, I said, “Oh, I'll sleep through it.” They started to intensity and get more close together, but my first son was a terrible sleeper and so he used to wake up about every half hour to an hour so from a sleep perspective, I'm very used to waking up often. So when my contractions started getting closer together, I didn't really think too much of it. My son came into my room around 2:30 that morning and I realized, “Oh my goodness. My contractions are 5-7 minutes apart at this point for the last hour.” He came into bed with my husband and I tried to stay in bed, but they were just too strong so I went into the bath. I realized I had lost my mucus plug.I got in. I was trying to remain comfortable in the bath. This time, they were just intensifying so I had a feeling that this was early labor. Meagan: Yep. Jacqueline: I remember my daughter came into the room. Initially, I asked her to be my mini doula before I called in my doulas and she saw me in pain and I could tell by the look on her face that she was not going to be my mini doula because she was terrified. She said, “Are you okay?” She stayed with me for some time and eventually, she went back to bed. I stayed in the bath for about an hour just breathing through contractions. I think it was 45 minutes in when I started to time them using an app just to know if I should contact my doulas and say, “Things are starting to happen.” The week prior, I did my first cervical check. I was less than 1 centimeter dilated. I knew my body. I knew that I don't dilate easily. I remembered that from my first birth so I just mentally prepared myself for what could be a long labor. My contractions around 5:00 AM were about 5 minutes apart. I live about a half hour away from my hospital so I knew that I should probably contact my midwives to just let them know that contractions were 5 minutes apart. When I gave them a call, they said to come in around 6:30-7:00 AM unless things really intensified then come in immediately. I woke up my husband. My dad had actually driven down from northern Ontario to come and stay at our home just because I had a feeling. I gave birth on a Friday and on the Wednesday I told him that he should probably come. I just knew that I probably wouldn't even last until the weekend when he anticipated to come. So he came and took my son. Yeah, things just got more and more intense. By the time we got to the hospital, I was breathing through contractions about every 4 minutes. Sometimes they were a little bit closer together so we went up to labor and delivery. We saw our midwife and she told me that I was still 1 centimeter dilated and that it would probably be a long process. She recommended that we come back home which we did. I didn't feel too disappointed at that time because she recommended I return home because she knew that I wanted to have more ability for movement. She knew that would help with my condition and she also knew that I wanted to be able to be in the water. I really appreciated that she had that recommendation. I let my doulas know that that was what was going on. Initially, when we went in, we called one of our doulas to give them a heads-up that we were headed into the hospital. We ended up staying at home for about 2-3 hours where I really tried to move around. I would recommend to anyone who has this type of condition as well that movement really is your best friend.Even though it feels like it won't be comfortable, in your postpartum recovery, you will be grateful that you moved around and didn't stay stagnant in one position. We were only there for about 2.5 hours. My mom had driven down that morning as well and she just watched me trying to get some rest in bed. My contractions were about 2-3 minutes apart at that point. I said, “I don't feel like he's descending so I'm not worried about that,” but she said, “Your contractions are so close together. I'm worried you are going to give birth in this bed at any minute.” I knew that we were not there because I could feel that we weren't there. They were very close together and they were intensifying so we did go back in. From there, things went pretty quickly. Well, it felt pretty quickly but it was not pretty quickly. We got in and I had a replacement midwife so she wasn't someone from my initial care team. My midwife actually was feeling unwell between when I saw her in the morning and when I got into the hospital. But oddly enough, this midwife, Elizabeth, reminded me so much of my mother's best friend. She looked like her physically. She sounded like her so I felt like it was someone close to me even though I had never met her before. She surprisingly recommended the internal monitoring to me several times which I declined and I will say for anyone who has a midwife, often we don't anticipate that anything will be recommended by a midwife that maybe we are not comfortable with, but if that happens and even if you have the best relationship with your provider and you fully trust them, you are still allowed to decline an intervention if it's not medically necessary. Meagan: Yes. Jacqueline: So I did do that very respectfully as well. I was monitored 24/7 throughout my process of being in the hospital. When I initially came in, my son's heart rate was not accelerating at the rate that my midwife thought we should be seeing so with that, she admitted us. Initially, she had just started out with the monitoring and was going to send us back home because I was only 2 centimeters dilated but she decided to keep us there. The OBs that she consulted with when she saw the heart rate acceleration was not where they typically like it to be, they weren't concerned which also put me at ease because they obviously were not providers who were trying to rush me into a C-section. She had explained to them what my background was and how I really wanted to avoid it and they already seemed to be aligned with that. That brought me a lot of ease too. We went through that labor process of again lots of movement. My doula came in. She had me doing as much as she could to help me ease my pain. Around 9:00 PM, I decided that I wanted to get an epidural. Largely to be honest and transparent, it was because I found that cervical checks which are often aligned with a VBAC in our province anyway. You have to have that monitoring. I found it to be very triggering and I felt my body tensing up and becoming less and less open and comfortable every time I had to have one done. I did try and delay them as much as I possibly could, but I also understood why they needed to happen to see how I was progressing because I had been in labor for several days at that point. I had essentially started having the prodromal labor 3 days prior. I knew that my baby was going through that. I was also a little bit more accepting to going outside of what I originally thought my birth plan would be. I was exhausted at this point too so I wanted to try and have a little bit of rest. When the anesthesiologist came in– and this is where I would actually recommend for any folks who have a neuromuscular disease or anyone with a similar condition to do that initial anesthesiologist visit which I initially declined. I regret doing that now because when I did need to get an epidural done, the anesthesiologist had done a lot of research so it took her about an hour just to come and give me my epidural. She explained it was because she was actually researching my condition to make sure that she wouldn't do it incorrectly and make sure that I would actually have a successful epidural. Meagan: If you had done the consult, would someone have already done the research and put that in the notes? Jacqueline: Yes. Yes. She also told me something that I had never heard before as well that within labor and delivery specifically, there is one drug that can be sometimes given for pain management that a person with muscular dystrophy is not supposed to have so she said she wrote in my chart that I was allergic to that type of medication just to ensure I'm never given it. She said that she doesn't anticipate that it would affect someone with my type of muscular dystrophy because my lungs aren't necessarily affected but for some folks who have other forms of muscular dystrophy, it can be fatal. She said just for the future if I ever needed to have any type of sedation that I should try and do a consult earlier. That is a good recommendation that I would have for any folks even if you're thinking you're not going to have an epidural in your birth plan, I would say to still go for that specific appointment just so they can get your health history and have it in your chart, in your notes, get to know you, and make sure that they are advocating for you when you are in the hospital. Part of my recommendation as well would just be to put your pride aside sometimes. I myself thought that I was protecting myself in not going to those appointments and doing the best form of advocacy that I could but I was actually hindering myself to an extent. Meagan: Yeah, but at the same time, they didn't say anything like that. “This is the reason why we would like to meet with you.” Jacqueline: Yeah. I did explain that to my midwife team afterward as well and said, “Please share widely throughout the community because I think for anyone with a neuromuscular condition, we can give birth successfully. We are not high risk, but this element should be noted and you should explain that in this way so that even if a mom is not wanting to have an epidural, in the case of an emergency, she is not given a drug that can be fatal for her.” Meagan: Right, yeah. Jacqueline: So it was that piece of advocacy. After I had the epidural, we had the OB come in for a consultation because I had been laboring near the 24-hour mark at this point. We started talking about the potential of having oxytocin. I wasn't explicitly against any forms of induction because again, I had been laboring for 3 days off and on but I just wanted to try and hold off as long as possible. It was an OB resident who I spoke to. Her name was Dr. Tam. She's fantastic. She just explained why this process would be beneficial to start now. She said she would need to do a cervical check just to see where I was at from my previous check about an hour prior. They said they typically like to see dilation by 1 centimeter each hour when you are a VBAC patient who's admitted. So at one hour prior, I was 4 centimeters and when she checked me, this would be close to 10:30ish, I was a 6. There was progress and I said if I've gone more than 1 centimeter within the last hour, do I even need the oxytocin now? She spoke with her attending who said, “They could hold off,” but if I wanted to prevent myself from having a C-section, it might be a good idea just because I had been in labor for several days. At that point, I understood and we had also seen some heart dips a few times which were easily resolved through movement, but they said, “We really want to support you in not having an emergency C-section and have the VBAC that you're wanting. You decide, but we'll have the conversation again in an hour if you don't want it.” I decided that I was okay with it just to see if things would progress with having one dose of oxytocin. I did express that if after one hour that we didn't see any change that I wanted to be off the drip essentially and just let things progress naturally. They were comfortable with that. We tried it and at that time as well, my doula put me into a certain positioning which I felt to be very beneficial for my progression. That was the flying cowgirl position. Meagan: Yeah, with the peanut ball. Jacqueline: Yes. One of the nurses had recommended a different position, but Leanne stepped in and said, “I think we should put her in this position.” At the time, my midwife was still there. She said, “Yep. I agree. Let's do it.” They got me into that position. I was in that position for about 15 minutes and then I felt an insane urge that I needed to poop. This is kind of a funny story that moms will relate to and probably laugh at but I just kept saying to the nurses and at this time, my midwife said, “It's going to take you a few hours. I'm going to take a rest and come back.” I said bye to her but then I was talking to the nurse and said, “Look. I haven't pooped in a few days. I'm realizing now I need to do that. I have an epidural so I can't go to the bathroom. What do I do?” The nurse just told me, “You don't actually have to go. It'll happen probably when you're pushing. It happens to everyone. Don't worry about it.” I was trying to articulate that no, I have to do it. Meagan: I actually have to. Jacqueline: I'm going to do it on this bed if you don't get something to put under me. She wasn't listening to me and I was just going back and forth with her. My husband later told me that he thought I was loopy from whatever drugs they gave me, but long story short, I cleared space for the baby. My doula supported me in cleaning myself up and the nurses cleared everything away. They were actually surprised because they did not think that I actually had to go but I said, “I know my body even though I don't have 100% of my feeling. I know that I had to do this.” Then from that point, I kid you not. It was maybe 15 minutes later. I was told that I was 10 centimeters. They had gotten me back ito the flying cowgirl position after I cleared out everything and I just felt like I needed to go again. I said, “I feel a lot of pressure.” At this point, actually my epidural had stopped working. I started out feeling some contractions on the left side of my leg which spread and I could feel everything pretty well. I wasn't mad at it because I wanted to be able to feel my contractions when I was pushing anyway so it was kind of the best of both worlds. I had gotten about an hour and a half to rest and let my body regain some energy then I could feel everything again. It ended up being what I wanted. I was telling my doula, feeling this pressure again, feeling like I had to poop, and the nurses got this look on her face like, “Is she crazy and does she have to go again or is this the real deal?”One of them looked and I declined a cervical check again. I said, “I'm sure if it's happening, you'll see a head.” They said, “Okay, we need Dr. Tam to come back in.” She came and she said, “I need to do a cervical check again.” I said, “No. I don't want one.” I was feeling contractions fully at this point. I said, “I'm feeling too much pain. I don't want a cervical exam. I'm not doing it.” She stood there and waited for about 15 minutes and she was like, “I really need to check you because I can see that things are progressing and I think you're in transition.” I just huffed, “Okay, fine.” I let her do a cervical check and she said, “You're 10 centimeters and it's time to start pushing.” I said, “I'm not ready to start pushing.” I did not feel like he was in the position to start pushing yet. They all just sat there. They called my midwife back in. She fortunately was just at her car about to leave. She ran back inside. By the time I felt ready, she was on one side and my doula was on the other side of me. They asked me what position I wanted to be in. I tried with side-lying. My OB was also very supportive of that and I think if you're a person with a disability advocating for the position that you're most comfortable with is very important. The only piece of advice I would have for anyone who planned for an unmedicated birth is to have your plan B if your plan does change in the moment and you decide you want an epidural. That was the one thing and as a doula, I should have known better, that I did not do was prepare other positions that would be aligned with an epidural. I really only in the moment could think of side-lying. When it wasn't as effective as they wanted to see after a few pushes, they recommended, “Okay, let's try on your back.” Because I was just in the zone, I agreed. I had my doula on one side and my midwife on the other side then Dr. Tam was in front of me and my husband came and joined me on the side. I really just focused on my breathing. I initially started out holding his hand. At some point, I let go and hung on to the sides of the bed which gave me some momentum. I found it gave me also that sense of control as well which I found very beneficial as a survivor and also as someone who wanted to feel in control of their birth. I didn't really listen to what anyone was saying in terms of, “Okay, keep pushing. Push, push, push,” or timing things out. I just pushed when I felt like I had the sensation to push and stopped when I felt like I need to take a break. My midwife was telling me when I needed to soften my legs and my doula was on the other side. She was going through deep breathing and I was following her in those deep breaths. I had my eyes closed the entire time and Dr. Tam and her attending came in at some point and was another voice I had never heard before but my eyes were shut. I was just focused. They were all being very encouraging and they shared with me when his head came out. He was much bigger than anyone had told me. I did a scan at 37 weeks and was told that he would be around 6 pounds. He ended up being 8 pounds, 11 ounces so they were a little off, but everyone in those final moments helped really guide me through that process in a very empowering environment and we had very minimal interventions to get him out. He came out all on his own and it was just a beautiful experience getting through that last chapter of my birth. Yeah. We had him placed right on my chest and it was just a very, very empowering, beautiful VBAC which was exactly what I was hoping for. Meagan: Aw, thank you so much for sharing that. Huge congrats. Jacqueline: Thank you. Meagan: Oh my gosh. I'm so glad that you were able to advocate for yourself through that journey too. Through every journey, you were advocating for yourself and even in some moments when you were like, “Okay, I'll do that.” I think that really speaks to sometimes how labor is. You don't have to ever say, “Okay” if you don't want to, but getting the education, feeling comfortable, and sometimes saying no a few times, then maybe later you are okay with it. It's really important to know that your opinion can change as long as it's your opinion that is changing. Jacqueline: Exactly. As long as you come into it from an informed perspective and not being afraid of asking your providers why something needs to be done is very key as well. For someone who is living with a disability, I'd say that when it comes to your birth, envision what you want for your postpartum experience as well and allow your birth to inform that next chapter. In my birth process, I wasn't necessarily thinking, Healthy mom, healthy baby throughout the entire experience. Of course, that's obviously what you want, but I was also thinking, How will this next step influence what my postpartum experience will be like? I think that's very important. Meagan: Yeah, very, very important. How will this answer or next step impact me moving forward? I love that you talked about postpartum specifically too because you have a prolonged postpartum. How was this postpartum? Did you bounce back a little faster? How did it differ? Jacqueline: It was so different. Even far better than I could have imagined for myself. Largely, I think that was due to the chiropractic care that I was receiving, going for the acupuncture, and going for the massage. My body was just so ready to not only give birth but also to support me in my postpartum journey. I did feel the effects of pushing on my back. My pelvis locked up very intensely after but I didn't freak out or panic. I just called my team at The Wellness Hub and explained that I would need a very gentle assessment and they had me in within the first few days of returning home so I would have more mobility and that really helped with my postpartum experience as well was having that mobility back. Build your care team that will not only support you in your pregnancy but also in your postpartum as well. That goes for everyone and not only moms with a disability. Meagan: Yes, absolutely. I really think that when it comes to birth, investing in ourselves and our birth and our postpartum experience can be hard naturally sometimes as moms. We put ourselves last because we are taking care of kids and partners and all of the things, but doing those things like chiropractic care, acupuncture, massage, pelvic floor therapy, and all of these things– hiring a doula, hiring a birth team– these are things that may have a cost but really, you deserve it. You deserve it. In the end, are you regretting anything that you did? Jacqueline: No. I was doing all of the things to try and induce my labor which afterward, I thought, I spent all of this money. It took so long. Then I stopped myself from those negative, intrusive thoughts and thought, Do you know what? You got your natural labor that you wanted. You had your VBAC. Your body has quite literally- it took me about one week to start feeling like myself. I had no tearing either. I just felt like all that preparation was not for nothing. I think if you invest in your knowledge and your physical being, it's never a waste. You can't take care of anyone unless you take care of yourself. Meagan: 100%. It always comes back to the airplane analogy for me where they are like, “Hey, you have to put your own oxygen mask on before you take care of other people if the plane is crashing. You really do. You have to invest in yourself and take care of yourself.” Really quickly, I just want everyone to know that I have a PDF that we‘re going to include in the show notes. It's called “Practical Notes for Anesthetic Management for a Dystrophy Patient”. I'm going to put that pdf here in the show notes. If you do have a muscular dystrophy– oh my gosh. Jacqueline: Dystrophy. Meagan: I feel like I'm saying it funny. Dystrophy condition whether it's more severe or less severe or whatever, it might be something that helps you and take that note. If you're going to need an epidural, make sure they know so you can talk over what's okay and what's not okay. I'll have that in the show notes for you. It's a PDF easily readable and it's got all of the stats and studies noted along the way. Okay, thank you so much again for sharing your story. I'm so grateful for you and for reaching out. Congrats again. Jacqueline: Thank you so much for having me. ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

“The 9 lb 2 oz baby that they said I could never push out and could never have had her vaginally– I ended up going on to have a 10 lb 10 oz baby girl.”Brittany first gave birth to twins via Cesarean at 34 weeks and 1 day. She didn't get to meet her babies until 36 hours after delivery and they had to stay in the NICU for 10 days. While Brittany was so thankful it was not a longer NICU stay and the babies got to come home at the same time, she grieved the introduction into motherhood that she thought she would have. Brittany's next birth ended in a difficult CBAC under general anesthesia. Once again, she was not able to hold her baby right after birth like she so badly wanted. Her physical and mental recoveries were intense and tough. Not long after her third baby was born, Brittany felt called to understand more about her births. She wanted to learn why things happened to her the way they did and if there was a way to help prevent other women from going through the same things. She became a doula with Joyful Beginnings Doula Care and absolutely loves it!With her fourth baby, home birth was on Brittany's heart. With the education from doula work and her own births, Brittany set herself up for success by surrounding herself with a beautifully supportive birth team. Her HBA2C was quick, uncomplicated, redemptive, and empowering!Brittany's WebsiteThe VBAC Link Blog: Preterm CesareansTVL Blog: Everything You Need For Your HBACTVL Blog: Provider Red FlagsTVL Blog: VBAC/HBAC PreparationTVL Blog: VBAC MidwifeTVL Blog: Big BabiesHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello, Women of Strength. We have our friend, Brittany, today with us sharing her HBAC. If you have not been with us very long or are still unsure about all of the crazy terms in the VBAC world, HBAC is home birth after Cesarean but she is a home birth after two Cesareans so HBA2C so similar to what I am. I am a VBAC but I was in a birth center, not a home. I'm so excited to share– well, I'm not going to be sharing it, but she is sharing it today so welcome, Brittany. Thank you so much for being here with us. Brittany: Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to get to share my story. Meagan: Absolutely. Me too. We will get right into that. I'm just going to do a quick review then we will do our intro and we will dive right in. This review was left by Brianna Moody and this was left in 2023 and it says, “So binge-worthy.” Okay seriously, I could not agree already with her because I feel like this is the type of podcast that when you are looking for your options for birth after Cesarean, you just want to hear every story and I get into those binges especially with podcasts so I could not agree more. I believe that this podcast is bingeworthy. It says, “I found The VBAC Link Podcast in my second trimester after my midwife suggested that I start listening to positive stories to get in a good headspace as I prepared for my VBAC.” Okay, I also love that her midwife is suggesting that. I 100% agree there as well. It says, “What I didn't expect was to hear so many different types of birth stories in one place. I was floored by the amount of information in each episode and by how much these stories impacted me. I found that I love listening to all of the different stories, even the CBAC stories. Honestly, I think those helped me process some of my fear about potentially having a CBAC.” Okay CBAC, Cesarean birth after a Cesarean, just want to make sure we know what that means. It says, “--as could be something that could still be beautiful and empowering. I tell everyone I know about the podcast, even first-time moms because there is truly something that could benefit every birthing mama on here. I am so happy to say that I had my VBAC baby in January.” Ah, so amazing. Congratulations, Brianna Moody. It says, “--in January and it was the most beautiful experience. I still cannot believe I really did it. I took so many things from the podcast that helped make it possible. Thank you so much for sharing your heart and passion for VBAC with the world.”Okay, I'm obsessed with this review. So many amazing things right here. Yes, binge the podcast. You're going to learn so many incredible things, like so many. Every story, just like she said, has its similarities but also it's very different. That's something that I love about birth then I love that she pointed out that CBAC could even be viewed as beautiful and empowering. I love that because I want you to know, Women of Strength, VBAC doesn't have to be the right answer. If it's not feeling right for you, that's okay. You can go and have a Cesarean birth and it can be absolutely beautiful. Know that it's an option to do both and you can still have a beautiful, empowering experience. Okay, all right. I'm going to let you guys go. We're going to get to the intro and then we're going to dive into Brittany's HBAC after two Cesareans. Meagan: All right, Brittany. A long intro. It's time for you to share with us your beautiful stories. Brittany: Yes, thank you. Okay. So I'm going to start at the beginning and give a little brief overview of my history and kind of what led me to pursuing an HBAC after two C-sections. In 2019, I had my first pregnancy and I was actually pregnant with twins so that was a big, exciting thing for us. It was very unexpected and overall, I had a pretty normal pregnancy. I didn't really have a whole lot of issues until the end. My blood pressure started to creep up here and there and then at 33 weeks, I went in for an appointment and I was diagnosed with preeclampsia. That was very overwhelming. I did not have a lot of knowledge about birth really in general. I was one of those who went in and just trusted everything my OB said. I just rolled with it and they looked at us and they said, “We need to admit you. Your blood pressure is too high. You have protein in your urine.” So my husband and I went over to the hospital immediately following and realized that we were going to be staying there for a little bit. They were able to manage my blood pressure for about a week and then I needed to deliver the twins at about 34 and 1. So it was actually July 5th, so it was right after the 4th of July and it was hard. It was definitely a hard, all of a sudden transition that we weren't expecting. We were thrown into the hospital. My husband had to come out of work and things just continued to get worse. At 34+1, we did another ultrasound and both were breech like they had been the entire pregnancy so we really were not given any options besides a scheduled C-section. I didn't really think twice about that. I just thought, “Okay. This is what you do. We have breech babies. We need to do it.” So at 34+1 on July 5th, I went in for my scheduled C-section. I had the twins and obviously, being born early, they were taken to the NICU so it was a very abnormal experience in the sense that I had these babies. My body knew I had just had babies, but the babies were taken from me. They were instantly taken from me and I had to go back on magnesium for my blood pressure post-C-section so I actually did not even get to see my babies, hold my babies, or touch my babies until about 36 hours later. So it was just a very abnormal experience, especially for a first-time mom. I got wheeled to recovery and they were like, “Here's a breast pump. You need to start pumping.” It was all of these things that I just wasn't prepared for and I hadn't done before. It was such a new experience. Thankfully, they were only in the NICU for 10 days, but as you can imagine, recovering from a C-section, going back and forth to the hospital, trying to figure out pumping and how often to pump. It was just a lot. It was a lot and it was very unnatural. It is just not a natural experience to be separated from your baby or babies after they are born, but we made it and we got through that trial. We were very, very, very lucky that they got to come home together 10 days after being born. Meagan: Wow, 10 days? Brittany: Yes. A miracle within itself. Meagan: That is very fast. Yeah, that's great. Brittany: It was very fast. They were doing great. They were just considered those eaters and growers. They really didn't have any major issues. My son was on CPAP for maybe 48 hours but after that, they were just learning how to eat and grow and they got to come home together which is also very rare for twins. Meagan: That's awesome. Brittany: Yes. We were very thankful for that. Following that pregnancy, we got pregnant again unexpectedly when the twins were only 9 months old. As you can imagine, that is a lot. That was in 2020 and it was right in the thick of COVID. Things were different. Things were crazy. They weren't even really, at least at the practice I was at, allowing women to come in for appointments until the second trimester. Just all of these different things. It was a lot. It was a lot to process that I was pregnant again. I was wondering if I was pregnant with twins again. There were so many questions that I had and I just was not getting any answers or any support during that beginning period.So at about 13ish weeks, they finally allowed me to come in person and be seen in person. We were pregnant with just one which we were thankful for. It would have been a lot to have twins back to back. But I didn't have a significant amount more knowledge at this time. I knew a little bit more about birth. I knew I didn't want to have another C-section. I knew that there was something called a VBAC. I was hoping to be able to do that. I didn't want to have to go the same route, but I really didn't have much education. So we kind of just went with the flow. We were at a smaller hospital closer to us this time around and looking back, I would 100% say that my provider was VBAC tolerant, not VBAC supportive. I don't think that I could identify that at the time not having the knowledge and the resources, but definitely now, I can tell that they were very just VBAC tolerant. Meagan: Sorry to interrupt you, now looking back–Brittany: No, go ahead. meagan: I was going to say that at the time you weren't able to identify which is very, very, very common but now looking back, what were some of those very first signs? Is that what you were going into? brittany: Yes. We kept having conversations about can I have a VBAC. Do I have to have another C-section? It was like, We'll see. When we get closer, we'll see. We don't want to risk anything. It was a lot of the nonchalant I'm going to beat around the bush, but really, I'm probably going to pull the rug out from underneath you at the end. There were a couple of appointments where I left really discouraged and in tears like, I feel like this isn't going to happen. I don't understand. But again, I just didn't have the knowledge to really be able to question what they were saying. I just assumed that if this isn't going to work out, it's not going to work out because it's not safe or x, y, and z reasons. My pregnancy went on and of course, in the back of my mind, there was the concern of preeclampsia again because I had it with the twins, but I had no blood pressure issues. I had no issues with that pregnancy. Obviously, carrying a singleton compared to twins is very different and so we got towards the end and at about 38 weeks, they started talking about wanting to induce me. I was like, “Why are we doing this?” But again, I just didn't have the knowledge to really question their reasoning behind it. So they had actually scheduled me for an induction at 39 weeks. My husband and I left that appointment and we knew enough to know that we didn't feel good about it. We were like, “This just doesn't feel right. Something feels off about this. Why are we brushing this?” So when the time came, we actually canceled that induction and didn't show up. We went to just another regular appointment that following week and I was getting ready to go into my 40th week. They were okay with the fact that I had not done the induction, but they were really, really pressing an induction for 40 weeks which was a couple of days after. meagan: Which is also another red flag. brittany: Yes. Yes, very much so. Again, something I couldn't identify at the time besides the fact that I felt insecure about it. So we decided to do the 40-week induction and when we got there, we were going to start with a Foley bulb but it ended up that I was already 3 centimeters dilated. My body had made some good progress. I was already effaced, so they jumped right to the Pitocin induction. Because this was in the thick of COVID, there were no doulas allowed. I did have a discussion with my husband about potentially hiring a doula. I knew of doulas. I was like, I think this would probably be going for trying for a VBAC, but that was not an option. You had one support person allowed. That was it. My mom couldn't be there. Nobody could be there. No doulas could be there. It was just a really, really hard time in the hospital system. We did the best we could to prepare for what was to come but just did not have the education and the support that we needed going into the situation that we were going into. To make a very long story short, it was intervention after intervention after intervention after intervention. It was basically the definition of the cascade of interventions from Pitocin to epidurals to just everything in between.Thankfully, by morning, the induction started at about 6:00 PM, and by 9:00 PM, they were like, “Oh, we're going to have a baby. This is going to be before lunch.” I was almost 10 centimeters dilated so we were really excited about that We got to the pushing phase and things just didn't move. I mean, I was making very little progress and knowing and having the knowledge that I have now, I look back and realize there was very much a disconnect happening with my mind and body which I've seen happen in some other women sometimes when having epidurals. We pushed. I pushed for a total of about 5 hours. meagan: Wow. brittany: We did have some breaks in between. Yes. There was actually not an OB on the floor so it was with a nurse. She left to go home and the one that I was going to have was in the office, so they basically just let me keep at it and the nurse did try. I will give her credit in that she tried to get me into some different positions, but we just could not make any progress with her and we did know when my water broke that there was some meconium in my fluid so we knew that that was there and that we needed to be aware of it.But after about 5 hours, we were exhausted. It was like, “What is going on? Do we need to make some decisions? Why can't we get an OB over here?” So finally, the OB I guess had finished her shift across the way in the office and made her way over. At that point, it was about 6:00 PM. It had been a very, very long afternoon and she came in and she did an assessment and she said, “There is a lot of meconium, so we need to make a decision. We either need to get this baby out with a vacuum or we take you back for a C-section.”I was like, “Well, what's a vacuum?” We had no knowledge of what that was or what the pros and the cons were. They literally brought in a pamphlet and were like, “Here's a pamphlet to read about it.” meagan: They didn't just tell you all of the pros and cons right there? brittany: No. meagan: They gave you a pamphlet after 5 hours of pushing and feeling exhausted? brittany: Yes. They gave one to us. meagan: I'm sorry, but that's silly. brittany: It's terrible. Yeah, it's terrible because I was in no head space. I was just beyond exhausted. She said, “I'm going to give you about 30 minutes and we are going to prep the OR. When I come back, let me know what you want to do and we can try the vacuum or we can go back for a C-section.” I was like, “Okay.” My husband and I are talking through this and really have no idea what to do. Reading a pamphlet in that time and place is just not okay and not adequate. So she came back in and she gave me another assessment and she said, “Okay, I'm really sorry but we need to go back for a C-section right now. Meconium is very thick and this is becoming very problematic.” She took the vacuum option off the table and said, “We need to go and we need to go now.” So we went back for what I consider more of just an urgent C-section, not an emergent C-section and it was an experience. About halfway through, I started to feel what I felt like was way too much. They actually did end up putting me to sleep fully after she was born. meagan: After she was born?  brittany: She came out, and she actually– after she was born. So when she was born, she didn't cry. I panicked about that and my husband was like, “It's okay. It's okay,” and we found out that she did have a lot of meconium and she did need to be resuscitated. She actually had an APGAR score of 2 which was much, much less than my twins who were born at 34 weeks so thankfully, they got that addressed very quickly and by that 5-minute mark, the APGAR score was back up to an 8, but at that point, I told them, “I am feeling way too much of what you are doing to sew me back up.” I started to really panic. My pain level was very high so I saw her briefly and then they took her to the NICU and then they actually ended up just putting me to sleep because I woke up back in recovery following. She was a 9-pound, 2-ounce baby. They very much threw the label of big baby, this is why you couldn't push her out. She was stuck, and things of that nature. She was sent to the NICU again. She was my third NICU baby. This is my third baby that I haven't held or touched post-delivery. Just a weird, weird experience. So this C-section was much, much more challenging for me than my first. Obviously, I had labored down for many hours. I had pushed for many hours and then went into a C-section which makes a huge difference but I also had an infection post-birth which one of the OBs said was probably from the numerous amount of cervical checks that they gave me after my water broke. So I just had a really, really hard time. I went into postpartum already struggling. I was struggling before I even had left the hospital. Thankfully, our little girl only had to stay in the NICU one night. She was able to be with me the second night and then was able to come home with us, but still, it was just a very abnormal situation where you wake up from the surgery. You just had a baby. Your hormones are all over the place but your baby is not there. You are in pain. It was just a very unnatural situation. I really went into postpartum already a few steps behind. I just was really struggling physically. I dealt with a lot more pain this go around and mentally, I struggled a lot emotionally. I didn't know it until later on, but I really believe that it's healthy to grieve a birth that doesn't go the way that you had maybe envisioned or planned and that's such a healthy thing to do. It felt so silly to me at the time. You're like, Okay. My baby's healthy. My baby's here. Why can't I get this together? But really, it's so much more than that. I know so many people will say, “But we have a healthy baby,” which is what you want and is so great. It is not the only thing that matters though and I think so many people, so many women don't realize that. People mean so well. Family and friends come in and say, “Oh, but thank God the baby's okay.” Yes, of course, thank God the baby is okay, but it's not the only thing that matters. You essentially have a grieving mom in the thick of postpartum who also just had a major surgery, so it was a lot. It was a lot. It was honestly a really miserable postpartum recovery for me and I also had twins who were 17 months old. It was just a lot. So at my 6-week visit, the OB who did my C-section said, “Okay. That's it. It will be C-sections from here on out. VBAC is off the table. You just need to know that.” I left that appointment and I actually remember texting my cousin just about it and I was like, “Okay, I guess that makes sense. I've had two C-sections.” Then weeks following, I just was more and more unsettled with that. I really was grieving the whole situation. I was grieving the fact that I had three babies and somehow hadn't gotten to hold one of them after delivery. It was all of these emotions that I was trying to process and through that, I became very obsessed with birth like, I need to understand. I need to know. I need to educate myself and I want to know as best I can what happened in Lyla's birth. How did we end up here? I really began to educate myself. I delved into all of the things. A few months later, I really felt the Lord calling me to pursue becoming a doula. I mean, we had three kids under two-years-old, so it was crazy to think about taking anything else on, but I remember it was that following July, I went to my husband and I was like, “Listen. I know this is crazy. I know we have so much on our plate, but I really, really feel like the Lord is calling me to pursue becoming a doula so that I can help educate and empower other women and hopefully help them avoid being in the same situation that I was.” He, being the man that he is, was like, “I think you would be great.” He was like, “I'm totally supportive. I'm totally on board.” So then that started my journey of becoming a doula and it was about a year where I went through my program. I worked with those first initial moms. I did all of those things and I really, really loved it. Then I found out I was pregnant again and that was January of 2022. I knew for sure I needed and wanted a different situation. I could not walk through the same scenario that I walked through, especially with my second daughter and I wanted things to be different. I really had home birth on my heart and where I live, I live near Charlotte, North Carolina, there was actually only one hospital that would allow you to pursue a VBAC after two C-sections. meagan: Really? brittany: All of the other hospitals will not, yes. So I started to pursue home birth but then also thought, Maybe I'll do co-care because then I will have something lined up if something does go wrong, blah blah blah. So I tried to get into that hospital with their OB/GYNs and at all three of their locations, they were not accepting new patients. Initially, I was very discouraged. I remember crying that day, texting my husband, What are we going to do? This is the only hospital that will even allow this and that will even potentially let me come in and try. He very simply said, “The Lord closed that door to co-care. Focus on home birth. That's where your heart has been.” At the time, that overwhelmed me, but looking back, it was one of the best decisions and I'm so thankful for it. I do believe there is a time and place for co-care for certain women, absolutely, who want to do home birth but want to have that co-care piece, but for me, looking back, I think co-care would have destroyed me mentally just with all of the appointments, all of the extra things being said even though I knew and had that VBAC knowledge. It's hard when you are constantly getting little bugs in your ear of, “You shouldn't do this. We need to induce,” or things like that so in the end I was very thankful for that. I simply pursued home birth. I interviewed a lot of midwives and I ended up with, I'm very biased but, who I think is just the best midwife ever. She's really, really awesome and received just such amazing care. My visits were an hour long. It was very proactive care trying to stay ahead of things that could come up just with nutrition and supplements and things like that. So I hired my team, my midwife. I hired a doula because I told my husband, I said, “I know I am a doula but I also know what happens when you are in labor.” I said, “Everything goes out the window and you go to labor land.” I said, “I want somebody there who I know can be my brain and can help me with all of the things when I can't think straight.” He was super supportive of that and I hired a really awesome doula. So once I had my team in place, I felt really, really good about it moving forward. My husband was so extremely supportive. He's one of those where anybody who is a doula, their husband is extra educated at birth. I feel like he has to listen to all of my stuff all of the time, but he was so supportive. At that point, I had a really standard pregnancy. The biggest things that I did were to continue, I used The VBAC Link a lot just whenever that doubt crept in my mind of Am I making the right choice? Is VBAC after two C-sections really safe?” I would go back to some of those resources that you guys put out. That knowledge that I had just to read through again to give myself that sense of peace that I made again. I listened to every VBAC after multiple C-section podcast that you have and really tried to focus on those positive birth stories. The biggest thing I did was that I really made the effort to protect my mental health meaning we kept the decision we made very, very private from family and friends which was hard because everybody, especially after my last experience was like, “Where are you giving birth? What is the plan?” But I knew that I didn't need the opinions of everybody. I didn't have the time or energy to educate everybody around me in the decision that I had made. My husband, myself, and our birth team were confident in the decision that I had made in moving forward so we just kept it very private. My best friend and my sister-in-law knew and they were my support throughout then once we got toward the end and I reached that full-term mark of 37 weeks, we did tell all of our parents because we wanted our parents to know. My mom was going to be there and his mom was going to come at some point. Thankfully, our family was very supportive. My mom used to be a labor and delivery nurse so she had a lot of questions, but my midwife sat down with her and let her ask all of them. So our family was on board, but I really just made the point to protect my mental health and only view and read things that were positive and only talk to people who I knew were going to be encouraging and positive about it. That was truly one of the best decisions I made throughout my pregnancy. Fast forward, we get to 39 weeks and 4 days. I thought for sure that I was going to go over 40. With that doula mindset, I always tell my clients, “Prepare to go over 40 weeks so that mentally you're not distraught when 40 weeks comes.” Oh man, I was like, “It's going to be over 40.” I was so secure in that that when it happened, I was not ready almost. I was a little overwhelmed like, “Oh my gosh. I'm not 40 weeks yet though.” I'm 39 and 4. We had actually went out with some friends that morning. We took our kids somewhere and my mom was there. I remember my mom putting us back in the car. She got all emotional and she was like, “I just feel like it's going to be so soon.” I was so frustrated I remember because I was like, “No, mom. I'm not 40 weeks. It's fine.” She's like, “Call me as soon as something happens.” I'm like, “Mom, we have time.” Little did I know I was going to have a baby that night. Later that afternoon, I decided, I need to go to Costco. I need to stock up. My best friend was like, “You are crazy to go to Costco on a Saturday. That is going to put you into labor.” Sure enough, that is exactly what it did. I went to Costco and got everything I needed. I ran into Target and my first contraction started. I had Braxton Hicks most of my third trimester so I was very aware that this was different the first time it happened. But again, that doula mind, I was like, This could be nothing. I'm just going to ignore it. We're going to continue on. They kept coming as I finished my shopping about every 10-15 minutes apart so when I left, I decided to text my husband and say, “Hey, this could be nothing but just so you know, I've had some contractions. They are about 10-15 minutes apart. We'll see what happens.” They had started at 6:00 PM when I was out. I finished up getting when I needed, came home. My girls were already asleep on the couch and my husband put them to bed. We ate dinner. My son hung out with us for a little bit and things continued to pick up. I was like, Okay, this is definitely happening I think. At about 7:00, I alerted my midwife just to let her know, “Hey, it's probably going to be a long night, but I'm definitely having contractions.” I let my doula know and our photographer. I got everybody in the loop. After I ate, I was like, “I'm going to get in the bath with some Epsom salt and try and relax. See if I can relax these contractions enough to maybe get some rest.” In my mind, I was like, This is going to be an all-night thing. Let's see if I can get some sleep. But that is not what happened. I got in the bath for maybe 10 minutes. I had a few contractions and was like, I cannot sit like this. This is not comfortable. I called my mom and I was like, “Hey, I'm having contractions. Don't worry about coming over yet though. We've still got plenty of time.” Thankfully, she ignored me because she was about 50 minutes away at the time. She ignored me and got in the car and came anyway which was a huge blessing because things continued to pick up really quickly. My husband continued to set our room up and the birth pool up but also tried to support me through contractions. Thankfully, all of our kiddos at this point were asleep upstairs which was something we had just prayed about because I wanted them close by, but I also knew that I just needed my space especially with them being so young. So that was such a blessing. They were all asleep. It was just me and my husband. So around 9:00 PM, my mom thankfully arrived which was a blessing because moments before, I was like, “Okay, you need to tell my mom to come,” because things were just moving really, really quickly. I particularly found a lot of relief in one position and that was the position I wanted to stay in. I was on all fours on the ground rocking back and forth on my yoga ball and everybody said, “Hey, try this. Try this.” I was like, “Nope. This is what's working for me. I just want to continue doing this,” so that's what I did for a long while. Shortly after my mom got there, we called my doula to tell her to go ahead and come because she was about 45-50 minutes away as well. With that phone call, she was able to tell because I had prior talked to her as well that things had definitely picked up. We were definitely probably in full-blown active labor. She had told my husband, “Go ahead and start filling the birth pool,” because anybody who has had a birth pool knows that it can take some time. He went ahead and started to fill the birth pool while my mom stayed by me, helped support me, and my doula left and was on her way. Shortly after that, my water broke. A lot of pressure, a lot of pressure, then my water broke. I remember being so panicked telling my mom, “Please check for meconium,” because I just kept thinking about Lyla and the situation that I had with my prior daughter. I said, “Check for meconium. Check for meconium.” She looked and everything looked fine. Following my water breaking, I moved right into transition. It was game on at that point. My husband called my midwife. He said, “Okay. We definitely need you to leave and come.” Thankfully, he had gotten the pool all ready so the pool was ready. Warm water was in. I was able to get in and that was about 10:45 PM. I was able to labor through transition in the water which was a huge blessing. I'm one of those who loves to be in the water. I love to be in the bath. I find it to be very relaxing. I remember at this point telling my mom, “I feel like I'm getting no breaks.” I still at the time did not know I was in transition. Looking back, I was very easily able to identify the phases, but when you are in it, even having that knowledge, you're like, “No. There's no way. This is going to go all night. How am I going to do this? I'm not getting any breaks.” But I had so much great support and my doula arrived not long after I got in the pool. She was doing some counterpressure and giving my husband some things to do to help. I have a lot of tension in my face so giving him some suggestions of things he could do. Not long after getting in the pool, that fetal ejection reflex definitely kicked in. I had heard obviously people talking about it. I had studied it in my work becoming a doula, but until you really experience it, you're like, Wow, this is no joke. People are like, “How am I going to know when to push?” Oh, you will know. Your body is going to do it whether or not you want it. That is exactly what happened. My body was doing these little pushes without me even doing anything. Soon after, I started to really lean into that and continue with that pushing. I remember feeling such relief when I got to the pushing phase because it was very challenging. It was giving me that purpose through contractions and something I could focus on. I actually got a little bit of relief when I was doing some of the pushing. I remember being really thankful for that. My photographer arrived. My mother-in-law arrived during that time and my midwife team got there at about 11:15. I already started pushing a little bit, but I remember although yes, it's challenging to not have an epidural, it was also so amazing because having had the experience of Lyla where I pushed for 5 hours and they were like, “Well, she's not moving. She's in a bad position. She's stuck.” I could feel nothing. I could feel everything. I could feel the progress of my baby being moved down frequently during pushes. I could feel her in the birth canal. I could almost feel the progress I was making at different times with her which was so motivating and so helpful for me. That was just such a night and day experience from my prior experience pushing with Lyla and then after about an hour and 15 minutes give or take a little bit, my daughter, Charlie, made her way into the world. It was about 12:25 AM and it was a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful experience. She was born in the water. Literally, my overwhelm of emotions following was like nothing I could ever really articulate in words. The oxytocin was on full blast. I was on this birth high and having had prior C-sections, one of the downfalls of a C-section is that you are on so much medication and so many pain meds that I always felt like when I came out, I was in a haze like I didn't really know where I was and things like that so to be so present and to literally feel my hormones doing what they were designed to do was such an overwhelming experience. I remember talking to my husband about that days later and I was like, “It was just such a high after she was born.” This was obviously my first experience getting to hold the baby post-birth so that was very emotional for me getting to pull her up to me and have her right there and just be able to hold her. My husband was there and people who we loved most were just surrounding us. It was a very, very beautiful, overwhelmingly positive experience. One of the benefits of home birth is that you get to move from the pool or wherever you gave birth to get comfortable in your bed. So that was just awesome. I remember when they got me comfortable in my bed, I was looking at my birth affirmations wall. I had a bunch of stuff hanging up by the pool and I remember thinking, “Oh my gosh. Thank God that's done. that was the hardest thing I've ever done,” then a minute later, I was like, “I feel like I'm going to have to do this again.” I was so overwhelmed with the experience and the emotions. My husband and I got to lay in bed. We got to cuddle our girl and pray over her. Everybody was so great. They were cleaning everything up. My mother-in-law was making food for everybody. It was just such a beautiful experience. Then about an hour into it, we decided to do just her newborn checks and have the midwife look her over, weigh her, and stuff. We knew she was big. There was no denying it when she came out, but never once did I look at her and be like, “Gosh, she's a giant baby. She's so much bigger than Lyla,” or anything like that.We weighed her and everybody made their guesses. She ended up being 10 pounds, 10 ounces, and 22 inches long. The 9-pound, 2-ounce baby that they said I could never push out and could never have had her vaginally, I ended up going on to have a 10-pound, 10-ounce baby girl. She also had a nuchal hand. Her hand was up at her face when she was born which can make things a little bit more challenging, but I delivered her and I had no tearing. It was just such an amazing redemptive story after being told, “You never could have birthed this 9-pound baby. You're never going to have a vaginal birth. The door is closed for you,” and really have the exact opposite happen. I went on to have a much larger baby and she was great. She was healthy and had no issues. My children were just thrilled the next morning to wake up and come and meet her. To this day, they will still bring it up. “Do you remember when Gigi brought us downstairs and we had a new baby?” It was such a beautiful, redeeming story for all of us, my husband included. I think sometimes we forget how much of an emotional experience it can be for the dads and especially to see their wives go through so much so it was just so healing for both of us. It was just such a beautiful experience. I feel like I could go on and on about it. I had the best postpartum care. For those who aren't familiar, with a home birth, your midwife comes to see you multiple times. Mine came to see me six times. She came at 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours, one week, and two weeks, so she was constantly there checking on me, checking on my baby girl, and it was just care like no other. All I had known was I had major abdominal surgery then 6 months later, they brought me in and were like, “You're cleared for everything.” It was so overwhelming and this go around, I had somebody who was like, “How are you doing mentally? How are your emotions? How are things healing? How is your nutrition? Are you resting?” All of these things are so, so important for postpartum, and I think so many women don't even realize these things about what postpartum should really look like. I will forever be thankful for that care as well. That was just unlike anything I had prior experienced obviously as well. So yeah. I mean, overall, it was such a beautiful experience. I'm so thankful for how it played out. The Lord had answered so many of our prayers throughout and I'm so, so thankful to my midwife who believed in me and in my body's ability to birth my baby no matter the size and that team of people who I had, I will forever be grateful. Meagan: Are you willing to share your midwife with those in your area who might be feeling restricted because of the lack of support in your area?Brittany: Yes. I will say I had a certified professional midwife. I live in North Carolina. I live outside the Charlotte area in Monroe. We are very lucky. We have such a fantastic group of midwives in the Charlotte area of certified professional midwives. There are truly multiple great midwives. My midwife's name is Brooke. She is just the best of the best. She is a dear friend of mine and I have been really lucky as a doula to get to work with some of her clients and still see her at births and things following. If you are in the Charlotte area and you are considering home birth, things can be a little bit hairy because we do have some restrictions in regards to certified nurse midwives compared to certified professional midwives, but feel free. I think in the show notes, my information will be there. I would be so, so happy to help guide anybody in this area and give you a list of names of some really, really great providers who support VBAC or VBAC after multiple Cesareans because it can be a hard world to navigate whether you are in the hospital system or planning a home birth. It still can be really hard to navigate if you don't know where to look. Meagan: And can people find you somewhere if they have any questions they can write you to on your own doula page? Brittany: Yes. Yes. You can find me at Joyful Beginnings Doula Care. You can find me on Facebook and Instagram. I also have a website at joyfulbeginningsdoulacare.com. Please feel free. I love nothing more than helping guide moms in finding that right support and then also obviously, I love working with VBAC moms as a doula. But you can find me there. Feel free to reach out. I love doing whatever I can to just help other women have more positive experiences especially when it comes to VBAC because that's really, really hard sometimes. Meagan: Absolutely. It is. It's hard and it's frustrating that it's hard so it really takes a village to find the right support. Let me tell you. I've been taking little notes along the journey of your story and there are so many things.One, you had a preterm Cesarean so that's a thing and we don't even have time to go through all of these things so while she was sharing, I was like, “Ope, we have a link for that. Oh, we have a blog for that.” We have so many blogs. We have all of it. I already sent it off to our amazing transcriber, Paige, who will make sure that this is all in the show notes. But preterm Cesarean, then a close duration between Cesarean and her TOLAC that ended in a CBAC. Talking about red flags in finding the right provider, processing the birth, and co-care– I wanted to explain for anyone who didn't know what co-care means. I love that you pointed out to the fact that it's really, really great for some people and it's not great for others. I think that if you're interested in co-care or if you are interested in it, you need to tap into you as an individual and the type of place that you're in because co-care can be amazing and it can be tricky because of what Brittany said where you can go and you can be getting this information from a hospital and then this information from your home birth midwife or your birth center midwife and they are not the same. They can pull your mind out of a very positive space and start putting a lot of doubt and questions. So if you're going to do co-care, I think it's super important no matter what, but you really, really need to know your facts because it's going to be important and it will likely come into play where someone might say something and it's the opposite of what the other professional is saying so you need to know what the evidence is. Big baby– I'm going to include a blog about big baby if you are being told that you have a big baby or if like Brittany, you were told that you would never, ever get a baby out of your pelvis because your babies are too large and it was a whole pound plus bigger baby for her VBAC. Oh my gosh, what else? I love that you also talked about something that is so unique to home birth in my opinion and I just wanted to touch on it really fast. That is the care after. Here in the U.S. and I know that if you are not listening from the U.S., it's very different outside of the U.S. Here in the U.S., it is very standard to have the type of care like what Brittany described even with a Cesarean. It's an abdominal surgery. It's a pretty big deal to have surgery or to have a baby vaginally and to not be seen, called, or asked anything for six weeks. Six weeks– let me tell you how much can happen in six weeks. A lot can happen. I love the uniqueness that home birth does offer and I love that you even felt that and that you saw it yourself. You saw the difference of 24 hours, 72 hours. You're getting those mental checks. You're getting, “How are you sleeping? How are you eating? Where are you at? What are you doing?” We're getting those check-ins. It is so important. It is so important. So if you are birthing at a hospital and you are likely going to be in the traditional line of the six-week follow-up, I highly suggest with checking in with a postpartum doula or getting someone who is a professional that can check in on you– a therapist even if you have gone through therapy. Have a 72-hour checkup with your therapist after birth. If that means you just talk and you're like, “All things are peachy. Great.” There are things in the U.S. that we have to do where we, unfortunately, have to take it upon ourselves to take care of our mental health because it's just not the way the standard care is. I'm going to leave it at that. Brittany is shaking her head. She's like, “Mhmm, yeah.” Do you have anything to add to that? Brittany: The only thing I would add to piggyback off of that especially if you are a VBAC mom, take the time. Do the research. Reach out to a local doula who you know is VBAC supportive if you need extra help doing this but take the time to find a provider who is supportive and not tolerant because your providers and your birth team, the people you are allowing into your birth space, can truly make or break your birth experience. I have witnessed it. I have experienced it so do your due diligence on the front end. It is not always easy, especially navigating the hospital system, but there are people out there. A lot of local doulas do know, “Hey, I've had a lot of great experiences with this OB/GYN when it comes to VBAC”, or “Hey, stay away from this practice.” Do your due diligence. Find a team who really believes in your body's ability to birth your baby vaginally. They need to believe in it as much as you do and just take the time to educate yourself. I believe that education is the key to empowerment. That's such a big piece of the work that I do with my moms leading up to birth with both birth and postpartum but take that time. Educate yourself. Find a team who believes as much as you do in your VBAC. Meagan: I am just going to leave it right there because I think that is a nice way to zip it right up and complete this beautiful episode. Thank you so much for sharing. Congratulations. I love so much that your kids still talk about, “Remember how she brought us downstairs?” So awesome. I'm so happy for all of you and congrats again. Brittany: Thank you so much for having me. ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

“It was perfect. It really was. I would do it again and I would do it the exact same way. I felt safe and I felt respected and I felt like there was never a moment in it that I was scared.”Emmy's first birth was a medicated hospital birth turned C-section after two hours of unsuccessful pushing. Her greatest trauma was being so out of it that her first thoughts after her baby was born were, “I don't care.” Her multiple failed epidural/spinal placements caused intense postpartum spinal headaches. Overall, Emmy's difficult experiences were a recipe for postpartum depression and anxiety.After finding The VBAC Link, Julie and Meagan became Emmy's virtual friends helping her through tough postpartum days. When she became pregnant again, Emmy knew that Julie Francom needed to be on her team. Emmy shares how she made the choice to switch from planning a hospital VBAC to an HBAC and how home birth relates to cows! Her birth was powerful, intuitive, and healing.After her husband caught their baby and Emmy pulled her up to her chest, she shares the most healing moment of all. “I wasn't thinking in my head, ‘I don't care'. I was thinking that I had this beautiful little baby in my arms. It was what I had dreamed of. “CDC ArticleThe VBAC Link Doula DirectoryThe VBAC Link Facebook CommunityDown to Birth PodcastDr. Stu's WebsiteThe VBAC Link Blog: Choosing Between Home Birth or VBACBirth Becomes You Birth Photographer DirectoryHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Julie: Hello, hello. Surprise! It's Julie here and I'm super excited to be here with you guys today. I always love coming on the podcast with Meagan you guys know. I love to get a little bit salty and a little bit straight-up talk on the podcast. I quite enjoy my time here but I am a little extra excited and a little bit less spicy and salty because I have a client of mine. Her name is Emmy and she just had a VBAC about 3 weeks or 4 weeks ago. Has it already been 4 weeks? Oh shoot, I owe you your gallery already. It'll be done in a few days. But I photographed her birth and she is incredible. It is super exciting because she is going to tell you more about this. She actually reached out to me 2 years ago when I was still doing doula work at the beginning of her journey after her C-section baby and it's just super fun to be here full circle with her and have her share her story. I want to hear it from her perspective. I haven't heard it from her perspective yet. We are just going to have lots of fun chit-chatting. You guys are going to come to love Emmy just like I do. But before we do that, Meagan has a Review of the Week for us. Wait, did I say it's Julie? Did I introduce myself? Meagan: Yes, you did. Julie: I feel like some people don't know. You have been doing solo episodes for a really long time and I feel like some people don't know who I am anymore which feels kind of weird to me. Meagan: You are the famous Julie. Julie: The famous Julie. Anyways, Julie Francom, co-founder of The VBAC Link. I separated a couple of years ago but pop in every once in a while to get a little bit salty. If you know, you know. Anyway, here's Meagan. Meagan has a Review of the Week for us and I'm going let her do the rest of the things. Meagan: If you know, you know. Okay, we have a review. It's from lar23 and it's titled “Love Your Podcast”. It says, “Hi Meagan. I love your podcast so much. I always end up crying at the end of them. So happy for these moms who get their VBAC. Thank you for creating this podcast. It's so inspiring to hear these stories. I'm 38 weeks pregnant currently and hoping to get my VBAC here soon. Keep doing what you're doing. You're helping so many people and doing so well to achieve their birth dreams knowing that we are not alone. Thank you for that.” That was left on Apple Podcasts and that was actually just about a year ago so lar23, if you are still listening, we always love to know how things went so maybe write us in at info@thevbaclink.com. If you haven't left us a review yet, please do. We love them. They make us smile and guess what? I actually even still share them with Julie today. Julie: It's true. I love getting a good screenshot of a review. It makes my heart happy still. Meagan: Right? They do. Every single time they come in, my smile immediately grows from ear to ear. Okay, are we ready? Julie: Yeah. Meagan: Julie, Emmy, let's do this. Let's hear this amazing birth story. I was reading a little bit of her bio part and can I just tell you that there is one little thing that stuck out? It all stuck out, but there was one little thing. “I found a doula I loved. I hired Julie Francom as my birth photographer. You bet I felt starstruck.” It says, “I interviewed multiple midwives before choosing one. Originally, I planned a hospital birth, but the more research I did and after listening to the podcast with Dr. Stu, I felt very strongly that a home birth was right for me. I was just as shocked as the guy that I told the next day that I felt that way.” Can I just say that stood out to me? You hired the doula. You found an amazing photographer who is also a doula. You interviewed multiple people. All right. I'm just going to leave that right there for the intro to your second story and let's cue the first story. Julie: Let's go. I'm excited. “I felt starstruck”. It's still weird to me when people are like, Oh my gosh. I don't know if that's what you were like, but it's just so funny. Anyway, sorry. Go ahead, Emmy. Emmy: Yeah, we'll start with the first one and then I'll talk about my starstruck interview with Julie. Yeah. It was 3 years ago almost exactly because I had my kids a day apart 3 years apart– March 14th and March 15th so it was 3 years ago, I was teaching 6th grade and it was a new subject and a new school so that was my focus. I did zero prep, but I was so optimistic. I'm like, Everyone goes in and has a baby. We did nothing. Suddenly when my water at 39 and a few days started to leak, we were like, Okay, we go straight to the hospital. My water hadn't even broken. It was just a leak. Meagan: That's what you're told a lot of the time. If your water breaks, you go in. Emmy: Yeah, so you'd sit down and a little gush would happen. We high-tailed straight over to the hospital. I was feeling Braxton Hicks contractions. They weren't even painful yet. They checked me and to quote, I was maybe a half-centimeter dilated. I said, “Great. When can I get the epidural?” She was like, “You can get it right now.” I'm like, “Fantastic. This is greater than my wildest dreams right now,” because at that moment, I had done no prep so my fear was of the pain. The fact that I was getting this epidural before I even felt pain was amazing in my head. I get the epidural at maybe a half-centimeter dilated and I lay on my back on a bed for 30 hours. I did do the peanut ball a little bit back and forth. There was some movement there, but as far as any other real movement, there was nothing. Little did I know, he was OP and now I've done a lot more research on OP babies and learned a lot about how OP babies need movement. I read a whole article from Rachel Reed that was just talking about how the most important thing for an OP baby was movement and I did not move. It was probably no surprise now looking back that I started to have really horrible back labor having an OP baby which if you've had back labor, it's not like a normal contraction where you have a 60-second contraction and then you have a 10-minute break. It is continuous and it is awful. Meagan: Not great. It's not great. Emmy: Excruciating and it goes all the way up your back. I'm numb from the waist down but it was going all the way up my back to my neck and it was continuous. I was just in excruciating pain for hours and hours. I was just holding on to the side of the bed just dying.Meagan: I can already relate so much. I was holding. I'm like, Help me. Do something. Emmy: That's so funny. Do something. I was dying. I finally get to complete and I pushed for 2 hours and I remember the OB pretty vividly. I remember him being like, “Okay. You've pushed for 2 hours. When I went to school, they said to let a mom push for 4 hours and now they say to let a mom push for however long she wants.” She was like, “You can either keep pushing or you can just go in for a C-section and we can get this over with.” I mean, I was done. I was like, “Cut him out.” Meagan: Sure. Yeah. And if you are given that, it's like the golden ticket. You could have your baby right now and not continue this. Sign me up. Yeah. Emmy: So I was like, “Yep, please cut him out.” So they wheeled me into the OR and sorry. While I was pushing, I guess from the hours of back labor, my back had seized. I could not bend it. While I was in that pushing phase, he kept saying, “Okay, do a crunch. Sit up in a C formation.” I was like, “My back is not moving. It is unresponsive. It's not that I won't. It's that I can't.”Then they wheeled me into the OR and I'm getting a spinal block and they are telling me, “Your epidural needs to be a C position.” I'm like, “My back is not moving. I've never experienced this before. It is unresponsive right now.” He tried three times to get the spinal block in. Two times it came out and the needle was bent because it was just hitting. Meagan: Oh my gosh. Emmy: Third time's the charm. So I had five. Three times from the spinal block and then it had taken the epidural twice to get it in so I had five punctures which makes more sense when I talk about my spinal headache later on. They finally get the spinal block in and they lay me flat on my back. It went from the back labor had been agonizing, but for some reason when they laid me on my back, it was intolerable. I started thrashing. I was like, “My back, my back!” I started thrashing. I'm under the impression that he gave me morphine, but whatever he gave me, I went warm. My whole body went warm and numb. I couldn't move anything and in my head, I'm like, Thank heavens. I don't care what he just gave me but I'm so grateful right now that this pain has gone away. But then like I said, I believe it was morphine. It moved up into my lungs and my breath started getting shallower and shallower and shallower. I'm like, I'm suffocating right now. My breath was getting more and more shallow and I started to panic more and more. Meagan: Scary. Emmy: I turned to the anesthesiologist to say, “I can't breathe.” Nothing came out. The morphine had also affected my vocal cords and so I'm looking at him, I'm like, I can't breathe. I'm just mouthing the words and he's not looking at me. So then I look over at my husband who is also not looking at me. I'm like, “I can't breathe.” I'm looking between these people like, I'm going to die on this table and nobody is going to even know because they are not looking at me and I can't talk right now. Meagan: Oh my gosh. Emmy: Yeah, finally my husband looked at me and he's like, “She says she can't breathe.” He looked at my stats. He's like, “No, her oxygen levels look fine. She's fine.” In my head, I'm like, No, I'm dying. He put an oxygen mask on me and in that moment, I closed my eyes and I'm like, I'm just going to focus on breathing because right now I'm in a complete panic attack that I'm dying. They got him out. I heard him cry. They took him to the NICU and for however long they were gone, I remember a nurse saying to me, “Do you want to meet your baby?” In that moment, in my head, I was just like, I don't care. I don't care. Colin comes walking in with a swaddled baby with tears rolling down his face. Colin is my husband, sorry. Colin comes in with tears running down his face holding a swaddled baby and I could have truly cared less. Out of all the traumatic things that have happened to me in my birth up to that moment, that is the moment that sticks with me the most where it's like that is the moment you dream of as you are preparing especially for this first child to come into the world. It's that moment when you get to hold your baby for the first time and for me that first moment in my head was, I don't care. That really slingshotted my passion for this next birth. It was going to be amazing and I'm going to make sure of it. I heard a quote recently that was like, “Passion a lot of the time stems from trauma.” I felt that so deeply in my bones at that moment. I was like, I look back at the last 2 years and some months since I've had the baby and I've been so passionate about it. It definitely stemmed from my trauma from my first birth. Julie: Oh my gosh, yes. I relate to that too. That is why I'm so salty dang it. Meagan: I know. It's hard. It's hard when you do have that passion and then you are seeing people going in the direction that we were going that created that passion and possibly trauma. It's hard because you are like, No, no, no, no! Don't go there. Come over here. We want to help and save and yeah, do whatever we can do, right? Emmy: Yeah, and unfortunately, my postpartum experience wasn't really that much better. I really struggled with postpartum as I not only was recovering from a C-section but a few days later, I developed a spinal headache which is where they have punctured the membrane around your spinal cord so it starts leaking fluid. You'll sit up and it starts leaking fluid and it's an immediate migraine. You're trying to go to the bathroom. You're trying to feed your baby and you are dying from a migraine. It's kind of a peculiar thing because the moment you lay down, the moment your head hits the pillow, it goes away. When you sit up, it's leaking this fluid but when you are lying down, you're not leaking the spinal fluid and it goes away. I called my sister and she was like, “Oh, I've heard of that. It's a spinal headache.” I called my OB and told him my symptoms. He was like, “Yeah, you can either go into the hospital and get a blood patch or it'll go away in two weeks.” I'm like, Two weeks? I'm not waiting two weeks for this to go away. I can't even sit up to try and feed my baby let alone function. Meagan: Oh, so did you go get the blood patch? How was that? For someone who may have experienced this or if they experience it, can you explain the process of that? Emmy: Yeah. I mean, it's uncomfortable and kind of painful. You go in but it's also pretty amazing too. You go in and lie down. They pull quite a bit of blood from your arm. They numb the spot that is leaking which was where I had five dots from all of the different needles and they put that blood into that spot and so the blood goes in and it clots where it is leaking and you lay there for about a half hour and you sit up and it's gone. It was pretty amazing. I sat up and I was scared and it was immediately gone, but you add so much blood into that area that it is filled with pressure for three days so it's like you can't really bend your back. That's kind of the theme of my story I guess is I can never bend my back. For three days, I couldn't bend my back or it would spasm from that spot. But it did get away from the spinal headache and if I had another spinal headache, I would do it again. Meagan: Okay, good to know. Emmy: But yeah, so I did go in and get the blood patch. It fixed the problem, but I recovered from a C-section. I had this blood patch. I really struggled with breastfeeding. I know now that I had a lactation specialist, an IBCLC come to my house after my second birth. She looked at his tongue and she was like, “Oh, he's got a heart-shaped tongue. That's a severe tongue tie.” I didn't know that at the time. I know about tongue ties now but I didn't know about it then. I was just really struggling with breastfeeding and the pain from it. I was like, Something has to go and the only thing I have control over right now is breastfeeding. I chose to exclusively pump which comes with a whole other host of pros and cons but I chose to exclusively pump because I was like, Something needs to go pain-wise here and breastfeeding is the only one I can let go.Looking back, I really had a recipe for postpartum depression and anxiety. I had a traumatic birth and recovery from a C-section. Breastfeeding wasn't going well and he was a terrible sleeper for 3 months. I was extremely sleep-deprived and I didn't really plan my postpartum care well. I got one week that my mom and my husband were home at the same time and then they were gone but I still needed care after that for at least another week or two. My nutrition was poor because I was worrying about my nursery and cute clothes and my baby shower and stuff. I hadn't really thought about postpartum care with freezer meals and snacks and things like that so I was just starving which I'm sure didn't add to helping with postpartum depression and anxiety when your nutrition is poor. I was still worrying about work and had to go back to work 6 weeks later which was a stressor. Isolation is a big contributing factor to depression and anxiety and I just hadn't found a group of mom friends yet too. I was just giving out so I was home all day for the first 6 months. For the first 6 months, I really struggled with postpartum depression but I learned what a VBAC was the first week post C-section. I was like, What is this? What is this VBAC they speak of? Then I found The VBAC Link about the same time because I was Googling VBAC and I found your website which led me to the podcast. I was taking multiple walks a day at that time because I was just bored and I was just devouring The VBAC Link. Julie and Meagan were my best friends for the first– they were my only friends for the first 6 months. Meagan: Aww. Julie: I love that but it's also kind of sad but I also kind of love it. Emmy: Yeah. I was listening to your guys' voices. You were the people I talked to the most each day for a while. I just devoured it and I went from believing my C-section was necessary to seeing how one thing probably led to another and led to the cascade of interventions and just being like, Oh, I actually think I really could have done this if I had done things differently and prepared differently. I think I actually would have been able to do this the right way. Then listening to people talk about having this redemptive second birth, I'm like, Wow. People have births and like their births. I thought everybody just hates birth. I'm like, No. People are actually having births and enjoying their births. How do I get that? So it really spawned into this passion which came out of trauma but turned into a really great thing and about a year postpartum, I reached out to Julie because I was anticipating getting pregnant probably in the next year. I was like, I know I'm going to build the greatest team that I can in this area. In my vision, Julie is on that team. I reached out to her and you said in that first interview, you were like, “Okay, I am still doing doula work but I am starting to switch over to photography but I will honor your request for a birth doula.” I was like, “Great! Do you know any hospitals or midwife groups in-hospital who are VBAC friendly?” That was still in my head was that I was going to end up in a hospital. Julie gave me some midwife groups and some hospitals that she had good experiences with for VBACs and that was my plan moving forward. It wasn't until a year and 3 months later that I ended up getting pregnant and by that time, Julie was like, “I'm really just doing photography.” Julie: I told the Universe that this is the thing and Katie, your doula, will attest to this. I struggled going back and forth where my passion was and where my heart lay. I was like, Okay, I will do doula and photography for a little while. I told the Universe 16 times that I was only doing photography and then I felt like I had to stay committed to it and I really thought that you would be best served by a fully dedicated doula. In the end looking back, I think that was super the right choice. Anyway, yeah. That's kind of where that was. Emmy: Yeah, I'm really just doing photography now but I have a really great friend who has done the VBAC Link course and I'd love to do your photography. At the time, photography was not in the realm of my birth vision at all. It was actually something that was kind of weird to me. I thought, People photograph their births? But Julie was such a core keystone part of my birth that I was like, I don't care if you are there to be my massage therapist for this. You will be there. I ended up hiring a photographer because I wanted Julie to be there so badly. I wanted her knowledge there and then it ended up in the end being that I am so glad I have photos of this. This is so cool. I think all around we made the best choices having Katie. Shoutout to Katie who is the doula that Julie recommended. Meagan: She is amazing. Emmy: Yeah, she was not a bad recommendation at all. It was amazing. So I think in the end it turned out great to have Katie there and have Julie there. Everyone was in their right place. But yeah, when I reached out to Julie, I hadn't even thought about home birth. Home birth to me was woo-woo. I didn't have an interest in natural birth but I actually ended up listening to Dr. Stu who I know you have had on your podcast, but the first time I heard him was actually on the Down to Birth podcast, episode 111 if anyone is interested where he talks about his journey from being a regular OB/GYN to being a home birth OB/GYN. He dispelled the fears around home birth and the questions that everybody asks like, “What if things go wrong?” In those 45 minutes, I literally went from, I'm only having a hospital birth to I'm going to have a home birth. It spoke to my heart and I immediately was like, This is what I need to do. I felt really strongly. It was really bizarre. I've never had a full shift in what I was thinking before. I just felt very inspired that that was what I needed to do. I was a little worried about convincing my husband, Colin, but I showed him that podcast and he seemed immediately on board. He's a dairy farmer actually and listening to the podcast, there were a few things where he would pause it and say, “That's very interesting. I actually see this in cows.” I was like, “Great. I'm glad that you feel really connected to this.” Meagan: I love that. Emmy: Yeah. Julie: Okay, but seriously now, we have all these animals in the wild giving birth in these natural ways and nobody thinks to interfere but we humans need all of this help. It doesn't make any sense. Emmy: Yeah, like for example, Dr. Stu said a woman will be home laboring and the labor–what's the word I'm looking for? The contractions are coming regularly. Let's say it that way. The contractions are coming regularly and she comes into a hospital which is an unfamiliar environment with people she doesn't know who are touching her bits and stuff and it's really not common for your labor to slow down or completely stall. He's like, “We are mammals. If a mammal in the wild comes into an unfamiliar place or feels that there is a predator or feels nervous or anxious, the labor is going to stop until she feels safe again.” Colin was like, “I see that with cows. You see a cow in a pasture laboring great and the legs are poking out. We bring them and we bring them into the barn where we have fresh straw. She'll be by herself. In our heads, we think we are helping her but we have just done an intervention and her labor will stall. She'll sit there for hours without any progress. We see that with cows.” Meagan: You know what? We as doulas see that too. We are laboring at home. We are laboring at home. Things are going really well and then we transition to the hospital or a birthing center or that other location. Even just that move that makes you think you would be more comfortable and this is where I wanted to give birth, you still have to acclimate to that space. Like you said, it's an intervention. Emmy: Yeah, so he trusted my gut and I”m going to be forever grateful for that because he was very trusting so the prep really began once I got pregnant, it was like, Okay. We've got Julie and my number-one priority was building a strong team. I interviewed Julie in person and went out to lunch with Katie who became my doula and felt really connected to her right off the bat. Julie also gave me a list of home birth midwives in the area. I probably interviewed 5 or 6 midwives and for me, I wanted somebody who was really experienced, had a lot of years, had seen the good, the bad, the ugly, and had a good, calm energy because I have a lot of energy. I was like, I feel like in my birth, I just need calmness. So after interviewing them, I picked a midwife who I thought was the best for me and had the most experience. She truly was amazing in the birth and I think I made the right choice for sure. Midwife care is so different than OB/GYN care as well. You have a 5-minute appointment with an OB/GYN but you have an hour long appointment with a midwife where you do the same things but more. They sit and talk to you about any symptoms that you have. I really, really liked the midwife care. I was really impressed. I didn't know what I was stepping into but it is leaps and bounds better care than I had at an OB/GYN office. That was my first priority. I felt like I built a great team from the get-go then it was all about educating myself and preparing for postpartum. That was a big part. One thing I did was instead of having a baby shower, I did a mother's shower. I had all of these people come and we made freezer meals. It was really fun. I planned better postpartum care. Colin came for a week. My mom came after that for 10 days so I just did a lot better focusing on my postpartum care which has made a huge difference. Colin and I took a Bradley Method class which ws intense but I'm so grateful that we did because really, Colin was my doula for the next birth for the 23 of the 26 hours and he was doing hip squeezes, counterpressure, acupressure, talking me through each of the contractions, massage techniques– he was amazing and it really came down to us preparing really well. He was my little doula for 23 of those 26 hours and I will never forget that. It was very bonding for us and special. I guess for my second birth which was a much better experience, the contractions started at about 3:00 AM and they were about 10 minutes apart. My labor was 26 hours and interestingly enough, until I hit transition at 23 hours, my contractions did not get closer together than 10 minutes apart the whole time even though the intensity increased. I had a 60-second contraction 10 minutes apart the whole day. I texted Julie and Katie at 8:00 AM, “Contractions have started guys! I'll let you know.” 4 hours went past and I'd be like, “What's the update?” Julie: “Are you doing okay? How are things going?”Emmy: Then I'd be like, “Yeah, sorry nothing.” Then four hours later, they'd be like, “Are you good?” I'm like, “Yep. Still contracting 10 minutes apart, guys. Sorry.” So yeah. I contacted them. I had a chiropractor appointment already just by coincidence at 10:00 AM. I went to that. It didn't really seem to kickstart anything like I hoped but I just figured it couldn't hurt to get in. I think Meagan, didn't you go to the chiropractor? Meagan: I sure did. I actually did twice during labor. Emmy: Wow. Meagan: One in early, early labor and then one in that middle stage. Well, a little bit less. It was early, early and late early labor. I got adjusted and I swear to you that even though like you said that it didn't kickstart or dramatically change one contraction to another, I know that it changed the outcome for me. I fully believe that it helped change the outcome by helping me balance out my pelvis. Emmy: Okay, yeah. My doula, Katie, felt very strongly about it too that she felt like going to chiropractic in labor was very helpful for her too. She said that her contractions immediately changed afterward. Meagan: Yeah, and I have seen that happen. Emmy: I didn't feel like for me that was the case and I still didn't have her until 15 hours later, but still being aligned and having things be in the right place was probably still very helpful. It just wasn't immediate. So we labored and we had fun. We watched Survivor while he was helping me and I was laboring all around the house which I didn't think I would care that I was in my own house, but I actually in the end really loved being in my own shower and being in my own bed, being on my own toilet and laboring in my own environment actually ended up being really helpful for me and I enjoyed that. It wasn't until I did the Miles Circuit at 11:30 at night. I was like, I'm going to do the Miles Circuit. When I was doing lunges on our stairs, that's when my contractions were 10 minutes, 9 minutes, 8 minutes, 7 minutes– immediately they just started boom, boom, boom, boom getting closer together and I started to shake. I called my midwife, “Can you come check me? I think I'm getting closer now and it's really intense.” She showed up at about 12:30 AM and she checked me. She said, “Okay, you're dilated at about a 6 with a bulging bag and I think you're in transition right now. You're shaking.” So she stayed and then it was like the parade came in. Kate shows up. Julie shows up. Another midwife shows up and it was go time at that point. I really felt like they all came at the right time becuase I was really struggling through those last contractions for the last few hours. Between Katie doing hip squeezes and everyone, I remember laboring on the toilet because they say that's the labor station, right? What do they call that?Julie and Meagan: Dilation station. Julie: I got there when you were on the toilet and Katie says I got there right at the time when things were really picking up but I just remember because it was a 40-minute drive for me and when she said that you had a bulging bag and were 6 centimeters, every time I go to a birth, I have a heart attack that I'm going to miss it because 2 years ago, I missed three births in a row because things went so fast. Two of them were VBACs. I'm just like, Oh my gosh. I'm praying, like, Please, Jesus. Let me get there before this baby is born. This would not be fair if I miss it because I have had this relationship for 2 years. I'm begging. I think we got there right at the right time. Maybe a little sooner would have been better, but really, I think that I'm just so glad everyone arrived for you when they did. Emmy: Yeah. I thought they were like, “Why don't we try the toilet?” I honestly thought that was where I was going to die. I thought that was a cruel, cruel joke that you guys played on me. Those contractions were no joke on that toilet. So I was like, “Get me out of here.” That was the first time that I think I was like, “I can't do this.” You were like, “Yes, you can.” Just that resounding– all of the women in the room were like, “Yes, you can. You're doing it.” It was amazing. Julie: It's this weird diad between seeing a woman– I don't want to say in pain but I don't know what other word to use. But because all of us look at each other and smile whenever someone is like, “I feel like I'm going to throw up,” everyone in the room just looks at each other with this knowing look. We smile and we are like, “Yes! I'm so excited that you are going to throw up,” because it means that things are getting closer. We have seen this so many times. We know that it just means labor is progressing well and you are doing great even though that feels like the moment where you are really going to die. It's really good that you feel that way. Emmy: Yeah. Yeah, I was like, “I can't do this.” You were just like, “Yes, you can.” We labored on the bed a little bit after that and I started to have the urge to push. We moved to the tub which we had set up in the living room and Colin took his place in front of me holding my hands and then the doula and the midwife both did counterpressure on me and I started to push and that was intense. I think that was the only time. I didn't make a lot of noise besides breathing, but that was where I started to feel like the animal grunting. I also had this outside perspective in that moment of, I know this sounds weird probably to Colin in his face, but I was like, This is working. I was feeling pretty powerful at that time that I was going to be able to push this baby out. My water broke while I was pushing in the tub and I mean, it felt like a half an hour. I remember they told me afterward that it was an hour and a half of pushing. I think that was the most suprrising part of my birth was how long everything still took. It was 26 hours with an hour and a half of pushing. I was surprised at that but I also now look back and am like, Man, had I gone to the hospital, because I still felt like even with an epidural, without an epidural, going natural and pushing, I still felt like it took me a minute and took me a while to figure out the pushing and to feel like I was being fully effective. I was like, Man, if I was in the hospital with an epidural on my back, I bet the same thing would happen to me again. It still took me an hour and a half with no pain meidcation to figure out how to push and push this baby out. What would have happened on my back in the hospital? Quite possible, the same thing. They may have gotten to 2 hours and been like, “Do you want to keep pushing or do you want to call this?” It might have ended up in a C-section again. I'm really grateful that I feel like this is how it was meant to be because I pushed for an hour and a half which was really intense and hard. I was on all fours and then I ended up on more of a squatting pushing. It was just like, “Get her out!” Everyone was just encouraging me all the way around. Colin, once I was in the squatting position, was behind me and it was really special to me. When she was about to come out, Colin was like, “Colin, come switch me places.” He came up to my knees and he was able to be the one who pulled her out and hold her for the first time and bring her up to my chest. Well, bring her up to my chest, I was the first one to hold her, but he pulled her out and brought her up to my chest. We were just able to have that moment of holding this baby and I wasn't thinking in my head, I don't care. I was thinking that I had this beautiful little baby in my arms. It was what I had dreamed of. It was 3 years. It was exactly 3 years in the making of this very moment right now and this is what I knew it could be. Then we went to the bed and got to have that golden hour– not hour, golden hours– with her. It was perfect. It really was. I would do it again and I would do it the exact same way. I felt safe and I felt respected and I felt like there was never a moment in it that I was scared. I remember that there was one moment where I was like, Oh my gosh. I'm having a VBAC right now. Do I feel any scar pain right now? Nope, I feel great. Then I never thought about it again. It was wonderful. I am so grateful for this podcast and for the prep work that I did, the team that I built and to be able to have done that with Colin. It was very special and bonding for us. Julie: First of all, you are amazing. Second of all, are you going to do it again? Because sign me up for it.  I'm inviting myself. Third of all, yes. We need shirts this time. I can't believe we didn't order three amigo shirts. That was a missed opportunity. Emmy: We will not forget that this time. Julie: Fourth of all, I want everyone to know that this is probably the coolest trade for services I have ever done. I literally traded– I don't know how many pounds of natural, grass-fed, antibiotic-free beef. Half of my payment, I feel like I got a quarter of a cow or half of a cow maybe. It's cool. We are still eating it. It's the best beef ever. My husband, every time I make some of it for dinner or we go to a restaurant– we were at Zion National Park for spring break and he had a steak or something for dinner and he was like, “This steak is awful compared to the stuff we cook ourselves.” Meagan: Amazing. Emmy: That's right. Julie: If you want, next time, you obviously should have whoever you want, but I am fully open to trade for more cow. It was seriously the coolest trade ever and the fourth thing is that first of all, I can't believe it's been 4 weeks. I feel like so much h as happened since then that it also feels like last week for real. I have been sitting here just polling through your photos as you are telling your story and reliving all of these moments as you are telling them and I am just so inspired by you first of all hearing your story and second of all, just being able to look through these. I will have your gallery to you by this weekend for sure. I like to say 3-4 weeks turnaround and I've been just a titch behind in the last few galleries. I'm off my groove or something. I cannot wait for you to see them. I remember after I sent– I don't know. I was talking to Katie about this the other night at the positive birth group. Sorry, I'm not trying to center this around me. I promise. It might seem like it's going a little bit that way. Anyway, Katie hosts a positive birth circle for expecting parents and things like that because I love hanging around pregnant people. We were talking at the end and I was like, “I sent Emmy her gallery,” and her first words were, “Those are some real rough photos of me.” I was like, “I hope she liked them,” and Katie was like, “Actually, I talked to her about that at her first postpartum visit,” and the thing is that me and Katie go through all of these pictures and I love seeing that rawness and that vulnerability and your power and your strength and those are the ones I am naturally drawn to. I see all of that and yes, I guess even the one on the toilet which I think is so cool. It's super cool. There is so much power and strength, and the one of your husband catching the baby as he is coming out in this beautiful white birth pool in your beautiful white house. Those power ones are the ones I am super attracted to and Katie was like, “I think she maybe would have liked just a couple of just her and the baby holding the baby softly after the birth.” I was like, “Oh. Oh. Okay, yes. I've got to be more mindful of that when I send these sneak peeks to people sometimes.” Because it's true. I feel like as birth workers, we are drawn to that rawness and that vulnerability and that space. It is super cool. Especially you not quite being super 100% on board with birth photography ahead of time, I feel like yeah. Maybe I should have thought about that. I'm sorry. I've edited a few more that you can use. I sent them to you. Emmy: They were wonderful. Julie: There are plenty of those. It's interesting the relationship of your birth photos and how it evolves over time when you first get them, you will feel completely different about them in a year or in 2 years or in 5 years. My kids are 6, 7, 9, and 11 now. We go through all of their birth photos and their videos from their birth every year and it's so exciting and the emotions are just so different as we look at them over time. I feel like they get more valuable the farther away I get. I'm super excited for you to see those. I also recorded a full video for you so if you ever want a video, let me know because I have all of it. I record video at every birth. Meagan: And you can share it with this community. Julie: I have specific instructions for what I'm allowed to share or not and we are going to go over all of the ones I want to share after I deliver her gallery, but yes. I just think it is so cool because when I tell people I am a birth photographer– see, now I am centering this around me. I'm sorry. When I tell people I'm a birth photographer, I get one of three reactions. People are like, “Ew, why would you want photos of that?” Or people are like, “What's that like?” Or people will be like, “Oh my gosh. That is so exciting. I had a birth photographer. I love looking at birth photos.” I think that people who have that disconnected reactions are the people who really don't know the true power that the imagery holds especially for the birther so I think it's really cool to just listen to your transition or your transformation around that and have it evolve. I seriously am going through all of these. You are going to have 400 pictures I think. Okay, so my camera was in lower light. Sometimes it struggles to focus so I shot a little bit more than I usually would because I was scared of missing focus and normally I shoot about 600-800 photos at a birth and go through them and narrow them to about 150 roughly in that range. At your birth, I shot 1276. Emmy: Oh my gosh. Julie: I'm going through and– Emmy: Not a moment missed. Julie: No. Not a moment missed. I'm super excited. You'll probably get between 150-200 final photos but seriously, I'm like, “Yes. That hands picture and that hands picture. Oh yes. I see everybody squeezing her hips right now. That's super awesome. Colin is right in front of you squeezing your hands.” I don't know. I think it's just priceless to be able to relive these moments through the imagery. I think it's so cool and so powerful to see how awesome you are if you didn't know. I have photo and video evidence. Meagan: You are awesome. I love your journey. I love your journey from– I don't love that someone has a bad experience, but I love that someone can grow from a bad experience and truly, hearing you transform into the person you are now, I mean, I feel like for me, I changed as an individual after my birth. We talked about that earlier with the passion and stuff, but it's more than the passion. There was something inside of me that changed. It's amazing to hear when we have these stories. You can hear the shift. If you are listening, Women of Strength, keep going through these episodes and you can hear this shift. It is just so cool. It's so cool. It's actually one of my favorite things about being a doula. There's a CDC National Vital Statistics report that was sent out in 2022 and it shows that the percentage of U.S. home births rose from 1.26 in 2020 to 1.41 in 2021 which is a 12% increase since around the 1990s. It's kind of an interesting thing and there is so much more about home birth. That's just a really quick CDC stat, but it's really cool to see that people can feel comfortable at home. Like you said, in your own bed, on your own toilet, in your own shower, in your own kitchen, kneeling on your own floor. I just think there is something cool about that and home birth. So if you are exploring home birth listening to this, definitely go listen to all of our other HBAC stories and go listen to Down to Birth– what did you say it was? Emmy: Oh, 111. Meagan: 111 with Dr. Stu. Go check out our episodes with Dr. Stu or just go even listen to him and Blyss talk about home birth on their own podcast because home birth can be a safe, reasonable, and amazing experience and something that, like Emmy said, shocked her too. It shocked her as well. I think that you never know until you explore the option and get the facts. We also have a home birth blog and all of those things. We are going to have all of those links in the show notes. I'm going to find the Down to Birth podcast and link it in the show notes so it is easy to find. Thank you so much, Emmy. Your energy is just so fun. I am so happy for you and I hope that I get to see some more of these photos and if you decide to share a video, I love videos and it was honestly one of my biggest regrets. I was so focused on my VBAC that I forgot about the photography aspect. I'm so glad that you got looped into that because Julie became just a photographer because still to this day, like Julie said, my son actually just turned 8 this month so I tend to look at those images at those year marks and I really still to this day cherish it and look at it differently every time. I'm so glad that you have them and obviously for anyone listening, if you want a birth photographer, check it out. It is worth it. Emmy: It is. It is worth it. Julie: I think we should put a plug-in. To find a great doula, build the right birth team obviously. You can find a list of supportive VBAC providers on the community on Facebook in the documents and you can a VBAC doula at thevbaclink.com/findadoula and if you are looking for a birth photographer which I obviously think you should, there's a really good group called Birth Becomes You. It's kind of like The VBAC Link but for birth photography. You can follow them on Instagram. You can follow them on Facebook, but they have a database just like we do for VBAC doulas for birth photographers all over the world. You can find their search database at birthbecomesyou.com/find-a-photographer. That will be linked in the show notes too. I'm putting Paige to work here. Obviously, if you want to reach out to anyone of us, me or Meagan, to support you in your birth, we are happy to do that as well. If you need to find out information about Katie, she is in The VBAC Link Doula Directory as well. I am super excited that there are so many resources available. I feel like it's even way better than when I was having babies. There is just so much more information available and it wasn't even that long ago. It's just so cool that there are all of these resources that we have to help parents find the right support team for them no matter what that looks like. I don't know. I think it's really amazing. Meagan: Absolutely. Okay, well thank you again so much, Emmy, and have a wonderful day. Emmy: You too. Thank you so much for having me on. ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Episode 139. Hear about the stages of labor, the difference between Braxton-Hicks and real contractions, the pros and cons of hospital vs. home births, and more! This episode is meant to educate and inform (NOT provide medical advice). I speak from my experience of catching a dozen babies delivered vaginally, assisting in multiple cesarean deliveries, and working on a team monitoring numerous laboring mothers as a medical student. Editing Service for Pre-Med and Medical Students (CV, personal statement, applications): ⁠https://www.fiverr.com/firstlinepod⁠  Visit First Line's website and blog: ⁠https://poddcaststudios.wixsite.com/firstlinepodcast⁠ For a discount off your TrueLearn subscription use link: ⁠https://truelearn.referralrock.com/l/firstline/⁠ and code: firstline Instagram: @firstlinepodcast Facebook: ⁠www.facebook.com/firstlinepodcast⁠ Email: firstlinepodcast@yahoo.com Content on First Line is for educational and informational purposes only, not as medical advice. Views expressed are my own and do not represent any organizations I am associated with.

Elle had her baby! In this episode, she shares all the intimate details about how she and her husband, M, used natural sexual tactics to induce labor, and how they got back to being sexual after six weeks of healing. How to induce labor with sex: nipple play, penetrative sex, nipple clamps, orgasms and Braxton Hicks. (3:07)What is labor pain like? Comparing contractions to DVP, speculum spreading, fisting, anal discomfort: breathing through discomfort, and thinking of words as spells. (11:04)Post-baby vagina: "the husband stitch", and does it look different? Is it loose? (17:31)Postpartum sex: how long does it take to get back to sex after having a baby? Getting over the fear of having an orgasm. How to get comfortable with penetration again. The first orgasm after six weeks of vaginal healing. (20:43)Scheduling sex when you have a newborn. (28:09)Breast milk play: Breastfeeding and nipple play. Tasting breast milk and squirting it during blow jobs. (28:41)Being in the open lifestyle and parenthood: confidence issues with postpartum body. Diving back into sex parties and ENM (ethical non-monogamy) after having a child. (35:40)Maintaining your sex life with a baby around. How having a short timeline can be hot! (38:34)Major takeaways from giving birth and getting back to sex: Prioritizing sex to reignite sexuality in your relationship postpartum. Falling in love with your partner again. (42:01)Where to find us, and how you can support us:Instagram: @girlsgonedeeppod Merch: girlsgonedeep.com/shopContact: girlsgonedeep@gmail.comWHOREible Life: Get 10% off your deck with code GONEDEEP at whoreiblelife.com Instagram: @wlthegameWoo More Play Affiliate Link: Support us while you shop!

Hey! Today on The Labor Room Podcast we are talking about True vs False labor and how to know whether or not you're having real labor contractions or if they are just a run of annoying braxton hicks contractions. It can be confusing if you're a new mom but in this episode we will go over: 5 things to look for to determine whether or not it's the real thing3 things to try if you're experiencing uncomfortable false labor5 ways you'll know for sure that this is true labor or notConnect with Heather:@alifeinlaborhttps://alifeinlabor.comResources Mentioned in the episode:The Labor and Delivery GuideThe Week By Week Pregnancy Sequence - FreeThe Empowered Birth Academy - $50 off with the code THELABORROOMJoin the Conversation:  The Labor Room Facebook group is a place to connect with other moms for support.CLICK HERE to learn more about our online birth, breastfeeding, and baby care courses that will help you feel prepared and empowered on your journey to and through motherhood.And be sure to follow @alifeinlabor on instagram to join our little community of mamas who are navigating this stage of life right along side you.Support the Show.Support the Show.

Aisha's first baby was a scheduled Cesarean for a breech presentation during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Though she was symptom-free, Aisha tested positive for COVID and was not able to be with her husband or her baby right after birth. Her surgery was routine and uneventful, but the isolation left her devastated. Aisha moved and was living in Oregon during her second pregnancy. She deeply desired a home birth and found a midwife to support her who also happened to be trained in vaginal breech delivery. Aisha went into labor sooner than expected but handled it beautifully. When it was time to push, surprisingly, feet started coming out first! Her team stayed calm and ultimately brought her baby earthside safely. Aisha is so proud of what she accomplished! Evidence-Based Birth ArticleThe VBAC Link Blog: ECV ExplainedThe VBAC Link Blog: How to Turn a Breech BabyThe VBAC Link Podcast: Chelsey's 2VBA2C Breech BabiesNeeded WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details 03:31 Review of the Week06:10 Aisha's first birth11:16 A COVID-positive Cesarean14:38 Third pregnancy20:02 Planning for a home birth22:51 Breech workshop with Dr. Stu24:57 Labor begins31:25 Pushing out an unexpectedly breech baby35:29 Reviving baby40:53 Vaginal breech birth is possible49:39 Adding to the supportive provider listMeagan: Hey, hey everybody. Guess what? We have a breech VBAC, actually, it's a breech HBAC coming your way today. We have our friend, Aisha, with us and she is going to be sharing her amazing journeys. We know that when it comes to breech, it is difficult to find support. It is difficult to find the evidence in that and this is one of the number one reasons for Cesareans in the first place. If you have gone through our podcast, we have over 300 episodes at this point, you will probably hear quite a bit that, “Oh, my baby was breech. We tried an ECV and it didn't work so I had a C-section,” or “My provider didn't even offer that and I had a C-section.” This is one of the number-one leading reasons for a C-section and it doesn't always have to be that way. Aisha is living proof of that. Welcome to the show, love. How are you today? I'm so excited for you to be here. Aisha: Yeah, thanks. I'm so excited to be here. It's like a dream come true. It's wild. Meagan: It was so fun. Before we started recording, she said that not long after she had her baby, she was like, I've got to get my submission into The VBAC Link. Aisha: It was bathtime earlier this week when I saw the email and I was freaking out like, Oh my gosh. It was cool because my daughter is going to be a year old soon, so it was fun to think about her birth and I almost felt guilt because I was like, Oh my gosh, I haven't listened to The VBAC Link in a minute, but how much this podcast blessed me and strengthened me to go on to have a VBAC, specifically a breech VBAC which was not planned for. It was wild and I'm just really grateful for my provider. Meagan: Yeah, absolutely. I cannot wait to dive into this story. 03:31 Review of the WeekMeagan: We do have a Review of the Week and then we will turn the time over to our friend, Aisha. This is from larrr23 and it was left in March of 2023 so just over a year ago on Apple Podcasts. It says, “Hi, Meagan. I love your podcast so much. I always end up crying at the end of them. So happy for these moms who get this VBAC. Thank you for creating this podcast. It is so inspiring to hear these stories. I'm 38 weeks pregnant and hope and dream I get my VBAC here soon as well. Keep doing what you are doing here. You are helping so many women achieve their dream birth and knowing that they are not alone. Thank you for that.” Well, larrr23, if you are still listening with us, let us know how your birth went. I hope that you had an amazing birth no matter how it ended. Thank you so much for that sweet review. This is what I really am here for. I love this podcast so much myself. I listen and I record it and I hear these stories, but then I go back and I listen. I'm still hearing and still learning even knowing a lot about VBAC. I am still learning and growing myself and it's just so fun to hear these incredible stories. I'm so grateful for all of you who are submitting your stories and sharing these stories both on Facebook, Instagram, and here on the podcast. So thank you for your review and as always, if you wouldn't mind leaving us a review, they truly are what help other Women of Strength just like you find the podcast. You can leave that anywhere you are listening to the podcast or you can even email us at info@thevbaclink.com. 06:10 Aisha's first birthMeagan: Okay, are you ready to share your stories? Aisha: Yes. Yes. Meagan: I am so excited, so ready. I'd love to turn the time over to you. Aisha: Yeah, okay. So for my VBAC journey, I feel like it's really important to understand how I got there. I got pregnant with my first in 2020. My husband was in the military so we were stationed in South Korea. It was right before we left Korea. We moved back to the States. We had already been going through COVID in Korea so it wasn't as big of a deal because we had it first if that makes sense. We moved back and we are from Washington state so we went, spent time with family, and then we ended up in Texas. Here I am with my first baby, and I don't feel like I'm a naive or ignorant person but I never really thought about the process of having a baby. I'm the oldest. My youngest brother is 13 years younger than me, but I just never really thought about what went into having a baby. Meagan: I agree. That's how I was. I was like, Oh, cool. I'm so excited to have a baby. I'm pregnant. This is cool. All right, cool. What's next? Aisha: Yeah. I got books. I read things. I joined groups. I watched YouTube videos. I listened to the podcast Birth Queens a lot just to understand more. I had a pretty normal pregnancy. There wasn't anything too wild and because it was COVID, there was a lot of things over the phone. A lot of people thought it was weird, my friends and family, but my provider at the military hospital didn't have a good bedside manner and it was known that she didn't. It's hard to explain. My husband was enlisted so he was just by the time he left, he was a Sergeant. He was one of the lower guys, so I don't know if it was us or the culture, but you get nervous to speak out because of rank. He'd be like, “Don't say anything. We don't know if that will get back. You can't be.” Meagan: Or disrespect them? Aisha: Yeah, because there are some military wives who are assertive. Assertive is a better word. I don't like to use "aggressive" with women. She would just say things like, “You're gaining too much weight.” I'm like, “I'm walking every day. What do you want me to do about this?” Meagan: You're like, “I'm also growing a human.” Aisha: Yeah, I know that I'm gaining a lot. I'm seeing that, but what am I supposed to do about this? I just got stressed about the thought of her being near my vagina. I was kind of scared about it because I was like, I really hope it's not you. We get to the 36-37 week appointment and they do a quick ultrasound. They're like, “You're baby's breech.” I was like, “Oh, great. Cool.” They're like, “You can talk to a doctor and talk about an ECV.” I know ECVs can be controversial. Some people are uneasy about them, but one thing I thought was interesting about my life is that I was a breech baby and my mom had an ECV with me. Meagan: Interesting. Aisha: Right? I was born in 1990, so I grew up hearing the story about them trying to flip me. When I heard people like, “Oh, ECVs are so risky,” I was like, “My mom did it. What's so risky about this?” So we went in and the first provider we met with was like, “I like to put you in the operating room. I like to give you an epidural just in case something happens and we have to slice you open,” not like that, but it felt like that. I was like, Whoa. This is a lot.So we get to the day of the hospital and luckily, I'm so glad it was a younger doctor. I was like, "Are you bringing me back to the operating room?” He was like, “No, I like to make you comfortable. You can watch TV.” He was really sweet. It was an interesting experience. Of course, you are wearing masks but I remember the nurse took my mask off to let me breathe because it was painful. But they were so nice. My husband wished we had taken a video of because he was like, “They were pushing so hard on you and they were shaking.” Meagan: Oh, yeah. Aisha: My baby didn't flip. He's going to be 3 in April and he is very stubborn. He does what he wants and I'm like, This is totally you. We ended up getting COVID right before having a baby. My husband did. I tested positive, but I didn't show any signs. It didn't really affect me a lot. I was just kind of crazy. I remember I cooked Easter dinner and he wouldn't eat it. I'm like, “I cooked Easter dinner for you,” and he was really sick with COVID and I'm still doing things. 11:16 A COVID-positive CesareanAisha: We go to the hospital and we test positive again. They have this stupid COVID protocol where I'm like, “I already went through these 10 days,” but they just treated us like we were coming in throwing up on them. Does that make sense? Meagan: Oh yeah, I saw it as a doula. Yes. I had a client who wasn't even sick. She had no idea and tested positive. We all got kicked out and they acted like she was going to kill them. It was really not good. Aisha: Yeah. It was just weird. Because mine wasn't an emergency, I kept getting pushed back because they had emergency C-sections coming. The biggest thing that sticks out to me in my birth was when it was finally my turn, they came to me and they were like, “You're next, but it's going to take a little bit because we have to extra-clean because the last person was COVID.” I'm like, “Why do you have to extra clean? Shouldn't you always clean an operating room? That doesn't make sense to me.” Meagan: You should always extra clean, yeah. Aisha: Yeah, that's gross. What were your protocols before? I don't understand. Meagan: Interesting. Aisha: We didn't go back until 3:00 or 4:00. I don't know. It was late. You know, you're not eating because they tell you not to eat so I'm starving. The doctor who delivered my baby was super nice. She came in and was like, “Let's have a happy birthday today.” I don't remember anything weird. I've listened to some episodes where they're like, “Oh yeah, they were talking about their vacation.” I don't remember that. Meagan: That was me. Aisha: Oh yeah. I felt like it was really respectful. The anesthesiologist, I wish I would have gotten his name. He was wonderful. He was so sweet and kept telling us what was happening. I was like, “Oh my gosh. You are our personal tour guide for this.” He was really kind. I have a nervous cough. I always have when I get nervous. I just cough. After they took my baby out, I coughed. That's where I get emotional so they took my baby away because they were like, “Oh, COVID positive. You coughed.” I'm like, “I have a nervous cough. I always have my whole life.” They took my husband away so I was there for 30 minutes alone. Sorry, I get so emotional thinking about it. All of those sweet pictures that people have, I didn't get that. Oh my gosh. My son is going to be 3 and it still brings me. Meagan: It's still with you, yeah. Aisha: Whenever I talk, yeah. The C-section itself was fine, but it's just the care that got me. I never know how to explain that to people. No, it's the care. So then we finally were in the recovery room. I'm starving. My husband gave me fruit snacks. We didn't realize I was not supposed to eat, but I was starving. We get to the mother's room at 11:00 at night. The kitchen is closed. I'm like, “I'm starving. When can I eat?” The nurse laughs and says, “When you can walk.” I'm like, “But I'm hungry.” She's like, “You've got to get up and walk first.” I'm like, “But I'm hungry.” What? Yeah, so that was him. That's that part. 14:38 Third pregnancyAisha: Everything else was fine. It was just the care. They lock you in a room when you are COVID-positive. It was just wild. When he was about 11 months old, almost a year old, I got pregnant again. We moved from Texas to Oregon because my husband was getting out of the military and sadly, 10 weeks later, I had a miscarriage. I had already picked out the midwives I was going to use in Oregon. I was like, I'm going to have a home birth because Oregon has really good laws when it comes to home birth and I am going to do this. There were a couple of driving factors to that. One, I did not want to go back to the hospital. I was like, I'm not being treated like that again, because I'm a pretty timid person and I don't know if I'd be strong enough to advocate for myself. The other thing is we had a toddler. My mom lived in Seattle and my husband's parents just moved to Idaho. My dad and my step-mom live in Atlanta, Georgia and I'm like, There's no one to take care of my toddler so we'll just have a home birth. My husband was like, “That sounds kind of weird,” but my husband's mom actually had a home birth with her fifth. It wasn't abnormal for my husband's family, but he was kind of like, “Ew, gross.” We always joked right before I had my first if it was a scheduled C-section, my husband wouldn't be there because he is really queasy when it comes to blood then finally when they were like, “It's a C-section,” my husband was like, “Oh, you've got this.” I was like, “Nope, you're going to be there. Sorry.” I know it was hard for him. I know how he gets. I don't think it was him being weird or anything so I was totally fine with it. I had my miscarriage in April and then I got pregnant later that summer. It was cool– I guess not cool. I thought it was cool when I got pregnant with her daughter. Her due date was the same weekend I had my miscarriage. I was like, Wow. It was interesting. During my miscarriage, my providers were wonderful. My midwife was wonderful. The ER doctor was so great. It was a sad experience, but it was a peaceful experience. I definitely was at peace with it even though it was really sad. I definitely say the driving force with my daughter, there was a lot of panic and anxiety. I would say, I don't know if it's having another child and having a toddler, but I definitely didn't feel as connected to that pregnancy. But again, I have a very active toddler. So one thing though, we didn't find out the gender which was pretty fun. A lot of people thought it was weird and they were like, I like to prepare. I'm like, What do you have to prepare for? I just thought it would be really cool to not find out. I didn't really post about my pregnancy a lot. I think I announced in January and she was born in April. I didn't talk to people about having a home birth because I didn't want to hear it. I didn't want to hear people's opinions about it. I remember I had some friends that I was like, I really don't want to talk to you about it. They would ask, “Oh, how was your doctor's appointment?” I was like, “Oh, it was great.” I didn't say anything else because my midwife would come to me. It was so nice that she came to you and I didn't have to worry about getting out the door and the whole family was involved. It was super nice. 20:02 Planning for a home birthAisha: Oh, I remember I told my dad. I was like, “Yeah, I'm going to do a home birth.” He was like, “I don't know. It sounds kind of sketchy. Are you sure?” I was like, “Yes.” He was like, “Don't you want to go to a real doctor?” I don't think my dad was being rude, but I was like, “Dad, it's not a mountain man. It's a real midwife. It's a licensed business. It's a real person. It's not some woman off the street that I'm like, Come birth my baby. She went to midwifery school.” But no, my midwife was amazing. Her name is Liz and she was just so calming. Her voice was just very soft-spoken it felt like, but I was so worried about having a breech birth. Whenever I brought it up, she'd be like, “We're not talking about that. We're not talking about that.” I was like, “What if this baby is breech?” She's like, “We're not talking about that.” I'm like, “Okay, cool.” So when I was pregnant, like I had shared before, I just listened to The VBAC Link. I just listened to The VBAC Link. That's all I listened to. I worked from home at the time just doing computer work and I would just listen to episodes. I would be sobbing. It was for a lawyer and I'd be doing these things and crying just thinking about all of these amazing things that these women went through and how they were able to bring their babies. One thing that I believe I learned from this podcast, so I failed my gestational diabetes test, my glucose test, but I had heard from an episode that it varies from state to state. I was like, Interesting. But my midwife was like, “You just did it by two points or whatever the thing is, so just watch what you eat. Keep a log and let's talk about it.” So that's what I did. She showed no other concerns. She was like, “Just eat more protein”, then I would log my food and at appointments, we'd go over it and she would go, “Oh, see? This is when your sugar goes high. It's because you ate this. Let's try to eat more of this,” and then I tried to stay as active as I could with my toddler. My husband was in school. He left the military and was in school finishing up his bachelor's degree so we live right next to campus. We lived in a basement apartment and at first, I was like, Why? We rented this basement apartment and I was like, Can I legally have a baby here? I was like, Is this allowed? Do I have to tell my rental company? There were these 5 girls who lived above us and I was like, How am I going to do this? Aren't they going to think this is weird if they hear me? But yeah, I just remember this basement apartment. It was pretty tiny. I would just sit in my living room and envision my birth there and be like, Okay, I can do this. 22:51 Breech workshop with Dr. StuAisha: April comes and my midwife had done a workshop with Dr. Stuart. Meagan: Oh, Fischbein. Aisha: Yeah, like 2 months before I gave birth. Meagan: That's awesome. Aisha: I was like, “Oh, so is this a possibility?” We were on state insurance because my husband is a student. There were a couple of things. They covered my midwife, but we would have to pay for the birth because I was a VBAC but my midwives, they are really great where they accept payment plans because they were like, “We don't believe people should tell you where to give birth. If you just pay us $5 a month, that's fine.” We ended up paying it all off because we were like, “That's fine too.” But she told me, she was like, “Well, because you've never given birth vaginally, you wouldn't be able to.” I'm like, “Oh, that sucks,” which is the same thing they told me in Texas. I was like, People breech birth babies all the time.I was like, “Can I transfer hospitals?” They were like, “No, no one will probably take you because you've never given birth vaginally.” I was like, “Okay, that's weird. Whatever.” I was like, “Oh, dang.” My baby was due at the end of April and on April 5th, I started getting contractions. With my son, I never had contractions. I never went into labor. I never had Braxton Hicks. I didn't know how any of that felt so I was like, Oh, this is new. What is going on?Oh, I did have a doula. In Oregon, when you are on state insurance, they do cover a doula so that was really nice. Meagan: Yeah, that's really awesome. Aisha: Yeah. The doula that I had runs the doula program, but I contacted her directly because I was just looking through Facebook groups and she was like, “No, I'll take you on.” She was actually training to become a birthing assistant with my midwife so it was pretty fun. She worked really well with them. 24:57 Labor beginsAisha: Okay, so on April 5th, I start getting contractions. They just tell me to rest. I remember I had a really bad headache so I was like, Oh, maybe I'm dehydrated and maybe that's why this was happening. So I was drinking lots of water and coconut water and trying to eat protein. That night, I remember we were watching Ted Lasso and I was trying to hone in and focus while having contractions. I don't remember anything else. All I remember is Ted Lasso. Then that night at 2:00 AM, my husband ended up calling the midwife because they were picking up. She came and he made this observation when she got there, they slowed down. She checked on me and she was like, “It looks like you're just having false practice labor,” whatever you want to call it. “Just rest up.” I was like, “Okay.”So the next morning, I wake up at about 7:00 AM. Through the night, while I go through contractions and my husband was timing them, I'm moaning through them. I took this course. Sorry, I'm jumping around. I took this course called Pain-free Birth so I just was trying to practice what she had taught in it. I was breathing through riding the wave and all of that. My husband would moan along with me during contractions while he was sleeping and I was like, “You're not helping me.” He was like, “Oh, sorry. I didn't realize what I was doing.” Okay, so then I wake up at 7:00 AM and I take a shower. I just remember I was like, I'm going to curl my hair, but then I was like, I can't do that. It's so interesting how in tune our bodies are and almost how in tune our family is because that week, my toddler slept in until 10:00 AM every day. That day, he slept in until 10:00. Meagan: That's amazing. Aisha: He knew something was going on, right? That morning, I remember I ate. I listened to some Taylor Swift music and just swayed around my kitchen. I turned on Anastasia the movie and laid on my couch and went through my contractions. I labored a lot alone which is what I wanted. I didn't want people at my birth. I didn't want a mom or any relative and I think my mom would be great during a birth, but knowing me, I think if I wasn't progressing, I think I would panic and from what I've learned, your body can shut down and not do it because I would feel the stress like, No one is comfortable. I'm doing this to people. I wanted to labor alone if that makes sense. Meagan: Yeah, it does. You didn't want to be the host of your birth. Aisha: Yeah, and I feel like that's what I would have been. I would have been like, “Does everyone have drinks? Does everyone have snacks? Is everyone comfortable? What does everyone want to watch on TV?” I know me and I was like, I don't want that. So at about 10:00 AM, my husband and my toddler come out of bed. I put on the Peanuts movie for my toddler and I'm just kneeling on my couch which was really sweet. Every time I went through a contraction, my husband was timing them and they were still pretty inconsistent. That morning, I was texting with my doula and keeping her up to date with stuff. My toddler would come over and rub my back or bring me toys and I thought that was really sweet. My husband had a 12:00 class and was like, “Should I go?” I was like, “Do what you want, but probably not.” It was really funny because he was actually watching a video for his class. Have you ever seen– I always forget this actor's name– have you ever seen the show Lost? You know the evil guy, the cult evil guy? Meagan: Yes. I don't know the name. Aisha: He was narrating this video, this video on Marie Curie. Meagan: Curie? The X-ray lady? Aisha: Yes. Meagan: That's so funny because my daughter did the wax. She was Marie Curie for her wax museum for her 2nd grade. Aisha: Yeah, so my husband is watching this video and it's that guy narrating it. It's about her. I'm going through my contractions, focusing, and asking him questions about it. I was like, “What did she do? How did that happen?” I had the Peanuts movie. I had that going on in the background. Yeah. So finally, I'm like, “I'm going to go lay down.” My husband was like, “Okay. I'm going to be there.” I go lie down and all of a sudden, I start getting hot flashes and get really cold. I'm like, “What is happening?” My doula finally called me. She heard me and she was like, “You are in transition.” We didn't realize how far this was happening. I was like, “Maybe we're not communicating,” but we were telling them about the contractions. We were keeping them up to date. I got back in the shower and she was like, “I'll be right there, but you should probably call your midwife.” My husband was trying to figure out my phone. Something happened with my phone and he was like, “I can't open it. I can't open it.” I'm in the shower and he calls the midwives and the one that is not my midwife, the other one who I had met with before and I liked her too, she picked up and listened. She was like, “Okay, we'll send Liz right over. It sounds like something is happening.” I'm in the shower. It just was so funny. I remember being like, I can't do this. I can't do this. I can do this. No, I can't. Yes, I can. Then my husband was trying to talk to me. I keep referencing a lot of pop culture things. Meagan: I love it. Aisha: Do you know that TikTok sound? It's from a movie with Will Ferrell where he's like, “Shut up. Don't talk right now. I'm so scared right now–”Meagan: I don't know if I've seen that. Aisha: Yeah, it must have been trending then, but that was running through my mind. I was like, Shut up. I'm so freaking scared right now. Will Ferrell was going through my mind. Then my husband is just standing at the bathroom door and he's like, “I don't know what to do.” Then I'm like, “I feel like I have to poop. That's what I feel like right now.”31:25 Pushing out an unexpectedly breech babyaisha: I go over to the bathroom and go over to the toilet. I am like, “I can't sit down. What's happening?” I got scared and then all of a sudden, it must have been my water breaking because there was a pop and stuff went everywhere. Like I said, my husband is very sensitive to things so he was like, “Should I come in there and hold you up?” I was like, “No, because I don't need you gagging in my ear because it stinks in here. Please stay right there.” Finally, I don't know the times. I've been told they showed up pretty fast, but you know when it's all happening. You lose the concept of time. My doula shows up. She says that my husband, his name is Logan, was standing there with a towel. He was ready to come in and catch a baby. She said he looked almost like a butler. He was just standing there. She comes in and rubs my back and I was like, “Heidi, I'm so stupid. This is so stupid. Why am I doing this?” Then comes my midwife with all of her stuff. You know what? It is so crazy. That morning, I don't know if this is with all home births, but with my midwife, I had to buy certain things. I had to buy towels and hydrogen peroxide. I had to buy all of the stuff. It had come literally that morning. I wasn't due for 3 weeks. They take me into my bedroom and all of a sudden, I hear them ripping things open, just moving stuff and ripping things open. I'm just over the bed and moaning. One of my biggest regrets is not having a birth photographer because they are all fuzzy and terrible pictures. Then they said I was pushing, but I don't remember pushing at all. I just remember riding those contractions. Then at one point, they asked me. I think it was my doula. She was like, “Aisha, do you want to feel your baby? Do you want to put your hands down and feel your baby?” I said, “Absolutely not. No, I do not,” which I'm kind of glad about because I probably would have felt a foot or something and that would have scared me. I'm leaning over my bed and then like I said, my midwife is a very conservative, meek person, very soft-toned. All of a sudden, I heard her say, “Aisha, I don't want you to panic, but your baby is coming out ass-first.” I was like, “Oh, that's different.” She said afterward when we were talking, she said she saw it and she just leaned back and went, “Hmm.” She took a picture of it and then my husband's perspective was funny because he said he comes and he sees feet and he was like, “What is happening? Why is my baby coming out this way?” She tells me to get on my hands and knees. She gets firm because I don't know what is happening. I get on my hands and my knees beside my bed. She tells me to push and I'm like, “I don't know what you're talking about. I have not been pushing this entire time,” but I must have pushed. Then I heard a splat and I was like, Is that my baby? It was my placenta. It felt out of me.Meagan: What? So baby was born, you turn over, and then the placenta? Or wait– Aisha: Yeah, so I'm on my hands and knees. The baby is born. I hear a splat and I get on my knees. I get up, lean back, look down, and there is a placenta. Meagan: Okay, I was like, Whoa, wait. That can't… My mind was backward because I was like, Well, your husband saw the feet so I'm assuming baby's out.Aisha: Yeah, sorry. The baby was out. Yeah, but I thought it was my baby falling out of me but I'm kind of glad my placenta came out like that because I was more scared to birth my placenta than my actual baby. 35:29 Reviving babyAisha: I turn around and she's pretty limp. My midwife explained that it's pretty common for breech babies to come out not breathing. She was talking to Heidi and she was like, “Get the–” what's it called? An ambu bag? Meagan: For oxygen and stuff? Yeah. Aisha: She's directing Heidi where it is. Right before I had her, we didn't talk about names, but I had a strong impression it was a girl so I approached my husband. I was like, “Hey, I have these three names.” Her name is Margaret. I was like, “Margaret Sage, Margaret Alexis, or Margaret Alexandria. You pick.” He was like, “Margaret Sage.” I was like, “Okay cool. Let's do it.” We don't even know what we're having. Anyway, so she was limp, limp and not breathing. I just look at her and I go, “Oh, it's a boy.” My doula goes, “No, Aisha, it's a girl.” I'm like, “No, it's a boy.” I'm so dazed and then Liz was like, “Aisha, I need your help.” She had been doing mouth-to-mouth. She was like, “I need your help, Aisha. Talk to your baby. Help me with your baby.” So I just start stroking her and holding her head up. Later, Liz said that I don't know if she said this to say this, but I was one of the best assistants that she had. She was shocked because I recently gave birth. She said she recently had a father and he kind of panicked. She said it was kind of cool. I didn't know what was happening. Meagan: Your intuition kicked in. Aisha: Yes. I'm just like, “Hi, hi, hi. Hi, baby.” I'm just holding her head and then they got her breathing and gave her to me. There is a picture of me. You know those candid shots that you see where it's ugly but beautiful? That's what it is. It's ugly, but beautiful. I'm crying and holding her. Blood is everywhere, but I love that picture so much because it represents something that I did. Oh, I skipped this part, but when she was coming out breech, I was like, Those midwives in Texas can suck it. I'm doing this. I was told I can't and I did. That's crazy, then they just put me in my bed and then by protocol, you have to call EMS and EMS came pretty quickly. They came. I remember they asked me, “Oh, do you want to be transferred?” I was like, “No.” They were like, “Baby looks good.” Then they asked my husband, “What's the baby's name?” My husband was like, “I don't know.” I missed this. He had been running around doing things. When my midwife got there, we had street parking so she just parked in the middle of the street and asked my husband to go park her car. Keep in mind that I still have my toddler. I think he napped that day which is crazy. That's wild. Oh my gosh. My baby was born at 12-something. My son woke up at 10:00 and he napped. He woke up to a baby. That's crazy. I never connected that but he was awake for a very small amount. Yeah, that's it. They hung around for a bit and then they left and that was that. Meagan: All was well. Aisha: Yeah, it was crazy. I can see the shock when I share it to people, but it's probably one of the best things I have ever done, the coolest thing. I feel like I'm a pretty average person. When I was filling out my bio, I was like, I'm a stay-at-home mom and I watch a lot of TV. Yeah, then I did it. I had a breech birth. I guess I missed this thing. They weren't tracking that she was breech. They think that maybe she flipped during labor. It's not like I went in planning to have a breech birth. It just happened. Meagan: She obviously wasn't aware when she was like, “Oh, I'm taking a picture of this. This is crazy.” Aisha: Yeah, they actually used the picture of Margot coming out of me. I think I shared it with you guys. She shared it. They actually share it for advertisement. She was like, “Can I use this?” I was like, “Yeah, that's fine.” Meagan: Yeah, I mean, it's amazing. Let me see what picture. I haven't even seen your picture yet. Oh yeah, this is an awesome picture. Aisha: Yeah. Meagan: Yes. Aisha: It's kind of crazy. Meagan: This will be posted on our social media so if you want to go see this really awesome picture, I definitely suggest it. One leg is still inside. Aisha: I think both of them, right? Meagan: One is out and then it looks like one is maybe coming out soon. Aisha: Maybe. Yeah, when I was trying to look for it last night, my husband was like, “I have lots of pictures. They are gross.” I was like, “I know which one I am looking for, you weirdo.” Meagan: Yes, I love it. Thank you for sharing it with us. 40:53 Vaginal breech birth is possibleMeagan: Breech birth is possible. Rebecca Dekker over at Evidence-Based Birth did an episode actually just recently looking at this. It says January 2024 so just recently. We'll make sure to add the link in there. It was with Sara Ailshire I think is how you say her name. They talk about breech birth and it's a long transcript and it's a great podcast so I would highly suggest it. They talked about how the study that was published in 2022 that included the studies from a 10-year period of 2010-2020 and they found that perinatal death rates were 0.6% in planned vaginal breech groups and 0.14% in planned Cesarean breech groups which is kind of crazy to think. It's pretty low. When we talk about death, that's a serious thing to talk about. Those are pretty low. They did find that Cesarean favored the rates, but there was not anywhere near as high as the breech trial. We just know that breech is starting to dissolve, these options. The providers in Texas were like, “No, we don't do this.” I mean, ECVs aren't even offered in a lot of places. Aisha: Oh wow. Meagan: Especially for VBAC. So for this instance, if you were a Cesarean going for a VBAC and having a breech baby to flip, a lot of providers are like, “No, that's not okay.” We actually have a blog about that too showing that's not necessarily true. You have options and we need more providers doing Stu's training like yours going out and learning. I love how coincidental your training was to your birth. Really, really, really cool. Aisha: Yeah, it was crazy. It's interesting that you say that. Now we live in Nebraska because my husband is in graduate school. Nebraska has some pretty weird laws about home birth. They are the ones, I don't know the wording, but you can't have a doctor or a midwife there. You have to have an undergrad– I don't know how to explain it. I wonder if we had a third baby, what do I do? Do I have to tell a provider that I had a breech home birth after Cesarean? Obviously, my kids like to be breech. What do I do? Meagan: There's something about your body that has breech babies. Aisha: And I'm not asking you, that's just something that I think about a lot. I'm not comfortable being in a state that doesn't support what I want when obviously I went through something. I'm obviously not going to do something that harms my child, but I feel like my mental health is important too. I think with my son's birth, it just always makes me sad to think about. It's really hard because right after I had Margot, I met two other women who are onto their second and they have had C-sections and they are like, “I'm just going to do it again. I'm just going to have a C-section. My doctor said that we can attempt but I might not progress.” I just want to shake them like, “You can. Don't listen to that doctor!” But then I feel like it's also important to respect a woman for how she wants to birth. If you want to have a C-section, that's totally fine. I definitely see the benefits in both especially when you have young children. The women who I met who were like, I'm just going to have another repeat C-section, they are not around family. That's hard to plan out. Meagan: It's hard. I think that's one of the things that we want to do at The VBAC Link is give all of the information so when a provider is like, “You could, but it probably wouldn't really happen so we can just go do it easily and schedule it and have a C-section.” We just want you to know actually what the evidence says and that it's actually not true. Here is an option over here. Whether you pick it or not, we here at The VBAC Link support you 150,000% percent, but in the end, we really just want you to know what your options are and not just be told something that's really not true. Aisha: Yeah, whenever I meet women who have had C-sections and they are pregnant again, I always tell them, “The VBAC Link. Do you listen to podcasts? You need to listen to this one. It will help you so much.” I think we don't realize. I was talking about this with my husband recently. We don't realize that you can pick your provider. You don't have to go with somebody that you don't like. Here I was with my son and this midwife– and they just recently changed their base name but it was called Fort Hood, Texas. In the Fort Hood, Texas Spouse Facebook group, people were like, “This provider is terrible. I don't like her.” You could just look up her name and see all of these negative things. You never saw a positive and you just feel like you are stuck with this person like, Oh, she's been doing this for 20-something years. She must know what she is doing. Meagan: I love that you pointed that out. Dr. Fox and I talked about this on an episode. I think it was on our podcast, not his, where we talked about how we have the option to choose but then we also have to respect their option to choose because if they don't feel comfortable supporting this type of birth, that's okay. That's their prerogative then it's up to us to stay or to go and to find if that's the right provider because we can fight for what we want, but we can't make someone change their mind so that's why you are doing your research and looking up those reviews, talking to your people in your community, really having an open discussion with your provider. Most of the time, your provider is going to give you pretty quickly if you are giving open-ended questions. You're going to get the, Oh, that didn't jive with me. That didn't resonate with me, pretty early on. Then even then, even if you have a later situation where you have a provider who was supposedly supportive the whole time and they are changing their tune, again, like she said, you have the ability to choose. You do not have to stay with that person. You do not. You can leave, which is hard. That is very daunting. Aisha: It is. I feel like we are a people-pleasing culture. Meagan: We are. Aisha: We really are and we want to trust our medical professionals because they went to school. They know. I watch Grey's Anatomy. I'm not a doctor. When they tell me my blood pressure, I'm like, Okay, cool. I don't know what that means, but you told me it's good. You want to trust them, especially with something so intimate about being near your private parts and having such a spiritual experience of having a baby. I don't want those people in my birthing space. Yeah. It's not something that I want. Meagan: And a lot of the time, they're not going to want to be in yours either, right? That's what is so important. If we are feeling that way, they might be feeling that way. It's important to read those. I felt that way and I don't like contention. I mean, sometimes you might disagree with that because sometimes on the podcast, we can get sassy but I don't like it and that's how I didn't want to tell him I wanted to leave. I didn't tell him that I didn't like what he was saying or how I was feeling and I stayed then I had a repeat Cesarean instead of fighting for myself and standing up for myself. I stayed. 49:39 Adding to the supportive provider listMeagan: It's not the biggest regret of my life because I feel like that birth specifically is truly what brought me here today in my doula career and in this career, but at the same time, it really wasn't what I wanted and I do believe that I probably would have had a different experience if I would have followed my intuition and gone somewhere else even at 36 weeks. It was the very end. Don't ever hesitate to change once, twice, or even in labor. Do whatever you need to do. Oh my gosh, know that breech is possible. Breech is 100% possible vaginally. Aisha: It is. Meagan: And if you are listening right now and you are like, Yeah, it is because I had a breech birth too, or whatever and you had a breech-supportive provider, will you please email us at info@thevbaclink.com? We want to add these providers to the list. I'm trying to narrow this list down into specific things like vaginal birth after multiple Cesareans, ECVs, and breech birth because we have so many people looking. We have so many people looking and I know they are out there. They exist, but I am just one person here in Utah so we all need your help. If you have providers in and out of the hospital who will support breech, please email us at info@thevbaclink.com so we can add to the list along with Aisha's providers. ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Our Sponsors:* Check out Dr. Mom Butt Balm: drmombuttbalm.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Kristen joins us today to share her tough C-section and two beautiful VBAC stories! After a 41-week elective induction that turned into a C-section and a 2.5-week NICU stay due to meconium and heart decelerations, Kristen was very nervous about giving birth again. She found The VBAC Link Podcast and found hope. Through her VBAC research, she gained the determination and confidence she needed to try again. When she was showing symptoms of preeclampsia, Kristen accepted the reality of a medically necessary induction. She was nervous but knew things would be different. She labored well and had moments of discouragement, but she used the tools available and achieved her VBAC. Kristen also had some preeclampsia symptoms but was able to avoid induction, labored almost completely at home, and caught her baby in a wheelchair at the hospital waiting for the elevator!How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details 01:11 Review of the Week04:23 Kristen's first pregnancy06:20 Agreeing to induction08:27 Emergency C-section and NICU stay12:55 Gaining confidence to VBAC and getting pregnant again17:28 39-week induction21:18 Feeling discouraged27:15 Getting the epidural and pushing for less than an hour30:58 Third pregnancy34:41 Forced to find a new provider at 36 weeks40:45 Labor begins46:11 Rushing to the hospital48:06 Delivering her own baby in a wheelchair51:27 Preeclampsia article and calibrating your blood pressure cuffMeagan: Hey everybody, welcome to the show. We have our friend, Kristen with us today. Hello, Kristen. Kristen: Hi. Meagan: We have her and her little baby as well so you can hear those little cute cues in the background. You can just smile. I love when we have little babies on the podcast or kids. The other day, we had a little toddler. It was so fun. It makes my heart so happy. How old is your little baby now? Kristen: She is over a month. Just over a month. Meagan: Just little little. This is a VBAC baby. Kristen: Yes, she is. Meagan: We were just talking before we got recording. Kristen had a C-section and then a VBAC and with that VBAC, she had preeclampsia. We are going to talk a little bit more of what that looked like, but that has definitely been one of the themes that our listeners have been asking about. Is VBAC possible with lab-positive preeclampsia? The answer is yes. It is. We will talk a little bit more about that and then she has a surprise. 01:11 Review of the WeekMeagan: We are going to read a review and then we are going to dive into her stories. This review was left in March 2023 by mcgrace and it says, “Must-listen For Every Mom”. It says, “This podcast is a must-listen not just for a mom preparing for a VBAC, but for anyone who gives birth and has given birth or plans to give birth in the U.S. Meagan wonderfully walks through personal stories while prepping for helping for helpful advocacy tips and a solid dose of empowerment in each episode. If you want to hear people discussing their plan to VBAC, if you are curious about what giving birth in the U.S. is like, and if you are wanting to have tips on how to mentally, emotionally, and physically prepare yourself for the best birth, this is the podcast to listen to.”I love that. Thank you so much and I agree. This is such a great place for everybody, anyone preparing for birth to listen. I think with crazy-high Cesarean rates, we've talked about this before. We have to talk about why they are happening and this podcast literally shares a lot of why Cesareans are happening. It is such a great podcast for anyone including first-time moms or even fifth-time moms who haven't had a Cesarean. As always, if you wouldn't mind leaving us a review, you can head over to Apple Podcasts or Google or Spotify or wherever you are listening and drop us a review. You can even email us at info@thevbaclink.com.04:23 Kristen's first pregnancyMeagan: Okay, Kristen. Welcome. Welcome, welcome and thank you so much for booking this. We are so excited that you were willing to come on. Kristen: I am so excited to be here. I have heard so many stories and been encouraged by so much so it is so awesome to share mine. Meagan: Yes. Well, I would love to turn the time over to you. Kristen: Okay, so I got pregnant pretty young. I was 20 at the time and I was in college so when I got pregnant, it was a little bit of a surprise. It was a little bit of a crazy pregnancy moving and figuring all of that out, but I got to move home to my big, crazy family. I had a lot of support. I had a really normal pregnancy. I was pretty young and a lot of my sisters had had babies, so I felt like I knew a little bit about birth and I really didn't put any effort into looking any deeper into it. I felt like my mom had six kids naturally and I just thought, Okay. This is just what we do. I had midwives. I had a super normal pregnancy and then I got to the end and I was very done being pregnant. I was just ready to meet my little baby and have my baby. I was offered a 41-week induction. I think it was just offered to me and I was like, “Meet my baby on Friday? Sounds great.” I didn't think anything of it. My mom had all of her babies naturally and she did seem a little wary to me, but I just was thinking I am huge. I get you are wary, but I want to do this. I want to meet my baby. 06:20 Agreeing to inductionKristen: I had a Foley placed the night before my induction date so I had a Foley placed and I was going to go home. When she placed the Foley, she told me— I can't remember exactly when they fall out, but I was only a centimeter below. I think I was 3 centimeters. She was like, “Oh wow. You really stretched when I put this in. I might see you before your induction.” I was like, “Great.” I went home and then we got there in the morning. I wasn't feeling anything. I was induced and it was just the natural cascade of things. I got Pitocin and then I had GBS so I had to get the antibiotics, but I thought I was allergic to them because I had a reaction as a kid so they had to give me something else. I don't know whatever else antibiotic they had to give me, but it was something different. It made me feel super, super sick. I just wanted to lay in bed. I was like, I feel sick and I don't want to stand up. I'm in labor and I don't feel good. So I just laid there pretty much. Then I got an epidural and I got to a 10. I pushed for 3 hours but his head never came. He was having some decals so all of a sudden, I just heard the word “C-section” and I was so shocked. It didn't come into my brain at all before they said it. I don't know why. It was a long day. I had started at 5:00 AM and by the end of my pushing, it was 12:00 PM. I didn't think of a C-section before that. Meagan: I think a lot of us don't. It's not really something that we plan for or even think about. Kristen: Yes. So it's really jarring when you hear it. 08:27 Emergency C-section and NICU stayKristen: Then we had to go down for the emergency C-section because my water had broken and there was meconium and he was deceling quite a bit all day. We went in for my C-section. I was pretty scared. My husband was really scared and we just went in. I was super shaky and I was terrified. I don't do well with that kind of stuff, so I say the worst part of giving birth is the IVs. I was super nervous and then they needed to get him out so they told me, “You have to try to calm down and try to stop shaking so much” because they needed to get to him. I don't remember exactly what happened. I just remember laying there and the anesthesiologist was just like, “She needs to calm down. Do you want me to give her something?” I just remember looking up at who was doing my C-section and who was somebody completely new because my midwife couldn't do it. I remember them shaking their head and right after that, he must have put something in to try to calm me down. I calmed down, but all of a sudden, I felt like I couldn't talk. I couldn't speak. I was just lying there. I was so scared. I felt my son being pulled out. I felt them wiggling him out of my body and then I didn't hear him cry. I just remember looking at my husband and I was mad at him almost. I was like, “He's out and he's not crying. I can't say anything. You need to say something.” He didn't know he was out, but I felt like he should know he was out. So then my son had to go to the NICU because he aspirated meconium. I just remember them lifting him up and the NICU nurses showing him over the drape as they were running out and they were like, “Here, mama,” and showed me him. I just remember feeling like such a bad mom. Everybody says, “Oh, when you see your baby and when you feel your baby, it's just this overwhelming sense of something you'll never feel again,” and I didn't feel that. I felt nothing. I couldn't talk. I just felt nothing and I was so scared and just numb at that point. My husband went with my son and everybody had told us all day that Dad gets to stay with baby if something bad were to happen so I was just assuming, Okay, at least my baby is not alone. My husband is with him. Then they started to sew me up, but I don't know exactly what happened. I just remember them saying, “There's blood where there shouldn't be.” They said something about how they nicked my bladder. They were sewing me up and then they had to go back in and do something, but my poor husband at the time, there was a traveling NICU that didn't know dads got to stay in there with baby so he kicked my husband out of the NICU at that point and then he said when he came out, he was in the hallway in between the OR and the NICU and he just said, “I just saw a bunch of people rushing back into your OR and rushing back in there,” and then he said somebody just put him in there like, “What are you doing?” He was like, “I don't know,” so they put him in a maintenance closet. Meagan: Oh my goodness. Kristen: Yes, so he was like, “I just was in the closet thinking you guys were both not okay and I didn't know what to do.” So that was a little crazy and then my baby was in the NICU for 2.5 weeks. That was a very long, very difficult process for us because I just wanted my baby to be home and my baby to be healthy. Kristen: We had some really amazing nurses and then we had some not amazing nurses and nurses are such a big thing. They really change your whole day. They change everything about your hospital experience when you have a good nurse and when you have one who is just not very supportive. That was a really difficult experience. 12:55 Gaining confidence to VBAC and getting pregnant againKristen: Then when we got home, I didn't really think about another baby for a while because I was so scared. Once I did, I just remember saying, “You know what? If I go in and the doctor tells me I have to have another C-section because that's what is best for my baby, then that's okay. I'll get through it and that will be okay. My baby will be healthy.” Then I started doing a little research and I found The VBAC Link. I think I binged for a full 24 hours. I don't think I slept. After that, after 24 hours, I was like, Nobody can tell me that I can't do this. I can do this. From then on, this was a couple of years before I was pregnant. I listened. I did research. I had called and met with doulas and home birth midwives and everyone before I was even pregnant. They would be like, “What is your due date?” I was always like, “Well, I don't have one. I'm not pregnant yet.” They would always be like, “Okay.” But it was great and I felt a lot more prepared with my second. I did feel like I was going hands up a little bit. I felt like I was ready to fight when I needed to fight. I got pregnant again. She was born in 2022 so I got pregnant in 2021. I got pregnant again. It was an easy pregnancy. I was super sick at the beginning, but it was a pretty easy pregnancy. I started getting Braxton Hicks at 20 weeks which is very different than my previous pregnancy. I had them all my pregnancy every night for all of my pregnancy which was very crazy. Meagan: Whoa. Kristen: Yeah, but I had switched providers so I started with a provider because I wanted to go with a different hospital initially. When I went to this provider, he told me all about uterine rupture in the first appointment. I had statistics written in my phone because I knew when I went in there, he was going to scare me and I knew I just needed to look at my statistics to feel better. That's kind of what happened, but he did push back a lot on things. He wanted me to get a test epidural. Meagan: Mhmm, the just-in-case. Kristen: Yes and to be honest, the best way I handled things was, I feel like it's really difficult to talk to a provider in an appointment. I just feel like the power feels all theirs and when they are saying things, it really does sound scary whether or not. I knew so much information and it would still sound scary. They would be saying something and I felt like I was there and my baby was deckling and I did need the C-section. I would get scared in my appointments, then I would go home and I would do more research and I felt really secure in my decision. I went back to him and I told him that I would not be getting that. I told him, I just let him know that if it was that much of an emergency, I would be under anesthesia either way so I didn't understand why I needed a needle in my back. He kind of giggled and he was like, “Well, you're right. You've researched, so okay.” Meagan: Stop it. No way. Oh my gosh. Kristen: Yeah. I ended up switching providers at 20 weeks after I met my doula because I told her just a few things that I didn't feel as supported with him and she let me know a midwife who I had never heard about. I met with this midwife around 20 weeks. I gave her a really long list. I gave her a very long list of papers to tell her exactly what I wanted and she was very, very apt to doing everything. She would say things before I even would talk about them.I would ask her about an epidural and she would say, “No, you don't need one and to be doing this, you need to be eating before.” I would ask about all of these things so I felt really secure going with her. 17:28 39-week inductionKristen: At 38 weeks, I got to my appointment and I had high blood pressure. It was pretty high and she just was like, “I'm going to do a urine test for preeclampsia.” I really had never heard of preeclampsia. I had heard of it. I just had never done any research on it. I didn't understand what it was. I did the urine test and I really was thinking it was just going to come back fine. I felt absolutely fine. I had no symptoms. It seemed that it was going to be okay and then it wasn't. She told me that I was going to need to be induced. I was very, very nervous. I really wanted to avoid an induction because my first was induced and I felt like that was leading up to my C-section so I was super nervous about a VBAC being induced. But she was very supportive of me. She really understood that I was very, very nervous and she was very respectful with that. So we ended up being induced at 39 weeks and I went in. I had a Foley bulb placed and then I just rested the rest of the night. You don't sleep in the hospital, but I pretend-rested for the rest of the night. Then in the morning, I got up and they were like, “Yeah, you seem to be progressing.” They started me on a low dose of Pitocin. I just told them I wanted really low and slow so we did that. I had quite a bit of Braxton Hicks or prodromal labor. I don't exactly know which. I had quite a bit of that beforehand. I was at a 5 and pretty actively contracting. They were like, “Honey, you don't feel anything?” I was like, “No, I feel something. I just feel what I feel at home all of the time.” So I was like, “This is very similar.” I got pretty discouraged because I felt like nothing was happening. It was 2:00 or 3:00 PM the next day so I had been in the hospital for 20 hours at that point. I just felt really discouraged because I felt like nothing was happening and I just emotionally broke down to my husband and told him, “What if we do this and everything happens the same? I worked this hard and I fought this hard for this and I'm just going to go in and I'm going to have another C-section.”I knew that having another emergency C-section was going to be worse for this baby than if I just had a regular C-section. I was so upset. I had my emotional breakdown, then after that, I kept going. I was doing everything. When they put me in that room before the nurses came in to even meet me, I was doing Spinning Babies. I was doing everything I possibly could to get this baby out. The nurses would even comment and say, “Wow. You just don't stop moving, do you?” I just felt like a little geriatric patient with all of my little tubes attached to me and I was just walking around. 21:18 Feeling discouragedKristen: Yeah, so then at that point, things started to progress a tiny bit. I was progressing, but nothing a ton was happening so my midwife came in and let me know that the only thing she could do besides Pitocin was break my water. I was really in my head at this point in labor. I felt like I really needed to advocate for myself. My doula was helping me and texting me the whole time telling me what I could do. She just let me know that once things really progressed, then she would come in. I at that point was really just trying to play the risk of what Pitocin I wanted. Do I want to stay low and slow? I just really didn't want my cervix to tire out so I let them push it up a little bit more. I just was really in my head about trying to make the best decision which is silly because I couldn't have control of everything but I felt like I needed to to have my VBAC. Things kept progressing and at 10:00, they asked me to break my water because that was the next step. I had been on Pitocin all day so I was a little bit worried about my cervix getting tired. I told them I was fine with that. The contraction after they broke my water, I was like, Oh my goodness. Here is the pain that everyone talks about. Meagan: And I feel it. I feel it. Kristen: Yes. I was like, Oh my goodness. Then it felt like I was actually in labor. My doula came at that point. She was doing some rebozo on me and shaking apples. Meagan: Yep, shaking the apples. Kristen: Yes. That was great. She brought out the TENS unit which was amazing. Oh my goodness. It helped so much. They put it on my back and it was just amazing. I was standing up moving my hips. I had the TENS unit on and I was really working through things and I started to feel like I was going to throw up. I started to get hot and cold. I would have a contraction then in the middle of a break for a second, I had told her in the middle of a contraction, “I think I'm going to throw up.” Then I looked at her after and I was like, “I think I'm going to throw up.” I was so excited because I was like—Meagan: This is it. Kristen: Yes. I was like, “I think I might be in or nearing transition at this point.” I had amazing nurses the whole process. I just had amazing nurses. I had asked for nurses the whole time who agreed with HypnoBirthing or who were trained in HypnoBirthing. I had not done that, but I just wanted them who were a little more holistic and a little more natural. One of my nurses actually said, “You're not doing HypnoBirthing.” I said, “I know.” She was like, “You just want somebody who's going to let you do what you want, huh?” I said, “Yeah, absolutely.” She said, “Okay. I have the perfect nurse for you next time.”I had amazing nurses the whole time. They were so encouraging. Meagan: Oh good. Kristen: But my nurse must have been doing something so another nurse came in to check me at this point and she was not as nice and amazing. She told me that she needed to check me. I was about to get on the bed and I had another contraction so I stopped right outside of the bed and put my hands on there. She told me, “Get on the bed. I need to check you.” I couldn't speak because I was in a contraction, but I was thinking, Oh my goodness. I finally ended up getting on the bed. She looked at me and told me I was a 6. In my head, I was not a 6. The whole room changed for me at that moment. I was very discouraged. When she told me I was a 6, my doula's face was right behind her shaking her head no. She just was looking at me shaking her head and she was like, “No you are not,” but I don't know. I was exhausted and I just broke mentally in that moment when she told me I was a 6. I just heard I can't do it. I can't do this. This is too much. I can't believe I'm at a 6, because at that point, when I got into bed, I felt pushy. I felt really pushy. During my contraction, I was bearing down a little bit. I just thought, Okay, if I'm pushing at 6, baby is in a bad position. I just was so nervous. I got up. I went to the bathroom. My doula actually told me, “You need to get up. We're going to the bathroom,” so she just took me to the bathroom alone just her and I. She looked at me and she said, “Do you think you're a 6?” I was crying at this point. I was like, “No, I don't. I don't think I am.” She was like, “I do not think you are a 6 at all. I think you know where you are.” I was like, “I know, but what if I really am? If she says I am, I am.”I broke emotionally and I just was like, “I'm so tired.” I was so tired. I hadn't slept in 24 hours at that point and I was just so exhausted and upset. I told her, “I want an epidural.” She knew that was not my plan so she really tried to encourage me against it and told me I was doing such a good job. I couldn't hear it at that point. All I could hear was the doubt. 27:15 Getting the epidural and pushing for less than an hourKristen: I just told her, “No, I want an epidural.” At that point, she shifted gears and was like, “Okay, then we're getting an epidural and this is going to be great and you're going to get some rest.” I was a little discouraged, but I ended up getting the epidural at 3:00 AM at this point. I got the epidural and I actually got an hour of rest which was really amazing because I was exhausted but when they had given me the epidural, they checked me at some point after this and I was a 9.5. She looked at me and gave me an eye like, Yes, you were not a 6. It was nice. I got an hour of rest and then they came in and told me that I was ready. This sweet, sweet nurse came in and told me that I was ready to start practice-pushing or something like that. I was like, “Okay.”I was a little nervous about the pushing part just because I pushed with my son for so long and his head never showed so I was like, Once we get past a head, I will be there.I pushed in one position on my side and then the nurse looked at me and she was like, “You know, we're going to try tug-of-war.” She put the squat bar up and I did a tug-of-war push and right when I did that, her eyes got big and she ran over and got on the phone. I just remember her saying something like, “When she pushes in some position, I see something about baby's head.” I just remember her saying, “Baby's head.” I, in the bed, was like, “You said baby's head?” I was so excited. I was like, “They saw baby's head.” I pushed for a little less than an hour and she was there. It was everything. Everything went away for me at that point. I was just so happy and excited and it was the best feeling in the world. I just felt like all of my work, I actually did it. I did it. But I forgot to mention, my midwife got off shift during this so another OB was on and she came in. They actually were asking me to stop pushing to wait for her to come in. I giggled. I was not going to do that, but she was not as kind and helpful. She let me know right after, despite knowing my birth plan that delayed cord clamping wasn't safe. Meagan: What?Kristen: Yeah, and that I needed to cut the cord. To be honest, I was in complete baby land at that point. I was so happy that my baby was there that I didn't fight it. Looking back, I'm honestly glad that I didn't because I know that it would have taken me out of where I was able to be and the joy that I was in. I didn't fight it. I just let her do it and it was silly, but it was okay. I got to have my sweet baby and it was an amazing postpartum experience. I remember being wheeled out with her because I didn't get my little boy after my C-section so I remember being wheeled out with her. I was just holding her in my arms and I was so happy she was in my arms. I looked at a janitor while I was being wheeled to mother and baby. I lifted her up and I smiled so big at him. He just was like, “Okay.” Meagan: “Congratulations”. Kristen: I just was so happy. But yeah, that was my second and my VBAC which was amazing. 30:58 Third pregnancyKristen: When my little girl was 6 months, I got pregnant again. It was an amazing pregnancy. I felt great the whole time. I totally thought she was a boy because I wasn't sick, but it was a girl which I was super surprised by. I had no Braxton Hicks. I really didn't have a ton until the end which was crazy to me because I had them so much with my previous. Meagan: Yeah, a lot. Kristen: Yes. That was pretty crazy. I went back to my provider who I had gone to with my second baby. I went back to her. Things felt a little different with her. She was still really supportive, but it just felt a little different, then at 16-17 weeks in my pregnancy, I did an initial test for preeclampsia and my numbers were already above. The protein in my urine was already above where it needed to be. She just told me in an appointment very casually, but I was super nervous. I didn't know a ton. During this pregnancy, I did a ton of research about preeclampsia, so the one thing I did to my diet was I ate so much protein. I ate. I tracked especially in that first trimester. I tried to eat 100g or more a day. I really focused more in that first trimester. That was the only thing I felt like I could do so that's what I did. She told me my protein was already really high which I didn't understand and it made me really nervous. I asked a few questions during the appointment, but I felt like I had a ton of questions after. I called and I felt very dismissed. I felt like she just kept trying to tell me, “Don't get in your head. Everything will be okay.” She was being very sweet, but I just felt like I needed a doctor at that point. I didn't need a friend. I needed her to give me information instead of trying to encourage me. It was really sweet, but we only had 5 minutes and I didn't want encouragement. I needed information that I just felt like I wasn't being given. I actually ended up switching again to another OB. I just was interviewing them so I actually had appointments with my midwife and an OB. He actually came back into town. I had heard really good things about him but he moved and then he came back. I interviewed him initially and actually, I left my appointment and I kind of drilled him a little bit. I really asked him a lot of questions. I left my appointment. I called my sister and I said, “Yes. I don't believe it.”He said everything I wanted to hear and that feels too bait-and-switch to me. There's no way he's this good. Then I had a few friends through church who he was with and he followed through on everything. My doula told me, “I think he's just that good.”I was super surprised because I could not believe that he was that receptive of me, but I went to another appointment and talked about my initial labs with him and he sat there with me for a whole hour and explained what he knew about preeclampsia and explained what he could to me. It was really, really helpful and I felt very heard. So at that moment, I chose to go with him. 34:41 Forced to find a new provider at 36 weeksKristen: I finished with him through the rest of my pregnancy. My sister was actually pregnant too and she was going with him. It was really cool. Meagan: How fun.Kristen: She had her baby. I got to be there for some of her birth. She was due a month and a half before I was due so I got to be there with her and watch her amazing birth then she told me, “I'm having a lot of pressure. Can you just look down there?” She was crowning and I was like, “Oh, you've got to go to the hospital.”Meagan: Oh my gosh. Kristen: She went to the hospital and we had that amazing experience and that was her first VBAC so it was really awesome.Then my provider called me and told me that they were shutting down their office when I was 39 weeks pregnant. This was at 36 or 35 weeks. I was then scrambling to find another provider. It was very, very difficult. Everyone I talked to just told me that they didn't take VBACs past 35 weeks and that I even would have my paperwork switched and then they were like, “Oh, you're VBAC and preeclampsia. We won't take you.” There were 3 weeks of me just honestly trying to find a provider who would take me, not even a supportive provider, just having a doctor take me was very difficult. I finally found a provider who would take me, but they told me there was another provider in the office who was very unsupportive. He actually was there during my sister's birth when she came in and was totally crowning. He sat back with his arms and legs crossed and she was crowning, hopping on the bed ready to push and he sat there with his arms and legs crossed and told her how unsafe VBACs were. Meagan: Oh my gosh. Kristen: He told her that he didn't know who approved her chart, but this was not okay. Thank goodness, the provider who was amazing came in and saved the day. But he was awful and he was actually one of the three providers in this office that would take me. I was really nervous about the on-call schedule and if he was going to end up being on-call when I was going into labor. There was a lot of back and forth there, but I ended up meeting with this provider and I met with him when I was 40 weeks and a day so I met with him the day after my due date and this was our first time meeting. I gave him my birth plan. He looked at how far I was and he was like, “Oh, awesome. You're almost done.” I felt like he was perfect. “Let's just get you out of here.” He was doing it as a favor to the other provider. I felt like a check in his box from the start of being there. I was really nervous about my blood pressure. I kept telling everyone, I had no symptoms with my previous preeclampsia. I had no symptoms and all of my labs are positive so I just want to be really on it. I didn't have a provider for 2 weeks and at the end of my pregnancy so I just got a blood pressure cuff and I monitored myself as much as I could. It was stressful. I ended up going into triage once because my blood pressure was high and I didn't have anyone to call. I didn't know what to do, so I went into triage and they just were not very awesome with me. But that was okay and my blood pressure was fine so I ended up getting to go home. I was with my provider. He just was not, he really wanted to induce me. He told me all about my placenta dying at 41 weeks and he was so scared about me going past 41 weeks. I asked him if this was just something he did with just VBAC patients and he said, “No, I do this with everyone.” I was like, “Oh, okay.” I was like, “Perfect. I'm even less worried now. I was thinking you had more information about VBAC and my placenta, so I'm less worried now.”Meagan: Less concerned. Kristen: I told him, “I don't want to be induced at 41 weeks.”He kept telling me, “Oh, I know. You do your research. You do your research.” He did not like that I was very informed on things. I ended up having to go into triage at the end of my pregnancy three separate times because of my blood pressure readings at home, but every time I went into triage, they were fine there so I kept telling people, “I don't know what my blood pressure reading is doing at home, but is there something else I can do?” Everyone would look at my blood pressure cuff and say, “Yeah, that's great. That's the one I recommend.”I was like, Well, why is my blood pressure so high at home? I need some help. This has to not be working. At one point, I brought my blood pressure cuff in with me and they were reading differently at the hospital versus the cuff. I was like, Mine is not working, so I don't know how to check myself at home. It was really difficult. My husband started to be a nervous wreck about all of this anyway so everyone was pushing me to get induced and every time he heard the word “induction”, he was like, “Let's just do it. It worked for us with the last VBAC. Let's just do it.” Every time they told me I was okay, I just was like, “No. I'm going home. If I'm okay, I am going to have this baby naturally.” It was a really emotional experience because we were all very back and forth. it felt like everyone was going through it with me, but I was the one pregnant and fighting to stay pregnant if my baby was okay. It was really difficult, but I ended up getting through it. 40:45 Labor beginsKristen: I ended up having some prodromal labor at the end is what I felt like it was. 41 and a couple of days was my next appointment and I told everyone, my husband and my sister, I was like, “He's just going to want to induce me and push it so much at my next appointment.” I was so worried so I told my doula that I was thinking about trying castor oil. She came over and she gave me electrolytes and she gave me a recipe with castor oil that was very, very small. I had gotten a few recipes and it was next to nothing. There was no castor oil in it basically. She told me, “It sounds like you are in early labor so I'm going to have you try this,” and I did one dose every 4 hours. She was like, “It sounds like you are in early labor, so I'm going to have you try this.” I honestly was even grumpy about that. I was like, “No, I want more. If I'm going to try this, I want it to do something.”I tried that at 3:30 in the afternoon on a Friday. I did a couple of doses and then my mom called me and told me that she was in town and asked if I wanted her to come hang out with my kids. I had done two doses and I was like, “No. Nothing is happening. I'm never going into labor.” I was super grumpy. “I'm never going into labor.” I got off the phone with her. I started crying because I was super emotional and my husband told me to just go back in the room for a second. So I went back there and I don't know. I must have known in my head that something was going on because I called my mom right back and I was like, “Yeah, maybe come over.” She was like, “Okay.” So she ended up coming over and hanging out with us and then we put the kids to sleep and I was feeling contractions and everything that I had normally felt throughout the week. I just was like, “I don't think a ton is happening.” I ended up putting my little boy to sleep at 8:00 and I had finished my doses of what I was doing. At that point, I was breathing through them a little bit, but I kept telling everyone, “I am not in labor. If this is it, it's very, very early. It is not happening.”My mom was like, “Okay, that's fine, but why don't you just go back? You need to get some rest because if it is going to happen, you need to get some rest.” I told her, “Okay.” I went back to go get some rest and I don't know why in my head I didn't realize that I had been able to rest through all of them before in the week, but suddenly, I could not lay in bed. I just told my husband, “No. It's really, really early if it's happening.” I just sat on my ball. I rocked around on my ball for a little bit then I was getting pretty uncomfortable but I didn't want to say it because I didn't want it to be fake. I said, “You know what? I'm going to take a shower. I can't stay in the shower for very long because I don't want it to slow things down if it is picking up.” My husband asked, “Do you want me to come in there with you?” I said, “No. No, no. It's early. I'm going to take a shower. I'm going to get clean. I'm going to come out and do some more on my ball and do Spinning Babies.” He said, “Okay.” I went in the shower and I couldn't even really find a time. I probably got in the shower at 9:00. I couldn't find a time to wash my body or wash my hair, so I thought, “You know what? Maybe this isn't as early as I thought.” I went back in the room and it was very relaxing. I went to just go grab my phone and my husband was like, “What are you doing?” I was like, “I think I should just time them.” He was like, “Okay, I'm coming in there with you.” He went in there and he told me, I think at that point they were 3 minutes apart and he was like, “They are pretty close. I think you are farther than you are thinking.” I just was like, “No, no, no. This happened way too fast.” I was like, “No. I'm not. I'm going to keep being in the shower.” So I stayed in the shower and I just relaxed in there. it was great to be in there and then my sister came over at about 10:30 and at this point, they were a minute apart. My husband had called my doula and she told us to leave the house at 11:00. She had given him an hour timeframe. “If it stays at this for an hour, you should leave at 11:20 or something.” I was in the shower. My sister came over. I don't really remember her coming over. I was just breathing through everything. She said she walked in and she was like, “I felt like it was the wrong house. It was very calm. I didn't know anyone was in labor. I just walked in and you were breathing. You weren't talking.” My sister finally came in and she told me at one point, “You're doing it. You're laboring at home. This is what you wanted for this labor.” That was the one time I remember her being there and I was like, “I am doing this. I am laboring at home.” I was so excited. 46:11 Rushing to the hospitalKristen: Everything was going really well. I was able to breathe through everything. My husband was getting the truck ready for us to leave and then I heard a pop, a visceral pop. It was crazy. It sounded like a water balloon popping and all of my water broke. My sister had just told me before this probably two contractions before, she was like, “Sis, they are really, really close. Are you sure you don't want to leave right now?” I told her, “Yeah, I don't feel like I'm getting a break, but she is not down. She is not engaged.” I had no pressure and I was like, “I know what that pressure feels like. I don't have the pressure. It's okay.” So then I felt a pop and my water broke and then I felt all of the pressure, absolutely all of the pressure. I looked at her and that was the first time that I had really made a sound. I think I grunted or I moaned and I was like, “Okay, we need to leave. We need to leave right now.” I felt like I could have her at that moment. Meagan: Yeah. Kristen: So then I got out of the shower and I put some clothes on. I was still buttoning my dress to even walk out of the door because I was like, “If we don't leave right now, we will not make it.” I actually asked my sister to get me a towel. She asked me later why I asked her to get me a towel and I was like, “I really didn't know if we were going to make it so I needed something to wrap the baby in if we didn't.” We left and live 5 minutes from the hospital so we drove to the hospital and I had by the grace of God, one contraction in the truck. I was laying down in the truck and I had one contraction. I really was able to hold it pretty well. It wasn't as intense as my contraction before so that was nice. 48:06 Delivering her own baby in a wheelchairKristen: We got there and we parked. I started walking in. I had one contraction in the parking lot. I just remember being by a dumpster and I actually got mad at that point. I was like, “I will not have this baby in the parking lot by a dumpster.” I would have this baby in the truck or in the hospital, but I'm not doing it by the dumpster. I tried to walk through that contraction because I was like, No. I am not having this baby here. He kept telling me that I guess I kept saying, “She's here. She's here.” I was just holding myself, but we walked in and I got backward. The security guard brought over a wheelchair. I got backwards on my knees and I was sitting up. He pushed me through and I got to right outside the elevator and they were pressing the elevator doors. The elevator just was not coming and I had one contraction and I was like, “Okay.” I did not push. I think it was the fetal ejection reflex. I don't know what it was, but I did not push. She just— Meagan: Came. Kristen: Yes. My husband said I was just pushing the butt in and he said, “I heard, ‘Here's the head. Okay, here's the shoulders. All right, she's here. She's here.” He was like, “You were just talking us all through it.” I just felt her and I was like, “All right, she's here.” I pulled her up and this poor security guard was pushing my wheelchair so then everything came out, everything so he just got, the poor guy, he did not sign up for that. Meagan: Oh my gosh, what a ride for him. Kristen: Yeah, then we got into the elevator and my poor husband had to push. We had a family leave the elevator, he was like, “Sorry, guys. You've got to get out.” We got in and that elevator, I guess, wasn't working so it took us down to the basement then it went back up to the first floor and back up to the second.I was just holding my baby and trying to make her cry a ton because she had cried a little bit, but she was really quiet and calm. I was like, “Nope, scream. I want you to scream.”We got up to the floor finally and then there was one nurse there. She was like, “Okay, she's here. Baby is here.” We just ran back through and it ended up that they did awesome. I got to deliver my baby and it was great because all of the doctors were super stressed about everything and about my VBAC and induction and I felt like God was like, “Well, honey, you're going to worry about this so much and then you are going to deliver your own baby.” Meagan: You're going to do this. Kristen: And it will be fine. Meagan: Oh my gosh, what a shock. What a ride. I'm sure everybody around will never forget that day ever. Oh my word. Congratulations on all three of your sweet babies who I have been able to see throughout the episode. That is so fun. Thank you so much for sharing your stories. Gosh, you went through a lot with switching and all of the things then catching your own baby. Oh my gosh. 51:27 Preeclampsia article and calibrating your blood pressure cuffMeagan: Okay, so there is an article essentially, a small review that is called Risk Factors and Maternal/Fetal Outcomes Complicated by Preeclampsia Following Cesarean After a Trial of Vaginal Birth. We're not going to dive too much into it and even at the bottom, it says that they acknowledge that this is not a cohort study and therefore the evidence is not as strong as a randomized, clinical trial but the consistency of the data alongside evidence from the other larger published studies is reassuring. It says that they recommend a trial of labor for all pregnant with severe preeclampsia unless it is excluded for other indications. So just right there, I mean, again like I said, this right here is not as strong. They have some links and we are going to make sure that it is in the show notes for you to go read over. But again, if you have preeclampsia, if your numbers are showing preeclampsia, it is possible to have a VBAC. I encourage you to explore your options and then I wanted to touch on Kristen's comment of how she brought her cuff in and it was so different. It really is something that a lot of people actually don't know so I wanted to bring this up. But it's really important to get it checked and calibrated by a professional lab or someone who takes blood pressure because often, it can be wrong. A lot of our preeclamptic moms are getting cuffs and then they are not calibrated, so we are having really high readings or really low readings and it's the opposite. It's not matching up. If you have a blood pressure cuff at home and you are feeling like something is off or you are getting weird readings and it's not consistent with your hospital readings, don't hesitate to go get it calibrated because that can definitely, definitely help. It's supposed to be calibrated every 6 months so if you get one for one pregnancy and then two years later or one year later or whenever you are having your baby and you are using it again for whatever reason, know that you may need to have it calibrated because it has been a while. I just needed to throw that in there and thank you once again for being here with us today and congratulations again. Kristen: Thank you so much. ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Our Sponsors:* Check out Dr. Mom Butt Balm: drmombuttbalm.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Is Birth Photography worth it???Why you should consider getting a birth photographer- regardless if you're wanting a natural, medicated or C-section birth!This week's episode of the Learning To Mom Podcast we dive DEEP into birth photography from Kristen, a birth photographer:Kristen gives us the answers to these questions (and more!!)- Why have a birth photographer? - What are the common poses or shots a birth photographer can get?- What are the misconceptions around birth photography?- Is this only for home births, or also hospital and birthing center births?- What if I end up having a c-section?- Are you there for the entire labor or just the delivery?- Should I put on makeup, what should I wear?- What are some questions to ask a birth photographer when determining if you want to hire that photographer?- What are some photos I should ask my partner or a nurse to take for me?”AND MORE!-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------IMPORTANT LINKS:- Sign up for the Learning To Mom Newsletter HERE:- Fit Mama In 30: Prenatal Workout Program that I'm Doing: Click HERE                   Use code LEARNINGTOMOM for the BIGGEST discount they have!! ($20 off their annual plan)- Connect with ME on Instagram HERE or at @learningtomom.podcastHow to connect with Kristen:- Her website- Her instagram-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------What are the early signs of pregnancy, How accurate are home pregnancy tests, What prenatal vitamins should I take, Is it safe to exercise during pregnancy, What foods should I avoid during pregnancy, How much weight should I gain during pregnancy, What are the risks of smoking while pregnant, Can I dye my hair while pregnant, Is it safe to drink coffee during pregnancy, What are some natural remedies for morning sickness, How often should I go for prenatal check-ups, What are the differences between a midwife and an OBGYN, What is a birth plan and how do I create one, How can I manage pregnancy-related back pain, What are Braxton Hicks contractions, Is it safe to travel during pregnancy, How can I prevent stretch marks, What are the best sleep positions during pregnancy, When should I start feeling the baby move, What is a gestational diabetes test, and do I need one, What are the signs of preterm labor, How do I deal with pregnancy-related heartburn, Can I still have sex while pregnant, What are the risks of drinking alcohol during pregnancy, How do I choose the right maternity clothes, What are the benefits of prenatal yoga, How do I cope with pregnancy insomnia, What is a doula and do I need one, How do I manage pregnancy constipation, What are the risks of high blood pressure during pregnancy, How can I prepare for labor and delivery, What are some childbirth pain relief options besides medication, How can I prepare for breastfeeding, What are the benefits of breastfeeding, How do I choose a breast pump, What are the signs of postpartum depression, How long does it take to recover from childbirth, What are some natural ways to induce labor, How do I prepare for the first few weeks postpartum, What are the benefits of delayed cord clamping, How do I know if I'm i

Trish answers viewers questions from addressing women's questions about their pregnancy, to navigating decisions and situations during childbirth.She covers a wide range of topics in this Q&A, including the importance of education on labor to make informed decisions, understanding and managing Braxton Hicks contractions, the significance of staying hydrated during pregnancy, dealing with polyhydramnios, vaccinations given to newborns, and responding to various pregnancy-related questions from listeners. Trish emphasizes the significance of being educated about childbirth options, and actively participating in decision-making throughout the childbirth process. “ You don't ever want to refuse or accept anything without knowledge. Knowledge is power, and you want to be the one making the decisions, not someone else.” - TrishAdditionally, Trish provides practical advice on dealing with fast labors, the effect of gestational diabetes on subsequent pregnancies, and addressing birth trauma. The episode serves as an educational resource aiming to empower expectant mothers and their partners through shared knowledge and experiences.Follow Trish on Instagram and TikTok to join one of her live Q&A sessions!01:22 Understanding Braxton Hicks Contractions02:53 Dealing with Amniotic Fluid Concerns03:52 Newborn Vaccinations and Medications: Making Informed Choices07:49 Hair Coloring During Pregnancy: Safety Tips08:33 Feeling Baby's Movements and Position Changes09:53 Early Labor Advice and Managing Fast Labors15:53 Induction Insights: Preparing for a Positive Experience18:02 Addressing Pregnancy Concerns: Discharge and Baby's Size19:32 Postpartum Normalities: Understanding Lower Back Pain20:50 Addressing Common Concerns: Glucose Tests and Post-Birth Procedures21:38 Understanding Labor Interventions: Pitocin and Epidurals23:33 Newborn Care Questions: Vitamin K, Assessments, and More24:24 Delivery Expectations: Second Time Around and Induction Choices29:03 Pregnancy Aches, Pains, and Health Queries31:26 Making Informed Decisions: Inductions, Natural Birth, and Birth Trauma34:33 Special Circumstances: High-Risk Pregnancies and Blood ThinnersResources: Join our 5 Days to A Fearless Birth Experience and watch 5 Online Birth Classes FOR FREE!!Grab a Free Pregnancy/Postpartum Checklist BundleConnect w/ Trish: On InstagramOn FacebookOn YouTubeOn Pinterest On TikTokFor more pregnancy & birth education, subscribe to The Birth Experience on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.Next Steps with...

It can be difficult to find VBAC support with gestational diabetes and most who are supportive of VBAC highly recommend a 39-week induction. Heidi's first pregnancy/birth included gestational diabetes with daily insulin injections, a 39-week induction, Penicillin during labor for GBS, pushing for five hours, and a C-section for arrest of descent due to OP presentation. Heidi wasn't sure if she wanted to go through another birth after her first traumatic experience, but she found a very supportive practice that made her feel safe to go for it again. Though many practices would have risked her out of going for a VBAC due to her age and subsequent gestational diabetes diagnosis, her new practice was so reassuring, calm, and supportive of how Heidi wanted to birth. Heidi knew she wanted to go into spontaneous labor and try for an unmedicated VBAC. With the safety and support of her team, she was able to do just that. At just over 40 weeks, Heidi went into labor spontaneously and labored beautifully. Instead of pushing for over five hours, Heidi only pushed for 30 minutes! It was exactly the dreamy birth she hoped it would be. ThrombocytopeniaReal Food for Gestational Diabetes by Lily NicholsInformed Pregnancy Plus Needed WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details 05:50 Review of the Week08:04 Heidi's first pregnancy with gestational diabetes12:05 Taking insulin18:08 39-week induction 20:59 Pushing 24:29 Arrest of descent and opting for a C-section27:06 Researching providers before second pregnancy38:04 Discussions around induction41:45 NSTs twice a week47:10 Testing for preeclampsia54:53 Spontaneous labor57:43 Going to the hospital1:02:03 Laboring in the tub1:06:22 Pushing for 30 minutesMeagan: Hello, Women of Strength. It is Meagan and we have a friend from New Hampshire. Her name is Heidi. Hello, how are you? Heidi: I'm doing great. How are you?Meagan: I am so great. I'm excited to record this story today because there are so many times in The VBAC Link Community on Facebook where we see people commenting about gestational diabetes and for a really long time on the podcast, we didn't have any stories about gestational diabetes. Just recently, this year really, we've had some gestational diabetes stories. I just love it because I think a lot of the time in the system, there is doubt placed with the ability to give birth with gestational diabetes or there is the whole will induce or won't induce type thing, and with gestational diabetes, you have to have a baby by 39 weeks if they won't induce you and it just goes. So I love hearing these stories and Heidi's story today– she actually had gestational diabetes with both so with her C-section and with her VBAC. It was controlled. It was amazing. That's another thing that I love hearing is that it is possible to control. We love Lily Nichols and the book about gestational diabetes and pregnancy. We will make sure to have it in the link, but it is so good to know that it doesn't have to be a big, overwhelming thing. It can be controlled and it doesn't have to be too crazy. Right? Did you find that along the way? Heidi: Yes. Yes, definitely. The first one was pretty scary, but then the second one, you know what you are doing and you can control it and you can keep advocating for yourself. Meagan: Absolutely. And then in addition to gestational diabetes, she had advanced maternal age barely with her second, but that is something that also gets thrown out. A lot of the time, we have providers saying, “We shouldn't have a vaginal birth. We should have a C-section by this time,” so that's another thing. If you are an advanced-maternal-age mama, listen up because here is another story for you as well. We don't have a lot of those on the podcast. We are so excited to welcome Heidi to the show. 05:50 Review of the WeekMeagan: Of course, we are going to do a Review of the Week and then we will dive right in. This was from stephaniet and it says, “Inspiring and Educational.” It says, “As a mother currently in her third trimester preparing for a VBAC, I was so happy to find this podcast. The stories shared are so encouraging and it is so comforting to know that I am not alone in feeling that once a Cesarean, always a Cesarean.” 100%. That is 100% true. You are not alone here. And once a Cesarean is not always a Cesarean. It says, “This does not have to be my story. Thanks, Meagan and Julie, for providing the support and education to women who are fighting for a chance to have a natural childbirth. I would love to encourage anyone wanting to learn more about VBAC to listen to this podcast.” Thank you, stephaniet. This was quite a few years ago, actually. This was in 2019. We still have some reviews in 2019 that weren't read. It's 2024, so that's really awesome and as usual, if you have a moment, we would love your reviews. Your reviews truly are what help more Women of Strength find these stories. We want these stories to be heard so leave us a review if you can on Apple Podcasts and Google. You can email us a review or whatever, but definitely if you listen to the podcast on a platform, leave a review and that would help. 08:04 Heidi's first pregnancy with gestational diabetesMeagan: All right, Ms. Heidi. Welcome to the show and thank you for being with us. Heidi: Thanks for having me. This is awesome. Meagan: Well, let's talk about it. Share your story with us with your C-section. Heidi: Yeah. We were planning for a child and we just decided. We were like, “Okay. Let's shoot for an April birthdate.” We just thought that we could just have a child, but we got lucky and we did on the first try. Meagan: Amazing. Heidi: We went to our local hospital that was about five minutes away for care and it just seemed good enough. At the time, I thought you just go to the hospital. You get care. You can trust the provider and you don't really need to do anything other than a hospital birth class for prepping. We just went along that journey. They assured me, “This will be a normal pregnancy. Everything is great.” The pregnancy was uneventful until about 20 weeks when I found out my baby was missing a kidney during a routine ultrasound. That sent us down Google rabbit holes and all kinds of fun things. Meagan: I'm sure, yeah. Heidi: Yeah. So at that point, we were assigned a Maternal-fetal medicine OB. I was offered an amniocentesis if we wanted to check and see what else was wrong and things like that. That was a major curveball. Meagan: Did you end up participating in the amnio? Heidi: No, we didn't. We had a couple of detailed ultrasounds after that. At first, they didn't actually tell me what they were looking for. I had three ultrasounds in a row that were not the more detailed ones. Meagan: Oh, okay. Heidi: I was like, “Why am I having all of these ultrasounds? Nobody is saying anything.” I finally got a phone call telling me that my daughter was missing a kidney so that's what they were looking for. I was like, “Okay. Good to know.” Meagan: Yeah. You would have thought some communication before then would have happened though. Heidi: Yeah. It was pretty scary. So what seemed pretty uneventful–Meagan: Got eventful. Heidi: Yeah, it did. So right around 28-30 weeks when they do the gestational diabetes check, I went in for my check and found that I would need to start tracking my blood sugar and diabetes does tend to kind of run in my family even though everybody is very healthy. I was wondering if it would come up and also being older, sometimes they say there is a link but it still took me by surprise because I'm a very active person and I eat really healthy. I felt like a failure basically. Meagan: I'm so sorry Heidi: Yeah. All of a sudden, I'm meeting with a nutritionist. They give me this whole package of a finger pricker. Yeah, exactly. All of a sudden, I'm submitting logs four times a day checking blood sugar, and the fasting numbers for me just weren't coming down so it was about one week of that, and then all of a sudden, they were saying, “Okay. You probably need insulin.” 12:05 Taking insulinHeidi: It came on so fast, so strong. Meagan: Wow. Heidi: It was really scary so then I found myself going to the pharmacy. I am a very healthy person so it was just all really weird going to the pharmacy buying insulin and learning all about insulin and learning almost how little the medical field understands about gestational diabetes. That was something bouncing in my head bouncing off the wall trying to understand the plan there. Meagan: Yeah. Heidi: Yeah, so after that, then I got phone calls from the nurses. They said, “You know, now you are on insulin. Now, you are going to have twice weekly NSTs required at 35 weeks.” I'm thinking, “Well, I'm working full time. How am I going to do all of this?” There is just so much sick time and it was really, really difficult to hear all of that. Meagan: Yeah. How do I have time for all of that? Plus just being pregnant. Heidi: Yeah. Yeah. Insulin and just for anyone that doesn't know, basically you inject yourself. I was injecting myself every night with an insulin pen and it was all just very weird because you're also thinking, “Well, I'm pregnant. I've never been on this medication. What is it going to do to me? What is it doing to my baby?” Very nervewracking. It's all normal to feel that way. Meagan: Yeah. I think sometimes when we get these diagnoses, we want to either recluse because it's so overwhelming, and sometimes then, our numbers can get a little wonky, or we dive in so much that it consumes us and we forget that we are still human and we don't have to do that. Heidi: Yeah. Now that you say that, I definitely did a little bit of both. Meagan: Did you? Heidi: I did a little bit of denial and then I did a little bit of obsessive researching. Meagan: Yeah, because you want to know. You want to be informed and that's super good, but sometimes it can control us. Heidi: Yes. Absolutely. You're watching every single thing that goes into your body. I probably didn't look at food normally until my second pregnancy to be honest with you. Meagan: Really? Heidi: Yeah. Meagan: Yeah. Yeah. So it was working. Things were being managed. Heidi: Yes. I was honestly very grateful for the insulin. Obviously, it took a little while to feel that way, but it was very well-managed. My numbers were right in range. My blood sugars were always normal throughout the day. I never had to do anything during the day. I just checked my blood sugars. Then the other thing that came as an alarm, they told me about the NSTs which are non-stress tests. They also mentioned that I would need an induction in the 39th week because–Meagan: 39 to be suggested, I should say. Heidi: Yeah. It wasn't explained to me that with that provider, it was a choice. It wasn't a suggestion. It was like, “You have to do this or you might have a stillbirth.” It was really scary. Meagan: Oh. Heidi: I didn't know I had a choice. Being a first-time mom and not knowing about evidence-based birth, this podcast, or all of it. I had no idea. So I was told I could schedule it anytime after my 36th week and for every appointment that I had as I started getting closer, I felt a lot of pressure from the providers to schedule the induction. They cited the ARRIVE trial. Meagan: Yes. Another thing I roll my eyes at. I don't hate all things. I just don't like when people call people old and when they tell people they have to do something because of a trial that really wasn't that great. But, okay. Heidi: Yep. Yeah. I mean, they didn't explain the details of it either. They just said, “Oh, it's the ARRIVE trial,” so I go and Google and try to make sense of it. They just say, “Stillbirth risk increases.” They say, “If you are induced at the 39th week, there is no increase and chance of a C-section,” so I thought, “Oh, okay. Sure.” Meagan: Right. Right, yeah. Heidi: I finally gave in near the end and I scheduled my induction for the 39th week and 6th day. Meagan: Okay, so almost 41. Heidi: Yep. So then I worked right up to the night before my induction. I was admitted to the hospital at 7:00 AM. I was planning for an unmedicated, uncomplicated delivery and an induction using a Cook balloon because my provider had checked me in the office the day before and they found that I was 1 centimeter dilated so they said they could probably get the balloon. I'm thinking, “Oh, it's going to be a mechanical induction. There's going to be no IV. It's going to be really as natural as possible.” 18:08 39-week induction Heidi: I get into triage and immediately, they start putting an IV in my right arm. I am right-handed. Meagan: Why do they do that? If you are listening and you are getting an IV, don't hesitate to say, “Hey, that's my dominant hand. Can we put it in the other one?” Also, don't hesitate to say, “Don't put it in my wrist where I'm going to try and be bending and breastfeeding a baby in the end. Put it in the hand or put it up in the arm.” Heidi: That's really good advice. I didn't know that the first time. Meagan: I didn't either. Heidi: I knew enough to say, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Put it in my left hand.” They ended up putting it in my forearm. So here I am. I was hooked up to Penicillin. I was GBS positive. I feel like I had all of the things. Meagan: Yes. We've got gestational diabetes, GBS, maternal age, and now we've got an induction. Heidi: Yeah. Oh yeah. So yeah. They put in Penicillin, Pitocin, and saline, and then they showed me how to move around while wheeling an IV pole. Meagan: Mmm, yeah. Fun.Heidi: Yeah. We felt a little gutted at that point. We are in the hospital and sorry, when I say we, it's my husband and I. Yeah. The midwife had trouble getting the Cook balloon in. We just sat around on Pitocin that first day. The OB finally got it in around 10:00 PM that night. It was her first visit to see us actually. She probably could have gotten it in earlier had she come earlier. It sped up the labor overnight as soon as the Cook balloon went in. It was a bit painful. They stopped the Pitocin the next morning. My water broke on its own. They were talking about coming in to break my water and I think my body probably heard them, so it broke on its own. Yeah. I was just laying in the bed and it happened. Then labor began to pick up, but the contractions were still not regular. Pitocin was increased and then the contractions got really intense, but still irregular until around 4:00 PM that day at which point, I just couldn't take it. I asked for the epidural. Meagan: That's a lot. That's a lot. Heidi: Yeah. It was intense. 20:59 Pushing Heidi: The shift changed and a new nurse had a student with her. So I consented to the student being there thinking, “Oh yeah. Come on. Come observe my awesome labor. This is going to be amazing. It's going to be a vaginal delivery and everything,” so I'm like, “Yeah, sure. Let them learn.” I achieved 10 centimeters dilation and full effacement around 9:00 PM that night so it was really exciting. Meagan: That's actually pretty fast. 10:00 is when the Cook was planned the night before. 9:00 PM, so hey, that's pretty good. Heidi: Yeah. I was happy about that. I was so excited to push. I couldn't feel a lot because I was on the epidural, but it really took the pain away and it helped a lot in the moment. So let's see, I was mostly on my back. I was tired. I was just really tired at this point. There was, the nurse that I had was pretty new. She had been there for I think 6 months and then she was also trying to juggle the student nurse. She didn't have a lot of knowledge of positioning. I thought going into it that all nurses were trained in Spinning Babies and all nurses had the knowledge of baby positioning and things like that, but I was wrong. Meagan: Yeah, unfortunately, they are not all. I don't think a lot of them have it actually. Most of them don't. Heidi: Yeah. I pushed mostly on my back and when the OB came in around 11:00, she noticed my pushing was not effective at 11:00 PM. Meagan: So two hours in. Heidi: Yes. My position needed to be changed. She got me up on the squat bar and then she left again, but she showed me how to push and everything in the meantime. When she came back in, she explained to me that I would probably need a C-section soon. I don't exactly remember that sequence of events because it is so intense. I felt really defeated. I was like, “I just started. What do you mean I will probably need a C-section?” Meagan: So you were still wanting to keep going?Heidi: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. She also explained that meconium started to show in the amniotic fluid. The OB explained to me that the baby was probably in distress because of that. That was all that was said. Heidi: I spiked a fever. They gave me Tylenol and then the baby's heart rate began to slow a little bit, just for a little bit. The OB inserted a monitor on the top of her head. At this point, I felt like I was pushing for my life. I was like, “Oh my gosh. I need to get this baby out. How do I do this?” But I still felt like, “I can do this. I can do this. I know I can do this.” Meagan: Yeah. Heidi: But there were definitely questions at this point. 24:29 Arrest of descent and opting for a C-sectionHeidi: Yeah, so then around 2:30 in the morning, I was told by the OB to get on all fours and try one last position and I could opt for a C-section at that point or I could push until the OB came back in. I was like, “You know what? I'm going to give it all I have. I'm going to work so hard and the baby is going to come out in the next 45 minutes. She's got to.” So I did. Honestly, I was so grateful that I had that last 45 minutes. I feel like if I didn't, it would have been stolen from me. I feel I was defeated when she came back in because she was still not out and I was exhausted, but I was ready. The baby was not going to come out any other way at this point for whatever reason. That was going to be dissected months later, years later by me, but in the moment, yeah. She was at station 0. I was told she wasn't far enough down to do an assisted delivery, so they wheeled me into the OR for the C-section. I requested that the baby have skin-to-skin as well as delayed cord clamping. Unfortunately, none of this happened and I guess I should also note that once they put the monitor on her head, she did great. She still was not in distress. I was doing great too. The C-section was just really for arrest of descent. They just thought it was taking too long because I had been pushing for a little over 5 hours at that point. Meagan: Yeah. Heidi: Yeah. She was born via C-section at 3:20 in the morning. She weighed 7 pounds, 1 ounce and she was in the OP position. Meagan: I was just going to say, was there a positional issue here? I always wonder when there's patterns like yours where I'm like, “That sounds like a positional thing.” Okay, so OP. Occiput posterior for anyone who is listening or sunny-side up. Baby just needed rotation. Heidi: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was that. Meagan: Yeah. So then did you end up when you got pregnant, did you end up staying with this provider? How did that journey begin? 27:06 Researching providers before second pregnancyHeidi: I went back– let's see. I'm trying to think. I went back for routine care almost a year later. I had care in between, but I had wanted to see that provider just to have closure. I asked her. At the time, I wasn't really sure that I wanted another child. My husband and I were just really thinking, “Is that what recovery is always like?” After the C-section, it was really hard. I asked her, “If I were to have another child, what would be my odds of delivering vaginally? Could I have another child that way instead of the C-section?” She said, “You probably would end up with another C-section if you even tried so you probably have about a 40% chance.” It was not based on anything. Meagan: Hmm. So she didn't even do the calculator, just gave you a percentage. Heidi: No. Just gave me a percentage. Meagan: Oh dear, okay. Heidi: So at the end of that appointment, again, I still had not really educated myself and knew that there were amazing resources out there, so I just said, “Okay. If I have another child, I'll have to have another C-section.” I went home and told my husband. I said, “If we have another child, we're going to have to have a C-section.” We were both like, “Okay, maybe we won't have another child.” Yeah, so then another year passed. We were beginning to get ready and slowly started to research other providers just for routine gynecological care. We ended up finding a hospital that was just about 25 minutes away just thinking, “Well, what if?” I had heard this hospital was well-known for VBACs and I had also started seeing a pelvic floor therapist prior to going to this hospital for care who was working at this hospital. It was kind of on my radar. Heidi: From there, I met the OB. I met the OB and then I was just really shocked at how supportive she was. In the past, you just go into the OB or gynecologist and they will put you in a gown and they do whatever they need to do, a pap smear or whatever. But this one, the nurse had said, “Don't get undressed. They want to meet you. They want to talk to you first.” Meagan: I love that so much. I love that. That's awesome. Heidi: It was so different. It was in a hospital, but it didn't feel like a medical office. The rooms were painted blues and greens. You could tell there was a lot of effort being made to make it feel like home. I began my journey. I had just met with her. This OB had talked to me about birth story processing. I had no idea what any of this was. I had no idea that I even had trauma from my last pregnancy at this point until I had just met with her and was talking with her. She said, “There is no pressure if you don't want to have another child.” I was just there to meet with her and have a check-up. I think I want to say a couple of months passed and actually, that night, I went home to see my husband. I was like, “You know if we do have another child, it's going to be here.” Yeah, so a couple of months went by and we did decide to have another child. Again, the baby was conceived right away. No complications. This time, we started working with a doula. I began birth story medicine at the same time. I did that for a couple of months in addition to my therapist to process the birth trauma and just everything. I was tested for gestational diabetes early during this pregnancy. I started insulin at 11 weeks and I was just kind of ready this time. It wasn't as scary honestly the second time. It's a lot of work. I would say that it was annoying, but it wasn't scary. Meagan: Well, and you're like, “I've done this before. I did a really good job last time. I learned a lot,” because you did go pretty deep into it, so you're like, “I can do this. I've got this.” Duh, this kind of sucks, but you know. You got it. No problem. Heidi: Right. My first baby was born at a really great weight and there were no complications at all. Meagan: Good. Did they already start talking about induction and things like that from the get-go? Did they talk about extra testing? Because at this point, you for sure have it. Earlier or later, did they talk about that stuff? Heidi: With this provider, I went in and they told me I was old last time, the other provider. I'm really old. They looked at me and were like, “No, you're not.” Meagan: No, you're not. Heidi: Yeah. They're like, “You're 37. That's not old.” Meagan: Yeah. Heidi: I'm like, “What?” Meagan: The other clinic, would they have wanted to do NSTs because of age and gestational diabetes? Heidi: I don't know. Meagan: Okay. But these guys were like, “No, we're good. We don't need to do any extra testing because of an early diagnosis of gestational diabetes and now you're 37.” Heidi: Yeah. They said what they do consider older but it's still not impossible was, I believe, over 40. Meagan: So you didn't even have that pressure from the get-go? Heidi: No, no. Meagan: What an amazing way to start. Heidi: Yeah. It was amazing. They also weren't concerned with the fact that I was on insulin. We did talk about NSTs because I asked because I knew it would come up and they had said, “You can have once a week as long as your sugars are in control, we are comfortable with that.” I felt so relieved. Yeah. It was such a holistic, relaxed approach. They trusted me to manage my body and to know what I needed and that was so empowering, the whole journey whereas before, I felt like I had a really short leash and they were basically managing everything for me as if they knew what was right for me and my body. Meagan: I was just looking. I'm just looking because I'm sure people are like where is this person? Where is this provider? Was it at the CMC? Is that where it was? Heidi: Yes. Yeah, Catholic Medical Center in Manchester. Meagan: Awesome. This is good. These are good vibes here with this provider. Heidi: Totally, yeah. Oh my gosh, yeah. 38:04 Discussions around inductionHeidi: So let's see. Once I'm diagnosed with gestational diabetes, I have maternal-fetal medicine ultrasounds, but that also was true because my first daughter was born missing a kidney. Again, she's totally healthy and totally great, but they wanted to make sure that nothing weird was going on, yeah. That was at about 32 weeks. They were also checking the baby's growth and baby's size at that point. Baby was measuring very average. She had two kidneys. Little things that we take for granted, we were so grateful for. Yeah. That went really well. The pregnancy was just progressing really well. In my third trimester, I was struggling with all of the extra appointments and the trauma that I was processing though from my last birth because I knew and my gut told me, “You need to work through this because if you don't, you have to be really strong to have a VBAC. You have to really work through a lot of mental blocks and things that come your way.” So I just started getting really stressed between work and the appointments will all the different therapies so I decided to take a couple of months away from work prior to the delivery in order to process everything and prepare myself. That was a really hard decision but it was probably one of the best decisions that I could make. Meagan: Good for you. Heidi: Yeah. At around 36 weeks, it was suggested to me by my provider that I could consider a 39-week induction, but it was delivered so differently. Meagan: Good. Heidi: Reasoning basically says that ACOG has a suggestion for insulin-controlled gestational diabetes. They basically told me the data. They told me why they are suggesting this, but ultimately it is my choice. It was a discussion that I just found to be so incredible and weird in a really good way. Meagan: Which in my opinion is so sad that these things happen that are good conversations have to feel weird to us because that should just be normal, but it's not a lot of the time, right? Heidi: Yeah. I was working with my doula at the time and she was a really big proponent of expectant management and letting everything happen naturally and honestly, that's all I ever wanted. I think that's what most people want. So I just explained, “I am not interested in induction. I want to do expectant management as long as everything progresses the way that it's going and it goes well. That's what I want to do.” They said, “Okay. We can do that.” Meagan: I love that. That's great. Heidi: It was amazing. It was really empowering. 41:45 NSTs twice a weekHeidi: So let's see. They suggested that I have a 36-week ultrasound to check my baby's size again. Actually, no sorry. They suggested it. I was actually able to negotiate my way out of it. I said, “You know, I just had one at 32 weeks. Is it really necessary to have another in 4 weeks?” I talked to the OB and she was like, “You know what? No. You don't have to do that.” Yeah. Meagan: Things are just getting better and better. Heidi: Oh, so good. Yeah. So right around then, the NSTs began. I'll just say also, I walk into– so NSTs were really awkward during my first pregnancy. I sat on the hospital bed so uncomfortable and sitting up with all of these things attached to me. At this provider, I go in. There is an NST room and it's painted blue and it's really common. There is a reclining chair and for me, it just really felt like they were normalizing the fact that NSTs do happen and it's okay and it's normal. Here's a special space for it. Meagan: Well, and almost like they are setting you up for success in those NSTs because in NSTs, when we are really uncomfortable and tense, overall, that's not going to be good for us or our babies. That's going to potentially give us readings that we don't want but when we are comfortable and we are feeling welcomed and we are like, “Yeah, we're not happy that we are here taking this test,” or sometimes we are, but when we are comfortable and we are feeling the beautiful colors and the nice, soft recliner, it's a very different situation to set you up for very different results. Heidi: Yes. Absolutely. Yeah, so then my journey just kept going. My NSTs were beautiful every week. It was really interesting how they set them up because they had the NSTs after the doctor's appointments because they weren't expecting. If they can get a good reading, I think the minimum is 20 minutes whereas I had the NSTs before so it was like they were looking for a problem then I had the doctor's appointment so I ended up being there for 2 hours during my first pregnancy. But these ones, I never sat more than 20 minutes.The nurses usually saw what they needed within 5 minutes and they said, “Your baby is doing great. You're out of here as soon as the time is up.” Meagan: That is amazing. Oh my gosh, 2 hours. That is a long time. Heidi: Yes. Yes. This pregnancy was really odd, but I'll take it. I stopped needing insulin during the last two weeks. Usually, there is a peak near the end of pregnancy, and then the need for insulin goes down in the last two weeks I want to say. For me, it actually just kept going down, down, down, and then all of a sudden, it was gone. That didn't happen last time. They were a little nervous about that because it didn't really happen. I explained to them, “I think it's honestly probably lack of stress,” because I wasn't working at my job at the time and I was moving a lot more too, so who knows? Meagan: Really interesting. Heidi: It did make them a little nervous because they said there is very limited data, but sometimes it can indicate an issue with the baby. Meagan: Oh, the placenta. Heidi: Sorry, I'm nervous so I'm forgetting. Meagan: There are times when it can be the placenta being affected. Is that what they were saying?Heidi: Yes, thank you. They said, “We could offer an induction at this point,” because I was at 39 weeks when they brought that up. I said, “I don't think so. I really want to stay the course. I want to do expectant management.” They said, “Okay, would you be open to twice-weekly NSTs?” I said, “Yes. If that lets me keep doing what I'm doing, we can do that and it's probably not a bad idea, because you never know.” 47:10 Testing for preeclampsiaHeidi: I woke up one morning at week 40 and thought my water was trickling out. I texted my doula and she was getting home from another birth and was going to rest, so I worked with my backup doula for that day which was a little scary. I didn't know what was going to happen from there. Around 6:00 PM that night, my husband and I arranged for my mom to watch our daughter because we needed to get to the hospital to get the amniotic fluid checked. We probably should have gone a little earlier, but the backup doula had suggested it might not be amniotic fluid. It might just be discharge. Meagan: Is there much going on labor-wise? Heidi: Not really. It was pretty quiet. Then I actually had an NST the day before that and there really wasn't much going on. I felt little Braxton Hicks-type things, but nothing much. We packed our bags, got ready, and got my mom. We arrived in triage. I had slightly elevated blood pressure which was just a routine check, but that basically led to them testing me for preeclampsia and then a urine test. Meagan: Hmm, a slight increase? Oh, man. Heidi: Yeah. It was slightly increased. You know, like a lot of people, hospitals make me nervous. Meagan: Yep. Yeah. They jumped right in and started going the moment you got there. Heidi: Yes. Yeah. It's different. It's still in the hospital, but it's separate. Labor and delivery is separate. They just had a very different mindset at the moment. I was sure that I didn't have preeclampsia. They asked me all of the questions and I'm like, “I really don't think that's what this is.” They were saying, “You're also post-date with gestational diabetes.” Meagan: Post-date by one? Heidi: Yes. Meagan: Or by 40 weeks. Heidi: Yeah. Yeah, so I would need an induction if I get preeclampsia and all of this. Who let this girl go this long? What the heck kind of thing? Meagan: Not helping your blood pressure, that's for sure. Heidi: I definitely started feeling PTSD. I was just like, “This again? Oh no. I feel like I'm in prison.” That's the way it felt last time. I knew I needed to get out of there fast. It wasn't good. The OB came in and lectured me. This was a different OB. She lectured me about preeclampsia and how I should really stay in the hospital. They were going to send for bloodwork even if it came back okay, I should stay the night. They drew the blood and I'm just beside myself at this point. I was like, “Well, when are they going to get the results back?” They said, “Probably about an hour or so.” You know how backed up the lab is. They were like, “Are you really going to drive home and come back?” I was like, “If I have to come back, which I really don't think I will, then yes, I will.” The blood was taken. The nurse ran back within– I want to say it was 10 minutes. It was really fast. She said, “You guys should really consider staying. Your platelets are low.” I said, “Okay.” Meagan: The labs came back that fast? Heidi: They came back really fast. Meagan: Because you were saying that you were maybe going to go back home? That's interesting. Heidi: Yeah. I said, “Okay. That's thrombocytopenia.” My provider had said I had that. We talked about it and I also had it during my last pregnancy. Meagan: Wait, what did you just call that? Heidi: Thrombocytopenia. Meagan: Thrombocytopenia. I've heard low platelets. I've never heard it called that. Heidi: Thrombocytopenia. I actually listened to a podcast oddly enough with Nr. Nathan Fox. Meagan: We love him. Heidi: Yeah, he's awesome. He was basically saying that it's common and it's generally not a big deal. Meagan: I just Googled it. Yeah, it says it's a condition where the platelets are low. It can result in bleeding problems. Yeah. Okay, all right. Keep going. Heidi: Yeah. It was interesting because he had said, “Within range,” and I was within that range, but I also talked to my provider about it months before and she said, “Oh yeah. This is common. We are not concerned with your levels.” Luckily, I was like, “Oh my gosh. I know enough.” I was like, “Nope. I know what that is. We are okay and we are going home. They can call us with the results.” So we went home. Meagan: That is amazing. Did they make you sign an AMA or anything like that? Were they just like, “Fine. We were going to have you stay, but you are good to go.” Heidi: Yeah. There was no paperwork. Meagan: Okay. Good. Heidi: I was free. Yeah. I was actually amazed at how– I mean, I was very firm with them. I was just like, “We are going home now.”Meagan: That is hard. That is really, really hard to do, like really, really hard so good for you for following your gut. Heidi: Yeah. It felt really good. Yeah. We got home. I started to feel some mild, irregular contractions and the same thing I had been feeling. We sent my mom home because she was still at my house. Like, “Go ahead. We've probably got another day.” I was like, “I know something is going to be happening soon. I feel it.” So around 10:30 that night, I got the call from the OB– Meagan: Yours? Heidi: Sorry, the one in the hospital that was treating me. She had said, “All right. You don't have preeclampsia. You don't have to come back.” I said, “Okay. We did it.” Meagan: Yep. Yep. Yep. Can you imagine having to be there that whole time? Heidi: No. Yeah. I'm sure they would have found something else. Who knows? Meagan: You never know. 54:53 Spontaneous laborHeidi: Yeah, so when we were home, we unpacked our bags, ate some food and sent my mom home. I bounced on my birth ball. I was pumped. I was so excited. We were like, “Okay. Back on the normal track.” Then around midnight, some contractions started that I figured would stop once I laid down for bed. I didn't really know. I never really had normal, non-Pitocin-induced contractions before, so I didn't really know what they would feel like. I was in denial, to be honest. I was like, “There's no way. I'm not going into labor right now. What are these? These are nothing. It's just cause I'm nervous or something.” I laid down. My husband was already asleep at this point and they didn't stop. They just kept getting stronger. I was lying there thinking, “No. I can't go into labor right now. I don't want to see that OB. I can't. I can't. This is not happening.” I was just willing my body, wishing and willing my body to wait until 6:00 AM or 7:00 AM until the shift change. So then I was like, “Okay. I should probably start timing these because this is no joke.” I found a timer and started timing them. They were spaced at 5 minutes apart lasting a minute each. I was like, “This is early labor. This is it.” I finally woke my husband up and I was like, “Hey. I think we're going.” Meagan: This is going to happen. Heidi: Yeah. I called my doula. I had been texting her meanwhile the whole time and she was super supportive throughout, then I finally was like, “I need to call her.” She talked me through what I was experiencing because I had no idea. She was like, “You guys should probably leave soon because this is your second baby and it could happen really fast.” I noticed there was pink discharge. Meagan: And you had made it to 10 before. Heidi: Yes, exactly. She was like, “This could happen really fast.” I noticed some discharge and it was pink. Contractions started to be really regular and really painful. She was like, “That's probably your cervix dilating.” I was like, “Why am I dragging my feet? We need to go. We need to go now.” 57:43 Going to the hospitalHeidi: We called my mom to have her come back to our house. I think it was 1:00 in the morning at this point. She didn't answer immediately probably because she was exhausted. Meagan: Probably asleep, yeah. Heidi: When she did, it was finally 2:00 AM and there was a bit of an ice storm outside, just a little one but just enough to make the roads slippery because she had texted me when she was going back home and she was like, “It's kind of icy. I just want to let you know.” So then I was like, “Oh no. My mom's on her way, but it's going to take her a while to get back to the house.” Then it's going to take us a while to get to the hospital. It was really getting pretty scary, but we were just like, “Okay. Let's just pack our bags again,” because we had started unpacking them. My provider had actually said that they were comfortable with me going until at least 41 weeks so I was like, “I could go until 41 weeks and then who knows?” Meagan: Right. Heidi: Anyway, so we put everything back. It was a really good distraction and then every single contraction, we would stop and brace ourselves. My mom got to our house at 3:15. We got to the hospital around 4:00 AM. It was the longest car ride of my life. My doula was like, “The contractions might slow down in the car.” I was secretly praying that they didn't because so many people that I knew had prodromal labor and I was like, “I want this to come like a freight train. I don't want it to stop.” It is so painful, then a lot of people say you get nervous when you get in the hospital. Things will slow down. I was just so nervous about all of that. I got to the hospital. My doula arrived soon after. We spent almost two hours in triage even though we were already there filling out paperwork. The contractions didn't stop or slow down during this. I was beside myself. I was like, “Oh my gosh. My body is ready. We are doing this.” The nurse in triage, at the time, was a different nurse. I think she worked a half shift or something, but she was really skeptical of VBAC. I was not comfortable with her. She said I couldn't eat. She had obviously outdated info. I asked her, “Why can't I eat?” She said, “Well, the odds of you needing another C-section are higher.” I'm like, “Well, how do you know that?” It was just really frustrating. I requested a midwife to deliver my midwife because the same OBs were on staff. I was going to a midwife for my care, a midwife, and an OB team. I actually ended up seeing the midwife even more than the OB so I really was comfortable with requesting a midwife to deliver, but the nurse really pushed back. She said, “You're a VBAC. I don't think you can have a midwife.” Yeah. She went into the hall, made a phone call with the midwife and the midwife on staff actually said no supposedly because I was a VBAC. Meagan: What? They had never said anything like this in your prenatals. Heidi: No. No. I think again, it's a little different. They also use other hospital staff at this hospital so you never know who you're going to get, but my doula is there and that's what matters. That's why I had a doula because you don't know. Meagan: You don't always know, yeah. 1:02:03 Laboring in the tubHeidi: They asked to do a cervical check. I was hesitant, but they said, “We have to do this to admit you.” I was like, “I'm not leaving at this point. I'm clearly in labor.” I consented to it and they found I was 4 centimeters dilated so I stayed. I got to my room around 6:30 and actually, I think I was about 80% effaced at this point. I got to my room around 6:30 and I just began setting it up to distract myself. My doula started setting up the bath for me. I was like, “I want to go to the bath.” I got to the tub around 7:00 AM to deal with the contractions because I really wanted a natural birth this time. My water broke 5 minutes after that. Shift changed at 7:00 AM. I feel like my body was like, “Okay, hey. Shift change at 7:00,” and then my water broke. Meagan: You said we were in triage for two hours and I was like, “Your body was waiting for shift change intuitively.” There you go. Heidi: I got in the tub. My water broke. A new nurse came in around 7:15. She had a trainee, but this was a nurse who had a lot of experience and she was just training to be in labor and delivery so it was basically like an extra set of experienced hands. She was also a nurse who had run a training for us a couple of months before and I was like, “I hope I get this nurse. I really, really hope I get this nurse.” In she walked, and I couldn't believe it. She came down to me at the tub. She started asking me questions right away about my birth plan. It's like she studied it. It was the most amazing thing. I can't exactly remember what she was asking, but just clarification and she was like, “Yes. We can do this. We can do this and we will do that.” I was like, “Wow.” The first time, I had a birth plan, but I'm pretty sure they burned it. Meagan: Aww. Heidi: Then she just started talking about how the birth process would go and how I would be feeling mentally more than likely and she also said that she is well-versed in Spinning Babies. Meagan: What you wanted! Heidi: Yeah. Yeah. I was like, “This is heaven.” I also took a short course in it to prep for this labor and I really was trying to do all of the things. I couldn't do all of the things, but I think there is a lot of science to Spinning Babies, especially having an OP baby the first time. Initially, I was experiencing back labor. She asked me, “Where do you feel your pain?” I said, “In my back.” She said, “Get on all fours. The baby could be OP.” I was just like, “Oh my gosh. I will do anything to not have another OP baby.” She said, “We're going to spin her.” I stayed on all fours. I just did this. I started using the nitrous. This hospital provided nitrous. Meagan: Nitrous oxide?Heidi: Yeah. The other hospital did not have that, but I was so excited for that. It helped me just breathe through my contractions, really get in tune with my body, and gave me a focus. I was able to move around really freely. When I was in the tub, I started to feel the urge to push so we moved out into the bed. I still stayed on all fours. But I was also just, I don't remember this, but my doula was saying that I really was kind of dancing. I was moving in the ways that my body told me to do. It felt so incredible and obviously painful. 1:06:22 Pushing for 30 minutesHeidi: Then it was about 9:15 and I was really, really wanting to push at this point. I was told to wait for a cervical check though and I was like, “Why do I need a cervical check? I'm ready.” Meagan: My body is saying I'm ready, yeah. Heidi: Yeah. A midwife came in. She introduced herself and she was like, “I'm going to be delivering your baby.” I was like, “Okay.” I couldn't believe it. It was a different midwife and she was like, “I want to check you because you could have a lip if you're not fully effaced. Your pushing will be ineffective.” She found that I was 10 centimeters dilated, fully effaced so then we went on and pushed. My daughter came out at 9:46 AM so we pushed for a half hour. Meagan: Oh my gosh! So you got baby in a good position and isn't there such a difference between pushing? Heidi: Yes. Not having the epidural, I could feel everything. It was so real. She was 7 pounds, 3 ounces. She did have a compound presentation. She was head down, but yeah. She came out with her hand pressed against her head. Meagan: Yes, come out thinking. Heidi: Yeah. I had really no tearing, very, very minimal. I achieved the delayed cord clamping. My husband got to cut the cord. We didn't have to remind them of our wishes. They just knew. We had a golden hour which I never had before, but I was told I could take as long as I wanted, and yeah. It was just the most beautiful thing I have ever experienced in my life and I just couldn't believe I did it. Meagan: Yeah, what a journey. I am so happy for you. Heidi: Thank you. Meagan: Congratulations. And now, at this time of recording, how old is your baby? Heidi: She is 8 weeks.Meagan: 8 weeks. Brand new! How has the postpartum been? Heidi: Oh my gosh. It's been amazing. I mean, as amazing as it can be. Let's be real, but compared to what it was. Meagan: Good. I'm so happy for you. You know, when you finished your first, you were like, “My husband and I didn't even know if we would ever want another kid.” I can just see this joy on your face right now. Where are you at in that stage now? Are you two and done or are you like, “I could do this again”? Heidi: We are two and done. Meagan: Hey. Heidi: Yeah, I mean it's funny because the nurse and my OB were like, “You really should have another one.” Meagan: This is what I did. I went out with a bang. You went out with a bang. Heidi: You can't top this. Meagan: You got the birth you wanted and all the things. You know, you advocated for yourself in the birth room. You left and then still advocated for yourself in the birth room. I mean, how amazing. How amazing. Heidi: Yeah. I ended up with the most supportive team. You do never know what you're going to get, but the team that came in at 7:00 AM, oh my goodness. They treated me like I was just a normal, vaginal birth. There was no VBAC. There was no jargon. It was beautiful. Meagan: I love hearing that. That is truly how it is supposed to be and it's so often not. Then yeah, then we learned more about the correct diagnosis or term of low platelets. I totally Googled it really quickly and it just said that gestational thrombocytopenia, how do you say it? Heidi: Thrombocytopenia. Meagan: Thrombocytopenia is a diagnosis of exclusion. The condition is asymptomatic. It usually occurs in the second half of pregnancy in the absence of a history of thrombocytopenia. Heidi: You got it. Meagan: It said, “The pregnancy and the platelet counts spontaneously return to normal within the first two months of postpartum.” We will make sure to have a little bit more reading. It will go back into some things, but one of the things it does say is that it is not necessarily an indication for a Cesarean delivery which is also important to know because I mean, there can be low platelet levels that are more intense like HELLP syndrome and things like that, but this is a really good things to know because that would have easily been something if it hadn't been for Dr. Nathan Fox and if it hadn't been for them talking to you about this. It could have scared you like, “Oh, okay. Okay. Let's stay.” But you were fully educated in the situation and were able to make a good choice for you and advocate for yourself and say, “I feel good about this. You can call me when the preeclampsia levels come back, but I feel good about this decision. We're moving on.” Then the amazing, miraculous, no insulin need, that's another really cool thing about your story, but I also wanted to share Lily Nichols. I don't know if you've ever heard of her. Heidi: Yes. For my first pregnancy, I read both of her books. She's amazing. Meagan: She's amazing. We'll be sure to link her books and stuff in the show notes as well so you can make sure to check it out. If you were given a diagnosis of gestational diabetes or even actually just in general, her books are amazing. You can read and be really, really well educated. Okay, well thank you so much for sharing your beautiful stories. Heidi: Yeah. Thank you for having me. ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In this week's episode we hear the rest of Hannah's story: *we hear about the premature birth of her son * how she manages his care during his long stay in the NICUand*how he's doing now.We also hear more from Dr. Weiner, who is working on a test that can predict both prematurity and early onset preeclampsia to try to prevent these issues from arising in a pregnancy. We pick up where we left off last week; Hannah has checked into the hospital at 23 weeks five days because she's having contractions and doesn't know if this is the birth or Braxton Hicks..

In this episode, Dr. Shannon and Doula Rachael discuss labor contractions. They explain what contractions are, how to differentiate between Braxton Hicks and real contractions, and how to time contractions. They also discuss the importance of understanding the physiological changes during labor contractions and the significance of visualization and changing the narrative around contractions.TakeawaysUnderstanding the difference between Braxton Hicks and real contractionsKnowing how to time contractions and when to head to your birth location (if not birthing at home)Recognizing the physiological changes during labor contractionsUsing visualization and changing the narrative to empower the birthing experienceChapters00:00 Empowering Birth, Navigating Labor Contractions and Home Labor Preparation04:23 Understanding Contractions and Changing the Narrative05:14 Physiological Changes During Labor Contractions08:33 Differentiating Between Braxton Hicks and Real Contractions23:50 When to Go to the Hospital or Call the Midwife29:02 Visualization and Flipping the ScriptSupport the showWant to show your support? Want to help us continue doing this important and impactful work: Support the Show (we greatly appreciate it!)Don't miss new episodes: Join the Aligned Birth CommunityInstagram: Aligned Birth Email: alignedbirthpodcast@gmail.com Find us online:Sunrise Chiropractic and Wellness North Atlanta Birth Services Editing: Godfrey SoundMusic: "Freedom” by RoaDisclaimer: The information shared, obtained, and discussed in this podcast is not intended as medical advice and should not be relied upon as a substitute for professional consultation with a qualified healthcare provider familiar with your individual medical needs. By listening to this podcast you agree not to use this podcast as medical advice to treat any medical condition in either yourself or others. Consult your own physician for any medical issues that you may be having. This disclaimer includes all guests or contributors to the podcast.

Wondering what changes your body will experience in late pregnancy? Or what signs to look out for that mean your body is actually in labor?  In this episode, we dive into the following:Signs your body is getting ready for labor in late pregnancySigns labor is approachingHow to tell Braxton Hicks contractions from actual labor contractionsDon't forget to check out the blog postResources mentioned:>>  A Path to A Powerful Birth Class>>  FREE Birth Plan Template>>  Clear Your Birth Fears Guide***If these topics light you up, please rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening.After you review the show - snap a pic and upload it here - and I'll send you a little surprise as a thank you.Your feedback helps this podcast grow, and I am so grateful for your support!Disclaimer: The information provided in this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. Consult with a qualified healthcare professional for personalized advice.

In this episode we get to hear from 2 fantastic Labor & Delivery nurses who just so happened to have delivered Brittany's baby girl! Brittany shares intimate parts of her birth, asks common questions about birth like Braxton Hicks, epidurals, and more! We even got to answer some of your questions. OkMommas this episode is your go to if you are pregnant, interested in becoming a doula or L&D nurse, or you are darn right terrified and/or curious about birth in general.Join us as we create a community where mothers can find solace, wisdom, and encouragement. Whether you're a new momma, seasoned momma, non-birth momma, or soon-to-be momma, "The OkMomma" is your go-to resource for embracing the beautiful, messy, and profound journey of motherhood.Tune in, connect with us, and let's navigate the transformative journey of motherhood together.Call (805) 222-6106 to submit your questions, stories, and tips for a chance to be featured on The OkMomma PodcastJoin our Facebook groupJoin our mailing list

We love hearing stories of how our Women of Strength navigate birth in an empowered way, no matter the outcome. Rebecca's story shows how she carefully selected the most supportive homebirth midwife, created a safe birth space in her home, labored hard and beautifully with her husband, took time to process information, assessed her situation, and consented to her second Cesarean when the time felt right to her. Meagan also talks about the different types of positioning and some signs that your baby might be in a less-than-ideal position. Rebecca and Meagan discuss tips and tricks to help prevent a swollen cervix and what options you have if that happens to you!Additional LinksNeeded WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Timestamp Topics01:54 Review of the Week04:31 Rebecca's first pregnancy07:25 Consenting to an unexpected C-section for breech presentation8:53 Fertility Fridays11:02 Sparked interest in VBAC and getting pregnant again13:53 Planning for a HBAC18:00 Tachycardia and GBS positive21:27 Early labor24:18 Calling the team30:10 Laboring through the night39:02 Making the decision to transfer44:53 Consenting to a C-section46:43 Tips for when things don't go as planned50:43 Signs of wonky positioning53:31 What to do57:00 Why you shouldn't skip the repeat Cesarean storiesMeagan: Hello, hello. It is Meagan with another amazing story on The VBAC Link podcast. Thank you so much for listening to us, you guys. I love this community. I know I talk about it. I know it's weird that I don't even know you, but I love you. I love you so much and I'm so glad that you are here with us today. We have our guest today from, let's see, Virginia. I think it's Virginia. That's what my mind is saying. Rebecca: Yep. Meagan: This is Rebecca, so welcome, Rebecca. Rebecca: Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm really excited. Meagan: Absolutely. Me too. Her story, you guys, today is a repeat Cesarean story so if you didn't know on The VBAC Link, we do share repeat Cesarean stories because they are important to share as well. I'm excited for you to share more about your story and we're going to talk a little bit about swelling of the cervix at the end of this episode because this is something that we see and is a little bit of a part of your story. 01:54 Review of the WeekBefore we dive into the story and all of the things, we of course want to share a Review of the Week. This review is from shotsie3 and it says, “Amazing is not a strong enough word.” That is really awesome. I love that. It says, “I cannot say enough good things about The VBAC Link. Listening to this podcast not only saved my mental health but gave me the knowledge and confidence to take control of my second pregnancy. After my home birth turned into a hospital transfer and Cesarean with my first child, I felt broken. When I unexpectedly found out I was pregnant just 7 months postpartum, I felt scared and lost. I was afraid of failing again and doubted my body's ability to birth naturally, but I knew I absolutely could not have another Cesarean so I started obsessively researching VBAC. That's when I found The VBAC Link. I've been binging episodes ever since. Listening to these stories has been incredible. Each episode is like giving a shot of confidence into the arm.” Oh, I love that. A shot of confidence into the arm. We're giving you guys a little vaccine of confidence. It says, “Both my midwives and doulas have commented on how far my mental prep has come and I know it's all thanks to The VBAC Link. Julie and Meagan have given me lots of tools and resources to control my birth.” I love that. Control your birth. “I am now looking forward to welcoming my second child via HBAC in just five short weeks. I want to shout it from the rooftop, ‘EVERYONE SHOULD LISTEN TO THE VBAC LINK!'”This review was a little while ago, so shotsie3, if you are still listening with us, which we hope you are, email us. Let us know how your birth went. 04:31 Rebecca's first pregnancyMeagan: Okay, cute Rebecca, thank you so much for being here with us today. Rebecca: Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm really excited to share. Meagan: Absolutely. Well, I'd love to turn the time over to you. Rebecca: All right, well I guess I'll start with just a little recap of my daughter's birth who is my first C-section. My daughter was born in January of 2021. We got pregnant with her during kind of the height of COVID. That pregnancy went really smoothly other than it was COVID times so of course, my husband couldn't come to any of the appointments or anything like that. I didn't really do much prep with her because I wasn't going to go to a birth class. There weren't a lot of resources available. All I really did was watch some YouTube videos. I kind of knew I wanted to try to have a natural birth, but I didn't prepare that much for it really. I read Ina May Gaskin's Guide to Childbirth and stuff, but I didn't do too much preparation. She went to 41 weeks with no complications. I didn't want to be induced, so my OB was like, “We'll go to 41 weeks and then we'll bring you in for an NST and an ultrasound.” So we went in on January 10th for her NST. She passed that with flying colors and I had asked them if they would give me a membrane sweep before they would induce me. They said they could try that, so they were going to come in and give me the membrane sweep, but luckily, one of the doctors there was like, “Well, let's do her ultrasound first just to make sure that everything's fine because that just makes sense before going down there and doing the membrane sweeps.” They did the ultrasound and she was like, “Did you know your baby's breech?” I was like, “No, I did not.” Meagan: News to me. Rebecca: Yeah. Every time the OBs would very quickly, I will say, very quickly palpate me, they'd be like, “Yep. Feels like she's head down. Everything's good.” She was like, “Yeah. She's breech so we're going to go ahead and schedule a C-section for today at 4:00.” It was around 11:00 or something when this happened, so I just immediately started crying because I did not want a C-section. That wasn't what I was planning for at all. She was like, “Well, we don't do the (ECV)s here.” Is that what it's called? (ECV)? Am I saying it right?Meagan: Mhmm, yeah. Rebecca: Yeah. She was like, “We don't do that here. Your amniotic fluid is kind of low, so yeah. This is your option.” Meagan: I wonder why they don't do it there. Rebecca: I don't know. She just said that they don't offer that service. I guess I didn't really know to ask for a second opinion or to see what other– I was just like, “Well, she's telling me that this is my only option,” so we consented to the C-section which was really disappointing. 07:25 Consenting to an unexpected C-section for breech presentationRebecca: My husband had to go home and get a hospital bag ready because we didn't bring it with us or anything. We were like, “Oh, we will have time to go back if they are going to induce me.” I don't know. We just weren't prepared. Anyways, around 4:00, she was born via C-section and it was uncomplicated. It was uncomplicated. She did well. She did have some hip dysplasia because she was frank breech and they think she was probably frank breech for a long time, so her hips and the bones weren't in the socket at all. But other than that, she was completely healthy. But yeah, I remember that night kind of laying in bed with her nursing, and my husband was asleep. I just was quietly sobbing because I felt like everything that I was looking forward to kind of got ripped away from me and I didn't really have a choice in the matter. So I never got to experience one single contraction or any of that with her. I didn't even really have Braxton Hicks with her. It almost felt like there was no closure to the pregnancy. It felt like I should still be pregnant. I definitely, yeah. That was a struggle. That was a struggle for a while afterward kind of trying to find closure of that whole experience because it was just like, “Okay, you're pregnant and now you're not pregnant.” There was no transition. That was her story. 8:53 Fertility FridaysActually, to be honest with you, shortly after her birth, I was kind of like, “Well, if we get pregnant again, I think I'm just going to do a C-section again because I know what to expect. My body's already been through it. You know, I think I'm just going to do a C-section again.” That was kind of what I was thinking. But as I went on throughout my postpartum time, when I got my period back, I noticed throughout the year that I had some weird issues. I was spotting a lot all throughout the month and just different things were happening that I was like, “This doesn't seem quite right.” When I went to the OB about it, they were like, “Oh, it's fine. Your body is probably just getting back into the swing of things.”But it would be like, “Okay, well I've been postpartum for a while now.” This was two years down the line. I think that there's probably something going on that needs investigating. They were kind of like, “No, it's fine. It's fine.” I ended up finding a podcast actually called “Fertility Fridays”. I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's really awesome. Meagan: I haven't. Rebecca: It just teaches women about their bodies. How to track your cycle and what your cycle means, and how to know if you're actually fertile at that time because that's another thing. It took us a year to get pregnant with Emma Jean. I was also afraid, “Well, it took us a long time last time. Maybe something was wrong.” I just got really into body awareness and women owning their bodies and the different choices that we make and that our bodies have all of these natural processes that we don't even really know about all of the time because we are not educated about those things. Meagan: Yeah. Rebecca; So as I educated myself on how my body worked and all of its amazing processes, I also became really interested in physiological birth again. It re-sparked my interest in that and my passion for that. I kind of was like, “Well, my body is set up to do all of these amazing things. Why don't I let it do that? If I do get pregnant again, I do think I want to try to have a VBAC and let my body do what it's supposed to do.” 11:02 Sparked interest in VBAC and getting pregnant againRebecca: That kind of sparked my interest back into the VBAC and the physiological birth. I got pregnant again in, I guess it was September of 2023. It's 2023 now, right? Meagan: Mhmm, yeah. Rebecca: It was 2022 that I got pregnant again with the first time trying because I had used these methods that I had learned to actually know, “Hey, I'm fertile on these days.” Unfortunately, that pregnancy did end in a miscarriage so we miscarried that baby in November around this time of year. That was also crushing, but luckily, we started again in January, and again, right away, the first time we tried, we got pregnant again with my son, Arthur who luckily is here with us today. We got pregnant with him in January of 2023 and that was a pretty scary first trimester because I was definitely worried about miscarriage and things of that nature. But as soon as we got pregnant with him, I started listening to The VBAC Link. I also just started to think about, because you guys talk about it all of the time, finding a provider that was friendly to VBAC, truly friendly. Meagan: Yes. Rebecca: Based on my experience with my OB that I was with, I felt like they were tolerant of VBAC but not necessarily supportive. I figured with her, I went to 41 weeks and I hadn't experienced a single contraction. I think they would have been like, “Well, if you don't go into labor by 39 weeks, it's going to be a repeat Cesarean.” I wanted to look for other options and one of my friends had a wonderful home birth for her second child and she recommended Kelly Jenkins who is Blue Ridge Birth. Meagan: What city are you in? Rebecca: I'm in Winchester, Virginia and she works all throughout the surrounding area so the Northern Virginia area. I called her around 7 weeks. I was like, “I know it's kind of early.” She was like, “No. This is perfect timing because I'm already almost full for October,” which was when I was due. She was just really great about going through all of the fears and concerns we have as VBAC parents going into a home birth. She just made me feel so comfortable. She was just really thoughtful with all of our questions, had a lot of stats and evidence, and just really practical which was what I was looking for. Somebody who really was practical and knew their stuff, but also wasn't necessarily a traditional OB. 13:53 Planning for an HBACRebecca: We ended up signing on with her for our care. She would come to our house at the normal time and an OB would come and spend a whole hour with us and just answer all of our questions which was awesome. Meagan: Wow. Rebecca: I never felt like, “Oh, well you're a VBAC so you are a huge risk.” Everything was just supportive and always gave us all of the evidence for all of the choices we had to make all along the way. I also did yoga throughout this pregnancy. I immediately downloaded the Spinning Babies yoga thing. We watched the Spinning Babies parent class because I was trying to do everything not to have a breech baby. Meagan: Yes. Rebecca: I went to the chiropractor a lot and yeah. I just tried to do everything with my posture and all of these things to make sure this baby was not going to be breech. That was my biggest fear. He never was breech, so that wasn't the problem. We also took a Bradley class. I have mixed feelings about Bradley, especially as a repeat Cesarean parent. Meagan: Yep. Rebecca: I think Bradley is really great, but I will stand on a soapbox just for a minute and say I also think Bradley is pretty dated and somewhat unfair to parents because it really does villainize any kind of drug or anything. Sometimes you have to do things for the safety of your child and I feel like it really villianizes using a lot of medical tools that sometimes you truly need. Meagan: That are necessary. Interesting, yeah. Rebecca: Luckily, we had a great doula who taught our Bradley class. It was Bethany Bagnell. She definitely gave it her own spin and kind of, I feel like, was more open-minded whereas if you read the Bradley book, I feel like he's very stringent and I just feel like some of the things he promotes are a little bit outdated in my opinion. But I really liked her so it was a very informative class. We felt really prepared going into the birth. 18:00 Tachycardia and GBS positiveWe really didn't have any complications until week– I guess it was 34 or 35. Kelly came to our house to do our normal check-up and the baby's heartbeat was really fast. She called it tachy. She was really concerned about that and so we actually did go to the hospital to get an NST. They were pretty rude to us at the hospital. They were kind of like, “Why are you guys here? I don't understand why you are here.” We were like, “Our midwife–”Meagan: Just checking up. Rebecca: You know, the heartbeat was really high. I don't know. They just weren't very kind to us while we were there. But anyway, they ended up not giving us the test that she asked them for. She wanted them to do an ultrasound and an NST and they refused to do the ultrasound. We ended up having to drive up to Laden to get the ultrasound. Everything was fine. His heart rate had settled back down and he looked fine. He was head down so we were happy about that. But that was the only little scare that we had. The other thing that was a little bit of a complication but not a complication, just something that happened is we did test positive for GBS. That was not a big deal. We could get the antibiotics at home so it did not preclude us from having a home birth or anything. We did research a lot about that because we kind of wanted to avoid antibiotics so we did a lot of research to decide what the best decision was for us whether we wanted to do those antibiotics. We decided we were just going to play it by ear based on how soon my water broke and different things. Meagan: Signs. Yeah, all of those things are really good things to take into consideration. Rebecca: Yeah, exactly. My urine was clear for GBS. It was just the swab so that was another good indicator that it might be okay. Then yeah, we were just going to kind of wait and see. I also went on a really stringent diet. I cut out white foods and a lot of the things that are shown to feed GBS then I added a lot of fermented foods and probiotics and stuff like that. Meagan: Awesome.Rebecca: So those were really the only two little bumps in the road. The whole pregnancy, every time, she would palpate which would be a full belly map by the way. When the OB would touch my belly, it would be for 10 seconds. Kelly would actually go in and she would completely map out my belly and be like, “I can feel his neck here and his butt.” Every time she did that, she would be like, “He's in a great position. He's in a perfect position.” We were really hopeful going into things. Of course, he did go over the due date but I kind of expected that because Emma Jean did the same thing. The difference with him was I had a lot of Braxton Hicks and I did actually have a few days where I had some prodromal labor or some episodes that I was like, “Maybe this is labor,” and then it kind of just fizzled out. 21:27 Early laborHe went to 41 weeks and I was starting to get a little nervous that we might have to induce. I really didn't want to do that, so the day that he was 41 weeks, I started feeling contractions every 10 minutes throughout the day. I was at work and I was just kind of breathing through them. They weren't painful, but I was definitely like, “Okay. These are kind of timable, every 10 minutes or so.” Right after work, I got together with some of my work friends and we went for a really nice, hilly, 3-mile walk and sure enough, by the time I got home from that, I was feeling contractions become stronger and closer together. They weren't painful yet, but around the time that I was cooking dinner, I went upstairs and I went to the bathroom and I had blood all over my toilet paper. I was like, “Okay. That's a good sign. Maybe I am in labor. Maybe this is finally it,” because we had a few episodes and we had been trying all of the things to get things going. I told my husband, “Maybe things are really happening.” I texted my midwife and she just told me, “Go to bed early tonight. After you put your daughter down, go to bed and see if you can get some rest because it sounds like this might be it so try to get some rest.” I got my daughter down and tried to lay down probably around– she went to be around 8:00 and I tried to lay down around 8:30. As I was laying in bed, I just couldn't get comfortable. What it felt like to me was gas pains. I had always heard period cramps, but I was feeling very strong gas pains. I told my husband, “Maybe I just have gas.” He was like, “Your gas doesn't come in waves like that. I think you're having contractions.” I was like, “I don't know.” Meagan: It doesn't come in waves. Rebecca: He was like, “You're having contractions. I think you're really having contractions.” So he started to time those and they were coming every 5-7 minutes and it was too uncomfortable for me to stay in bed, so I was like, “Well, let's go ahead and go into the basement.” We have a nice finished basement and we were going to birth down there. That's where we were going to set up the pool. I was like, “You can get the tub set up and I can kind of pace around and we will make sure we won't wake up Emma Jean,” who is my daughter. We came into the basement probably around 10:00 and pretty much as soon as we got into the basement, my contractions became strong enough that I wasn't really feeling like I could talk through them anymore. I was leaning over the ball and breathing. My dog, Maggie, was right beside me. Her face is right next to mine the whole time. She was kind of starting to distract me so I was like, “Let's call my dad to come get the dog.” I was like, “I think this is really happening.” 24:18 Calling the teamRebecca: We called everyone. We called Kelly and we called my mom and my sister who were going to help and attend the birth. Everybody just started rolling in. My dad came and got the dog. My mom and sister came and then Kelly was coming around midnight. By the time Kelly got there, I was definitely like, Rick was already helping me out with counterpressure because my contractions were so strong in my back. Everything was in my back, not in my abdomen at all. I remember in the back of my head, I was like, “Man, I remember that means position.” Meagan: Usually. Rebecca: It's probably not what it should be. Kelly, on the phone, had told me to try to do some of the Miles circuit. I had been working through that a little bit when she showed up. When she showed up, I was on the bed in the head down position with the butt up which is part of the Miles circuit and my water broke. My water broke right around midnight when she arrived and that was really cool for me because I had not gotten to experience that with Emma Jean so that feeling is still something that I think of fondly because I never got any of that with my first daughter. Kelly was like, “Just so you know, your contractions might pick up now because your water is broken.” I was like, “Okay,” and they definitely, definitely did pick up. I feel like I almost didn't even go through that early labor stage. I feel like I kind of went straight into that active, you've got to focus. You've got to breathe. My husband had to be right there with me with the counterpressure. Things were pretty strong. They were tolerable and I was excited, so I wasn't like, “Oh, this is really painful.” I was like, “Oh my gosh. It's happening. This is all happening.” That really, I think, helped with the pain tolerance. I was excited for it. But for most of that part of labor, I was leaning over the bed or the couch, and my sister, I would hold her hands and look at her. My husband would be behind me with the counterpressure. They were getting the tub all going and everything. Then Kelly was like, “Do you want me to check you?” I let her check me, but I told her not to tell me how dilated I was. She checked me and she was like, “Well, he's really, really, really low. I can already feel his head. You're almost completely effaced so that's good.” She didn't tell me how dilated I was, but I was like, “Okay. He's low. I'm effaced. Things are sounding good.” Then the nurse got there and we had to decide if we wanted to start the antibiotics for the GBS. My water had broken so I was kind of like, “Um, I don't know. Let's see.” Then I asked Kelly, “Can you just tell me how dilated I was so I can kind of get a sense of how much time we have?” She said I was only at a 1. I was kind of disappointed by that, but I was like, “I haven't been laboring that long. I know that dilation can come really quickly. It's not the only thing. I'm effaced and he's low,” so I didn't let it get me down, but we did decide to go ahead and run the antibiotics. She hooked me up with those and I was able to still be in the tub and everything. She just covered it with a dressing and a plastic so I could be in the tub. I did get in the tub at that point. I got in the tub probably a little after midnight. I don't know the exact timeframe. The tub was nice, but my husband hates baths so at first, he was like, “I'm not going to get in the tub with you.” I was like, “Okay, well I need your counterpressure so buddy, you're going to have to.” Meagan: Get in.Rebecca: Yeah. I went through a few contractions in the tub without him in there with me and to do the counterpressure, I would press my butt as hard as I could against the bottom of the tub. I was like, “This is not cutting it. You're going to swim with me now. Get in.” He did. He got in. He's kind of a germaphobe which is part of him not liking tubs thing. Meagan: Okay, fair. Rebecca: He got in with me and he did what he needed to do. He was awesome. Basically, I would just press against– I was lined up against his pelvis and I would press my butt into him as hard as I could because every contraction felt like my butt would fly apart if I didn't have somebody holding it together. Meagan: I  can totally relate. I was in labor. I was like, “He's going to come out my butt.” Everyone was like, “No, he's not.” I'm like, “Yes, he is.” Those posterior babies. Rebecca: Yep. It just felt like my butt would fly apart if no one held it together. That was how I was getting through each contraction. I labored in the tub for a while then I had to use the bathroom so they were like, “You should labor on the toilet for a while. People love laboring on the toilet.” So I was like, “All right.” I did not like laboring on the toilet. Meagan: Dilation station. Rebecca: I think I just really needed my husband's body. I don't know why. I needed to be pressed against him in some form or another. He was definitely my rock through that whole thing. He was really good. He read The Birth Partner book and everything. He really was with me 100% of the way which is another reason I'm so thankful that I got to labor this time because the bonding between the two of us going through that together was just something that I could never replace. It was just amazing. 30:10 Laboring through the nightRebecca: We kind of went back and forth between the tub and the bed and doing different things. Everything was going well. I remember asking people what time it was a few times and I was like, “Man, the night's really going by quickly. I feel like I'm laboring really hard, but I'm managing and everything was going well.” We labored all through the night until my daughter woke up at 7:00 in the morning. I wanted to say goodbye to her before she went off to school to daycare. I waited for a contraction to end because I was like, “I don't want her to come down here while I'm acting crazy.” When the contraction ended, I called up to my mom. I was like, “Bring down Emma Jean.” She was so cute. She was like, “You're swimming? You're in the pool? What's happening?” I was like, “Yeah. Your brother is coming. Kelly is here,” and she was really excited that Kelly was here because she got to know her throughout the pregnancy. She was really excited. She gave us a kiss and we told her, “Probably when we pick you up from daycare, your brother will be here,” so it was really cute. Then my mom took her. She took her to breakfast and was going to take her to daycare. Basically, as soon as she left, that was my permission to make as much noise as possible. Meagan: Let it go, yep. Rebecca: Yeah. My contractions were starting to be really, really strong. I was starting to feel pushy and I was having to basically roar through them. I was really fighting it. I was sounding angry. I was kind of roaring through them with sort of gritted teeth which I know is the opposite. You're not supposed to grit your teeth. You're supposed to let your jaw be loose and all of that. I was definitely roaring through those contractions. At that point, Kelly was like, “Look, it seems like you might be getting kind of close. Let's check you again and see what's going on.” The intensity of where I was and what I was doing to get through the contractions, I was really expecting and hoping that she was going to say I was maybe a 9 or a 10. She told me later she was fully expecting to tell me, “You're a 9 or a 10.” But when she checked me, I was only a 4.That was kind of crushing to me, but I was like, “Okay.” Actually, I told her not to tell me at first. I was like, “Don't tell me. Again, don't tell me unless it's time to push.” Meagan: Do not tell me, yeah. Rebecca: She said, “Okay, it's not time to push.” The way she said it, I was like, “Something's weird. Something's wrong.” She was like, “I really need you to relax. We're not going to get back in the tub. I want you to lay in the bed. I want you to be in a side-lying position.” She put me in very specific positions and she was like, “I really need you to rest and relax.” 33:09 First signs of swellingI was kind of like, “Okay, something is weird,” so I just asked her. I was like, “Well, what am I at?” She was like, “You're only at a 4.” I was like, “What? I've been laboring all night intensely.” She was like, “And the baby's head is already trying to come through and his head at the top is starting to swell a little bit,” which they called a caput. She was like, “So you know, he's good. His heart rate's good. Your heart rate's good. I'm not worried, but we do have to keep an eye on that.” So she was like, “I'm going to have you go through some different phases of the Miles circuit to see if we can change his position a little bit, get him off your cervix a little bit,” and things like that. I was not able to get those really strong counterpressure that I needed from Rick in that side-lying position, so I was like, “Let's get some music going. I need some kind of distraction.” I'm a singer. I love to sing and I play music and stuff so we put on our wedding playlist. We were just both lying on the bed. I had him get my comb for me so I could squeeze it and I was just singing through our wedding songs. That was actually a really beautiful part of the labor for me. I was sitting there and singing through our songs. It was kind of a chance to just be quiet and think about things. I just kept saying in my head, “Okay. Dilate. Dilate. You're going to dilate,” and thinking that over and over again. She had me do 30 minutes in each of these different positions. The one with the head down and the butt up was super uncomfortable I think because my neck was hurting. I was so ready for that to be over. After we went through those, she was like, “Okay, let's get you up and get you moving again.” This was probably at least an hour later that she was like, “Let's get you up off the bed and we'll just move around.” Rick and I danced around. Every time a contraction hit, I would just squat down really low and he would squat down and hold me in a chair almost and just hold onto me, then we would sway and dance. Meagan: How cute. Rebecca: Yeah. It was really special. We did that for probably another half hour, then it was time for me to get another round of the IV which I guess I had been getting every 4 hours is what that generally is. Kelly was like, “How about we do another round of the antibiotics and then I'll check you again because it will have been about two hours more or so. We will see if you have progressed and what is going on.” At this point, I was starting to feel a little discouraged. I remember I was sitting on the birth ball and Bethany, the nurse, was giving me the antibiotics. I just remember looking at Rick and I was like, “I'm trying so hard.” I was tearful. I was like, “I am trying so hard. I know that I'm a good mom.” He was like, “You're the best mom.” He was crying and I was crying. He was like, “We're going to get through this and we're going to do what we need to do.” Throughout my whole pregnancy, I had told him, “If I don't get a VBAC, it's going to be so hard for me. It's going to be really crushing for me.” His perspective on it the whole time was always like, “Look. We're going to make the best decisions possible with the information we have.” He was like, “Hopefully, that is you getting your VBAC, but if it's not, it's because we had to move to the next plan because it was the best decision.” He was kind of like, “Look. That's the same thing. We're going to make the best decisions with the information we have. You're a great mom and you're doing a great job. I'm so proud of you.” That was just really special. We were just going through the emotions. After we got the antibiotics, she checked me again. I want to say this was around 10:00 in the morning and she was like, “Becca, you're still a 4.” And she said, “Now, your cervix is swelling.” She said, “Look. You know, you're not in danger at this point. The baby's not in danger. This is not an emergency. But, I can't tell you that if you keep going for a few more hours, you're going to have your baby here. I don't know.” She was like, “Chances are your cervix will continue to swell. You've also been in labor for a long time. You're getting tired.” She just kind of started to talk to us about hospital transfer. She was like, “Maybe if we go to the hospital and you get an epidural and you can relax and maybe we can try some different positions with the epidural and get the baby to come off the cervix some.” We started talking about it and I remember I was going through a contraction on the edge of the bed. I had my arms up on the bed and I was just sobbing. I was like, “I tried so hard. I'm trying so hard.” But I remember as soon as I found out I was still just at a 4 and that my cervix was swelling, it is very mental because my tolerance of the contractions, my pain tolerance, just went down. Meagan: Yeah. Rebecca: All of a sudden, they just felt so much more painful because I was going from being like, “Well, maybe I'll meet my baby any second,” to “Who knows? Who knows what's going to happen?” Meagan: Starting to feel the defeat and doubt. Rebecca: Exactly. We talked about it and we were like, “Well, we could labor here for who knows how long and still need to transfer, or we could go ahead and transfer and try something new.”39:02 Making the decision to transferWe made the decision to transfer. Luckily, I only live 5 minutes away from the hospital, so it wasn't a super long process to do that. We already had our hospital bag packed this time. I was ready with that. I had my hospital bag packed. I had my C-section plan just in case. I had my hospital plan just in case. I at least felt ready to go. Nobody said, “You have to transfer.” It was our decision. We felt like we had the information and we made the decision together. That part of going to the hospital, I remember just wishing I could turn these contractions off now because now, getting in the car, not having the counterpressure, all that, and the funny thing was we walked out onto our patio. I had a contraction on the side of my patio and of course, my neighbors drive by and roll down their windows and are like, “How's it going?” Meagan: “Are you okay? How's it going?” Rebecca: Yeah. I was like, “Oh my gosh.” I love these neighbors. They are amazing, but I was like, “This is not what I want to be doing.” But we made it to the hospital. We got to triage. They strapped me all up. I was lying flat on my back in the most uncomfortable position, but basically, we got through triage and everything. From the time I got to the hospital to the time I got the epidural was probably still another hour and a half of labor at least. That was really tough. We made it there. We got there. We finally got the epidural placed. I would say it was around noon when I finally got the epidural placed. I will tell you. I am all about natural labor and if somebody had told me, “You'll have to labor 10 more hours, but you're going to push your baby out and everything is going to be fine,” I would have found it in myself to do that.Meagan: Yeah? Yeah? Rebecca: I will still say that epidural felt so freaking good. Meagan: I bet. Rebecca: It was just a warm wave of a warm tingling hug. As soon as I got the epidural, all of the pain just kind of melted away. I was like, “This is where we are so I might as well enjoy this for what it is and take this relief.” Yeah. The other thing was that the doctor was, I would say, VBAC tolerant for sure, the doctor on call. He kind of came in and gave us a big spiel about TOLAC and did we know the risks. He was like, “Look, you can try for a VBAC, but if anything goes wrong, we're not going to try to fix it. It's just going to be a C-section because we're going to play it safe.” I was like, “Okay.” I didn't have any problems with him. He was a nice guy and everything, but as soon as he said that, I was like, “I have a feeling this is going to be a C-section. I think it's just going to be a C-section.” The nurse was very great. She put me on the peanut ball. She moved me around some different positions to try to get him to back off my cervix. When they checked me again, I was still a 4 even after that time. I labored with the epidural for about two more hours to the point where I was like, “I'm getting kind of bored and antsy. I sort of want to know what's going to happen. What's the plan at this point?” At about two hours in, the doctor came back in and he checked me again. He said, “I could push you to a 5, but you're still basically a 4.” He said, “Your cervix is very swollen.” He said, “I could give you Benadryl or something like that for the cervix to come down.” He was like, “But I really don't like to do that because at this point, whatever is happening to your cervix is a position thing. It's a mechanical, positional thing.” Also, the epidural slowed my contractions way down. They went from being 3 minutes apart to being 10-12 minutes apart. He was like, “I'd probably have to give you Pitocin to get this going again.” He was like, “I'm not comfortable doing that.” He basically said, “I recommend a C-section and that's basically your option.”Meagan: I was like, “Okay. Can you give us a few minutes to talk it over?” He did. He left the room. My midwife, Kelly, was still there. She stayed on the whole time as my doula. She basically was like, “You know, I do understand what he is saying.” She was like, “I kind of wish he would have told you that earlier and not made you wait for two hours.” She was like, “I agree. It probably is positional and there's probably not a ton we can do.” Oh, another thing he had said was that the baby was having some decels after my contractions. He was like, “You know, that can show us the baby is in a little bit of distress.” She was kind of like, “You know, I understand what he is saying and I'm not sure that I would give you any other advice. I'm not sure I would tell you anything different.” My husband and I talked it over and we were like, “Let's just meet our baby. Let's just meet our baby now.” We had them go over our C-section plan and of course, they weren't willing to do most of the things that we had on that plan. They didn't have the clear drapes. There were just a lot of things that they weren't willing to do, but they did agree that the nurse could take pictures of the surgery for us which was something I didn't have with my daughter.Meagan: Which is nice. Rebecca: Yeah. She took pictures for me and that's pretty much the only thing, I think, that was really different. She took pictures of everything that happened. 44:53 Consenting to a C-sectionRebecca: Around 4:00, we consented to the C-section, and then yeah. They just prepped me. My sister took a picture of me giving a thumbs up getting ready to go. She took a picture of my husband and his whole suit and everything. I was like, “Okay. Let's just do this thing and get our baby now.” I did shed some tears while they were rolling me into the OR and I remember the anesthesiologist well-meaning was kind of like, “What? Are you afraid of a C-section? You've already done this!” I know she was trying to be like, “There's nothing to be scared of,” but I was kind of like, I even said to her, “I'm not scared. That's not why I'm crying.” She was like, “Well, what's wrong?” I was like, “I'm disappointed.”Meagan: This is not what I wanted, yeah. This is not what I planned for. Rebecca: That was a little bit like, “Okay. Come on. Empathize a little bit here. There are lots of reasons why someone could be crying going into this.” Long story short, the C-section all went to plan, but as soon as they did pull him out, they did say he was OP. He was sunny-side up and then they also said, “And he's 9 pounds.” So he was pretty big. I mean, I could have pushed him out for sure but he–Meagan: Yeah, on the bigger side. Rebecca: But he was in sort of a poor position which could be why I had the swelling and everything of the cervix. He came out and he was really, really healthy. Once we got to the recovery room, he nursed right away. He was definitely a hungry little boy right from the beginning so that was awesome. He latched right on and nursed and everything. Yeah, that's pretty much the story. 46:43 Tips for when things don't go as plannedMeagan: You know, it's so interesting how we have these things. We go through all of these things and we end sometimes in the way we didn't want, right? Rebecca: Yeah. Meagan: I've been there too, not nearly as intense as you. You went through a lot. I just had an unsupportive provider from the get-go. I ended up walking down to the OR in general, but we have these experiences, but we still grow from them. Rebecca: Absolutely. Meagan: I mean, I heard little nuggets within your story like bonding with your husband, having faith in your body, working through it, experiencing labor, having support, but are there any other things that you would tell our Women of Strength, our listeners, especially if something doesn't happen exactly as planned? Rebecca: Yeah. There are a couple of different things. The first one was all throughout when I was prepping for labor in particular, especially for dealing with pain, the word that kept coming up and coming up was surrender. I kept thinking, “Surrender to the contraction. Surrender to the sensation.” I always applied that very specifically to labor and labor pains, but I want people to take it a step further and just be like, surrender to your birth however it's going to happen because even if you do everything right and you do all of the steps, there are no guarantees in birth that you are going to have the outcome that you wanted. Even if you have a good outcome, most likely, there's going to be something about it that was unexpected or wasn't perfect so just try to surrender to the whole experience. Yeah, of course, surrender to the contractions. Surrender to the labor, but surrender to the whole experience and the fact that you can't control it. That doesn't mean you are doing anything wrong. Meagan: Yeah. Rebecca: That's the other thing. I hear it a lot in VBAC and I understand why people use this word, but I feel a little bit, I guess I would say use some caution in using it. A lot of people label their VBAC as a redemption or redemptive. You own whatever experience you have. I'm sure it is redemptive, but I guess what I would say is that we don't need to redeem ourselves. There is nothing we did wrong that we have to have redemption for. Can the experience feel redemptive? Absolutely, but I don't want women to then apply that to themselves like, “I need redemption because I failed at something.” You are making the best decision for yourself and your child with the information that you have at that moment. That is what parenting is all about. You can't control anything when you become a parent either. There are always going to be these little decisions you have to make that are unexpected or huge decisions. I think that was the difference between this C-section for me and the last one was the last one, I didn't feel like I had a choice. With this one, every step of the way, I was given choices by my midwife with my husband. We had time to talk through things. We had time to think through things. We made the choices that we felt were the best choices at the moment. So those are the two things I would really say. Surrender to your whole experience because you have no idea what it's going to bring and you don't need redemption because you are already being the best mom that you can possibly be or the best birthing parent that you can possibly be just by being in the moment and making those good decisions with the information that you have. Meagan: I love that so much. I love that so much. Thank you for sharing that. Rebeca: Yeah, absolutely. 50:43 Signs of wonky positioningMeagan: I want to dial into that. The swelling of the cervix, the “stalling” of this labor and I'm putting it in quotes, but it does happen and sometimes despite all of our efforts, it doesn't change and sometimes it does change, but I wanted to talk about the swelling of the cervix and what that really means and what kind of signs we can look out for to know that we've maybe got a baby in a wonky position that could cause a swollen cervix and then what we can do. I mean, just like you were talking about, we were talking about how you just needed your husband to hold your butt together. That is a sign. If we are having all back or butt labor, that could mean a sign that a baby is in an OP or occiput posterior position. That doesn't always cause a swollen cervix or a delay or a stall in labor or anything like that, but it can.Another position is called asynclitic and that's where the head is kind of tipped to the side a little bit and we're not coming down with a nice chin-tucked position into the pelvis. Another one is where the chin is extended or we're in that military position. I've also seen it sometimes in a transverse. It's like a transverse asynclitic. I don't know exactly what that one is where the head is back, the chin is up, and we're in an asynclitic position. We're not looking straight up. Those are positions that may mean our babies are in a less-ideal position. Some of the things are prodromal labor beforehand. You had mentioned that. That means sometimes there is a baby that needs help getting in a different position or a back labor or a butt labor. A coupling pattern where there are two contractions and then there is a big break and then there's a big strong one. Our body is trying to get that baby to rotate. Rebecca: Yep. I did have really long contractions and I did have some double peaks so that makes sense to me.Meagan: Yes. Yes. I call them coupling contractions where that's what they can do. Our body is brilliant. It's trying to rotate these babies and work with us, but sometimes, it's more difficult and sometimes we have to help our body by rotating and moving and working with the pelvis in things like this. 53:31 What to doSome of the things we can do, it sounds really weird and I saw this from a nurse years ago and I was like, “What is she doing?” Then I was like, “Oh my gosh, it worked.” We had an anterior lip where it was swelling on the one side. She said, “I want you to get in the biggest fetal position that you can, the tightest fetal position.” We're holding her even around and imagine a 9-month belly. So it was a little difficult to wrap ourselves around it, but we brought knees all the way to her chest, had her wrap around her knees like this and she laid there. We had to do a lot of counterpressure. Rebecca: Yeah, I can imagine. Meagan: Because that was not a comfortable position. We did five contractions like that and it was hard, but she said, “I want to do it. I want to do it.” We got into it with lots of counterpressure then we did, I don't know what you call it, but we did the throne where you sit up feet to feet, knees out, but after that contraction, she got a check and the lip was gone. That was something that was kind of cool that I had never heard of. I had been a doula for years then I saw this and I was like, “Huh, okay.” I haven't seen anyone do that. Rebecca: Yeah. I read a lot of the books and I didn't see that anywhere. Meagan: Never saw it anywhere, but yeah. This nurse here in Utah was like, “I know just the trick.” She did it and I was like, “Whoa, okay.” Yeah. Some people will say that sometimes ice, there is a circulation issue and sometimes ice can actually stop circulation. Sometimes ice isn't the best and then Arnica or Benadryl. You mentioned Benadryl that they wouldn't give you but they mentioned it. I don't even know how to say the word. It's actually something that I just was talking to a labor and delivery nurse in our community who wants a VBAC. It's Cemicifuga. I don't even know actually, you guys. I don't know how to pronounce it, but those, I've seen arnica, out-of-hospital midwives will use or getting into a tub. Sometimes that can or sometimes an epidural because it can offer relaxation. But then that always and then yeah, just moving, moving, and working with position. But then sometimes, despite all of our efforts, just like cute Rebecca, for whatever reason it doesn't change. That's when we have to surrender on our whole experience and make the choice that is best for us at that point. If that's a repeat Cesarean, that's a repeat Cesarean. Repeat Cesareans can also be healing. Rebecca: Yeah. I would say this was because I definitely felt totally different about the experience afterward. I still mourned it of course and you will, but I felt much more empowered and I got so much out of just going through the labor process that I wouldn't give it up for the world. It still was healing for me for sure. 57:00 Why you shouldn't skip the repeat Cesarean storiesMeagan: I love that. Well, thank you so much for sharing your stories with us, being here with us today, and talking about swollen cervixes. Rebecca: Yeah. I hope people actually click on this. I know when I was preparing for VBAC, I was kind of guilty of, “Oh, a repeat Cesarean, I don't want to listen to this one.” So again, hopefully, people will be open because you never know what your story is, or maybe you'll come back and find it after you've had a repeat Cesarean and feel proud of yourself for everything that you did because I think hearing these stories after you've had a repeat Cesarean could be really helpful. Meagan: Absolutely. Just like they are helpful after having a Cesarean and preparing for a VBAC, after having a repeat Cesarean, these stories can be very healing and validating as well. These stories, I know that there are so many people out there who won't click or will avoid them because they don't want to even think or go there, but a lot of these stories with repeat Cesareans actually offer tools that can help heal if that does happen and ways that you can prepare for if that does happen because it's any birth. I mean obviously, look at all of us. There are hundreds of us and thousands of us who have had an unexpected Cesarean. We weren't planning on that Rebecca: No. Meagan: So preparing before for all outcomes is so powerful. Rebecca: Definitely. Definitely. Have that backup plan because I didn't even have one at all for my first and I was really glad I had it for my second. Meagan: Yes. Oh, well thank you again so much for being here with us today, and congratulations on your baby. Rebecca: Thank you. Thanks for hearing my story. I love what you do and I think it's really, really important, so thank you. Meagan: Thank you. ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Happy podcast Wednesday, Women of Strength! You do NOT want to miss today's episode. Clair shares her beautiful journey to a VBA3C. After fully dilating and pushing for hours but ultimately ending in C-sections with her first three babies, Clair finally had the vaginal birth she so badly hoped for with her fourth! Clair shows just how powerful birth can be when a woman's intuition is combined with informed consent and an open-minded birth team. There were unfortunately some technical difficulties during this episode and part of Clair's third birth story was not recorded. Clair graciously submitted this written account below.24:08 “With my third baby (attempted VBA2C), I dilated quickly and smoothly, baby was descending beautifully, and I started feeling like it was time to push. I pushed for a long time - a couple of hours - and he was coming down, but slowly. We tried many different positions, moving around, etc… but it was taking a while. Looking back, I was having some back labor and it's likely that when my water broke on its own, he dropped into a posterior position. After several more hours, we could see his head! I thought a VBAC might really happen! But baby's heart rate started having decels and having a hard time coming back up, so we decided to transfer to the hospital for monitoring. I was pretty exhausted by that point, so I was hoping that IV fluids would help me regain strength and keep going. When we got to the hospital, however, they would only let me labor in the operating room because I was a VBAC patient, so I was very limited in mobility and my options. Baby seemed stable, but they were basically prepping for surgery from the moment I walked in the door and wouldn't tell me baby's stats. We eventually called it, opting for a C-section on our terms so we could have delayed cord clamping and a calm environment. Baby boy was almost 10 pounds and had very healthy APGAR scores! I was disappointed I didn't have a VBAC, but I felt respected by my midwife the whole way through. Postpartum physical recovery was difficult, but emotionally this birth was much less traumatic because I had a supportive birth team. I also took two intentional weeks to do nothing but be with the baby and rest, which I hadn't done with my previous two births, and that made a huge difference in my mental health and bonding with my baby!”Additional LinksNeeded WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Time Stamp Topics01:56 Review of the Week04:30 Clair's first pregnancy and birth 07:50 Recovering from a C-section while moving 09:24 Getting pregnant at 3 months postpartum & dual care during COVID14:39 Laboring at home to complete & hospital check-in17:49 Clair's second Cesarean19:08 An emotional recovery23:38 Third labor with a home birth midwife24:08 Pause in story – read caption!24:20 Fourth pregnancy 28:49 Moving to Utah 35:34 Midwifery care in the hospital38:47 Active labor begins45:04 Circumvallate placenta Meagan: Hello, hello Women of Strength. We are at the end of February here and we have a story that I swear– VBAC after multiple Cesareans is very highly requested when it comes to this community so we have a story for you guys today for VBAC after three C-sections. Not only was it a VBAC after three C-sections, but it was also a pre-term VBAC after three C-sections. I think in a lot of places around the world if someone came in pre-term and they have had three C-sections, finding that support is going to be hard. It doesn't need to be necessarily hard, but I know that it can be so I'm excited for this story from our guest, Clair, today because it's a story that just shows that it is possible even if you have certain things stacked against you that the medical world looks at in a negative way. 01:56 Review of the WeekSo we are going to be sharing that story here in just a few minutes, but of course, we have a Review of the Week and this was shared on Apple Podcasts. It's by brittleesmith. It says, “Highly recommend for both VBAC mamas and mamas in general.” It says, “In 2019, after 30 hours of labor, I ended up birthing my son via unplanned C-section. I was devastated and knew my future birth had to be different. I immediately started digging into VBAC resources and came upon your podcast. I listened to every single episode before I even became pregnant with my second baby. The knowledge I gained from both of you as well as your many guests is truly invaluable. This resource is great for any expectant parent, not just VBAC moms and I wish I had discovered you all before my first child. “I am thrilled to announce that I got my VBAC this past February and I owe a lot of thanks to y'all. Keep it up, ladies.” Oh, I love that. I love when people say, “We found you. We learned and then we got our VBAC,” or “We found you. We learned and I didn't get my VBAC but I had a better experience.” This is what this podcast is here for to help people have a better experience, to learn the information, to feel more empowered to make the best choice for you, and even sometimes when the experience doesn't go exactly as we planned, to still have a better experience because we know what our options are. As usual, if you guys have not left a review, we would love them. They actually help Women of Strength find this podcast. They help people find the information and the empowerment for their births, do drop us a review. You can leave it at Apple Podcasts. You can even Google “The VBAC Link” and leave us a review there or wherever you listen to your podcasts, drop a review. 04:30 Clair's first pregnancy and birth Meagan: Okay, cute Clair. It's been so fun. I just was scanning over your stuff and I was just excited because of all of the people you had at your birth, I know personally because you are also here in Utah. I'm so excited to hear your whole story and your journey. I just want to tell you congrats in advance because it is so amazing. So amazing. Clair: Thank you so much. Yeah. We didn't expect to be in Utah, but it turned out to be a really great place to birth so we are really grateful to be here. My story actually starts on the East Coast thousands of miles away and I was due with my first in May 2019. I didn't really know much about birth in general. I'm the oldest child and kind of a rule follower. I was like, “Well, if I just do everything the way I'm supposed to, then birth will just happen.” Yeah. I had a really supportive OB. He has several children of his own. His wife was a friend of mine. He was a really great doctor. But at around 32 weeks, I was flying at the last possible second I was allowed to fly and running through an airport. I kind of felt the baby kind of settled in a weird spot after that. I started having prodromal labor at 39 weeks or something. That went on for about two weeks. What I didn't realize was that these were all signs that maybe he was posterior and not in a great position. My OB, even though he was really wonderful, wasn't trained to determine where the baby is, just that the baby is head down. Meagan: Right. Clair: So at 41+1, early in the morning, I was over a week past my due date. I was losing my mucus plug. “Hey hon, we're going to have a baby today.” I was so excited. We ended up laboring all day at home. We went to the hospital. I had really, really bad back labor so I ended up with a lot of IV fluids. I had a couple more interventions. They broke my water eventually and basically, what ended up happening was that 41+2, so 9 days after my due date, I had dilated to complete, but the baby wasn't dropping at all. He wasn't engaged. He was still really, really high and after a while, his heart rate wasn't tolerating labor well anymore and they recommended a C-section. Meagan: Did they have you push? Clair: I didn't push. Yeah. They said he was still too high. They didn't recommend that. Meagan: Interesting. Isn't that how we get babies down? Clair: Yeah. I'm not really sure. Meagan: Yeah. Yeah. Clair: It definitely was a situation he was not used to or prepared for. He was kind of surprised and honestly very sad that I didn't have the birth experience that I wanted. He came to visit the next day and just spent a few minutes with us. His wife came to visit who I was friends with. It was really hard and pretty traumatic, but it also could have been much worse. His bedside manner, I was really well taken care of. 07:50 Recovering from a C-section while moving So that was really hard. It was a challenging physical recovery because I had 48 hours of labor and most of it was without an epidural. It was really intense. The hardest part of that birth was that the first time I saw my son, I saw a picture of him that the nurses showed me because they took him away to be measured right away. So that was really hard. He was 9 pounds, just that plus not being in a great position and being with a provider that didn't have a lot of options of what to do if baby is not descending properly. That was a difficult adjustment to motherhood especially because that baby was born in Louisiana. We were moving back to Virginia where we have a lot of family and friends. We were planning on moving two weeks after the baby was born, but because he came late, we actually left the hospital and started driving north. I would not recommend this. Don't do it. Meagan: That's a lot. That's a lot. Clair: It's a really bad idea. Meagan: Oh my gosh. Clair: His first night out of the hospital was in a hotel in Birmingham, Alabama. Yeah, don't do it. So yeah, that was just hard because we were moving and I'm trying to physically recover. So it was pretty wild. 09:24 Getting pregnant at 3 months postpartum & dual care during COVIDClair: That was my first. My second– we surprise got pregnant three months after that baby was born. Meagan: Okay. Clair: He was a cycle zero pregnancy. I had no idea. I just felt off and was like, “Maybe I should take a test,” and I was so shocked that I was pregnant. Meagan: Oh my gosh, yeah. Clair: Like I said, we were in a new state. I found a birth center that would do my prenatal care because I knew midwives knew more about positioning and how to track it and maybe had some recommendations about things they could do to encourage baby to be in a better position because my pregnancy had been great. But because it was right around 12 months between deliveries, they wanted me to have co-care and deliver at a hospital. I kind of just took their word for it like, “Oh, well if that's what they are recommending, then the risk really must be that much higher.” So then in the middle of all of this, COVID happened and hospitals– I was due in May 2020. Hospitals were kind of changing their– Meagan: Everything. Clair: Yeah, but by the week it felt like. Meagan: By the day. They were changing by the day. It was insane. Clair: Yeah. It was crazy. So it was March. I was due in two months and I had just reached out to the birth center basically begging them to let me deliver out-of-hospital because I was like, “I don't want to deal with the hospital system right now. I know that they are truly supportive,” but they said that they weren't comfortable with that. So my plan was to labor at home with the midwife from the birth center, laboring home with me then to transfer to the hospital while I was in labor. She was supposed to be– that midwife was supposed to come with me as kind of like a doula almost in the hospital just as support. Meagan: Yeah. Yeah, a monitrice or whatever they call them. Clair: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So then I had to find a doctor to do co-care with. I had a new friend in the area who had a C-section with her first and she had a not-great experience with this one doctor in the area, but that was the one that the midwives usually worked with so I kind of took her experience as, “Maybe not. I don't want to work with him.” I found someone else who was really VBAC-supportive historically, but then he had me do an ultrasound to determine scar thickness. This was all in the third trimester. Pregnancy was going really well, but in the third trimester, I had to start doing my appointments with him. Baby was actually breech pretty late on, so I started doing chiropractic care during that pregnancy and she flipped on her own. It was great. I was so grateful. So then at that ultrasound, we determined that yes, she is head down. He was concerned about my scar thickness, although then I did a lot of research and was like, “I'm just not sure that this is actually evidence-based.” Meagan: Yeah. Clair: And then also, they were telling me that she was going to be 12 pounds. I carried a big baby a year before, literally to the day almost and I was like, “This feels just like my first. She's got to be around 9. I don't think she is that much bigger than he was.” Meagan: Was the ultrasound saying 12? Clair: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Meagan: Okay, okay, okay. Clair: Yeah. The ultrasounds measured it and I mean, spoiler alert– it turned out to be way off. She was 9 pounds, 3 ounces. Meagan: Most of the time it can be. Clair: Yeah. Yeah, especially with bigger babies later in pregnancy. I was in a fine headspace with that. I was like, “I know that this can be off. I'm not worried about it,” but they were really nervous and anyway, basically backed me into scheduling a C-section, but I pushed it as far down the due date path as I could because I had gone over with my first and I still really wanted a chance to labor. So chiropractic care this whole time was really helping. I had bad hip pain with my first and I didn't have any with her after that. They wanted to do another scan at 41 weeks later or another ultrasound at 41 weeks just to check on baby, but I got them to do a non-stress test instead because I was like, “What are we going to look at?” She was healthy at 40 weeks. I was really glad that I had advocated for myself there because that was good. I did have one funky day of pre-labor at 40 weeks where I really thought I was going into labor. It was early labor then it stopped. I was checked after that and I was at 4 centimeters. I was walking around for a week and a half it turned out to be at 4 centimeters dilated so it was kind of interesting to know that that could happen. Meagan: Yes. Clair: The midwives I was with said they see that with VBACs a lot too that the body just takes things slower sometimes which was interesting to hear their experience of that. 14:39 Laboring at home to complete & hospital check-inBut yeah, I went into labor at 41+3– or 41+2 I guess– which was when my son was born a year before. I was in early labor all day. My water broke as I was nursing my one-year-old for bed. Meagan: Oh my gosh. Clair: It was kind of crazy and exciting. I was like, “You're going to meet your sister.” I put him down for sleep. The midwife came over. I labored from a 6 to a 10 in three hours. By 9:00 PM, I was fully dilated. She was dropping. At that point, looking back, I wish I had just stayed home because she was almost born at that point, but I didn't because I still had the midwife's voice in the back of my head, “Oh, it's only been a year. You're at a higher risk for rupture.” I just was worried and at that point in labor is not the time to be making decisions like that. Meagan: You're very vulnerable. Clair: Yeah. We ended up transferring. I get to the hospital. They stick a thing up my nose to check if I have COVID. Meagan: Oh jeez, yeah. Clair: So you're in labor already really uncomfortable and they're like, “We're going to swab your nose.” You're like, “Thanks.” They wouldn't let the midwife in which we kind of knew, but she came with us just to see if they would let her in, but they were only allowing one support person so my husband came with me.I ended up getting an on-call doctor who wasn't the doctor that I had been seeing. It actually turned out to be the first doctor that I was trying to avoid in the first place. Meagan: Oh, really? Clair: Yeah, so that I was not happy about. He literally takes one look at my chart and says, “A VBAC? This baby is going to be 12 pounds? Don't even bother trying.” I was like, “Um, okay.” Meagan: You're like, “But I'm 10 centimeters.” Clair: Right. Everything is fine. I'm healthy. She's healthy. Heart rates are all good. We're doing it. It's not a question of can I because it's happening. But he started– I mean, I won't tell you the things he was telling me about what happens if I should have had a C-section and I don't and the whole dead baby thing. The nurses were trying to keep him out of the room for me. It was so bad. It turns out later that he did talk to the midwives the next day and was like, “Why did you send her in at all? Why did you tell her she could VBAC?” Basically, he confided in them, “You don't know what it's like to be sued.” I guess he had something in his past where he had been sued for something that had happened, so he was just really scared but he was taking that out on me. Meagan: Which is not okay. Understandable, but not okay. Clair: Right, yeah. It took a long time for me to get over this and forgive him for some of the things that he said. Anyway, so my body starts having a stress response. Labor starts slowing. My cervix starts swelling a little bit. Basically, my body is like, “We don't feel safe here. We're not having this baby here.”17:49 Clair's second CesareanI did push for two hours, but contractions weren't really working the same way. He started talking about, “Well, if it's an emergency, we have to put you under general,” and all of this stuff so I did end up getting an epidural. I basically got backed into a corner and eventually, we said, “Let's just call it and have the C-section because we can do it on our terms and maybe get a couple of the things we still want.” We really wanted delayed cord clamping. I really wanted to be able to see her right away which I didn't get to do with my son. So we felt like if we just called it, we would be able to do some of those things because it wasn't an emergent situation. So really, for no medical reason, I had my second C-section. She was 9 pounds, 3 ounces and the doctor actually said to my husband after that, “Oh, by the way, your wife has a fine pelvis. There is no reason she can't birth vaginally. She can totally do this again in the future.” Meagan: Oh gosh. Clair: My husband was like, “I don't want to talk to you right now about that.” Meagan: Yeah, like get out of my face. Clair: Yeah, after you just did what you did and backed us into surgery, and he just wanted to be able to control the situation. Meagan: Yeah. 19:08 An emotional recoveryClair: So emotionally, it was really hard to recover from that. I had a really hard time just working through some of the things that he had said and the images he put in my mind, but it was physically a lot easier. Meagan: Yeah. Clair: We did move again after that baby, but we only moved within the state so that was easier. We move a lot and we've moved with every baby at some point which is kind of crazy. 21:22 Clair's third pregnancySo that's my second baby. And then about, I don't know, 15 months later, we got pregnant with our third. We were pretty excited. We had a really early, early miscarriage between those two and it was still really hard and painful but it was like the day after we found out we were pregnant so that was a surprise and that made us think, “Well, are we ready for another baby?” I kind of just started like, “Yeah, actually I think we are,” even though at the time, I felt totally overwhelmed. So that's kind of beautiful because if we wouldn't have had that baby, we wouldn't have our third right now. We were in the same state. The VBAC laws in the state are pretty lenient so I end up having the opportunity to find a home birth midwife because I just at this point really did not want to go back to the hospital after everything. There really weren't any hospital practices that I knew of and I kind of looked around a lot that were VBAC-after-two-C-sections supportive. So I look around. I found a home birth midwife. I had a beautiful pregnancy. Kind of in the back of our head the whole time, we were thinking, “If we just stayed home with our daughter, things would have happened naturally. It just would have been fine.” The whole pregnancy, I was a little bit nervous, but I had some really, really awesome supportive friends– the same friend who had a C-section and had a VBAC since then. She was so in my corner and another good friend of ours were just cheering me on the whole time. My midwife was really, really supportive. I did have some fears and worries, but I was just like, “We're just going to walk it out. I have no reason to believe I can't birth this baby vaginally.” I was continuing chiropractic care. The friend who had a VBAC had since become a doula. I planned on having her there. 23:38 Third labor with a home birth midwifeClair: I went into labor six days after my due date after this pretty beautiful, smooth pregnancy in the early morning and then again, I was dilated to 10 by 9:00 in the morning. It was five hours later after my–Meagan: You labor beautifully. Clair: Right. At this point, I was like, “I know my body can do this,” but I just had never made it all the way. I was starting to feel pushy. I pushed for hours and hours and hours which turned out to be really hard. The midwife, when I started pushing was like, “We're going to have a baby so soon,” and then– 24:08 Pause in story – read caption!24:20 Fourth pregnancy Clair: My son was nine months old when we got pregnant with our fourth. Like I said, we had moved to this mountain town in Colorado. We were far away from a lot of things, so it was really hard for me to find a provider in general let alone one who was going to be supportive of a VBAC after three C-sections. I was really open to if I needed to have a fourth C-section, I was open to that. I just wanted to do what was going to be best so I was looking at all of my options. All of our family was back east though and we were looking at support after the baby was born so we were thinking we might go back to Virginia and have the baby there. I ended up doing remote care with my midwife from my previous birth, my last birth, for all of my prenatals. Everything was looking great. The bloodwork looked great. I was taking my blood pressure and checking with her occasionally. I was doing that with her while also looking for a provider and trying to discern what we were going to do for the birth. I should also mention that during this time, I started going to pelvic floor physical therapy. It had been recommended to me a few times, but I never pursued it before. My chiropractors in Colorado had a really strong recommendation for someone that they really liked, so I started going to pelvic floor PT. She found all of this chronic tension that I didn't realize I had. Actually, my hip pain had come back this pregnancy and releasing my pelvic floor actually took care of my hip pain. It was all referred pelvic floor pain which was so wild, but I felt relief within a couple of visits. She knew really good exercises to be doing during my pregnancy. It also made me more in tune with the rest of my body. I realized where else I was carrying tension and was better in check with my moods, so that was a huge game changer I think. I want to make sure that I mention that because I think that really, really impacted this pregnancy and birth. So we did an anatomy scan at 20 weeks and everything was looking good. It was a baby boy, but we found out he was measuring big which is normal for my babies at this point. Kind of around the same time, I guess, my husband got this really amazing job opportunity in Utah which meant we would have to move again. I was due in October with this baby and we would be moving during the summer. This time, we would move before the baby was born then hopefully have a couple of months to settle in. Because of that, I switched gears and started looking for providers in Utah so that I could have a pretty seamless transition. I found a really awesome midwife. I told her my whole story and when we were in Utah just interviewing and checking it out during the winter, she heard all of my stories and said, “I don't see why you can't birth vaginally. I think you are an excellent candidate for VBAC. I would gladly take you on.” Meagan: She is one of the most amazing midwives in Utah, too. Clair: Yeah. She has a ton of experience, too. I love how she has that much experience, so I really felt like she has seen it all. She has seen a lot and if she says I have a really good chance, but also, I totally trusted her to step in if we needed to step in and try different things during delivery. That's the one thing I felt like could have gone differently with my third baby was maybe we could have intervened a little earlier and maybe that would have gone differently. She also promised my husband that she would be straight with him because he kind of had an experience of people trying to shield him from the truth or whatever in the past just to kind of protect him in the birth process. He just wants honesty, so she was like, “I'm going to be really honest with you the whole time. I'm going to tell you exactly what I think.” It was just a really good fit for our family.28:49 Moving to Utah Clair: I went back and started packing up the house and everything, but I knew that I had a really solid provider waiting for me in Utah. We moved at the beginning of August. I was maybe 30 weeks or so, 29 weeks, 31 weeks, or something like that when we moved. I thought I had two months or so to kind of get settled and unpack the house and everything, then at about 35 weeks, I started having some pre-labor stuff and a few contractions, but I thought they were just really strong Braxton Hicks at night. I lost a bit of my mucus plug and that was consistent for about a week, but because with my second, I had a whole day of labor and then nothing for two weeks, I thought, “Oh, I've still got two weeks. Baby will be here right at 37, but that's fine. I think I still have a couple weeks left.” I checked with my midwife and she was like, “Are you concerned about going into early labor?” I was like, “I don't think so.” She goes, “Great. Don't worry about it.” To my surprise on a Sunday night at 5:00 PM coming back from the grocery store to pack lunch for my husband for his first official day of work the next day, my water breaks. I come home and I'm like, “I think my water broke.” He goes, “Uh, okay. This is really unexpected,” because with all of our other babies, I went past my due date and we had been in our house less than a month. I called my friend who is a doula now. I was just kind of out of it. I didn't really know what to do. She walked me through. “Okay, call your midwife. See what's going on.” I called her and she was like, “We can check to make sure that your water broke, but if you are pretty sure, you've had several children so if you are pretty sure it's your water, you should just go to the hospital.” She told me exactly which hospital to go to which I was really grateful for because I had no idea where to go and I really trusted her recommendation. Meagan: You were closer to a different hospital, honestly. You could have gone to this other hospital. Clair: Yes. Yeah, exactly. I was so glad that I called her. I walked in and they were like, “Oh, your midwife called ahead for you. Great. Come here. Let's check you out.” I was at a 5, so I was 5 centimeters dilated already which was crazy. They did an ultrasound just to double-check his position. He was head down which they were happy with. This OB comes in who was on call. She sits down and just says, “Well, frankly, I don't think a VBAC after three C-sections is too risky, but it's just risk. I don't see any health problems right now. You're fine.” They hooked me up to a monitor. Baby was fine. “So we're not going to force you to do anything that you don't want to do. You're going to make the call.” We were really surprised because when we knew we were going back in a hospital setting, especially after our last two experiences, my husband and I were like, “Whatever happens happens.” He even said, which was so great, “Let me deal with them. You deal with the baby.” Meagan: Mmm, yeah. Clair: “You don't need to go in fighting. I'll go in fighting and you deal with the baby.” But then we didn't even have to fight. They were disarmed right away.Meagan: Which is amazing because especially with preterm– Clair: Exactly. I expected a frenzy and it wasn't. It was peaceful. We just basically said, “We're not going to do that. We're not going to just do an automatic C-section. We're going to labor.” They looked at my ultrasound, saw that he was measuring big, and said, “We actually would have changed your dates in our practice with this ultrasound so we think you are closer to 38 weeks.” I was pretty confident in my dates because I had been using a monitor to check ovulation and everything. I still felt pretty confident that he was 35 weeks, so I really didn't want to induce or make labor happen any sooner than it started because I knew that his lungs could benefit from another couple of days in utero. We talked that through a little bit and the next day, there was a new on-call OB. The nurses were great. They listened to our whole story and they were like, “We are willing and ready and prepared to support you.” So the next day, we get a new on-call OB and she just says the same thing, “I don't think this is a very good idea, but I'm not going to force you to do anything.” She listens to our reasoning both why we don't want to induce and also about a VBAC and she goes and she calls the midwife who had been supposed to deliver or catch the baby. She says to the midwife, “I actually don't think this is a very good idea. Why did you send you here? It is really, really risky.” The midwife says, “It's not as risky as you think it is. Actually, go do the research a little bit. There are not great numbers out there, but what we have isn't what you are saying it is.” So that doctor actually called a maternal-fetal medicine doctor at a different hospital that she knew and asked, “Hey, what do you think about a VBAC after three C-sections? Would you recommend it for a mom?” He basically gave her the statistics of the risk of complications with a fourth C-section versus the risk of uterine rupture with a VBAC and he said, “The numbers aren't great, but as far as we can't be 100% confident. We don't have–”Meagan: Enough evidence. Clair: “--a lot of evidence, but I would absolutely support her. It's actually less risky for her to do this vaginally if she can.” This doctor comes back and tells us that. We were shocked. She said, “I actually think a VBAC is the best thing for you and your baby. I'm going to transfer you over to our hospital midwives–” which was wild and so not what we expected. She was like, “Because I think that's more like the model of care you wanted.” We were just floored because we never– yeah. We never expected that from a doctor. We had never been respected in that way. That alone was just so healing. 35:34 Midwifery care in the hospitalClair: This midwife comes in and I chat with her a little bit. She made sure I got some food. I hadn't really eaten much since I got there. Meagan: I bet. Clair: It was great. They just really attended to me as a person. I still was not in labor. They weren't checking me because my membranes were ruptured and she just talked me through that. “There's really not that much of an increased risk of infection if you are waiting longer as long as you are not doing checks. If you don't have an infection already, you're probably not going to get one essentially.” We did lots and lots of things in that 24-hour period. We prayed. We asked for so many prayers from our friends. We called the midwife and chatted with her a bunch. My husband– I joke that he was my daddy doula during that time because we learned a bunch of things during our other pregnancies. We were doing a Miles circuit. We were doing Spinning Babies and abdominal lifts and everything we could think of. I was pumping. They got me a hospital pump to use. I was showering and trying to relax. We even discussed leaving the hospital and going home. We talked that through with them, but I felt pretty confident that once I went into labor, it was going to be pretty strong labor and I was confident he was pre-term. I wanted to stay. My kids were able to come visit which was huge. That was so helpful. I did a lot of fear release conversation with the hospital midwife was a big deal. I was just really worried. My oldest was only four and I was really worried about, can I do this? Can I be a mother to these four babies? It's so much more manageable when you are pregnant. The baby is inside, so I think that was actually really helpful. I think that was kind of keeping me from labor in a sense. We just kind of did that for the next day. I was sleeping, but I was continually being monitored so my sleeping was really fitful. At 2:00 PM the next day, my nurses from their first shift are back. They were like, “Oh no, you're still here and you're not in labor and there's no baby. What can we do?” I just said, “I'm so tired. I just have not been sleeping well. Every time I roll over, this monitor messes up the baby's heart rate with mine so people come flying in the room and I just can't really rest right now.” She talked with the hospital midwife who was on call that day and she really wanted to get things going. She was a little bit more nervous about the length of time my waters had been broken and was stronger with recommending inducing or something. She said, “Yeah. Let's just get her off the monitors. We have two days of great readings from this baby. Let's get her off the monitors. Let's turn down the lights. Let's get her in a new room, fresh environment, turn the lights down, and let her take a nap.” My husband even left. He went to go get a snack or something outside of the hospital just to totally give me my space.38:47 Active labor beginsAround 3:30, I finally get tucked in for a nap and fall asleep immediately. I was so tired. Meagan: I'm sure. Clair: It was just a lot of mental stress and I wake up an hour later at 4:30 to a rip roaring, super strong contraction. I couldn't even believe it. I was like, “Oh my gosh. Napping worked.” It was just what I needed. It was like my body just needed to be left alone. Meagan: And even probably you mentally needed to just get out of the moment and just be. Clair: Yes. Yeah. No, definitely. I start timing them and within five contractions, they were all lasting over a minute. They were all about a minute and a half to three minutes apart. I call my husband. I'm like, “You've got to come back to the hospital right now.” They were really strong too, like super, super strong. Meagan: And keeping in mind you were 5 centimeters so you could be tipping into that transition active labor from no labor. Clair: Right? Meagan: No labor to active labor. Clair: Yeah, just thrown right into it. Yeah, it was wild. I felt like I was kind of behind from the beginning like I couldn't get on top of it for that reason. It was really intense. I called the nurse in the room because I needed to go to the bathroom and I wanted to stand up, but I was like, “I don't know what's going ot happen when I stand up, so I'm going to call her in.” She came. She observed me in between some contractions and was like, “I think the midwife should come.” I was like, “No, it just started. Don't worry. Don't bother her.” She was like, “No, really. We should get the midwife in here.” The midwife comes in and checks me. I'm only at a 6 so I was a little bit discouraged because it had been a half hour-45 minutes of these strong contractions at that point, but 90% effaced. Baby was dropping. Everyone in the room was like, “This is really good news.” I was like, “Yeah, there is still a lot of work to do.” I just refused to accept that. So I'm kind of wandering around the room just laboring standing up in different positions and supported by a nurse sometimes, then I end up kneeling on the ground and laboring over a couch just leaning on it. The contractions really picked up. There really was not much of a break between them at all so I felt like I couldn't release the contraction. Everything you hear is like, “Release the contraction. Let all of the tension out of your body,” and I couldn't do any of that. So I'm telling my husband, “I need an epidural. I'm not going to be able to do this for a long period of time. I'm not getting any kind of a break. I can't relax.” Meagan: You were already so tired. Clair: Yeah. I need an epidural. I'm not going to be able to do this naturally even though that's what I planned. He was like, “No, you're fine.” I was so mad at him, but he would look at the midwife, I guess I found out later and she was like, “No, this is happening.” She was really encouraging him, so he was like, “Nope, you don't need it. We're going to be there really soon.” Meagan: Good daddy doula, I guess, there. He knows what you want and will help you get it.Clair: Exactly. Exactly. I'm not saying he was just ignoring me– Meagan: Right, but he was like, “Ah, she's got this.” Clair: Yeah, exactly. I guess the midwife had observed some kind of a change in me because at 7:00 PM– this is 2.5 hours after these contractions start– she checks me again and she asked to check me. I was at 10. I was feeling pushy, but not in the same way I had before with other labors, so I was surprised. All of the nurses in the room were like, “This is great news!” In my head, I'm like, “I've been there before. I've been there three times before. It is not over yet.” I was still very much in the mindset of, “No, we've got work to do.” I end up trying a couple of different positions to push. I end up pushing on the hospital bed kind of supported by pillows on all fours. They put the back of the bed up and I pushed there for about a half hour or so, maybe 20 minutes in. They were like, “Oh my gosh. We can see the head. This is so great.” Because of my third baby, I was just like, “That's news, but it's doesn't mean it's over.” Meagan: Not what I need quite yet. Clair: I've been here before. So I end up, yeah. I was just kind of like, “I've been here before.That's not news to me, I guess.” But then I really felt a ring of fire and I was like, “Oh my gosh. This is actually happening. This is a new thing. This is a new sensation. This is a new place that I haven't been before.” So I end up, yeah. He ends up being born. I pushed with all my might. The midwife had to tell me, “Chill out. Slow down a little bit. You don't want to tear.” But yeah. It was just so beautiful. I was able to birth him vaginally and then they were like, “You have to roll over so you can hold him.” They were telling me what to do because I was in such disbelief when I was born. I got to hold him skin-to-skin for the first time of any of my babies which was such a gift. My husband cut the cord after it stopped pulsing and it was so peaceful. A couple of the nurses were crying because they had been there and were really invested in our story. The midwife was like, “You reminded me why I'm in this field. This is such a beautiful, redemptive story. I'm so happy for you.” I did have a small, little first-degree tear but it really wasn't bad. He ended up being 7 pounds, 7 ounces so I'm pretty confident that he was late pre-term because that is still small for my babies. Meagan: Yeah, because they are normally 9. Clair: So he was definitely earlier. 45:04 Circumvallate placenta I had a circumvallate placenta which is where part of the placenta turns in on itself when it is developing so there is a smaller area where the placenta can adhere to the uterus. Sometimes that can be related to IUGR and a couple of other things, but it's really hard to find via ultrasound. I kind of researched it later and sometimes, it's cause for big concern but there's really not much to do about it. There's just not a whole lot to be done. I'm glad I didn't know that because I feel like would have been a source of worry but unnecessary worry because there's nothing I really would have done differently in my pregnancy. Meagan: I wonder if that was your body being like, “Okay, it's time. I'm done doing my job. Now get the baby out.” Clair: Yeah, it can also be associated with pre-term or early labor. Meagan: Okay. Clair: Yeah because I was trying to find a reason. This was so strange. My midwife wasn't worried about it at all. She was just like, “Oh, interesting. Look at your placenta. This is so cool.” Meagan: In all of the years of encapsulating them, I've never seen one like that. Clair: Yeah, it's kind of rare but also, yeah. They're not sure why it happens. I don't know why it happened. Some people say babies that gestate at elevation are sometimes smaller too like at high, high elevation and they come earlier so I'm wondering if maybe that can be connected. I don't know if there are more placenta abnormalities in that way at elevation. I don't know. But yeah, he had great APGARs. He latched super well. It was so cool. The first OB that I had called me the next morning in the hospital room just saying, “Congratulations. We're go excited for you.” My second OB, the one who basically said, “I think this is the right thing for you to try,” came to the room because she was on call again and she congratulated me and just said, “Thanks for letting us be a part of this. This was so impactful to everybody in our practice.” Meagan: Yeah. Clair: I don't think they would have taken me on as a client upfront. Meagan: Probably not. Clair: For them to see this, and then I talked to the head midwife of that hospital OB/midwife practice and she was just saying that this is their hope that more women who really can labor without intervention or are given the chance to labor without intervention is kind of their goal. She was so happy that so many of the people in her practice got to be a witness to that because they really got to see what happens especially down to napping and leaving me alone is what helped me go into labor. Meagan: Yes. There was a lot of learning happening on all of their behalf, from the OB side, on the nurse side, on the midwife's side, there was a lot of learning. What I love so much is when places see births like this after– I mean, I'm not saying the midwives or anything. I think the OBs were originally like, “I don't think this is a good idea,” but then seeing it happen, it's like, “Okay. Let's take a step back,” because so many hospitals around the world just shut people out. “No.” They might not, like you said, have supported you walking in. “I've had three C-sections. I really want to have a VBAC.” She probably would have said the same. Maybe she wouldn't have, though. Maybe she would have said, “I don't know if it's a really good idea, but we can support you and let you go.” But would it have been the same situtation? I don't know. They are one of my favorite hospitals in that direction up north, so I love hearing, I love hearing all of this. And then to the point where the OB is like, “Hey, I recognize you are in my care, but I know you came from this care. Why don't we put you back in that model of care because we offer that here?” Just these fine details that these providers paid attention to was a huge deal. Clair: Absolutely. Absolutely. It's funny because I had a feeling that whole pregnancy that I was going to have a hospital VBAC. Meagan: Really? Clair: It was in the back of my head. “I think I'm going to end up in the hospital, but I also feel like I'm going to have a VBAC. I don't know,” but it was this weird thought because I definitely was not going to pursue providers in the hospital, so yeah. The fact that that happened, I was like, “Wow. This is just so crazy for those reasons.” Meagan: So awesome. Clair: Yeah. I just really feel like not being afraid to voice what we wanted was such a big part of this because if we hadn't spoken up, even though they were very, very willing to listen and were receptive, we didn't know that so we went in saying, “This is what we want and this is why we want it.” I think that having a conversation where you think the doors might be closed is good to have. Now, it's also good to be aware of when a provider is not actually going to be supportive of you, but in our case, we really didn't have any choice. We were where we were and just to, I think, the more calm conversation that is had and the more providers can experience births like this, the more it will become normalized which is really the goal here. Meagan: Absolutely. Well, huge congrats on your beautiful birth and I'm so happy for you. I just love hearing how it all unfolded even though in the beginning and at the end, it wasn't exactly– well maybe I guess it was something that you envisioned, but what on paper you were putting out that you envisioned this birth center birth with this awesome midwife, but I just love how it unfolded so much. Clair: Yeah. It was so healing for my husband. It was so healing for me. Yeah.” Meagan: Good. Good. Well, thank you again for being here with us. Clair: Thank you.ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

We are following up on last week's informative episode on gestational diabetes with a gestational diabetes VBAC story! Samantha's first labor ended in a traumatic Cesarean with her first baby, but she didn't find out many details of what happened to her until she requested her operative report months later. Samantha found out that she had a lateral scar extension. Despite this and other odds that felt stacked against her (i.e. her gestational diabetes diagnosis!), Samantha was determined to do absolutely everything in her power to put her in the best position to achieve her VBAC. And she DID!Additional LinksLeslee Flannery's InstagramNeeded WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Timestamp Topics2:18 Review of the Week6:32 Samantha's first birth story  9:37 Scheduled induction13:04 Complete dilation, pushing, and stalling15:49 C-section22:15 Official reason for C-section25:15 Recovery26:57 Second pregnancy42:46 Labor52:34 Feeling pushy55:42 “You're not going to need a C-section today.” 1:02:39 Finding supportive providers1:05:53 Prep tips for listenersMeagan: Hello, hello you guys. It is likely a cold winter morning or afternoon. At least here in Utah, it's February and I don't know. It's not something that was intentional, but it seems like this month we are talking about gestational diabetes. We talked about it last week and coincidentally enough, the story today that we are recording talks about gestational diabetes today. So I'm excited to dive more into that and talk a little bit more about that. We were talking about this just before we started recording. It's becoming more common but it's not talked about enough so it's probably fitting that we are doing two episodes this month on gestational diabetes. We have a really great story for you today. We have a C-section that was begun with an induction then she got a double-whammy with an asynclitic and a posterior baby. I'm really excited to hear what your diagnosis was on that, Samantha, because I always get so curious when we know we had fetal positioning if we get that CPD diagnosis and things like that. 2:18 Review of the Week But of course, we have a Review of the Week so I'm going to share this and then we will dive right into Samantha's story. This was by lindseybrynneohara. Shoot. I always butcher names. It says, “An invaluable resource. I found The VBAC Link shortly after my first daughter was born via Cesarean after a planned birth center birth. My second turned home-birth Cesarean as well. I have found a home in a CBAC (Cesarean Birth After Cesarean).” You guys, for everyone that doesn't know this, if you've had a Cesarean birth after a Cesarean, please know that we have a group for you too. We know that sometimes after not having a vaginal birth, it can be hard to be in a VBAC group, so we have created this Cesarean birth after Cesarean group and it's amazing. She says, “I've found a home in the CBAC group these ladies put together. It helped me through some dark days of postpartum and processing my unplanned repeat Cesarean. You can find VBAC groups all over the place now, but a group for those mamas who are grieving the loss of their VBAC, they can't find. Not so much. This is a very special group where I feel completely supported, heard, and respected for a birth I sometimes struggle to call mine and my baby's. I am now diving into all of the VBAC after two Cesarean and VBAC after multiple Cesarean content from over the years and I am finding so much comfort and hope in these brave women who have come before me. I just have this strong feeling I will get to be one of them.” Ooh, that just gave me the chills. “I hope to share my story with you when that day comes. I'm learning so much about birth and myself as a birthing woman. I thought I was informed for the first time, but there are so many layers of understanding past births and planning for future births especially when C-section is involved. Thank you for the well-researched evidence-based content and special stories.” Wow. That review literally gave me chills and made me emotional. You guys, when Julie and I– Samantha can see my eyes. No one else can, but really, they are tearing up. When Julie and I created this group and this podcast and this course, this is why we did it– to help people feel exactly how she was describing. To feel loved, to feel heard, to find a place of education, and to understand that you're not alone because sometimes it can feel so lonely. Just so lonely. So thank you for that review. I am literally crying. Thank you for that review from the bottom of my heart. As you can see and as you know, we love reviews. They truly make everything that we do. It warms our hearts. It helps people just like you find this podcast. It helps people find the course so they can find the information and it helps people find that Facebook group. You can leave it on Google. You can leave it on Apple Podcasts. You can leave it on social media. You can leave it on Facebook. Message us. Wherever. If you love The VBAC Link and you have something to share, please let us know because we absolutely from the bottom of our hearts love it. 6:32 Samantha's first birth story Meagan: Okay, Samantha. Now that I'm trying to soak back up the tears that wanted to flow, I mean, I don't know. Yeah. Sorry for being so vulnerable here. Samantha: No. Meagan: Wow. That just touched my heart. But now that I can see the screen again, I would just love to turn the time over to you. And also, thank you for being here with us. Samantha: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited. This is my second goal after getting a VBAC. I need to be on The VBAC Link's podcast. Meagan: Oh. Samantha: But same thing as the review was saying, it's an invaluable resource. I had no clue what I didn't know going into my first birth, 100%. My story starts in 2020, I guess. I found out I was pregnant in August on my birthday, actually, I found out. Meagan: Happy birthday to you!Samantha: That was so exciting. My pregnancy went super well. I had a bit of leg pain at some point, but I was seeing a pelvic floor physio. She fixed me up really well and everything was perfect. I had an anterior placenta so I learned a little bit about that, but it shouldn't have been a problem so it was fine. I was due May 7. That was the due date that they gave me. I don't think it was necessarily accurate. I think I was due a little bit later. I think the 11th or 12th. I was tracking ovulation and stuff like that. So at 39+5, I had my doctor's appointment. He sent me for a growth ultrasound. Had I known what I know now, I would have said, “Nope. No, thank you.” 8:19 Blurry vision and feeling offBut he was estimated at being 7 pounds, 10 ounces. Then the week after, Tuesday night, I had this weird episode I want to call it. I was sitting on the couch and all of a sudden, my vision got blurry. I ended up with a headache and I was waiting to see if I should go in or not. I felt off. In the end, I went into labor and delivery because it was the height of COVID. I didn't want to go to the emergency room and all of my symptoms had subsided by then. They thought it was an optical migraine. He said, “Look. We can't do anything for you. You're having some contractions. Nothing crazy.” I wasn't feeling anything, so they were like, “Look. You have your doctor's appointment tomorrow. Just talk with them.” Meagan: Talk to them there. Samantha: Yeah. So the next day I went in and he was like, “Oh, it was probably just an optical migraine. You're fine now, so whatever.” Meagan: I've actually never heard of that. Samantha: Right? Meagan: Optimal– Samantha: Optical, like in your eyes. Meagan: Optical. Interesting. Samantha: Strange. But it put me a little bit on edge so that's why I'm telling that part of the story. Meagan: Yeah, set the story. Samantha: He told me, “You're almost 41 weeks. It means you're overdue.” I'm like, “Okay.” He's like, ”The rate of stillbirth goes way up now.” I was like, “Oh, jeez.” Of course, that puts fear right into your heart.9:37 Scheduled inductionHe's like, “We're going to schedule the induction. It's going to go great. It's going to be amazing. You're going to have your baby in the next few days.” He's like, “Look. We're really booked next week so I'll set you for Thursday. Thursday, first thing in the morning, come in.” They call me. They were like, “We are ready for you.” I got there at 9:00 AM. The plan was to put a Foley bulb in, but the doctor who was on rotation at that time came in and said, “You're already 2 centimeters. It's not worth doing the Foley bulb at this point. We're just going to start you on some Pitocin if that's okay with you.” I was like, “Okay. Whatever you say. I trust you. You are a doctor.” Had I known. Anyway, we stayed in that room until 5:00 PM that night because they didn't have a room to start Pit yet. So from 9:00 AM until 5:00 PM, I was just sitting there having random contractions that I never felt and wishing. I had a gut feeling. I told my husband, “We shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be induced. This is not what I want to do.” Meagan: Oh really? Samantha: But I didn't know I could leave. I didn't know that it was a thing. Meagan: Women of Strength, it's a thing. It's a thing. You do not have to be there. Samantha: There was nothing abnormal about the baby's heartrate. There was nothing going on. They did a mini ultrasound just to check his position. He was head down. That's all I knew really. I was at a -2 station. I was 60% effaced, 2 centimeters. Everything was fine. My body was fine. He was fine. We started Pit at 5:00 PM, but they were ramping it up quite quickly. I wasn't feeling anything at this point. Meagan: They took forever and then ramped it up. Samantha: Yeah, they were like, “Hello, welcome.” Finally, they broke my waters the next morning at 6:00 AM. Meagan: Do you know what dilation or what station you were at that point? Samantha: I was around 3.5 centimeters at that point. Meagan: Okay.Samantha: Yeah. They were like, “You've progressed a little bit, but you are not moving fast enough for us.” Okay, cool.Meagan: Oh, so they broke the water real early. Samantha: Yeah, because they checked me at 1:00 AM and he said that baby was still too high to break the waters so he was like, “Okay, we will wait until the morning.” I was still the same dilation so he was like, “Okay, let's do this.” I was like, “Okay, whatever you say.” They did that, and then all of a sudden, the contractions got real. 100% real. So by 10:30, I decided to get the epidural because they were messing with the Pitocin like crazy. They kept upping it. My contractions were back-to-back. I had no break. It was insane. I was like, “What is this? I can't survive this.” Meagan: Yeah. Samantha: I was 5 centimeters at that point and I was like, “I still have halfway to go. That's a lot.” I got the epidural and my nurse was really fantastic actually. She got the peanut ball for me, put me in the bed, was rotating me every 30 minutes. She was actually my biggest happiness point. She was amazing.  Then my doctor, my actual OB wasn't on call that weekend and he had left a note in my file saying that if I gave birth while he was there he wanted to attend because he had seen me since I was 18. We had this really good relationship. So he came to see me and he was like, “I'm leaving for the weekend. Good luck. I'll try to come visit you after the baby's born.” I was like, “Okay, bye. I wish you had been there, but you know, Cest la vie.” 13:04 Complete dilation, pushing, and stallingMeagan: Yeah. Samantha: so then at 4:30 PM I was complete. It went pretty quickly from 10:30 to 4:30. I had done the rest of the remaining 10 centimeters, but they said the baby was still quite high, so they gave me two hours to labor down. Well, they said two hours. It ended up being about three. Then there was a change in staff and that's when things stopped going well, unfortunately. My nurse had to leave. She said her son's birthday was the next day. I was like, “No, don't leave.” She was like, “I was asked to do overtime, but I really have to go.” I was like, “I get it. Go ahead.” So then this new nurse comes in with a student doctor, a medical student of some sort. It's blurry because I was at 10 centimeters and ready to push, but things were really awkward between this nurse and the doctor. He wanted to get in there and help and she was like, “No, this is my job,” so he left and then he came back and he was like, “I was told I have to be here.” She was like, “Okay, fine,” so she came and sat next to my head and let him do whatever he had to do. You know, that type of thing. But it was super uncomfortable in the room. Meagan: Weird. Samantha: Yeah, it was so weird and I was so uncomfortable. Anyways, so then I started pushing and they told me his station was about +1 or +2, but he never moved in the hour that I was pushing. He stopped tolerating when I was on my right side near the end. Meagan: Didn't like that. Samantha: Yeah. I had horrible heartburn too. I felt like I was going to throw up fire. So fun. So finally, we pushed for an hour. The doctor on call came in, didn't even look at me almost, didn't really introduce herself, nothing and just said, “C-section.”Meagan: Whoa. Samantha: I was like, “Excuse me?” At that point, I had a bit of a fever. They gave me Tylenol. They said it could have just been from being in labor and from pushing. I was like, “Okay, whatever you say if that's normal.” They were like, “But we have to get you to a C-section now,” because he had a decel for 4 minutes at 70 beats per minute. They were nervous. At this point, the medical student had his fingers inside rubbing the baby's head to get him back. Meagan: Yeah, sometimes they do have to stimulate the baby. Samantha: Yeah. Between every push, he was doing that. Then this one was the final, I guess, they called it there. It was really strange. She's calling a C-section. She was like, “I'm going to call the doctor.” I'm not sure if she meant the OB or the surgeon. She goes off. The nurse is still getting me to push. I'm like, “How is this an emergency if I'm still pushing?” I was so confused. Meagan: Baby's heart rate returned at this point, I assume. Samantha: Yes, exactly. It was just very strange. 15:49 C-sectionSamantha: Anyways, so then they wheel me down to the OR. We had to go to the regular operating room because they only have certain hours during the day from 9:00 to 5:00 which I guess is when they do the special delivery OR. Meagan: Interesting. Samantha: Yeah and it was a Friday night, so we went to the regular OR. The nurse and the anesthesiologist were amazing. They took pictures and stuff like that before. They gave me the spinal, then my husband was allowed to come in while they were doing the test cut. I didn't feel anything so he was allowed in. Meagan: It worked, yeah. Samantha: Yeah. They didn't tell me much during the surgery at all. I don't even remember meeting the actual surgeon other than them saying, “This is so and so. He's going to do your surgery. He's great. Don't worry about it.” I was like, “Okay. Do what you've got to do.” I never heard from this man ever again. He didn't come to see me post-op. Meagan: Stop, really? Samantha: I don't know who this person was, really. The person who cut into my body never came to talk to me after. I had no clue what happened. Anyway, so it seemed to go pretty routinely. He was pulled out at 9:13 PM. He was 7 pounds, 10 ounces so what they told me he was a week prior was what he was that actual birth. His APGAR scores were 9 and 9 so he was not in distress. Meagan: He was doing okay, yeah. Samantha: Yeah. My husband cut the cord. Everything was fine. Then they brought me to the recovery room, but it was the general recovery room because L&D was closed for the night so I was left alone. My husband took the baby and went to postpartum. When we got there, the nurses said, “Oh no. Not another one.” Yeah. Meagan: Like another C-section baby or another person? Samantha: Any baby. Another person. Yeah, and he was like, “I feel great.” He has all of our bags. I had my boppy. I had his bag. He's carrying everything. He's got the baby in the pushing cart thing and nobody is helping him. They just shove him in a room in a corner and they say, “Do skin to skin. Here. Change his diaper. Done.” They left him there for four hours with a baby. Meagan: Four hours? Samantha: Four hours and didn't go check on him. Meagan: Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry and you were still in that recovery room for four hours? Samantha: My bloodwork and all of my vitals were all over the place because I had hemorrhaged which I didn't know at the time. I was shaking uncontrollably. I kept on falling in and out of sleep. I guess they had given me morphine. I was so itchy. The whole time, I'm just worried because you hear about the golden hour, the golden hour. I was freaking out the whole time because my plan was to breastfeed and I was freaking out. So then a nurse comes at one point and she's like, “Here. Call your husband and ask him what the baby weighed.” I was like, “Okay.” So I call him and he was like, “Yeah, he was 7 pounds and 10 ounces.” I was like, “Okay,” then the nurse was like, “Okay, give me my phone back.” I was like, “What's going on here?” I was so confused. It just didn't make any sense to me what was going on. So finally after four hours, they brought me back up because I guess the spinal had worn off and my vitals were stable enough that they could move me. I got there at 1:15 AM. I finally got to meet my baby for real. They had only brought him over for a picture. He was on my chest for 30 seconds and they were like, “Let's go.” That was that. I found a lot of things after the surgery. I found out I had hemorrhaged because I needed a blood transfusion the next day. I never found out about the extension on my scar until I got my reports when I got pregnant the second time. Meagan: Because no one came in and talked to you. Samantha: Nobody. The medical student came to talk to me about the transfusion. Meagan: And in a controlled– an extension for listeners, she now has a special scar. Samantha: I got it after and it was because of my pelvic floor physio that I had an inkling of it because I went to go see her and she said, “Your exterior scar is very long.” I was like, “Oh, well they told me he got stuck. He was pretty stuck.” They said they tried to push him up during the C-section. He didn't really move so they ended up using the forceps in my C-section which I found out from the pediatrician the next day. I had no clue. Meagan: Really? Samantha: Yeah. Meagan: Wait, so they used forceps externally pushing up or with you cut open?Samantha: Yeah, with me cut open I'm pretty sure because he had the marks on the sides of his head. Meagan: So that's where the special scar came from. Samantha: Yes. They cut me further to get him out and so he ended up with a huge hematoma on the side of his head because he was OP and asynclitic. They told me his chin had been extended as well. Meagan: Triple whammy. Samantha: I don't know what happened to this poor child. Meagan: The baby was high and we broke waters in a less than ideal position and he came down and said, “Whoa, the flood gates just opened,” and came down in a wonky position. Samantha: Exactly. It was great. Meagan: Then we had Pitocin cramming him down there. Samantha: Yes, exactly. So when he came out, he had that huge hematoma on his head that they told me would resolve on his own. He had a pretty intense torticollis looking back now. In all of his pictures, he's got his head completely to his shoulders, this poor child so he did chiro and everything for that. Meagan: Sideways, yeah. Samantha: And I burst all of the blood vessels in his eyes by trying to push him out so hard. So poor baby. Meagan: Oh my gosh. Samantha: Yeah, so my milk took a lot longer to come in because of all of the trauma. Meagan: And blood loss I'm sure. Samantha: Exactly. He was jaundiced. He lost more than 10% of his weight because they had pumped me so full of liquid that he probably lost all of the excess weight that wasn't true weight. Meagan: Yes. Samantha: But they didn't explain that to me so they were all panicked. Meagan: So in retrospect, he was probably smaller than 7lb,10oz. Samantha: Exactly. Yeah, and he also had a tongue tie that we ended up revising at 4.5 months after trying absolutely everything not to, but we did it and everything went well other than that. Our breastfeeding journey was a bit tough at the beginning. But, you know. 22:15 Official reason for CesareanMy official reason for Cesarean was the arrest of descent and fetal distress. Meagan: Okay. Samantha: Yeah. The worst part is in the report, they didn't mention the forceps in some of the reports. Some of them do have forceps in them. Honestly, I don't know what happened. It was on some reports, some not. It was very confusing, but it did have the extension on there. They said it was a 4cm extension on my uterus. That's where the hemorrhaging happened because they hit that nerve on the side apparently. Meagan: Oh. Samantha: Yeah. That's what the doctors at the new hospital where I gave birth to my second told me when they reviewed my chart. She was like, “Okay. This is what happened to you. It shouldn't be a huge red flag for your next birth. You didn't hemorrhage just because. There was a reason.” Meagan: Yeah. That probably actually was nice for you to find out and have that validation a little bit. Samantha: Exactly. On the report, it said my waters had been broken at 6:30 on the night of the 13th when they were broken at 6:30 AM on the 14th. They recorded it as being 12 hours longer than I had my waters broken. Meagan: Interesting. Samantha: So I was like, “Hmm. That's nice. That's nice to know.” They never mentioned my fever and they reported that I pushed for two hours, not one. Meagan: Wow. Crazy. Samantha: Yeah. I was very upset when I read these reports. Meagan: Did you have gestational diabetes with this baby? Samantha: Nope. My sugars were completely fine. Meagan: Crazy. Crazy. Samantha: In the moment, I didn't realize how traumatizing the birth was. I was like, “We've got to do what we've got to do.” Literally, I said, “Put my big girl pants on. Let's go.” But it's when I was going through it in my brain and talking about it that I realized how much it affected me. Meagan: Absolutely. Samantha: That was a huge part of my VBAC prep after. I read “How to Heal a Bad Birth”. I did all of that. Yeah. It was intense. And something they never tell you about C-sections– I had the worst gas pain in my shoulder. Meagan: Oh yeah. It gets stuck up there. Me too. With my second C-section, no one told me that either and I was like, “What? Is this my milk? What is this?” I didn't know. This was literally what I said, “I want to stab a knife in there to release it,” because it was so strong. Samantha: Right? I thought I pulled every muscle in my body from pushing and it was just gas. Meagan: Our body cavities get air after being cut open and sometimes it can get trapped and it travels up to that shoulder. Samantha: It was the worst so just for anybody thinking they are dying from something when they are just healing from a C-section. You know, it's fun. 25:15 RecoveryRecovery went pretty well. I was seeing a pelvic floor physio and did a ton of scar mobilization. We were always working on the scar especially because it was huge. It was so long. That was part of my prep even before I got pregnant. Then at my 8-week postpartum– it's supposed to be 6 weeks but it was just delayed and it was on the phone because of COVID so that was fun recovering from a C-section not knowing if your scar looks okay. They had put Steri strips to close the scar and said, “They should fall off within a week.” Four weeks later, they were still on. I wrote an email and I was like, “Do I take these off?” I started Googling and it says it can cause infection. I was like, “Oh, great.” So another thing they didn't really advise me on so that was fun. Meagan: They didn't give you good post-op care. Samantha: No and we were in a semi-private room. It was just uncomfortable. It was not a great experience. One of the nurses made me cry and it was hard to make me cry in those first few days. I was completely numb and done. I was a shell of a human, to be honest looking back on it, and she managed to make me cry. She came in and she was like, “You didn't do this. You didn't do that.” I was so overwhelmed. I had a brand new baby. Meagan: I'm so sorry. Samantha: It was not great. So at my 8-week postpartum appointment, I asked about VBAC. My OB was like, “Yeah, you'd be a great candidate. You got to 10 centimeters. You were pushing. Everything is great.” So I was like, “Excellent.” He was like, “Just make sure that your births have to be two years apart.” I said, “No problem. I have marked it on the calendar. We're good.” 26:57 Second pregnancySo then I did end up getting pregnant really easily again. My due dates were a week apart. Meagan: Oh no way. Samantha: Yeah, so this baby was due on the 22nd. Meagan: Okay. Samantha: Because my son was born on the 14th, but his due date was the 7th but they ended up being a week apart. I was like, “Well, I got my two years. There you go.” Meagan: So they are 24 months apart? Samantha: Yeah.Meagan: Oh, they are. Okay. Samantha: Exactly. I went to see my OB at 10 weeks. That's when he sees you. He sent me for an ultrasound early around 8 weeks just to make sure everything was good. I was pulled from work because of COVID and for violent children. I'm a teacher, so we just had to make sure that everything was viable and everything. We did that. I went to see him at 10 weeks. First, he tried to date me earlier than I was. I knew for a fact that I was not again. Again. I was like, “No. We're not playing this again.” Meagan: Good for you. Samantha: I had my appointment with him and he told me. He started saying, “I think your best option would be being induced at 39 weeks. But I can't make you do anything. But I need you to go into labor spontaneously before 40 weeks if you're going to have a VBAC.” I was like, “Hmm.” Meagan: Red flag. Samantha: Exactly. I had started listening to The VBAC Link at this point so I was like, “That's not good. Okay.” I spoke to my chiropractor who was working on my son who had helped him with his torticollis and everything and she said, “The secretary had a VBAC and with this doctor at a different hospital so I'll text her. I know her well. I'll text her. I'll get you in.” She got me in with this new doctor.I went to go see her and she was like, “Yeah. You're a great candidate for VBAC. I don't see a problem.” I brought her my operative notes because she had to wait for them to be transferred. She was like, “The extension worries me a little. I just want you to get checked with a specialist.” Meagan: I was going to ask you if she said anything about your special scar. Samantha: Yeah, she did. I made an appointment at the special, I guess it's maternal-fetal medicine. Meagan: MFM, yeah. Samantha: It's called [inaudible] in French. Everything is in French, so it is at-risk pregnancies. I had to go see a specialist there. I made my appointment. I waited and I was panicking. I was like, “I need to have this VBAC. I need this.” I show up to my appointment. I waited for five hours then we were told the specialist had to be called for a C-section. I was like “I get it. If I were that person and I needed extra hands, I get it.” But then she told me, “You haven't even had your ultrasound for 12-13 weeks.” She was like, “There's no point in me looking at your dossier” or whatever.” I was like, “But it's not about anything except for my extension.” She was like, “No, no. Just make another appointment after your ultrasound.” I left there in tears panicking still. I was like, “I don't know if I can even try for this VBAC. I may just have to sign up for another surgery. We don't know.” So I went back a few weeks later. It was about a month later. It was a long time I felt panic and nerves. So then I saw this other doctor and she was fantastic. I literally left that appointment telling her I loved her. She was so nice and evidence-based. She took out files and showed me statistics and everything. She explained my previous birth. Meagan: Wow. Samantha: She was fantastic. She was like, “You made it to 10 and you were pushing. The baby was just in the wrong position. You're a perfect candidate.” I was like, “Okay.” She was like, “And the extension is lateral so it was all in the same direction.” She said, “Same direction or low, we have no problem with. It's if it goes up that we start looking at things a little bit more seriously.” I felt super relieved after that. She told me the reason for my hemorrhage. It was her who told me. She asked me, “Did they try different positions?” I said, “No. They moved me from side to side but pushing, I was all on my back.” She was like, “We would have gotten you up on hands and knees. We would have done squatting. Did they try to manually turn him?” I said, “Absolutely not. Nothing happened. They literally left me on my own.” She was like, “We would have tried all of those things.” It really validated my whole experience. Meagan: Absolutely. Samantha: She is known for doing VBAC after two Cesareans as well. She is one of the only doctors at that hospital who will do it. She is amazing. So that relieved me a lot.In between that, I hired my doula from a company called Mother Wit. She was fantastic. Her name was Megan Tolbert so I felt like I had a little bit of VBAC Link having a Megan of my own. Meagan: I love that. Samantha: I was seeing a chiropractor every two weeks and near the end, once a week. I did pelvic floor physio once a month. I did acupuncture once every two weeks and near the end, I did three intensive types of get-me-into-labor sessions. I did massage therapy just to relax myself because I was pretty high-strung. I did the dates starting at 36 weeks but that was also with the GD diagnosis. It was rough. I did red raspberry leaf tea. I did pumping and hand-expressing colostrum. I had read how important that could be for a gestational diabetes baby. That was something that was really important to me because I had been separated from my first for four hours. I was like, “This poor child didn't eat.” I brought my colostrum with me to the hospital and it can help with their sugars. That was really important to me. I walked every day. I did curb walking. I did Spinning Babies Daily Essentials. I read How to Heal a Bad Birth. I read Birth After Cesarean: Your Journey to a Better Birth. There was one story on GD in that book. That's why I bought it. Meagan: Hey, listen. You've got to find the stories, right? Samantha: It was so hard to find gestational diabetes stories at the time. It was really rough. Meagan: Was there a lot of emphasis on your diagnosis of gestational diabetes? Was there a lot of, “Hey, you've got to do this? This has to happen,” Or anything like that? Samantha: They weren't as on top of things as I thought they would be because the doctor I was seeing was a family doctor. She was a GP so everything above a healthy, regular pregnancy, she would send me to the at-risk clinic. They were really the ones who dealt with that. She had sent me for just routine bloodwork. My fasting numbers came back borderline so she was like, “Look. Now you're going to have to do the 75-gram three-hour test, two-hour test, sorry, here.” I did that. I had a gut feeling my whole pregnancy that I had gestational diabetes for some reason. I had no proof. No proof, but it just kept on popping up. It was so weird. I had a feeling that morning and I got my test results that evening. It was really fast. I did them privately. It was 5.3 so here it is measured a bit differently than in the US, but I don't remember the conversion. But the cutoff was 5.2. So at 5.3, I was just over but because gestational diabetes usually gets worse before it gets better, they are very safe in diagnosing. But I never actually got an official diagnosis. I just had the prescription sent to the pharmacy for my monitor. Meagan: Insulin? Samantha: No, thank goodness. Meagan: I was like, what? Samantha: They were like, “You are booked for the information session in two weeks.” It was two weeks after and they sent you some documents to read over. So I was like, “Okay. This is not enough. I need to find more information.” I spoke to friends. I ended up on a Facebook group called gestational diabetes Canada which was amazing and I ended up following somebody on Instagram named Leslee Flannery. She was fantastic so if anybody needs her, look her up. She is amazing. Meagan: I'll have to look her up too. Samantha: She is @gestational.diabetes.nutrition on Instagram and she is just fantastic. She really normalizes it because there is so much stigma with gestational diabetes. You think that you caused it and she really debunks that. I really got in my head about that and I was really afraid for my VBAC chances because if you end up on insulin, they really want to induce you by 39 weeks so I was panicking which doesn't help your numbers by the way. Meagan: It doesn't. We talked about this in last week's episode. We talked about cortisol not helping, lack of sleep not helping, and yeah. It's crazy but cortisol raises things. Samantha: Exactly and for me, it was only my fasting numbers that were the problem. Those are the hardest to control because apparently, those are the ones that are influenced the most by hormones and by your placenta. So that was really rough. Meagan: Yeah. We talked about that as well. We talked about choline and certain foods and not cutting things that impact our hormones. It's this cycling thing. Samantha: Exactly. So a lot of people are told to cut carbs completely, but what I learned is that if you do that, then you end up spiking your numbers even further because your body takes over. Meagan: You have to find a balance. Samantha: It was really intense and all of my chances of my VBAC were going out the window. I was crying at every appointment. At his 20-week ultrasound, the big ultrasound, he was measured at the 96th percentile. I was like, “Oh my goodness.” I left there bawling my eyes out. I could not get a hold of myself for three days. Everything was just crazy. I redid my bloodwork three or four times and finally, there were no more antibodies so that was just let go. We don't know what happened. Meagan: Interesting. Samantha: Yeah. It was just another scary bump. I don't know. It was intense. The gestational diabetes diagnosis really sent me for a loop too. I found this pregnancy I was very stressed because I was so set on getting my VBAC. But thankfully, I had my doula so I could send her all of my crazy emails late at night when I was panicking and she always talked me down from that ledge of panic. I also listened to a podcast from a somatic therapist who said that stress in your pregnancy can be a contributor to things like gestational diabetes and things like that. I know that put a lot of pressure on me and reading about the facts of gestational diabetes really made me feel a little bit better about that. It could have been, but it's not something that you can stop. It was nice to know that but gestational diabetes diagnoses really are hard when you are trying for a VBAC, I would say. Meagan: It is. It is which is why we had Lily on last week because we get the question so often. We get the text, “I was diagnosed. Can I still VBAC?” Asking the question, “Can? Is this still possible?” The answer is yes. Samantha: Exactly. So apparently, there is a spike between 32 and 36 weeks most of the time. That's when your gestational diabetes will be at its worst because apparently, there is something to do with the baby's growth. They have a growth spurt at that time and then usually, it tapers out at the end. My numbers all of a sudden just got better. It was a relief near the end. I was like, “Okay. Let's wrap it up. We're doing all of the things.” I was doing my birth affirmations. One of them was, “I am a Woman of Strength,” let me tell you. Meagan: Yes you are. Samantha: My Hypnobirthing tracks– I did the ones by Bridget Teyler. She's amazing too. All of the things getting ready. So then that leads up to my appointment at 39 weeks and 2 days. Everything with the gestational diabetes was fine at that point. They told me, “Look. We're going to treat you like a regular pregnancy. We won't talk anything until 41 and 4.” My doctor was not a big fan of inductions for VBACs because of the increased risk, but she was like, “Look. If we have to, we will look at it then. Until then, let's get you to go into labor spontaneously.” Meagan: Let's just have a baby, yeah. Trust your body. Samantha: Yeah, but I did opt for a membrane sweep because I was getting not close. I wasn't close because I was only 39 weeks and 2 days but I was like, “Look. I want all of the chances on my side of going into labor spontaneously.” I had started losing my mucus plug so my body was doing what it had to do. I had never had any of that with my first son at all. I was like, “Something is going on.” I started having more intense Braxton Hicks a little bit more often. I was like, “Things are going to happen. We need to do this.” Meagan: You could feel it. Samantha: I had the membrane sweep. After, she checked him on the ultrasound. He was LOA. He was head down. Everything was good. So I was like, “Okay. He's in a good position. Let's do this. Okay.” 42:46 LaborThe next evening, I started getting my Braxton Hicks. Looking back, I was probably in super early labor but didn't realize it because they were starting to get uncomfortable. I'd have to sit there and breathe for a minute. Nothing crazy, but I was like, “Huh. I felt that. That's weird.” I was at my friend's house and I was like, “Okay. That felt weird. I'm just going to go to the bathroom and go pee.” I came back and was like, “There's a bit of blood. I'm going to head home just because I want to sleep.” I went to bed and then I woke up at 4:43 AM with a contraction. I was like, “Oh. That's uncomfortable.” I had listened to so many stories about prodromal labor that I was just convinced that this could be prodromal labor for three weeks. I was in complete denial. I kept on trying to sleep, but they were coming every 10-15 minutes. They would wake me up each time. I wasn't resting super well. They started picking up around 6:30. I texted my doula at around 7:30 and I said, “I don't know if I had a bit of a bloody show. There is a bit of darker blood.” She said, “Probably not considering it wasn't fresh blood,” and all of those things. “But rest. Drink water. Do all of the things. Move around when you need to,” and things like that. It was fine. I said, “Okay. We will continue and I'll let you know if things pick up or not.” So my husband got up at 7:45 with my first son and did all of the things. I stayed in bed because my body just kept telling me, “Lie down. Rest.” I could not fight it. I was like, “Okay.” I lay down in the bed. Fine. I didn't even time my contractions. I was really convinced I wasn't in labor. It was the weirdest thing. I didn't eat enough. Meagan: This happens. This happens where we're like, “No, I can't be.” We want it to be so bad, but we're like, “But it's not. It's not.” Samantha: Exactly. Meagan: We're in denial. From having zero contractions from the first that I felt and having just Pitocin contractions, I didn't know what to think of this. I was like, “They are uncomfortable. They hurt a little, but I'm sure they're just going to fizzle out and we're going to be fine.” So then my first son went down for his nap around 10:00 and my husband had to go to work to drop off his keys because he was changing positions so that was his last day. He went to go say goodbye and everything then he came back home and went downstairs to watch TV and kind of left me on my own. He figured it was better to just leave her alone. She's going to be fine. Meagan: Yeah. Just let her do her thing. Samantha: Yeah. So at 11:55, I texted my doula and I said, “My contractions are still far apart.” I feel like they never got much closer at that point. It was 10-15  minutes, but they were getting more intense. She said, “Okay. Do some hands and knees positioning. Maybe take a bath. Continue breathing. Relax,” and all of those things. So then at that point, I said to my husband, “Okay, call my sister.” She was coming to watch my first son. She was on her way to a hair appointment that I didn't know she had because she didn't tell me. She knew I'd freak out, so we called my mom instead. She came. She was like, “Sam, are you timing these contractions? Is your husband? What's going on?” I was like, “No. I haven't actually taken out my timer. I don't know.” She started following me around with a pen and paper. “Those were four minutes apart. You need to leave right now.” She was like, “You're not going to have this baby on the floor at your house. No. You need to go.” Meagan: Was it active like you were really working through them? Samantha: 100%. I was moaning. I was trying to do a low moan to try to get through them. She said I sounded like a wounded animal at the end of each one because they hurt. She was like “You need to leave right now.” I was like, “Well, I need to shower.” She was like, “No, you aren't showering right now.” I was like, “Yeah, I am.” I had my piece of toast that I took one bite out of. I was like, “Maybe I should eat some more before I go.” Meagan: Yeah. Samantha: I was in too much pain to eat at that point so I was like, “Okay, I'm going to shower. It's going to be fine.” I got in the shower and it was literally the best feeling of my entire life I think. I was like, “Why didn't I do this earlier?” But I was not in the mind space to do it earlier. Every time a contraction hit me, I had the instinct to get up and walk or sit on the toilet. I think  my body knew that those were the positions that helped the most and then in between, I would lay down because that's what my body told me to do. I was just listening. I was along for the ride. Meagan: Hey, that's good. Samantha: Yeah. So then I texted my doula at 12:45. I said, “I'm going to shower, then we are going to the hospital.” My husband, during this time when my mom got there, was packing his bag because he hadn't and was getting all of our last-minute things. I had a list like my birth affirmations. I wanted to bring them with me and things like that. I got in the shower and got out. We left for the hospital at 1:06. It took us about 40 minutes to get there so there was a bit of traffic. Meagan: There was a drive. Samantha: Yep, but I was so lucky. I only had about four contractions the whole time. They had spaced out. My body knew what to do, man. Meagan: I was going to say your body knew what was happening. Samantha: Yeah. So then we got there. My doula had gotten there about five minutes before us so I saw her at the entrance. This guy stopped to talk to me for two minutes while I was in active labor waiting to go to labor and delivery. He was talking to me about my day and asking me when my baby was due. I was like, “Today.” Meagan: You're like, “Right now.” Samantha: I don't think he realized, but then I met up with my doula and I had a contraction on the way while we were walking. A guy passed by like, “Uh-oh.” I think he realized and put two and two together. So then we got there and went to the front desk. He was doing his paperwork going all slow and whatever then I had another contraction and he said, “Oh.” He got up and he walked away real fast and so they got me to triage and the woman, the nurse who came to check me said, “Look. We're going to check you really quickly and see where you are at, but I think you are going to be going to a room right away.” My sister-in-law had given birth at the same hospital two weeks before me and she showed up at 3 centimeters in a lot of pain. I was like, “If I am at 3 centimeters right now, I don't know if I can do this.” But I got in my head. I was like, “I'm going to be super low dilation.” Meagan: Those numbers, they mess with us and they really don't mean anything, but man, they impact us quite a lot. Samantha: Yeah. I remember saying that to my doula. I was like, “If I'm at 3, I'm going to scream and then get the epidural. I can't continue like this.” The woman was checking me and I'm waiting and I was like, “So?” She was like, “You're an 8.” I said, “Oh my gosh.” I was like, “I can do this.” It gave me a new spunk. I was like, “I'm ready. Let's go.” So they put me right into a room and they apologized. They were like, “We have to get everything ready,” so they were bustling around. They turned down the lights. They got me a yoga ball and all of those things. They were like, “Look, we're really sorry to be in here. We're going this as fast as possible then we will leave you alone.” They never even saw my birth plan because we got there at 8 centimeters and there was no time, but they wanted to put in the IV and my doula said to them, “Look, does she need an IV?” They said, “We just want the port at the very least.” I guess just the saline lock. Meagan: The hep lock? Samantha: Yeah, the hep lock, sorry. They did that and they wanted to monitor the baby's heart rate. Those were the two conditions that they wanted to have. Because I was so far along, it didn't really bother me. I didn't want to fight that fight. It was not something that was worth it to me. I was like, “Cool.” I was laboring standing up next to the bed, then the doctor came in and said she wanted to do her own checks so that she had her own line of where things were I guess. So she checked me and by then, I was already 9 centimeters. I had already gone up another centimeter. But what's funny is I guess I went through transition at some point, but I don't know that it was. Everyone always says that transition is crazy. I didn't have that. Meagan: Maybe you went in the car with distractions and stuff. Samantha: Yeah. In between contractions in the car, I was falling asleep. I was so tired. I don't know. Transition was not that bad for me, so I was lucky for that. So then the doctor said, “Look. Your bag of water is bulging. We can either break it artificially or we can wait and see when it breaks by itself.” I said, “Okay, let me wait.” She left and I continued laboring and I was like, “You know what? We are at this point. I'm 9 centimeters. They couldn't tell me his position yet because my water was still in tact.” Meagan: It was probably so bulgy, yeah. Samantha: So I said, “Just call her back.” She was like, “Well, it's going to get more intense.” I said, “It's going to get more intense. Let's do this.” I'm like, “Okay, hold on. I have another contraction coming.” I was on the bed. I turned over and all of a sudden my water exploded. They even wrote it on my report that I saw after, “a copious amount of liquid”. There was so much. So I was like, “That's good that that didn't break in the car because that would have been a mess.” Meagan: Yep. 52:34 Feeling pushySamantha: So then they cleaned up. I was standing next to the bed again and then all of a sudden, I felt pushy. I was doing the pushing sounds and my doula said, “Look. You need to concentrate. Tell me if you cannot push.” So the next contraction, I was like, “No, no. I'm pushing.” They wanted to check me again because they didn't want me pushing before 10 centimeters so they did do a lot of checks, but I wasn't too worried considering how close I was to the finish line for infection and things like that because I wasn't a huge fan of cervical checks going in, but I was like, “We're near the end. Hopefully nothing bad will happen.” So they checked me. I was already 10 and he was at a 0 station at this point, but he was LOA. They checked him, so he was in the right position so that was great. I was worried because my contractions were wrapping around to my back at that point, but I assumed that that is probably pretty standard when you're that low, I guess and things are getting more intense. But I kept on saying to my doula, “If he's OP, if he's OP, if he's OP–” I was so scared that he was going to end up in the same position as my first son especially because I had another anterior placenta. I read somewhere that that could cause positioning issues. I was like, “No, not another one.” He was fine. That was a huge relief in that moment. Then I tried a few different positions. On my hands and knees, I thought I was going to love that but I hated it. I could not push like that. I ended up on my side. I pushed a lot like that, but I was pulling on the rung of the bed and I don't know if I was using too much energy like that, but the doctor looked at me at one point and she was like, “Look. I know you don't want to be on your back, but maybe just try. If it doesn't work, we'll try something else, but try it.” I really trusted my team at that point. They had really been very aware of everything I wanted. They gave me choices. They were really evidence-based, so I was like, “You know what? This is a good team. Let's try.” Meagan: Why not? Samantha: So I went on my back and all of a sudden, my contractions were being used. My pushing was a million times better so I guess that's what I needed in that moment as much as I really hated to be on my back. I was like, “Maybe this is what I needed.” He descended really well to a +3. I had the whole team there around me. I had my husband up here next to my head and then my doula was next to him, then I had the doctor at the foot of the bed, then I had two nurses on the side and they were so good together. Apparently, they are a team that works together a lot, so they bounce off of each other and it was so supportive. They were always there telling me, “You're doing it.”Pushing was so hard for me though. So many women say, “Pushing was really where I felt empowered and like I could do something with the contractions.” Pushing was the most painful thing I've ever experienced, so I don't think I went in there thinking about that. Meagan: Yeah. 55:42 “You're not going to need a C-section today.”Samantha: I was shocked by that, but she also, at one point, said, “You're not going to need a C-section today. We are past that point. This baby is coming out vaginally. No matter what happens from here on out, you're good.” My eyes just filled with tears. I was so happy at that point. Meagan: I bet. Samantha: They started getting stuff ready at the end of the bed and I was like, “This is a really good sign. This means that baby is coming.” Meagan: Yeah. Constant validation. Samantha: Yeah. They were so nice. They offered a mirror which I accepted. Some people say mirrors really helped them. They were like, “Oh, we see his head.” There was a nickel-sized piece. I was like, “No.” I have so much more to do. I found that not super helpful. The doctor– I don't know how I feel completely about this, but she did warm compresses and stretching of my perineum while I was pushing. I didn't end up tearing, so I don't know if that ended up helping for it or not and they poured a lot of– Meagan: Pelvic floor work before too. Samantha: Yeah, exactly. I did a lot of that. They poured a lot of mineral oil on his head to try to get him to slip out a little bit easier because I was having more trouble. I don't know if those things are evidence-based necessarily, but in my case, I didn't tear. They may have helped. They may not have helped. I'm not sure. Though they did tell me I wasn't using my contractions as effectively as I could have been. I guess they said I was starting to push too early in my contraction and then not pushing long enough. They were really trying to coach my pushing. Meagan: Waiting until it built a little bit more.Samantha: Yeah, exactly. I mean, at that point, he was having a few decels so I think they were getting a little bit more serious at that point. They told me every time I put my legs down between contractions that he was slipping back up a little bit. They had the nurse and my husband hold up my legs at some point. I was exhausted at this point. It was 12 hours. It wasn't super long, but I think because I hadn't eaten enough or drank enough water. But they did let me eat in labor even though I was already 8 centimeters. They were fantastic for all of those things so I didn't have to fight that. So yeah, then at one point, his head was crowning, so the doctor actually had to hold his head in position between my contractions because he kept on slipping back in. Meagan: Oh. Samantha: Yeah. It was really intense and the ring of fire when somebody is holding that ring of fire there is no joke. Meagan: Yeah. Samantha: It was rough. Yeah, then at one point, the mood just shifted in the room. She said, “Look, if you don't get him out in the next two contractions, I have to cut you.” I said, “Excuse me? You have to what?” I was like, “An episiotomy?” She was like, “Yes. He is getting serious now.” He had a few pretty major heart rate decels so she was like, “I'm giving you two more.” They got the numbing stuff, I guess lidocaine ready. They dropped the bed down at that point so it was completely flat. I guess she wanted to have a better view of how she was going to cut. I pushed harder than I've ever pushed anything or done anything in my whole entire life and all of a sudden, I felt his head come out. I was like, “Oh, you didn't have to cut me.” It was right down to the wire. I pushed him out by myself and it was just like, “Oh my gosh.” It was the best feeling in the whole wide world.” Then she said, “Okay, stop pushing,” to check, I guess, for shoulder dystocia because of the gestational diabetes for the cord and everything. She was like, “Okay, he's good. Go ahead and push him out.” They said, “Grab your baby.”I pulled my baby out onto my chest. Meagan: Best feeling. Samantha: It was the best feeling in the whole wide world. I cannot describe it. The best. I had my VBA and I just kept saying, “I did it! I did it! I did it!” Everyone was so happy in the room and I had a very, very minor tear in my labia and that was it. It was night and day for my C-section recovery. They put the baby on me. He didn't budge from my body for 2.5 hours. Meagan: Oh, such a difference. Samantha: Oh my gosh. It was fantastic. He laid on me and I talked with my doula and my husband for an hour and a half until my doula left and then they came in and weighed him and did all of the things afterwards and checked his sugars which they have to do for gestational diabetes. They check sugars four times. Everything was good. It was just fantastic. It was the best, the best feeling in the world. Meagan: Oh, I am so happy for you. So happy for you and so happy that you found the support and the team and everything. All of the things that you had done did add up to the experience that you had. Samantha: Yeah. I went into this birth saying, “I'm going to do all of the things so that if I do end up in a C-section again, I know I did everything possible.” I needed that for myself. Meagan: Yeah. That's something to point out too because really, sometimes you can do everything and it still doesn't end the way you want, right? That's kind of how I was. I was like, “I want to do everything so in the end, I don't have the question of what if I did this? What if I did that?” Sometimes that was hard because it meant spending more money on a chiropractor and spending more money on a doula. We had to work on that. Sometimes it's not possible for some people and that's okay. VBAC can be done doing those things, but that's how it was for me too. I mentally had to do all of these things to just have myself be like, “Okay, if it happened. I can't go back and question.” Samantha: That's it. You're at peace with everything you did. It's funny. The doctor that I switched from, so my original OB, my doula had three VBAC clients all at the same time. We were all due around the same time. Two of us switched from him. We all started under his care and two of us switched. I ended up with a VBAC. She ended up with a repeat C-section but dilated to complete so she was very happy. The third person stayed with him and he pulled the bait and switch on her at 36 weeks. Meagan: So she had an elective? Samantha: She ended up with an elective C-section. I was like, “Oh my goodness. Thank goodness I followed my gut and I switched right away.” Intense. Insane. 1:02:39 Finding supportive providersMeagan: Yeah. Support really does matter. Support is important and in our Facebook group, we have The VBAC Link Community on Facebook, if you go under “Files”, you can click our supportive provider as well and this provider will be added to that list. Do you want to share your provider's name? Samantha: Yeah. Her name was Dr. Choquet. She was fantastic. I think I already submitted her name to be added. Meagan: You did, yes. Samantha: I loved her and Dr. Lalande was the one I consulted with for my extension who was super and is known for doing VBACs after two C-sections as well. Meagan: Lalande? Samantha: Yeah. I also submitted her name as well. Both doctors practice at LaSalle Hospital. It was a further drive, but 100,000 times worth it. Meagan: Yes. Sometimes it's hard to go far or you get worried about it, but usually, something good comes out of it. Well, congratulations again, and thank you so much for taking the time today. 1:03:53 3-5 prep tips for listenersBefore we leave, what 5 or maybe 3-5 tips would you give to the listeners during their prep? What were your key things for prepping? What information would you give and suggest? Samantha: I would say that the mental prep is 100% the work that I did the most that I think benefited me in terms of Hypnobirthing tracks. We did the Parents Course by The VBAC Link which was very helpful, I found, for getting my husband on the same page. He can tell you everything about VBAC now because he took that course. Meagan: I love that. So it helped him feel more confident. Samantha: 100%. He was pretty on board from the beginning, but it just solidified everything in his brain. He was like, “These stats. Obviously, we're going to go for a VBAC.” He was super on board after that for sure. Meagan: Awesome. Samantha: Then it armed me with the stats. My parents were very nervous about me trying for a VBAC and things like that so it really helped me arm myself. And just mentally, knowing that my chances of rupture and things like that were so much lower than the chances of actually succeeding in a VBAC so really, the mental prep and knowing that doing everything, I was going in there as equipped as I could be with the most education having done all of the prep work and then you have to leave it up to your baby and your body. Really trusting that and I didn't think the mental game would be that intense. Meagan: Man. It is. Samantha: It is. Meagan: It is intense and really, it can be especially based on what trauma we've had or what experiences we've had. There can be so much that goes into it and we have to find the information in order to even process sometimes and work through that and then you mentioned all of the amazing things you did. You did pelvic floor. You did acupuncture. You did dates. Samantha: I wrote everything. Meagan: You did it all. Samantha: And for the dates, I did them with peanut butter and a nut on them to balance the protein and the sugars. Meagan: That's my favorite way. That's my favorite way that I eat dates as well. Samantha: I broke them into two in the afternoon and then two after supper because that's when my numbers were the best for my gestational diabetes and I always took a walk after supper so that really helped. Meagan: Oh, I love that. Samantha: Because a lot of people, I would hear say they couldn't do dates because of their gestational diabetes but as long as you can balance your numbers, it's still a possibility so that's helpful and just finding all of the information about gestational diabetes was tough to find, but really important for my mental game as well. Meagan: Yeah. Absolutely. Oh, I love those tips. Thank you so much again and congrats again. We will make sure that we get your docs added to and your doula and everybody added to the list so people can find them because support is a big deal. It's a really, really big deal. Samantha: And thanks to The VBAC Link. Honestly, the only sad part is that there is not much of Canada that is covered yet, so finding my alternatives that way, but everything else was covered by The VBAC Link 100%. I tell everybody about The VBAC Link. The other day, I went for my COVID shot and I told my nurse– her daughter had just given birth via C-section and she wanted to go for a VBAC. I was like, “Get her a doula through The VBAC Link.” Meagan: Oh, that's amazing. I love that. Thank you so much. Samantha: Thank you so much for everything you do. It was a game changer, 100%. Absolutely. ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

We have another follow-up story on the podcast this week! We love hearing from our previous guests and today, we get to follow up with our friend, Amy. Amy was on the podcast for episode 102 sharing her VBA2C story and now we get to hear her HBA2C story!Amy talks about her journey to embracing home birth with her fourth baby, how she found the right team, and how she worked through her fears. When labor began, Amy was steady and strong. She was ready and so was her team. Then everything completely stopped. Instead of giving in to discouragement, Amy trusted the process. Her team went home and she knew she needed rest. 10 hours later, labor kicked in HARD. Amy birthed her baby shortly after!Meagan and Amy discuss the pros and cons of cervical exams before and during labor. Women of Strength, you do not have to have a cervical exam if you do not want one!Additional LinksThe VBAC Link Episode 102: Amy's VBA2CICAN of Summit CountyThe Lactation NetworkHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello, hello you guys. We only have a couple of weeks left of 2023 and it is blowing my mind. I cannot believe how fast the year has gone and how much has happened. I hope that you have had an amazing year and are gearing up for the holidays. I definitely have had a good year and am not ready for the holidays. I'm never ready for the holidays. It is always a crazy hustle and bustle. But I am always ready for a new episode and story to share. Today we have a special episode. I feel like this is a fun one because we like follow-ups. It's really fun to sometimes have follow-ups. We have an HBAC after two Cesarean births to share with you today. I'm going to let our guest tell you more about her births and I'll give you a little bit of a preview, but Amy, is it 102 what you said? It's 102. Amy: Yes. It's 102. Meagan: So episode 102. If you want to go and hear more, she's got four babies you guys. If you want to hear more of the other babies' stories, definitely go check out episode 102. Review of the Week But of course, we have a Review of the Week so we want to get into that. This is by meganlindsayyy. It says, “The support that I needed.” It says, “After my C-section, I said I wouldn't even consider getting pregnant again unless I was guaranteed a VBAC. When we were surprised by our current pregnancy, I felt like I had already lost control and a say in the outcome. I immediately went back to my same OB and hoped for the best. Something happened when I was about 20 weeks pregnant. I wasn't able to sleep. I got up at 4:00 AM and I began researching how to have a successful VBAC. That was the morning I found Meagan and Julie on Facebook. I was listening to their podcast later that day. By the evening, I knew that I had to totally change my plans.” Ooh, that just gave me the chills right there. It says, “I was going to let my birth happen to me.” I was going to let my birth happen to me. That is so powerful right there. Women of Strength, you do not need to let birth happen to you. You can go and you can birth and you can be in control of a lot of things in your birth. It says, “Because of these women I realized that I have a voice in what happens to me. I switched my provider and hospital and am in the process of hiring a doula. I am creating a thought about our birth plan. It is because of these women that I feel confident to go for my VBAC.”Well, meganlindsayyy, I am so happy that you felt that you were able to find your voice again and find your power and take control of your birth and not let birth happen to you. This was back in 2022 and here we are at the end of 2023 so meganlindsayyy, if you are still listening, please let us know. How did things go? How did your birth go? I hope that it went really well and that you felt empowered no matter how it ended. You too, Women of Strength. If you are in a situation where you are not feeling that support and you're not feeling the love, know that it is okay. It is okay to do what's best for you. If that's leaving a provider or switching things up birth location-wise, that's okay. I know it seems daunting. It is. It is daunting. I did it myself at 24 weeks, but it is so worth it usually. Of course, if you haven't had a chance to leave a review in the 2024 year, we would love to bring in some new reviews. Go over to Apple Podcasts or Google Play or you Android users. I don't know. Google whatever or you can actually Google “The VBAC Link” and leave us a review there. Amy's Stories Meagan: Okay, cutie pie. I am so excited to have you back today. So, so excited. I'm so excited to get into this story, but I also want to talk about something that we are going to talk about at the end. I know that this kind of goes into your birth about cervical exams. I want to talk about cervical exams. What do they look for? What do they do? What do they tell us? Are they necessary? And all of those things. We are going to talk more about cervical exams at the end, but I would love to turn the time over to you and your cute little baby. You guys, if you hear the cute little baby noises, we've got a baby on the show today. Amy: We do. We've got a wide-awake 6-month-old. Don't mind the squawks. Well, thank you so much. Obviously, I'm incredibly excited to be back. I didn't think that was ever even going to happen. If anybody has listened to my first episode, at the end of the episode, Julie was cheering on our husband. She was cheering on us both to have a fourth baby. It was a joke between you and I and it was an ongoing thing in our home. My husband would call it nagging. I just called it persistence, but here we are. Honestly, I really didn't think I was going to have another baby so I just feel incredibly blessed, excited, and just really happy to share another story. I'm just really hoping that this story can help somebody else who maybe is feeling some fears about a VBAC or a home birth or any part of my story. I feel like there is a lot of different kind of factors that play into it, so thank you for having me. I'm super excited. But yeah. I guess I'll get started. We know that with every VBAC story, we start with our C-sections. Like you mentioned and I mentioned if you want to hear the full two Cesarean stories and my first VBAC after two C-sections story, check out episode 102 because there are some long, detailed stories. I'm not going to go through them all, but I do think they are important just to hear how I got to where I am today because each birth and pregnancy really builds upon the last. My knowledge, my passion, and just all of the information I learned played a role in my decisions for the next one. So just a real quick birth history. Gosh, it's been almost 10 years ago. My oldest is 9.5. I will go back to 2013. I really did plan the most natural delivery possible with a birth plan but I didn't have a doula. I was induced at 41.5 and on Pitocin for 30 hours. Two epidurals, every drain and tube and monitor coming out of me that could possibly come out of me even though I really wanted none of it and then after two hours of pushing, the covering OB came in and said, “We should have done a C-section hours ago.” I gave up. My body just– you know, the adrenaline kind of left my body and I said, “That's fine. Whatever.”She was 10 pounds and probably OP. I started planning my VBAC in the postpartum room. Let's fast forward a couple of years. I switched providers and thought she was VBAC-supportive. It was a little bit of a bait and switch and some scare tactics at the end. I ended somehow in a scheduled C-section at 40 weeks and day with no TOLAC. I didn't really realize it was insane until I met my next provider, but her C-section was straightforward. It was really nice to have a C-section without the labor and 30 hours of Pitocin, but I just didn't feel like honestly, that was even a chance at a VBAC. She had some big baby fears because she is VBAC-supportive with other people so that was hard to learn about after the fact. My second, Delaney, which is my Delaney. I know you have a Delaney. She's 7. My oldest is Adeline and she is 9.5. My second is Delaney and she is 7. She was my “scheduled” C-section, but I kind of look at her as a CBAC because I really, really did in my heart plan for a VBAC. She was 9 pounds and 3 ounces so also larger. Fast forward a couple more years. I switched to yet another doctor, kind of the VBAC king in the area. I did all of the research and all of the prep, the chiropractic care, and did all of the things, right? I got a doula and I did have my– which is when I was on the podcast– VBAC after two C-sections just riddled with a lot of interventions after getting to the hospital. The most significant one was him breaking my water at 4 centimeters when I got there for really no apparent reason. Baby turning OP, pushing for an hour, and then it was a forceps assist. I think while it was empowering and it was really life-changing, I think after the fact as I thought more about it, I did this big mental dump on my computer even though I assumed we would never have another baby. I did this big document of what I would do next time. It's really interesting to look back because I did it pretty quickly after the birth. Not necessarily regrets, but how I would do things differently even down to the first trimester. Meagan: I actually think that's really powerful. Amy: It was. It was helpful. Meagan: I really think that's great. Amy: I'm glad I did it because I did look back at it and it was interesting to look at. Although it was a VBAC, and I will say I still feel really blessed and I do think it paved the way physically and emotionally to have another baby vaginally, I didn't really have those healing moments that I was hoping for. That was really hard for me because the NICU team whisked him away. It was a boy and that was the first gender we didn't know. It was really special to have two girls and then a boy. He was our smallest baby. He was 8lbs, 12 oz and I think he was 41.4 but I didn't get to hold him after. I didn't get to do the golden hour. I didn't get to do immediate skin-to-skin. He did spend an hour in the NICU for observation which was hard. I was happy he was healthy but with a forceps assist and an OP baby, I could have had a lot more damage than I did and I only had a second-degree tear which I was very grateful for because it could have been a lot worse. But he was fine and we were healthy and I healed well. It was a really great postpartum period and the hormones were real and the birth high is real. That really solidified my passion for birth and what I wanted to do moving forward. I met another mom through my same OB because everybody flocked to this OB. She actually recorded a podcast episode around the same time as me, Tanya. I hope it's okay if I share her name. We actually ended up through meetings and through our VBACs starting an ICAN chapter in our community in November of 2020 amidst the pandemic. We went through the ICAN leadership training which was really exciting. We now have an ICAN chapter that's been going pretty strong now for about 3 years and we have just grown our passion even more and connected even more to the birth community. So yeah. Those are my three stories in a nutshell. Meagan: Tell everybody how to find that ICAN chapter in your area if they're listening.Amy: Okay, sure. I wasn't sure if I should share the details. ICAN of Summit County. I live in the greater Akron area. We serve the whole Summit County area. There is also a very active, large ICAN chapter in Cleveland which is one of the longest-standing ICAN chapters or the longest-standing which is really neat. That is the chapter we started going to and it really helped us. We love having our own chapter here. We're growing but juggling a lot of babies. I had to take some pauses at times, so that's been really exciting and has really just helped grow our passion and desire to keep doing this kind of work. Yeah. Through all of that, I still kept listening to podcasts and just devouring everything I could. I had plans to become a doula and just hadn't been able to pull the trigger yet, but have always had this hope that one day I will be able to help other women. As the years went by, I still didn't feel like our family was complete, but I do want to add that I know a lot of women deal with this so I want to speak to this because sometimes, I think that maybe women are not afraid or ashamed to talk about it, but I did struggle with the difference between if I really wanted another baby or child and do I really want another birth experience to do differently. I've heard other people talk about that. I'm glad I took quite a few years to trick my husband into having another baby, no, to get pregnant again because I wanted to make sure that I was doing it for the right reasons. But yeah. It was tugging at my soul and I think he was unofficially done. Around comes Mother's Day 2022 and I conceived baby number four and that was the best Mother's Day gift ever. That's where the story starts. I think always in the back of my head, I daydreamed and dreamt of this home birth plan. I said, “That's a dream of mine that will never happen because of my history and because we're not having any more kids and because my body probably can't do that. I've always needed an epidural. XYZ.” I had my birth team planned in my mind for years even. This is what I'm going to do if I get pregnant again, but I never thought I'd actually have to commit to that. Along comes this pregnancy and we're super excited about it. I started my OB care with the same doctor who is extremely supportive. I knew he did co-care for home births just from talking to other women. I went along with my pregnancy. It was textbook. I tried to stay as active as I could. I wasn't as sick this time, so I was just trying to really stay healthy and do all of the things right that I could because I know that I have big babies. I don't know if my weight gain plays into it, but I tend to gain a lot of weight every time no matter what I'm doing. With my son, he was the smallest and I had been running the whole pregnancy, so I thought, “I'm going to try to have another smaller baby.” I continued with OB care. I didn't do all of the VBAC things. We have the lists, right? The Spinning Babies and the red raspberry leaf tea and the dates and stuff. I had three kids and I was working. I didn't have time to do all of the things, but I really tried to prioritize what I thought was most important. I tried to start early by interviewing as many doulas as possible and really trying to find somebody who would really be the best support for me whether I was in the hospital or at home because I still hadn't committed even though I knew in my heart I really wanted to at least try for a home birth. I interviewed a lot of doulas. I found one who was spectacular. She wasn't necessarily the most experienced years-wise, but I was okay with that because of some great reviews from friends and we just really clicked. She was comfortable with the idea of home birth or hospital birth and I know not all doulas are. I think that is one important thing to take into consideration. I did start Webster's chiropractic care pretty early because I knew the only time my body ever went into labor on its own was with my third, my VBAC. For me, that was a really huge thing. It was a really huge deal to know that my body wasn't broken because it never went into labor with my first two. Thankfully, that wasn't really a fear of mine anymore because I knew it could be done and I knew it could happen. The other thing that I really did was I wanted to do some mental health work around some of my fears and anxieties to try to really figure out if I was nervous about a home birth because my intuition, like you talk about, had a fear that something was going to go wrong medically or if it was just anxiety. I worked a little bit with a mental health therapist and it was just nice to talk it out. I worked through those things and what my hesitations were and why and what my fears were and why. I really do think that helped a lot. Meagan: Do you have any tips for our listeners that your therapist gave you to help recognize fear versus intuition? Do you know what I mean? We talk about this a lot on the podcast. Amy: She probably gave me tools and I have an awful memory. There were some charts she wanted me to make, so I'll have to find those and send them to you, but it had to do with working through the root and then figuring out the why and not so much– I just had a weird fear of having a really catastrophic emergency. I don't know if that's just because I'm a nurse and that's where my mind goes or if because people tell me that it's so dangerous, so then I finally worked through that by looking at statistics and listening to all of the stories and realizing that it isn't an irrational fear but that we needed to come up with a plan. We had all of the different plans set in place for that. But yeah. I'll have to see. I'm sure she had some. I probably didn't do the homework, but she probably had some exercises for me. Meagan: I think you did. Amy: Yeah, I guess in a roundabout way. It helped to talk to someone who is not your partner and not your mom and not your coworker. So yeah. We did the prenatal co-care. He was on board with the home birth plans as much as an OB can. He was really great in that sense, but I was dragging my feet to make a decision and I think this is partly my procrastination and partly my not-commiting to the idea because then I wouldn't have to do it. I interviewed a lot of midwives and around 28 weeks, I hired a midwife and the medical professional in me decided to go with a CNM. In Ohio, laws are different everywhere, but certified nurse midwives are the nurses who have the nursing school and a master's degree in nursing. Most of those do not practice in the home birth setting in Ohio. Those are the midwives you would get in the hospital and we do not have any free-standing birth centers sadly, so we just have very few options here. But there are about four nurse-midwives now that do practice home births or come to the home. So I hired one and she was really wonderful. I kind of knew her a little bit personally through another friend. I had my first visit with her and I was feeling really excited. I had my doula hired. I had my photographer hired who was a home birth mama herself times two and I loved the idea that she also would just really understand the space and what I needed. She wasn't just a photographer. She was like another doula through my whole pregnancy and she was wonderful too. Unfortunately, after my first visit, we waited about four weeks to see each other again, and then the day of that visit, she let me go as a patient over the phone unfortunately due to some things she read in my records. It's frustrating because she really knew my history really well and I gave her this huge stack of records to be nice. In the op report, it talked about the uterine window which we all know is a little bogus. I understand why she was–Meagan: I had that too. Amy: Yeah. I wonder if she had never seen that, but who knows? I do feel that things worked out the way that they were supposed to but the only reason it was difficult was because I was now 31 weeks and you don't want to have to change providers that late. I respected her and I would rather have someone who was 110% comfortable anyway. The other CNMs in the area, I will say, wanted to do continuous fetal monitoring at home. One wanted to put in a hep lock at home. They are just a little bit more conservative because of, I think, the climate in Ohio and their license which I totally understand. It worked out for the best in the end. But I raced to interview a couple more midwives and thankfully, one that I had heard of but never talked to, we clicked instantly. My husband talked to her. He told some kind of joke about a uterus and she laughed then he hired her on the spot. We fell in love with her. She is just amazing and we just instantly clicked and I knew she was my person.  I continued my care with her. That was 33 weeks on and her office was an hour away. That was one of my hesitations originally with some people up north was the distance. I did some co-care with my OB and with her. Then at 37 weeks, my OB who our whole area just adores, and beyond. Women drove to him from other states. He was unfortunately let go from the hospital. I don't know the details. I hate to say the word fired, but yeah. Terminated. It left a lot of women. It was really devastating for the birthing community up here in northeast Ohio because a lot of women go to him for breech deliveries, twin, triplet vaginal birth. You know, the renegade of the hospital who is kind of operating on his own accord. He would go to home births and a lot of women would never have even been given an option to have a vaginal delivery without him. It was really heartbreaking. Meagan: One of the most supportive people at birth was let go for whatever reason. Amy: Yeah, unfortunately. There were a lot of tears shed by a lot of people who had delivered with him and who worked with him. Anyway, I don't want to get too caught up by that, but it was really upsetting for somebody whose hospital transfer plan was an amazing OB. I had all of these birth plans written out and now, my non-urgent hospital transfer– I didn't really have that option. To me, I'm like, “Well, there goes my home birth because what if I need pain relief or whatnot?” I did transfer to the local hospital midwife group in the hospital about 2 miles down the road in Akron. Thankfully, I delivered my first with them and they had records. They were really wonderful when I went in at 39 weeks saying, “Hey. I had co-care for a home birth.” Even this one OB walked in and I got so nervous because it was supposed to be a midwife. She was running behind and this OB walked in. I'm like, “Oh crap.” The OB just goes, “What do you need from me? I see you are planning a home birth.” I almost cried on the spot because it was wonderful to have this fresh out-of-school OB be okay with that. I'm like, “Thank you so much for that. I really needed that today,” because I am 39 weeks. The end of the pregnancy went fine. I did all of the things, some Miles circuits. I didn't go crazy with the dates or the tea or anything. I tried to stay active. I didn't have as many Braxton Hicks as I had in the past, but I definitely had the heavy pressure in the pelvis. I could hardly walk and everything. I felt really low this time and a lot of back pain and hip pressure and hip pain this time. I tried not to focus on the when. When is labor going to start? You can get really obsessive with that, especially when you are known to go over too. I tried to stay really present and be there for the kids and enjoy those last days. I did begin to lose my mucus plug at my midwife's office which was really funny at 39 weeks. I'm like, “What is this?” She was like, “It's your mucus plug.” I was giving a urine sample. I'm like, “Oh my gosh.” Things were starting to brew a little earlier which was really exciting. I started having some mild contractions and then I think I was– so let's see. I was due on February 2nd. The actual early labor contractions that were noticeable started on a Monday. I was 40 and 4. My parents were over for dinner and they were consistent enough. I was just getting irritable so I went up to my room. I excused myself from dinner. I'm like, “I'm going to go lay down.” That was my first day off work. That was a Monday. My last day of work was the previous Thursday. I had gotten a manicure. I'm like, “This is going to be a pampering day,” which was maybe helpful I think. I think a day of rest really did help my body switch into gear. I know that everyone says to rest and that it will happen when it's time and it did. So yeah. Contractions kind of started kicking up that night. Something of note with my first VBAC, so my third birth was that my contractions immediately went to 1-2 minutes apart and that's why I went to the hospital so early. I was like, “Don't call everybody in too soon. You know that this is how your body is in early labor.” I took a shower and I rested. I was just out in the sunroom which was my happy spot in our new house. I think I was watching The Bachelor which was ridiculous but I was like, “Okay. If I can still watch TV, it's still early labor.” It went on. I texted my team a little bit, but just said, “Hey, I think things are brewing. I had some bloody show around 8:00 PM, but I'm going to just keep doing what I'm doing and resting.” So I think it was around 11:00 PM that I could no longer watch TV or want to so I was like, “Okay. I'm going to keep everybody updated, but no reason to call in the troops yet. I'm going to let my husband sleep.” I think I did text everyone around midnight. Contractions were 2-3 minutes apart. They were definitely getting more painful. I was still breathing through them, but just getting nervous because my midwife was an hour away. I think my husband woke up around 1:00 AM and urged everybody to come over. Everybody got there around 2:00 AM. This was 2:00 AM on Tuesday morning, so February 7th. It was the day she was born. My doula got there first. She kind of just stayed by my side. She did hip squeezes and rubbed my back. She was just super wonderful and supportive. Everyone, as they came into the house, just let me be. What I love about home birth is that they don't disrupt you. They hold the space for you. They are quiet and respectful of your environment and just check on you when they need to. They take your vitals every so often, listen to the baby's heartbeat, and really, they just hung out in my living room until I needed them again. I just labored up in my bedroom for most of the night. I took a lot of showers. It was a lot of leaning over the bed and hip rolls on the ball. Nobody ever checked me, so talking about cervical exams. I never really thought about it and they never asked. It would have been interesting to know where I was through all of this, but yeah. I never got checked once during the whole birth. That was, I think, really cool in the end. Everybody filed in around 2:00 AM and stayed through most of the night. Then around 9:00 AM, I went downstairs to see my older kids. They stayed home from school because they were up throughout the night too coming in and out of the room. I really did want them there for the birth. They were really interested and I thought it would be really special. But when I went down to see them, everything stalled and fizzled out completely. I guess I just didn't think of this as an option. I was really in it, I felt. I was having painful contractions that were coming regularly. I was really having to work through them. Everything died down. I had some food. I said goodbye to them. My husband took them to my mother-in-law's for the day. We just thought I was going to rest. I went on a walk with my doula. We did some curb walking. I felt huge pressure to get things moving faster because my team had been there since 2:00 AM. I was doing the thing. We were here. I thought this was the real deal and then it fizzles. I finally had this talk with my midwife. I think I was naked or maybe in a robe after getting out my one of my million showers which I loved the shower. She was like, “Let's just regroup. Let's just have a chat. I think you need to–let's just reset. I think we need to get out of your space. Things are happening. You're doing the work. I don't doubt that, but I think you just need to rest.” I'm a people pleaser and I wanted them to go home and get some rest. The whole team stayed there for 12 hours. They have babies of their own and they were amazing. She said, “I think this will be good for you.” I had a big cry. That release, I felt so guilty that they had all been there. I felt like maybe this was a false alarm and I just had everybody come over for no reason, but in the end, it was good for us. We had a rest. We napped on and off and ate some food. He's smearing blueberries all over my shirt. We ate some food, took some showers, and just hunkered down just my husband and I. I think it was really good for us to just have some time. I was napping on and off and my husband decided to take some clothes to the kids at my mother-in-law's house which is about 20 minutes away. Around 7:00, my mom and dad came over. He planned this behind my back without bothering me. I was like, “Okay, whatever.” My mom had talked about being a deliveries in the past, but it just never felt like the right time. It never really felt right to have someone else in the room. I said, “Whatever. She can sit with me. That's great.” She was just sitting in the corner quietly of the room and I was resting and then all of a sudden, 7:00 hits. My husband is still gone and I am just like, all of a sudden, contractions come back out of the blue super strong and powerful. My husband Facetimes me with the kids a little after 7:00 and then all of a sudden, I had this giant contraction. I threw my phone out of the bed and yelled, “I can't talk.” I felt really bad. I just managed to text, “Come home now. Not doing well,” or something like that. I just didn't even know this could happen where you could labor, have this break, and then it could just shoot you right into active labor, transition. He comes home as fast as he can. My mom is in the room. God love her. She's a nurse by trade of 50 years. Never in OB and she was just like, “Okay. Do you want help? Do you not want help?” Finally, I'm like, “Rub my back or something.” I couldn't really talk at this point. It really went from 0 to 100. She was doing hip squeezes as best as she could. We're getting myself in and out of the tub a couple of times, having to keep putting new hot water in it. God love my mom with her bucket of water and we're doing it. It was just me and her here. I think I texted the group, “Can't do this much longer,” to the birth team but not much information got relayed to the team. No one's fault, it was just a lack of communication between me, my mom, and my husband who was the communicator. Things are getting pretty hard. I'm very vocal and my contractions are back-to-back. My back is just killing me. I think at this point, my husband is home. At 7:40 at night, he's home. He's moving cars to the neighbor's driveway. I'm in the water at this point and there was a pop in the water. I knew from past episodes of other birth stories that that's when your water breaks in the water, Amy. I didn't want to believe that was happening because my water has never broken on its own. It was broken for me. This never gets relayed to anybody. My mom was like, “I knew you were probably in transition, but I just didn't tell anyone.” I'm like, “Okay,” after the fact. Then I was vomiting too. That never got relayed to the team. They're asking my husband, “Are here contractions different? Has she tried an Epsom salt bath? Where are they located?” I'm looking back at the texts and he's like, “She's not answering. They're different. She wants to be checked now.” I feel like I was yelling but I was probably whispering. At that point, I was like, I need to be checked now because if I'm not very close, I can't do this anymore. A lot of things, I think I verbalized but they were probably in my head. I was like, “I need an epidural. This isn't going to happen soon. Get me to the hospital.” I was just–Meagan: Well, that's what happens in the end. We have this sense of, “I can't. I don't want to. I'm done,” but that's the end. Amy: Yep. Yep. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. It was pure misery and it felt like my bones were breaking but I was trying. I was relaxing my body as much as I could because I knew I needed to. I was in the tub for most of that portion. So I was definitely in transition and nobody knew. I think my husband called my doula and just recently, she said, “I heard you in the background and I grabbed my keys and ran,” because I think I was doing the low, birthy moaning but no one else. I just never thought to call my midwives because in those moments, I couldn't have even thought straight. I wasn't thinking to text or call anyone because I was just trying to survive in that primal birth state. She was like, “I sped so fast.” God love my doula. She walks in the door first. I think it was 8:45 at this point, so 7:00 PM was when everything kicked up fast. She walks in and she was really just doing all of the comfort measures she could. I was in the water. I think all the other birth team started heading over. My midwife had an hour drive and she got stuck behind a train. The midwife assistant, who was hired because she lived more in my area which is great, happened to be nearby at a basketball game for her son so she headed over to “check” me. It's important to note that when they were there the first time, they had all of their equipment, but they packed it all back up and took it home. So when she comes upstairs to check me, she has a flashlight and a doppler, maybe a pair of gloves in her pocket. I never get checked so that's the end of that. That story ends, but she heads in and our photographer gets there at 9:45. One of the heartbreaking parts of my VBAC was that my photographer left the hospital during my epidural and never came back. I was very heartbroken that I didn't have photos. God love my photographer. She made it just in the nick of time. She shows up and she also had an hour drive and a baby of her own at home. She gets there at 9:45 and at this point, I think I'm just up to the bathroom a lot. I couldn't stop going to the bathroom. TMI, but pooping. I just remember the midwife was dragging me off the toilet. She is very direct and I didn't know her that well. She is a midwife in training also thankfully, so she is very close to the end of her midwifery training thank God, but she was like, “We need to go. Come on, honey. It's okay if you keep pooping. Come on. Get off the toilet now.” I was bearing down. I didn't know it, but I was definitely having fetal ejection reflex at that point. I think I was still in denial that it was the baby. I was doing these grunts and moans. I just think I was still like, “Oh, I'm probably 6 centimeters.” I didn't want to let myself down. I still had so many fears of, “Am I going to end up in the hospital for pain relief? Am I going to get to 10 centimeters? Is the baby going to be OP again?” and all of these things. I get back in the tub and it's all very blurry and fuzzy at this point. But piecing together from what people told me in texts, I know she said to reach down and see what you feel. I said, “It burns.” I was like, “Oh my gosh, it burns.” She was like, “Well, what do you feel?” I was like, “I don't know what that is. It's fleshy.” In that moment, I thought it was a butt. I thought, “Oh my gosh. This baby is coming out breech. My midwife isn't here yet and I'm at home.” I think it was the head. I don't know. I really didn't know what I was feeling. I was kind of afraid to touch it. Meagan: Probably cap it or– Amy: I was like, “What is this?” I guess we knew it was close. She's trying to look with a flashlight. I really did think I wanted a waterbirth, but I guess I wasn't in a position that the midwife assistant liked because I kept liking kneeling where I was giving no room for the baby to come out. She kept going, “You have to lean forward or sit back. You can't kneel like that because the baby can't come out if you're sitting on your leg.” You know, whatever. We decided to get out of the tub which was very hard to get up over that edge of the tub. For anyone who has seen my birth video because I had posted it to the group, they helped me out of the tub. It was very difficult and very miserable. I made my way to the side of the bed. At that point, I think my body is pushing and I don't even realize it. I don't remember if there was pain. It's all kind of a blur. It was just all very intense. I know that from photos, I was squatting next to my bed with my arms around my husband's neck. He's holding up all of my weight. They said that I was pulling him over. He is 6'1”, 250. I'm 5'5”. I was a maniac, pulling on him with all of my strength. I birthed her head next to the bed and I honestly don't remember feeling it. I do not remember any crazy pain or anything. I think I was just so in birthland. Her head comes out and I just remember my body shuts down. No urge to push. No contractions. I've heard other people say this, I think, on your podcast so it felt very validating to hear this. Everybody was like, “You've got to keep pushing.” I really didn't want coached pushing. From the hospital, you get yelled at to push, push, push. But she was like, “You've got to push. The head's out.” I just remember it being very– not scary, but just very urgent and very matter-of-fact. “We need you to push.” Meagan: “You've got to do this.” Amy: Yeah. “You've got to do this.” By my husband, there's a small spot next to the bed. You always birth in small spots. My husband is behind me. My doula is next to me. My mom is somewhere in there. The photographer is across the room. I just instinctively rolled onto the bed. You have to remember, there are no chucks pads down. We are not having a baby on a bed right now. We aren't planning for it, so I had a mattress protector down, thank God, but no chucks pads. I rolled onto my side. My leg was up in the air, and at that point, it gets a little intense because the midwife assistant was by herself and they do like to have two people there. The resuscitation equipment is not in the house. There is nothing to help me or baby if anything goes wrong. There was some intensity in the moment and she did tell my mom to put a timer on the clock and that after 60 seconds, we were going to call EMS. When I heard that, when I heard her say– So 60 seconds does go by and thank God, my mom is a nurse but nobody knows she's a nurse. The funny part is that nobody knows that she was an RN of 50 years and on the other side of the house, my dad, I didn't know he was there. He is a physician by trade, retired. Nobody knows any of that so it was funny after the fact. Funny, but not funny. Comical, after the fact. She's like, “Put 60 seconds on the clock.” I think it is a conservative amount. I know the head can be out for longer, but I think coloring and other things factor in. So as soon as I heard my midwife very calmly– and everything was very calm I have to say. It was the most beautifully handled situation. I never felt scared. I didn't feel traumatized after, but she very calmly said, “Please call 9-1-1,” to my mom which has to be hard for a grandma who was supportive of home birth– I know my mom and dad were supportive and I know my dad especially was concerned from his background. I know they had a lot of questions and they trusted me and my research. I live really close to two huge, big hospitals, but that had to be really scary. When she did it, she did great. She went downstairs to open the doors for EMS and she missed the baby being born because when I heard, “Call 9-1-1,” I gave the most roaring push my doula called it. I scream pushed and my midwife did go in and released her arm. Meagan: She had shoulder dystocia, right? Amy: She did have shoulder dystocia, yeah. I guess technically it was a dystocia if I don't know. I felt like I needed to know and I've done a lot of research of was it really? Could I have changed positions or was it rushed? In the end, I think we'll call it dystocia because she went in and she helped, but she popped right out with a little bit of assistance. By the time my mom got upstairs from opening up the door, baby was born. It's all such a blur. I think she needed a little stimulation. Her coloring wasn't perfect coming out, but I don't think there were any concerns. Her APGARs were fine. We just stimulated her a little bit. She started crying. Everybody had this huge sigh of relief because we didn't have the equipment. My midwife still wasn't there yet. She did a beautiful job and I'm just forever grateful for her skill set and the fact that she knew how to handle it. I love that my story can show people that situations can arise. I don't want to say emergencies, but tough situations can arise where these skills are needed and these midwives are wonderfully trained. EMS walks in and they see this baby that is crying and pinked up. We're all laughing and happy and riding the birth high. They're just like, “Okay, you're good here?” We're like, “Yep, we're good.” They're like, “Congratulations.” They left. They did not. They said, “We would rather deal with a gunshot wound than deliver a baby.” They had a cord clamp. They were like, “Do you need a cord clamp?” We're like, “No, thanks though.” That was all they brought with them. It was cute. There was apparently a line of men down my steps, nine EMS, two squads, three guys–Meagan: They didn't need anything. Amy: No. I'm glad they responded. It's not that I wanted that to be a part of my story necessarily but it was what needed to happen and she felt that she took the steps she needed to feel comfortable delivering on her own. It all ended up wonderfully. Things can go wrong with shoulder dystocia, so I was very blessed that she came out as well as she did. I didn't have a tear. I had maybe a first-degree tear which was great. She was 9.5 pounds so not my smallest either, my second biggest. We found out she was a girl and yeah. The rest is just the beautiful postpartum bliss. My midwife shows up, I don't know. She was born at 10:10 PM. The midwife shows up at 10:25 totally bummed because you don't want to miss it. I loved her and we had such a great bond. I'm so glad she was there with me a lot of the day. She was just, there was just so much joy in the room. They did all of the postpartum stuff you do at a home birth. They weighed her and measured her. We latched. My placenta– I'll go back. My placenta, I love that they don't rush it in home birth. I stood up. They were like, “Maybe gravity will help.” I had cramps. I wanted to get up and take a shower. We just crack up because I walked a few steps across the room and my midwife, God love her, had this chucks pad under me because I'm sure I was bleeding and dripping. I gave this little cough push and midway walking through my room, the placenta just plops out like rapid speed. It drops the chucks pad down to the ground. It lands on it. We all start cracking up. We might have named it my plopcenta. Meagan: Plopcenta. Amy: To this day, my daughter still calls it that. But it was hilarious. It was kind of fun. So that happened. I took my shower. She was here. I still couldn't believe it went down that way and that my mom was there for the birth even though she never was really planning on it. Yeah. I'm sure there are so many details in there I missed, but I've been talked forever. Literally, it was just going from thinking you have this scarlet letter of big babies and C-sections and OP babies to– I don't know. It was really fast. From 7:00 PM to 10:00, it all happened really fast. Meagan: Yeah. Amy: With hardly a push, maybe two coached pushes at the end there with a little bit of help from a midwife, but yeah. It's wild how each delivery is different. I'm just really grateful that I had the team I had and trusted myself and body and the process and yeah. We're just really grateful. In the end, it was beautiful. Meagan: I am so happy for you. So happy. And look how beautiful. I know everybody right now can't see her, but she's so beautiful and so darling. With having EMS and stuff like that involved, that a lot of the time can have trauma involved with that too or maybe for future kids, maybe some people will say, “Oh, well this had to happen last time,” and maybe question you doing home birth. Do you have any tips for anyone? Like you said, “It's not necessarily what I would have loved to have happen, but it happened and it was fine.” Amy: I think I had to debrief a lot because I'm the type that wants to know why. So kind of what happened with my first VBAC, I felt really victorious, then as I started nitpicking the birth and all of the interventions, I kind of had a huge dip in my mood and got really upset about it. I have to work through it and go through all of the details. With this, I remember saying it out loud. I really didn't feel like it was traumatic. I really had to think about the why and why they were called. I felt like it was–Meagan: Extra precaution, yeah. Amy: I said to my midwife after the fact– she's been catching babies for 10 years. I said, “Would you have called at 60 seconds?” I just don't know if she can answer that without having been there because I think you do have to look at baby's coloring. I think they can tell by the cardinal movements as they are coming out. I don't think she was turning as she was supposed to. She wasn't turtling in, but she wasn't doing the cardinal movements that she was supposed to. I don't know had there been two sets of hands if they would have been called that soon. Maybe we would have gotten baby out before, but I'm actually just really grateful they called and I have to reframe it that way. Maybe working with a therapist if you felt like some of the things that happened weren't necessarily healing or what you wanted. Yes, you love blowing raspberries. I just thought of it as, “Hey.” Some of my medical friends that I work with or colleagues who thought home birth was so dangerous, look how proactive they were. There are some midwives who think they can do it but they don't help at the right time or they don't transfer quickly enough. My midwife always said, “I will never second-guess your intuition. If you say that you need to go to the hospital, I'm going to follow your guidance. We're never going to risk anything and we're never going to cut things close.” That's why I felt so comfortable with this team. I had an emergency transfer plan and I had a non-urgent transfer plan. Everything was spelled out very nicely. I knew they weren't going to push the limit. Meagan: Yes. Amy: I just had to tell myself that she didn't have resuscitation equipment. She needed extra hands. When I went through the postpartum follow-ups, they were so wonderful. They come at one day. They come at three days. A lot of that was very therapeutic for me to talk about the why. I didn't even realize at that time that she was born that it was one of the reasons. She really didn't have anything with her. A lot of it was in her trunk because we weren't planning to have the baby that quickly. I think I had this long, drawn-out early labor phase and that's just how my body was in the past. In my first two other labor, I went from 4-10 with an epidural in an hour. I think my body does this pause until I relax and then I go real quick. That's just how it has been with the other two. So yeah. I think if you have some parts that might– and it's okay for parts to be traumatic. It can still be a beautiful birth if there are parts that don't go perfectly as planned. I think that's one of the things I had to work through a lot, but it was just still very healing. I just had to look at the why. That's how I got through that part. I didn't love sharing that part at first because I didn't want people to say, “I told you so,” from some of my more medically-minded friends and colleagues. I think shoulder dystocia is scary, but I think after hearing some other birth stories, I feel like, some doctors aren't even as skilled at handling dystocias as the midwives are or they jump to way more intense interventions because they can and midwives have to have the skills. Meagan: I just love that you did. I love that you did share that because it's not your traditional– it's what people fear when they have home birth of having to transfer and EMS. That's what I noticed is that I love that you were like, “I had to break it down to the why and not let that make it be traumatizing.” She really had nothing, so she was only being the smartest midwife she could be in case this little baby needed help. She knew that this other midwife wasn't close and couldn't make it to her in time, so she got the help. I love that you pointed that out because really, most emergencies can be handled within an appropriate time. I know that there are always nuances, but I love that you are like, they got there and were like, “Are you good? Okay, bye.” Amy: I know. I mean, yeah. I always had a little fear of hemorrhaging even though I never had. I had a little fear of, I don't know, other major things like a dystocia or malposition where I'm not going to be able to push baby out because in my past, I had it and I think it's important to know that having an assisted delivery for my third, for my first VBAC, really cut my confidence down. Meagan: I'm sure. Amy: It really made me not believe in my body and I kept going, “Well, I really didn't push the baby out myself last time,” because he really did jump to interventions really quickly for whatever reason. He pushed the time clock. So I kept going to my midwife like, “But I don't really have the ‘proven pelvis' because I really didn't push that baby out myself. They helped him out.” I don't know where I was going with that, but I think–Meagan: Well, it placed some doubt. Amy: Yeah, it did place doubt. Meagan: It placed some doubt and that's hard and then you went and totally– the proven pelvis thing, it's like, no. You did. You're amazing. Amy: We did it. Yeah. She came out really, really without too much effort. You could see the midwife assistant helped her arm out, but really, we got her out. Meagan: You did it. Amy: I want to say too that for anybody who is nervous about midwifery and their skills, it was her 7th or 8th catch ever by herself and her first dystocia. I asked her just last night, “Were you internally freaking out? Because you were very calm and confident.” She was like, “No, but you know. It was definitely my first dystocia.” I'm like, “Well, I'm almost glad you did it on your own because I hoped it built your confidence as a midwife.” Meagan: Exactly. Amy: If she had that situation. Again, I don't want the whole story to be focused on that one moment and that one instance and be labeled with this shoulder dystocia, but I do think that it's important for poeple who have a history of large babies to know that it doesn't have to keep you from having a low-intervention birth or an out-of-hospital birth. You just have to trust yourself and do what you're most comfortable with. It came down to me. This is where I felt safest and I knew that if I went to the hospital, in the past, one intervention always led to just another intervention that led to a more difficult delivery than it had to be and I just knew that walking into the hospital, I was just not going to have the opportunity to probably have no interventions unless I showed up crowning. I felt safest at home. I hired a team I felt safest with. If I could give any advice, it would be to just think about that and where you're going to feel most comfortable and in control, safest, and hire a team that you feel 100% comfortable with. Meagan: Yes. Thank you for sharing. Thank you. Thank you. I do love all of it. I love every single detail. I love that you shared the ups and the downs. I noticed you were alone for a minute and then that's what your body needed and then you kicked right back into gear. That is just amazing. I want to talk a little bit before we get going on cervical exams. Okay. So let's talk about cervical exams. In the hospital, they are way more likely to perform them. Then out of the hospital, they don't. I don't want to make it sound like we are saying that out of the hospital is better than in the hospital at all. That's just the way the system kind of goes in the hospitals. We have standard cervical exams. So cervical exams before labor, let's talk a little bit about that. Are they necessary? That's a big question. Do we have to start having cervical exams before we're even in labor? Because we have so many providers and even out-of-hospital providers that will say, “Oh, let's just check your cervix and see where it's at,” or they'll say, “Well, we're getting to that 39-week mark. We'd better check your cervix and see if you're going to be capable of having a VBAC.”The question is are they necessary? No. They are not necessary. It does not tell us anything. It really doesn't. All it does is help your curiosity and tell someone where you are on that day in that moment. That is not going to necessarily change anything to predict the future. It's not going to predict the future. If you are 1 centimeter dilated and 40% effaced or something like that at your 39-week visit, that does not mean that your body is not going to do it and you're not going to be able to have a VBAC. What does it help? Nothing, really. Maybe your curiosity. What does it hurt? Well, they can be uncomfortable. It can cause some prodromal labor if they are in there and they are too aggressive and it is stimulating things. It can hurt us emotionally because if we are getting this number and we are being told things at 39, 40, or 38 weeks even. We've had some people. That's really, really hard to hear because then you start doubting yourself. It hurts us emotionally and places doubt. Are you needing a cervical exam before labor? No. Women of Strength, no. If you do not feel like you want one, you do not have to have one. Say no. Say, “Maybe next time.” And maybe next time you want one. Maybe next time, you are still like, “Maybe next time.” So that's before labor. Now let's talk about cervical exams in labor. You know, there are actually no real deep studies demonstrating that there are actually clinical benefits in routine exams before labor, but then in labor, they are doing it all of the time too and there's not a ton of solid evidence that even tells us that it's going to tell us anything but, again, what it is in that very moment. What can cervical exams in labor tell us? Well, it can tell us what we are in that very moment. It can give us an idea. It can appease our curiosity. It can tell a provider a station, a station of the baby whether how high or how low a baby is. It can help– and this is help, not tell exactly– a provider see where a baby is position-wise. But even then, you really have to be dilated enough. Your baby has to be low enough. Sometimes, the water, they can't even tell through the bag of water if there is a bag of water and things like that. So yeas. It can help with the position, but it's not going to always be sure exactly. Okay, so let's see what else it can help with. Induction– if we are going in for an induction, it can help us know a base and a starting point and what method of induction may be appropriate at that time. Okay, so if there's a medical reason or a desired reason for an induction, you may want to get a cervical exam to see what you're going to do because they may want to place a Foley or you may be dilated enough and they may just start Pitocin. Or sometimes, from the mom's standpoint, a cervical exam can sometimes be unofficial– again, it goes back to curiosity, but on their debate on an epidural. Maybe they are like, “I'm really, really tired, but if I'm past a 6, then I'll keep going. If I'm a 3, I need a break.” Again, it's a mental thing. But when would we maybe not? This is another thing. We have a lot of providers standardly every two hours, every two hours, putting their fingers in vaginas. Every two hours. Amy: No, thank you. Meagan: We are introducing things that we don't need to be introducing like bacteria and the risk of infection. So when would you want to say, “Heck to the no?” When do we want to say, “Hell no”? I'm just going to say it. When do we want to say it? Well, we just kind of mentioned it. Maybe if your water has been broken for a long time or just broken at all. Maybe we don't want to introduce that. Maybe we've been told in a previous exam that we've had a bulging bag because we can have an accidental rupture of membranes with a cervical exam. Not too much has changed. In your story, if you were to have gotten an exam further before they left, they would have been like, “Okay, well not much has changed, but let's still check your cervix anyway.” But instead, they were like, “Not much has changed right now. It's kind of slowed down. Why don't we just take a break? We'll leave. You hang.” Versus, “Well, let's do a cervical exam.” If not much has changed, probably not much has changed. They don't feel good, so if you've had a previous cervical exam that didn't feel very good and not much has changed and it's only been two hours, it's probably still not going to feel super good. This is another thing. If one nurse came in two hours ago and now we have another nurse coming in, we probably don't want to do that because guess what, you guys? They are subjective. Is that the right word? I don't even know if that's the right word. They're not always accurate. My hand and your hand are different sizes. My fingers are different lengths and everything and everyone's perspective is a little different. You may get a, “Oh, you're at 5 centimeters,” and then you may get a, “Oh, you're 3 centimeters.” Or, “Oh, you're baby's at 0 station,” or “Oh, you're baby's at +2 station.” It's never a full-on guarantee. A big question is, “Can I say no to a cervical exam in labor?” Again, the answer is yes. You can say no. Never feel like you have to have a cervical exam. That doesn't mean– maybe it's changing from you don't want one now and then maybe you want one later, but you do not have to have a cervical exam and there's really not a ton that it really tells us what we're going to be in three hours. It's just not. It's just not. So anyway, I'm going to get off my rant about cervical exams, but I don't love them. I also didn't have many. I did have some at my birth, but I didn't have many. You know, I've been to births just like yours where we've never known how dilated. We fixate on this dilation number so hard and we don't need to.So, Women of Strength, your cervix does not need to be checked. It does not need to tell anybody any information. If you want the information, get it but just know that even when you get that information, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be 5, 6, 7, 10 centimeters in the next hour or three hours. Look at Amy. She went from 4 to 10 or whatever. We don't even know in this situation with this last birth, really. She went from chill labor to intense active labor to a baby out. We have no idea where she was and that's okay. But do you want to know what I can tell you? She's got a beautiful baby in her arms right now. Amy: I do think that you have to know yourself. I know people love to know the information, but I think I would have been really discouraged had I known maybe I was 4-5 when my team left after the first 12 hours, and then I think it would have been a huge mental block. Then your body can shut down. Who knows if labor would have started back up or kept going? Part of me goes, “Man, I'd love to know where I was just so I could piece it together and tell the story with the centimeters and just maybe help someone else,” but I'm also like, “I dilated to a 10 and we knew it was time to push because my body pushed.” I think the surrendering was what I needed personally and I think that route was the best for me. For some people, that would stress them out to not know, but I think for us it was helpful. Meagan: Yeah. Amy: I do love that there are options and I do think you need to advocate for that in the hospital because you do get pressured a lot to get checked. I will say that. Meagan: Yes, you do. Amy: For sure. We know that. Meagan: All right. We will let you guys go. I will get off my cervical exam rant and we will catch you next week. Amy: Thank you for having Juniper and I. We are so, so happy to share our story so thank you so much. ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan's bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands