Podcasts about spinning babies

Are you exploring the option of homebirth? Today Renee Bargh, mum of 2 and television host tells the story of her 2 different births. One through MGP with an epidural and posterior baby and the other at home with a private midwife. I give commentary throughout to help you learn more from her story as we explore the option of giving birth at home and convincing her anaesthetist husband that it was a good idea. Meet our guest @reneebaugh Episodes that also relate to Renee's story Posterior labour: Episode - 115 Spinning Babies® with Gail Tully Episode - 118 What is posterior labour like? Episode - 120 Preparing for posterior labour Sterile water injections: Episode - 20 Sterile water injections Homebirth: Episode - 54 What midwives do at a homebirth Episode - 81 How do homebirth midwives manage birth emergencies Giving birth to your placenta: Episode - 129 Giving birth to your placenta Get more from the Great Birth Rebellion Podcast Join the podcast mailing list to access the resource folder from each episode at www.melaniethemidwife.com Join the rebellion and show your support! Grab your Great Birth Rebellion merchandise now at www.thegreatbirthrebellion.com Follow us on social media @thegreatbirthrebellion and @melaniethemidwife or watch this podcast on Youtube here If this podcast has improved your knowledge or pregnancy, birth or postpartum journey please consider thanking us financially by donating to support the ongoing work of this podcast. Disclaimer The information and resources provided on this podcast does not, and is not intended to, constitute or replace medical or midwifery advice. Instead, all information provided is intended for education, with its application intended for discussion between yourself and your care provider and/or workplace if you are a health professional. The Great Birth Rebellion podcast reserves the right to supplement, edit, change, or delete any information at any time. Whilst we have tried to maintain the accuracy and completeness of information, we do not warrant or guarantee the accuracy or currency of the information. The podcast accepts no liability for any loss, damage or unfavourable outcomes howsoever arising out of the use or reliance on the content. This podcast is not a replacement for midwifery or medical clinical care. The below transcript was created with AI and may contain errors.

In this episode, Julie welcomes Sophia from Mexico City, who shares her mental, physical, and spiritual journey towards achieving her VBAC. Sophia discusses the challenges she faced in navigating the healthcare system in Mexico, and what she did to find a truly VBAC-supportive provider. While preparing for her VBAC, Sophia had a hard time finding well-documented VBAC stories from Mexico, so she hopes to inspire other women through her story. Sophia and Julie talk about the role of a mother's intuition in the birth space. Making confident decisions when you feel safe and supported is so powerful!Coterie Diapers - Use code VBAC20 for 20% offHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Julie: Good morning, Women of Strength. It is Julie Francom here with you today, and I am super excited to talk with our guest today, Sophia. She is from Mexico City, Mexico, and her VBAC story takes place there as well. I absolutely love hearing birth stories from all over the world, so I cannot wait to hear Sophia's story. But before we get started with that, I do have a really short and sweet Review of the Week. This one is from Google. It's a Google review and she says simply, "Great people sharing great information. They make me feel less alone in my journey to a VBAC". I'm so grateful for that review. I think that that is one of the most important reasons why Meagan and I wanted to start The VBAC Link is because our own journeys felt very lonely at times even though we were connected to the birth world and we had a strong birth community, there are certain parts of wanting a vaginal birth after having a C-section that are just very, very lonely. We are grateful for that review. We hope that whoever is listening now also feels a little less alone in this journey because we absolutely love you, and we are so grateful that you are here with us.All right, let's get going. I have Sophia here today. Like I said, Sophia's from Mexico City, Mexico. I'm just going to sit down and be quiet and listen because I have heard lots of really interesting and crazy and cool things about Mexico City, so I'm excited to hear her birth experience there. Sophia is the mother of Luca and Rio. I just said that. I'm just reading her bio right now. She says,  "I'm a Mexican and live in Mexico City." Perfect. She is a passionate advocate for women's rights and strongly believes in the magic that results from women building together, connecting, and supporting each other. Her motherhood journey has been very humbling and healing, and she is obsessed with talking about birth. Me too, girl. I am obsessed with talking about birth as well, so I'm excited to hear your story. I'm just going to go ahead and let you take it away, and we're going to talk.I'm sorry. I said I'm going to let you take it away, but really, I'm going to keep talking for just a second. I loved reading through your story, sharing about your birth team and prodromal labor and the different things that you did to keep labor going and moving along. I am really excited to talk at the end after we hear your story about some different things that you can do to prepare for a VBAC, both mentally, physically and all of the ways. So now for real, I'm going to let you go ahead and share your story with us. Thank you.Sophia: Well, thank you so much for having me. It's truly a dream come true to be here in the podcast. I'm just really honored to tell my story because, when I was starting to prepare for my VBAC, I found it really hard to find well-documented VBAC stories coming from Mexico and in general, from the global South. So I just hope my story helps other women living in similar contexts. So I guess I'll start with the story of my unplanned C-section. So half a year after my husband and I got married, we were ready to have kids. We met on Tinder. We dated for three years, and both of us really had had the opportunity to travel the world and do amazing things. We felt like we had a good pre-kids life, and we were just ready to start a family. I was 34 at the time, and I always wanted to try to get pregnant before I became 35. I got pregnant really fast actually, like the first try. So we were so shocked and excited and surprised. At the time, we were both working remotely in Europe. We were slowly making our way to Australia because my husband is from Australia. This was 2021 and as some of you might remember, Australia was under super restrictive lockdown. No one could come in. No one could get out, so we had not seen his family for three years, and we were just waiting for the ban to lift to be able to go in and spend some time with them. This is an important part of the story because while I was in Europe, especially in Belgium and in Australia, my pregnancy was taken care of by midwives. Especially in Australia, it's really normal that all healthy pregnancies are attended by midwives, and only those special cases or complicated ones are taken by gynecologists. So my pregnancy was a really healthy, enjoyable one. I am one of those women that really loved being pregnant. I was very lucky with both of my pregnancies. But this experience was so influential because in Mexico, although we have this wonderful history with midwives in Spanish called parteras, and that's actually where the use of Rebozo comes from, this practice continues mostly in rural and particularly in indigenous communities. But in the cities, there is a really concerning high rate of unnecessary Cesareans. There's this narrative that C-sections are the easy way out. I would even dare to say, in the 80s, it became sort of a socioeconomic status thing. Women who have access to private healthcare would just opt for a C-section either because their doctor recommended it to do so or because they just thought it was the easy way out. People would say, "Why would you put yourself under unnecessary pain if you can just go get a C-section?" Like it was nothing, right? So actually, most of the women that I know had a C-section, but having the experience with midwives, I decided I really, really wanted to try to have a natural birth. So I started getting informed. I actually work in philanthropy. I work on social justice issues, so I'm very well connected to feminist and women organizations, especially in Mexico City. I remember that there were all of these colleagues working to defend obstetric rights in Mexico City. I knew that they had a really good network of doulas. It was through them that I connected remotely with my doula, Neri Fernandez, who is amazing. We spoke on Zoom, and we clicked right away. She started preparing me for my return to Mexico. The plan was always to come back to Mexico during the third trimester so I could have my baby here. She started preparing me with the reality that it is to have a natural birth in Mexico City. She told me, "Honestly, there are very few truly labor-friendly hospitals and also very few labor-friendly gynecologists. A lot of them are going tell you that of course they're gonna support you in a natural labor, but around week 37 or so, they're gonna suggest going on a C-section by week 39." So, she gave me this list of questions to ask my gynecologist, the one that I had been seeing for the past five years. So she told me, "Once you get back and you go to your appointment, just use these questions for your conversation with him." At the time, I was very naive, so I was like, oh, I'm sure he's going to support me. I'm not worried about that. Anyway, I came back to Mexico, I went to my appointment, and honestly, in the first five minutes, I noticed that he wanted me to have a C-section for no reason. So I was like, oh, my god. Okay. So I told her, "Neri, I really need to contact another service provider." She gave me a list of labor-friendly doctors. And she told me, "There's this doctor whose name is Adriana. She is a gynecologist. But the way that she works is very similar to a midwife, the way that she treats her patients and the way that she respects the woman's body and everything. I think you're really gonna like her, but you should know that she can be a little bit tough. She's a hardcore feminist, and she truly believes in women's capacity to give birth, so she's not going to pamper you." Anyway, I went in. I met her. I loved her right away. She took me, which I was so appreciative, at the time, taking my case because I was already in my third trimester, and things continued to evolve smoothly. I mention this because since I got pregnant really easy, since everything was going smoothly, that's what I thought it was going to be in the case of my birth. I just thought that things were just going to develop like that.Julie: Oh my gosh. Can I just say that I thought the same with my first? I had the easiest pregnancy. I loved being pregnant, just like you, and then all of a sudden, wham-- preeclampsia, induction, C-section, and I was like, what happened? Yeah, anyway, sorry. I just had to add that in.Sophia: I think it happens to a lot of women.Julie: Yes.Sophia: So anyway, week 40 arrived, and there was no sign whatsoever of labor. And one mistake I made is that I told everyone about my due date. I'm an open book. So I told everyone just out of excitement. But then once the due date passed, people started reaching out, like, "Hey, how are you doing? Is baby here yet? Is everything all right?" That really threw me into a bad mental state. I started to get really scared and doubtful. I was just not mentally well at that time. I was just full of fear. I didn't accept it at the time. I was telling everyone that I was fine, but internally, yes, I was in that state. And now also thinking back, I think I prepared myself a lot physically. I have been practicing yoga for 10 years. I was doing a lot of prenatal yoga, etc., but I don't think I prepared myself mentally enough. Anyway, after week 41, Adriana, my doctor said, "I think we have to start discussing the possibility of an induction. Maybe by week 41.3 we can do a very gentle induction unless something else happens." I think two days after we spoke, I lost my mucus plug, so that was exciting, but then nothing was happening. Then we were almost at week 41.5, and she said, "I think at 41.5, I should induce you." But the night before the induction, I woke up in the middle of the night with a very intense feeling. I went into my living room. I sat on my birthing ball, and my water broke like a big gush like the movies. They tell you that's never gonna happen, but that happened to me. Contractions didn't start. But at that time, I didn't realize what this meant. I didn't know that this meant I was actually going to be on a clock after my waters broke. So I was actually very excited. I thought, okay, by tomorrow, I'm going to have my baby. This is amazing. I told my doctor. I told my doula, and they said, "Okay, well, no matter what, just come here to the birthing center."At the time, my doctor had a birth center, and the plan was always to labor there and then go to the hospital when I was closer to giving birth, because I just feel safer that way. And that was the plan with my insurance, etc. So I went the next morning to check me, and I was only at 3 centimeters. So she told me, "I'm going to recommend that you just go back home. Rest. Eat your favorite food. Try not to think about this too much, and when things escalate, just let me know." The problem then is that nothing escalated for a whole day when I went to sleep. And that night, I didn't sleep out of excitement mostly, but I was already feeling some contractions. I mean, I thought they were intense, but little did I know that they were not the most intense part. And then the second night, I also didn't sleep because now I did start getting contractions, a bit stronger ones. So the next morning, I went back into her practice. She checked me, and I was about a 5. And she said, "Things are progressing, but they're progressing quite slowly, so I'm going to give you a tiny dose of Pitocin just to make sure that things keep progressing." I stayed there in the birth center, and I was with my husband, and I was with my doula. And honestly, I remember that day very fondly. My husband and I danced. We used the shower. We used the Rebozo. We just the ball, the peanut ball and everything, but things were not progressing. It was 7:00 PM, and I was only at 7 centimeters, and we were already reaching 40+ hours. And as you know, once your water breaks, I mean, at least in Mexico, they recommend that you have your baby within 48 hours because otherwise you start risking infections. So I told my doctor, "I just want to go to the hospital. I need a change of scenery, and it's just gonna make me feel better." So we went to the hospital. The hospital did have this birth pool. I went into the water and just things stalled. I didn't progress after that. This whole time, they were checking my baby's heart rate, and it started raising a lot, like, scary a lot. It wouldn't regulate. Fear just took over my body, I think. She looked at me and she said, "Sophie, I think I'm going recommend that we go for a C-section." I looked at my doula, and my doula just nodded. I was so tired and so ready to meet my baby that I said, "Okay, yeah, let's go for a C-section." Once I decided that, it was the longest 40 minutes of my life because I thought, "Oh, well, I'm going to get under anesthesia now." But the anesthesiologist took an hour to get there, so I was in a lot of pain. Then we went into the OR, and to be fair, my gynecologist did everything possible to have a gentle Cesarean. We had dim lights. We had my playlist on. The whole focus was on me. Both my doula and my husband were with me. They were holding my hands. But the one thing that makes me sad about that is that I couldn't stay awake. I was so exhausted, so I was just asleep the whole time. I only woke up when I heard my son, Luca, crying. So exactly on week 42, he was born. I just remember someone in the OR yelling, "It's a huge boy." So he weighed 8 pounds, which is not massive, but for Mexican standards, he's really big. And Luca is a Taurus baby. He's determined, he's stubborn, and you cannot pressure him to do anything. He always does everything at his own pace, and this was just the first evidence of that. So anyway, luckily, he was okay. It was a rough recovery because I was just really not prepared for a C-section. It was challenging to get breastfeeding. He had difficulties to latch. It just took me a while to heal what had happened. But the one thing I do remember a lot is that when I was in my room, the doctor and my doula both came in and they said, "Sophie, we just want you to know that you and your baby are amazing. You did everything right. You just had so many things against you. But if you ever want to get pregnant again and go for natural birth, you can do it." That really stayed with me the whole time. So 18 months after Luca was born, my husband and I decided to get pregnant again. Again, we got pregnant the first try. I mention this not to brag about my fertility or anything like that. I know it's a sensitive topic, but for me, it was important because it was the first step to recover my confidence in my body and believe that I could really do this because once I started getting informed about VBAC, I realized that the healing I had to do was more internal. I really had to believe that I could do it. So I decided to stay with the same service providers, with the same doctor and the same doula, because they knew, they really knew my story. Well. And I called my doula, Neri, and I was like, "Hey, Neri, why are you doing this summer? Do you wanna have a baby with me?" And she was like, "Of course." Both my doctor and my doula recommended that I joined maybe like an online community of VBAC women. I had no idea what VBAC was. So then I found The VBAC Link website, the Facebook group. I took the VBAC class for parents. I found it so helpful. And for me, the fact that it was full of hardcore data, it was just so, so important. So in terms of physical prep, I tried to remain active, but I wasn't honestly doing as much yoga as before because I had a toddler. I was working full-time. I was running after my 2-year-old, and I really loved that my doula told me, "Don't get too stressed about working out. Just play with your kid. Play with your kid on the floor. That's going to be enough activity for you." I also really love that this time around, my gynecologist was not even telling me how much I weighed. I really loved that approach. It was just a really, really joyful pregnancy. Again, it was a healthy pregnancy. I did go to the chiropractor this time, which I didn't do last time. I also went to acupuncture sessions, and I did that the last time. I went with the same acupuncturist because I also thought it was good that she knew what happened before. I also took raspberry leaf tea and dates after week 36. So I did all of that physical prep. But what was different this time, I think it was my mental preparation. So as I said, I really, really tried to focus on healing internally, believing in my body, and believing in myself. So with my doula and also using the some of the guiding questions and stuff from the VBAC class, we started mapping out my fears. So she was like, "What are you afraid of?" And I said, "Honestly, I think what I'm most afraid of is that my waters break again before I start labor." So I remember asking in the VBAC Facebook group, "Hey, does anyone know anything about preventing PROM?" Someone suggested taking vitamin C. So I started doing it. And, this time, I felt so much more connected with my body, with my baby, with my intuition. At week 26, my baby was breech. And I remember asking again in the Facebook group, like, "What would you girls do?" And people told me, "You can do Spinning Babies. You still have enough time for baby to get in position, but it's always easier to move a baby when they're still small." So I did Spinning Babies, and my baby turned. So that was amazing. The other thing that is I consider being part of the mental prep is that I was also in a very different space, spiritually speaking. I am honestly not a religious person. I'm not the most spiritual person in the world, but this time I paid attention to a lot of signs. There was this one occasion that I was in my office, we were moving my office, we were moving to another place. And someone hired a shaman. Like a shaman, but it's an indigenous sort of magic priest because we all wanted to do some cleansing, like spiritual cleansing, before moving into the new space. She told me, "I don't do cleansing of pregnant women because it's not good for the baby, but I could give you a blessing". So I was like, "Yeah, of course." So she did this whole ritual. She told me, "You didn't have a natural birth before, did you?" I was like, "No, I had a C-section, but I'm trying for a VBAC." And she said, "I'm really certain that you're going to get it. I'm very sure that that day when you go into labor, your ancestors are going to be with you. I'm certain of it." And she also said, "There's something that characterizes you and has characterized you your whole life, which is having clarity and determination, Sophia, so this is not gonna be the exception." And she gave me this candle, and she told me, "Please, light this up when you go into active labor just to call your ancestors to be there with you." So I was like, "Okay, great." Then also on week 36-37, I had a nesting party. I invited a lot of friends over to help me prepare the house for baby. A friend of mine brought the tarot cards. She told me, "Do you want to pick a card?" And I was like, "Okay yeah, why not?" So I picked a card. That card was the card for strength. It was number eight of the major Arcana that depicts a woman taming a lion through the application of subtle force. That was so symbolic for me because it was strength. The picture really stayed in my head, and I had to think, obviously, about Woman of Strength. So there were all these symbols out there that just really put me in a very different mental state. So anyway, the day I went into labor, it was just one day before my due date. And this time, I didn't tell anyone about my due date. Only my mom and obviously, my husband knew. So one day before the due date, I started getting contractions. I had two weeks of prodromal labor, and I had that before in my first pregnancy, so I knew what it was. I mean, it can be so frustrating because you start getting prodromal labor, but it doesn't escalate, so you get sad. But I knew this time what it was, so I was trying not to pay too much attention to it and just continue with my life. But that day, I started getting real contractions. I knew that what I had to do was to go rest. I did do Miles Circuit. And anyway, I was pretty happy. But then 24 hours after, labor completely stopped. I was so scared of the story repeating itself, so fears started sneaking in. All the doubts. I started thinking, maybe natural labor is just not for me. I was crying. I was sad. I texted my doula and I said, "Neri, I'm just really bummed. I think this is not going to happen. I think I'm going to have a C-section again." She said, "Whoa, wait, I'm going to your house right now." She lives really close to my house. So in 15 minutes, she was here. This was at 8:00 in the morning of the due date, like week 40. And she said, "I think although baby is already engaged," because we knew it was already engaged, "I think it's not in the most optimal position, so I'm just gonna use the Rebozo." And we used the Rebozo. She told my husband and my mom how to use it. That was pretty magical. And then we also did a lot of Spinning Babies exercises. She said, "But aside from this, just try to relax. Everything's going to be okay." That day, I had my 40-week appointment with my doctor. I went and that was a game changer because she checked me, she checked my baby and she said, "Both of you are fine. Everything is okay. Please try to go home and relax. Do anything that makes you get oxytocin." She was like, "Why don't you go and eat or get a bath or eat cake in the bath?" And I was like, "Okay, that's a really specific suggestion, but why not?" So that made me feel much better. And she said, "I do recommend that you call the acupuncturist and tell her what's happening to see if she can give you an extra session." So I called my acupuncturist and she told me, "I'm an hour away from Mexico City because I'm teaching at a university, but I'm on my way there. I'm going to see you because I know you can do this." It was so sweet of her. She drove all the way here, she gave me a session and she told me, "I never do this, but I want to see you again. This was at noon." And she told me, "I want to see you again at night. Come here at 8:00 PM, and I'm going to give you an extra session that is specific to help baby get in a good position and to descend."So I was like, okay. So I went home. I actually came back and went to listen to Meagan's because I remember that she had a story of failure to progress. I listened to that episode. It was so helpful. So then I went back to the acupuncturist at 8:00 PM, and during the session of acupuncture, I felt a super strong contraction. Because what had been happening is that my contractions were intense, but they were really short. They were only 30 seconds. So when I was there, I knew that was a minute or longer. Anyway, after the session, I came back home, and they always recommended to walk after the acupuncture session. I went walking with my husband, and active labor started. It was clear, and it was so intense. It really started every 15 minutes, then every 10 minutes, then 7, then 5. So at 5:00, I texted my doctor and my doula, and they were like, "Okay. This is fantastic. Let's wait until you are 3-1-1." So every three minutes, one minute long for one hour. But I felt like things were going super fast. So I told Neri, my doula, "Can you please come see me?" Because she always told me the timing between contractions and the duration is important, but it's even more important that I see how you're acting. So she came. And in the meantime, my husband was packing the last things to go to the hospital. I also was pretty relaxed in the sense that my mom was taking care of my toddler, so I was really relaxed about that. My husband had become an expert in helping me put pressure in my hips during each contraction. He was packing and helping me, and he was just a rock star. He was offering me water, and he was my biggest cheerleader. Neri arrived, she saw me and she's like, "Okay, it's time to go to the hospital." So I was like, "Okay. So we went into the car." At this time, I was already in a lot of pain. Contractions were so long. They were 1:20, some of them, a minute and a half. It was super intense. I couldn't see anymore. I was just holding to the back seat. I was sitting in the back, just facing the other way. And here is where all the mental preparation really stepped in because I was remembering all of the affirmations that I was listening to. I was remembering all of the stories that I heard. I was also obsessed with watching birth videos. So all of that was going through my head. I love them so much. My dad, who was my favorite person in the world, passed away seven years ago. I could really feel he was there. It was just crazy. So anyway, I was doing all this mental work during each of the contractions while in the car. And this was at midnight, and we were very close to the hospital. The road was blocked, completely blocked by construction. And we were like, "Oh my god." I was in labor land. I was not paying attention to details, but I could hear in the back my husband and my doula getting a bit worried. My doula went out of the car, and I could hear her telling the police guys and the construction workers, "Hey, guys, we have a lady here that's in labor. If you don't let us through, she's going to have her baby here." And it was like, "Wow. Okay." So they opened the road just for us. We went through. We arrived to the hospital. And it's crazy at that time because you only do the few things that you can do in between contractions. I went into the room. This time, it was a different hospital. The room was so lovely. I remember it being a peach color. We had essential oils. We had my playlist. Again, my husband was my biggest cheerleader. Five minutes later, my doctor arrived, which made me feel so much better. And she's like, "I'm going to check you." I was already at an 8. So that was super exciting because it was already past what I had achieved last time, and then my water broke. My doctor said, "Sophie, I need you to look to me in the eyes and listen to me." So I looked at her and she said, "Sophie, this baby has to be born now, so I need you to start pushing." I was still not at 10 centimeters. I think I was 9 or something. But what they didn't tell me at the time is that my water already had meconium, and my baby's heart rate was starting to have some significant declines. But luckily, he was recovering. I was very thankful later on that they didn't tell me all of this because I was just so focused. So anyway, I tried different positions. First, I went and sat down on what we call a Mayan chair. I did all fours. So I think I pushed for an hour or an hour and a half. I just remember it being very magical in the sense just seeing my doctor, my doula, and my husband working together, cheering me, communicating even without words. Everything was just flowing. But still, baby was not being born, and pushing was so much harder than I thought. And also, I guess because I was not at 10 centimeters yet, I was not having the super urge to push, but they were guiding me to do so, and it was really, really great guidance. So finally I went into throne position, which, honestly, was the last position that I thought I was going to give birth in, but it felt all right. I was a second away to give up and to tell them, "You guys, I think I cannot do this." But then I remembered in all of the podcast stories that I listened to that usually when you're at that stage, it is because baby is about to be born. So then my doctor told me, "Sophie, baby is almost here. Do you want to touch their head?" We had decided this time not to know the sex until birth, so I had no idea if he was a boy or girl. I touched the head and that was so, so, so exciting. So I was like, okay. It just gave me another rush of energy. My doula said, "I really think two more pushes, and you're going to meet your baby." So I pushed once. The little head popped out and then it went back in. And then this whole time, they had been telling me to try not to push with my throat, but with my abdomen. But then they said, "This time when you push, push with all of your strength. If you feel like screaming, scream." So I pushed so hard. I screamed. My baby was born at 2:22 AM and baby started crying right away. I started yelling, "I did it. I did it. I can't believe it." And yeah, just for a few seconds, I had no idea if he was a boy or girl because I right away put him in my chest. And then my husband looked and he said, "Oh my god, it's a boy." And yeah, people asked, "So what's his name?" And we said, "His name is Rio." Rio in Spanish means river. And it also stands for the flow of life. I really, really think it really honored the way that he arrived into this world. And honestly, he's a pretty chill and easy going baby. So it was honestly the best day of my life. And later my doula, my doctor and I just, just went through the whole story. And again, we all said, I think my mental and spiritual state of mind was very different. This time was much more positive. I also really felt held by my drive. I had this chat of my all my best friends in this WhatsApp chat, and they were all rooting for me. And also, remember I told you there was this shaman, like this magician priest who told me that I was going to be able to do it? They gave us a candle. My mom lighted the candle when we went to the hospital, and the candle turned off by itself at 2:20 and Rio was born at 2:22. So that was pretty magical as well.Julie: Wow.Sophia: Yeah. And just the last thing I'll say about the story is that also, my gynecologist and my doula were also in a different state of mind. They had had a lot of VBAC experience which was great. And my doula always told me, "It doesn't matter how your baby is born. What matters is the experience, and that you really feel this connection with your baby. But in this case, Adriana told you to push this baby out, and you understood the assignment. You literally delivered your baby, and you had the baby when you were asked to do so, and that in itself is strength." So, yeah, that's my story.Julie: I absolutely love that. Just all of it. What a journey. I'm sorry. I'm trying to figure out where to start. I took some notes as you were talking, and I just think it's so incredible, all of the different things that you did to prepare. I really like what your doula told you during your pregnancy about your personality that you've always had clarity and determination. It was something like that. She said, "Clarity and determination is your personality." I love that because I think sometimes it's easier to advocate and fight and navigate having a VBAC when that clarity and determination is already something that comes naturally to us. It's not something that comes naturally to everybody. It's not good or bad or assigned into a category. It just is. And like me, I'm incredibly stubborn, and I will fight sometimes harder than I should to get the things that I want or desire. And I think that my stubbornness played a huge part in working towards that. Sometimes it's just easier to advocate for yourself when you already have those strong personality traits.Sophia: So yeah, for sure.Julie: But it's okay because you don't have to have those strong personality traits inherently in order to get your VBAC. There are lots of other things that you can do and lots of other things that are on your side as well. I wanted to touch on some of the things that you did to prepare. You took the VBAC class which is amazing. I love our VBAC class. It's really incredible. Lots of good information. I feel like obviously, it's pretty well-rounded and has lots of different characteristics and addresses all of the different learning styles and things like that. Things for the data junkie like me, and things for the people who are more holistic minded, things that are more mentally mental preparation focused, and things like that. You talked about Rebozo, Spinning Babies, and learning how to relax your mind and your body, the positioning of the baby, acupuncture. You hired a very, very good doula and provider who both had lots of VBAC experience. That was also something that was really important to me. I interviewed, I think, like 12 doulas when I was preparing for my first VBAC because I really wanted a doula who had a VBAC herself and supported lots of VBAC families. I don't think it's necessary that to have a doula who has had a VBAC herself in order to have a really solid VBAC doula. I don't think that's necessary, but that's something that was important for me.Sophia: Yeah, for sure. For me, too.Julie: Yeah. Yeah. I wanted midwives who had done lots of VBACs, and that was really important to me. Now it's not, like I said, necessary, but it's something that you can put in your toolkit to prepare. So I feel like a lot of times I hear people say something to the effect of, "I tried all the things, and I still didn't get a VBAC or I tried all the things and I didn't get a vaginal birth." And you know what? Some people try all of the things and don't get a delivery method that they want. And some people do literally nothing and have a perfect birth. I want to just tell you that birth is inherently unfair. Sophia: Yeah.Julie: Especially with the way our system is set up to handle pregnant women, and babies, and labor, and all of that stuff. It's inherently unfair. Sometimes you can do everything and have a completely unexpected birth experience, and sometimes you can and do absolutely nothing. My sweet sister-in-law is getting induced tomorrow. She knows absolutely nothing about labor and birth and delivery. She has no desire to know anything. She knows absolutely nothing. She's getting induced tomorrow, and I'm just really trying start hard to stay in my role as supportive sister-in-law when I see some choices that she's making that might influence her birth in a way that she doesn't want, but also, I don't think the outcome really matters to her, to be honest. I just don't think how the baby gets here matters. And that's okay. It is. That is okay. I guess my point of all of this is that you don't have to do all of the things. I feel like some people say, "I feel like I don't want to miss anything." What you need to do is learn about the things that are available to you, and then gravitate towards the ones that resonate well with you. Maybe you don't even care about Spinning Babies or what position your babies in, but you really want to focus on nutrition and getting your mind ready and finding a supportive provider. Cool. Do those things.Sophia: I really tried to enjoy this pregnancy because I only plan to have two kids, so I was like, maybe this is my last pregnancy. I just wanna make sure I enjoy it. I even did a photo shoot with my family and stuff. I just really enjoyed it. I know that for some women, it stresses them to think about all this prep, but for me, this time around, it just made me feel good just being informed and things like that. And honestly, to have a VBAC in a context like Mexico is not a minor achievement. The system is so set-up to just go into C-sections. So yeah, it was just a lot of challenges against me, but I was really lucky that I had really good service providers by my side that were supportive. My doula told me, "When we saw that you had meconium, and we saw that your baby's heart rate was descending, I'm sure any other doctor would have sent you to the OR, but Adriana, your doctor, really believed that you could do it, so that's why she decided to just give you a chance and you did it." That's just really important as well.Julie: Yeah no, I agree. If you want to do all the things, if doing all the things makes you happy and helps you feel prepared, then by all means, do all the things. I don't think you should do nothing. Let me clarify that. I think you should do something, at least one thing. But do the things that really resonate with you. I saw an Instagram post yesterday, I think. I'm trying to find it now. I think it was maybe on the account called Trusting Birth or something like that, but basically it said that there are studies that show-- nope, it is not trusting birth. Dang it. Gosh, dang it. I really want to find it. It was something about how there are studies that show that women when they're pregnant, make smart choices. Okay? They make smart choices. That doesn't mean they go deliver in the hospital and have an epidural. It's not a blanket statement, right? They make smart choices, which means they let their intuition guide them. No, not smart choices. Safe choices. Safe choices. And what is safe depends on the parent and the baby and the pregnancy. When you let women guide their own care and give them options, they make the safe choice. Now, the safe choice is different, like we just said, but the choice that is safest for them at the time. There is a study to back that up. And gosh dang it, I wish that I could find it. I'm literally on my phone right now thinking of all the different accounts it could be. I wonder if I liked it. Dang it. Anyway, if I can find it, I will have Paige, our podcast transcriber, link it in the show notes. I'll send it to her. But anyway, it was really interesting because that's what we've been advocating for all along. Trust in your intuition. Trust your gut. Trust your internal guide. You will make a safe choice. And if that's birthing at home, if it's birthing in the hospital or whatever it guides you to, if it's acupuncture, Spinning Babies, massage, getting a doula, not getting a doula, doing a VBAC class or what VBAC class to do. All of those things are safe choices that you can make for yourself. Now, dang it. I just want to hang out here until I can find it. Sophia: No worries.Can I add one more thing?Julie: Yes, please do while I keep looking.Sophia: Yeah. Talking about the safe choices, I think one of the things that made me feel very safe and allowed me to really focus on the contractions and the pushing is just knowing that my birth team was really on my side, like my doctor, my doula, and my husband. Most women who I know in Mexico have to spend a lot of time advocating for their obstetric rights, so not having to worry about that and just focus on my birth just made me feel really safe and just being able to know that they believed that I could do it.Julie: Awesome. Yes, I agree. I agree. Believing in yourself is a big thing. Granted, sometimes you'll believe in yourself. I think when I say believe in yourself and trust yourself and trust your intuition, it's not trust yourself that you can have a VBAC, although that is very important. That's important. But trust yourself that you will navigate the birth in a way that's safe and healthy for you and your baby, and that might be a repeat C-section. It might be a home birth, an unassisted birth, a hospital birth, but trust yourself that you will be able to guide yourself safely through the birth process whatever that looks like. And guess what? I found the post. I had liked it, and I just had to go into my activity in my Instagram history. It's from an Instagram account called Intentional.Birth. Intentional.Birth. And it says that there's a PhD biologist and doula, Sophie Messager who bridges the scientific and intuitive worlds of birth at the induction equation. So I think maybe that's the induction equation. Oh, I guess I don't know what the induction equation is. Anyway, so the post shows though, it says, "Research shows that women make safe choices. Because of the constant communication between the woman and the baby, women tend to know when something is wrong, and they also tend to know when something is right. Ignoring a woman's instincts is a very stupid thing to do." I like that. Women's instincts tend to know when something is right. I hear that all the time. This is what it sounds like.It sounds like, "Oh, my doctor recommended an anatomy scan at 32 weeks, but I just don't feel like that's necessary." Yeah, it's because you know something's right. Or, "I know measuring for a big baby isn't really evidence-based, but I just think I want to do it." That maybe feels like something is right, the big baby scan or whatever. Or maybe that something's wrong, right? "My doctor brought up inducing at 39 weeks. And normally I would say no, but it just feels like the right thing to do." That is your intuition. Or, "My doctor said maybe we should induce at 39 weeks, but I just don't think that that feels. That doesn't feel right to me." And so you wait. That's your intuition. Like those comments, trust that you know when your baby is safe. You know when something's wrong. You know when something's right even if you can't literally define it. Follow those feelings. They're important, and there is science to back it up.Sophia: That's how I felt when my baby was breech. I had this intuition that I'm going to be able to turn it around and, everything's going to go well, and it did. I love that there's this study backing up the importance of following your intuition.Julie: Yeah. So go check it out. It looks like, it links to the study at Sophie. That's your name? No, you're Sophia.Sophia: People call me Sophie.Julie: So yeah, there we go.Sophia: It's all connected.Julie: Yeah, there we go. It's all connected. Sophie Messager. That's M-E-S-S-A-G-E-R. That is the PhD biologist who is linked with the host. I'm going to follow this lady right now. Transformational Journey Guide for Sacred Shifts. Incredible. All right, awesome. Well, thank you so much, Sophia, for sharing your story with us today. I loved talking with you. It's incredible for everyone birthing in Mexico and Mexico City especially, we know there are a lot of similarities between the United States, but there's also some differences, and different challenges to navigate. So we appreciate hearing your perspective and your experience, and I just really enjoyed having you here with me today.Sophia: Likewise. Thank you so, 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

Molly joined us for Episode 84 talking about her unexpected breech Cesarean and first VBAC story. Today, she returns sharing her second VBAC story!Molly shares her powerful journey through loss, IVF, selecting her powerhouse birth team, preparing for different outcomes, post-dates, a multiple-day induction, a beautiful delivery (where her husband caught their sweet baby!), and navigating a placental lobe.Allison, one of our VBAC-certified doulas, joins Meagan as a co-host talking about her work as a virtual doula and the importance of how women are treated during their births. Coterie Diapers - Use code VBAC20 for 20% offHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello, Women of Strength. I hope you guys are having a fantastic day or evening and are excited for another episode of The VBAC Link. We have our friend, Molly, today, and she is from central Alabama, and then we also have a co-host today. She's one of our doulas. Her name is Allison. Hello, Allison.Allison: Hi, Meagan. Hi, Molly.Molly: Hi.Meagan: I was going to say, and hello, Molly. Molly: Hi.Meagan: Welcome to the show you guys, and thank you for joining us. Allison is actually one of our doulas. I don't know if you've noticed along the way here and there, we have one of our doulas on as a co-host. I think it's so fun to hear an educational topic from them and then, of course, share where they are at because I truly believe hiring a doula is so impactful. In fact, on Molly's form, that is one of the tips that she gave. Right, Molly? You're like, hire a doula.Molly: Yes, absolutely. It made all the difference this birth.Meagan: Yes. Doulas are incredible. So if you can, hire a doula. Before we get into Molly's story, Allison, I wanted to just turn the time over to you really quick and have you share a little bit more of where you are at. So for the listeners, maybe in your area, they can find you.Allison: Absolutely. Well, listeners, you have a treat because I serve everyone all over the world, globally. All of my work is online. My business name is The Cesarean Doula because I actually support women and birthing people emotionally after having emotionally difficult or traumatic Cesarean births. I do all of my work primarily over the Internet over Zoom. My focus is actually not on birth but on postpartum and on recovering from the feelings of grief, sadness, loss, overwhelm, and confusion that we often have after a Cesarean that's undesired or that goes in a difficult direction. I had one of those. That's what brings me to this work.Meagan: Yes. I love that you mentioned that you're like, this is what brings me here. I think in a lot of ways for doulas, that's what brings us to doing this work is our own experience and wanting to set a different pace and make change. So I love what you're doing. We're recording in 2024, everybody, but hopefully now, it's 2025, and you can go to our website because we're hoping to have a different option for searching doulas where you can actually go and search for online only because we do have a big chunk of doulas that do virtual support. So let's hope that that is the thing. If not, email me and say, "Meagan, get on it. Do this, because I want this option." Okay. Well, Ms. Molly, welcome to the show. You guys, Molly is a full-time mama, a part-time vet technician, and a soccer coach. That is a lot of things all at the same time. Yes. My husband is a soccer coach and just that alone is a lot. Like I said, she lives in Alabama with her husband and her two sons, her mom, and lots of dogs, cats and horses. She said that she also has two daughters in heaven. I'm sure you're maybe going to talk about that a little bit today, Molly.Molly: Yes, it is part of our story.Meagan: Yes. Okay. Well, thank you guys again for being here. In just one moment, we're going to dive in. All right, Ms. Molly. I don't know why I keep calling you that Ms. Molly, like you're a teacher.Molly: It's the song. It'll get you.Meagan: It comes together. Yeah, seriously. Okay, thank you so much for being here and yeah, I would love to turn the time over to you to share all of these stories.Molly: Thank you very much. So if you guys, if you listen to The VBAC Link, I was on a couple years ago talking about my first C-section and then the subsequent VBAC with my first daughter. Unfortunately, a couple years after that, my daughter passed away. And shortly after that, the desire to have another baby was laid on our hearts, and so we decided to try that.For various reasons, that meant we had to go through IVF. We were very lucky in that our IVF journey was short. That's a whole other podcast on its own, the IVF process. We ended up with three embryos, and then in December of '23, we did our first transfer. That one unfortunately failed. And so that's my second daughter in heaven. We did another test after that to see why the transfer had failed and determined that we needed another day of shots. Well, I say we-- me. I needed another day of shots to do the transfer. So in March, we did another transfer with the extra day of shots, and that one was successful. I had the teeniest bit of spotting the next day and just woke up knowing I was pregnant. It was pretty magical, actually. The at-home pregnancy test, seven days after that, was positive. Then the blood tests after that were positive. I did have a little bit of spotting after that which was a little scary. I talked to my doctor, and she upped the progesterone in oil shots I was taking. The amount of those seemed to clear out the spotting. And then we went in for our first ultrasound. I was diagnosed with a subchorionic hematoma, I think is what it's called, which is essentially like a bruise between the placenta and the uterine lining. That cleared up on its own. Fortunately, after that, I was a "normal" pregnancy. We weaned off the IVF shots. My last one was actually on Mother's Day which was a magical little sign. And that's when we dove right into labor prep. We did the Spinning Babies and bouncing on the birth ball. I walked every day. We went back through our birth plan. We tried to cover every single contingency from a repeat Cesarean which wasn't the goal, but we wanted to be prepared just in case. We prepared to labor at home as long as humanly possible. We even prepared to have a car baby. We had a bag with a bowl to catch the placenta and towels and puppy pads just in case we labored at home so long that we had a car baby.We hired a doula this time around. We had originally played around with the idea of doing a home birth, but in Alabama for VBACs, midwives still cannot attend VBACs at home in Alabama. We did find a midwife who was willing to do that for us but because of the restrictions, it wasn't covered by insurance, and that priced it out. So the compromise was that we would do a hospital birth, but I could have a doula this time. We interviewed doulas and found one who's actually certified by The VBAC Link. She's taken y'all's class and she was wonderful. Her name is Jolonda, and she was fantastic. And actually, in the end, my husband said, "I'm so glad we had a doula for me." Not necessarily for me, but for him. He needed her more than I did, and that was pretty cool. We also, this time, instead of going with an OB, went with midwives. They were associated with an OB practice, but we went just to the midwives. That was an interesting and much different experience. It was more like a conversation and less like an exam. We go in, and they would take my blood pressure, and then we would just talk. It was wonderful. She went through my birth plan point-by-point, and then signed it and scanned it into my chart. Anything that wasn't possible, she'd say, "Well, we can't do this because of the hospital we were at, but we can do this or we can try and do this and make that work." She was completely accepting of anything that I wanted to do differently. We decided not to do the erythromycin eye ointment. She said, "Yes." She was fine with that. We delayed, I think, the Vitamin K shot then and the delayed cord clamping. She was all 100% supportive of everything that we wanted to do. I did have to see the OB once just so they could sign off on me being a, quote, healthy pregnancy, and that was a quick in and out. There was a doctor visit, and they said, "Okay, we'll see you back in a couple of weeks." I said, "No, I'm going to go back across the street to midwives. I'll see them in a couple weeks." So that was all. My pregnancy really in itself was pretty normal. And then we got closer and closer to my due date. Now, I was due on November 18, and we got closer. I stopped working as a veterinary technician on the end of October right before Halloween. We had our baby shower. We were getting close to all the guess dates. Everybody had guessed when your baby's going to come. I would text them, "Nope, you missed it. It wasn't today." And so we slowly passed all those days, and then we passed my due date. We were doing everything-- the tea and bouncing on the birth ball and the dates and the pineapple, walking, The Miles Circuit, curb-walked. I knew the closer we got to 41 weeks and 42 weeks even, the more that there was going to be pressure for a repeat Cesarean. Now, to my midwife's credit, she never mentioned a repeat Cesarean. That was the very last thing that she ever talked to us about. We had talked about it in our birth plan, of course, but as we passed the due date, she didn't mention that as a course of action. As a joke, we asked our son, "When do you think Mama will have the baby? Now that we're past our due date, when do you think Mom will have the baby?" And he said, "I think she's going to wait until December." I said, "Buddy, please don't put that on me." So we'll let you know how that goes towards the end.Meagan: Yeah, I mean that would be what, two and a half more weeks? Three? Yeah, two and a half more weeks.Molly: Yeah, it was a long time. And I said, "Bud, please don't put that on me. That's a long more time." So then we made it through Thanksgiving. I consented to a cervical check at 39 weeks and there was no action the cervix, but you and I know that that can change in an instant, and it's not an indicator of anything. Meagan: Nope.Molly: At 40 weeks, I consented to another check and to a sweep of the cervical membranes. That made me feel crampy but really didn't do anything. We started talking about induction at that appointment. We talked about starting with the Foley bulb over breaking the waters or maybe Pitocin. We talked about those options and which ones I was most comfortable with. And so then after the 40-week appointment, they sent me in for a biophysical and non-stress test, and we passed those with flying colors. No problem. Baby was fine, I was fine. She just was very, very comfortable. Then at the 41-week appointment, we did another sweep and this time I was dilated to a really tight 1. But again, that didn't really do anything. We made our next appointment for 41 weeks and 3 days. And the ladies in the front office said, "We hope we don't see for that appointment." And I said, "I hope you don't either," but we did see them for that appointment. So at 41 weeks and 3 days, we talked about the induction again. They did another sweep just in the hope that maybe it would start things. It didn't. So we talked about and scheduled the induction. We'd agreed to start with the Foley and see how that went, and then maybe talk about breaking waters and maybe, maybe Pitocin being our last resort. We stopped for dinner. That was Wednesday evening. We stopped for dinner on the way in because I was like, "We're going to have a baby, and I need my strength. I've got to eat before we go in." So we stopped for dinner, and we got checked in. They got me strapped in with a wireless monitor, which was new this time and was so much better than the wired monitor because I could move. It was much better. And this is the start of what we like to jokingly call birthatory, because it's birth purgatory. I was stuck there in the room. I couldn't leave. My husband left just to get us food, but it just felt like we were there forever with nothing to do. And time moved strangely as well. I watched Friends at night to help me sleep, and I watched Parks and Rec during the day to keep me entertained. We did a lot of walking up and down the room as much as we could. And that Wednesday evening was just to start us monitoring. Jolanda came in, and she was in and out and checking with us that night. They also started me on the Group B strep meds. I think I forgot to mention I was positive this pregnancy. I had a weird reaction to whatever med they put me on first, like my scalp was on fire. It was a really bad reaction. Meagan: Interesting. Is that a common reaction?Molly: I believe they said it could happen, but it's not super common. I wish I could remember which medicine it was they gave me. But, I mean, it felt like my scalp was on fire. I was itching. It was horrible. So they gave me some Benadryl which fortunately helped me nap, so I got some rest. But we didn't want to do too much of that, so they switched me to a different medication. And again, I wish I could remember the name of it, but I can't. And that, I did not react to, so we stayed with that one for the rounds of the Group B Strep meds. So that was Wednesday night, and they were really just monitoring me. Thursday morning, the OB and the midwife on call came in to discuss my case. They discussed options. Pitocin. I consented to a check because we were going to start with the Foley, but I was at a 3 already. So that put the Foley out of commission because the Foley will only work up to 3. We talked about Pitocin versus artificial breaking of the membranes. The OB did do a little bit of pressuring, but we were all prepared for it. He said, "Well, at this point, this many post dates, you're probably definitely going to have meconium." And behind his back, my doula, my sweet doula rolled her eyes. It was what I needed, that support in that moment for the doctor to say, "Oh, well, there's definitely meconium." And my doula would be like, "No, there's probably not." So we asked for time to discuss between us and what to do. And Yolanda had these little informational cards with different affirmations. There was affirmation cards, but different, like facts about, induction from-- oh, I'm blanking.I can't remember. But they were little printed out laminated cards with different facts about different types of induction, and they were really helpful.It's Evidence Based Birth. That's what it was. It was all evidence-based and backed up by studies and stuff. So we discussed what we wanted to do, and we agreed to breaking the waters on Thursday morning. So the midwives came in and broke my waters, and there was no meconium. So that doctor can just go sit somewhere else. My waters are broken. I walked up and down the room, but nothing really happened. That night, there were some surges that we did time, but they petered out, and nothing really happened. So we woke up Friday morning, and that was December 1st. I, with despair in my voice, looked over at my husband and I said, "It's December. We've made it to December." I felt like a balloon that was beyond needing to pop and was just discouraged and tired. I was at the end of my rope, really, honestly. They came in, and I agreed to another check. This was the first check that they'd done since they broke my waters. And so if you're keeping count at home, my water's now been broken for about 26 hours. We happen to be watching an episode of Friends where the character, Rachel, is in labor, and she's having trouble dilating as well. And Ross makes a joke about, "I'm dilated 3." Well, they did the cervical check and checked, and I was still dilated 3. And Michael goes, "I'm dilated 3," and everybody laughed. It was a good break in the tension. After that, they left to go discuss my case. Michael went to go get me some hot water so I could make tea. But he came back in and he said, guess who's here and looking at your chart?" And I had no idea. He said, "It's Vicky," who's the midwife who helped deliver my first VBAC baby. She had retired, but come out of retirement and was only working on the weekends in the hospital. And I looked at him. I said, "We're having a baby today." Just something told me that with Ms. Vicky there with us, we were in good hands, and we were going to be okay. So she came in and talked to me about starting Pitocin. She also told me, because at this point, I was worried about a repeat Cesarean. And she told me, she said, "I'm no longer looking at you as a VBAC patient. You've had a successful vaginal birth. I'm treating you just like any other birth now." And it was such a healing statement for me. It wiped the worry about a repeat C-section out of my mind. It was just the perfect thing to say.Meagan: Yes. I don't want to interrupt you too much, but I love that you pointed that out, because most providers, they're actually looking at no matter if you've had a VBAC or not, you're always a VBAC. But what you just said to me really is gonna connect with so many others. It connected with me because we just want to be viewed as someone going in and having a baby. We don't want labels and these things that loom over our head even if we've had a VBAC before or if we haven't had a VBAC before. We just want to be looked at and treated as someone coming in and having a vaginal birth just like anybody else coming in and having a vaginal birth. So I love that you pointed that out, and I'm sure that that really did just connect and feel so good.Molly: It was a huge release of stress knowing that I didn't have to worry about the repeat C-section, the VBAC anymore, and I could just focus on having the baby and what I was doing and just doing what we needed to do that day to have the baby.Meagan: Yeah.Molly: So we did agree to the Pitocin she suggested. And we got very into the details, and we're almost a year out. I should have written them down sooner. I can't remember the numbers we started at, but she wanted to start at a certain amount over a certain time, and I disagreed. I said, "Let's start lower and slower." And she said, "That's fine. I'll do whatever you want to do." So we started really low and really slow, and I was starting to feel some things, but still not very much. It wasn't anything I had to stop to get through. It was really more just like a tightening. Jolanda came to hang out with us, brought us more food and water, and she brought a puzzle to help distract us. We were going crazy being stuck in that room. Vicky came in later that afternoon, and because still no progress was really being made. They didn't check me, but they could just tell from the contractions on the monitor. She talked about wanting to up the Pitocin a little bit faster and more frequently. I told her that I was worried about the difference in the Pitocin contractions versus natural contractions because I had heard and read so much that the Pitocin contractions are much more intense. And she told me that she'd given birth with and without Pitocin, and the only difference for her was that Pitocin births were faster. I agreed for her to bump it up a little bit, a little bit faster, that. After a little bit of time to talk about it, we agreed to do that. They did check me at that point, and I had worked my way up to a 5, and baby had moved from a -1 to, I believe, a +1. We dilated some, and baby had descended a little bit. At that point, the contractions did start to pick up, and I lost interest in the puzzle. We turned a movie on for me to watch. They were a little bit more intense, but still easy, and I could still talk through them and walk through them. Jolanda did an excellent job. She reminded me to go to the bathroom. And so I went to the bathroom, and when I walked out, I felt the baby drop. I don't know any other way to explain it, but I felt her drop in the birth canal. It was like she was sitting high, and then suddenly she dropped. I said that. I said, "Oh, I felt the baby drop." My sweet doula said, "You felt the baby drop?" I couldn't respond to her because then a contraction hit so hard that I could not talk through it. So, at that point, I told them, I said, "Please turn the movie off," because I couldn't handle the sound of movie. My husband turned on music in the background real low of our birth playlist. I needed to get down on all fours, so I got down on my knees, and I was bent over a birth ball swaying back and forth and moving forward and backwards, swaying my hips and vocalizing through them. Keep your mouth loose and low, moaning through them. At some point I didn't need the ball anymore and Jolanda brought in this inflatable thing. It was U-shaped and it was inflatable, but you could be in it and lean over it. And again, I wish I remember the name of it, but it wonderful because you could inflate and then deflate it to move it and get it out of there. But it was just perfectly shaped for me to be able to lean over it and even sit on it if I needed to, but I just was leaning over it. The contractions were getting more difficult, and she reminded me to relax my hands because my hands had gotten really tight. She was reminding me to breathe and relax my hands. She also suggested counter-pressure on my tailbone. I did not want it on my hips, but she tried it on my tailbone, and that felt incredible. Suddenly, the contractions were so much easier to bear, and they just felt more productive. It was fantastic. So she and my husband, Michael, took turns wearing their arms out, pushing my tailbone through the surges. At, that point, then the wireless monitor got weird because it had been on me for so long. The stickers, I guess, had just given out. So a poor nurse was on her knees underneath me holding the monitor on my belly, and there was either Jolanda or Michael behind me pushing on my tailbone through the contractions. And then I started grunting and felt pushy. Juolanda recognized my grunting because we talked about during my consult during my first VBAC. I get grunty when I'm pushing. She recognized the sound and she said, "Are you pushing?" But I didn't want to answer her because I didn't want to stop pushing because it felt so good to push. I hadn't been checked. So I didn't want them to know that I was pushing and check me and tell me that I couldn't push. And also, at this point, I was practically sitting back against the counter-pressure. The surge would hit, and I would sit back into whoever is doing counter-pressure and practically put my full weight back on my tailbone on their hand and the counter-pressure. Then, my knees got tired being on the floor. So I asked to move to the bed and they asked to check me. The midwife, Ms. Vicky, said, "I would love to check you right now." I said, "As long as I can be on my hands and knees, you can check me however you want."So I got up on my hands and knees on the bed, leaned over, and they checked me, and I was good to push. So at that point, we started actively pushing. Not just me pushing because it felt good, but pushing because we knew we were pushing a baby out. And pushing, it felt so good to push. I needed to push. It felt so good. I could feel her moving through the birth canal. I could feel her head coming down, and it was amazing. And just like with my first birth, it's frustrating to feel the baby move and then go back and then move forward and then go back, but you can tell you're making progress. I don't know how long I pushed for because I was way off in who knows where. Nobody else looked at the clock. Michael would have, but he was getting ready to catch. He had prepped to catch this baby. So I pushed her out into her papa's hands. He had prepped. He watched all kinds of videos meant for midwives, and he was so ready. He did such a great job. Baby Nora was there, and she was perfectly healthy. She was 7 pounds and 2 ounces, and 19 inches. For being 41 weeks and 5 days, she was still just perfectly cooked. I passed the placenta at some point after that. We did the golden hour, and we snuggled in. He cut the cord after it stopped pulsing. That was all very much a blur to me, just a golden, snuggly haze of love. So we passed the placenta, and it was declared complete. We looked at it, and we put in our little cooler to take home and freeze to plant her little birth tree. I did tear a little bit, so they stitched me up and we took some pictures. And then Ms. Vicky went home. She'd stayed 45 minutes late for us. She went home at that point, and I started nursing Nora. At that point, however, I was still in pain. So they said, "Would you like something for pain?" I asked for just Tylenol. I didn't want anything heavier than that, but I was still pushing. I was still feeling the urge to push, and it was getting worse. So the nurses applied some pressure to my uterus, external pressure. It hurt so bad I could barely stand it. Michael took the baby at that point, and Jolanda suggested me trying to avoid my bladder, and maybe that would help. But I couldn't. I couldn't get those muscles to work, so they put a catheter in. That didn't really help. The surges were still coming and I couldn't stop pushing. They put more pressure on my uterus, external pressure, and I passed a huge blood clot. It was like a softball-sized blood clot. That felt a little better, but I was still pushing and I could not stop the pushing. So they gave me some stronger pain meds and talked to the OB who was on call and all agreed that I needed to go the OR and see if something had been left. So we agreed to that and went under sedation into the OR, and they removed a golf ball-sized portion of the placenta. Meagan: Whoa.Molly: Yeah. It was confusing because they had declared my placenta complete and after talking about it, and they looked at all the pieces, and it turns out that I had a lobular lobe.Meagan: I was going to say you probably had a lobe.Molly: Yes. And so after I mentioned "Oh well, I had some spotting early in pregnancy," they figured that the spotting had contributed to that, and that's why the placenta looked complete and there was a lobe and the hematomas all contributed to the early bleeding and the lobe in the placenta. I came out of the OR fine. I got two bags of blood but felt fine. When I woke up, I got to hold Nora in the OR. Well, not in the OR, but in the recovery and nurse her again. And everything was really fine after that. Jolanda checked on us a couple of hours after that. She brought us food. We had talked about what I wanted to eat post-birth. I wanted to eat a cheeseburger with bacon from a specific place near the hospital with fries. She brought it all, and we ate it at like 11:00 PM. It was wonderful. And Michael, like I said before, said later that having a doula this time around was 100% worth it mostly for him because she was suggesting things that he wouldn't have known to offer like the counter-pressure and, "Hey, maybe she needs to pee," and things like that. It saved him and helped him know what to do while I was off in labor land. For that, our sweet doula was so worth it. And after that, recovery was great, and we were fine.Meagan: That is awesome. So still had a little bit of a hiccup there in the end, but overall a really great experience.Molly: It was awesome. And I said before, with the birth plan, we tried to plan for all contingencies, but the one thing we did not plan for was three days trying to be induced naturally. Meagan: Yeah.Molly: I mean, they say time isn't linear, and I have never felt that more true than we were stuck in that room for three days. It was very weird just not being able to get out. It's not something I would do again, the induction part, but we made it through thanks to great support from midwives and doula and my wonderful husband. I would do the birth part, and maybe not the hemorrhaging at the end, but the birth part I would do again.Meagan: Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, that's just less ideal. I don't know. Did they ever talk to you? Because I know that IVF parents do have a slightly increased chance of hemorrhaging. Did they ever relate it to IVF, or was it mainly just, "Hey, you had a subchorionic hematoma earlier, then you have this lobe." Maybe it was just that they.Molly: The doctors didn't. No, we were very aware that she was an IVF baby, and we had done a lot of research before that IVF babies have a very "sticky" placenta.Meagan: Yeah.Molly: That was one of the factors why we didn't do a home birth was because if the placenta sticks, and then you're at home, it can be a rush to the hospital. But the doctors at the hospital didn't mention the IVF possibility as the reason I hemorrhaged. Maybe it played a part. I don't know. They seemed to put it on the sub-chorionic hematoma. But it could have been both. I don't know.Meagan: Yeah. Yeah. All of the little factors could have been. The best thing is that it seemed pretty minor and a quick fix. A quick fix. I just wanted to remind everybody, so I'm pretty sure this is your episode. It's Episode 84. So if you want to go hear the breech Cesarean and the first VBAC, definitely go back and listen to those on Episode 84. Thank you so much for sharing your story, and I'm so glad that it was so great and that your husband got to catch a baby. That's like my favorite, you guys.Just to let you know, that's happening more and more. At least it has been here in Utah as we're attending births. Sometimes, all you've got to do is ask. So if you have a partner who is interested in that, I think asking is not harmful. Just ask. It can seem intimidating, but it's not too bad. It's not too bad. They really help these partners catch these babies. Allison, I would love to have you share your two cents and your educational topic on healing after Cesarean. We're doing these topics instead of reviews sometimes when we have guests. I love what you do because just like Molly and myself, we've been there having an unexpected-- well, maybe with the breech it was kind of planned. I'm trying to remember back in your story.Molly: So with the breech, with the Cesarean, we had planned a C-section, but then he broke my water early, so it was not necessarily an emergency Cesarean, but we had to go in before we were "scheduled" to for the C-section.It was planned, but unexpected at the time. The wrong timing. Yes. Okay. Well, tell us more, Allison.Allison: Yeah, and I want to say thank you so much, Molly, for sharing your story. I actually want to point out a few things that I think are really important here. I work with so many people who have had a birth that feels difficult or traumatic. And oftentimes, there are women who come to me who say, "I don't understand why I feel upset about my birth even though I have this baby who's healthy and alive, if we're lucky enough to have a living baby or a healthy baby or both." And one of the things I talk a lot about is that oftentimes it's not the events themselves in the birth that create a difficult or traumatic birth, but it's how we feel, right? And so, what makes a birth feel good or bad? Like, I listen to you talk about this experience where you had some challenges leading up to it, right? Especially preconception, and then during conception. I felt your joy. I felt your connectedness, and I felt your power throughout your story even as you talked about the really difficult part at the end with the placenta needing to be retrieved. I want to just point out that that's what I heard, and you've got to tell me if this feels right for you, Molly. But what I heard was many moments where you talked about feeling connected. You talked about your sweet doula. You talked about that surprise midwife coming in to support you. You felt connected. You felt seen like that moment where you said, "Oh, well, the monitor wasn't working, but then the nurse got underneath me," so instead of actually you accommodating the hospital's protocol and policy, I love this idea. I'm imagining a nurse laying on her back under you while you're on all fours. You're empowered. That's truly centering you. Right? You're in control in a lot of these moments. You said you wanted the Pitocin lower. The doctor or the midwife honored that. It sounds like you were informed. You used some examples of the cards from Evidence Based Birth, and a lot of the information you engaged with prior to birthing. One of the things I talk about with my clients is maybe you even feel sexy during birth. You didn't mention that at all, but that might have been. There might have been moments, maybe not. Are there any other emotions that come up for you? Did I leave anything out hat you're like, oh, I really felt another positive emotion?Molly: No, you've nailed it 100%. I felt very supported this birth from the midwife listening to me and, like you said, honoring my requests and my husband being there and the doula. I felt very supported. So even the end and the hemorrhaging which should have been scary, I don't look back on as scary. I don't want to repeat it, but I wasn't scared in that moment because I felt taken care of and supported.Meagan: Mhmm. Allison: Right. That is so textbook. I love this story because that's a really, really scary thing. And if you hadn't had that support, that attunement, that communication and that safety, it could have felt different. It could have made your story feel like there was this turning point into a dive. I love that your advice was getting a doula, because in your story, I really feel how your relationship and respect for her are a big component of your support and empowerment. So I just want to end by saying that birth is really about those emotions, not the modality or even the environment where we birth. If we can create those experiences for ourselves as much as possible, we don't always have the ability to do that. Lots of things have to come together, but if we can focus on, how do I make myself feel empowered, connected, sexy, seen, in control, informed during my birth, however I birth, then the likelihood of having a positive outcome emotionally is so much higher. And when we have a better emotional experience, we're more likely to be able to have a supported breastfeeding experience and also go into motherhood feeling centered, feeling capable of taking on this new role or another baby when we already have littles at home. So thank you so much for sharing your story. I feel really touched, and I can imagine that others are too.Molly: Thank you.Meagan: I do love that you pointed that out, Allison. The way we feel during our labor, the way we're treated, the way we're communicated to, it really impacts that next step going into that motherhood era. I think back on your story. I remove your doula from your story, and I remove your supportive provider. That birth very much could have unfolded very differently especially because it was a longer induction. Right? And so when you put that powerhouse team with that true love and support back into the story, it's like, well, I don't understand why it wouldn't unfold that way anyway.But really, if you look back without that, it's questionable sometimes. And so we talk about it, you guys. I think I will probably talk about it until I die. I mean, truly, I will probably not even be in this work when I'm 80 years old, but I will still be educating people on hiring a supportive team and provider because it really does impact. I had an interview the other day with a first-time mom and she was telling me who her provider was, and I very much remember this provider as a resident. And she was fine, but not great, right? She wasn't my favorite. I very much knew, oh, in the future I would not suggest her as a provider. And so as I was talking, and I didn't want to project my opinion on her, and I was talking to her, she said that her and her husband had actually been feeling a lot of pressure and that when she goes into her visit that she normally has a voice, but when she's there, her voice is muted. She feels like she can't say these questions and can't communicate. I think right there is that big red flag that if you cannot communicate with your provider in a prenatal appointment, then that is a big sign that you will not be able to communicate with your provider efficiently during labor, and they're not going to respect you. I love that your midwife came out of retirement and started working on the weekends because she probably loves this so much and that you got her. It worked out so, so well. But guys, again, find a good, supportive provider. If you're feeling like my interview did the other day, don't hesitate. Move, change, find that support because you want to be like Molly where you're in the situation and you feel that love and empowerment. And even though there was something that ,went awry and not according to plan, Molly felt that support. And so like Allison said, that could have been a very traumatic point in your labor where it wasn't ideal. You wouldn't do it again. You wouldn't choose it. You wouldn't suggest it. But even though it happened, and I don't want to downplay it like oh, least everyone's happy and healthy. I don't want to do that. But it happened, and because you had that support, your overall view is different. So great tips, Allison. Beautiful story, Molly. Again, go back and listen to Episode 84 for the rest of her stories. And once again, thank you for being with us.Molly: 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

Johanna is a girl mama joining us today from Canada. She had an unplanned C-section with her first, an HBAC with her second, and was pregnant with her third at the time of recording! Johanna reflects on her experiences with both supportive and unsupportive care during her pregnancies. Meagan and Johanna dive into your options surrounding PROM,  the significance of intuition in decision-making, the impact of provider choices on birth outcomes, and the nuances of VBAC postpartum recovery.The VBAC Link Blog: Home Birth VBACEverything You Need for Your HBACSupportive Providers10 Signs to Switch Your ProviderWhat to Do When Your Water BreaksLabor GuideCoterie Diapers - Use code VBAC20 for 20% offHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello, Women of Strength. We have our friend Johanna with us from Canada today, and she's going to be sharing her HBAC story. So for those who may be , new to the VBAC world, or just all of the acronyms that the VBAC world has, HBAC is pronounced home birth after Cesarean. So if you are one of those who really wants to look into all of your options for birthing locations, which I encourage everyone to do, definitely listen up here. We're going to be talking about a lot of really great things including picking a provider and PROM knowing that you maybe had a provider that wasn't ideal the first time and more about HBAC. So we are going to be diving into a lot of really, really great, juicy topics. But in place our review today, Johanna and I are actually going to talk a little bit more about picking the right provider. So, Johanna, welcome to the show.Johanna: Thank you.Meagan: I am so excited for you to be with us today and so grateful that you are here to talk about this topic. Because like I was saying before we pressed record, I see daily in our community, every single day, and not even just our community, in other VBAC communities or this is weird, but people's statuses, like my friends and family's statuses on Facebook, where you type like, "Hey, I'm looking for this," or "I'm feeling very frustrated," or "I need prayers." People will seriously say, "I don't know what to do, you guys. Has anybody ever heard of VBAC?" on their own status? But especially in the VBAC groups, I see people and I just want to yell, "Hey, you over there. You're with the wrong provider" or, "Hey, you should move." That's a really hard thing because especially when I type that it can be like, oh my gosh, who is this broad telling me that I'm with the wrong provider and that I chose wrong? I'm not trying to say that. I'm not trying to say you chose wrong. Like, how dare you choose wrong? It's just like, hey, what you're telling us in this community is screaming, you're the wrong provider. So, Johanna, you , mentioned before we press record that you realized after your first birth that you were with the wrong provider. What made you realize that you were with the wrong provider? And were there signs during pregnancy that you recognized and maybe pushed away? Or was it really not something that you recognized until after? Because I know really, it can go both ways.Johanna: Yeah, I think that there were signs during the pregnancy. I mean, one of them, and I just didn't listen to my gut because you don't know what you don't know. I put too much blind faith that it was all gonna work out. But I never felt comfortable with her. I didn't have a good connection with her. I was asking a lot of questions about what I can be doing because my first birth, I really wanted to be a home birth. She basically just didn't give me very much information about what I can be doing. She sent me to your generic birth course through the hospital. Yeah. I didn't really feel like she was really invested in the outcome of my birth. I was just like another one of her patients. So I didn't feel great about that. And then when push came to shove with my birth and things weren't going great, she threw her hands up in the air and just took a step back and didn't really advocate for me or try and help me through things. So I was left with a pretty unpleasant taste in my mouth.Meagan: Yeah, I mean, exactly what you said just a minute ago. You didn't feel that she was invested in the outcome of your birth. And then it proved. It proved to be true when she just threw her arms up. So you had that experience, and you're not alone. There are so many of us out there. Me too, me included and a lot of people on The VBAC Link team included. We have all been in a similar situation where our providers, threw our hands up, weren't invested in our birth and our experience and had to go out there and seek that support that we deserved. So if there's anything we talk about on The VBAC Link, and I'm sure you've heard it, is find the right provider. I mean, seriously, you guys, I say it daily, every single day. If I'm not typing it, if I'm not voice memo-ing it, if I'm not saying it in my mind, it's find the right provider. Johanna, what would you give for tips for our listeners to find that right provider? And how did you find that right provider?Johanna: So I found my midwife that I used for my second birth and I'm actually using again for my third birth because I am 31 weeks pregnant today.Meagan: Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Yay.Johanna: I found her actually because when I got pregnant for the second time, the first thing I did was get a doula.Meagan: Uh-huh.Johanna: I asked her for recommendations on a VBAC friendly midwife. She had recommended this midwife. So immediately I was like, yes, I would like to meet her. When I met her, instantly, I felt so much more at ease.So I would say going with your gut. If something doesn't feel right, even if it's the tiniest thing, just look for a new provider. Just find someone where it feels right.Meagan: Yeah. I can relate to that so much because that's how I was feeling. I was searching, I was searching, I was searching. I mean, it was insane. I interviewed a lot of providers, but that's what I was searching for is that immediate like, oh, I'm in the right place. You are my person. And it took me a long time. And that sucks. It sucks that it took so long. I know that in some areas they're really rural and it's almost impossible to find that feeling. But I agree. So just as a reminder for those looking, before we get into the story, I wanted to make sure that you know to ask open-ended questions. Do not say, "Do you support VBAC? Yes or no?" Do not say, "Do you support me to go to 40 weeks? Yes or no?"Let's ask open ended questions. "How do you feel if I approach my due date and I haven't had a baby yet? How do you feel about VBAC? What is your experience with VBAC? How do you support your VBAC clients to make sure patients get the birth that they want? How do you advocate for them?"Asking these big open ended questions and then like Johanna said, diving deep. What is your heart and your gut feeling and saying? If at any point you are questioning, which I think is when people come out on social media, that is when I think they comment and they're writing, "Hey, I'm, feeling defeated. Hey, this is what my provider said." It's because they're doubting. They're questioning. That's their intuition. If that even comes into play at all, it's time to switch. It is time to switch. And first-time parents, if you are out there listening, this applies to you too, right? We have to avoid these unnecessary Cesareans which are happening all over the world. We have to follow our intuition. So that's another thing we talk about until we're blue in the face-- intuition. So follow that intuition. Ask open ended questions. Really dive in deep because your provider really can make an impact.And really, really quickly, we're going to just barely skim the surface on PROM. PROM is premature rupture of membranes. Johanna and I have both experienced it. She's two for two. I'm three for three. Maybe you won't be three for three girl. I don't know. I'm hoping you're not. Johanna: Fingers crossed. Meagan: I'm hoping you won't. But if you are, we know that it's okay. Vaginal birth still happen. But talking about providers, if you have PROM, which means your water breaks before labor begins, and just to let you know, it can take hours, even days for your body to turn over into labor after your water breaks. But if you have PROM and you don't have a supportive provider, that is right there the beginning of a fight. It shouldn't have to be a fight, but that can impact things because they want to get things going. Some providers won't even induce labor or touch you or 12 hours later they're like, "Nope, you haven't had a baby. You have to have a C-section." So yeah. So really quick Johanna, do you have any tips for our listeners who might have had PROM or may have PROM?Johanna: Yeah, it's difficult because especially when I experienced it, I mean, I experienced it for both births and the second time I really felt anxious because I was like, oh no, I'm on a ticking time-clock again.Meagan: Yeah, yeah. Because that's how you were treated.Johanna: Yes. I was lucky that I have a super supportive provider. And she was like, "Baby's fine, you're fine, everything's fine. We're just going to wait it out."Yeah, I mean crucial to have the right provider that is going to give you that grace and give you that time and that space, but just know the facts. Just arm yourself with information that as long as the fluid is clear, as long as you have no signs of infection-- at least here they make you come in for non-stress tests like every, I don't know if it's 12 hours or 24 hours when your water has broken. As long as everything's looking okay, you can wait, I think, up to 72 hours.Meagan: I've actually even had a client wait five days. Johanna: Holy smokes. Meagan: Five days. Close monitoring you guys, really close monitoring. But it was nothing that said a baby needed to be born. So five days is maybe abnormal. This was a home birth transfer to hospital. Even with five days rupture of membranes, the hospital did not "make" her, as I'm putting quotes up, have a Cesarean or do anything different because she advocated for herself. But it really can. 72 hours. It really can happen. So okay, we are going to stop talking about this, you guys. We're going to have links in the show notes to dive deeper into questions for your provider. What about premature rupture of membranes and things like that. So we're going to have those in the show notes if you want to dive more into that. You can dive in. But we're going to take one quick break for the intro, and then turn the time over to Johanna. Okay girl, thank you so much for chatting with me about that. I really do think it's so important.Johanna: I think knowledge about everything is your best friend when you're planning for any birth, but especially a VBAC.Meagan: Right. I know. It does suck that VBAC has to be so much more intense in our prep and our research and all these things because we're just moms going in to have vaginal births. That's all we are. But, but unfortunately that's not how it's viewed. That's just not how it's viewed in most areas of the world. So yeah, all right. Let's talk about that first birth.Johanna: Okay. So I got pregnant with my first daughter Mila in the summer of 2020. So heavy, COVID times. So that was scary enough. Because of COVID and the shift in culture towards socialization and going into hospitals and stuff like that, me and my husband decided to look into home birth which was not really on my radar before, but the more that I looked into it, I was like, oh, this is super beautiful, and I love the idea of birthing my baby at home in the piece and quiet of our own space.Meagan: Yeah. And a lot safer than a lot of people think.Johanna: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. The more I looked into it, the more I was like, okay. This is a totally viable option for us. I had a pretty uneventful pregnancy. I was very lucky. I had very minimal symptoms. Everything went well. I didn't have anything scary happened during the pregnancy. I will say that I didn't take the best care of myself. I am usually a pretty active person and I totally just didn't do much exercise or working out. I think in the back of my mind, I was scared that something bad was going to happen if I overdid it. It was just a lot of first-time mom anxieties.Meagan: Totally get it.Johanna: Yep. I didn't eat the best. I didn't take the best care of myself. I didn't do a whole lot to prep for the birth other than your typical childbirthing classes, bringing baby home through the hospital, generic courses that I think a lot of first-time moms, that's what they do, right? I read a couple of books. I read the What to Expect books, and I think I read Ina May's Guide to Childbirth.Meagan: Great book.Johanna: Yep. But I had no idea what to expect. When it came to labor and birth, I really was going in blind. I will say, I just put my faith in that my provider was going to hold my hand through it. That was a mistake. So yeah, I mean, it was a pretty uneventful pregnancy. There wasn't a whole lot to say other than it was COVID and everything was scary and didn't really know what was going on. When I was 41-ish weeks, my water ended up breaking. It was the middle of the night, and I didn't really know what happened. It was just like a little squirt and went back to bed. And in the morning, it was like when you move a position and a little bit comes out and you move a position and a little bit. It was one of those. And then I lost my mucus plug. So I was like, oh, I better call my midwife. So I gave her a call, and she totally brushed me off. She was like, "No, I think it's probably just discharge. I wouldn't worry about it." So that was another red flag was her just totally brushing off my feelings and what I believed was going on. So I hung up the phone and I was like, well, I don't really know what to do now. I'm fairly certain that my water's broken. So I waited a couple of hours, and it continued to trickle out. I eventually called her again and she was like, "Okay, okay, you can come in. You can come in and I'll check, but I'm pretty sure it's just discharge." So I went in and sure enough, she was like, "Oh, your water did break and it's amniotic fluids. Look at that."Meagan: Interesting.Johanna: Yeah, I could have told you that. So I was like, "Well, what do we do now?" And she was like, "Well, we can wait up to 72 hours as long as everything's healthy. That's fine, so we'll keep monitoring things." She sent me home and told me to just relax. She said, "If labor doesn't pick up today, go to bed and in the morning, do a castor oil induction." I did that. When I woke up the next morning and nothing had happened, I did do the castor oil induction. I will say that I will never do that again because it was horrible. Sorry for the TMI, but it just gave me severe diarrhea, and then nothing happened, and I was super uncomfortable. So that wasn't fun. That wasn't fun. That didn't work.I went in for a non-stress test that afternoon. She decided to check me, and I had made zero progress. I was not dilated at all. I had zero effacement or anything like that, so no progress. I felt super discouraged. My water has been broken for however long at this point-- 36 hours, I think, probably. I've made no progress. The castor oil induction and failed. I had barely slept the night before, so I was tired and I was just stressed. I was like, when is this going to happen?Meagan: But at this point you weren't really thriving with contractions. Nothing was too intense to be telling you that there should be progress, right?Johanna: Literally not a single contraction or anything. Nothing was happening.Meagan: True PROM, and so your defeating feeling is super normal because in our minds we were told our water breaks, we should be having a baby. But if we have PROM, don't expect to be dilated. Right?Johanna: Yes.Meagan: I did too. I expected to be way dilated and I wasn't.Johanna: So I felt super defeated. And like I said, I wasn't sleeping. I barely got any sleep the night before because I was just anxious for birth to get going. I ended up crying in her office about how stressed I was to end up in a C-section because my sister had a long, pretty terrible labor that ended in a C-section. It was just not a great experience for her. I don't exactly remember what my midwife said, but I did not feel reassured leaving that appointment. But we did end up deciding that if I didn't go into labor that night, I was going to be induced the next morning because I was just not sleeping well. I was not able to rest and relax because I was just anxious. So I was like, okay. I guess my home birth plan is out the window, but at least there's a plan. I ended up going home. We had dinner, and I started getting contractions just after dinner which was exciting.Meagan: Yeah.Johanna: But then they petered off after, like, I don't know, an hour or two. So we went to bed, had the hospital bags packed and everything ready to go for an induction the next morning. Labor started around 2:00 AM. It started on its own around 2:00 AM.Meagan: How many total hours is this until labor comes?Johanna: I think it was about 48 hours after my water broke that I had the rupture of membranes that my labor actually started. I will say, it was pretty intense right off the hob. I hear a lot of women say that their early labor is like, "Oh, I took my other kids for a walk. I baked a cake. I did this. I did that to distract myself." My labors are not like that. My labors are intense right out the gate. I tried to eat something for breakfast. A few hours after that, I woke my husband up. We tried to eat breakfast. I got in the bathtub to try and relieve some of the discomfort. I hung out in there for a while. We had rented a birth tub. My husband got that set up. I called my midwife. She came probably around 11:00 AM, so at that point, I'd probably been laboring for like, I don't know, eight or nine hours. I was not coping well. It was very intense and I was not coping well with the pain. She checked me, and I was a 3. I was like, dang it. In my mind, what I know now is that it's not a linear thing and that it's not going to take another 18 hours to go from a 3 to 9. But in my mind then I was like, oh no, I can't do this for however many more hours because I'm already not coping well and I'm only at a 3. So I told her I was totally deflated and I told her, "I want to go to the hospital and get an epidural." She was like, "Okay, if that's what you want to do, that's fine." So I think between the time that she checked me and I was at a 3 and the time that I got the epidural, it was about two hours. That car ride to the hospital, wow, was not fun. But yes. So, in that two hours that it took between her checking me and me getting the epidural, she checked me again right as soon as it kicked in and I was at a 9.Meagan: Whoa.Johanna: Yeah. Meagan: 0 to 100. Johanna: Yeah, when I say that car ride, it was ripping through me.Meagan: Yeah, you were in transition at that point.Johanna: Yeah. When we were in the hospital waiting for the anesthesiologist to come in and do the epidural, my midwife and husband are joking around trying to make me laugh. I'm like, "This is not where are at right now." I was not having it because, obviously, I was in transition, and it just was not where I was at. So yeah, she was like, "Okay, well you're at a 9 now, that's great. So rest for an hour and then we'll probably be pushing." The epidural was heavy. I felt nothing from my ribs down. So an hour went by and she's like, "Hey, you're complete. Start pushing." I felt nothing. I'm trying to push, and she's telling me that I'm doing a pretty good job considering I have an epidural, but baby was still high. And then all of a sudden, I think I'd pushed a couple of times and all of a sudden, all of these doctors and nurses and bunch of people just start run into the room and they're all speaking French because it's a French speaking hospital.Meagan: Oh my gosh.Johanna: So I have no idea what's going on. Nobody is telling me anything. They're all speaking a different language. And I was just like, "Can somebody please tell me in English what's going on?" They told me that she was having late decal every time that I was pushing.Meagan: Okay.Johanna: So between pushes she was fine, but every time I'd push, her heart rate would go down and then have trouble recovering. At no point did anybody recommend maybe trying a position change or anything like that. Like maybe her cord was being pinched in that position. If only I knew now or knew then what I know now.Meagan: Yeah, like hydration, movement, doing something, pushing in a different position.Johanna: Yeah, yeah no. So like I said, my midwife threw her hands up and stepped back and let the OB take over and didn't say anything to me after that. The OB basically let me push three times and then was like, "Nope, this is going to take too long. We need to have a C-section," and she called a C-section.Meagan: Wow. Do you remember how low your baby's heart rate was getting?Johanna: No, I have no idea.Meagan: Okay, interesting. I mean late deceleration are less ideal, right? We don't want them to happen late. We want that to be the recovery period.But yeah, there could have been some things done.Johanna: Yeah, and looking back, it's frustrating to know that maybe if one little thing had been changed, the outcome could have been totally different.Yeah, but you can't blame yourself for that either. It's hard to look back and be like, the what if's. But yes, you did whatever you did in the moment with the information you were given.Johanna: Exactly. So I went in for the C-section. It went fine. There were no complications, but being strapped down to a table in a really cold room and having the shakes and not feeling that, not being the person to get to hold your baby. I mean, everyone listening to this podcast pretty much knows what thats like and how it was demoralizing and traumatizing for sure. But it went fine. She was born healthy. I didn't have any complications. But yeah, the emotional trauma was real and not just for me, but for my husband too. We got discharged about 24 hours after the C-section and going home and seeing the birth tub still set up in our living room was a very emotional experience. We both ended up breaking down crying.Meagan: Yeah.Johanna: So I had to do a lot of emotional recovery from that birth as well as physical recovery because the physical recovery from C-section was also extremely rough. I remember every time I would have to get up out of bed, it felt like I was being ripped in half. It's rough, but I knew right from the moment she was born that I would be VBACing my next baby because we had always planned on having a few kids.Meagan: I want to point out to everyone, too, the importance of postpartum support and postpartum help and planning. We never know the outcomes of birth. I didn't know the outcomes. I didn't realize that it was going to take me 15 minutes to walk 10 stairs up to my bedroom. I didn't realize it was going to take me 15 minutes to walk down the stairs. I couldn't be holding anything. I didn't realize how exhausting it was going to be to get out of bed to go to the restroom let alone taking care of a newborn baby and also thriving as an individual. So it's really important to really try not to ignore the postpartum period. I think it's easy to do because we're so focused on the birth. Especially with VBAC, I think we're so hyper, hyper focused on that VBAC, that outcome, and that experience which I do not shame anyone for being. I just want to plug it in. Don't forget about your postpartum because whether it's physical or emotional.You came back to this space of seeing a plan that didn't unfold the way you wanted it to. That can be very emotional, very traumatic even in some ways. So yeah, having some resources for postpartum as well. I just want to plug that in.Johanna: Yeah, that's a really good point. I did no prep for postpartum for my first birth.Meagan: Me either.Johanna: It wasn't even something that like dawned on me to think about. When I was in postpartum, I was like, wow, this is really intense. Like the sleep deprivation, the recovery, the breastfeeding, everything. It;s super intense. So for sure, don't neglect postpartum plans and getting the support that you need.Meagan: Yeah.Johanna: So anyway, I think from a couple weeks postpartum with Mila, I ended up finding your podcast and absolutely just binging it and trying to intake any knowledge I could get about VBAC natural childbirth-- just anything I could get my hands on, I was consuming because I knew that I was going to VBAC. I knew that I wanted to have a birth that was as intervention-free as possible for my second. So I ended up getting pregnant with my second daughter Bailey in the summer of 2022. The very first thing I did was I hired a doula. I already knew what doula I wanted before we even got pregnant because we had interviewed a few, and the doula that I found was actually a VBAC mom herself. And she just had a beautiful calming energy about her. I was like yep, that's who I want. So with that test, the lines turned pink, and I was already getting her on board. I ended up hiring the midwife that she recommended as well. I was intent on doing everything that I could this second pregnancy to set myself up for a successful VBAC that I could possibly do because I knew that if I did everything that I could possibly do and it still ended up in a C-section, then I don't have to have any lingering questions of well, what if I had done this? So it was like, I was going to do everything I could to set myself up for success. I was super diligent with eating well, exercising, and chiropractic care. I did all of the Spinning Babies' exercises, walking, and yoga. I did a HypnoBirthing course which I really, really liked, and I'm doing again for this pregnancy. I put up my birth affirmations. I did all the things You name it, I did it. My husband was super, super amazing and supportive and he was there with me every step of the way through every appointment and did all the coursework with me and everything like that. I'm very lucky to have a super supportive husband. I had another pretty uneventful easy going pregnancy. Other than a little bit more morning sickness and some SPD, it was pretty easy. I will say there's one thing that they make you do here, and I don't know if you guys have to do it in the US but if you're planning for a VBAC you have to see an OB around 36-37 weeks. Do you guys have to do that as well?Meagan: Yeah, so not if you're out-of-hospital. You don't have to do it. Some midwives still out-of- hospital will be like, "Hey, I want you to consult with a partnering physician," as in, "Hey, this is someone we would transfer to.: I went a consult with them, but with the midwives in hospital they require them to do a VBAC consult, and it's pretty much a visit where the OB is like, "Hey, this is what you're doing. Here is your risk. Do you comply?"Yeah.Johanna: Yes. So I ended up having to do that, and I knew it was going to be a negative experience. I knew it was just going to be fear-mongering and throwing scary statistics out. So I already had my guard up for that. And then it was also at the hospital where I had my C-section, so even just walking into that environment was very triggering.Meagan: Yeah. So I went to that and I was right. She told me, "As soon as you go into labor, you need to go to the hospital and you should have continual monitoring and and epidural just in case," and all of these things where I'm just like, no, that so goes against everything that I believe will lead to like a healthy, happy birth.I definitely didn't tell her about my plans. I actually was hoping this would end up in a home birth. I didn't actually mention this. My plan-- I didn't want to commit to a home birth. I was a little bit anxious because of my first birth ending up transferring to hospital, that I would end up having to do that again and then have that crushing disappointment that it didn't work out again. So my plan with my midwife was that I was going to labor at home as long as possible, and we were going to play it by ear. As long as everything was going well, then I would potentially have her at home. But I just didn't want to have that pressure that I needed to stay home because this was going to be a home birth. Do you know what I mean?Meagan: No, I totally do. I mean, when I was planning my, it wasn't a HBAC, it was a birth center birth. It's like a downplayed HBAC. I mean, I was in a different home. Right. I totally do. I know exactly what you mean.Johanna: Yeah.Meagan: Yeah, yeah.Johanna: So yeah, I definitely did not tell the OB that my plan was to have a home birth because I just did not even did not want to get into that. So I nodded my head and was like, "Yes, sure. Okay, great."Meagan: Yep.Johanna: At one point, also during my midwifery care for the second pregnancy, my midwife was like, "It's standard for you. The hospital wants you to sign a release form with a backup C-section date."Meagan: What?Johanna: And I was just like, "Yeah, I will also not be doing that." And she was like, "That is totally fine. Just sign that you won't do that." Meagan: I do not consent. Yeah, I do not consent in doing this.Johanna: Yeah, yeah. I was like, I don't need that to clock above my head.Meagan: No.Johanna: So again, my due date arrived and passed. I ended up getting a couple membrane sweeps to try and move things along, but they were unsuccessful. And wow, they are very, very painful.Meagan: So can I super quick touch on that?Johanna: Yes.Meagan: Membrane sweeps-- that's a really big question we see as well. And when you talk about them being painful, that's actually a sign that the cervix wasn't ready. Like it wasn't forward. It wasn't open. If a membrane sweep is painful, it's a real big sign-- it's not a guarantee, but it's a real big sign that your cervix isn't ready. So quick rule of thumb, if you are dilated 2+ centimeters, 3 or more is more ideal. Your cervix is really forward, meaning they don't have to reach back and in, and you are effaced at least 75-80%, that's a little bit more ideal and less painful. But if they are going back, a lot of the times is because they have to reach back and in. And so that is, that is that. And then it can cause pain, prodromal labor, things like that and, and frustration because you're wanting it to work and it's not working.Johanna: Yes. So yeah, they didn't work for me, but my midwife did tell me that I was actually 3 centimeters and she could stretch me to 3. Meagan: Great. So you were at least dilated.Johanna: Yes. So despite the fact that it was super painful and didn't work, I was still feeling very encouraged to know that my body was doing something good. Meagan: YesJohanna: Because you'll remember my first birth, I was completely closed and nothing was happening after my water broke. So I was feeling pretty good about that. At about 40 weeks and 4 days, my water broke again before labor started. It was another one of those slow trickles, and it was the middle of the afternoon, so I called my midwife, and she was like, "Okay, come meet me." She asked if the fluid was clear and I said, "Yes." And she said, "Okay, come meet me at the office later, and we'll do the non-stress test and check you out and make sure everything's dandy." So I went and everything was fine. We were just waiting again for labor to start. I felt okay because I had been through this before, and I knew my body would go into labor, but at the back of my mind I was a little bit stressing out because I was like, okay, I'm on a clock again. I went home. Nothing happened. I woke up the next day and tried to get things going with the breast pump. That got contractions going, but they never stuck around. I ended up confiding with my doula about how stressed I was feeling that I was on a clock and feeling like why can't my body just go into labor? She was extremely reassuring. She came over, and we just talked for a bit, and I felt a lot better after that. That was in the evening, the day after my water broke, and I was supposed to go in for a non-stress test. So I went and met my midwife for a non-stress test that night. It was 36-ish hours after my water had broke. Still, everything was looking good. Baby was good. She was happy. I was fine. There was no need to rush into an induction or anything like that. But she could tell I was stressed. My midwife could tell that I was a bit stressed and she was like, "It's fine. We've got lots of time. You don't need distress.: And she's like, "But I can give you these tinctures or whatever if you want to try them." It was like the blue or black. Meagan: Cohosh.Johanna: Cohosh, yes. I was like "Sure, I'll do anything at this point. I'll try anything. I don't care. So they almost look like tiny, tiny little white beads. I don't know if they're always in the same form.Meagan: Yeah, sometimes they're in drops like tincture drops or almost like you said, a pill-like bead type. Johanna: So she was like, "Okay, let's give you one now." She wanted me to take four doses an hour apart.Meagan: Did you put them under your tongue?Johanna: Yeah. So she got me to take one when I arrived for the non-stress test and then when the non-stress test was over, it had been about an hour, so she gave me a second dose, and then she sent me home with two more. So we went home, and then I took one an hour after the previous dose and it was probably 10:30 at night at that point. Contractions started going after I took the third dose and I was like okay, they're probably going to peter out again because that's what they've been doing all day. I'm tired and I want to go to bed and I don't feel like staying up another hour to take the fourth dose. So me and my husband both took a gravel because my midwife told me to take a gravel and go to sleep.Meagan: What's a gravel?Johanna: A gravel is like an anti-nausea medication, but it makes you sleepy.Meagan: I did not know that. I've never heard of that. I don't think I've never heard it.Johanna: Yeah. Interesting.Meagan: Cool. I love learning. A gravel.Johanna: Gravel.Meagan: Yeah. Okay.Johanna: So yeah, she told me to take one and go to sleep because it makes you drowsy. So I think we had fallen asleep for maybe an hour and a half and I was woken up again with very intense contractions. And this time I was like okay, this is it for real. And like I said, with both my labors, contractions were intense straight out of the gate. So I woke my husband up. Taking the gravel was a mistake because we were both super drowsy. I woke him up and I was like, "I think you need to call the doula because this is definitely happening." And so he called her over and I labored in bed. I did my HypnoBirthing tracks. I did a lot of breathing through the contractions and the HypnoBirthing was super, super helpful, I will say that. We hung out for a while and just did that. My husband tried his best to stay awake despite how tired he was. Eventually, I think I waited maybe a bit longer than I probably should have to call my midwife because I was so determined to stay at home as long as possible. I didn't want her to come and be like oh, you're a 3, right?Meagan: See? Your mind. Even in labor we trigger back. We process things as they're happening from how they happened before, and it's really hard to let go. But your mind was doing it too, right? You're like no, I can't do this because I can't be that.Johanna: Yes. So what we waited, I think it was, I don't know. I have no concept of time. But we waited a couple hours or a few hours and my doula was like, "I think we should call the midwife." I was like, "Okay, can you call her?" So we called her and shortly after we called her, I was having contractions so intense that I was having an out-of-body experience. Like very, very intense. I was getting the shakes and hot and cold lashes. In my mind I was like, I'm going through transition. For sure, for sure. I'm going through transition. My midwife was not there yet and she would not arrive for probably like another hour.Meagan: You progress quickly from history.Johanna: Yes. So, by the time she arrived, she ran upstairs to my room. She checked me and she's like, "Okay, you're at an 8, so if you want to do a hospital transfer, if you want to go, we've got to go now." And I was like, "No, that ship has sailed. We're doing this here. As long as Bailey's healthy and I'm healthy, I'd like to stay here." So she was like, "Okay, we're doing this here." And she called over the other midwife because she wasn't actually sure that it was going to be a home birth, so she didn't have the other midwife with her, so she had to call the secondary midwife to show up. It was all very hectic. This time around, I plan on calling them much more ahead of time so that it's not so hectic when they arrived because lights got turned on, equipment was shuffled around and set up and definitely took away from the vibe a little bit. But yeah. So shortly after she arrived, I was complete and I had that very stereotypical moment where you feel like you got a poo.Meagan: And sometimes you just hold back because you're like, oh crap, wait. Do I need go poo first or should I have? Wait, what should I do? I don't know. I want to have the baby, but I don't want to poop.Johanna: Exactly. So I was like, "Oh my gosh, I feel like I have to poo." My midwife's like, "It's okay. This is normal. You're good." She was just encouraging me to just do what I felt like I needed to do. I ended up pushing for probably an hour, give or take, in a sumo squat position with my midwife on one side and my doula on the other side and then my husband would switch out for the midwife supporting me on either side. And yeah, I only had to push for maybe an hour, give or take. Her head got a little bit squeezed at one point when she was coming out, so when she came out, she was in a bit of shock. Because of where I was in my room, and the equipment was on the other side, my midwife had to make the decision to clamp and cut her cord and take her over to their equipment to give her a little bit of help which was very scary. She didn't end up needing oxygen, but they thought that she might. So she ended up being okay, but it was definitely a scary couple of minutes where I didn't know what was going on. But yeah, she ended up being okay. The only thing I was a little bit disappointed in was the second time around, not being the one who gets to be the one to hold my baby and bring her to my chest and missing out on that experience again.Meagan: Yeah.Johanna: But obviously I was amazed that I had done it. I had gotten my home birth, I had gotten my VBAC. I was in shock.Meagan: I can so relate. Sometimes you're so focused on pushing that baby coming out, and then it happens and you're like, am I dreaming that this happen? And you're looking around and you're like blinking and you're like, no, I'm awake. I just did this. I just did this. And you're so excited.Johanna: I was still in La La Land because I had labored so hard for eight hours and yeah, you're out of it and just in disbelief.Meagan: Yeah. Yeah.Johanna: Like, did this really just happen?Meagan: But it did. It just happened.Johanna: Yeah. So that was a really good feeling. Recovery was like night and day. I could immediately just go and have a nice shower and walk back to my bed and crawl into my bed. It was comfortable and I wasn't in pain. I had mobility, and I could lift my baby up. It was a good feeling. Although I will say that without the epidural, the fundal massage was a really unpleasant experience.Meagan: Yes. So for everyone that doesn't maybe know, fundal massage is something that they do after labor and delivery, they essentially put their hand, sometimes fist. Now it's not like they punch you, but think about a fist. Look at the bottom of your fist. They put the bottom of their fist along your uterus, the top of your uterus. They push down and massage. They push down and they massage. And sometimes they do it three or so times. You take a deep breath, they do it. You take a deep breath, they do it. And why they're doing that is because they're checking to one, make sure your uterus is clamping back down to its normal size right after birth and the placenta is out. It starts doing its job and going boop boop, boop, right back down to its normal size. But sometimes it can get a little boggy or bleeding can occur. So yeah, you want to make sure that. Now, really quick tip. If for some reason your uterus is still staying boggy and not clamping down as much, something you can try to do if you are able is urinate. Go to the restroom. That's a really big thing to help the uterus clamp back down. And even if you have an epidural, sometimes you have to get a straight cath. And if you can't go to the bathroom, sometimes you can get a straight cath to release. But yeah, that is not as friendly when you're unmedicated. But take deep breaths. If you can, get that baby on your chest or hold someone's hand-- your doula, your partner, your midwife, anybody's hand and just take really deep breaths and know that it's okay. It's okay. It doesn't last too long. But yeah.Johanna: So going back to our chat about postpartum.Meagan: Yeah.Johanna: So the recovery of vaginal versus C-section night and day for sure. But I will say that my postpartum with Bailey was way harder than with my first. It had nothing to do with the birth. I think she was asynclitic in my uterus. And so when she came out, she had a pretty bad case of torticollis and a tongue tie which made breastfeeding very difficult. I got mastitis twice in the first four weeks, like a really bad case twice in the first four weeks. I ended up with a bad case of food poisoning at three weeks postpartum.Meagan: Oh no.Johanna: And I had some prolapse symptoms as well. I will say that there were a lot of things happening in the first month, month and a half of my postpartum that I didn't expect and were very intense and difficult. I mean, just for breastfeeding, I was in so much pain that there were many times that I wanted to just give up and be like, nope, never mind. Forget this.So having good lactation support was really crucial.Meagan: Oh yes. And get lactation support before you have your baby. It sounds weird. It sounds really strange to connect with someone about breastfeeding before your baby is born. But oh my gosh, you guys, it's so impactful. I mean, we've talked about it before with The Lactation Network and other IBCLC supports. It's so important. I had similar. So my baby was born be a Cesarean. So in a Cesarean, a baby can also develop torticollis too with the way they are and the way they come out. But my baby had torticollis and she had a tongue tie. So very, very difficult. Challenging for sure and frustrating.It can impact things like mastitis and yeah, I love that you pointed that out. My was recovery all around better, but that doesn't mean my experience was all sunshine and butterflies. I really want to just highlight that one more time, you guys. Vaginal birth doesn't mean your postpartum journey is going to be the easiest. Mine wasn't. My VBAC after two Cesarean birth was not the easiest. It just wasn't. So again, get those resources beforehand. Right?Johanna: Yeah. And I will say, I don't know what I would have done if I wasn't with midwifery care and having them on call for the six-week postpartum because I swear, I called them every second day about something that was going on.Meagan: Well, and that's more unique to home birth too because even with the hospital birth midwives, it's not the same. They usually say, "Oh, I'll see you in six weeks," and you can call. You can call any OB or midwife. You can call any provider, but there's a different level of care and follow-up in that postpartum stage and it's very impactful. It's very, very impactful.Johanna: Oh for sure. Yeah.Meagan: Yeah. Oh my gosh. I love everything and I love all these tips. There are so many tips and nuggets along the way. Is there anything else that you would like to drop here for the listeners in regards to home birth or preparing or postpartum or any words of encouragement that you may have?Johanna: I mean, I think that, like I mentioned at the start, just arming yourself with as much knowledge as you can is going to be your best bet to get the outcome that you want and just feel empowered throughout your pregnancy and your birth. So just arming yourself with as much knowledge as you can get your hands on and yeah, getting a good provider, trusting yourself, believing in your body, and setting yourself up for postpartum too because that's an important thing when you're so focused on getting your VBAC is letting the postpartum stuff fall to the wayside.Meagan: Yeah.Meagan: Taking care of yourself afterwards too is important.Meagan: Yes. Taking care of yourself. We don't. We don't take care of ourselves enough, you guys. Really pamper yourself. If that means you have your postpartum doula. If that means you hire a house cleaner to come in every other week. If that means you hire or have family come in to help, just whatever. Light house cleaning or holding baby or playing with toddler. Johanna, she's going to have two, you guys. She's almost on her third, and it's another baby girl.Johanna: Oh, yes. Yes. That's three for three.Meagan: So three baby girls. I mean, you've got your hands full in your postpartum experience.Right. So really do it. I don't want to stereotype women, but sometimes we get into this space of,  we can do it and we don't need to spend money on ourselves and things like that, but this stage of life is so important to invest in yourself. Really, truly invest in yourself because you deserve it. And your sleep and your experience and your mental health, it all matters so much. So yes, you might hire a cleaner and you might be spending that money, but guess what? That's okay. Do it. Johanna: And when you're taken care of, then you're a better mom to your kids.Meagan: Yes, yes. My husband always says, "When mom is happy, everyone else is happy." But really, really, you deserve it. Women of Strength, you deserve to be pampered and loved and supported. So Johanna, thank you so much again for such a powerful episode. I'm so grateful for you. And please keep us posted on this baby number three.By the time this episode comes out, you will have had this little baby girl.Johanna: Yes. I'm due January 4th, so I will definitely be sending you a message when she makes her entrance.Meagan: Please do. Please do. Okay well, thank you so much.Johanna: 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 special episode, Kristin, host of Ask the Doulas podcast and founder of Gold Coast Doulas,  gives tips on building your supportive birth team. Krisin and Meagan talk specifics on HOW to switch providers if you're feeling the push to do so.Once we have our dream team, we're good and don't have to do any more work, right? Nope! We keep educating and preparing ourselves. That's the way to truly get the most out of that dream team. Kristin's book ‘Supported: Your Guide to Birth and Baby' is a one-stop shop where you can get all of the education you need for pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. Her advice is so valuable for VBAC moms and birth workers, too!Supported: Your Guide to Birth and BabyAsk the Doulas PodcastNeeded WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello. Hello. We have a special episode for you today. We have my friend, Kristin, who is actually the owner of Ask the Doulas Podcast on with us today. She is going to be talking about establishing our birth team and the importance of it. We're going to talk a little bit more about what to expect when we might not find a provider that's supportive and how to navigate it. She's going to talk more about her book and so many things. You guys, I'm really excited. Kristin is a woman who has always had a passion for supporting other women both personally and professionally. In college, Kristin served on the executive committee of her sorority and organized events on campus related to breast cancer and other women's issues. After the birth of her daughter in 2011, a new passion awoke within her. Kristin began reading and studying birth from all perspectives, philosophies, and medical approaches. She joined organizations like The Healthy Kent Breastfeeding Collation and used her event coordinating skills to build and promote the organization and create community awareness. You guys, she has done so many incredible things. Kristin's research has led her to learn more about doulas, and in 2012, she hired doulas herself for the support of her second birth. The level of compassionate care and comfort that she received from her doulas ignited a spark within her and led her down the path of becoming a doula herself. And man, can I connect to this because this is exactly what happened to me. When you guys have a doula who inspires you and touches you and motivates you the way it sounds like Kristin did and I did, even though my doula wasn't a hired doula, she was just a nurse that was a doula for the time being, it does something to you. She earned the certification and became teaching sacred pregnancy classes in 2013. But as you'll see, Kristin is a firm believer in achieving the highest level of education available when providing a service. Shortly after, she earned the following credentials-- you guys, are you ready for this? She's amazing. Oh my gosh. Certified Sacred Doula in 2014. She is a Certified Elite Labor through ProDoula. She is the Elite Postpartum and Infant Care Doula through ProDoula. She's trained in Spinning Babies, Newborn Specialist, Mother Ship, Certified Health Service Provider, certified in VBAC. She is certified in transformational birth and a birth coach for the Birth Coach Method. She is a certified pregnancy and infant loss advocate and certified gift registry expert through Be Her Village, who we will talk about. We both love them so much.She is also an author of a book which we will be sharing more about. It's called Supported: Your Guide to Birth and Baby. So without further ado, we are actually going to be skipping a review today and an educational topic because this is such a great episode to be educated and learn more about what Kristin is offering in her community. Okay, my love. Hello. Kristin: Hello.Meagan: We're officially getting going talking about this amazing topic. Tell me what you think about this. I think sometimes people want to assemble this dream team, but they let finances or even partners or other opinions get in the way.Kristin: Yes. Partner comfort level, especially with VBACs is key, or with clients of mine who want their dream is to have a home birth and their partner isn't supportive, so then they say, "Oh, it'll be with the next baby if everything goes well in the hospital." But then if they're a complication, they might risk out of the option of home. I think as consumers, we don't fully appreciate the ability to choose all of our birth and baby team. We can change providers. I switched providers with my first pregnancy early on because I didn't feel like that particular OB was on board with my plans to have an unmedicated hospital birth. I ended up switching to Certified Nurse Midwives and completely changed practices, completely changed hospitals in fact. It's a lot. Meagan: Yeah.Kristin: But it was worth it. And I had the time where it was easier to switch, but I've had clients switch very late in pregnancy. It was harder to find the right office to accept them, but with VBACs, it is crucial to have not just a VBAC-tolerant provider, but someone who is fully on board with your unique desires because we are all individuals.Meagan: Yes. I love that you said your unique desires. Everybody is different. I think it's really important to tell these providers what your desires are. We have a list of questions that we give people in our course and, of course, on the podcast. You can go down that list and check and be like, "Okay, this provider seems pretty supportive," but you guys have to tailor your questions and your provider. You have to tailor it to what your individual unique circumstances and desires are because everyone's is different. I would love to know. You said, I was realizing that this wasn't the right place. What kind of things were you hearing or being told or feeling when you were realizing that maybe your first provider wasn't going to be as supportive and in line with your unique decisions?Kristin: Just when I was talking about my wishes, I could tell that that particular provider liked structure and patience to get that epidural, and so once I started talking about movement, delivering in different positions and some of the things I had researched-- I hadn't yet taken a childbirth class because it was early in pregnancy, but I had done a fair bit of research before knowing what a doula was. I didn't hire doulas until my second. But I could just tell in that gut feeling which I rely on. Again, we're all unique. And yes, I do research, but I make decisions on am I comfortable spending my entire pregnancy with someone who can tolerate me and will say, "Okay"? But I could tell it didn't light her up. So once I found a practice where my nurse-midwife spent time with me, I had longer appointments, I could ask questions, and she was 100% on board with me, and then I was able to meet the other midwives and the OBs who oversaw them throughout the remainder of my pregnancy. I felt very cared for. And again, we are consumers. Whether your insurance pays for everything or you're paying for part of it, you don't get a do-over of your birth, and so it is so important, especially with that first birth to get the care team that aligns with you. That could be everything from a Webster-certified chiropractor, a physical therapist, a mental health therapist to deal with any anxieties that may come up with having a VBAC and getting a lot of fear-filled advice from friends and family members. I find that again, my clients are all unique individuals, and my students in Becoming a Mother Course, and now the readers in my book, have different goals, so I want them to choose the best plan for them. I love that you have worksheets and templates, but knowing that every situation is different whether it's a home birth, a trial of labor, or a hospital birth, that setting is different and the type of provider whether it's a nurse-midwife or an OB practice, how likely is the OB that is very VBAC-supportive going to be attending your birth? Are there 12 providers or are there only 4? And so there's just so many things to factor in when deciding what is important to you.Meagan: Yeah. That point that you just brought up, are there 12 providers? Are there only 4? Does your provider guarantee that they'll be there? These are things that I think a lot of people may not be aware of that because they found their provider. They're feeling good about their provider. They're jiving. They're having the feels, but then they may not be the ones to be there, so there are 11 other options. It feels overwhelming to be like, "Wait, wait. Do I interview all 11?" Yeah, guys. Yeah. You set up visits. It's okay. Go and see if you can meet with those. Make sure that that full team is aligned. It is a lot. That's a lot to take on, but it's okay to rotate and say, "Hey, I saw Dr. Jack last time. I'd like to see Dr. Joe this time," or whatever it may be. Really, really dive in, find out more about your provider's team if they have a team, and make sure that they align with your unique decisions and desires.Kristin: Absolutely. And that goes for doulas as well.Meagan: Oh, yeah.Kristin: So for VBAC clients, I, over the last couple of years, I do all of the matchmaking, I like to call it, between client and the birth doulas and postpartum doulas on my team, in fact. I like to find out what they're looking for. If they are attempting a VBAC, then many times, they're telling me they want a VBAC-certified doula. I have doulas that have gone through your program and are certified through you and other different VBAC trainings. They're not just wanting VBAC experience like in my early days of having Gold Coast Doulas. Now, they're wanting that certification because they know that information is being updated as things change. And there's more evidence for VBACs. They also want more than just, "Oh, I've attended four VBACs." They want the education behind it. So I think that is crucial. I'm not going to match, unless there's no one else available on my team, a client with someone who is not certified as a VBAC doula.Meagan: Yeah, I do the same thing with my group here where they're like, "This is really important to me. I want this specific type of doula." Some of my doulas have taken The VBAC Link course. And so I'm like, "Yep, this would be who I would suggest." But I also want to point out that even if you assemble your dream team doula, and they've got all the education and information on VBAC, and they're up to date, I want to just point out that it doesn't mean that you shouldn't inform yourself that you shouldn't get the information because sometimes I feel like it's easy to want to just hire your provider or your doula or your person and let them who know VBAC kind of help and guide you. But it is really important. You're doing yourself a disservice if you personally do not learn more about VBAC and your options as well and rely only on your provider or your doula.Kristin: 100%. The doula, I mean, unless you're paying her for it, will not be attending every one of your prenatal visits during pregnancy. The education that you have to make informed questions and decisions surrounding your birth plan or birth preference sheet, so those conversations are critical. The more information you have as a patient, the better. And as we all know, unless you're having a home birth, your visits are short even with a nurse-midwife. And so it's important to have those questions and to have time to really express concerns. Or if you're finding that that practice or that provider is not in line with your plans, then you can look at other options. And the hospital-- are VBACs even allowed at the hospital that you plan to deliver at? Are they going to induce? What are the Cesarean rates? And looking at all of the different options, and if you need to consider NICUs, that's always a factor in hospital selection as well.Meagan: Yeah, I'm going to kind of go back to where we were in the beginning where you realized based after your feelings and other things that this provider was not the right provider for you, you then changed to CNMs and had a much better experience. Can you discuss your process of that change? How did you change? Did you find the CNMs, have them request your information from the OB? Did you do a formal breakup with your OB? What suggestions would you give to someone who is wanting to do that? I know that sometimes, you were talking about it, in the end, it's a little harder to find, so that's why we stress so importantly to find your provider from the beginning. But we know that sometimes things change. So can you kind of talk about that process in then assembling that dream and getting the steps to get to that dream team?Kristin: Yes. So for me, I had asked friends about which providers they had worked with. So the original OB, a friend of mine, it was her doctor, and she had a great experience. I just wasn't feeling it. She had a student. We have teaching hospitals in my area, so there was a student in the room. I wasn't feeling like she was 100% on board. I could tell that she was very medically driven. I wanted essentially a home birth in a hospital. So I talked to more friends and did research online, and a friend of mine had used this particular practice. I ended up going with the midwife that delivered her three children, and it worked out beautifully because it was early in pregnancy. That practice had openings. It took me a while because I was changing hospitals and practices completely. My insurance, luckily, covered all of the options. But that's another thing to look into. Does your insurance cover the hospital where the provider you want to switch to delivers that if it is a hospital birth? Of course, you can VBAC at home in certain states. So just looking at all of the factors that would come into play. So for me, it was dealing with the paperwork of switching out of that practice, getting admitted, and going to that initial get-to-know-you visit with a nurse and doing my labs before I got to meet with the midwife that I had wanted to work with. And so it took a bit. I mean, no one likes to deal with the paperwork and the phone calls it takes, but your health is so important and especially again, for VBACs.Meagan: Yeah. So you essentially did all the paperwork and the transfer yourself.Kristin: Yes.Meagan: Okay.Kristin: I made all the phone calls, dealt with insurance and made sure that the initial visit was paid for along with the nurse visit, and then that insurance was comfortable with me.Meagan: Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, I did, when I switched, because I switched it 24 weeks, my midwife just faxed a request to my OB office. It took them a while to send it. We had to ask five times which I think probably would have been faster if I, like you, made the phone calls and did all the things, but I was like in this weird, vulnerable spot of like, I don't want to go back there.Kristin: Right. You don't want to deal with it.Meagan: Yeah, I don't want to deal with it.Kristin: Even just talking to the front desk.Meagan: Yeah, yeah. So we waited for it and they eventually got it. But I think that that's important to note. You guys can make the calls too. You can call and say, "Hey, I'd like to request my records to be printed out or to be sent to this place." Kristin: Yes, and that's what I did. Because otherwise it's six weeks oftentimes or you have to keep calling. They get lost. so I just handled it. But it can be challenging. And as doulas and certainly VBAC doulas, we know the providers who would be not only tolerant but supportive of VBAC. So we get those questions frequently from potential clients and clients of, am I at the right place? And of course, we support whoever our clients choose to have care from. But there's also, if asked, I will tell them about the practice and my own experience as a doula or the agency's experience. And again, in those large practices, there might be four who are so VBAC-supportive. They love it, but then there might be some physicians who are not as comfortable. They feel that a surgical birth might be the better route to go, ad so there's that. So what I like to do as a VBAC doula is to have my clients talk to their provider. Again, go over a birth plan or birth preference sheet and have them sign off on it. That way, if they don't attend the birth, then the other physicians know that this was approved. It's not just a birth plan that is thrown out there, but it has been discussed. It doesn't work all the time, but it has been helpful for my clients no matter if they're a VBAC client or this is their first baby, and again, they have certain goals that they want to achieve like potentially avoiding an induction unless medically necessary.Meagan: Oh my gosh. So I'm just going to re-touch on that, you guys, because that was really, really, really good advice and something I've actually never done or even thought about or suggested to my own doula practice clients. Get your birth preference sheet or birth plans everyone calls a difference. I call it a birth preference sheet, which is a list of all your preferences that you desire. Go over that with your provider, and have them physically sign it. Physically sign it and date it showing that your provider went over it. And like she said, every provider may not be willing to do that, but I will say, if a provider is willing to do that, that says something to me.Kristin: It does. Yes.Meagan: Yeah. Super powerful. Oh, my gosh. Okay, nugget. Grab it, put it in your pocket, everybody. Sign your birth preference sheet so you can have it and keep that in your bag, so if you do have that random on-call doctor who may not even know you or not be so supportive, be like, "This has already been discussed. We were aware of this. My doctor has signed off." Also, you could maybe ask if your provider could make a copy of that and put it in your chart.Kristin: Right. Because yes, it's not just the one that they have on file, but it's also for the ones that you have, that copy that you're bringing and showing the nurse so the nurse and everyone is on the same page. Meagan: Love that. Kristin: And again, with teaching hospitals, you might have residents in and out. There can be some difficult conversations with VBAC and residents who have never seen a VBAC. We're not fully trained yet to support VBAC, and so they might be making suggestions while the provider is not in that check-in. So every state, again, every area is different. I just happen to be in an area with multiple teaching hospitals.Meagan: Same here. We have seen it where I think, I don't want to say this badly. The VBAC world is a world that can have a lot of negativities in it, negative things and big words like uterine rupture. We've got residents who may be coming in and may be training under a provider who has seen a uterine rupture or has maybe molded an opinion on VBAC and is projecting their opinion to that student. Whether or not they're consciously doing it or not, they're saying their opinion, and those opinions might morph that resident's opinion into negative for VBAC. You never know. And so they might be doing things or be more hesitant in areas that they don't need to be, but they are.Kristin: Yeah, it's such a good point. And as you mentioned, I mean, we don't know the traumas that our nurses and medical team, even home birth midwives, have experienced, and they carry that with them. And how can they not? Even as doulas, we witness, but we don't have the liability and the medical training to make it, but we are witnesses of trauma and have our own healing to do to be able to better move on and support the next client. So certainly keeping that in mind that they may have seen something that alters the way they practice.Meagan: Yeah.Kristin: It's not just fear of lawsuits.Meagan: It's really not. It's not. There's a provider here in Utah who is literally so scared of vaginal birth herself. She scheduled all of her Cesareans, even the very first one from the get. She never had trial of labor or TOL. She just doesn't. So can you imagine what her Cesarean rate may be? And she kind of reminds me of the provider you're talking about. She really likes it just so controlled. Come in, start Pitocin, and get the epidural. She likes those things, which we know can sometimes lead to those Cesareans. And so really also discussing with your provider, how do you feel about birth? Have you had babies? And then we have another OB who's like, "I work in the hospital, and I love the hospital, and I trust the hospital system, but I actually gave birth at home with all three of my babies," and so really getting to know your provider, I think, is so good. Okay, let's keep going on this topic of assembling your dream team of experts when planning for birth and baby. What other things would you suggest to our Women of Strength?Kristin: Yes. So as we know, birth is as physical as it is mental, and just the opposite, as mental as it is physical. So preparing with a childbirth class, a comprehensive class, even if you took one before, use the lens of your goal of attempting a VBAC, a trial of labor. And so for us, we happen to teach HypnoBirth at Gold Coast Doulas and that mind/body connection that HypnoBirthing or a gentle birth offers where it's more of using the visualization the way an athlete would in preparing for a marathon or a triathlon, you are using things to reduce fear. You're understanding all of your options. It's very partner involved. I think taking a comprehensive childbirth class, whichever meets your individual goals, is great. That childbirth instructor is a great person to add to your birth and baby team. And then moving your body. So taking a fitness class that is appropriate for pregnancy. So prenatal yoga, there are Barre classes for pregnancy. There are prenatal belly dancing classes, whatever it is. Meagan: Aqua aerobics.Kristin: Yeah, water aerobics are amazing. And so thinking about baby's position and helping labor to go on its own or be quicker. There's acupuncture, acupressure, the Webster-certified chiro for positioning or body balancing experts, so many different options. But I am a big fan of educating yourself and preparing because as you mentioned earlier, Meagan, a doula is not your end all, be all. Just because we have the information and the training, we can't think for you. We don't want to think for you. The more informed you are, the more likely you're going to feel like birth didn't happen to you this time around and you were a direct participant, even if you end up having a surgical birth again.Meagan: Yeah, yeah. Yes. Oh my gosh. So talking about courses, you guys, we have our VBAC course. This VBAC course goes into VBAC, the stats about VBAC, the history of VBAC, the history of Cesarean, the stats of Cesarean, the questions, finding the provider, a little bit more of the mental prep, and physical prep. But when it comes to a childirth education course like with the course that she has, they're on different levels. I actually suggest them both.Kristin: Yes, me too. Absolutely.Meagan: But it's so important to know the information that is in your course. I know you go even past preparing for birth and then birth and then postpartum. You go into all of it. We're going to talk more about it. But you guys, we as doulas, love getting information and we love sharing information. But like she said, we don't want to be the only one that knows the information in a team. When our clients come in, at least here in my group, when our clients come in and they are fully educated and we're like, yes. And then we can come in with our education and our experience and knowledge, you guys, it is a powerhouse team. It is a powerhouse team. We have clients who, when they take child birth education classes like yours, they are able to advocate more for themselves. They feel stronger to stand up and say, "Hey, thank you so much, but no thanks" or "Maybe later," when our clients who haven't had that childbirth education or just any information other than maybe what we're providing, which is great, but not enough in the full length of pregnancy, it's a little harder. We have to try to encourage those clients a little bit more because it's harder for them because they don't know everything. We're there to help guide them and help advocate for them and educate them, but it is very different.Kristin: It is. It's so different. And I feel like, again, partners, especially male partners, want to fix things. They don't want their love to feel any pain, and so they may have the fear of a VBAC. So taking a VBAC class course, having a VBAC doula, giving information is just as helpful, if not more for the partner and their comfort level and to have them fully get on board because they may be resisting and just going along for the ride, but if you can get them to be an active participant in education, then they're going to be able to help you. And sometimes in labor, we get to a point in transition where we can't fully speak for ourselves. But if our partner understands, is educated and on board, and if there's time to talk through the risks and benefits and alternatives with your doula, then yes. But sometimes decisions have to be made quickly, and so for that partner to be informed and educated is crucial.Meagan: So crucial. It's so powerful. My husband-- he was not so on board. He was like, "Whatever. I don't care. You can go to the courses. You can do these things."Kristin: And that's very typical.Meagan: It's very typical. And I did. I did do those things. When I said, "Hey, I'm going to birth out-of-hospital," and he was like, "No," I was like, "Well, sorry. I've done the education. I know this is really where my heart is pulling." We touched on this in the beginning how partners really can influence decision making. And in no way, shape or form am I trying to say partners are terrible or don't listen to your partner or anything like that. That's not the goal of what we're saying is have an educated partner. Know that you can assemble a birth team, like a provider, a chiropractor, a massage therapist, a doula, a PT, or whatever it may be, but don't forget about your partner. Your partner is a huge part of your team, and if they're not educated and they're not able to help guide you through, or if they're not being supportive, find ways to help them be supportive by taking a course with them and helping them realize, oh, VBAC actually isn't that scary. Oh, that chance isn't really 50+%. Oh, okay. Hospital birth, out-of-hospital birth. Yeah. They're both reasonable, and really understanding that.Kristin: Absolutely. And sometimes I find that my students and clients may have not had success with breastfeeding the first time and potentially didn't take a class. So if their goal is to breastfeed or pump exclusively, then taking a breastfeeding class and having that IBCLC as a resource for their dream team in case it's needed because many times, you have the lactation consultant who's teaching the class, at least in my practice, and then they're also available for say, a home visit or a hospital visit, depending on where the class is taking place. And so I think that that's something. Even if it isn't your first baby and maybe you breastfed for a little bit or had supply issues or challenges after a surgical birth, that it is important to consider any education during pregnancy because it's much harder to get that education after you have your baby.Meagan: It really is. I love that you're touching on that, really getting into all the things and having your partner go with you. I remember I was like, I had a C-section, and I was swollen and tired, and I couldn't move very well. I was sore and all the things that sometimes come with C-sections. I'm trying to nurse, and I'm engorged.  I don't feel my letdown, and I'm just so engorged. I don't know. All I know is I have really big, swollen boobs. It's all I could tell. I couldn't latch. My husband was like, "That's it. We're going to the store. We're getting formula." Formula is fine. Not anything against formula.Kristin: He's trying to fix the problem and make you feel better.Meagan: Yep, yep, yep. Trying to fix that problem. But I was like, "No, I really want to breastfeed." At that point, I wasn't able to communicate. Like, I didn't get the birth I wanted. I already felt like a failure because I was actually told that your body failed. That's what I was told. So I was already dealing with this mindset that I failed. I had a C-section. I didn't want a C-section. And now the only thing I could try to do because I couldn't take that C-section back is breastfeed my baby. I wanted to breastfeed my baby. And again, we didn't take those childbirth education classes. He for sure didn't download any apps. I at least had an app trying to help me at that point, but he didn't understand. He didn't understand.And I'm like, no.I'm crying, and I'm like, "Please, just help me. I don't know what I need to help me." And he's like, "No, we're going to the store. Our baby's mad. You're crying." He was trying to fix that problem. But if we had already done that information education before and found that IBCLC before and him understanding how important that was to me, he could have been like, "I'm going to call her IBCLC. I'll get her over here right away."Kristin: Exactly. The last thing you want to do is go into the hospital to see a lactation consultant there if you can even get in.Meagan: Exactly. Yeah. So it just could have been so much smoother. Sometimes I feel like we were against each other at that point because he didn't have any education. With our first, I really didn't have much education. But with our third, it was like he really didn't have a lot of education. and I was over-the-top educated, so I was saying these things, and he was thinking I was demeaning him or saying he was stupid because it was just this weird thing. So if we can just come together with our partners and get all the education and get it all before really, find out a postpartum plan. Find out a breastfeeding plan. Right? Find out what you want. You guys, it just makes the pregnancy journey and the postpartum journey, so much better. It truly makes you feel like you're on that team because you are.Kristin: Yes. Absolutely. And certainly, I mean, you mentioned apps. Not everyone has the means or even lives in an area where they can take a comprehensive five, six, ten-week childbirth class. There are, obviously, online classes. There are some Zoom virtual ones where students are all over the place. But there are watching birth videos and YouTube and in my book, Supported: Your Guide to Birth and Baby, we talk about apps, so count the kicks. Especially for VBACs, doing the self-monitoring if there's fear of fetal movement and any sort of distress during the end of the pregnancy, then really understanding your own body and doing monitoring. It's not just when you're in your provider's office being monitored. You can make a difference yourself. So having some different apps and some education on your own, listening to podcasts like yours to get this information and reading books. So there's more than if you can't afford a childbirth class like HypnoBirthing, there are still ways that you can get educated and your partner can get educated. So yeah, take a look at all of your options and your budget.Meagan: Yeah, and we talk about this all the time because I love them, but Be Her Village is a really great resource where you can go fill out a registry and, hopefully, get some help for these things. Childbirth education classes, doulas, IBCLCS. But I want to dive a little bit more into your book, actually, while we're talking about different resources. We talked about the childbirth education, but can we talk about more about Supported: Your Guide to Birth and Baby and how this came into fruition and what all is included in this amazing book.Kristin: Okay, Meagan. So essentially the book came out of our online course. Becoming a Mother launched in the early pandemic when everything was shut down and our classes all had to go virtual. I was fortunate to be in a state where doulas who were certified were able to work thanks to our governor. So we were working, but there was still a lot of isolation even with our clients' prenatal visits. They wanted a connection, so we launched this course. We had talked about and did three live launches, got VBAC from our students, pulled people in from all the moms' groups before creating the first draft of the course. And then the course just led to the book. So the content in Becoming a Mother is what is in the book in a different format. So in Becoming a Mother, we have expert videos, so VBAC specialists and Webster-certified chiropractors talking about what that is. Pelvic floor physical therapists, car seat safety technicians, cord blood banking donation centers.Meagan: Awesome.Kristin: We have the experts speaking for themselves-- a pediatrician. And so in the book, anything that is medical and out of the scope of a doula, we had expert contributors, so I have a pediatrician friend of mine who contributed a newborn procedure section of the chapter and a prenatal yoga studio instructor, she's also a certified body balancer. She contributed to some of the fitness options in the book, and a mental health therapist who is PMA focused and certified contributed to the mental health chapter. We have an IBCLC that contributed to the feeding chapter, and so a lot of involvement, and then sharing client stories throughout the book and then our own wisdom. We have doula tips and wisdom at the end of every chapter. Meagan: Wow.Kristin: And so as clients were asking me for books over the years, I couldn't find anything that was positive. I felt like there were a lot of, this is your cry-it-out method for sleep because we have a whole chapter on sleep and it's very attachment-focused. It's like, one way for feeding, and we wanted our clients, with their unique choices for themselves, to have a book that supports people who want to plan surgical birth like that OB and that's their comfort level and a book for the same person who wants a home birth. You don't have to buy five different books. It's not always Ina May which is a great book but not for everyone. All of her different-- she's got Spiritual Midwifery and so many different books. It is great for grandparents to read and partners but is targeted to the mother or the mother-to-be and is great in preconception in that early planning. But also, we wanted to make it similar to the course and just as valuable for seasoned bombs as it is for new moms. And again, it's affirming. We tried not to have any fear-filled information in a simple, easy-to-read guide that you can pull out for reference and a lot of different, again, apps and podcasts and books to read and resources and evidence-based information about Black maternal health and where we're at in the country now and how the pandemic impacted birth especially, but also that postpartum time.Meagan: Wow. That book sounds amazing. So amazing. And you guys, you can get it in every form, even Audible. I'm a big listener. I like to listen to books. Kristin and Alyssa actually recorded it. She was telling me they had 10+-hour days recording this this book. You can get it, and we will make sure to have the links for that in the show notes. I found it at goldcoastdoulas.com/supportedyourguidetobirthandbaby.Kristin: It's there. You can find it off that website or it has its own page. It's supportedbook.com. Meagan: Supportedbook.com, okay. We'll make sure that's all in the show notes, so you guys can grab that. Okay, so you know a lot. Obviously, you wrote a whole book and a whole course and all this stuff. Is there anything else that you would like to share in regards to just our final assembling of that powerhouse birth team?Kristin: So don't forget, I know we're talking a lot about pregnancy and birth prep, but don't forget your recovery phase. And you had talked about your own personal struggles with breastfeeding engorgement, recovery after a surgical birth. If you have, well, you do have other children at home with VBACs, and so looking at childcare, postpartum doula support, or what kind of family support you're going to have after, it's more than just meal plans and prepping the nursery. We strongly believe that as part of your dream team, the postnatal team is crucial as well. So whether it's a lactation consultant, a pelvic floor physical therapist, if you want to get back to running marathons again or are leaking. I mean, we can all use pelvic floor physical therapy. It's not just the athletes who they support. Some people, again, with building a home or other life occurrences like a wedding or preparing for college, you look at your budget. You look at your main goals. For a wedding, it might be food. For postpartum, it might be sleep. So hiring a sleep consultant when baby's old enough or an overnight postpartum doula or a newborn care specialist. What are your priorities? And take the budget. What might be paid for by insurance or, a health savings flex spending plan that you need to run down? What might be gifted? Like you mentioned, Be Her Village. There are different ways you can budget. And in the book, we talk about all of that and looking at employer plans, how to navigate that, what questions to ask your HR department about other members, like a chiropractor, could that be covered? A therapist? Oftentimes, we don't know our own benefits and certainly, I don't know my husband's benefits fully, so to be able to investigate that early in pregnancy and figure out what might be fully or partially paid for.Meagan: Wow. That is incredible itself. I feel like that's a whole other conversation of, how to navigate how to do that. So definitely go get the book, you guys, because it sounds like there are just so many things in there that are honestly crucial to know. really, really important things to know. You are incredible. Kristin: So are you.Meagan: I just enjoy chatting with you so much. Anything else? Yeah, anything else you'd like to add?Kristin: And obviously, take taking trainings and courses. If I know you have doulas who listen. It's not just parents.Meagan: Yes.Kristin: As doulas go through The VBAC Link. Get certified as a VBAC doula. Keep up with information that is ever-changing. We all want to be the best doula for each of our clients, but I am a firm believer in continuing our own education and that more and more of our clients are choosing to attempt VBACs, and so the more information you can get as a professional, the better you're able to support. It's just not the number of VBACs you've attended anymore. It's clients wanting that knowledge so you can be busier and also a more effective doula by getting that training and then going through the certification process that you offer.Meagan: Yeah, have a directory actually with birth doulas where people can go and find it because when Julie and I created this company way back in the day, we knew that we were just two people here in Utah. We couldn't change the VBAC world. We could give as much information as we could. We could share the podcast. We could do those types of things. But when it comes to birth workers, we wanted to reach birth workers everywhere. It's so great that we have and we're still having more people come on because they're helping people so much. I mean, we know you have doulas that do it all the time. These doulas do help and there are actual stats on doulas that do it. But I agree. If you're a birth worker, stay up to date. Be in the know. Know what's going on because you will likely need to help guide your client through it. Kristin: Then you can charge more. So take that investment in a training like The VBAC Link, and then you're able to charge more because you're more experienced. You have more certifications. So don't look at like, oh, I don't have any money for continuing education. Look at how that's going to change your career.Meagan: Yeah, and I think sometimes too you can charge a little bit more, take less clients, and be more personal with those clients and dive into it. Especially because we do know that VBAC does take some extra stuff that goes on with VBAC. There's some extra work to be worked through. There are some extra things and so yeah, I love that.Kristin: Well, thank you so much for having me on Meagan, I loved our chat.Meagan: Thank you. You as well. As always, I loved our other chat as well. We have to keep going. I think I'm going to order your book today and get going on that. Even though I'm not a mom preparing, I think this would be such a great book to suggest to all of my clients. So thank you for sharing. Thank you.Kristin: Yeah. My secondary audience is certainly anyone who works with families in the birth and baby space, but it is targeted again, just similar to my podcast. It's like I have the listener of the pregnant individual and family, but also birth workers. The book is similar. Thank you for ordering.I appreciate it. Meagan: Yes. And can you also tell everybody where to find you not just in your book, but Instagram, podcast, and all of the social medias?Kristin: So my podcast is Ask the Doulas. You can find us on all the podcast players and you were a guest recently, so very fun. And certainly, we're at Gold Coast Doulas on everything from Pinterest to YouTube to Facebook to Instagram. I don't have separate social sites for my book because I honestly don't have time for that.Meagan: That's okay. Yeah, it's a package. It comes with everything, so you don't need to have another book page. Well, awesome. Well, thank you again so much.Kristin: Thank you. Have a great day.Meagan: You too.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

Can Spinning Babies truly transform your birth experience? Join us in this eye-opening episode featuring Cris, The Passionate Doula and the only certified Spinning Babies parent educator in Canada. Cris shares her journey and expert insights into how simple movements, mindful positioning, and the revolutionary Spinning Babies techniques can prepare your body for a shorter, less painful labor. Discover the power of techniques like the "flashlight game," forward leaning inversion, and the three balances that work together to optimize your baby's positioning in the uterus. In this candid conversation, hosts Ally and Melania explore how understanding fetal positioning can empower you and your birth partner to take control of the birthing process. Cris explains why having your baby in the right position of your uterus isn't just a lucky coincidence but a crucial factor for smoother labor, and how these techniques can change the entire course of your birth—from preventing prolonged labor to ensuring a more comfortable postpartum recovery.   Key Highlights: • Understanding the Spinning Babies Method • The importance of fetal positioning for labor success • Practical techniques like the “flashlight game” and forward leaning inversion • The three balances and how they create optimal space in your pelvis • Real-life stories of dramatically shortened labor experiences • Empowering birth partners through education and teamwork • Challenging the conventional, medicalized view of childbirth   Connect with Cris The Passionate Doula: • Instagram: @thepassionatedoula  Website: The Passionate Doula Connect with Melania & Ally: • Instagram: @rawmomversations • Website: www.rawmomversations.com   Resources: www.spinningbabies.com Home Birth VS Hospital Birth Episode Watch This Episode on YouTube   For partnership and collaboration inquiries: • Email: rawmomversations@gmail.com   Podcast Disclaimer: The Raw MOMversation podcast is for entertainment purposes only and not a substitute for professional or medical advice. The views expressed by hosts and guests are their own. Consult professionals for individual needs. We strive for accuracy but make no warranties. Any views or opinions expressed by the hosts, guests, or contributors are solely their own and do not represent the views of Raw MOMversations, its sponsors, or affiliated organizations. Raw MOMversations is not liable for any losses. By listening, you agree to these terms. Thank you for tuning in!

If you could choose between a functional efficient labor or a dysfunctional and inefficient labor, I'm guessing you would choose functional and efficient labor. I have been to many births as a doula and I've had 2 kids of my own. While the body may need time to open to let the baby descend and rotate, it can be a lot on the parents and support team to go through the experience of a long labor! Today on Yoga| Birth| Babies I have midwife Gail Tully of Spinning Babies back on the podcast. This is her 3rd episode with us and I have to say I absolutely adore speaking with Gail. Today, we talk about how to use Spinning Babies for a smoother, more balanced, more efficient birth. Gail offers us techniques and methodologies to help babies navigate more seamlessly through the pelvis. She talks a lot about the different parts of the pelvis and different techniques to utilize to help the baby through, depending on where the baby is in the pelvis.  You're going to get so much out of this conversation, Gail's a delight to chat with. We're very aligned in our birth philosophies and I have been using the Spinning Babies methodology for years. I'm currently working on the Spinning Babies Parent Educator Training (which was a fantastic 3 days in person followed by online training that I'm working my way through). You're going to want to take notes on the techniques Gail shares at the end – and if you're getting ready for birth, this is a great episode to share with your birth partner! Spinning Babies: For comfort in pregnancy and preparation for an easier birth join me and Spinning Babies Worldwide Virtual Conference! Go to spinningbabiesconference.com Additional Resources: Spinning Babies: The 3 Principles In Pregnancy Spinning Babies: Daily Activities Yoga| Birth| Babies: Birth Flow and Balance with Gail Tully Yoga| Birth| Babies: Spinning Babies Founder Gail Tully Don't forget to grab your FREE guide, 5 Simple Solutions to the Most Common Pregnancy Pains HERE  If you love what you've been listening to, please leave a rating and review! Yoga| Birth|Babies To connect with Deb and the PYC Community:  Instagram & Facebook: @prenatalyogacenter Youtube: Prenatal Yoga Center Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join Susan on our podcast today as she shares her journey to a beautifully empowering CBA3C! Susan had three C-sections that didn't have anything to do with her body. They just happened to be circumstantial. All three of her births had been traumatic emotionally and did not go how she wanted at all. As far as making decisions for herself and doing what she really wanted to do, that was not present. But with her fourth baby, Susan had a lot of firsts. It was the first time that she was really able to voice what she wanted. She was able to make decisions out of peace and being educated instead of making decisions out of fear and being told what to do. That was the first truly empowering step in her process.Our mission at The VBAC Link is to make all births after difficult Cesareans better, and Susan's episode shows exactly that. Coterie Diaper Products, Code VBAC20 for 20% Discount How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello, Women of Strength. It is Megan, and I am joining you with my friend Susan. Hello, Susan. How are you?Susan: Hi Meagan. I'm doing great. How are you doing?Meagan: I am so great. You are from South Carolina, and at the time we're recording, even though this is now going to be in February, South Carolina has had crazy weather. How has everything been with you guys?Susan: Everything has been great. We're actually extremely blessed with the area that we are in. Initially, I thought it was something to talk about because I had a tree fall in the back of my house, but once I saw everything else going on in the area and just seeing the devastation that people had gone through, we are incredibly blessed with, the minimal damage with it just being a tree.Meagan: And this was Hurricane Helene?Susan: Hurricane Helene. Yeah. So all of our neighbors are pretty rough right now, so keep them in your prayers and help out where you can.Meagan: Seriously? Oh, we will be. We're actually recording right now in October, and today is the day that Florida is scheduled to be hit with another really crazy hurricane. So, yes.Susan: I've been thinking of Florida non-stop too.Meagan: Seriously, if you guys are listening, even though this is in February, oh my goodness, I hope all is well and everybody is okay.We do have our Review of the Week, so I definitely want to get into that before you share your four CBAC stories. We have people question, "Why is it called The VBAC Link, but then you share CBAC stories?" But I think the solid straight answer is because not every birth ends in a vaginal birth, and not everything always goes as planned. And you know what? Also, sometimes VBAC isn't desired, and CBAC is something that we don't want to forget about. In fact, if you didn't know, we have a CBAC Link Community. We have The VBAC Link Community on Facebook, and we also have a CBAC Link Community which is just the most amazing group as well. It's actually run by Paige, our transcriber, who I absolutely adore and just had her fourth Cesarean, which was a Maternal Assisted Cesarean. I still can't even believe all of those things happened. It's so amazing. But you guys, if you are looking for a CBAC support group, go to The CBAC Link Community on Facebook, and we'll make sure you get in. We have a review. It is by Jamie Poor. It says, "The absolute best." Thank you. That is so sweet. It says, "After having a scheduled C-section in 2016 for my son being breech, he flipped between 38 and 39 weeks, so he came as quite as a shock. I knew I wanted to VBAC for my next birth. Fast forward to 2019, my second pregnancy with our daughter, I found your podcast and obsessively listened to every single episode. It motivated me and educated me leading up to my due date. It even made me look forward to my long commutes to work. I hired a doula. I drank red raspberry leaf tea, ate the dates, did the Spinning Babies and really did all the things. And guess what? With the help and the education and advice provided on this podcast, I got my VBAC. I learned how to ask for what I wanted and advocate for myself with my doctor and when my body cooperated and went into labor, I felt prepared. My daughter was born in January 25, 2020, and I have to say her labor, delivery, and birth was the most healing, empowering experience of my life. Thank you, ladies, for providing this podcast for all women preparing for birth." Thank you so much, Jamie Poor, for your review, and congratulations on your amazing, empowering birth experience.Women of Strength, no matter how you birth, we want you to have a better experience. That is our goal here at The VBAC link to make birth after Cesarean better. A lot of first Cesareans are unexpected, undesired, unplanned, and do sometimes bring trauma. That doesn't mean even future Cesareans have to have trauma or be unplanned or be unprepared for. We want to learn all the ways we can make birth after Cesarean better no matter how that ends. Okay Susan, ending that review, we were just talking about no matter how birth ends. When you filled out your form, there was something that you said that things sometimes don't go as planned, but learning how to advocate for yourself and know that every birth is different is going to leave you feeling better. So I'm excited for you to share your four stories with us today, and I am excited to hear how you learned and grew and had better experiences with each one.Susan: Okay, so the first birth, I was 19. I was really young, and I didn't know a whole lot about birthing in general. I just did what I was told. I went to the hospital. I did what the white-coat man told me to do, and I didn't question anything. I was just a good patient all the way around. I had an amazing birth. I walked 8 miles before my induction date because I was a week over just trying to get things going and nothing was going. But you know how they are at the hospital. You know, as soon as you hit that 40-week mark, they want something to happen as soon as possible. So around, 41 weeks, I went "overdue" according to the medical standards. I went into the hospital and was super excited. They started the Pitocin drip, and my baby did not respond to that well at all. I was actually watching It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and I was laughing so hard while the Pitocin was going that his heart rate actually dropped to zero, his fetal heart rate. I remember all of the nurses came rushing in. They were freaking out, and they were pulling on stuff and readjusting me. It was really scary. They stopped the Pitocin and then they restarted it, and then it happened again. So his fetal heart rate dropped scarily low two times. The doctor came back in and he said, "You have two options. You can probably go home and labor for days and days and days, or don't know how long it's going to be."Meagan: He made it sound hard though.Susan: Yeah. He made that sound not appealing at all. And then he said, "Or we can just go to the back and get a C-section and get this baby out." And I was like, "Let's do the C-section. Let's get him out asap," because I was just scared, and I was young, and I just wanted him to be okay. So we went back for the C-section, and it was a perfect recovery. I didn't really think much of it. I was just glad that I had a healthy baby.The second birth came along, and I was actually in a pretty tough situation at the time. I was faced with a choice of what am I going to do with my pregnancy? A choice that many women face. Whenever you're not in the most ideal spot to have a child at the time, no decision is easy. The decision that I chose for myself at that time was to do an adoption. I chose to go the adoption route. Whenever they had asked me about what I would want to do as far as the birth goes, I was just thinking of the adoptive parents and what would be best for them. It was a completely sacrificial thing that I did. I didn't think about myself at all or what would be best for my body or my health or anything like that. I just wanted to make sure that his adoptive parents would be there. To assure that, I just elected to have a repeat C-section. Fast forward a little bit later. I'm starting to learn a little bit more about natural birth and what that can mean in a woman's body and the benefits of it. I don't know too much, but I went to my provider on my third birth, and I mentioned, I said, "How would you feel about me trying to have a natural birth?" He just looked at me with disgust, and he was like, "Absolutely not. We're not gonna do that." I just really didn't know too much, and I just felt so defeated and like that really was the only option, and I wanted to do the right thing. I really didn't fight for myself. I think I may have mentioned it to one other person just briefly, and then I just dropped it. That was the third C-section. So at this point, I've had three C-sections that really didn't have anything to do with me or my body not progressing or anything like that. It just happened to be circumstantial. It really wasn't empowering. So far,  all three of my births had been traumatic emotionally and did not go how I really wanted at all. I mean, thank God the three babies were healthy, of course, but as far as me making decisions for myself and doing what I really would want to do, that was not present. So, fourth baby. So the fourth baby, I had a lot of firsts. So it was my first baby with the marriage that I'm in now. It was my first girl, and it was the first time that I was really able to think clearly and be able to voice what I wanted and be able to make decisions out of peace and being educated instead of making decisions out of fear and being told what to do. That was the first step that was super empowering in this process.Meagan: Yeah. I think when you start feeling empowered, that's where it begins, the second you start that. Yeah.Susan: Yep. So I went to my first appointment just to have the pregnancy confirmed. They were just pushing. The only thing they were really doing was making sure I got vaccinated. "Oh, your blood pressure's high, so you're probably at risk for preeclampsia." They're already putting me in all of these little boxes on my first visit. They're telling me to take aspirin because I had high blood pressure. I had high blood pressure, a lot of it due to white-coat syndrome just due to the trauma of being in the hospital. I was completely not at peace. I hated being there. I did not want to be at that doctor's office. And so I got in the car and I immediately am talking to my husband. We call his cousin because he comes from a family where it's really common to have home births and to use midwives and to use alternative ways. I was so blocked off that I really just couldn't see, but we started talking to his cousin and she was telling me, "No, this is actually totally possible. I know some midwives who are able to do it." I'm still clenching up with fear, but I want to let it go. I'm on Google and I'm like, "vaginal births after C-sections three times", and your podcast was actually the first one to pop up. I went on there, and I specifically looked up a story that had to do with a woman having a vaginal birth after three C-sections.  I just started to listen and my heart started to open and the fear started to dissipate. I was like, "I can do this. I can at least make a huge attempt to do it." And so I started to call different midwives and see what their availability was like. A good portion of the midwives don't want to work with you if you've had over three C-sections because they're contracted with the hospitals and are contracted with the state in some way to where they can't legally do that. It was really hard because I called around and called around, and either they weren't available or they just couldn't do it. But I finally found a midwife that was willing to work with me. Me and my husband met with her, and we sat down and talked. It was the first time I had ever had a conversation with "providers" where they actually believed in me, and they believed in my body, and they believed in my ability to give birth. It just meant so much to me to be looked at as a human and as a woman that can do this and not just as a patient who you want to push through and make money on and just get the C-section and be done and not have any risk involved. But there is risk involved having a C-section after three C-sections. There's risk doing it any way, and it's just like, what risk do you want to take?Meagan: Yeah. It's interesting, but what you were saying, "I just wanted someone to sit me down and talk to me like I'm human and have this feeling." I mean, I interviewed multiple providers, and it took me a long time to find that, too. That is what breaks my heart about this community. We have to go into these situations where we're searching for support that feels like a diamond in the rough.Susan: Yeah. And I want to just point out that even though this did end a Cesarean, and we all know that. There's no suspense there. There are so many points along the journey where I did have that healing. I did have that empowerment. It doesn't have to lead to a Cesarean in order to have that healing is what I really want my story to say. You can still make decisions and advocate yourself for yourself in a way where it doesn't necessarily have the VBAC.Meagan: Yes, yes, yes.Susan: Because I'm in the Facebook Community, and I see stories of women being so defeated and so sad when it doesn't end in the VBAC. I just want to inspire people that it doesn't have to be that. The empowerment can come in so many different forms. I was just completely elated after I spoke with her, and I just felt like it was meant to be. I loved her. I loved her energy. She had been a midwife for over 26 years. She had over 1100 home births and not a single maternal death.Meagan: Wow.Susan: Yeah. I just felt totally confident in her, so I went ahead and hired her to be my midwife. Just being able to go to her house and have the prenatal visits was so nice. That was another huge thing that was just amazing and not having to go to the hospital and fight every time. We did all of our prenatals there.She didn't beat around the bush. If there is an issue and I needed to address it, I would address it. I had a little bit of issues with my blood pressure, so I tweaked my diet and I was able to monitor that that way. Towards the end of my pregnancy, I had issues with my hemoglobin being low. I tried everything in the book, by the way, and the thing that helped me, just in case anyone's having issues with their hemoglobin, is I actually froze raw beef liver. I froze it, and then we cut it up into little tablets. I took this raw beef liver every morning because it gives you energy. Don't take it at night before you go to bed because you'll have trouble sleeping. But I took it in the morning and my hemoglobin went from like 9 to 11 within a week which was amazing because nothing else was working.Meagan: Yes.Susan: Yeah.Meagan: And I was going to say that frozen wheatgrass shots is another thing that can help with that. Yeah.Susan: Oh, I did not try that. I said I tried everything, but not that. Meagan: Liver and wheatgrass. Make a delicious smoothie.Susan: The things we do to stay healthy. So, yeah, sometimes people will try to make you feel like you're being irresponsible by not doing it the way that they've been programmed to do it. I'm just saying, it was totally responsible. If not, it was even more responsible because she may have picked up on things and was able to give me advice from a nutritional standpoint which is usually always the issue. It's something to do with your nutrition in your diet that someone in the hospital wouldn't tell me because all they wanted to tell me was to take an aspirin. Yeah.I went over. I was 42 weeks and 4 days, I think.Meagan: 42 weeks and 4 days?Susan: Yes.Meagan: Okay.Susan: So another thing I want to tell people, if you're planning on doing a home birth or doing a natural birth, even if you're planning on going to the hospital, I would recommend saying your due date is actually a month after it actually is to people just so you're not hounded at that like 39, 40-week mark because that was really hard mentally. Especially if you're planning to do a natural birth, it can be such a mental battle especially right there at the end and to have to deal with people know, being like, "Is she here yet? Did you have the baby?" It's just another thing to have to deal with. I would recommend saying it's a month after your actual due date. Yeah. I did absolutely everything you can think of to be the perfect student as far as home birth goes. I read every single book I can think of to prepare you for a natural home birth. I went into HypnoBirthing. I practiced the meditations and the exercises. I had the birth ball. I did all the exercises on the birth ball with my pelvis. I took all the right supplements. I did the pre-birth tincture. I was doing it beyond. People would try to talk to me being like, "You could die. You could bleed out," and I would cut them off. "I'm not having fear-based conversations. I'm not entertaining this. Yes, I'm going to do this because I want to do this. I'm not committed to this to the point of death for me and my child. If something goes awry I have no problem going to the hospital but this is what I'm doing. Leave me alone."Meagan: Good for you.Susan: Yeah. Yeah. So I was really proud of myself because they say it's like preparing for a marathon giving birth. So I really prepared. I had my mucus plug come out around maybe 42 weeks exactly. I was like, "oh my goodness, something's happening," because previously, I haven't experienced any signs of labor. I don't know anything. I've never had a contraction before.Meagan: Right.Susan: Even though this is my fourth child, I have no idea what any of this feels like. So I'm really excited. I'm like, "Wow, this is exciting." Actually, my water broke really shortly after that. I was sitting down on the couch, and I just started having gushes of water and gushes of water. I was talking to my midwife the whole time being like, "This is what's happening. There's so much fluid. There's so much." I had never had my water break before, so that was all new. I was scared. I was excited. She just reassured me. She goes, "No, this is just your water breaking." And she had told me that she's going to treat me like a first-time mom because I never have actually had a baby come through my birth canal. So a lot of times you can expect a long, strenuous labor when it's your first.Meagan: Yeah.Susan: So she said, "Your water has broken. That could either mean that it's going to speed things up and the baby will be here soon, or it could mean there's still a long road ahead." My midwife was really good about keeping my expectations very low as far as when the baby would be here.Meagan: Hey, I think there's something to that. We know that labor sometimes can be slower.Susan: She just didn't want me to stress out about it not happening sooner than later. She was just so good, so calm, so peaceful, and confident. I love her. She's the best midwife ever. I recommend her anytime I hear about people in the area wanting to have a home birth.I was starting to have contractions and then it would be like, go, go, go, and then everything would just stop. Because my water had broken, the chance of meconium was there. I had some meconium in my fluid, but it was yellow. It wasn't a high-alert type of meconium. It was just like, "Okay, we kind of need to get things going." So we talked and we decided to drink some castor oil. So I drank a tincture, the Midwives' Brew if you look it up on Google. I did that.Meagan: A lot of midwives will suggest that.Susan: Yes. So I did that, and it did throw me into really intense labor. We just got things going. I had my contraction timer going, and I had my sister and husband here. I really didn't want many people there at all at my birth. It's just such a private and intimate thing. That was just what I felt comfortable with. It would just be that. It would be a series of contraction after contraction, and then things would die down a little bit. I did every type of position you can think of. I went to the bath. I took baths. There was so much stuff I would do. I even found if I put my feet in really hot water, it would help take away from the pain of the contraction because I hate my feet being hot.Meagan: Oh, okay. Yeah.Susan: It would help me think more about my feet being hot. I would just do anything and everything I could to just help the process and help my body relax. As much HypnoBirthing as you do and as much meditation you do, every birth is different. At that point, I was like, "All of that is BS. All of that is crap." Hey, if it works for some people, great. I really tried to do it, but I had a lot of pain happening no matter what meditations or affirmations I was giving myself. I was talking to my midwife about that too. That's another thing I want to point out is that we all might have this vision of this really peaceful birth where the baby just slides out into your hand and you catch it and yay, everything is great.But also, I just want to everyone to give themselves permission to have a chaotic birth. If that's what your body needs to do, if you need to scream, if you need to shout, if you need to look like a hot mess, if your hair needs to be frazzled, let yourself do that. Sometimes just allowing yourself to let go a little bit can really help. I was laboring for three days.Meagan: Oh wow.Susan: I got to 7 centimeters dilated. I was so happy because my cervix was folded under.Meagan: Folded under?Susan: Yeah. So it was like a posterior cervix.Meagan: Oh, it was posterior.Susan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.Meagan: Oh yeah. It starts posterior and through the labor process, it comes anterior and aligns well with the birth canal and opens and dilates and all that. Yeah.Susan: Yes. So, by the time I got to 7 centimeters, that had finally come forward.So we checked myself, and I was 7 centimeters. My cervix had come forward, and I was so happy and I cried for joy. I was like, "This is it. I'm at 7 centimeters. It's go time." And typically, that's when they have-- what do you call it when there's that shift?Meagan: Well, active labor. When active labor kicks in, is that what you were thinking?Susan: Well, I had already been in active labor. But the shift when you're at the final stage, almost? Because you know how labor will get to one stage, and your body will adapt to that, and then it'll get to another stage and another stage?Meagan: So from 6 centimeters on is statistically like that active labor stage.Susan: Okay.Meagan: I'm trying to think of what other word you're meaning, but it turns into active. Transition? is that what you're thinking?Susan: Just the most intense part. Yeah. Maybe.Meagan: Yeah, so you transition into that stage. Susan: Yeah. Okay. So, I did not go into that transition. I stayed at 7 centimeters. And even though I was having extremely hard contractions, they were not productive contractions. There was a point where I was on my toilet because that was my most comfortable place to be. I felt the safest on my toilet because I was scared of pooping. That was a fear of mine, and I wanted to be on the toilet just in case.Meagan: Were you having back and butt labor at all?Susan: I was having some back labor. I mean, it was the most pain, and it was such a journey because  you're in so much pain, and you're like, "Wow, this is the worst thing ever. How am I gonna do this?" And then the contraction goes away, and you're like, "Wow, I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful to be here. I'm so grateful my baby's almost here." And it's just an emotional roller coaster.Meagan: It is. Yeah.Susan: So nothing was really happening as far as the progressing. My midwife comes to me while I'm on the toilet, and she goes, "All right, Ms. Madam. Let's get your pretty dress on, and let's go for a walk." I looked at her like, "Are you crazy?" But I did it. I got my dress on, and I went for a walk through my neighborhood. I walked probably 2 miles, contracting throughout my neighborhood trying to get something going.Meagan: Wow. Susan: Yeah. And then I come back in the house, and there was two midwives there. One of them said, "If I could do my labor over, I probably would have just walked and walked and walked until the baby got there and would have tried my best not to be scared of the pain or let the pain stop me from really pushing into the contraction." So that's what I did. I started walking circles around my house, and I was telling myself, "No pain is too great to bear for my baby to be here." And I was even talking to my baby like, "Let's do this. Let's go to the next phase." I got to a point where I looked at my midwife, and I just said, "I'm exhausted. I have to lay down." I lay down, and I woke up, and my sister was lying with me. I started to just feel shivery, like really shivery. I started to get chills. It was just like I felt like I had nothing left in me. As soon as the shivers and the chills started, I knew I probably had a fever. I was looking at my sister and I just said, "I really don't feel like I can keep doing this." She said, "Well, is there something else on your mind?" I said, "Yeah, I need to go to the hospital." I'm about to start tearing up. The midwife came in and I just told her. I was like, "I need to go to the hospital. I feel like that the next step is that I just need to get in the car, and if on the way there I change my mind and I want to come back home, I'm going to give myself permission to do that."She goes, "Well, let me just check you, and let's see what's going on." It was 12 hours since my last check. It was 12 hours, and I was still at 7 centimeters. I hadn't progressed at all. I immediately just got out of my bed. I put my dress on. I don't think my husband was quite ready to go, but my midwife was, so I just started walking to her car. I'm like, "I'm going to the hospital now." I just had made up my mind, and that's what we were going to do. It was a very peaceful ride to the hospital. I had my little Depends on. She put a little pad under me. I remember asking her, "So has anyone ever peed in your front seat before?" Everything was just starting to get a little haywire. I just couldn't hold it in at all.Meagan: Yeah, yeah.Susan: We were just having a fun conversation on the way there. We got to the hospital. Well, the farther we got to the hospital, the more at peace I felt. The thought of going home was terrifying to me. As soon as we got there, I saw the nurses in the ER, and it was like beams of light were beaming through their heads. I knew I was at the right place. I got there, and they were just so sweet and so supportive. I still wanted to entertain the idea of having a vaginal birth if possible. It was just that I had to get an epidural because there was nothing left in me. I had nothing else to give in my body.Meagan: Yeah.Susan: I wanted to entertain that. And they go, "Well, yeah." They were like, "Were you hoping to have a VBAC?" And I go, "Yeah, actually I was hoping to have that," but I wasn't so committed to it to where I wouldn't have had a C-section. I already knew that I'm just going to do what's best for whatever the situation is after they assess me.But they were actually willing to let me have an epidural and have a VBAC. They were like, "Yeah, that's totally fine if that's what you want to do." And I was like, "Really?" And this was a separate group of providers that I had never experienced before. So yeah. It was absolutely amazing being talked to and being actually asked what I wanted to do.Meagan: Yeah.Susan: So they were doing all of my vitals. And as soon as I got to the hospital, that's when everything went berserk. My blood pressure skyrocketed. My heart rate went up. I was preeclamptic, and I was septic from meconium being in my uterus for that long. As soon as she was checking me, my daughter, Carrington, actually had scooted her head up a little bit to kind of show us what was going on, and the meconium was green. So as soon as I saw that there was green meconium, I was like, "Take me back for a C-section right now," because we all know that's infection. They were so relieved when I was totally fine with having a C-section. They gave me the spinal, and I just remember that being like the best feeling ever having no pain after being in such turmoil and in pain for so long.As soon as they pulled her out of me, she took another massive poop. So if I would have waited any longer, she would have been in that as well, and her chances for aspirating on it would have been really, really high. So yeah, that was it.I felt really great about the C-section. It was empowering because even up until that moment, I still was making decisions for myself and making decisions for my daughter. The decision that I made at the end was to save myself and her. To know that I made that decision and wasn't so committed to an outcome that I was able to make the right decision was like, "Wow. Yeah. I did that." Even though this is something that I wanted more than anything, I was able to let that go and save myself and her.Meagan: I love that you pointed that out of like, I had this empowering healing experience because I was really able to make the decisions along the way. You made the decision to get in that car. You made the decision to continue laboring. Then things changed. You made the decision to call it. And I think that is where a lot of the healing and growing comes from, is when we are able to make the decisions. The trauma, the fear, the hurt is when providers are coming at us and telling us what we are doing. "You are going to do this. I will only allow you to do this. You can if..." and then they give their restrictions. I think that you just nailed it on the head. You were able to make your decisions and be in control of your birth. And no, it wasn't the original outcome that you wanted. You wanted that vaginal birth. You were going for that vaginal birth. Things were really looking great, and when they weren't, you changed your mind. I just think, Women of Strength, take this with you today and know that you are in charge of your birth. Yes, babies and births can throw twists and curves and hurdles and all the things along the way, but you are the one who can make the decision for you. You do not have to be told what you do and do not have to do. Now, we also know that there are true emergent situations. There are true, true, true emergent situations where we maybe don't have a lot of time to sit and think and ponder and wonder what we should do and then follow that. It's just we have to say yes or no right then because it's an emergency situation. Susan: And being able to trust yourself that you are going to know if you need to call it and when to call it.Meagan: Yes.Susan: And that your intuition and your ability to just be in tune with your body and your baby is there.Meagan: Yeah. Absolutely.Susan: Yeah. And you'll know.Meagan: You will know. We talk about the intuition all the time. I mean, I don't know. I would say if not every podcast, probably every other or every couple other, we talk about this intuition. It is so real. I mean, Susan had this intuition. She felt it. She really did. Everybody listened to her. It's so important to be heard and to trust that intuition. So I applaud you, Susan. I'm so grateful that you were able to follow your intuition and be heard and call the shots of your own birth because you did deserve it. I am so happy for you. I know everybody else in the world cannot see your sweet baby, but I can and she's beautiful. I'm just so happy for you that you're able to have these experiences, and you have grown through each one.Susan: Mhmm, mhmm. And just the preparation of having a natural birth and what goes into it physically and mentally is worth it in itself to just give it a try if that's what you're wanting to do. And then allowing yourself to go into labor so all of your body's hormones are released in active labor, even if you do end up having a C-section, that's super valuable for your health and your baby's health.Meagan: Yeah, I was actually going to ask you that question. Yes, it ended in a Cesarean, but would you still have gone for the VBAC?Susan: Yes. I wouldn't have traded any of it for anything. I 100% would have done it again even if I knew what the outcome was going to be.Meagan: Yeah.Susan: Yeah.Meagan: Well, thank you so much for sharing your stories today.Susan: Thank you for having me here and thank you for doing this podcast and being in the business of releasing fear among women because it's like a pandemic of the mind almost.Meagan: Seriously though, we are being told that we have to be scared day in and day out. I mean, we hear these stories. I recorded a story earlier today and it was just like constant fearmongering every single time she was there. That stuff gets really tiring and it's hard to stand up to. But again, it comes down to education, learning these stories, learning your options, and then again following that intuition. So yeah, Women of Strength, you are amazing.Susan: Thank you. You're amazing too, Meagan.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

Chrissie always dreamed that the birth of her babies would be the happiest days of her life. But with her first two births, they were among the worst. In today's episode, Chrissie expresses the heartbreak she felt after doing everything to prepare for a VBAC and not get it. Though she wasn't sure how her third birth would go, the healing, research, and advocacy she did made all the difference in her experience. She called the shots, listened to her intuition, and ultimately saved her baby's life by being so in tune with herself and her body. And finally, the birth of her third baby was the most beautiful, joyful, and happiest day. Coterie DiapersUse code VBAC20 at checkout for 20% off your first order of $40 or more.How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello, Women of Strength. We have a CBAC after two Cesareans story coming your way today. This is a story that we felt we should share because it is so important to document our CBAC stories as well. Even though there are a lot of things that are going to unfold within our guest, Chrissie's story, it's so important to see how much she has grown and healed over each experience. Listening to her, a few things came up in my mind as I was listening. It was intuition. We've said it for years, honestly since 2018 when this podcast began. Intuition is so powerful, and sometimes it's hard to turn into and understand what your intuition is or what fear is, but I challenge you right now to start tuning into that. When you're getting the feelings, is it your intuition? Really, really connect with that intuition because it is so powerful. Another thing that I felt was a big takeaway from her story was how much she researched and gained knowledge of her own rights and her own ability to say no or to say, “Not now, not yet. No, thank you.” Women of Strength, I know it's hard, and it's really hard when we're in labor. I know it. But you always have the right to say no. You can always say no. Chrissie really did such a good job at researching and educating herself and arming herself up with the knowledge that she needed to so she could confidently say no when she needed to but also confidently say, “Hey, this is something that needs to change,” and stand up for herself in that time. I do have a Review of the Week, so I want to jump into this, and then turn the time over to Chrissie. Okay, this review is hseller. Hseller, I think is how it is. It says, “Life-changing. I don't even know where to begin. This podcast has honestly been life-changing. I am currently 9 months postpartum after my first Cesarean birth, and I've already binged every episode. I honestly believe The VBAC Link should be a resource for every birthing person, not just VBAC, on how to prevent a Cesarean to begin with. This needs to be part of basic birth education.”Oh, girl. I am with you on this. I am with you on this. It says, “I have shared this podcast and the blog with every friend of mine who is expecting because I wish I would have known about it before my first birth. Listening to the podcast reminds me that I'm not alone in my experiences and that this is possible and to have an amazing, empowering birth is possible. Julie and Meagan deliver facts, stories, and inspiration in such a wonderful way. Hearing their voices when an episode comes on puts me in a happy place. My husband and I have already been talking about baby number two. I can't wait to share my next birth story because with an education and support I now have, I know it will be beautiful and healing regardless of the outcome.”Thank you so much, hseller, for your review. You guys, these reviews really do mean so much. It is now 2025, and we do need updated reviews. You never know. It may be read on the next podcast. We are switching things up this year with educational pieces and topics of reviews and things like that, so you never know. But please, please, please leave us a review. It means the world to us. Meagan: Okay, you guys, I'm seriously so excited. It's always so fun to have multiple people on the show and cohosts, but it's also really fun to have doulas sharing the story or listening to the story with their clients and giving their tidbits. So Chrissie, I'm going to turn the time over to you and then of course, Sarah will be hearing from you, I'm sure along the way as well.Chrissie: All right. Hi, I'm Chrissie. I live in Greenville, South Carolina and I'm going to tell you about my three birth stories. All VBACs and repeat Cesarean stories start with your first C-section. Julian was our first C-section.He was conceived during my husband and I's fourth month of dating. My husband and I both knew marriage and kids were our desire with each other almost instantly, but it was still crazy to think about how fast it happened. Everything was going fine until about 30 weeks when I started to be measuring about a week behind and was scheduled for a growth scan which we couldn't get into until about 32 weeks.During that scan, it was confirmed that Julian was measuring close to the lower 10th percentile and that I, from that point, would be scheduled for regular non-stress tests every week for the rest of the pregnancy. His check at 36 weeks was non-reactive which is not what they like to see. I was sent for a biophysical profile. He was graded so low that I was told to immediately go to labor and delivery and not eat or drink anything, which as a nurse, I know that means they were assuming I may have surgery in the very near future.I was planning to go to work right from my original appointment, so I reported to work, but then went right upstairs and burst into tears of fear. I was given fluid, and he woke up because of the scare. But because of the scare, I was scheduled for an induction at 39 weeks and because I didn't know any better, I was just excited to meet him a week early.On the day of my induction, I showed up bright and early, ready to get things going. I had done no preparation, assuming that my high pain tolerance and grit would serve me well. I wasn't against pain medication, but I was ready to test my limits. Julian passed the non-stress test, so they started Pitocin, and he was doing fine, so they decided to insert a Foley bulb to speed things up.When they inserted it, my water broke, so that kind of put me on the clock. Once I got to about 4 centimeters 12 hours later, I was somehow feeling discouraged and tired and asked for the epidural. My husband said as he was holding my hunched over body that a huge teardrop fell out of my eye as the needle went in and the zing sensation went down my leg.I, was already giving up, but had no idea what I was setting myself up for.Over the next four hours, Julian's heart rate would drop with every contraction while Pitocin was going. They would turn it off, and he would be fine. And then when they restarted it, he would have the non-reassuring heart tones again. I was not explained to why I needed to wear oxygen or keep flipping from side to side or what low heart tones meant. All I know is that at 1:00 AM, they called for a C-section because we were getting close to the 24-hour rupture of membranes.If I had known then what I have learned since then, I would have tried to steer my birth in so many different directions. Unfortunately, birthing people are not given this kind of information upfront, which is. Why I think The VBAC Link is so important for any pregnant person as it could potentially help 1 in 3 women who end up consenting to a C-section to this day. I was devastated. I never thought the dramatic push and bringing baby to my chest at long last was something that wouldn't happen for me, let alone I would mourn missing out on it. I was wheeled into the OR. My arms were strapped down to either side of me. My arms were shaking and pulling uncontrollably to the point that when my Julian was given to me, I was too scared to hold him thinking I would drop him since my arms felt like Jell-O. I've since learned that because my epidural was converted for the C-section that I would feel extremely unpleasant sensations of my innards being pushed and pulled out of my body. All I could think about was my dad saying, "It was the happiest day of my life when you were born," and somehow this was feeling like one of the worst days of my life. I felt a double loss. It took me a long time to get over feeling like a sham for not giving birth the real way, but on the table, they said we gave you a double stitch so you can VBAC the next time. Over the next five and a half years that became an overwhelming objective and purpose in my life. When Julian turned 1, I had my IUD removed. I still had not gotten my period back but was hopeful it would return soon since had started to wean him from breastfeeding. When it did return, it was not normal. I would be spotting for weeks afterward and had a strange dull pain on and off constantly. I was so desperate to get pregnant so that I could get my VBAC thinking that all the horrible feelings I was having would go away. Or so I thought.After what felt like the longest four months ever, I did conceive our daughter, Ellie. It was January 2020. To this day, there are so many songs, books, and kids' shows that I cannot watch because they remind me of the early days of the pandemic. My son and I both got flu A and flu B during the first three months of the year, and it was terrifying to be relieved by a positive flu test.As an ER nurse, I was put on furlough since no one was coming into the ER, and many of us were sent to New York City and hard-hit areas to help where help was needed. I had to tell my manager earlier than I would have liked that I was pregnant and scared to be around some of the symptomatic COVID patients because we did not know what would happen. Sometime in the spring when people couldn't stand quarantine anymore and were going out and socializing again, the patients in the ER spiked, and I went back to work at six months pregnant. Even though it was terrifying, I was glad to be out of the house with somewhere to go and have a purpose.Those winter and spring months were some of the most depressing and hardest to get through in my life up to that point. I spent a lot of the time doing all the things that you can do to achieve a VBAC. I took a mindful birthing course over Zoom because they weren't doing any in-person things at that point.I read several books, did Spinning Babies exercises, hired a doula, etc. The thought of finally getting my VBAC was at times my only motivator to get up and do the things some days, other than the bare minimum to keep my one-year-old and me alive as horrible as that sounds.When I reached 37 weeks, I went into quarantine, and the waiting game began. I walked miles and miles and practiced mindfulness techniques to get through the pain. I was scared that the epidural had led to my son being in distress. So by this point, Ellie had passed all of the extra growth scans. She was head down. Everything looked perfect. By 40 weeks and five days, I became extremely stressed out. I had an induction scheduled for 41 and three days that was making me so nervous. My husband and I attempted to speed things up, breaking my water in the process.As soon as I felt the gush of fluid, I felt my heart sink and was overcome with fear and regret. It was starting just like the first birth I did with the premature rupture of membranes and what I believed would be an inevitable cascade of interventions that would lead to a repeat C-section.The rupture occurred around 3:00 PM, and I decided I should try to rest and wait for things to ramp up. By 10:00 PM, things were regular but not painful. I decided to try and go to sleep, but because of my trauma from the first birth, I wanted to make sure that she wasn't having issues with deceleration. I got my stethoscope out and listened to her heart rate as I had done several times before that point. It sounded normal and I listened to it through a few contractions.Every time, I could hear her heart rate slow very noticeably. I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to go to the hospital because I knew what they would say. I didn't want to tell my husband because I knew he would want me to go to the hospital, but I was genuinely concerned for her. So I let my husband listen, and he started getting dressed immediately to go. I knew it was over.When you arrive at L&D, they ask for a reason for you being there. As a nurse, I knew what I was about to say was going to sound insane, but I said, "I think my baby is having distress. I heard her decelerations on my stethoscope at home."I could see the amusement in the triage nurse's eyes as I said this. But she said, "Okay, let's get you hooked up and see what's going on." Sure enough, she was already having category 2 decelerations, and I was only 1 centimeter dilated. The resident said that my contractions were only about 5 minutes apart, but that because of the decelerations, she would be admitting me right away.She said we could try fluids and some position changes, but it was looking like the C-section was going to be the only safe way to get her out since I was so far from 10 centimeters.Before she left the room, she said, "I know this is going to be very disappointing for you since you wanted to VBAC, but you may have saved your baby's life by coming in when you did. It's amazing that you knew to listen and could interpret what you heard."Long story short, nothing worked, and I was prepped for the C-section. My COVID test was negative, so my husband was going to be allowed to come into the OR. Tears were streaming down my face the whole way. I walked into the OR and sat myself on the table for the epidural. I was still in the clothes I had walked in wearing. That's how fast things were going. The epidural was placed, and they started prepping me after a few minutes. They still had the fetal monitor attached for some reason, and we heard her heart drop into the 70s and not come back up. I could hear the sense of urgency on the other side of the drape. And suddenly, I felt several sharp pricks across my abdomen. I was lying there with so many thoughts running through my head. But thankfully, one of those thoughts was, "I wonder why they just poked me like that. Oh, I guess they're checking to see if I was numb. Wait, I felt that."I yelled, "Wait, I felt that."And they were like, "What? Was it dull or sharp?" I yelled, "It was sharp." They poked me again and again, and I kept saying, "It's sharp." We could all hear her heart rate in the background getting slower and slower, and I yelled, "Just put me out. Just put me out."The pre-oxygenation mask went right onto my face, and the last thing I heard before I went out was, "Someone page the STAB team," which is the group of medical providers they call when they're assuming that a newborn is not going to be doing well. I woke up in a daze when I realized where I was and what had happened. I burst into tears again and asked, "Is she okay?"And she was perfect.They actually said she was screaming before they even pulled her out of me fully. Very strong and healthy baby Ellie. But another day that was supposed to be the happiest day of my life which instead was a day even worse than my first birth. I felt completely defeated, hating myself for all the time, effort, money, worry, hope, and mind space that I had put into something that I still didn't get. A few minutes after I woke up, the surgeon came up to me and said, "Your original scar did not heal right. It was defective, and because of the urgency of the situation, we had to cut through a higher area of your uterus so we wouldn't accidentally cut any arteries because the anatomy was obscured by the first scar. We realized while repairing the uterus that it was in the contractile tissue, and you will never be allowed to VBAC again."I didn't really care because I thought we were done having kids, or so I thought. But it made me feel really bad about myself hearing the words "defective", "obscure anatomy" and "not allowed" hung with me for a long time. I wanted to get out of that hospital as soon as I could. All I could think about was my failure and how all the feelings that were supposed to be fixed by this birth were only made worse at my follow- up appointments. At the 6-week check and the 12-week for IUD insertion, I had to actually be let out the back door both times so that the people in the waiting room wouldn't see me hysterically crying. I honestly didn't even want to go to these follow-up appointments because they just further cemented to me that I had failed. And I'm not someone who can be told that I can't. Even though I was for sure believing we were done having kids, I joined the Special Scars group on Facebook just to see if anyone had had a similar scar as mine.I didn't think we would have more kids, but I still wanted to know if I could. Unfortunately, over the past few years, I've only spoken with one other woman who had a similar scar as mine. The fact that it was so uncommon made me hate it even more because I couldn't find any answers about what it meant for me. I did seek counseling following these events, and eventually, I felt better but I still thought about what happened daily and could not stand to hear anything related to birth.Several months later, I started having pelvic pains. I went to be evaluated for an ovarian cyst, but when they didn't find one, they did see how crazy my first scar had healed. Because of the pain, they had agreed to do an exploratory laparotomy surgery to repair the scar thinking it could be the source of my pain and definitely a reason for the spotting I'd had between cycles. During the surgery, they found a large surgical hernia as well that they had to remove momentum from and recommended surgery to fix it in the future. Whatever the reason for the pain was the scar or the hernia, my pain was gone following the surgery and two weeks later we moved to Greenville, South Carolina. Everything seemed fine.Trying to settle into a new house that needs lots of fixing up with a one and a three-year-old takes time. I knew I didn't have an IUD in at that time, but my period hadn't come back yet since my one-year-old would not take to the weaning and I was still nursing her. I wasn't that worried.In August, my period did come back, and I decided to use ovulation strips to see how long after ovulating I was spotting to see if I could figure out if my cycles were in the normal range again. Strangely, the first strip showed up very dark along with the next several strips I tried and I was like, "Oh great, things are out-of-whack still." But that's when I remembered people sometimes interpreting ovulation strips for pregnancy since LH and HCG are such similar-shaped molecules. I decided to use one of the pregnancy strips that comes with the ovulation pack and sure enough, it was also darkly positive. I was inexplicably excited, and I sheepishly told my husband who was also very excited. We went to our eight-week appointment, and there was nothing on the ultrasound. My HCG was high, but the progesterone was low and they called it a blighted ovum. I eventually did pass whatever was in there. This left my husband and I with a new resolve to a third child and crossed the bridge of a third C-section when we got there. I started listening to The VBAC Link again-- something I had to erase from my memory in the past as it was another reminder of my failure to VBAC and not getting to submit my story of healing and success. There was an episode I got to where I really liked what one of the guests was saying. She was a doula named Sarah, and believe it or not, she was based out of Greenville.I knew that if we conceived again, she would be my doula.A year later, after a chemical pregnancy and a loss at 10 weeks, we conceived our second daughter, Leah. I had established care with the midwifery practice for the first few months until they saw my surgical records and transferred me to the OB practice across the street. Additionally, because I was 37 years old at this point, I was sent to maternal-fetal medicine for my 20-week anatomy scan to double-check that everything was looking normal, which it was.At my first appointment with the OB group, the doctor sat down across from me and said, "Well, your anatomy scan looks great. We will also do a growth scan at 32 weeks and 36 weeks because of your previous history of IUGR."And I said, "Sure, that's fine."He went on to say, "So you understand why the midwives transferred your care to us and that you're not allowed to have a vaginal birth, right?" By this point, I'd done some research on my birth rights, special scars, and hospital regulations, and answered calmly, "Actually, you can't tell me I'm not allowed to let something happen on its own. You're not allowed to force me to have a surgery that I do not consent to."He responded, "Well, I'm not sure anyone in this practice or any practice would be comfortable allowing you to VBAC."And I said, "Well, I'm not comfortable just going straight for a C-section at 36 weeks and not at least seeing how things go." I left the appointment pretty upset and even more determined to decide my own fate. As the appointments went by, each OB would say, "You understand that we would like you to schedule a C-section?"And I said, "Yes, but I'm not ready to make that decision yet. I'm still doing my research. What I have found is that the highest estimated rate of rupture after a classical scar is around 15%, but other studies estimate it to be much lower. Additionally, some studies don't distinguish between true rupture and dehiscence. Furthermore, most ruptures are not catastrophic, meaning loss of life, permanent disability, hysterectomy, and so on. Only about 2% of ruptures end this way, and they're often caught through monitoring or other symptoms before they can progress to anything beyond the risks of a typical C-section." Having done this research on my own, I became more confident in my decision to continue on the path of letting my body decide what it was going to do. Sarah, my doula, gave me more confidence. I had told her everything that had happened in my past and she said I had valid feelings and thoughts, and had made logical decisions based on my research.She sent me along her usual workbooks and resources for creating a birth plan, birthing positions, pain management, Spinning Babies, tea dates, etc. I told her I appreciated it, but I'm not going to do those things. I had done all those things and more and that had ended up being one of the hardest parts of my first repeat C-section having realized it made no difference at all. The last thing I wanted to do was spend time trying to be mindful and stretching instead of being mindful with my kids and family who were already there.This ended up being a decision I was very thankful to have made and Sarah was on board and fully understood my reasoning.Weeks went by. At every appointment, the OB would say, "It looks like you've been counseled on this before, and there's no need to go over everything again. Are you ready to schedule your C-section yet?" And I would say, "No, not yet."Looking back, they really didn't go over anything with me. All they said was because of my special scar and lower segment surgery, I was too high risk and not allowed to VBAC.I had done my own research and there are no actual numbers on a high transverse scar which is just above the lower segment, in the upper segment, or on the lower segment scar resection, which is what they classified my surgery as. I feel it's important to get these numbers as C-section rates continue to rise, more versions of special scars will occur and more people could possibly end up with scar revision surgeries before they're done growing their family.At my 37-week appointment, with some encouragement from Sarah, I finally got an OB who would talk to me about my options. She said, "I know we can't make you have surgery that you don't want. You're right. You're in a gray area. We don't really know the numbers for your kind of situation. I think it's reasonable for you to see what happens. If you show up in labor, we will admit you." And I was overcome with relief. Finally, someone was being honest with me. She knew I had done all my research and was overly informed of my rights. I told her that I just didn't want to be harassed or threatened if I came in because that would discourage me from coming in when I would have liked to which is right when labor started. She said I could come in as soon as I thought anything was going on and I would be treated with respect. Circling back to what I learned about EMTALA, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, it basically says if a hospital wants to receive reimbursement from Medicare patients, they may not turn away anyone seeking treatment regardless of their citizenship, legal status, or ability to pay.If a pregnant person arrives in active labor, they must be treated until the delivery is complete or a qualified medical personnel identifies that she's experiencing false labor.Furthermore, the person in labor can only be transferred if there's a hospital that can offer a higher level of care. The hospital I was going to was equipped to deliver VBAC and had a NICU. So I knew they were equipped to handle uterine ruptures, which they do about once a month, I've learned.I did agree to schedule a repeat C-section at 40 weeks and four days. At 40 weeks and one day, I got anxious and tried a half dose of what's recommended for kickstarting things with castor oil. It definitely kickstarted some things, and within about six hours, I was having contractions every four minutes.About two hours later, I was getting anxious to go to the hospital because they just didn't feel right. I felt them from my belly button down, and they didn't feel the same way. I remembered with the Pitocin, they weren't really crampy. They're more burning and sharp. I suddenly started feeling an urgency to get to the hospital so they could do the C-section. I texted Sarah to say, "We're going, but don't worry about coming just yet." My answer for why I had come to the L&D department was painful contractions. I already couldn't talk through them. I was hooked up to the monitors, and we could see that Leah was already having Cat 2 borderline Cat 3 decelerations.It's determined by how much the heart rate drops as a percentage of the baseline heart rate when not in a contraction. We tried some position changes, but I had already felt at peace with the idea of going back for a C-section, and my intuition told me it was time. I was extremely nervous to be strapped down, shaking uncontrollably, and not being able to enjoy my baby again.To my surprise, the spinal worked amazingly. I was calm, my husband was next to me, and I got to make all the decisions. I didn't feel pulling or pressure or tugging at all. It was the first time that I got to cry tears of joy after seeing my baby for the first time. I was informed that I'd had a small rupture and I had a very thin lower segment-like tissue about halfway up my uterus, which is not normal. I ruptured. It wasn't a big deal. We caught it. I knew something was wrong, and I had made the decisions that healed me, and I got my baby here safely. After my second was born, I remember sadly walking around our neighborhood, lost in the thought that I'd met all the important people in my life already and something was not sitting right with that. Never would I have ever imagined that a third C-section would heal everything.What I want people to take from my story is that you have to accept that you might not get your VBAC and work that into the process of attempting a VBAC. You can't put all your eggs in one basket for working towards that VBAC and ignoring the basket that needs some attention in case it doesn't happen.Making your own decisions and being confident in your reasoning makes all the difference. Yes, I did have a third C-section, but I know there's nothing I could have possibly done any differently that would have changed the outcome. I encourage people to do their own research, not just on rupture rates but on birth rights and patient rights.You cannot let your provider decide for you what they think is best for most patients because you're an individual and sometimes there isn't a perfect box to put you in.Your fate should not be determined by a doctor wanting to check a certain box and use that to make decisions that make themselves feel comfortable.Of course, ideally, you can find a supportive provider, but if you cannot, that does not mean that you can't call all the shots. You may rupture it, but it's not always, in fact, not usually some dramatic event. My most dramatic birth was before my special scar and surgery. So keep an open mind. Use the knowledge that you gained to instill confidence in yourself. Not getting your VBAC as a disappointment, but if you go in with the right mindset, it can be beautiful and meeting my third daughter was finally the happiest day of my life.Meagan: Oh, my goodness. I love hearing that. That whole end, I just closed my eyes and can hear you speak. And I was like, yes, all of these things are so, true. And I love that you point out that yes, you had a third C-section. Was it what you wanted in the beginning? Would you have wanted a vaginal birth? I'm sure you did. But, this is what I felt and you followed your intuition yet again. I feel like, along the story, but all stories of, intuition, intuition, intuition. And then hearing that you can have a healing experience. I think that is so important to point out that it can be healing. It can be absolutely healing. And I love that it was for you. I love that you were able to have your husband there and look back and be like, "No, I'm amazing." And you should be really proud of all the work you did, all the research you did advocating for yourself. It's not very easy to advocate for yourself. And I love the message that you gave to the other Women of Strength. Like, learn and advocate for yourself. Know the patient's rights.Chrissie: Yeah. Sarah: I think that's what was so unique and so awesome about your story, Chrissie, because even from  us starting to work together from the beginning, you just knew what you wanted, and you weren't afraid to say that. And you told me kind of like, "Hey, look, this is fine." Like you said, I gave you my packet and all of my welcome stuff for my normal clients. And you were like, "Look, I've done this before, and I know exactly what I want, and I know how I want to go forward with this birth." You were just so empowered and confident on your own, and I was just so excited to be along with you. And obviously, like, every birth doula wants to be there for the physical birth, but we also have to listen to our clients and respect their choices and decisions. When you were like, "Hey, we're going to the hospital, but don't come yet," it's hard to hear that. I was like, "Okay," but you knew exactly where you stood and what you want it. And, you know, I think that's just really awesome and amazing to have clients like you who are totally aware of, like Meagan was saying, your intuition and how you were feeling. So, you know, I think you have such an empowering story, and our stories can really go a long way, and you're gonna be that voice for people who are feeling so similar.Yeah, absolutely. It's hard to hear sometimes. Cause you're like, "That sounds so amazing. I would want to do that, but it can't." I think that's how a lot of people think. "Oh, that's good. She must have a strong personality." You don't have to have a strong personality to stand up and advocate for yourself in a lot of ways. I think a lot of it stemmed from you being informed along the way. You were informed. You knew your rights, you knew the evidence along things. I mean, here you are talking about them, and that's super important. It comes down with that education, because I do feel like the education is what helps us feel empowered enough to stand up and say what we do and don't want.Chrissie: I really don't have a strong personality at all. I was always very intimidated, trying to pump myself up for the next week of whatever week it was, visiting the OB practice, like, "Oh God, who am I going to see today?" But I just approached it with full knowledge of everything that's out there, as far as I know, because I've been researching it for a long time and just knowing my rights, I guess, I know that they know what they can and can't do to me.You can't force someone to have surgery if they're not ready for it. A C-section is a major surgery so I just knew to stand my ground in a polite and respectful way. Eventually, at the end of the wire, someone stood up for me in the practice, and I was very grateful for her because she gave me the last final push I needed to just wait for things to happen.Meagan: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you should be so proud of yourself and I'm so happy for you.And how was this postpartum? How's it been?Chrissie: It's been like, nothing.I mean, I have a third newborn, but I don't for some reason with me, subsequent C-sections, the debilitating pain is not there from what I experienced with the first one. I don't know if there are just so many nerve endings that are not there anymore or I don't know why. It's been super busy. So I don't even have time to think about what could have been or any feeling or thoughts. Thoughts about how I wish I could be feeling differently. But, yeah, very busy with the third and just so happy to have her with us today.Well, I'm so happy for you. Congratulations. I'm glad that even though you maybe didn't have Sarah during your birth, you had her along the way because I truly do feel like having that sounding board in that doula and that support along pregnancy can really impact and motivate people to learn how to trust that intuition and learn what they need to do and what's right for them.Chrissie: Yes, and she's actually helped me since birth because I didn't ask her to come during it. She has come and hung out with my kids and me so I could do certain errands or tasks. Our kids are actually obsessed with each other now, so it's kind of nice. Yeah.Sarah: Yeah. We bonded even more postpartum and now our daughters are movie night buddies, and they all like to play together.Meagan: That is so fun. I love hearing that. That is something that I tell my clients when they hire me. I'm like, "Hey, listen, you do not have to be my best friend, but I want you to know that I'm your lifelong friend." I feel like that just right there sums it up. Like, really. No, not everybody's going to be having their kids play together but I love that relationships can form and create in this manner.Sarah: Yeah. Yeah.Meagan: Okay, you too. Well, thank you again so much for being with us today.Chrissie: Thanks for picking my story.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

Ep 133 Description:  “There are two layers of spinning babies, it is restoring function to the body whether through pregnancy exercises or through body balancing techniques, which a pregnant person can do themselves or the nurse, midwife, or doula at the time of labor can also do it. And the more you do ahead of time, the less you need to do anything at labor.” —Gail Tully   Fetal position is a crucial yet often overlooked factor in the birthing process. Understanding how a baby's orientation within the uterus can impact labor and delivery is key to facilitating a more comfortable and empowered birth experience.   Gail Tully, the visionary founder of Spinning Babies®, has dedicated her life's work to revolutionizing the way we approach childbirth. As a midwife and birth advocate, Gail's groundbreaking techniques have transformed the lives of countless families, empowering them to embrace the natural rhythms of the body. Tune in as Gail shares her personal journey, the development of the Spinning Babies approach, fetal rotation, maternal positioning, and the importance of accessibility in birth education.     Connect with Debra! Website: https://www.orgasmicbirth.com  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/orgasmicbirth X: https://twitter.com/OrgasmicBirth  YouTube https://www.youtube.com/c/OrgasmicBirth1  Tik Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@orgasmicbirth  Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debra-pascali-bonaro-1093471      Episode Highlights: 03:48 Meet Gail 06:55 Empowerment Through Natural Birth 18:26 Challenges and Discoveries in Childbirth 23:09 The Development of Spinning Babies  30:20 Impact and Accessibility of Spinning Babies 34:40 Trainings and Certifications 37:15 Meeting the Evolving Needs of the Birth Community   Are you an expectant parent or doula or birth provider? We have a special FREE gift for you! Visit OrgasmicBirth.com/More to learn more!”   Introducing The Movie That's Changing How We   About Gail:  Gail Tully is the midwife who conceived and developed Spinning Babies®. Spinning Babies® went online in 2001. Over 40 years with birth including 20 years as a homebirth midwife, Gail now writes, teaches, and supports change in the birth paradigm. Back in the day, Gail was kept busy organizing doula program development in hospitals and community non-profits in Minneapolis/St. Paul while training doulas with DONA International approval status. Gail Tully developed the concepts and curriculum that revolutionized our view on the physiological breech. Spinning Babies®, Belly Mapping®, Belly Mapping MethodTM, Resolving Shoulder Dystocia*, and Breech Basics* are Gail Tully originals.     Website: https://www.spinningbabies.com     Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spinningbabies   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spinningbabies  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/spinningbabieslady   X: https://twitter.com/spinningbabies

What are the typical differences between hospital OB care and home birth midwifery care? Throughout her VBAC prep, Gesa was able to directly compare the two side by side. She was planning a home birth with a midwife but continued to see her OB at the hospital for the insurance benefits. Some differences she noted: Her OB used ultrasound to determine baby's position. Her midwife palpated her belly.Her midwife ran a blood test to check iron levels, and then suggested an iron supplement. Her OB did not track iron.OB visits were typically a few minutes long. Visits with her midwife were an hour or longer in her home. The hospital required cervical checks, laboring in a mask, continuous monitoring, and only allowed one support person. The way Gesa navigated her care is so inspiring. Her midwife was hands-on during pregnancy in all of the best ways and just as hands-off during birth to let the physiological process take over. Gesa's story is exactly why we love HBAC so much!Needed WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Julie:  Good morning, Women of Strength. I am really excited to be back here with you. This is Julie, and it is my first official episode back doing regular episodes. Just like we talked about a couple of weeks ago, I'm going to be doing– or was it last week? I can't remember what week it is. But we are going to be doing every other episode alternating between me and Meagan for the most part. I'm really excited to be back here. We have a really special guest with us today. But before we get into that, I want to say that I just got back from South Korea two weeks ago. No, two days ago. If you haven't listened to Paige's episode for her maternal assisted C-section, go listen to the episode that launched on December 2nd. I do believe it was maybe episode 357. Me and Paige are talking and sharing her story. I am literally so jet-lagged right now. It is going to be a morning for me for sure. If I'm a little clunkier than usual or my brain doesn't work just right, just be a little patient with me, please, because the jet lag is absolutely real. Before we do get started though and introduce our guest, I want to read a review. Meagan sent me a review this morning, and I think it's really interesting because she sent me this review this morning. It's a 1-star review, and you might be curious as to why I'm choosing to read a 1-star review, but I'll tell you a little bit more afterward why I picked that. This one is on Apple Podcasts. This person said, “Listened to 10 episodes, and found that the stories they choose to share are usually always the same with a twist. Didn't find any episodes that said ‘A C-section saved me and my baby's life' so lots of bias and fear-mongering from people who are selling female empowerment. Maybe I'm missing the episode where the hosts say that sometimes it's okay to have a C-section. With all of these birth stories, you would think I could relate with one, but I find that the anecdotes shared in this podcast are a really easy way to avoid talking about women who are actually statistical outliers.” I think that episode is really interesting. First of all, I appreciate everybody's views and perspectives. But also, I think that review is a little bit interesting because she said she has listened to 10 episodes. I'm just assuming it's a she. Maybe that's not the right way to do that. She said she has only listened to 10 episodes. It's interesting because I wonder what 10 she picked. I feel like, isn't it maybe a sign that all of the stories are similar because our healthcare system needs a lot of work? Clearly, if so many women are having trauma and unnecessary C-sections, isn't that a sign that something needs to change? I know that a lot of us have struggled with unnecessary C-sections and really traumatic treatment in the hospital systems, so I don't know. I wanted to bring that up because first of all, we do have many, many episodes where C-sections were necessary. We've talked a lot about that how C-sections are lifesaving procedures when they are necessary. I feel like we do a pretty good job leaving space for all of the stories, but let me know what you think. Go to the Instagram post today about this episode, and let me know. What do you think? Do you think we do a pretty good job? Do you think we need to have a little bit more talking about C-sections that are actually necessary and lifesaving? Do you think it's unequally represented? Let me know. I want to start a discussion about this. Go ahead and leave a comment. Let's talk about it. But I do know that me and Meagan have been very intentional with sharing a wide variety of stories and outcomes and necessary and unnecessary C-sections. Hopefully, you feel well represented no matter what side of the view you are on. Anyway, we are going to go ahead and get started now. Today, I have a really awesome guest. Her name is Gesa, and she lives in Charleston, South Carolina. She is a mom of two boys. She had a C-section with her first baby. The C-section was because of a breech presentation after she tried everything to turn him. Knowing that she absolutely did not want to have a C-section for her second baby, she navigated the difficult search for a truly supportive provider and ended up having a successful HBAC, or home birth after Cesarean, after having some challenges to get labor started. We are super excited to hear her story. We are going to talk more at the end about how to find the right provider for your birth and your birth after a Cesarean after she goes ahead and shares her story with us. All right, Gesa. Are you there?Gesa: I'm here. Julie:  Yay. I'm so excited to have you with me today. Thank you so much for joining me, and again, for being patient with all of my technical issues this morning. Gesa: Of course. Julie:  But I will go ahead and would like to turn it over to you. You can share your story with us, and yeah. I'm excited to hear it. Gesa: Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here and share my story. Okay, let's start with my first birth which was my C-section. Everything was going well at the beginning of the pregnancy. I was feeling a little bit nauseous, but overall, feeling well. Then at the anatomy scan, I found out that my baby was breech. I was like, “Wait, what does that mean? What does that mean for birth? What's going on with that?” We had so much time left. The provider was not worried at all. It was around 20 weeks so we thought we had plenty of time at that point. Babies are little. They flip-flop around. I was not concerned at all. As time progressed, he continued to stay breech, so he did not flip on his own. During one of my OB appointments, I was basically told, “Well, if your baby does not turn head down, we're just going to have to have a C-section.” There were really no other options given. At that point, I was actually planning a natural birth at a hospital, so that was not really what I had in mind. We had also taken a Hypnobirthing class which was awesome. We learned so much about birth and pregnancy that I had no idea about. Hearing that I was going to need a C-section if he wasn't going to turn head down was really not what I wanted. I started looking into things I could do to help him turn. I started doing Spinning Babies exercises. I started seeing a chiropractor. I did acupuncture. I even did moxibustion at some point which is really fun. It was a Chinese herb that you burn by your toe, and that's supposed to create fetal movement and help the baby flip which unfortunately did not help. I was out in the pool doing handstands and backflips about every day. I was lying on my ironing board at some point with a bag of frozen peas on my belly. I really tried everything possible to get this baby to flip. Nothing worked. I ended up trying to have the ECV at about 37 weeks. That's the version where they try to manually flip the baby from the outside. She gave it a good try to attempt, and he would not move. It was that his head felt stuck under my ribs. It was very uncomfortable. He was very comfortable where he was at. They had me schedule the C-section which I was really unhappy about, but at that point, I didn't really see any other option. It was about my 37-38 week appointment, and the OB wanted to talk a little bit more about the details of the C-section which made me really emotional because that was not what I wanted. I started crying during the appointment, then the nurse comes in and says, “Hey, we actually forgot to check your blood pressure. Let's do that really quick.” I was like, “I'm sure that's going to be great now that I'm all emotional and crying here.” Of course, the blood pressure was higher than it was supposed to be. The OB started joking, “Oh, maybe we'll have a baby today. Maybe we're just going to do an emergency C-section,” which was not what I wanted to hear at all. It made me even more emotional. I remember sitting in the office crying. Now, I had this high blood pressure. My husband handed me this magazine of puppies or kittens. He said, “Sit here. Chill out and just relax. Look at the kittens. They'll retake your blood pressure, and I'm sure it's going to be fine.” I was like, “Oh my god. Nothing is fine right now.” It ended up coming down a little bit. They still sent me to the hospital for some additional monitoring. It was all good, and we ended up being sent home. But I just felt so unsupported and so unheard in that moment. When I was thinking about the C-section, I was even considering at some point what happens if I just don't show up for my C-section appointment and just waited to see if I'd go into labor? But then I thought, “Maybe an emergency C-section would not be any better than a planned.” I had a friend who had an emergency C-section, and she said that the recovery was really difficult so that's also not really what I wanted. I went ahead and showed up to the hospital for my scheduled C-section at 39 weeks and 1 day. But I was so emotional. I was crying on the way to the hospital. I was crying at the hospital. Everybody was really nice at the hospital, but it was just not what I wanted. The idea of them cutting my body open and removing the baby was just so far away from what I had envisioned. The C-section went well. I really did not have any major issues. But recovery was pretty rough. He was pretty big. He was 9.5 pounds and 21 inches long. Recovery was a little rough. He had also a really difficult time with breastfeeding. He had a really weak suck. I just kept thinking, “What if he was not done cooking? What if they got him too early? He wasn't ready to be born yet.” We found out later that he had a tongue and a lip tie that the hospital failed to diagnose which just made things even more difficult. I, overall, hated my stay at the hospital. I felt like I was not getting any rest at all the whole time I was there. My son didn't like sleeping in the bassinet because why would he? I felt like there were people coming in all of the time and interrupting the little bit of rest that I was trying to get. They were checking on me, checking on the baby, taking temperatures, the photographer, the cleaning people. It was just like people were coming and going. The only person who did not show up who I hoped would show up was the lactation consultant. She did not show up for almost two days which was really, really disappointing. The first few months were pretty hard. I would say they were pretty rough emotionally and physically. When people ask me about my birth, a lot of times, I got comments like, “Well, at least he's healthy” or “Oh, your baby's really big, so it was probably good that you had that C-section.” That really upset me because I understand that it's important for my baby to be healthy. Yes, that is the most important thing. But at the same time, my feelings are valid about it, and my emotions. I felt really robbed of that experience to birth my own child. The fact that I had never felt even a single contraction really was upsetting to me. I felt that my body had really failed me. Yeah. I knew that if I ever were to get pregnant again, I would not want to have another C-section. So let's fast forward to my second pregnancy.I got pregnant again when my son was a little over a year and a half. Like I said, I knew exactly what I didn't want, and that was to have another C-section. When I found out I was pregnant, I pretty much immediately jumped on Facebook group and mom groups trying to do my research and find a truly supportive provider. I did call a birth center here in Charleston, and they told me right away, “We don't do VBACs. Sorry. You can't come here,” which was pretty upsetting because they basically see a VBAC or having had a C-section before is a high-risk pregnancy for your next which really does not make a lot of sense because every pregnancy is different. Just because you had a C-section, there can be so many different reasons. You should not be considered high-risk for your next pregnancy. I found a provider who I thought was VBAC-supportive. It seemed like that was my only option, so I started seeing her. As I was seeing my OB further into my pregnancy, I started asking some questions about birth. I really didn't like some of the answers she had for me. I asked about intermittent monitoring. She said, “No, we can't do that. Hospital policy is that you have to have continuous monitoring.” I didn't love the idea of being strapped to the bed. I wanted to move around freely. That was not going to be an option. I asked about eating. I got the answer, “No, we don't really allow eating while you are in labor. You can have clear fluids.” I was just thinking, “I don't want to eat ice chips while I'm in labor. If I'm hungry, I want to be able to eat.” I asked if I could labor in the bathtub because they did have tubs at the hospital. She said, “No, because of the continuous monitoring, you're not going to be able to get in the tub.” Hearing all of that made me really uncomfortable. Whenever I did ask questions, it almost felt like she didn't really want to talk about it. She didn't really want to talk about my birth plan which was really important to me. Now, at the same time, it was also COVID. I got pregnant with my second literally the week before people started quarantining for COVID. On top of all of these things that I didn't like about the hospital, there were also the COVID restrictions. I had to show up to my appointments in a mask which was totally fine, but the idea of having to labor in a mask made me a little uncomfortable. I was thinking about hiring a doula, and because they were only allowing one support person at the time, that was also not going to be an option. I knew my son wasn't going to be able to see me at the hospital which was something I was really looking forward to. I kept thinking, “Maybe there has to be another option. This can't be my only option here.” I started looking at places farther away. I was like, “Maybe I can travel to another place further away.” I was looking into birth centers around the area and all over South Carolina, really. At some point, I did come across a website that said they were offering VBAC support. I didn't really know what that meant, but I filled out a form. I said, “Hey, I need some help with a provider. I'm seeing an OB, but I'm not feeling super comfortable.” I submitted that form. I want to say that maybe a couple of days or a couple of weeks later, a midwife called me. She was like, “Hey, I'm not in your area, but I actually know a lot of people all over the state. Let me send an email to my network, and we'll see if we can find somebody who can help you.” One day, I got a call from a home birth midwife here in Charleston. She was like, “Hey, I got your message. Tell me how I can help you.” We talked a little bit about home birth. At that point, I was like, “Do I really want a home birth?” It was not something I had really considered.” During that HypnoBirthing class when I was pregnant with my first son, we watched a lot of videos of water births and home births. I always thought it was really cool, and I would love to have that experience, but at that moment, when she asked me, “Hey, would you consider a home birth?” I was like, “I need to think about that for a second.” I talked about it with my husband. I did a lot of research on home birth. I ended up sending her all of my medical records from my first pregnancy. We continued talking and checking. I continued to see my OB, and that was really for a variety of reasons. First of all, I had really good health insurance. All of my visits were covered, so all of the DNA tests, and things like the anatomy scan were covered by my health insurance, and it was just easy to coordinate those things with my OB. I also wanted to continue my care just in case there was something that would pop up that would prevent me from having a home birth and those plans would fall through. I'm a big planner, so I like having not just the plan, but also a plan B and a plan C. Yeah. I also like that established relationship just in case I needed a home birth transfer to the hospital. I've heard stories where moms were treated very differently when they arrived at a hospital with a home birth transfer, and in the case that I would have needed that, I could have just shown up to the hospital and said, “Hey, I'm a patient. I'm here. I'm in labor,” without them knowing that it was really a home birth transfer. I did not tell my OB that I was actually planning a home birth. I think she would have been pretty upset. Maybe she would have fired me. I don't know. But the difference in care that I received from the OB and from the midwife was really, really interesting. It seemed like at my OB appointments, there was a lot of focus on different tests and procedures like my weight. Further down, they wanted to do lots of cervical checks which I all declined. At the same time, when I talked to my midwife, the focus was a lot more on nutrition and on exercise. She was asking, “What do you do to prepare for your VBAC?” Lots of education on birth. There were lots of books that she suggested for me to read. I also started seeing a chiropractor pretty early in the pregnancy. I was doing my homework. I was doing my Spinning Babies exercises. I was so focused on doing everything I could to have the birth that I had envisioned. At some point, my midwife had me do some extra blood draws. She wanted to make sure that my iron levels were okay for the home birth, and they were actually slightly lower than they were supposed to be, so she put me on an iron supplement for a couple of weeks. That was an example of something that the OB never asked about or really cared about. At some point, I was a little bit nervous about the position of my baby. It almost felt like he was lying sideways, and I couldn't really tell. I brought it up to the OB. She was like, “Yeah. Let's get in the ultrasound machine. Let's take a look.” She was trying to feel, but she couldn't really tell. Everything was good. He was head down. Well, I didn't know he was a he because we did not find out the gender. Baby was head down. Everything was okay. I brought up the same thing to the midwife, and it was so funny because she did not need an ultrasound. She just felt. She felt really good. She was like, “Yeah. I know. I feel all of the different body parts. You're head down. You're good.” Of course, she was right. It was just so interesting to see how different things were approached by the two providers. I also hired a doula, and I made sure she was VBAC Link certified. It was really exciting. She was familiar with the podcast that I was, of course, listening to at the time to prepare for my VBAC. At some point, I had a situation with my OB that made me pretty uncomfortable. It was time for the GBS testing, and I had done my research. I made an informed decision. I let her know that I was declining the test. She was not happy to hear it. She kept saying, “Well, if your baby dies–”, and she kept saying that multiple times. It was like, “If your baby dies–”, and I was like, “This is so unprofessional to say it like that.” I totally understand that they need to–Julie:  Oh my gosh. I can't even believe that. Gesa: Yeah. Isn't that horrible?Julie:  That's horrible. Gesa: I understand she needs to educate me on the risks that come with declining certain tests, but that was just not a proper way to communicate that. Julie:  Yeah. Find another way. Find another way. Gesa: Yeah. Right. That situation really confirmed for me home birth was the way to go. I did not want anything to do with this hospital or this OB anymore at that point. I was fully committed to the home birth. I was planning on it. I continued my OB visits more just to check a box. At 37 weeks, my midwife brought over the birthing pool and some supplies. I gathered everything that I needed. She had sent me a list of all of the different supplies that we needed to buy and gather, so I started getting all of that. I created a beautiful birthing space for myself in our bedroom. I had my affirmations up. They were taped to my mirror in the bathroom as daily reminders. I had them hung up in the bedroom with some twinkle lights. I had the picture of the opening flower, and everything was ready. I had my Spotify playlist ready, and I was so excited for baby to come here. Then, at 39 weeks and 1 day, it was early in the morning, like maybe at 6:30 AM. I was lying in bed, and our toddler had climbed into bed with me. I felt a little pop, and I was like, “Hmm, that was weird,” but I didn't really think much of it because pregnancy is weird, and our bodies do all kinds of weird things that we can't explain when we are pregnant. I didn't think much of it. I went back to sleep. An hour later, I got up to go to the bathroom. I sit down on the toilet, and water is gushing out. I was like, “Shoot. What is going on? I'm not peeing. What's happening?” I just realized, “No, my water broke.” I wasn't expecting it at that point because you hear about a lot of women going into 40-41 weeks, 42 weeks, especially with their first pregnancy that they are going into natural labor, so I was so surprised that it happened at 39 weeks and a day. I was feeling a tiny bit of cramping, but definitely did not have any contractions. I texted my husband, “Oh my gosh. My water broke.” He was out for a workout, so he rushed home. I also texted my doula and my midwife just to let them know what was going on, but then the whole day was really uneventful. I was ready and waiting for labor to start. It just didn't. I went on a lot of walks. I tried some curb walking. I bounced on the yoga ball. I ended up getting a last-minute appointment with my chiropractor for a quick adjustment. I really spent all day just trying to get labor started. I took some naps. I also tried using the breast pump for some stimulation to get things going. I got some tiny little contractions. At that time, I thought they were contractions, but now that I know what contractions actually feel like, I realize that was not actually the case. I got some tiny contractions going, but then they fizzled out again. My midwife stopped by a few times to check on me and baby. She had me take my temperature every 4 hours and text it to her just to make sure I wasn't running a fever. Baby was moving normally. She wasn't overly concerned. She assured me that my body was probably just waiting until nighttime when my toddler was in bed and I was relaxed for things to start then. It was weird because I was leaking amniotic fluid all day, so I tried to stay super hydrated and replenish all of that water I was losing. I went to bed and thought, “Okay. This is it. We're going to have a baby maybe early in the morning. Labor is going to start.” Nothing happened. I woke up really early and really disappointed that nothing had happened. My midwife had sent me some information on PROM, so premature rupture of membranes, just to make sure I was making an informed decision. She always gave me the option to go to the hospital. She said that I could go in the evening of when my water broke. She said I could wait until the next day and do whatever I felt comfortable with, but she wanted me to be aware of the dangers with having a long time of broken waters. She also had sent me a recipe to the midwives' brew. That was something we talked about to get labor started. She said, “Something to consider for the next day if you don't have your baby overnight.” My husband went out. He bought the ingredients just in case. It was castor oil, almond butter, apricot nectar, and champagne. It was absolutely disgusting. It actually ruined almond butter for me for at least 2-3 years. I could not have it anymore. It was so gross. Julie:  Oh my gosh. That is so funny. That is funny. Gesa: I took it around 10:00 AM in the morning. At that point, my water had been broken for over 24 hours. I layed down for a nap, and maybe 2 hours later, I started feeling some contractions. They were coming in. I was just laying in bed breathing through them and listening to my HypnoBirthing affirmations and some relaxing music. My husband was actually taking a nap at that time with our son. At some point, things were getting pretty intense. I texted my doula and my midwife. I was trying to time contractions but it was also difficult. They both came over around 2:00 PM and realized pretty quickly that labor was going. They needed to fill that pool because that actually takes a while which was not something I was even thinking about.They quickly got the birthing pool filled. Once I got in the water, it was such a difference. At that point, I had some really, really heavy contractions and I think I got in there around 3:00 PM. It was such a night and day difference. My doula was awesome. She was rubbing my back. She was giving me cold washcloths on my neck. Yeah. She was super helpful. I was laboring in the tub. At some point, I needed to get out to go to the bathroom. As soon as I got out, I instantly regretted that decision because it was so horrible and the contractions were feelings so much stronger when I was not in the water. My husband was still sleeping at that point. I was like, “Okay, is somebody going to wake him up before baby comes?” But I also lost track of time of how long I even was in the pool. They did wake him up at some point. It was really funny because when he lay down for a nap, it was just me laboring in bed by myself. They woke up from the nap, and I was in full, active labor in the birthing pool with the doula and the midwife there, full action going on. He was just like, “Whoa, what's happening?” Yeah. He jumped right into action and helping me out and massaging and all of that good stuff. It was really sweet because my son kept bringing toys. He was a little over 2. He was 2 years and 3 months at that point. He kept bringing over toys. He was playing right next to the pool. He was checking on me. It was just really sweet and really special to have him there. Our dog was also walking around the pool and was really interesting in what was going on. I really lost track of time and of how long I really was in the pool. At some point, I felt some really, really intense pressure. It was almost like my body was pushing on its own without me really actively doing anything. I had heard of the fetal ejection reflex, but I didn't realize that that was what was going on. I didn't realize that baby was already coming. My midwife just looked at me. She was like, “Feeling a little pushy, huh?” I was like, “Yeah, I guess that's what's going on.” It all happened really quickly. My husband got our son situated downstairs because we wanted him to be there, but we didn't want him to be there right as baby was born. We thought that may have been a little bit too much for him, so we got him situated downstairs. Yeah, things happened really quickly. All of a sudden, his head was out. It was really fun because we got to feel his hair, and I did not have another contraction for a minute which was weird because his head was out. It was underwater, and it felt like a really, really long time between contractions. But then he was out with the next one, and my midwife caught him. He came right to my chest. My husband got to announce that he was a boy which I knew all along. We didn't find out his gender, but I just knew he was going to be a boy. My pregnancy was just so similar that I was like, “There's no way he's not a boy.” But yeah. He was born a little after 4:00 PM, so really just 6 hours from when I had the midwives' brew, so that really worked for me. Of course, I cried tears of joy. The amount of emotions I was feeling was just absolutely incredible. The rush of endorphins, I felt so empowered and so strong in that moment, like literally the strongest person in the world. It was awesome. We brought my son up and he got to meet his baby brother within minutes of his birth which was so special and such an amazing experience. Once we got settled a bit, I got to take a shower. I got to eat pasta in my bed, and then also safely cosleep with my baby in my own bed and in my own home which was just the complete opposite of that hospital C-section experience. Yeah, the home birth experience was really healing for me in a way. It gave me closure from my C-section experience. I think because I had the C-section, I just knew what I absolutely did not want, and I think that really helped me fight and prepare for my home birth experience. I still had to call my OB and cancel my 40-week appointment which was probably one of the weirdest phone calls I've ever had to made because I was like, “Yeah, I need to cancel my appointment because my baby is actually here.” They were like, “Wait, where was your baby born? We have no records of this.” I was like, “Yeah, he was born at home.” They were like, “You need to get him checked out immediately.”Julie:  You're like, “Yeah, accident.” Gesa: I was like, “No, we had a professional there. It's all good. Don't worry about it. Let's not talk about it anymore.”Julie:  I love that so much. Okay, I want to talk about a couple of things or maybe just comment. When you were talking about your C-section and how you felt guilty about how maybe he was having trouble nursing or whatever and you were feeling guilty that maybe he had been taken too early or he wasn't ready to be born yet and stuff, I felt that so hard with my C-section baby. I just wanted to validate that because I feel like that is not an uncommon thing. I feel like a lot of us have that concern when we have either a scheduled C-section or an induction that results in a C-section or maybe even an induction that results in a vaginal birth. You can look back at it and feel like, “Oh, maybe I made the wrong choice,” or “Maybe he was taken too early,” or things like that. I just wanted to validate that. Know that I see you, and I hear you, and I feel you. And everybody, not just you, but everybody. Try not to be too hard on yourself. I'm not speaking just to you, but everybody. Try not to be too hard on yourself because you were making the best decisions that you could with the information that you had available to you at the time. So give yourself some grace. Give yourself some love. I think that's really important is that we navigate our pregnancies and birth after having an unwanted C-section or an unwanted birth experience. Giving ourselves that grace is a really, really important part of it. I did want to talk about the difference in care. You highlighted a few things in your episode about the difference in care between a hospital OB and having a midwife or especially a home birth midwife. In the hospital, you're still going to see a little bit of similarities between midwifery and OBs, although midwifery care in a hospital is a lot more hands-on and a lot more personal and a lot more trusting, generally speaking, of the birth process. I just was thinking this morning about a post. There was a post in not even a VBAC group. It was just a local mom's group in my community. This woman was talking about how it was her first baby. She hasn't had an ultrasound or seen the baby since 10 weeks. She had a 10-week scan, and she hadn't seen the baby since then. She wasn't 20 weeks pregnant yet, but she was almost. She was just like, “I'm just wondering if this is normal. Every time I have an appointment with my OB, I only see him for 2 minutes. I don't feel like this is normal. I have some concerns, but I'm not being able to ask questions,” and things like that. It made me sad. It made me sad for this parent not being cared for in the way that she needs to be. It also made me sad because her experience is not that uncommon. I wanted to say that unfortunately, this is normal. You're not going to usually see your OB for more than a couple of minutes per visit. You're not going to have time to ask a lot of questions and get a lot of answers because hospitals are busy and OBs are busy. Most of them don't have the time or intentionally make the time to give you that kind of attention. It's just how it is. Now, I say most of the time because there are some OBs. I saw briefly an OB for my third pregnancy, and I love her. She was always 45 minutes late. Our appointments were always 45 minutes late. My appointment would be at 1:45, and I wouldn't get in there until 2:00 because she was giving everybody the attention that they needed. A lot of people get frustrated because she was an hour late for the visits, but I wasn't frustrated because I knew that she was giving other people the same attention that she gave to me. That is so, so rare in a hospital setting. I love that you highlighted that. I love that you talked about how your midwife took time to address your concerns, how she monitored your iron levels and gave your iron supplements and your OB didn't. It wasn't even on his or her radar. I don't know if your OB was a boy or girl. I can't remember. Their radar, right? And how your OB needed an ultrasound to confirm baby's position, but your midwife just palpated your belly because midwives are more hands-on. They are more intimately connected to the female body, to the baby, and to the physiologic birth process. Gesa: Yeah. She was more hands-on during the pregnancy, but then during the actual birth, she was very hands-off. She let me do my own thing. Julie:  Yeah! Yeah. Gesa: She wasn't constantly in my space and interrupting my labor. Julie:  Right. Gesa: She would come in very quietly and very softly. She would check on the baby and check on me, and if everything was good, she was back out the door. She let me labor in my own space and at my own pace which was awesome. Julie:  Right. I was going to talk about that next actually. I've been keeping notes while you have been talking because during your labor, you said you felt that fetal ejection reflex, and your midwife was like, “Oh, feeling pushy are we?” I know exactly what that looks like. I'm not a midwife, but I'm a doula. I've been a doula and a birth photographer, and I know what it looks like when a woman's body is progressing. But in a hospital setting, what do we do? We connect you to monitors. We put an IV in you. We sit at a nurse's station and watch the monitor. That's how we know how you are doing. We use ultrasounds to determine baby's position. We use data and numbers. We look at data to decide how the parent and the baby are doing. But in midwifery care, especially out-of-hospital midwifery care, you use a completely set of tools. We use observation. We are watching. We are listening. We are seeing. We are noticing the movements that are shifting and the sounds as they evolve and change. We are seeing the belly moved. We are seeing all of the different things, and it's a completely different approach. I know exactly what an unmedicated parent looks like as they are getting close to transition. I know the noises that change, what sounds are made, what different subtleties there are. You just learn these things when you actually just watch a laboring person, and notice what is happening. But they don't do that in a hospital. An OB and nurses– probably nurses because they are in the room a little bit more, but your OB won't show up until you start pushing. They don't know what the signs are. All they have is the data on the machine to see if you are doing. I know what approach I approve. Let's just say that. It's no secret that I'm a big fan of home births, especially for VBAC, when the parent feels comfortable there. I just really loved that. My appointments when I had my three VBACs at home, every time I saw my midwife, we would chat for an hour. She did talk about nutrition. I had preeclampsia for my first. My blood pressure was high. I was like, “I don't want high blood pressure,” so she gave me all of these nutritional things to do to help take care of my heart and help make sure that my blood pressure wasn't high. But then what would happen in the hospital? They wait until your blood pressure is high, then they treat it. They don't work on preventing it or making you healthier or things like that. I just feel like there is such a big difference in care. It's not for everybody. That's not where everybody feels safe, but I wanted people to know that home-birth midwives are very skilled. They are very hands-on throughout the pregnancy and oftentimes hands-off during the delivery because we trust these bodies to do what they need to do. Sometimes they do need help, but also observing and watching can help us know when a little bit of extra help is needed. It's such a fun little dance that can be done throughout pregnancy and labor. It's kind of like an art form as much as it is a medical side of things. Midwives are not chicken-dancing hippies that run around your room with incense and pray for a safe delivery. They are skilled medical professionals that have high levels of training and care and can practice in very similar ways that you see in a hospital setting just without all of the extra crap and interventions that are there. Obviously, they can't do surgery, and depending on your state and where you live, there are different restrictions about what out-of-hospital midwives can and cannot do. But a lot of people are surprised to find out how much training and knowledge and skills and procedures that out-of-hospital midwives have access to, so I wanted to talk about that. Yeah. Anyway, Gesa, do you want to give one piece of advice to anybody preparing for a VBAC right now? What would you tell anybody?Gesa: I think a lot of people, when they go to the doctor, they see their OB and they heavily rely on what they are telling them. They almost glorify the OB's advice in a way. We have got to remember that these doctors work for us. We don't work for them, so if we don't feel comfortable with what they are saying, we have the option to go somewhere else, and to take our business somewhere else. The doctors work for us. We don't work for them. It is never too late to switch your provider. I was going back and forth whenever I was pregnant with my first, and I was very late into my pregnancy. I kept thinking, “What if I just find a provider who does breech births?” In a way, I wish I had, but then you never know what actually would have happened, so it's hard to say how that would have changed my experience. I could have still ended up with a C-section, but I could have. I could have changed my provider at 38 weeks if I had contacted somebody, but I was just so overwhelmed by the whole situation that I didn't. But I was so glad that when I wasn't feeling comfortable with my OB during my second pregnancy and with what she was saying, that I took the step to find somebody who was truly supportive and who was able to help me with the birth that I had envisioned. Julie:  Yes. I absolutely love that. I think that's great advice. You make a very good point. It's never too late to switch providers. I think that the single most important thing that you can do to affect your birth outcome is to choose a provider who operates in the way that you want to birth just naturally. It's just what they do anyway. I feel like if you do that, then that's half the battle. Gesa: Yeah. 100%. I know some people feel very comfortable at the hospital, and a lot of people are not good candidates for a home birth. Julie:  Yeah, and that's where they should be. Gesa: When I told people that I was planning a home birth, I got a lot of people saying, “Are you sure? That's so scary.” If that's scary to you, then you shouldn't do it. If you feel safer in a hospital, go ahead. There's nothing wrong with that. Go to the hospital. Have your baby there if that's where you feel comfortable. For me, just the thought of having to fight for certain things while I'm in labor and very vulnerable wasn't something I wanted to do. I wanted to focus on laboring and birthing and just having that experience. I did not want to get into fights with OBs and nurses over whatever I could or could not do while at the hospital. That just did not sound like a good idea to me. Julie:  Yep. Absolutely. I agree, 100%. All right, well thank you so much for joining me today. Thanks for sharing your story with us. I'm super proud of you. You said that after your baby was born, you felt like the strongest woman ever. I agree. You are the strongest woman ever along with all of the women listening right now. We are truly Women of Strength, and no matter how your birth outcome ends, you are strong. You are powerful. I'm very grateful to each of 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

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

Katie has had a Cesarean (failure to progress), a VBAC, and most recently, an unmedicated breech VBAC!She talks about the power of mom and baby working together during labor. She is 4'10” and attributes so much of her first successful VBAC to movement. Katie's most recent baby was frank breech throughout her entire pregnancy. After multiple ECV attempts, she exhausted all options to seek out a vaginal breech provider. She was able to work with providers while still advocating for what felt right to her. Though there were some wild twists and turns, this breech vaginal birth showed Katie, yet again, just what her body is capable of! The VBAC Link Blog: Why Babies Go Breech & 5 Things You Can Do About ItThe VBAC Link Blog: ECV and BreechHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Julie: Welcome, welcome. You are listening to The VBAC Link Podcast. This is Julie Francom here with you today. I'm super excited to be sharing some episodes with you guys this year and helping out Meagan a little bit and keeping things rocking and rolling here at The VBAC Link. I am excited to be back, and I am especially excited to be joined by Katie today who has a really, really incredible story about her three births. Her first was a C-section. Her second was a VBAC, and her third was an unmedicated breech VBAC. I absolutely love hearing stories about vaginal breech birth because I feel like it's something that we need to bring back. It's only fair to offer people options when we have a breech baby. I don't think it should just be an automatic C-section. I'm excited to hear her story. I'm excited to hear her journey to find support in that regard. But first, I'm going to read a review. This review is actually from our VBAC Prep course. If you didn't know, we do have a course preparing you all about all of the things you need to know to get ready for birth after Cesarean. You can find that on our website at thevbaclink.com. But this review on the course is from Heather. She says, “This course was so helpful especially with helping to educate my husband on the safety of VBAC as he had previously been nervous about my choice. We watched all of the videos already, but will also be reviewing the workbook again right before birth. I highly recommend.”I absolutely love that review from Heather because I feel like we get a lot of these comments about people and their partners really being on board and invested after taking the VBAC prep course with their partners. This course is chock-full of information about the safety of VBAC, and different types of birth situations. It talks about different interventions and hospital policies that you might encounter. It talks about the history of VBAC. It talks about all of the statistics and information. It talks about mental prep, physical prep, and all of those things. There are videos. There is an over 100-page workbook. There are actual links to sources, PDFs of studies, and everything you can even imagine. It is in this course. I also highly recommend it. Anyway, thank you, Heather, for that review. All right, let's get rocking and rolling. I am so ready to hear all about Katie's birth stories. Katie is right here snuggling her sweet little baby with her. I cannot wait. I hope we get to hear some little sweet baby noises. They are kind of my favorite. But Katie, go ahead and take it away, my friend. Katie: Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here and hopefully share some things that I would have loved to have shared with me. So let me just start from the beginning with my first baby 5 years ago. I was planning to have a birth. I wasn't quite sure what it would look like, but I thought I wanted unmedicated. It was my first baby, and I wanted to labor spontaneously. The labor was long, so 3+ days of labor. It ended in me getting to 10 centimeters and pushing. However, due to fatigue and the multiple interventions that I had and the cascade of interventions, I believe, resulted in a diagnosis of failure to progress so I had a C-section. It was, I would say, disappointing to me not because of anything except that I would have loved to continue on my path of vaginal delivery. That wasn't in the cards with this one for me. Then with my second 2.5 years later– oh, I should also say that I was at a teaching hospital. There were lots of people. They were very pro-intervention. You name it, I had it across those 3 days. So 2.5 years later when I got pregnant, I thought, “Okay. I know I want to attempt a VBAC.” My husband, my partner, was so on board. He got a shirt that said, “You've got this.” He was wearing it all of the time. We watched a ton of positive VBAC birth stories on YouTube. We listened to podcasts like this one. We followed all of the things on social media and prepared with an amazing doula. I went into spontaneous labor again and this time, I was sure I wanted– actually, I should say I had a membrane sweep, and then I went into spontaneous labor. I was sure I didn't want interventions for this one. My doula was on board. My partner was on board. I labored at home for quite a while. I came into the hospital. It was the same hospital. That doctor was not so supportive of me attempting a VBAC, however, another OB had said that because of our family planning, I said, “I think I want more kids,” another OB told that OB, “Hey, let's make it as safe as possible to do what she wants, so let her give it a try.” My doctor was semi-supportive, but I came in. I was 9 centimeters. It was unmedicated. I was in there for less than 3 hours. I pushed the baby out with a bar. I was squatting. They didn't even know the baby was out. In fact, the baby started crying, and it felt like minutes or hours in my mind, but it was just a couple of pushes. My doula said, “Baby out. Baby out.” Everyone rushed because they were so surprised because normally, I think, folks labor on their backs, and I had requested a bar. That was pretty amazing. It was just me and my son doing the thing. It was incredible. I remember that OB who was skeptical said, “You did it. You've changed my mind.” So that was exciting. 3 years later to now, I became pregnant with my third baby. I went in for my anatomy scan at 20 weeks, and the ultrasound tech said, “Baby is breech. No big deal. Tons of babies are breech.” Because I have some other health complications, I guess they deemed me as high risk. I went to multiple ultrasounds, so that means I get to see my baby once a month which also meant I continued to see that baby was breech each time. Each time, they kept saying, “Oh, don't worry. Plenty of time. Plenty of time to turn.” As we approached my due date, I was like, “I feel his head. I don't think he's going to turn.” So they started to let me know what type of breech he was. My baby was frank breech. There are a few different types of breech positions which I didn't know prior to this baby, but now I'm very well-versed in the different breech positions. Frank breech is basically a pike position. The feet are by the head, and his little rump was just hanging out in my pelvis. I was also hoping to birth at a birthing center with my doulas. This was different than that learning hospital that I shared because I just wanted a different experience where they were less pushy with interventions. I knew that with my last birth that they used the term “something pelvis”, but anyway, I was ready to do something different with less people in the room. However, when they found out that I was breech, I was told what I think is the stock option which was, “Hey, if baby stays breech, but don't worry, there's plenty of time and he'll probably turn, but this is what we'll do. We'll try an ECV, and if that doesn't work, we'll schedule your C-section. We'll give you an epidural, try the ECV one more time, and that way, you can go right into your planned C-section. But don't worry, we have time. The baby is going to turn.” I left and was like, “I don't want that. My baby is healthy. I'm healthy. I am on the fence about this plan.” Now, I'm 36 weeks so at 37 weeks, I go in. We have the ECV. They give me the shot to relax my uterus. The ECV is the external cephalic version where they put their hands and try to rotate the baby. It was unsuccessful. So I said, “Can we try again?” She looked at me like, “What?” She said, “We'll try again with that epidural when you schedule your C-section.” I said, “No, no, no, no, no. Can we try again?” This is where, I think, that advocacy and that information and research are so important. She said, “Sure. We can try it again.” We scheduled another ECV. I went back in, and it was also unsuccessful with her. She could tell at this point, I was grieving what I thought was the end of this journey for me, and also not necessarily on board with the protocol they had put in place. We planned. I said, “Hey, can I try a different provider?” I know that you can do up to four ECVS. I'm not suggesting that people do that. I just wanted to make sure that I did everything possible for me and baby to have a vaginal birth. They seemed pretty gung-ho about not delivering unless baby was head down. She said, “Sure. We can do that.” That was also unsuccessful. At this point, the OB said, and I appreciated this. They said, “I feel really uncomfortable delivering a breech baby. I think you should go to our sister hospital in a city away if you are considering breech because we don't have a NICU here.” That felt reasonable to me because I had said to her previously, “I hear you, and I hear that protocol with what you're suggesting. I also feel really healthy, and I will absolutely change course if me or baby's health is in jeopardy, but unless that is imminent, I consider breech a variation of normal,” so I didn't necessarily think that was the rationale for the C-section knowing what that recovery is like and knowing that I had a 5 and a 3-year-old back at home. Julie: Oh, I love that so much. I love that they gave you options, and they admitted that they weren't comfortable with it. So many times, doctors will be like, “We don't do breech here.” They don't tell you that it's because they haven't been trained or they're not comfortable with it or it's not safe, they just tell you that's not the protocol, and they don't offer you other options. I really love that, and I love the conversation you had where you were like, “I understand the risks, but however, this is how I feel.” I think that's a really healthy way to go about it on both sides. So, cool. Kudos to your provider. Katie: Yeah. Then that doctor suggested this. It was in the underground world. It wasn't like, “Go to the next place.” She also suggested, “Why don't you consult with UCSF?” That's the University of California San Francisco. That's maybe an hour and 20 minutes with traffic, and it can be up to 3 hours, but they do breech birth there. She referred me to have a consultation with UCSF to talk about breech birth which they are very comfortable with. The consultation was great. The people were really helpful. They also had a lot of requirements for me to deliver there. Those requirements were things like an anatomy scan to ensure that the head and rump sizes were comparable for safety of baby. They wanted me to do a pelvic pelvimetry MRI. Julie: Pelvimetry? Katie: Yes. They said, “You have a proven pelvis,” which is the word I couldn't remember earlier, but because I'm very short– I'm 4'10”--, they just wanted that in this case. I said, “Sure. I'll do all of the things if this is the place where I know I can make that birth plan with you and we can do it.” Then they said, “We also give you an epidural. You'll birth in a birthing room, then we'll transfer you to an OR. You'll have an epidural, and that's in case anything goes wrong.” I fully understand the risk and the why behind that, but given with my first baby, one of the interventions was the epidural and I labored on my back, I wasn't quite confident that was the way baby and I were going to do this because what I found in my second birth is me and baby working together and moving together was what, I think, was all of the difference in the world for us to be able to meet each other. That gave me a little bit of pause, but nonetheless, I was like, “Okay. They are being upfront with me about all of the things I need to do.” I had the anatomy scan. Rump to head ratio was 1:1. It looked great. They were scheduling this MRI for me to take. Now, keep in mind, I'm 38 weeks pregnant now. The other things I was concerned about, or more my husband I should say, was that San Francisco, like I said, is about an hour and 20 minutes away from me. With traffic, it can be 3+ hours. Julie: Oof. I've driven in San Francisco during traffic and let me tell you, it is a nightmare. Katie: Yeah. My husband was like, “What if you don't get there in time? How are we going to make this work?” These were all pauses that we had around it. Nonetheless, we were on this track and UCSF was so helpful and wonderful. I'm so grateful for my provider for recommending this consult. Then my doula, as well as other providers, started sharing information with me. I want to say it's an underground network of knowledge where people aren't advocating for vaginal birth on the record because either the hospitals don't want to or don't condone it for whatever reason. I guess you can guess the reasons whether it's money or policy or education and patriarchy, but there is definitely a need. Breech babies are born all of the time. They said, “There are three providers at that sister hospital (that my doctor had initially recommended that was 15 minutes away) who are experienced with breech.” I thought, “Okay. In the event of an emergency and I went into labor, that's where I want to go.” They had a NICU. They had all of the things that made me want to feel more at ease knowing that we were doing something new to me and to keep myself and my baby safe. I still told the UCSF doctors, “Don't worry. I know I'm 38 weeks, but my other babies came at 40 weeks and 1 day, so I've got 2 weeks. He's cooking for 2 more weeks.” Then, at 38 weeks– Julie: Third babies, man. Third babies. Katie: Right? At 38 weeks, 4 days, I wake up. I should say, sorry. The UCSF doctor also said one other thing to me. She said, “Please do one more ECV, and this time, do a spinal.” I was like, “Ugh, this sounds awful.” But I understood the rationale. The safest way to come out was head down. I wanted to compromise and do everything in my power to do that. She said, “Because they hadn't done a spinal previously, there's data that shows it's more successful.” She shared all of that research with me, so I requested that from my local doctor. My doctor was like, “We don't usually do this,” but to their credit said, “We will. We will absolutely do it.” Keep in mind, I went in. I was like, “I know that this baby is loving where they are at. They are not moving, but if I don't try it, I'll never know.” Knowing the risks of ECVs, and knowing all of these things, I did do that because it was a request of the hospital that was going to be potentially the hospital where I give birth, so I wanted to make sure to follow all of the things. I do that. It was also unsuccessful. Then, now fast forward to 38 weeks and 4 days, I wake up and it's been a couple of days since that ECV. The spinal they give you is on your back. I wake up and I have some stomach cramps. I thought, “Man, this is strange, but it's probably from the ECV,” because in the past, it did cause some cramping for me. Because I had the spinal, I wondered if perhaps it just was residual. In my past labors, all of my laboring started with my back. I had a little bit of back aching, but it was again, I chalked it up to the spinal and just recovering from that. I went about my day. It was right before Halloween. I'm telling my partner, “Let's carve pumpkins.” My 5-year-old had a soccer game. I'm trying to get him ready, and I keep getting these cramps. They start to be regular. I thought, “Oh.” I'm 90% sure I'm in labor. This labor just felt different. Maybe it was because it was a breech baby. Maybe it was because it was a third labor, who knows? But nonetheless, it took me a while to get there. Maybe I was thinking it wasn't happening and willing that 40-week mark. Nonetheless, I was laboring. I texted my doula, and I'm timing my contractions. We had agreed that she would come over earlier this time because the baby was breech. All of the doctors said, “Labor at home. Come in during active labor.” We agreed that I would come in earlier than I did last time because of the circumstances. She comes over. She says, “Where I'm laboring, if the contractions are feeling intense, however, I can talk and laugh in between them,” so we agreed that I might be 5 centimeters. I just started to think, “I've got to lie down. I feel super tired. I had this ECV. I want to keep my energy up,” thinking this could be a long labor. Let me eat something. Then she says, “Just go. Sit on the toilet because your body does something different.” I do that. It's 1:00 in the afternoon now, and my water breaks. My husband was packing the bags to get to the hospital thinking, “Where do we go? Do we go to UCSF? Do we go to that sister hospital?” I say, “My water is broken.” I have another contraction. She's watching it. She was like, “We've got to–”, and I started to feel nauseous which are all signs of labor. Julie: Good signs. Katie: Yes, so she was like, “Let's go. Let's go now.” We get in the car. I think this is funny. It's a little on the side, but my husband had set up the car seat right behind me. I'm laboring. I'm definitely contracting and trying to retract my seat. There is this car seat, so I just remember picking it up and tossing it across the side saying, “Why would you set this up here?” He's looking at me, “Oh, you are really in labor. This is clear.” I'm trying to lay down. He has the GPS set. I am in the car. We get going. It's now between 1:00 and 2:00 on a Saturday. There is a ton of traffic and construction. I'm looking at the GPS and I see 25 minutes to the sister hospital, and to San Francisco was 3 hours. We don't have 3 hours. My doula says, “Where are we going?” I say, “That sister hospital. Let's go.” I also happen to know that there are three doctors there through that grapevine and underground network who are experience at delivering breech babies there, so I thought the odds of me having one of them would be beneficial. I would much rather have had conversations with all of them, but I didn't plan to go there thinking I was going to go to UCSF. We get in the car and are driving in this traffic. I'm just looking at the GPS and at the time ticking down. I'm really quiet which was also strange because with my other births, I was super vocal. My husband and I were thinking, “I'm in labor, but maybe I'm just not as far along, even though my water broke.” I've never been quiet. I was dead silent through this whole thing just staring at this GPS. Then all of a sudden, we're going on a bridge called the Causeway and I looked at him, and I said, “I have to push right now.” Julie: No. Katie: He looks at me and says, “No,” which is not very much– he's a very supportive person. What he meant by this was that we didn't come this far to get this far. We're going to get to this hospital. We are driving, and I just remember internally that I was so quiet going inward. I was talking with my baby, talking with myself and saying, “Okay. We've got to get to the hospital. We didn't come this far to get this far. I'm not having a baby breech unassisted delivery.” That was not something that I was comfortable with. We get off the off-ramp, and we're finding the patient drop-off. I'm contracting and I see the sign, and my husband drives right by it. I look at him right after I contract and I say, “You drove right by the patient drop-off. You have to put on hazards. I have to get out now. I have to push.” He's like, “I can't. We're parking.” So he parked the car, and I was like, “What do you want me to do?” He says, “We've got to walk.” Keep in mind, the parking lot where he went is not right next door. It's a block and a half or two blocks away.Julie: No way.Katie: I just was like, “I can't do this. I can't do this.” He says, “Yes, you can. Yes, you can. You have got this.” So I was like, “Okay. I've got this.” I get up, and I walk. When I start contracting, I'm walking down this busy street. I said, “I have to poop.” I had this big contraction, and I think I possibly poop. I'm just looking at these cars thinking, “Why won't somebody stop and help me?” That's when I channeled back to this idea, at the end of the day, It's just you and your baby. You are the team. I contract. We are going. We finally get to the hospital. I have another contraction. I say, “Run in and tell them to help.” He does. I'm holding on to the railing. This lovely woman with her family sees me. She tells her 13-year-old son, “Get her!” I was standing by myself, definitely in labor.” She says, “Get her a wheelchair!” This amazing 13-year-old does just that as my husband runs back. He gets me this wheelchair. I'm sitting in it, but I can't sit down. Again, I think it's because I've had this bowel movement and maybe I'm in transition. I don't know. We get up and pass security, so security is yelling at us. My husband was like, “I've got to go. We've got to go.” We got to L&D and came in. This amazing nurse midwife welcomes us. I don't know if she saw me not sitting down all of the way in my wheelchair or what, but she yells, “Get her a room right now.” She says, “We're going to deliver this baby.” I say, “My baby is breech. Can you help?”She says, “Call this doctor.” My heart is so relieved because this is one of those three experienced doctors who I know is comfortable with breech delivering. He scrubs out of a C-section, I guess. She helps me take off my pants, and then realizes what I thought was poop was really– it's called rumping as a breech instead of crowning. She was like, “Change of plans. Get on all fours.” I just started laboring. The doctor comes in scrubbed out of that C-section. I know that the nurses are saying, “You're doing great. You're going to meet your baby,” and all of the things that are so wonderful. I couldn't speak more highly of the people in that room at that point. My doula joined us because it took her a minute to find us in all of the mayhem. He tells my partner, “Please make sure she goes on her back.” I had this vision of doing breech without borders on your hands and knees, but given that this doctor was very experienced with breech delivery through this underground network of knowledge, I was like, “Okay. We didn't come this far to get this far. I'll do whatever you want. Let's just see this baby.” I turn around after, my husband said, my baby was halfway out. He sees the legs drop which again, in a frank breech position, that happens. You see the rump, and then you see the back and the legs drop. He sees the rest of the body come out as I'm laboring on my back which I didn't do with my first. I wasn't actually, I didn't know if that was something my body was down for. But here I was delivering this breech baby. Of course, I should have known. Women are amazing. We do amazing things, and our bodies are built for this work. I labored, and then I felt him come out completely. I held my breath for a second because what I do know, and excuse me if this statistic isn't 100% accurate, but my understanding is that 1 out of 7 babies born head down might need resuscitation, but 1 out of 3 babies born breech might need resuscitation. So one of the things I was pausing for at this moment was to hear this sweet baby's voice, and so I just start hearing crying immediately. They tell me that his APGAR score was 9/8 which was exactly the same as my first VBAC. Julie: That's great!Katie: Yeah. They were like, “Baby is great. Baby is healthy.” They put him on me. I was trying to feed, but my cord was short, so low and behold, I have a feeling that the reason he was not interested in turning is because my cord was kind of short. He just was sitting fine where he was at with my posterior placenta up high. He and I sat and met each other. We celebrated. The doctor was so funny. He said, “You keep it interesting. You've had every kind of birth you could possibly have.” Julie: You keep it interesting. Katie: Yeah. Every type of birth you could possibly have. The nurses came in after. They said they wanted to come in and watch because they don't see this. They said, “This is amazing. We wanted to respect your privacy.” But they were so supportive of the whole thing. I just felt elated to have the people in the room and around me who believed in me and my baby as much as we believed in us to make it happen. I should say that I came in at 2:10 to this hospital. I delivered at 2:24. When I say it was fast and this was going quickly when all of those things happened, I wouldn't recommend any of those things. However, I think that advocacy and all of those things like knowing all of the data made me feel prepared to do that. That's my breech delivery story. Julie: I absolutely love that. I love that. I was like, “Aw, dang. Too bad she didn't have her baby in the car.” No, I mean that would not have been ideal for you, but it is a dream birth of mine. I mean, I would have loved to have my own baby in the car. It would have been amazing. I love the stories. One day, I dream of documenting a car delivery, but alas, here I am still waiting. But it's fine. Here's the cool thing. I really love how you navigated your birth. You sought out all of your options. You made a choice that you were comfortable with. You heard the risks that the doctors were telling you about. You acknowledged them, but you also stood up for yourself and your plan. I feel like when you can have that mutual respect where you can trust your provider and your provider can trust you, I feel like that's a great place to be. I love how you adapted and changed plans when needed, but you still stood firm for the things that you wanted. It doesn't always work out like that when you have to change plans, but I love that you had the plan and you navigated it with the twists and turns and all of the things that come with the unpredictabilities of birth. I love how you did all of that. I think it's really important and necessary to have strong opinions about how you want to birth. Like I said before, it doesn't always mean that the strong opinions that you have are going to hold true about what you actually end up getting. I think that the value in having those strong opinions about birth is the things that you learn along the way and the things that enable you to navigate through those changes of plans and things like that. I think that's really, really important for us to be able to have and do and be flexible. I do have a few different blog articles on our website related to breech babies. Now, there's one that is just recently published. It was a few months ago. Well, maybe it will almost be a year ago by the time this episode airs. It talks a lot about ECVs, the external cephalic version, in order to try and manually flip a breech baby. It talks about what ACOG recommends and ACOG's stance on it, things you can do, who is right for it, what may exclude you from having an ECV or attempting one and all of those things. It talks about the safety for VBAC and how it's performed, what it feels like, and all of those things. If you ever want to know about ECV, we have a blog for you. It's called ECV and VBAC: What you Need to Know. It goes into all of that stuff. I definitely recommend looking into it because like we said before, you don't really know your options until you have them, and the more information you have in your arsenal, the easier it's going to be for you to navigate those things. Basically, ECVs are pretty safe for most people. They have a success rate of 60% which is a really cool success rate. It's higher than 50%. You're more likely for it to work than not. Sometimes babies are breech for a reason, and they need to stay that way for some reason. There are really only a few things that exclude you which is excessive vaginal bleeding, placenta previa or accreta, if you have really low levels of amniotic fluid, fetal heart rate issues, if your water's already been born, sometimes providers won't do it that way, or if you have twins or multiples, I think that excludes you. It's listed here, and it makes sense. We've got lots of babies tangled up in there. It's absolutely safe for VBAC as well. We also have a couple more blogs about why babies go breech and some things that you can do about it. I'm sure, Katie, you probably tried all of these things, all of the Spinning Babies protocols, all of the forward-leaning inversions and things like that too that can help. There's another article in here about how to turn your breech baby– 8 ways to flip your baby. Like we said, sometimes babies are breech for a reason and they do not want to turn. I'm just really looking forward to the day where breech can be just a variation of normal again. The biggest problem is that our providers are not learning how to deliver breech babies. It does take a different skill in order to do that. You have to be really hands-off. You have to watch for certain things and depending on the type of breech, there are different techniques that you would use. Those techniques are not being taught. Kudos to your original provider who admitted that they were not comfortable or did not have the knowledge to feel comfortable in delivering a breech baby. I'm excited there are organizations called Reteach Breech, Breech Without Borders, and Dr. Stu. If you know Dr. Stu, he is leading a great mission to bring breech back so that women can have options for delivering their breech babies. So what happens if you don't know your baby is breech and your baby is delivered foot first? You can't just stop and go for a C-section right then. It's impossible. So to deliver breech babies safely no matter the circumstances, the knowledge there is important. I'm hoping that one day, that can be an option for anybody if they want that. All right, Katie, I'm so glad that you joined me today. It was so great hearing your story. I love how it all went. I do not pity you having to drive in San Francisco at traffic time. Yeah. I'm glad everything worked out. Katie: We ended up going to this other hospital closer. Julie: Yeah, yeah. But I mean just ever, not even in labor. Just ever. Katie: Yes. Yes. Julie: All right, Katie. Before we sign off, will you tell me, what is your best piece of advice for somebody preparing for a VBAC?Katie: Oh, I think it is so important to do two things. One, educate yourself and surround yourself around folks who are down with that education and believing in you and baby. What I mean by that is knowing what's happening so you can make those important decisions. You understand what consent looks like. You understand those risks. You understand all of the tips and techniques like in this case of breech and turning that baby, and then making sure that you also are advocating and you have people around you who are advocating, but not so stuck on that that you get stuck. You want to do what's best for you and the baby, but as you said, breech is a variation of normal. I think that being around people who are supportive of you, they don't necessarily have to agree with you, but they are working with you, is just so important to empower you because at the end of the day, it's you and baby doing the thing. People who believe in you as much as you believe in yourself and you believe in your baby are so important to get to that finish line in labor. Julie: Yes. I absolutely love that. You have to have people who believe in you and who are on your side and who will support you even if they don't necessarily understand your decisions. They trust you to make those decisions because that is a huge deal. Katie: And give you the information so that if the information you have is not full or complete, you can reevaluate. You don't know what you don't know until you know. I just think that you need to make sure you take it all in if you can unless you don't know your baby is breech and you find out when you are delivering and you make that snap decision, and it'll be great. Julie: Yes. No, I love that. There's something about people bringing you information especially in a respectful way because I feel like in today's world, when people disagree with others, it's very aggressive and condescending and judgmental. I think it's important that we can disagree respectfully but also bring information if you are concerned or if you have another point of view in a respectful way as well. I think it's received a lot better and I think that's where we can really bring that true change and sway people's opinions. It's if we do that in a respectful and understanding way. Yeah, I appreciate that. Good point, Katie. That was awesome. Okay, well thank you so much for sharing your story with me today. I cannot wait for the whole world to hear it. Katie: Thanks so much for allowing me the space to do it. I hope that women are able to explore their options and do what's right for them and their baby and their families. Julie: Yeah. 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

Flannery joins us today from Connecticut sharing her story of an unexpected C-section at 35 weeks due to oligohydramnios, breech presentation, and concerns with her baby's kidney functions. She was also transferred to an unfamiliar hospital for its surgical capabilities. Though she was terrified, her anesthesiologist was calm and reassuring. The toughest memory of Flannery's birth was not being able to kiss her baby before he was swept away to the NICU. She was determined to do everything in her power not to have that happen again the second time. Knowing she had a bicornuate uterus, she worked hard to keep her baby's head down from the very beginning of her second pregnancy. She switched to a midwife practice, carried her baby past her due date, went into spontaneous labor, and had an intensely beautiful unmedicated hospital VBAC!NICU Free ParkingTypes of Uterine ShapesAFI ArticleNeeded WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello, everybody. We have our friend from Connecticut. And you know what? I didn't ask. How do you say your name? Flannery: It's Flannery. Meagan: That's how I was going to say it. Flannery: Yes, good job. Meagan: We have our friend, Flannery, here from Connecticut and she has a bicornuate uterus. This week's focus is on different shaped uteruses or uterine abnormalities as I'm air quoting. We know that people have them. People have different-shaped uteruses. Sometimes that can impact things like breech babies or even a provider's ability to support– I don't want to say ability. It's their willingness to support, especially in VBAC. We're going to be diving into that. She's also a NICU mama so for other NICU mamas, she might have some tips for you along the way. She just told me before this that she was a labor and delivery nurse before she had her first. Flannery: Yep, and then I switched over. Meagan: Now she switched over to postpartum. She knows the field, so we might talk a little bit about labor and delivery nursing and the postpartum world. Flannery: Yeah, definitely. Meagan: Awesome. Okay, well let's get into your stories. Flannery: Okay, thank you. I'm so excited. I would listen to this podcast all the time when I was pregnant. At the end, when they say, “If you'd like to share your VBAC story–” and I would say, “I will be sharing my VBAC stories someday.” Meagan: I love that. “I will be sharing my story”, and here you are sharing with all of the other Women of Strength coming to learn and grow and feel empowered. Flannery: Yeah, I loved it. My first pregnancy was actually an unplanned pregnancy. I had just gotten married. I just started a labor and delivery nurse job. I was noticing that I wasn't feeling great, that I had some bleeding which I thought was my period, so I just was like, “You know what? Let me take a pregnancy test just to reassure myself because there is no way that it will be positive.” It was, and I was so shocked. I remember taking the tests, seeing the two lines, and my heart dropping. I thought to myself, “I am not ready to be a mom. I can't believe that I am having an unplanned pregnancy. This is so crazy.” I was only 25 which I know is not that young, but up here in Connecticut, it's pretty young. Meagan: Is it really? What's the average for first-time moms? Can I ask?Flannery: I'm guessing 30-32. Meagan: Okay. Flannery: None of my friends had babies yet or anything, so I felt very alone and obviously very shocked. Yeah. I had no idea how far along I was. I went to the dating ultrasound with my husband at the hospital where I worked, and they put the wand on my belly. There was a full baby in there. It wasn't a bean. It wasn't a little heartbeat, but it was a baby. They said, “You're 11.5 weeks along.” Meagan: Oh my gosh. Really?Flannery: Yeah. I was beyond shocked. Meagan, I had no idea that I was pregnant. I didn't have any symptoms. I was having some bleeding, so I thought that had been my period, but nope. Meagan: Oh my goodness. Was it implantation bleeding? But then that would be too late. Flannery: I don't know. I think maybe just how some people get first-trimester spotting or bleeding after sex or exercise or something. I'm thinking that's what it was. Meagan: Crazy. Flannery: I know. I had skipped the first trimester, and that terrified me because I wasn't on a prenatal. I was having some wine. I was just like, “How could I have missed this? This is embarrassing. I'm a nurse.” Meagan: “I'm a nurse.” Hey, listen. It happens. People talk about it. I'm sure that was such a shock not only to see those two pink lines and that you were not having babies with any of your friends, but then you skipped the whole first trimester. Flannery: Crazy. It was crazy. It took a while to wrap our heads around it. Then during the ultrasound, hearing the ultrasound tech saying, “Have you ever had an ultrasound of your uterus before?” I was like, “No,” not thinking anything of it, just focusing on the baby, and then I got a call from my doctor a few days later, and she was like, “So, it looks like you have a bicornuate uterus. Have you ever heard of that?” I was like, “No. I've never heard of that before.” She said, “Basically, your uterus is shaped like a heart, and it should be shaped like a balloon.” I was like, “Okay. That doesn't sound too bad.” We hung up. I went on Google and Googled “bicornuate uterus”, and let's just say the stuff that comes up is not reassuring at all. It's so scary. It says things like, “Risk of preterm delivery. Risk of stillbirth. Risk of infertility. Risk of malpresentation.” It just went on and on. Postpartum hemorrhage, and all of this stuff, so I really broke down. I remember just crying and crying to my husband, “I've had this crazy birth defect my whole life, and I've never known it.” I didn't know how it was going to impact my birth or anything. That was definitely scary.Meagan: Did they tell you anything about how it could impact your pregnancy or your birth? Flannery: Not really. This was a general GP doctor that I was seeing, so she didn't really go into it with me, but I definitely spoke about it to the midwives that I was seeing once I established care with them. They were just like, “Yeah, it can cause baby to be breech.” That was all they told me about it. Meagan: Okay. Flannery: Yeah. I was doing a lot of research looking for podcasts and everything about bicornuate uterus and all of the things that go along with it, but I couldn't really find much. This was a few years ago, so maybe three or four podcast episodes about bicornuate uterus, breech, and malformation. I think now there are more, but at the time, it was really hard to find information. Meagan: Yeah. I still feel like it's 2024. What year are we in? We are almost in 2025. We are in 2024, and it still is. There is still not a ton. It's not a beefy topic. Flannery: No, it's really not. I think that some people don't know they have it until they get pregnant which was in my case, and they have an ultrasound. It's hard to tell later on in pregnancy if you have it because your baby will stretch out the uterine space, so you can really only tell in the first trimester if you have an ultrasound. Meagan: Interesting. Good to know. Flannery: So my pregnancy progressed pretty normally after that. I was very stressed at this new job in labor and delivery that I was working in. I was seeing really scary births all of the time, traumatic births, and some good ones too, but it put this idea in my head that you cannot plan your birth. Things are so out of your control that there's no reason to have a plan because you're just going to be disappointed anyway. All you can do is go with the flow. That was my attitude at the time. It's definitely changed since then. It was definitely interesting trying to be a first-time mom and also learn how to be a labor and delivery nurse and reconcile the two experiences that I was seeing. Meagan: I bet. Flannery: Yeah. Meagan: I bet that would be really challenging. Flannery: It was. It was interesting. I established care with some midwives who I worked with. They were highly recommended, but I didn't really feel like they were giving me the midwife experience that I had heard so many people rave about. I felt like they really treated me like a coworker instead of a first-time mom when I was going to their appointments. I was fine with their care. I wouldn't say it was the best or the worst by any means. Then I realized around 25-26 weeks, “Gosh. I'm really feeling this rock under my ribs all the time. I think that's the baby's head. I think the baby is breech.” Then at 28 weeks, I had a growth scan because you have to have growth scans if you have a bicornuate uterus, and they were like, “Yeah, sure enough, the baby is breech.” The midwives told me, “Okay, you can do some Spinning Babies and put an ice pack near the baby's head and play music down low,” and all of those crazy things that you hear. I was like, “Yeah, sure. Okay, I'll try it.” I did a few inversions, but they gave me terrible heartburn, so I was not super consistent with that. The baby just wasn't budging week after week. Eventually, it came to about 35 weeks, and I was getting another growth scan. I had just worked a very tiring shift at work. I went to get my ultrasound. I was dozing off as she did it. She stopped the ultrasound, and she said, “I'm going to send you over to your midwife's office. Go over right now.” I walked over, and the midwife was like, “Girl, what's going on?” I was like, “I don't know. I just had this pit in my stomach, but I had no clue what was going on.” She was like, “You have no fluid. Get back to the hospital. You're going in as a patient now, and we're going to try to rehydrate you.” I was like, “What? What is going on? No fluid? What does that mean?” I guess they had found in ultrasound that my baby's left kidney was super dilated, and my fluid was low which is called oligohydramnios. I know you've talked about this on the podcast before, but I think they measure it with an AFI. It's supposed to be over 8. Mine was a 4. Meagan: Really low. Yeah, below 5. But they were just going to rehydrate you. They weren't going to induce you? Flannery: Not yet, no. They wouldn't have induced me anyway because my baby was breech. Meagan: Which is good. They wouldn't. Yeah. Flannery: They were going to try to rehydrate me first and see how that went. It did, and they decided to give me some steroid shots too. My favorite midwife came in, and she said, “We're going to do these steroid shots, and we're going to see if the rehydrating works. I know you've been working hard. Maybe this is just a dehydration situation because you haven't been able to take care of yourself properly.” I was like, “Okay”, then she made a comment about delivery at 37 weeks. I was like, “Oh, this is a delivery-type situation.” It had really not sunk in with me yet that this was that serious. She was like, “Yes. Oligohydramnios can cause stillbirth. It's very serious. Probably what we are looking at is two weeks of monitoring, and then delivery at 37 weeks which will be a C-section unless your baby flips.” I was like, “Oh my god. Okay.” Meagan: Yeah. But with the fluid, did they want to continue giving you fluid? Did they encourage your hydration with electrolytes and everything? Flannery: Yes, they did. I was chugging water like a maniac for a few days and coconut water and all of this stuff and getting IV fluid. It did come back up a little bit to a 6, maybe. Meagan: I was going to say, did it fix it at all?Flannery: I was still getting a bunch of ultrasounds, then it went right back down to a 4. They said, “We're going to have you consult with maternal-fetal medicine at a bigger hospital on March 9th. My baby was due April 11th, but this was a lot earlier than I was expecting anything to happen. We went to this appointment to get this more detailed ultrasound, and the doctor comes in. She seems very nervous. That's not what you want. You don't want a doctor to seem nervous.No. She's like, “It looks like your baby's left kidney is non-functional. It's just a cluster of cysts.” Meagan: Oh no. Flannery: I was like, “Oh my god.” I was so terrified. I just had no clue. This didn't show up on the 20-week ultrasound or anything. She was like, “And your fluid is still super low.” We did an NST. They sent us home, and I was just waiting around at home with my husband for my midwife to call to make a plan. I was like, “Am I going back to work tomorrow? Am I going to be having this baby?” She called me, and she was like, “So, this isn't what I was expecting to tell you today, but I've been consulting with the neonatologist here and some OBs. Since you've already had your steroid shots, we want you to go to the hospital now to have your baby tonight.” She was like, “Don't rush down the highway in the snow. This is an urgent, not an emergent situation. You'll be in good hands.” I was like, “What in the world?” I was so taken aback. I didn't believe it. They were also transferring me to a different hospital from the one that I had worked at and had planned to deliver at. Meagan: Is it because of the NICU situation?Flannery: Because of the NICU, yeah. This bigger hospital had the capability for surgery, and my hospital did not. It was a situation where it was a small hospital and a situation that they weren't really comfortable with. We hopped in the car and drove through this big snowstorm. I was just crying and shaking. We had no idea. We were both terrified. We had no idea what we were about to walk into.When we met our OB, she walked into the room. She just radiated calmness and kindness and peace. She was just an angel. She made us feel so safe. They were monitoring the baby and putting my IV in. I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I was having a baby tonight. Meagan: Yeah. Flannery: I was wondering, “Is this baby going to be okay? What is going on here?” We walked down the hall to the OR. I kissed my husband goodbye. I remember just thinking, “Okay. Here we go. There's no going back now.” The only way I could stay calm was to surrender any of the control that I thought I had and really just trust in God and trust in the people who were going to do the surgery on me. I lay down on the table and the anesthesiologist was so kind. He was petting my head and talking to me. My husband came in and they were setting up the drapes. My doctor who I had just met leaned her head over and she said, “This is where I had my first daughter.” That just made me feel so happy. Things are going to be normal again. She had a C-section too. It made me feel very safe. Everything went really well during the operation. I remember I could see the reflection of the operation in the lights that they have above you. I bet other moms will know what I am talking about, but they have these big OR lights, and I could kind of see what they were doing which was crazy.Meagan: You can. They're like mirrors. Flannery: I know. They should come up with something better. Meagan: Yes. For those who don't want to watch or see anything, just turn to the side. Flannery: Close your eyes. Meagan: Close your eyes. Turn to the side. Flannery: Yeah. They said, “After a few minutes, okay. Here he comes. Then he's out.” I didn't hear anything. I heard someone say, “Okay. I need to take him.” I could tell that was the neonatalogist saying they needed to work on him a little bit. They took him over to a corner where we couldn't see or hear anything that was going on. We could just hear people talking. Eventually, we heard a little cry. My husband started to cry. I looked at him, and I smiled. I just felt relief that he was alive, but I didn't feel anything. I just felt this nothingness. Meagan: I can so relate to that. Flannery: Yeah. It's so strange. It's just not what you're hoping to feel in this big important moment. Meagan: Mhmm. Flannery: I remember the neonatalogist after a while, he was breathing on his own. He had peed and pooped. They showed us pictures of him. She walked over with him in his arms in this little bundle of blankets. She stood pretty far away, maybe 6 or 10 feet away. She was like, “Okay. You know the plan. We need to check his kidneys in the NICU. What's his name?” I said, “I don't know. I need to see his face.” She flashed the blanket at me and flashed it down so I could see his face. I couldn't see anything. I said, “I don't know. I don't know what his name is,” and she walked out with him. That is just the worst memory from that whole experience. The surgery itself was really good. The care I had was great, but I'll never get that moment back. She could have brought him over to give me a kiss or see his face. It was hours until– Meagan: Touch or kiss his face.Flannery: It was so long until I could see him and meet him in the NICU. I just think about that all of the time. I did get to go meet him after a few hours. He was doing great. I didn't recognize him at first when my husband rolled me over to his isolet in the NICU which was hard, but as soon as I held him, I just had this overwhelming rush of love. It hasn't changed to this day. He's just such a joy.He turned out to be fine. His kidney was normal. It's resolved on its own, and it wasn't a cluster of cysts like they had thought. Meagan: Yay.Flannery: Yeah. He's doing great. He's a very rambunctious, very smart 2.5-year-old now. Meagan: Good. Flannery: Yeah. I'm so grateful that I have him now. I'm so grateful that I accidentally got pregnant with him.Meagan: Yes. He was meant to be, and he was going to make sure that he was.Flannery: He totally was. Yeah. Yeah. Meagan: I'm sorry that you had that experience. I want to say it's unique, but it's not. That sucks. Flannery: It's totally not. Meagan: I hope that as people are listening, if they are in the birth world of labor and delivery nurses or OBs or midwives or whatever it may be, please be mindful of mom. Please be mindful of mom. Don't forget that she doesn't feel these things because does. She needs to see her baby. She needs to touch her baby. She needs to kiss her baby. If it is a true emergency, true emergency, understandable. But in a sense of this, it doesn't sound like it was a true emergency.Flannery: It wasn't. It wasn't. Meagan: They went over, and they took a lot of time with your baby, and then came and left. They didn't need to just come and leave. Flannery: Right, right. Especially when baby is breathing on its own and stuff, you can take 10 seconds to let mom give baby a kiss.Meagan: It will impact mom. Flannery: It totally will. Meagan: Here you are 2 years later still feeling mad. You're like, “I still think about that.” I saw it. I saw it in your eyes as you were telling that story. You feel that still. That's there. I hope that people can remember that protocols and what you think needs to happen and all of these things do not trump mom. Flannery: Totally. Totally. Meagan: Right. Yeah. So, having a NICU baby, how long– what was the exact gestation?Flannery: He was 35 and 5. Meagan: Okay, so it was a preterm Cesarean as well. Flannery: Yes. Meagan: Did they have to do any special scar or anything like that because it was preterm? Flannery: No, thankfully not, but he was very stuck up in my ribs. He had the cord around his neck, and there was meconium. I know that he needed to come out that way because I don't think he could have flipped if they did an ECV. I don't know if he would have tolerated labor if he was head down even. Meagan: Yeah. That's definitely an early baby, but good that all is well for sure. Flannery: Yeah. He did great. It was a rocky start, but he's doing great now. Meagan: Yeah. Yeah. Do you have any advice for NICU moms listening? Flannery: Yes. There is this foundation that will pay for your parking costs while you're in the NICU. I didn't know about it in time. Parking can get very expensive when you are visiting your baby. If you just Google, “Parking Foundation for NICU parents,” I'm sure it will come up because I can't remember the exact name. Meagan: I'm going to look it up. I'm going to look it up while you start your next story. We'll make sure to have it in the show notes if I can find it. Flannery: Yes. Yes. Meagan: Okay, keep going.Flannery: My next pregnancy, I was determined to do everything right this time. I was like, “You know what? The last pregnancy was so rocky and so unexpected that this time, I'm going to do everything right, and therefore nothing can go wrong.” I think people have that feeling a lot which is so irrational, but we can't help it. I did go back to see my OB who delivered Freddy, my son. I just loved her. I thought she was wonderful. I just wanted to see what her opinion was about why I had those complications in my pregnancy and see what she thought about a VBAC because even though I wasn't sure if I could have a VBAC, I was interested in it. She listed out all of these rules that she had about VBAC, about, “You can't be preterm. You have to go into labor naturally,” and all of the things that you say are red flags on the podcast. Meagan: I'm like, all of the normal things, but they are all red flags. Flannery: Yes. I mean, I loved this doctor, and I think if I was going to have a repeat C-section, I would have gone back to her because she is awesome, but that wasn't the experience that I wanted to have this time. I did a little research, and I found this midwife practice that everyone recommended to me. I decided to go with them instead. This pregnancy was super uneventful. I was very conscious of taking care of myself and taking walks a lot and prenatal yoga and being on top of my vitamins and all of that sort of thing. I was very religious about positioning and Spinning Babies because I was like, “If I can just get my baby head down from the beginning, I think that I can do the VBAC,” because with a bicornuate uterus, you have less time to flip them, so with a normally shaped uterus, baby can flip up until the very last minute if they are breech, but with a bicornuate uterus, first of all, you have more of a chance of baby being breech and less of a chance for them to flip based on the shape of your uterus. There's just not as much room. I was trying to sit on my yoga ball and doing all of these stretches. I was thinking, “Gosh. This is so unrealistic. Who's not going to sit on their couch for 9 months? I have to be sitting on my couch. I can't be walking 3 miles every day,” but then I'd go back and forth in my head like, “Do you want a VBAC or not? You have to be religious about this.” You don't have to do everything I guess is what I'm trying to say. You'll try your best, but you have to do what's right for you, but you can't go to the extremes.Meagan: I love that you pointed that out. With my second baby, I was doing the red raspberry leaf. I was doing the dates. I was doing all of the things, and even with my third baby, I was the one who didn't sit on the couch for 9 months. I still had a posterior baby. I will just say that I still had a posterior baby. I had a head-down, but still a posterior baby. Actually, he was still going breech too throughout pregnancy. Yes. He was such a stinker. But, I did do all of those things. I did the dates. I did the tea. I did all of it. For me, With my third, I had to dial back a little bit and say, “Okay. I'm going to do everything I feel is right for this pregnancy.” Dates wasn't one of those. I actually didn't do the dates thing. I know there is some evidence on that, but I just didn't do it. It didn't feel right to me, but I did other things like chiropractic care. I did drink tea. I hired a midwife and decided to go out-of-hospital and hired a birth team. I did birth education. I think the biggest thing is to do all of the things that stick out and call to you. There are so many things. We give so many tips. Some tips might not apply well to you. Walking 3 miles is a lot. Flannery: It is a lot. Meagan: It's a lot, but if you can walk a mile, that's better than not walking any. Flannery: Right. Meagan: Right? So trying to go and find what is sitting right for you in this pregnancy, this baby, and in this birth, and doing those things and then knowing you did all of the things you could that felt right for you. Flannery: Yes. Totally. I totally agree. Meagan: I knew I could do all of these things and baby might still be breech. Baby was breech at my anatomy scan, and then again at 28 weeks at my other growth scan. I remember going into the midwife and just saying, “What can I do?” She was kind of saying, “Nothing will supersede the shep of your uterus. You can do everything. Why don't you just visualize because at least then you will feel like you're doing something?” I was so mad after I left that appointment. I was like, “You can't tell me that I can't do anything to make this baby flip and that it's all down to the shape of my uterus.” I kept trying. I was 28 weeks and I was going to the chiropractor and acupuncture and inversions. This time, I was really good about the inversions even though it gave me heartburn. It worked. The baby did flip. I remember actually listening to a podcast episode from The VBAC Link, and it was about someone who was trying to flip a breech baby. She flipped her breech baby. I was like, “Okay. This gives me so much hope. I can do it.” It paid off because baby did flip. I was so happy. Yeah.At one ultrasound, they did pick up an issue with the kidney. I remember being so upset because it was the same issue that my son had, but very mild. The baby had been breech at that point. I was like, “I'm trying so hard. I'm doing everything right, and it's not working.” History is just repeating itself. That's what it felt like to me, but we ended up finding out that the kidney resolved at the next ultrasound and the baby had flipped. It was like, “Oh, my prayers are being answered.” I couldn't believe it. I was so happy when we got the results from that next ultrasound.We just continued doing the prep. I had planned. I was planning to deliver in the hospital. I had a doula who was amazing. She was just with me every step of the way talking me down when I was anxious and telling me all of the different things I could try and come up with plans for repeat C-section or vaginal birth. I had really wanted to go without the epidural because I didn't mention this, but I had gotten a spinal headache from my spinal last time, and that was just awful. It was almost worse than the C-section pain. Meagan: I've actually heard that because nothing really takes it away full-on. Flannery: Yeah, except lying down. Meagan: Lying down, yeah.Flannery: I was trying to visit my baby in the NICU. I couldn't just be lying in the hospital bed all day. So I was like, if I can avoid an epidural just so that I don't even have the chance of having a spinal headache again, that's what I'm going to do.I was reading Ina May. I was watching all of the YouTube videos and doing everything that I could, but it got to be a lot. It got to be like, oh my gosh, so much work to prep for this birth. The whole time, you don't know if it's a given if you're going ot get that VBAC.Meagan: I know. Flannery: Sometimes, it can feel like, why am I doing this?Meagan: Yeah. Yeah. It is hard. It is hard because we don't know until it's done. Flannery: Exactly. Until it's 100% over. Yeah. Meagan: Yeah. Flannery: Yeah, so you know, 37 weeks came. 38 weeks, 39 weeks. I was feeling overdue basically since 35 weeks. Meagan: I'm sure. I bet you were like, “I don't know how much longer I can go.” Flannery: I mean, I was definitely hoping to make it to term this time and I was so happy that I did. It was a big, big moment when I hit that 37-week mark, but then I just kept going and going and going. I was like, “Am I ever going to go into labor? What am I doing wrong?” I was walking. It was the end of July and it was so hot out. It was hard to get out there and walk. I eventually hit my due date which was July 25th. I got a membrane sweep on that day which was not super fun. It made me lose my mucus plug and have a few cramps, but nothing else. I was very hopeful that it would kickstart labor, but it did not. Eventually, I thought, “I just have to let go. The baby will come. You might have to have an induction, but you just have to relax.” Finally, finally, 5 days after my due date, which I know is not that long, but it felt long. Meagan: It feels long. It feels long when you are almost 6 weeks after you had your first baby.Flannery: Yes, exactly. I woke up in the middle of the night and I had this period cramp feeling. I was like, “Oh my god. Is this it? Am I in labor?” I managed to calm down and go back to sleep. I put my hand on my belly and was like, “Am I going to get another cramp?” They came, and they came, and they started coming every 20 minutes. Eventually, I had to wake my husband up because it was pretty painful at that point. Maybe 2-3 hours in, I squeezed his hand. He was still sleeping, and he was like, “What's going on?” I was like, “I think I'm in labor.” He said, “I was having a dream that your water broke.”Meagan: Oh my gosh. You guys were both willing it in.Flannery: Yes, exactly. It was like we were on the same wavelength. The contractions kept coming, but they just felt like mild period cramps. I had a midwife appointment at 8:15. They said to go in to see if I was in early labor. She checked me and said I was 3 or 4 centimeters dilated and almost completely effaced. She said, “Your cervix feels labory.” I said, “I think that today is the day.” I was convinced it was prodromal labor or going to fizzle out or something. We went all the way back home. My plan was to labor at home for as long as possible and have my doula come over. I said goodbye to my little 2-year-old. My mom was taking him to hang out with her while we were in the hospital, and I remember she had him say to me, “Good luck, and be strong.”The sound of his little voice saying that to me literally just sustained me through the entire labor. It was replaying in my head in the hardest moments. I could just hear him saying that and it meant so much to me. Yeah. We just hung out at home. I was getting pretty irregular timed contractions. I was wondering why they weren't getting closer together because sometime they would be close together. Sometimes they would be spaced apart, but they were definitely getting stronger. I got in the bath or the shower. I was leaning over, and swaying and moaning, doing all of the things that you're supposed to do– the low-toned moaning and the breathing. I eventually had my doula come over after one really bad contraction. I was like, “What's going on? Why isn't it picking up? Why aren't they getting closer together? Should I go to the hospital? What's going on?” I was really afraid of the car ride because it was about 40 minutes in the car. She said, “I think what is happening is that you have this mental block about the car ride,” because this whole time, I was like, “What if I have the baby in the car? What if I have the baby in the car?” I heard a lot of stories about car babies, and I actually recently had a patient who had a car baby at work. She was like, “I think you have this mental block, and once you get to the hospital, your body is going to let you get fully into labor. So I do think you could go.” I was like, “Okay, okay. Let's go.” I called the midwives and let them know we were coming. My favorite, favorite midwife was on, the one I had hoped this whole time was going to deliver my baby.She was only on for a 12-hour shift, and it was already halfway through her shift. I was like, “Oh gosh. I'm glad she's going to be there.” We drove to the hospital. It was this very hot, very bright, and humid day. I was like, “I don't want to be here. I just want to be in a cold, dark room.”I remember as we turned onto the street that the hospital is in and pulled in the driveway, my contractions boom, boom, boom were ramping up. I was like, “Ashley (my doula), you are so right. This is exactly what happened.” I got into triage. I was making a lot of noise. It was very intense at that point. They checked me. I was 4 centimeters and 100% effaced. I wasn't too disappointed that I wasn't further along because I was like, “This feels pretty intense. I think things are really happening.” But they said, “You picked a very popular day to give birth. There are no rooms available on labor and delivery.” I was like, “No.”Meagan: What?Flannery: I was especially nervous because working in the field, I've seen how a busy unit can really affect the care that is given. It shouldn't be that way, but it totally is. Meagan: It's the reality sometimes. Flannery: Yep. My sister-in-law had recently given birth on a very busy day. She had a very difficult birth, and a very not attentive staff, so that was one of the things I was really afraid of is that I was going to give birth on a super busy day, but my care was excellent thankfully. We eventually waited in triage for a room to be ready, and it was a tub room that became available. There was one tub room in labor and delivery. I was so excited to get in that tub. I jumped right in as soon as we got there. Not jumped, waddled right in. It felt so good. The water felt amazing, but I did find it very hard to maneuver and get in the right position to work through a contraction in the tub because it was weirdly shaped. I didn't stay in there super long, but I was very surprised at how intense the contractions were which sounds silly, but they just really took over. I was hoping to use some coping techniques like music or my rebozo. I brought my massage gun. I brought this whole toolkit of stuff, but in the moment, all that was going through my head during a contraction was cursing and, “I need the epidural. I need the epidural.”I was squeezing my husband's hand so hard. My doula had this spiky, silver ball that you could use for counterpressure so I was squeezing that in my hand so hard breathing. I labored on the toilet for bit. I was in the bed. I was moving around. I could not be lying down. They were having to use continuous monitoring which I didn't really mind. The nurse was very good about not being intrusive about that. She would just follow me around with the monitor. The midwife, who I was hoping to have, was just there with me the whole time. She was holding the monitor onto my belly and speaking kind words to me. I remember going through this terrible contraction and looking over at her. She is just sitting serenely in her rocking chair just looking at me. In my head, I was like, “How can you be so calm? Help me. Do something.” Meagan: I can relate. Flannery: Being present. Meagan: Do something. Help me.Flannery: Help me. Help me. Meagan: Sometimes just being present is what you needed. Flannery: It is. It totally was. She was super hands-off, but in the moment, you're like, “Come on. Somebody do something to help me.” Eventually, I was just sitting on the toilet. The midwife had dimmed the lights. My husband was there speaking to me. I had been making these very loud moans through each contraction, and then during one of them, I started grunting, and I knew exactly what that meant. I was pushing involuntarily. I had been hoping to feel the fetal ejection reflex, and I think that's what this was because my body completely took over. There was no way that I could have not pushed during these contractions. The pain of the contraction was so intense, but it would go away when I pushed. Then I would just feel this really uncomfortable pressure, but at least the pain of the contraction was going away. I had been pushing for maybe 5 minutes, and my midwife was all excited. I was like, “Okay. Please, can you check me?” She was like, “No, just go with your intuition. Listen to your body.” I was like, “No. I need you to check me.” I did not want to be pushing on an incomplete cervix. She did, and I was a 9 and 100% effaced. She was like, “Okay, you can definitely push. That cervix is just going to melt away.” Yes. I tried the nitrous while I was pushing, but I really hated how it restricted my breathing. It also made me throw up everywhere. Meagan: Really? Flannery: Yes. Meagan: Interesting. Flannery: Yes. So much puke. It was so embarrassing. It was splashing on everyone's shoes. I was like, “Oh my god. I'm so sorry.” I pushed on the toilet for a little bit, and then I moved over to the bed. I went over to the bed because when I was on the toilet, I felt something coming out between my legs. I reached down, and it was the bubble of amniotic fluid. It hadn't popped yet. Meagan: Your bag of waters, yeah. Flannery: My bag of waters was coming out. I think I said to my husband, “Do you want to touch it?” He was like, “No.” Meagan: It just feels like a water balloon.Flannery: It felt exactly like a water balloon. I went over to the bed. I got on my side, and I was pushing so hard just totally going with my intuition, but it wasn't the type of peaceful breathing that people tell you to do like the J breathing or anything. There was no way I could breathe through these contractions and these pushes. I was totally holding my breath and bearing down, but that's just what was right for me in the moment. They were saying, “Can you feel the baby moving down?” I was like, “No. Not at all.” I think that's because the bag of waters was still intact. I couldn't feel anything except this really uncomfortable pressure. They said, “Put your fingers inside of yourself and see if you can feel a baby's head.” I put my fingers past the bag of waters, and I could feel the baby's head right there. I pushed, and I could feel the baby move down. It was the most incredible, coolest moment of the birth. I loved that. My midwife said, “Okay, baby's definitely feeling the squeeze.” Her heart rate was going down a little bit. She said, “Turn onto your left side, and with this next contraction, let's have the baby.” I pushed as hard as I possibly could, and just felt this release of pressure. I had no idea what was going on, but I had this cold cloth over my face so I couldn't see anybody, but I heard cheering. Then I felt this warm, wet baby come up onto my belly. I was laughing and crying, and everyone was saying, “Yay! You did it!” I was just like, “Oh my god, what happened?” Meagan: Just like that.Flannery: It was surreal. It was incredible. She started crying right away. We didn't know she was a girl. My husband looked down between her legs. We both looked at the same time and said, “It's a girl.” I said, “I knew you were a girl.” She just stayed with me the whole time right onto my chest. It was just the best feeling. I was so, so overjoyed. Meagan: That is so amazing. It's so amazing with VBAC how the whole room sometimes can just erupt with joy and, “You did it!” and screams and joyful laughs. Oh, man. Flannery: Yeah. It was beautiful. It was so, so intense in a way that I hadn't been expecting it to be. It was a calm, beautiful birth, but the intensity of the contractions and the way that my body completely took over, and I was just along for the ride. I was just riding the waves. It was crazy. Meagan: Truly riding that wave. We talk about it in HypnoBirthing and riding the wave, but that wave came over, and like you said, your body was just like, “Okay, I've got this. Let's go.” Here you went, and this baby came out pretty quickly it sounds like.Flannery: Yeah, she was born at 7:23 PM. I had felt my first contraction at 2:00 AM or something. It wasn't the shortest labor, but once I got to the hospital, it was 5 or 6 hours. It was pretty quick in the end there. She came out en caul. Her head did. Meagan: She did?Flannery: As her body came out, it popped, so she was almost en caul I guess which I thought was so cool. Meagan: Oh my goodness. That is so awesome. I love that. I've seen a couple in my doula career, and it is so cool-looking. A lot of people have said, “Oh, vaginal birth can't have encaul babies.” Oh, yes they can. Yes, they can. 100%. Flannery: Yes. Meagan: I love that you had mentioned, “Once I got to the hospital–”. Sometimes I've had this with doula clients where I'm noticing this pattern of inconsistency and a lot of the times, the client is saying things like, “Should I go? Should I go? Is it okay to be here still? How much longer should we stay?” They are saying these questions because inside, there's a lot going on. I had a client where I said, “You know what? I think we should go. I think you are going to feel safer there. It seems like you are going to feel safer there.” The second we got there, things ramped up. Doctor didn't even make it. The baby slipped out on the bed. Seriously, the second she got there, her body released. It was almost like her epidural. Sometimes, with an epidural, we get an epidural and our body is able to relax. If our mind is not confident or comfortable, we can't let our bodies sometimes. So I love that you pointed that out. I wanted to talk a little bit more really quickly on the types of uterine abnormalities or different types of uteruses. As she was saying, you have a bicornuate uterus which means it's a heart-shaped uterus. I'm probably going to butcher these names especially if you are a provider and you are listening. I don't really know how to say these words. There's an arcuate uterus which is similar to a bicornuate uterus, but with less of a dip in the heart shape. It's like an oddly shaped heart. It's asymmetrical in my mind. That's how I envision it. There's an arcuate uterus, which means there's a divide down the two parts of the membrane wall. Then there's a unicornuate uterus, which is when the fallopian tube has an irregular shape to it. Then I always butcher this one. It's didelphys. I don't even know how to say it. Flannery: Sorry. I can't help you on that one. Meagan: I'm going to stop trying. That is when you are born with two uteruses which does happen. One baby can be in one uterus, and we can have another uterus over here. Those are all abnormalities of the uteruses. Of course, we have different shapes, sizes, and all of the things. I wanted to just have a link in the show notes for that as well so you can read more on each of those types of uteruses. Then tell me if this is the right link. I found Jackson's Chance Foundation.Flannery: Yes. That's what it is. Meagan: Why parking matters. Flannery: Yes. Meagan: It looks like this is inspired. It's a foundation inspired by another person's story, another NICU baby's story. It said that–Flannery: Yeah. I believe that Jackson's parents set it up. Meagan: Yeah. Wow. This story is precious and inspiring. Wow. These parents are incredible. Then it does show that you can donate or sponsor a parking pass. They talk about the why and all of that. This is so awesome. I'm going to make sure that we have that in the show notes. If you know a NICU baby, or you know someone who is going to have a NICU baby, don't be like Flannery and find out later. This is how we all learn, and this is how. We find out when it's too late, then we have to go to show on. So, thank you for sharing that tip. I've actually never heard of it, but that's probably because I'm not a NICU mom.Flannery: Yeah. Yeah. I hope it helps someone. Meagan: Yes. Thank you again so much for sharing your story.Flannery: Oh my gosh, this is amazing. 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

“Whatever happens, I just want it to be peaceful, and I want to be present.”Kerri is a labor and delivery nurse born and raised in Kentucky. The only thing on her first birth plan was not to have a C-section, yet it became her reality. We know many of you can relate.She had a medically necessary induction at 36 weeks due to preeclampsia. Kerri describes her experience with getting magnesium, aka a “flu in a bag”, seeing double and going in for a C-section. Her surgery was straightforward, but Kerri felt very out of it and disconnected. Kerri was very intentional about her plans for a VBAC. Her birth team was on board and supported her requests. Throughout her pregnancy, Kerri's greatest desire was to feel present for the moment of birth no matter the outcome. When labor stalled and baby had a hard time engaging, Kerri felt peaceful about requesting a second C-section. With things happening on her terms, Kerri's birth was the peaceful and healing experience she hoped it would be.Evidence Based BirthⓇ - The Evidence on VBACEvidence Based BirthⓇ - COVID ResourcesNeeded WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello, Women of Strength. We have a CBAC story coming your way today. If you did not know what CBAC means, that is Cesarean Birth After Cesarean. This is a topic that a lot of people avoid. I don't know, tell me, Kerri, who is sharing her story today. Do you feel like CBAC stories are sometimes avoided when you are preparing for a VBAC?Kerri: I think so. I know I avoided that as I prepared for my own attempted VBAC. Meagan: Yeah. Kerri: Yeah. I think that CBAC is something that we try to avoid because we all hope for that VBAC. Meagan: Yeah. We overlook it and it actually breaks my heart. I encourage everyone to listen, especially if they are wanting to VBAC, every VBAC story, but as well as every CBAC story for a lot of reasons. One, understanding maybe what led to another CBAC and two, the healing and the fact that it can be a peaceful experience. It's not the end. There are so many things to CBAC, I think, that are missed. It's the same thing with uterine rupture stories or things like that. I'm not wanting that, so I don't want to listen to that. Now, I don't want to shame anyone if they skip over a CBAC story, but I really encourage everybody to listen to all of these stories because they are empowering. They are uplifting, and they are going to help you grow in ways that you may not even know. Before we get into cute Kerri's episode, I wanted to share a review. This was actually left a little bit ago too, actually. It was in 2022. No, 2021. It says, “Going for my VBAC after two C-section in 2022”. It says, “Thank you so much for this valuable resource. I have been listening to your podcast since early in my second pregnancy. I found out I was expecting again 9 months after my CBAC, and I was immediately and depressed that I would be going through all of that all over again very soon. I am now 14 weeks, and I'm drawing strength every day from the stories you share. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I have hope this time that it will be different.” Now, that's another good note to have. Even if you do have a CBAC, that doesn't mean that's the end. That also may mean you find healing in that, and you want future CBACs, right? You want to schedule that CBAC. I love that note about healing and strength. That's what all of these episodes are doing. Okay, Kerri. I am so happy that you are here. You are in Kentucky.Kerri: Yes. Meagan: Okay, were you in Kentucky for both of your births? Are you from Kentucky?Kerri: I have lived in the same small town my whole life. I live just outside of Lexington. It's a little bit bigger than it used to be, but it's still a small town to me. Meagan: Okay. Kerri: I have lived in Lexington my whole life. I gave birth at the same hospital where I was born. Meagan: Yeah, me too. I would say I'm boring. I'm boring. I haven't been anywhere, but I don't think it's boring, actually. I love Utah. I've been born and raised here. I actually gave birth at the same hospital for my C-sections and with the same provider who gave birth to me. Kerri: Oh, that's so funny. That's wild. Meagan: Kind of crazy, huh. Well, thank you so much for being here today and sharing your beautiful stories. I'd love to turn the time over to you. Kerri: Yeah. I'm so excited to share. I've listened to this podcast quite a bit since my first C-section, so I'm really excited to be on today.Meagan: Well, thank you for being here. Kerri: My first pregnancy was already a surprise pregnancy. Me and my husband had just gotten married, and a month and a half later found out we were pregnant. It was already quite a bit of a surprise being pregnant. You know, pregnancy went well. The first trimester went well. Around 28 weeks, I had gotten COVID. This was November of ‘21. COVID was still fresh. I had gotten COVID, and I made it through that. I thought everything was going well, but from that point on, I just was feeling more and more sick. I had been a nurse for a while, but I was a new nurse to labor and delivery. I was working night shifts, so I just really attributed the way I felt to working nights. I'm just pregnant. I'm working the night shifts. This is probably what's wrong with me. Around 35 weeks, I just started feeling miserable. I had an appointment with a provider who wasn't my provider, but he was a provider I had worked with. At that appointment, my blood pressure was elevated. He said, “Let's just get a preeclampsia panel, and do a 24-hour urine just to be safe and see what's going on.”I did that, and I turned in my 24-hour urine. I went to work that night. That shift was miserable. I don't know how I made it through that shift, but I did. I got off that morning, and the provider called me that morning. He was like, “You have preeclampsia. You cannot work anymore. You're on light duty at home, and you're being induced at 37 weeks.” That was already quite a bit of a shock. I had been around birth just enough as a labor and delivery nurse. I had just already in my head pictured this beautiful birth experience that you see on Instagram, and I'm like, “This is already not happening for me.” He tells me that. I'm home for a few days, and I'm just feeling more miserable as I'm home. After that phone call a few days later, I checked my blood pressure, and it's severe at home. It's over 160/110. Being the nurse I am, they say nurses make the worst patients. I was just like, “I'm going to ignore this for a little bit, and we'll just see if this gets any better.” I check it again later that afternoon, and it's still super high. I called my husband, and we decided to go to the hospital. We get there, and my blood pressure was high, but it was not severe enough to do anything about it. They were like, “Let's just keep you overnight and see what you do.” Over the 24-hour period of being there for observation, my blood pressures just went up and up. I had some more severe, and they were like, “You know, it's time to have a baby.” I was just shy of 36 weeks at this point. They started a magnesium infusion to help with the preeclampsia.Meagan: Blood pressure. Ugh, did it make you feel yucky?Kerri: Oh, yes. Magnesium is awful. I feel for anybody who has to be on that. It was awful. We call it flu in a bag, and it truly is that. Meagan: Flu in a bag. Okay. I've never heard of that, but I can understand that based off of the way I've seen my clients feel. Kerri: Yeah, that's exactly how you feel. Flu in a bag. It just makes you feel yucky. We started that, and we started the induction process. We started with the Foley bulb. We put that in. That was in until the next morning, and it comes out. When it came out, I think I was 3 centimeters, but not very effaced. It was just an artificial 3, a Foley bulb 3. They were like, “You know, your cervix isn't very favorable. Let's do some Cytotec.”We did a few doses of Cytotec. They rechecked me after that. It was still not very favorable. I think this was the evening at that point. They were like, “Let's just take a break, let you have a meal, and we'll try this again.” We do that, and then we start Pitocin. We did that all night. The next morning, my provider checks me. I'm finally a 4. I was ecstatic. I was like, “Oh, I've made some change.” I was really excited. They checked me. I was 4. They break my water, and they're like, “Let's just see what happens.” I had gotten an epidural at that point because I was already pretty miserable from being on magnesium and all of these induction agents. I was like, “I really need some rest.” I was already epiduralized. The nurse who was taking care of me at the time was a really good friend of mine. She was like, “Let's do everything that we can to try to have this baby vaginally.” She did Spinning Babies. We did all of the positions that we could. They checked me again later and I was a 5. I was ecstatic, like, okay. We're doing something there. A few hours later, I'm starting to feel pretty miserable, more miserable than I had felt before. I look over at the computer, and I'm seeing double. I call out to my friend. I'm like, “I don't know if this is normal, but I'm seeing two of everything.” She was like, “No, it's not.” She calls my provider. He said, “Let's draw a magnesium level. Let's see what's going on.” So they did. My magnesium level was high. They decided, “Let's just recheck you. We'll see you if you made change. If not, we'll have to have a section.”They checked me. I was still a 5 at that point. They decided with everything that was going on, it was probably in the best interest of the situation to have a section. I agreed, but I was heartbroken. My whole pregnancy, my only birth plan was don't have a C-section, and at that moment, that was my reality. Everybody who was with me that day, they were my coworkers. They witnessed me have a full-blown panic attack over it, but everybody made it through that with me. They loved on me, then we finally went back to the C-section. I'm pretty out of it from the magnesium at this point and just having labored so long. They started the section. I felt like I could feel more than what I probably should have been able to feel. I let them know, and once they got the baby out, they gave me ketamine just to help with my pain. I was knocked out for 12 hours, so I don't remember my baby's birth at all. Meagan: That's hard. Kerri: Yeah. It was really hard. I feel like the moment I actually realized I had a baby was the next morning. There's a video where I'm like, “Oh my goodness.”Meagan: Yeah. Yeah. Were you feeling any better by then?Kerri: I was still under magnesium, but I was feeling better. Meagan: Good. Kerri: The protocol, at least at the hospital that I work at in, is magnesium 24 hours postpartum just to make sure you still don't– Meagan: Yes, that is how it is here too, then they'll recheck things and if blood pressures are still elevated or anything like that, and if levels are elevated, then they'll remain, and if not, then they'll take you off. Kerri: Yeah, we did that for 24 hours. Once that was off, I finally got to go up to the mother/baby unit. I started to feel more normal at that point, but just that whole experience, I felt like I was just not even a part of. I was just there having the baby, but I didn't feel like I was actually there having a baby. Meagan: Yeah. Yeah. Did that carry onto the postpartum and future as stuff to process for you, or did it feel okay? Kerri: That was very hard for me because I worked with birth every day. I got to see these beautiful moments of people having their baby, and I didn't feel like I had gotten that. I don't remember my baby being born. You know, it's different. I had pictures, but nothing quite as good as remembering that. That was very hard, and it really affected me for a long time. You know, it still does. I would have loved to have been present in that moment. That just wasn't the reality for me. Meagan: Yeah. Have you done things to work through that, or anything to suggest for someone who maybe have experienced that or have been put under anesthesia where they just couldn't remember or be present in their birth?Kerri: For me, my faith is something that is very important to me. Praying and talking with God about it has really been helpful for me. It was still a beautiful moment. I've come to terms with that. Meagan: Good. Good. Okay, so baby number two. Oh, I was going to ask you, with being preterm, did they do a special scar or anything, or were they able to do a regular low transverse?Kerri: Just a regular low transverse incision. Meagan: Awesome. Awesome.Kerri: Yeah. So baby number two, we knew we wanted another one, and honestly, as soon as we were in that hospital room, I remember I told my husband that I never wanted to have a C-section again. When we started thinking about number two, we were going to start working towards having a VBAC. When she was around 20 months, I found out I was pregnant. Prior to the pregnancy, I had done a ton of research on what is the best way to get a VBAC, and what is the best way to prevent preeclampsia which is silly because we know preeclampsia can't necessarily be prevented. Meagan: Yeah, there are things we can do to try to reduce the chances, but there's nothing that we know for sure, concrete that this is what you can do to make sure you don't get it. Kerri: Yeah. My provider did have me start taking low-dose aspirin early on in the pregnancy, and I didn't get it again, but you know, I did all of this research like, what can I do? Looking back now, I think I put too much pressure on myself to try and prevent it. I found out I was pregnant when she was 20 months old, and we were so excited. We were just thrilled. We just couldn't even describe that. I was so excited to start doing what I could in the pregnancy to get my VBAC. That's all I could think about was my VBAC. I remember praying to God. I just prayed that this pregnancy I could have my successful VBAC. Then as the pregnancy got closer to delivery, in my head, I'm like, “I could have another C-section. I need to start thinking about this.” So then I shifted my mindset. I was like, “You know, if I have to have another C-section, it's okay. All we want is a peaceful delivery.” So that's what I kept telling myself every day in my prayers. I was like, “Whatever happens, I just want it to be peaceful, and I want to be present.”Meagan: Yeah, I bet that was a really big deal for you.Kerri: Yes. I just kept saying that every day. That's what we're going to do. Peaceful delivery. Present delivery. I kept telling my coworkers because they were rooting for me. We were going to make this a better experience. My provider the whole pregnancy was great. She was very VBAC-supportive. I did a lot of research prior to the pregnancy about who I wanted to see, and I worked with these providers. It was a hard choice to make. I work with great providers, but I feel very confident in the provider I picked. She took such great care of me, and I'll forever be grateful for her. Towards the end of the pregnancy, me and her had a chat about what are we going to do to get our best attempt at having a VBAC? I ultimately decided that I wanted to be an induced VBAC. Not necessarily that I wanted to be induced, but I needed the peace of mind. I already had a lot of anxiety just because of the last pregnancy, and I just needed an experience where I could at least expect something. This may not end in a successful VBAC, but I really want to try. We scheduled the induced VBAC, and she was like, “This might not work.” We had a lot of conversations about that. She was like, “Induced VBACs aren't always successful,” which I appreciated her saying as a provider. I was like, “This is what I need just for my peace of mind.” We scheduled an induction. Everything was going great. I went in at night. I had gotten a Foley bulb again. My cervix wasn't favorable necessarily. I was 39 weeks on the dot. Maybe if I would have waited a little longer, I would have been more favorable. At that point, I wasn't the most favorable, but I still wanted to go through with it. I had wrapped my head around that that day was going to be her birthday and we were going to go through with it. We started with the Foley bulb, and it stayed in for what felt like forever. They put it in at midnight. It did not come out until 11:00 AM the next day. I was not expecting that because last time, the Foley bulb did not stay in that long. This time, I had made it to 39 weeks, and I was thinking that my cervix would do more, and it just didn't. My provider came in. She was able to get it out. She broke my water, and I was at a 4 at that point. It was ready to come out, but it didn't on its own. I wasn't expecting that. I was expecting a little bit more. Meagan: That can happen. It can be in for up to 12 hours and not fall out. That can happen, but I'm sure after your previous experience, you're like, “Wait. Why isn't this out yet?” Kerri: Yeah. We did that, and I decided she was going to break my water. Me and her and my nurse who was taking care of me was a really good friend. We were like, “Let's just get an epidural because we know that there is a bit of a higher chance for uterine rupture for being an induced VBAC or TOLAC.” Meagan: Were you feeling contractions at this point?Kerri: I was. I was feeling contractions. That was something, I kept telling my husband, that I was really excited about. With the last experience, I was really out of it having been on magnesium and having gotten an epidural so early. I just didn't even feel like I got to experience labor at all. Like I said, I didn't feel like I was a part of that experience. I was really excited this time to be able to experience contractions. While they were very, very painful, I was very grateful to have that experience. I had asked for a few doses of fentanyl. Meagan: Fentanyl?Kerri: Fentanyl, yeah. We used to do [inaudible], but right now, we have fentanyl. I had asked for a few doses of fentanyl, but I really tried to tough it out because I was like, “I really want this experience.” The whole pregnancy, I had been prepping for how I was going to manage labor while I didn't have an epidural. I had a friend who I worked with. She is also a doula, and she is going to school to be a midwife. She had talked me through a few different things that I could do. I had really prepared, and I was really excited to be able to experience some contractions. Meagan: Yeah. Kerri: But we had decided, “Let's get an epidural just to be safe.” We got an epidural, and everything was smooth sailing. We got the epidural. We started some Pitocin. I had asked for peace of mind for me, an IUPC which is the intrauterine contraction monitor because I wanted to know what my uterus was doing. If I was going to be an induced VBAC and I'm going to have a higher risk of rupture, I wanted to know exactly what my uterus was doing, so I asked for one of those to be put in. They put one in. My contractions were adequate. We were moving along. I'm just ecstatic at this point because I'm like, “I have never had adequate contractions. Last time, I made progress, but nothing like this.” I was very, very excited. Throughout the course of the day, me and my friend who was taking care of me decided that we were going to do every Spinning Babies position that we could do. My epidural was just perfect enough. I was able to help move by myself and do all of these positions that I had planned on doing. It was great. I was so excited. They checked me, and I was a 5. I was excited that I had made it a little bit farther than what I had thought I would because last time, I had stayed at a 5 forever. I was at a 5, and I was expecting to just keep making progress. A few hours later, they checked me again, and I was still a 5. My provider is like, “Your pelvis feels very tight, and your baby's head is not applied at all.” So then, I felt crushed in that moment. I had been planning on having this successful VBAC, and it doesn't feel like it's going to happen. Prior to the induction, I had been living in the Miles Circuit and doing everything I could to get her the best engaged she could be. She wasn't doing it. She said, “We'll give it a few more hours.” Meagan: What were your MVUs at this point? Sorry, I just interrupted you. Kerri: I think they were 200. They were adequate. Meagan: Mhmm, cool. Kerri: My contractions had been adequate for a while, and I wasn't on very much Pit. Meagan: Good. Kerri: I was thinking that things were going great. She was like, “We can keep going if you want. I'm going to stay with you. I'm going to do your delivery regardless of the outcome.” We decided we were going to keep going. A few hours later, I get checked again. I'm still 5. Her head's still not applied. My friend who was taking care of me was about to leave because her shift was over. She was like, “We can call it right now, or we can give it another shot.” She said, “You'll never get this experience again, so if you want to keep going, keep going, but if you don't, it's fine.”Kerri: I decided, “I want to keep trying.” I kept trying. Then a few hours later, I was checked again. I was still a 5. Her head was still not engaged, so we decided that we were going to have another C-section. That was heartbreaking. I remember in the moment feeling a little heartbroken, but also feeling at peace about it all in one. Meagan: Yeah, which is important. Kerri: Yeah. We go back for the section. I was nervous about having another section just because my first one was so traumatizing. I wasn't sure how it was going to go. I was really nervous about anesthesia. Is it going to hurt this time? Am I going to be knocked out because I'm feeling too much? The anesthesiologist who took care of me decided, “Let's just give you a spinal.” My epidural had fallen out actually, so she said, “Let's do a spina. Let's make sure you are the most comfortable you can be.” They did that. They started the section. I couldn't feel anything which I'm already thrilled for. I remember just laying there, and I felt so present during the whole thing. My baby came out, and I remember being a part of that moment. There was a clear drape, so I was able to see what was going on. My provider– I feel like we had developed such a good bond. She did everything to make sure that it was a good experience for me and to make sure I was present. Something that was important to me was that my baby would be with me a little bit longer while I was in the OR. I didn't have my baby with me last time, so I really wanted that. I didn't necessarily do skin-to-skin, but I got to hold her. She got to be with me the whole time, and it was perfect. She got to be with me during recovery. That whole birthing experience was just the most beautiful thing.Meagan: Good. So you have been able to walk away feeling positive about a birth experience. Kerri: Yes. That's not something I thought I would get with a C-section. After my first, I had a lot of postpartum anxiety. I had very negative feelings towards C-sections. I didn't enjoy seeing my scar. To me, that was just a reminder of what my body had done to me. I felt betrayed by my body, and for the longest time, I just was ashamed of the fact that I had a C-section. After that experience with my second, I was very proud that I did have a C-section because reality hit me that this isn't the most ideal way to give birth to a baby, but it happens, and thank God they are available, and I have two beautiful babies because of my C-sections, so I'm very, very thankful for them now. Meagan: Yes, good. Good. Kerri: When my husband and I decide to have another one, I'm like, “This will be great because I think that for me, I'll just have another repeat section, and it will be scheduled. It's going to be great, and I'm excited about it.” But it's just something to be able to look back and be able to think of this as such a positive experience as opposed to my first. I wasn't proud of my birth story at all. It was something I carried with me for a long time, and now, I'm thankful that I can have a different perspective about it. Even about my first, my first birth was beautiful in its own way.Meagan: Yeah. It's hard because you don't want to only think about those births as negative or traumatic. You want to pick out the positivity from it, but sometimes it is hard to see all of that, so it's been so great to hear that you– one, it sounds like with your labor, it really was a lot of your choice along the way. You decided this was something you wanted. Your team went with you and then walked with you along the way. In the end, it was able to be something that was a lot more healing. Even though it was still a Cesarean, it was a healing experience for you. You got to have your baby that whole time, and you got to grow through that experience. Like you said, you may choose to have a third C-section, and that's okay. I think that's one of the things I love about this podcast is that it's not if you choose a C-section, you are shamed. That's just not how it is. Everyone needs to choose what is best for them and their individual circumstances. I love that you've been able to go from the furthest end of the extreme to coming back, and then possibly if you have another baby, it sounds like something that you are already looking forward to having an even different experience. I love that you've been able to have that and you can share these stories and you can hold onto these good feelings because it really is important. Kerri: Yes. Even as a labor and delivery nurse, I feel more positive about taking care of women who have C-sections because for the longest time, every time I went into the OR, it brought up feelings from my own first C-section. It was hard to be the best nurse that I could be when I was dealing with my own feelings, so I'm thankful now that I have this perspective of, “This is beautiful in its own way.” Every birth is beautiful. You're bringing your baby into the world. Who cares how it happens? I think we get so wrapped up in God made our bodies to give birth a certain way, and that's just not the reality for some people. I'm thankful we live in a society where C-sections are readily available and we can have them. They can be just as beautiful.Meagan: Yeah. CBACs really can be. My second C-section was very, very healing. I think it was exactly what I needed to have healing from my first birth that I didn't realize I didn't heal from. I was really, really grateful that I had the experience. Again, it wasn't the birth I desired, but it was such a better and healing experience for me. I was really, really grateful for those. Okay, I have two things that I want to talk about. One is preeclampsia. Not even just preeclampsia, but COVID. I was just wondering, as a labor and delivery nurse, have you seen things like preeclampsia or placental issues or anything like that from people who have had COVID during pregnancy? Rebecca Dekker has such an incredible blog, and I'm going to make sure to link it here. I have seen this weird connection with pre-e with a placenta or placental issues that have had COVID. I was just curious if you've seen anything like that. Kerri: You know, I feel like that is something that we've seen more of. I will say I started working as a labor and delivery nurse in 2021, so I can't speak for what nurses saw prior to this, but I do feel like I see a great deal of preeclampsia, especially during that COVID time. Women were having more complications. More women are getting more sick. I don't know if there's a correlation, but I will say that as far as pregnancy goes, it does seem like a lot of pregnancies are becoming more high-risk.Meagan: Because of that? Because of COVID?Kerri: I don't know if it's necessarily COVID or just the way we eat, the way we take care of ourselves, but I feel like during COVID, there were a higher number of combinations whether there's a correlation or not. Meagan: Yeah, that's interesting. I just barely read the most recent update. I need to dive into that more, but I was wondering as a labor and delivery nurse if you had seen that. You mentioned with your first that they had tested you, and your magnesium levels were too high. Are there things that can reduce magnesium levels? Obviously, maybe lowering the magnesium levels that are given, but are there things that can be done in that situation to lower their magnesium levels?Kerri: If your magnesium level is high, we can give you the reversal drug which is calcium gluconate. We can give you that, but we are already inducing, you and it's high, and you're not making very much progress, at that point–Meagan: The provider may not be wanting to do that. Kerri: Yeah, delivery is the best option.Meagan: Yeah, for preeclampsia, which we do know. I was just wondering if there was such a thing that could help. Kerri: Yeah. Ideally, just do what you can to deliver. But you know, that's something that people should talk to their provider about in that moment. Meagan: Yeah. I agree. I agree. Then last but not least, I just wanted to share a little bit more because I think a lot of people do question induction and VBAC. What are the risks? Sometimes, the risks seem astronomical, and sometimes they are not to some people. Everyone takes it differently. I wanted to share some evidence on that. With the risk of induction, it does increase just like you had mentioned. It does increase the risk of uterine rupture when we are induced. It's about a 1.1% if you have Pitocin and about a 2% if you have prostaglandins, and then of course, we know misoprostol. How do you say that?Kerri: Misoprostol, but however you want. Meagan: Yeah. I saw misoprostol, but I've heard people say MYsoprostol. It is about 6%. It definitely increases with certain things that you do. It's about a 1.1%. Uterine rupture in general is just around 1%. It increases it ever so slightly, but it's really important to take the right precautions. A Foley bulb is a fantastic way to start jumpstarting labor, but sometimes it does need to have a little bit of an opening, at least 1 centimeter. Kerri: Where I work, we don't do Cytotec for TOLACs. Meagan: Most people shouldn't.. Kerri: It's a 1 to 1 assignment. Your nurse who is taking care of you wouldn't have another patient. Meagan: Interesting. Kerri: They make sure that all hands are on you and make sure that your uterus is okay. When it came down to me when I was thinking about wanting to TOLAC and hopefully have a VBAC, I looked at the risk. I think it's important. I listened to a podcast. I think it was by Jordan Lee Doulie. She had an OB on her podcast talking about VBAC. He said, “It's important to remember that there is a risk whether you're having a repeat section or you're having a TOLAC.”I really took that to heart. For me, the risk of uterine rupture is small enough that I want to try. I know that I'm going to be in a hospital. I know I'm going to be monitored, and if that's something that's happening, I know I'll be taken care of quickly. I was okay taking the risk. I think that has to be such an individual choice. It does carry risk as well, so that's why I needed to at least give it a shot. I'm somebody that I fully support whoever wants to have a VBAC after two sections, but for me, that's not something I want to do. But as with everything, you have to look at both sides of it and make your decision. Meagan: Yeah. I think that's what we talk about on this podcast. Learn the risks. Learn the facts. Learn what the evidence says, and then follow your heart. What feels right? I appreciate you so much for coming on and sharing your journey. I do love how much you were able to be a part of your birth that second, and then also your postpartum experience is so important. Kerri: Oh yeah. I'm 11 weeks postpartum now, and I just have to say that my mental health this time is so much better, and my recovery post-C-section was so much better. I really have such positive things to say. It was such a good experience. I'm forever grateful for everybody who took care of me. I'm forever grateful for my provider. I just love her dearly and am just so thankful for her. Meagan: Good. I'm so grateful for you. I'm so glad you had that support and that loving team. Thank you again for sharing.Kerri: Yes. Thank you so much for having me on here.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

One of our team members, Paige, joins us today to share our first maternal assisted Cesarean story on the podcast! Our favorite Julie joins too sharing her perspective as Paige's birth photographer. Paige tried three times to have the vaginal birth of her dreams. Each time ended in emergency Cesareans due to nonreassuring fetal heart tones. Each time, she missed the golden hour that she so desperately craved. Each time, she learned more and more about birth.With her fourth baby, she exchanged her VBAC dream for a new one. After hearing about maternal assisted Cesareans, she decided to do all she could to pursue one fully knowing it may not happen. But when it did, it was everything she hoped it would be and more. Paige's Full Birth VideoHoum ClinicDayana Harrison Birth ServicesJulie Francom Birth PhotographyYouTube Video: Maternal Assisted Caesarean Section - The Birth of Betty MaeThe VBAC Link Podcast Episode 220: Dr. Natalie Elphinstone & MACsThe Birth Hour Episode 875: Nicole's Maternal Assisted Cesarean in MichiganBaby Baking & Kid Raising Podcast Episode 6: MACs with Lauren BrentonAustralian Birth Stories Podcast: All Maternal Assisted Cesarean EpisodesYouTube Video: Nottingham University Hospitals Maternity Gentle C-sectionCBAC Support Facebook Community How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Oh my gosh, you guys. Today is a very special day. It's a very, very special day. We have our own team member, Paige. If you guys haven't already seen the video floating around, go to Instagram today and watch what we've got posted. We have Paige, and we have Julie, and they are actually in Korea. Now, Paige lives in Korea. Julie flew to Korea to be the photographer for Paige. I was over here in Utah having FOMO as they were Marco Poloing me when she was in labor. You guys, I am so excited. I can't explain to you the love that I have for Paige. She has been on our team for so many years. I'm getting emotional. I have seen this woman transform into the most amazing, strong individual. She has created something so special for her family, and I think, for Korea. This is our first official Maternal Assisted Cesarean story on the podcast. Seriously, my eyes are all watery. I just cannot wait to hear this story. Julie was just saying how she's been dying wanting to call me this week while she has been in Korea, but she didn't want to share her story because it is Paige's story, but I love that I get to have both of them on the show. So hello, you guys. I'm sorry. I just am rambling. Paige: Hi. Meagan: Oh my gosh. Okay. We have Paige. We have Julie. You guys know who they are. Julie, obviously, has been with The VBAC Link for a long time, and so has Paige.Julie: Been with The VBAC Link for a long time? Yeah.Meagan: Yeah, sorry. You created it. Julie: We created it. Meagan: Yeah, sorry. I'm thinking of Paige. Paige has been with The VBAC Link for a long time. If you didn't know, she actually heads the CBAC group, the CBAC Link Community on Facebook, and she transcribes all of these incredible episodes. So thank you, Paige, and welcome everybody.Paige: Thank you. So yeah, I'm just sitting here in my little corner of The VBAC Link team doing my transcribing which I feel like maybe is just a little drop in the birth world bucket until something more happens for me. I've been with The VBAC Link for the last 4 years, and I feel like it's my way of preserving these stories. Spending time with the women on the podcast is such an honor, and it's just one of my favorite things to do. I've learned so much, and truly, we'll get into it, but I wouldn't have had this birth experience in the same way if it were not for The VBAC Link and for being on the team. So truly, thank you to both of you. You've changed my life. All right, what's that?Meagan: I was going to say that you've made our life better. Paige: Aw, thank you.Julie: Yes, absolutely. It is so cool to see this. Me and Paige were just talking last night about this and how it's kind of a full-circle moment. We were going over her other births and how we got here and how she got here. It's just so cool. I am so thrilled about how everything played out. There were so many little miracles. I think miracles is not the right word. There were so many special blessings and things that led her to this point. I cannot wait to hear all of it from her perspective. It's so fun to be here and share on the podcast and really, this story is going to change lives. It's going to change lives. It's going to change birth. It is going to be something that people talk about and use as inspiration and hope as they prepare for their own births, no matter how they birth because there's a lot of advocacy involved. I think that's the biggest thing. There's a lot of advocacy. Paige did a lot of advocating for herself and what she wanted. It doesn't have to be literally the same way that she birthed for anybody to take inspiration from it, so I would just encourage everybody to listen because she is such a good example of fighting for what she wants, and shifting and rolling with the punches. I am just so inspired by Paige. You mentioned it too, Meagan. I am just so inspired by how she has approached all of this. Yeah, there are lots of life lessons. Lots of life lessons in this birth. Meagan: Yes.Julie: Stay tuned, everybody. It's a good one.Meagan: All right, Ms. Paige. We're turning the time over to you. Let's hear it because I cannot wait. Paige: Okay, so I'm going to start with a brief overview of my first three births. I'm a mom to four boys. I never thought that would be my story, with four C-sections. I never thought that would be my story, but it is, and it's beautiful. For my first birth, I got pregnant in September 2015. We were living in Hawaii at the time, but moved to Lawton, Oklahoma. I received prenatal care there at the Army hospital. It was pretty straightforward, just the What to Expect When You're Expecting type prep. They have this program called the New Parent Support Program which is really great for new families.  A nurse comes to your home, educates you, and gives you resources. I did that. That was really nice. I had a friend who was a doula. We took a hospital childbirth class and watched things like The Business of Being Born, but other than that, I was mostly just really afraid of childbirth in general. I was afraid of dying. I just wanted to survive. I didn't really have any specific birth preferences. I have struggled with anxiety and panic attacks throughout my life, so I thought that if I could just survive, that would be a big win. My OB was a family friend, and I felt very safe with him. He had a great bedside manner. I didn't really push any questions. I just trusted him fully and completely. At 34 and 6, I noticed that I started leaking fluids. My New Parent Support Program nurse had advised me that if I had noticed any kind of new discharge or anything like that– colorless, odorless fluid to go and get it checked out immediately. So I did. My husband drove me. I remember I had not eaten lunch, but it was lunchtime. I was like, “Oh, just drop me off. This will be fast, then we will go get lunch.” The midwife there tested the fluids and confirmed it was amniotic fluid. I remember my OB walked in. He said, “You are leaking amniotic fluid. We need to have this baby today. The baby will be fine at 35 weeks, and it's better for the baby to come than for you to stay pregnant basically and risk an infection.” So I was like, “Oh, okay. Yeah. I trust you.” I got a steroid shot for lung development at 35 weeks. Then they started me on an IV with antibiotics because I didn't have my GBS test back yet. Then he also told me that the Army hospital there did not have a NICU to support a 35-weeker and that I would need to be transferred to the civilian hospital in town. So I would have to be transferred. Since I was already on an IV, they were just going to do it via ambulance. It was my first time ever riding in an ambulance. He also said that he legally wouldn't be able to deliver me, but he would go with me and help me make decisions. That was really nice of him to go, but still just the sheer fact that I was going to be riding in an amublance for the first time, I was going to be having the baby that day, and then I was going to have a completely new doctor, was just sheer overload going into a birth that I was already afraid of. Yeah, it was not the best circumstances for a successful induction. I arrived at the hospital. I met the doctor very briefly. I called my doula friend. She came and helped me. We did what we could, but ultimately, my body was just not showing any signs of being ready. I had no contractions at all. I was completely closed and not even soft. No dilation. My cervix was just not showing any signs of progress. After about 14 hours on Pit, they came in. I remember I had the dull cramping from the Pit, but nothing really intense. I also just remember being so painfully hungry, and they wouldn't let me each. But since I hadn't had lunch, I was just so hungry where you get the body chills and stuff. Anyway, the doctor came in, said he was having decels. He recommended having a C-section because my water had been broken for over 12 hours. I consented. I was so afraid. I remember when they were putting in the spinal, I was just heaving sobs into this poor nurse. You go in and prep. The C-section itself was fine. My arms were strapped down. I didn't feel pain, but I remember it was like an elephant was sitting on my chest. It was like, “Oh, it just feels like somebody's sitting on my chest.” It wasn't horrible, and I was pleasantly surprised by that. But then, he was whisked away to the NICU. I briefly saw him swaddled with a hat on, then he was whisked away. No skin-to-skin for my husband or me, obviously. He was 4 pounds, 14 ounces at birth. They wouldn't let me go see him until I felt ready to go. I was just so swollen from all of the fluids. I was so nauseous anytime I would sit up. I just was not ready in any state to try to go walk or be wheeled to the NICU. Finally, 36 hours after delivery, I was able to meet him. We named him before that over FaceTime, but he was in the NICU for 7 days. I wasn't traumatized because I survived and that was my goal. I met my goal, and I was really proud of myself for facing the fear, but hoped for something different the next time. With the second birth, I got pregnant in July of 2017. I had a subchorionic hemorrhage early on that resolved. We were in Texas at the time. It was Fort Hood back then, but I met with many different OB providers at the Army hospital on base there. I felt okay with it because I had a neighbor who was going for a VBAC after two C-sections. She was really supported, and then she had a successful experience there. Because of my 35-week PPROM, they suggested that I go on the Makena progesterone shots once a week from 16 to 36 weeks. I did that. They worked very, very well. I switched to the midwife track because everything was going fine. The midwives were really great. They were really holistic. They supported inducing a VBAC if needed, but they also supported me going into spontaneous labor past 41 weeks. I made it to 41 and 5. The VBAC Link was not a thing back then yet, so I did not have that resource, but I did read Ina May's Guide to Childbirth and the Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way. I read The Birth Partner. I kind of started dipping my toes into real birth education. I was learning about the physiological process of birth, learning how to do it without being afraid, and learning to trust my body. It was really empowering. It was the prep that I needed at that time. I didn't know about bodywork. I ended up having prodromal labor for about a week. It was pretty intense, but I didn't know anything about positioning, posterior, or Spinning Babies. I did find that out right at the end as I was going through it, but I didn't do chiro or any of that. I finally went in for an induction at 41+5 in April 2018. I ended up having to go with an OB on call because the midwife didn't feel comfortable with the NSTs that she saw, so she didn't want to take me on. I was like, “Oh, dangit.” The OB who was there was one who I wasn't really super comfortable with. But he was like, “Oh, well I know you really want a VBAC. We'll try to get that for you.” I was like, “Okay.”I got a Foley. I was barely a 1, but they got a Foley in and I progressed very quickly. I got to a 5 within a couple of hours. Things were going really great. They were very normal labor patterns. I felt like I was managing the contractions really well. I did consent to artificial rupture of membranes, then labored a little while longer. I got an epidural at 7 centimeters. I was told, “Oh, we just had a mom who got an epidural. She relaxed, and the baby came right away.” You hear that and you're like, “Oh, I want that. Yes.” So I did that. I got the epidural at about 6:30ish, and then between that half hour, his heart just wasn't doing well. They were flipping me. I got an amnioinfusion. I got a fetal scalp electrode. I got an IUPC, all the things. Then they gave me oxygen. It was probably about 7:00. He had a prolonged decel. I was lying flat and there were people all around me. The nurse was just like, “We need him now. Do you consent to a C-section?” I was like, “Yes.” Then I surrendered and let it go. I was like, “There goes the VBAC. This is just what needs to happen.” He was born at 7:09, and I was born under general anesthesia for that one. His APGARS were 8/9. My husband was left alone during that surgery. We do have pictures of him holding my son and doing skin-to-skin at 7:27, so about 20 minutes after he was born. I woke up and got to hold him at about 8:45, so about an hour and a half after he was born. I remember it was just really hard to talk after being intubated, but they let me breastfeed right away. I was disappointed, but I don't feel like I had a lot of trauma from that just because I was so empowered. I ended up ultimately making it to an 8. It was so fun for me to see what my body could do. I was like, “Oh, this just means that I was meant for a VBAC after two C-sections. That's what it meant.” Right then in the OR, or I guess it was the recovery room. I committed that that was going to be my story. I was like, “Oh yeah. That's just what it's meant to be. That's why it didn't work out.” I was so empowered. Then when I got pregnant for the third time in September 2019, we were in Germany. We had just moved there. I hit the ground running. I hired a doula right away and a backup doula. The prenatal care was at this small, tiny clinic in a town called Parsberg. I chose not to get progesterone shots. I was like, “I was 41+5. I think I'll be okay without them.” Yep, that's when I discovered The VBAC Link and all of the birth podcasts. I just became obsessed listening all the time, taking notes. I did the bodywork. I watched tons of birth videos. I did cranioscral therapy, chiropractic, and Spinning Babies. I took The VBAC Link Parents Course. I read lots of books. I switched my insurance. I took vitamins. I consumed it all, and I loved it. Every time I did something, I felt like my intuition was confirming that I was on the right path. I specifically would manifest, visualize, and pray, and I just was on this high every time. I feel like that's your intuition confirming to you that you're on the right path. If you feel those things, that's a good sign. You do want to follow that. Meagan: 100%. Paige: I did. Then, COVID. It was September 2019 when I got pregnant. Things were fine, fine, fine, and then COVID started happening. In March, I flew home to Denver to stay with my in-laws. We were supposed to move to Colorado in the spring anyway. My husband was not allowed to come with me. There was a travel ban for 90 days. I just did not want to get stuck in that, so I flew out very quickly with my boys– my two boys. I was 27 weeks pregnant and was living in my in-laws basement. That's a whole thing. COVID was a whole thing for everybody. But it was a scary time and stressful. I didn't know if my husband would be able to make it to the birth, but he was granted an exception to policy leave where he was able to come home. He would have to go back. That was the contingency. But I had rebuilt my team. I had found new bodyworkers. I found a new doula and a new backup doula. I found a team of midwives who were really VBA2C supportive. They were saying things like, “When you get your VBAC,” not if. They really supported all the things, so I felt really comfortable with them. I lost my mucus plug and had bloody show on June 8th. I was 40 weeks. That was my due date. My water broke that night at 11:00 PM. I had a small pop, so it was just a litte bit. I was laboring at home. Nothing really was picking up, but on June 9th, at 40+1, I went into the hospital around 3:00 PM. Labor started picking up pretty quickly after that. About an hour and a half later, my waters gushed everywhere which was really thrilling for me to experience the big gush. I was not very far along, though. My progress is just very slow, but they were not rushing me at all. They were like, “We'll stay patient. We will stay very patient. There is no rush. As long as baby is doing well, we'll just let you do your thing.” My doula was there. After my waters broke, my contractions started coupling on top of each other and getting very intense. They were quite long. I started feeling really lightheaded and dizzy. I tried to sit on the toilet and just felt like I was going to pass out. I threw up a few times. I knew it was time to get some pain relief. They offered the walking epidural option which I took at about 8:00 PM. Baby was doing great. I was really worried about getting the epidural again because I felt like that's what had caused the craziness before, but he was doing great. At 2:00 AM, he started not doing great. He wasn't tolerating the contractions well. I was like, “Oh, not again. What?” I was only 4 centimeters. I just knew that we needed to go in again. I didn't know why, but I was so sad. I didn't want another crash, so I did want to prevent another crash. I knew that if it was going to be a heart thing, I didn't want to mess with that. Especially knowing the signs of pain and coupling contractions and things like that, it just seemed like he was telling me that he needed to come. I consented to the OR and to the C-section. I was wheeled to the OR. I remember as I was being wheeled in, I was just thinking, “This is not what I want. This is not what I want. This is not what I want.” I was so sad. He was born about an hour later. I was so drowsy. I was so tired. I was not present at all. I did not feel strong enough to hold him. My husband held him. I briefly brushed his face. He was wearing his little hat and was swaddled, then they took him to the recovery room. The doula was not allowed in the OR. It was actually a miracle she was allowed at all because they had just lifted the doula ban the week before for COVID. I was like, “Okay, the baby will be in there with her.” I'm not sure why they wouldn't let the baby just stay with Sam, but it's okay. I needed his support. I was really happy that he was there. Closure took longer than usual. They said I had pretty thick adhesions, so I was just laying there trying everything to stay awake. I was fighting so hard. I remember reading words on the light and looking at the letters and just going over the letters in my mind and trying to stay awake. I was fighting so hard to stay awake. I finally got to hold him at 4:00 AM in the recovery room. It was still about an hour after he was born. I missed the golden hour again. I was so sad. I was so sad for a third time to miss it. That recovery was really hard. In the hospital, I was so heartbroken. The trauma this time really hit me emotionally and spiritually. It was physically a lot more traumatic on my body for whatever reason. I mean, just the sheer labor was so intense. My incision was black and blue and puffy. I couldn't walk normally and I didn't feel normal for 5 or 6 weeks, but I also feel like it's because I was so sad. I think how sad you are really does affect how you feel physically. Meagan: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Paige: I do remember specifically too, my first shower there. My husband had to really help me walk over. I was so sticky from all of the sensors and monitors. He was so tenderly trying to help me wash them off. I was just sobbing. I was so sad. I felt so broken and so vulnerable. It was a beautiful time for my husband to be there and carry me because he knew how badly I wanted the VBAC that time and for him to just carry me through that. But going home, I went home to my in-laws' basement. It was dark. I didn't have a support village because it was COVID. COVID moms know what that was like. Anyway, ultimately, I did reach out to Meagan and Julie. That's when the CBAC group was started. I was like, “Is there any way we could start a CBAC support group where CBAC moms can connect?” You guys were so warm and welcoming. Immediately you were like, “Yes! Why hadn't we thought of that?” Julie, you were so gung-ho about that. I was able to connect to other moms through there which was so healing. Anyway, that was the third story. Then the time between three and four was really, really pivotal for me. The healing that I felt I needed before even thinking about trying to get pregnant was where I feel like this all really starts. When you don't get the birth that you hoped for or when you don't get a VBAC, you just feel embarrassed. You feel ashamed. You feel broken. You feel like your intuition doubted you. You feel dumb. I've seen many women comment how family members would be like, “Oh, I knew it wasn't going to happen for you.” It's hard. It's really hard. You feel very, very broken.I knew that I had to show up for myself and still give myself grace. For this birth, it was good for me because I was able to face not failure, but being wrong. I was able to face being wrong and show myself that I could still be there. Anyway, I started physically diving into healing through pelvic PT and doing a lot of scar adhesion work. The dolphin neurostimulation tools if you haven't heard about those are fantastic. I feel like they worked much better for me than scar massage. I wish I had a provider here now who would do it. I think maybe that would have helped this pregnancy and birth, but it helped my recovery so much.I started having really bad panic attacks and postpartum anxiety, so I went to talk therapy. I got on medication. I went to a chiropractor again. The thing that really, really helped my healing was joining a gym and falling in love with exercise again. I got into all of the things, the yoga, running, learning how to lift, and started really pushing my body again and trusting my body again. I didn't expect exercise to heal that relationship with my body, but I feel like it really did. I learned again that I am physically strong which was really, really nice. I started signing up for some races. I ran my first half marathon. I had a lot of emotional releases during yoga. There was one song that came on one time during a yoga practice. It said, “You can't rush your healing. Darkness has its teaching.” I loved that so much. I just started crying. I was just like, “Let it out.”Part of healing is welcoming the grief when it comes, processing it, and taking it a little bit of a time. It's such a process. You get little glimmers of understanding, but as you keep committing yourself to looking for that and looking for the understanding, it does come. I truly believe that. Anyway, life went on. There is a four-year gap in between my third and my fourth which I really needed. We moved to Korea in that time. We moved to Korea last June, and it's just been lovely. We knew that we wanted one more. I knew I was so happy with the prep and how vigorously I did it. I was proud of myself for that and I knew that I wanted to do it the same way.I knew that after everything I learned, even if it was going to be a C-section, I couldn't just show up to the hospital and have them take my baby. I knew too much. I was like, “I know that there are better ways. I know that providers practice differently from place to place. I know it's not all equal. I know every provider does things differently, even with C-sections.” I started watching videos, and I saw that even the way they performed their C-sections was not the same. I wanted to be really actively involved in how they practiced, and how I was going to be a part of it. My goals for this time were not necessarily VBAC or C-section. I never closed the door completely. I was like, “You never know. Maybe VBA3C, maybe that's my story. Who knows?” However, I did find the episode by Dr. Natalie Elphinstone. As I was transcribing that one, my fire for birth that I held felt for VBAC was coming to life again. That intuition was speaking to me, and I had not felt that fire in a long time. That was the first whisperings of, “You should try this. You should go for this.” The goals that I had for this baby were to be very intentional. I wanted the golden hour. I had to have the golden hour. I had to hold my baby first or within an hour. Please, oh my gosh. I carried so much guilt for not having that three times over. I also wanted to be treated like I mattered. I did not want to be part of a rotation. I wanted continuity of care. I did not want to feel like I was just being shuffled through a system. Whether it was a hospital or not, I knew that I wanted to feel special. Lo and behold, did I know how special I would feel at my sweet birth center. Okay, so with the intention thing, just the pieces of this birth story with number four started falling into place so specifically. I can't deny that spirituality was a big part of this because with number three, my prayers had been very, very specific. I knew that God knew what I wanted. I knew it. I knew that because I didn't get it, there was a specific reason why. That's the only thing I could cling to. As things specifically started falling into place, it started to confirm to me that this was my path and these were the reasons why the other things happened the way they did. But anyway, I got pregnant very quickly with this baby. It was the first time that it wasn't a total surprise which was really fun. I had been taking tests since I knew the day that I ovulated, and then I was just taking tests watching, watching, and watching. I was able to see the first faint line which was so fun. I had always wanted that. I had wanted that moment of, “Oh my gosh, I'm pregnant,” where before it was like, “What? I'm not quite ready,” but I was still excited. That was really fun for that. The Korea birth culture here is very intense. The C-section rate is 50-60%. There are constantly stories being shared on these local pregnancy pages of women just having the most traumatic experiences and my heart aches for them. It's very routine for doctors to suggest first-time moms to, “Go have a C-section. Your baby is big,” and not even trying to labor. Most of it is because there is a doctor's strike going on here. There is a limited number of providers. They are stressed. They don't allow husbands typically in the OR, and very routinely, they are under anesthesia. Then after birth, babies are typically taken away to nurseries, and then postpartum recovery is in an open bay type thing. Meagan: Like, combined? Paige: Exactly, yeah. Your C-section stays are typically about 8 days. I wanted to explore options. We have an Army hospital here that is pretty big and does provide labor and delivery services, but they're often maxed out so you're referred off post. I did not feel comfortable going to any of the places that they typically referred to just from stories I had heard. That's all it takes for me now. I just hear one story and I'm like, “Nope, no thank you.” I know my red flags very quickly now. I went to a tour at this birth center called Houm. It's spelled H-O-U-M. At 8 weeks, I went to go tour it. I noticed a lot of green flags, not red ones where I was just like, “Oh, I'm just going to take a note of that.” Some of the green flags from my tour as I walked in were how I felt right when you stepped off the elevator. It's this calm energy. The lighting is so beautiful. It's such a lovely set up right when you walk in. You take off your shoes because you are in Korea. You take off your shoes, then multiple staff members greeted me with a hug. That's when I met Dayana Harrison who I later ended up hiring as my doula, but she also served as my midwife. She is a student midwife working there right now. She took me on the tour. They have queen-sized beds in their labor rooms. The whole floor was dim and so quiet. It did not have a hospital vibe at all, but they do have an OR on site. I was like, “Oh, this is lovely.” They offer epidural. They have huge birthing tubs with the rope attached from the ceiling. They are so beautiful. Yeah, it's in each room. Then the OR on site does not feel like a hospital OR. It's smaller. They keep it warmer. It feels like– I don't know. It just had such a homey feeling. That's the best way I can describe it. Then some of the things I asked about, in their routine gentle Cesareans, moms routinely get skin-to-skin immediately. They have a little cut open in the curtain where baby is slid through right on your chest. They routinely would keep the placenta attached to the baby in the OR which is–Meagan: Almost not heard of. Paige: Since posting that video, I can't believe how many messages of, “How did you do that?” That's revolutionary in itself. That was a huge green flag where I was like, “Oh my gosh, what?” Typically, what is it? Why do they say you can't do that? Is it because the incision is open too long?Meagan: Yeah. They don't even allow delayed cord clamping most of the time. They just milk it because it's a major surgery. The more time the mom is exposed and open, the higher chance they have of things like infection. Once baby is out, they really want to wrap it up and finish it to be complete. Yeah. To actually leave a placenta attached to a baby is unheard of. It really is unheard of in a Cesarean. Paige: Yeah. So that was super awesome. Then they let you keep the baby. He encourages C-sections past 39 weeks. That's not a routine hard and stop final date. He encourages going into labor before saying that it's good for the baby. He encourages breastfeeding in the OR. The head OB, his name is Dr. Chung. He is also an IBCLC which I thought was so awesome. So he supports breastfeeding.Julie: Wait, wait, wait. Time out. The more I learn about this man, the more I love him. Paige: Did you not know that?!Julie: Oh my gosh. Meagan: I want to meet him. Julie: I want to put him in my pocket and take him with me to deliver every birth I ever go to ever. I love him. Paige: I've literally said the exact same thing, Julie. I wish I could just keep him with me forever. That's the thing. Throughout this whole process, I kept taking note of these green flags. I'm thankful for my other experiences because I don't think a lot of people recognize how green these flags really are. I was like, “Okay, the shoe's going to drop. The shoe's going to drop. There's something.” I'll keep going.Meagan: Can I mention too? You had Marco Polo'd me, “I'm on my way,” then you would leave, and you were like, “This is amazing.” You were just like, “This is right,” every single time. The more you went, the more it verified that you were in the right place. Paige: Yep, yeah. You just know. When you know, you know. During that appointment, he came specifically and talked to me three times. Three times. He shook my hand. I'm like, “Are you not busy? What? Three times, you have time to see someone who is just touring?” He only sees 15 patients. He is very VBAMC supportive and experienced with it. He supports vaginal breech birth. They do ECVs on-site. I didn't even bring up VBAC after three. I just mentioned that I had three C-sections, and he said something like, “Oh, do you want a VBAC? Do you want to try again?” I was like, “Oh, I mean, I don't know. I'm thinking about it.” Then, he made me cry. This was at the tour. He made me cry because he said, “I'm a different doctor because I listen to moms. I listen. They tell me how they want to birth. If you want a VBAC after three C-sections, I will support you. You can do it. You choose how you want your birth to go and I will worry about the bad.” He was like, “You don't need to worry.” I was like, “Oh my gosh,” and I started crying. I was like, “Okay, I'm going to go now.” I was not composed, and then he hugged me. I was like, “What? Who is this guy?” I didn't just jump over there. I did give the Army hospital a chance. I went to a couple of appointments there, and that was kind of all I needed to know for what I wanted. I'm so thankful they are a resource there. I'm thankful that they are here. But I did ask about their routine Cesarean practices and their VBAC practices. It was important to me to find a doctor who supported VBAC even if that wasn't what I was planning to go for. I still love VBAC so much. I think it's so beautiful and such an important option for women to have. I'm so passionate about it. I always will be. They didn't even humor the idea at all of VBAC after three. They were like, “Oh, no. You're going to have a C-section. Of course.” The idea was laughable. The C-sections only allowed one support person, no breastfeeding in the OR, no photographers. Arms are strapped down. I just was like, “Okay.” I was very gently asking questions, but then was like, “Uh-uh. Red, red, red flags.” My biggest piece of advice, and we say this over and over again, is to find a provider whose natural practices align with the things that you want. Julie: That is it. That is it so much. Sorry, I don't want to interrupt again, but let's put bold, italics, emphasis, and exclamation points on what you just said. Say it again. Say it again for the people in the back. Paige: Find that provider whose routine practices align as closely as possible with what you want. Julie: Preach, girl. Preach, girl. I love it. Paige: Because we're not meant to fight. You do not want your birth experience to be a place of fighting or stress. Julie is learning that I am a people pleaser. I'm not anything special. I did not stand my ground. I'm going to do this. I did not come blazing in. I found a provider who I felt very, very safe with, who I felt safe asking for this from, and he said yes. I knew that because his practices were so close to the MAC, he would be the most receptive. But there's a chance that he wouldn't have been, and he was. That's why ultimately it worked out because he was receptive. I couldn't have forced him to do it, but because he practices closely to it already, it wasn't as much of a push. If I tried to go to that Army hospital and introduce this idea, they'd just shut it down. Meagan: You know, that's what is so heartbreaking to me. Providers all over the world really just shut that down if it doesn't match their normal routine and their everyday thing. It's like, well, hold on. Let's listen. Why are people requesting this? Just like Dr. Natalie, she saw this and was like, “This is something that means something to people. Why don't we change the norm and create something different?” Providers, if you are listening, please try and make change in your area because it matters, and it doesn't have to be exactly how it's been. Paige is living proof of this. It just doesn't have to be that. But we can't make change if no one puts forth the effort or allows it. Paige: Dr. Natalie said that exactly. She said, “Let's make every birth the best possible version of that birth that it can be.” Meagan: Yes. Yes. Paige: She said, “If there's a way to make it better, why not? Why not?”Meagan: Why not? Because like it or not, birth impacts us. It sticks with us. You're now explaining four different stories. It's not something we just forget. We don't just walk away from these experiences. They stay with us. Now, we might process and are able to move forward in a different direction, but it's not like we forget, so why can't we make this change? It actually baffles me. Julie: Well, and the mode of delivery is the same. I really want to emphasize that. She has had four C-sections, and they were all very different. But the only one where she left walking out of it really feeling empowered is the last one where she chose a provider who aligned with what she desired for her birth, she had a say in her care, and she felt loved and supported the whole way. She felt like the staff cared about her needs.But also, time out. She didn't just feel like the staff cared about her needs. They did. They did actually, genuinely care about her needs and her experience. I feel like that's such a big difference. Meagan: Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. Sorry, Paige. You can continue. We got on a little soapbox. Paige: You're good.Julie: I feel like we're starting to tell the story before the story is told. Paige: No, it's great. We're getting close. I switched to them officially at 20 weeks. My first appointment was the anatomy scan. That's when I also proposed the idea of the MAC officially. After every ultrasound, he comes in, talks to you, looks at it, then you go into his office area where you just chat and ask any questions. That's just the routine setup of the appointments. I had this video prepared, and I was really nervous. It's scary. It is scary to ask your provider for something new and different. I had this video. It's on YouTube. It's by Olive Juice Photography. Everybody should go look at it. It's the birth of Betty Mae. It's the video that I watched over and over and over again because it's the only video I could find of the process from the beginning to the end including all of the prep and including how it was done. I was like, “I saw this online. I was wondering if you could watch it and tell me what you think.” That's how I presented it. It's a long video. It was like, 5 minutes. He just sat there patiently and watched. Then after, actually one thing he did say was, “I don't like how he's using forceps.” I was like, “Oh, green flag.” Then, he asked, “Is this what you want?” I said, “Yeah. I think it would be really special if it could happen.” Then, he said, “Then, we can do that.” Then, he thanked me for giving him the opportunity to grow and try something different. He said, “Will you email that video to me and any other resources?” I emailed Dr. Natalie, and she sent over a MAC PowerPoint that she had prepared of the procedures because from the episode, she was like, “Anybody interested doing this, reach out to me.” She is true to her word. She will do that. If you are interested and you want to contact her, she is very responsive. She sent me also her MAC hospital policy which I forwarded to him. I have to share what he said. He's so cute. In the email response, he said, “I watched the video you sent again. If necessary, we will contact Dr. Natalie to prepare for your perfect Cesarean delivery. Thank you so much for this great opportunity to serve you. I am excited to help your birth and confident it will be a great opportunity for further growth for us.” I was like, oh my gosh. Meagan: That literally just gave me the chills. Paige: I could not believe it. Dayana, who is also a student midwife there at home, told me that she had been planting seeds for maternal assist for a while. They had just been waiting for a mom to ask for it. That was also the time that I hired Julie. I was like, “Julie, that would be so fun if you could come out.” Then Julie was like, “Okay, let's do it.” Then I'm like, “Okay.” Then it happened, and Julie was just so brave to have the gumption to come out. Fun fact, she was previously stationed out here with the Army. It does seem like it all kind of worked out that Korea wasn't so out of touch for her, maybe. Julie: Yeah, no. It was really cool. You had mentioned it briefly, then I was like, “Oh, I wish I could make that work.” Then, I remember I was in the CBAC group. I was like, “Oh, I'm so excited for you,” or something, then you said something like, “I really wish you could come and document it. We would cover your travel out here and everything.” Then I was like, “Oh my gosh, really?” So then I talked to my husband about it. I was going to be gone for a while. He would have to hold down the fort and everything. I talked to him and he was like, “Yeah, I think that would be okay.” I was like, “Oh my gosh, Paige. My husband is fine with it. Let's do this.” I remember the day that you booked my flights and officially signed my contract and locked in and everything, then I told my husband and he was like, “Oh, this is really happening then?” I was like, “Nick, I gave you the change. I gave you the chance to eject. It's too late now.” He's been doing really great. He's a really great dad. The on-call life means he has to just take over the house at random moments. We are set up to where we can do that. It was just really funny. I'm so excited that we could make it work. Paige: This is my public thanks to Nick and all of Julie's children for allowing her to be here because it did require sacrifice on their part, truly. I'm just so thankful. I also found out, Dayana told me that she had been asked to prepare a whole presentation for the staff on MAC which she did. She prepared it for nurses, midwives, and anesthesia walking them through. The fact that she had that connection to Houm and that experience, she served as my doula but so much more. She was so much more as my advocate having that inside access to the staff. We scheduled a surgical rehearsal for 35 weeks. At 35 weeks, this was one of my favorite things. He personally was there to walk me through every step of what it would look like for my security, but I don't feel like I really needed it because I was very, very familiar, but for the comfort of the staff and everybody else too. I got to the appointment. My husband was able to be there with me on that one. The way it's set up– we'll post our video then you can visualize more of what the layout looks like. There's the prep room, then literally 10 steps across is the OR right there. In the prep room, they had a gown ready for me. They had the washing bins ready. So the way that it works, you go in. You put the gown on. You have the IV. They showed me where they would place the IV. Then you scrub up your hands. You wash with the sterile solution, and then they put gloves on top. This was the way that they did it. Then they walked me into the OR. They showed me how I would go sit up on the table, how I would receive my spinal through anesthesia, then they practiced laying me back down. They did everything step by step. It wasn't new to me. I've had C-sections before, so I knew, but it was just so sweet that they were so thorough. They showed me how they would insert the catheter. He showed me exactly how he would lay the drapes over my body. He showed me when the curtain would go up. The way they do it, you're not just watching the whole thing the whole time. You could, I guess, opt for that if you wanted to. You have the drape up, they do the initial incision, get the baby out up to his head, and then they drop the curtain. That's when they pull your arms down. The other thing too, the reason why they do strap your arms down is in case you impulsively reach down and touch your incision and breach the sterile field. That's the reason why arms being strapped down is even a thing. But for MAC, your arms are not strapped down obviously. They have somebody holding their hand on your hands which I don't think I even had. Looking back, I don't remember anybody touching my hands or my arms. But that wasn't an issue. It wasn't something that I impulsively wanted to do, to reach down there. Anyway, then the drape goes down. They guide your hands up and over to put your hands under his armpits. Come up. Bring your baby to your chest. The curtain goes back up during closure, and then they talked about how I'd be transferred back to the recovery room– not the recovery room. No recovery room. You go to the postpartum room immediately. I felt on such a high after that. It was just so beautiful how he did that. At 38 weeks, I had an ultrasound. They do ultrasounds at every appointment. I don't know that there is a perfect practice out there that aligns with absolutely everything you want. But they do routine ultrasounds. I wasn't really concerned about that, but they did flag something called kidney hydronephrosis. It's basically the swelling of the kidney. They had been monitoring that. It had presented late in the third trimester, but it was severe enough that they were starting to get really concerned about it. Basically, it can mean that there is an obstruction, and if it's really severe, it can mean that the baby needs to be evaluated within 48 hours of birth by a pediatric urologist which clearly they don't have on site. It was a whole thing. If it really is severe and there is an obstruction, then they need to do surgery really promptly to prevent kidney damage early on. That was the thing. He did suggest that I could deliver somewhere else, and then the baby would be able to be there and we would be together in the same facility. That's when I felt like the shoe dropped. I was like, “Why would he suggest that? He knows that I would not want to deliver anywhere else. Why would he even bring that up?” I was all a mess. I was alone at that appointment. I felt a little bombarded and ambushed. I was like, “This isn't going to happen. I'm not going to get it.” That night, Dayana called me. I was getting ready to reach out to her, but she called me. She was like, “I just wanted to check in.” I had emailed Dr. Chung a clarification email. I think that's really important too. If something doesn't sit well with you in your appointment, it's okay to follow up in an email just to clarify what happened. Can you lay out these options? Can you lay out what we went through? Can I have a record of the ultrasound and what you saw? Because then you're not just swirling these things in your mind. You're actually looking, then you can do your own research. I dove into research. I dove into studies. I compared the numbers that he gave me versus what I saw, and it all did align. She called me and she was like, “No, don't worry. He is comfortable moving forward. He thought that you would be concerned, so he wanted to present you with more options to deliver somewhere else, but he is very happy to deliver you here still and sticking with our plan. He does want to see you at a follow-up ultrasound at 39 weeks,” which I was comfortable with. I was like, “Sam, you've got to come with me. I can't go alone.” She promised that she would be there. That's another thing. When you have a team that you trust, make sure that you are supported, and it's not just you and your doctor. If there's something that doesn't sit well, it really helps to field it with other people not just in labor, even in your prenatal appointments or anything like that. If you feel like you need some extra support, it does really help to bring some people with you who you trust. So at 39 weeks, we all met as a team and asked lots of questions. We felt comfortable with a care plan moving forward. We ultimately decided that we would move forward with the C-section at 39+5 which would be Monday. I'm trying to think what day that was. Meagan: The 7th. Paige: Monday, the 7th. Meagan: That's what I had in my calendar. Paige: Monday, the 7th was the day. We talked about moving it up. All his colleagues were like, “No, you should deliver this baby now. What are you doing? You're crazy keeping her pregnant.” I was like, “I am comfortable waiting, and I have to wait for Julie, so it can't be until Friday. It can't be until Friday.” She gets in on Thursday. That was Wednesday, at 39 weeks. Thursday was 39 and 1.Julie was on the plane, and then that morning on Thursday, I lost my mucus plug at about 8:00 AM. I was like, “Oh, no.” I wasn't really having contractions or anything, so I was like, “Okay. We'll still make it until Monday. It's fine.” Then, Julie got in at about 7:00 PM. I started having some baby contractions. We were sitting around my kitchen table, and Julie was like, “Are you contracting right now?” I was like, “A little.” She was like, “Go take a bath.” Then, we went to bed. I took a bath, and then I went to bed. I was for sure just contracting. I was like, “But what about these logistics? What is going to happen?” Anyway, my childcare plan was going to be turned upside down and all of the things. I was stressed about the logistics. But then, I was woken up at about 10:00 PM by contractions. They were about 6-7 minutes apart, but they were definitely real. I thought they were prodromal, so I was just waiting for them to just go away. They started getting closer. They were close enough to about 4 minutes and sometimes 3. I was having more bloody show, so I was like, “These are kind of doing something.” The intensity increased. It got to the point where I couldn't lie down. I was on my hands and knees. I was standing up, bracing myself against the wall. I was trying to do different positions. Maybe it was just a positional thing. “Let me try to do flying cowgirl. Let me try to do Walcher's”. I was trying to do different positions to try to stop them. I tried to take a bath at 3:00 AM, and they weren't going away. I was like, “Okay, I can't do this. I can't risk it. We've got to go.” I woke up my husband. I was like, “Today's the day. He's just telling me that it's the day. It's time. I don't know why, but it's Friday. It's supposed to be.” At 4:00 AM, he packed his bags. At 5:00 AM, I felt so bad because Julie had just gotten in from this huge international flight. It was a 12-hour flight plus some because you had a connection. I was like, “Julie, we're going to go,” she was like, “Okay!” She was so excited. “Okay, let's go!”Julie: I wake up to a knock on the door, and they're all dressed and ready to go. I'm like, “Why did she not wake me up sooner? I could have supported you.” Paige: I felt so bad. Julie: Yeah. It was wild. It was so wild. I was ready. It was awesome. Paige: So at 5:00 AM, we left for the birth center. At 6:00 AM, we got there. I messaged my team. Dayana said she was on her way. They led me to my room which is just a beautiful suite. It's right next to the OR. They led me to my room. They said that the anesthesiologist would be ready at about 10:00 AM, so between then, I would be laboring. Dr. Chung came in, and he said, “You need to be prepared for a VBAC to happen. You might have this baby just right here.” It was so funny that he was supportive of that idea even. It was so cute. I labored. It was getting intense, but they weren't super close together. Dayana came. She jumped in, and she immediately just respected the space which was so beautiful. She started doing all of her– she's a Body Ready Method practitioner. She's done some training with Lynn Schulte and the Institute for Birth Healing, so she's very familiar with the specific way to give you comfort measures. She was so great. I felt so safe. We labored, and my husband gave me a beautiful blessing. She said the more beautiful prayer that really invited heaven into the space and made it so spiritual and special. We were playing music, then at 9:00 AM, the head midwife, her name is Joy, came in. She started the IV.Dr. Chung came in and walked me to the prep room. In our rehearsal, I was going to be scrubbing myself, but he just picked up my hands, and he started washing my hands and scrubbing my hands for me. It felt like such a selfless act getting ready to go into this procedure. It felt like he was so respectful, and then I even had a contraction during the washing. He stopped what he was doing and was so respectful of the space. It just felt so Christlike having him wash my hands going into it. Then we walked into the OR, and they got me ready for anesthesia. They put in the spinal, and then they laid me down. They did the pinprick test. They gave me a new gown that was sterile. I'm trying to think of what else. They inserted the catheter. I could kind of feel a little bit with the pinprick test, but the catheter insertion was just pressure, so I felt comfortable moving forward. They got started. We played music. They had ice ready for me on my face because I told them when I get nauseous or anxious, I tend to get a little lightheaded. They had ice ready for me. That was something I had requested, and that was so nice. They started the surgery, and it was very, very intense. I do want to be candid that it was probably my most painful surgery. I had to work through it with labor-coping stuff. I was vocal. I did mention that I was feeling pain. It got pretty intense. I don't know if in Korea in general– I know that they are a little bit more stingy about anesthesia, but it was okay. I don't feel like I was traumatized from that. The baby came out at about 10:24. That's when they say he was born. We were listening to music. I was vocalizing, then Dr. Chung says– what did he say? “Let's meet your baby,” or “Come grab your baby”, or something like that. They lowered the drape, and it was so fast. I bring the baby up onto my chest, and everything just melted away, and this instinctual, primal– all of these emotions I didn't know I had just poured out of me. I lost any sense of composure that I had. I was shrieking. In any other situation, I would have been so mortified, but that moment of not having it three times over, it was this release and this justification or this validation of finally having it. I just got to hold my baby. I was a little nervous about seeing a new baby for the first time without being swaddled and how they would be wet and slippery, and if that would freak me out a little bit, but I wasn't worried about that at all. I was just so happy that I had him and so relieved. During closure, that was also intense too. They put the curtain up. They pulled out the placenta. They put it in a bowl, and then they put it in a bag, and they rest it right there next to you. The cord was so lovely and so beautiful. There is something about a fresh, new cord. It is so awesome to see. I thought it was the coolest. I had my husband. I was squeezing his hand. Honestly, I felt like having my baby in my arms and holding my husband's hand was the best pain relief. In that moment, it was keeping me calm, keeping me steady, and getting me through the closure and the rest of the surgery.Then they transferred me to my postpartum room, and they just let us be there. They didn't push cutting the cord. Dayana gave me a placenta tour. I was like, “When do we cut the cord?” She was like, “Whenever you want.” It ended up being about 2 hours of us just enjoying it and talking about how cool it was. Yeah. She gave us a tour. I was able to wear gloves and touch it and go through it, then Sam was able to cut the cord for the first time which was so awesome. That's the gist of it. Meagan: Oh my goodness. I started crying. I've gotten chills. I have so many emotions for you just watching your video. I've literally watched it 10, maybe 15 times, and I can't wait to see Julie's entire thing that she caught. But I am just so– there are no words. I'm so happy for you. I'm so proud of you, and I've talked to you about this. I've Marco Polo'd you crying before where I can't explain it. I am so insanely proud of you and happy for you that you got this experience. Thinking about, “I've never seen a gooey baby. I've never had that opportunity. My husband has never been able to cut the cord,” and you were able to have this beautiful experience where you got to have all of those things. It took four babies to get there, but you got there. You got there because you put forth the work. You learned. You grew, and you were determined. I think as listeners, as you're listening, sometimes that's what it takes. It's really diving in, putting forth that effort, and finding what's true for you. I know it's hard, and I know not every provider out there is like Dr. Chung. He is a diamond in the rough from what it sounds like on so many levels. But they do exist. Again, going back to what you were saying, sometimes it just talks about Paige going in and saying, “Try to have an open mind. Look at this video. I would like for you to view this. Just take a look at it,” and left it in his hands. Sometimes, it just takes something so simple. But, oh my gosh. I can't believe it. We were Marco Poloing about episodes, you guys, before she was in labor. We were also Marco Poloing about social media posts. She was like, “I just don't want to say anything until it happens.” I think sometimes even then, I wonder if that's where that ultrasound had come in and maybe there was doubt. I don't know. It seems like maybe that aligns pretty well with the time that we were messaging and that. Maybe we were Marco Poloing or texting. I don't know. It's like, could this happen? Is it really going to happen? You want it to happen so bad, and then to see it unfold and to have it unfold in such raw beauty, oh my goodness. I cannot believe it.So in the OR, they let Julie in there, right?Paige: Oh, yeah. Dr. Chung is a photographer himself. Julie had asked me to ask him if she could move around or if she had to be stationary. He was so open to her walking anywhere and having free range of movement and having multiple sources of video and photo. Julie: Yeah, it was really cool. I want to speak a little bit to that side of things if that's okay for a minute. Being a birth photographer is kind of complicated and sometimes logistically crazy especially as the baby is being born because everybody has a job to do. Not every provider and nurse is supportive– maybe not supportive. Not every provider and nurse is respectful of the fact that I also have a job to do and that these parents are paying me not a small amount of money to come in and do this job. That is very important to them to have this birth documented in a special way.It can be tricky navigating that especially times ten when it comes to being in the operating room. I have about a 50% success rate of getting in the OR back home. Some hospitals are easier than others. It's always an honor and a privilege, I feel, when providers create a way for me to go in the OR because Cesarean birth is just as important, maybe even more important to have documented because it comes as a healing tool and a way to process the birth especially when most Cesareans are not planned. It was really cool to hear ahead of time about how supportive Dr. Chung was and how amazing he was going to be to let this happen. When we were in there, I don't think I've ever moved around an OR as much as I have in that OR. Providers will tell you, “Oh, you're not allowed in because the operating room is so small. Oh, the sterile field, we want to make sure you don't pass out when you're in there.” I think all of these excuses that people give are just regurgitating things. They don't want another person in the OR. It's just kind of dumb because that was the smallest OR that I have ever been in. I still was able to document it beautifully. I respected the sterile field. I wasn't in anybody's way. People were in my way which is fine because they had a way more important job to do to make sure Paige didn't bleed out and that the baby was born and that Paige's needs were met and things like that. I'm okay. I'm used to navigating around people in the space. I'm perfectly comfortable with that. It was so beautiful. I was down at her feet. Paige, I've actually been going through your images and choosing ones to include in your final gallery while you've been talking. I cannot wait to show you this. I have images of Dr. Chung pulling his head out, still images, of the head being born through the incision. It's like crowning shots. It is this beautiful image of this baby's head being born. Obviously, you've seen the one of his head all the way out. I just think it's so beautiful. I consider it such a privilege and such and honor to have as much freedom in that room. I was literally at her feet, Meagan, documenting while he was cutting her open the adhesions and all of those things. There is video. There were images. I have chills right now. And then as baby was born, I was able to move up by her shoulders and document that and her reaching down for baby. I have all of that. I think that is such one more reason why Dr. Chung is amazing. It is such a rare gem, a diamond in the rough, because Paige now has the documentation for this beautiful story, and it's just one more thing where we have work to do. We have lots of work to do, lots of work to do, and lots of advocacy with people asking for this. I just think it's so important and so cool. It's such a rare thing. I don't even think I would have been able to do all of this back in the States. Meagan: No. Julie: I just think it was so cool. I'm determined to get these images to you before I leave so we can look at them together. I cannot wait for you to see them. I can't. I'm just so excited. Paige: Well, it just makes me think of how often you've said, “If you don't know your options, you don't have any.” The purpose behind this, and why I felt I really did want to go for this option, and what was pulling me to it, is because I want to create options for women and to show them what's possible. That's why I wanted Julie to come. I wanted her. I told her specifically, “Document every step of the process so that women have more resources to see the ways we do it.” I didn't do it exactly like the Olive Juice photography video. There are little variances between it, and that's okay. But it was still so beautiful, so wonderful, and then also, I asked her to document the surgery itself because so much of it is going back and trying to process it in your mind while you're going through it. I'm so glad she did. We walked through it last night, just the moment when I was in the most pain. It was actually really wonderful to see what he was doing which I wasn't in the space to see at that time, but to go back and see, “Okay, that makes sense because he was maneuvering so much,” and to connect it. The connection piece was so valuable. For every Cesarean, I'm so passionate now that you need a doula. You need a midwife in there. You need a birth photographer. You need everybody in there. I knew it, but now, I'm so passionate that we need to advocate for ourselves just as much for planned Cesareans. Meagan: Absolutely. I still can't believe it. I'm so happy. I love this story so much. I believe everyone should hear it because like you said, we need to be educated so we can apply what we need. We don't know what we don't know. This is what we've heard for so many years, but we can know. We can know our options, and it does take us doing it most of the time. The medical world out there is trying sometimes. Sometimes, they are not trying as well. But they are trying. They are also capped in a lot of ways with resources and with time. There's just a lot that goes into it. So, dive in, you guys. Learn. Follow what you need. Follow what your heart is saying. If your heart is saying, “I want a different experience, it's okay to push for that different experience.” Paige: Yeah, definitely. I'll attach a lot of the resources that I used to help me in my prep. But I did just want to cap off by saying that I don't feel like I'm anything special. I am not a birth worker. I am not a nurse. I don't have a history of medical stuff. Dr. Chung was so cute. He was joking that I was a surgeon and getting ready to go do the surgery, but I've always been squeamish at blood and things like that. Don't feel like you don't want to go for it because you're afraid that it will be a scary thing. It is such a natural, beautiful thing. It doesn't feel as medical as it might seem. And even if you are scared, I was scared. It's okay to do it scared if you think that it might be something beautiful and if your heart is, like Meagan said, calling you to it. We're just moms, and moms are powerful, and that's enough. Meagan: I love that. Julie: I love that. I think it's really important. Paige, first of all, you are special, and this is why. Not everybo

Thinking about birth when you are currently pregnant can bring up a lot of emotions. The main ones are excitement and impatience to meet your new baby, as well as anxiety and fear about the unknown of childbirth. With more people (in the United States) choosing to give birth in a hospital, families wonder what they can do to have a great hospital birth. There are a lot of things you can do during pregnancy to prepare for a positive experience, and we are chatting all about it with our guest Adriana Lozada. Who is Adriana Lozada? Adriana Lozada is a certified advanced birth doula, childbirth & postpartum educator, engaging international speaker, bestselling author, and host of the acclaimed Birthful podcast. Venezuelan-born, Adriana's background is a multi-layered and multi-cultural bundle of experiences from her time living around various continents and the Caribbean. A former co-founder and CCO of Spanish language youth media companies, the birth of her daughter sparked her passion for perinatal work. As a speaker and birth advocate, Adriana is passionate about helping people understand and support the physiological processes happening in their bodies, so they can confidently show up for their births. What Did We Discuss? In this episode, we chat with Adriana about how to prepare for a great hospital birth. We discuss everything from supporting your physiology to how to better plan for a wonderful labor and birth. Here are several of the questions that we covered in our conversation: Could you explain to us in your own words what a doula does and how they support expecting parents during childbirth? What are the main benefits of having a doula present during labor and delivery, particularly in a hospital setting? How can expecting parents best prepare themselves physically and mentally for a hospital birth? Can you talk about physiology and the role it plays in birth?  How do you believe partners can best support the birthing person during labor, especially in a hospital environment? What resources do you recommend for parents exploring their birthing options?  What advice would you give to expecting parents who want to ensure they have a positive and empowering hospital birth experience? Adriana has been in the perinatal and birthing space for almost 20 years. We are so grateful she joined us today and shared her wealth of knowledge with us on this episode. If you are currently expecting, be sure to tune in! Adriana's Resources Website: birthful.com Instagram: @birthfulpodcast Facebook: @birthful Podcast: Birthful Podcast Mentioned in the Episode: Preparing your body: Spinning Babies, Body Ready Method Preparing your mind: Hypnobabies, Hypnobirthing, meditation What is Orgasmic Birth? The Best-Kept Birth Secret – Podcast Ep 121 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chiropractor Dr. Lisa Vawter is all about women's health, especially when it comes to prenatal and postpartum care. With certifications in the Webster technique, Spinning Babies®, and BirthFit™, she's got all the tools to support expectant and new moms in a holistic way. Dr. Vawter is a firm believer in the power of chiropractic care to ease pregnancy symptoms like low back pain and sciatica, focusing on things like posture, muscle engagement, and body balance. Inspired by her own pregnancy journey, Dr. Vawter provides personalized and compassionate care to make sure birthing people have a safe and comfortable journey into parenthood. Listen as we talk about: Dr. Lisa Vawter's journey of being pregnant while in chiropractic school An overview of the anatomy of the spine, hips, and pelvis The kinds of normal bodily changes that happen in pregnancy How body mechanics and everyday movements can impact comfort in pregnancy Simple, bite-size exercises to help with re-alignment of your neck and pelvis Types of chiropractic adjustments used in pregnancy, including the Webster technique Information on the safety of chiropractic care in pregnancy Visit Dr. Vawter's website here, or follow her on Instagram here. Learn more about Spinning Babies® and BirthFit™. For more information about Evidence Based Birth and a crash course on evidence based care, visit www.ebbirth.com. Follow us on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok! Ready to learn more? Grab an EBB Podcast Listening Guide or read Dr. Dekker's book, "Babies Are Not Pizzas: They're Born, Not Delivered!" If you want to get involved at EBB, join our Professional membership (scholarship options available) and get on the wait list for our EBB Instructor program. Find an EBB Instructor here, and click here to learn more about the EBB Childbirth Class.

In this episode of the Healthy, Wealthy, and Smart Podcast, host Dr. Stephanie Weyrauch welcomes Kristin Revere, founder and CEO of Gold Coast Doulas. Kristin shares her journey in starting Gold Coast Doulas in 2015, initially as a solo birth doula and expanding to a team of 27 contractors, including lactation consultants, sleep consultants, and newborn care specialists. The discussion highlights the role of doulas as non-medical support persons, emphasizing their importance in providing comprehensive care for families during the birthing process and beyond. Kristin also co-authored the book "Supported: Your Guide to Birth and Baby," which explores the various types of doulas and their significance in an interdisciplinary team. This episode is a valuable resource for expecting parents and those interested in understanding the multifaceted support doulas offer. Time Stamps:  [00:02:03] The role of doulas explained. [00:06:48] The evolving role of doulas. [00:10:17] Support during unpredictable birth. [00:18:08] Doula support for partners. [00:20:33] Importance of doulas in healthcare. [00:25:07] Importance of hydration postpartum. [00:30:08] Emotional support during postpartum. [00:31:40] Postpartum emotional support challenges. [00:36:18] Starting a doula service. [00:44:13] Collaboration in business mindset. [00:45:46] Connecting with Gold Coast Doulas. More About Kristin Revere: Kristin Revere is a woman who has always had a passion for supporting other women, both personally and professionally. In college, Kristin served on the Executive Committee of her sorority and organized events on campus related to breast cancer and other women's issues. She later facilitated nonpartisan political trainings for female candidates and volunteered for many nonprofits focused on women's issues. Kristin firmly believes in the power that lies within a woman and has spent her life drawing it out of the women she surrounds herself with. After the birth of her daughter in 2011, a new passion awoke within her. Kristin began reading and studying birth from all perspectives, philosophies, and medical approaches. She joined organizations like the Healthy Kent Breastfeeding Coalition and used her event coordinating skills to build and promote the organization and create community awareness. Kristin's research led her to learn about doulas, and in 2012 she hired doulas herself for the support of her second birth. The level of compassionate care and comfort that she received from her doulas ignited a spark within Kristin that led her to the path of becoming a doula herself. She earned her certification and began teaching Sacred Pregnancy classes in 2013, but as you'll see Kristin is a firm believer in achieving the highest level of education available when providing a service. Shortly after, she earned the following credentials. Certified Sacred Doula in 2014 Certified Elite Labor Doula through ProDoula in 2015 Certified Elite Postpartum and Infant Care Doula through ProDoula in 2016 Trained in Spinning Babies in 2020 Newborn Care Specialist through Newborn Care Solutions Mothership Certified Health Service Provider Certified VBAC Academy Pro Certified Transformational Birth Coach through Birth Coach Method Certified Pregnancy and Infant Loss Advocate (PAIL) 2022 Certified Gift Registry Expert through Be Her Village 2023 Kristin's main passion as a birth and postpartum doula is to offer women and families resources, unbiased support, and understanding. Kristin is a listener, a friend, a confidant, an expert, and women intuitively feel stronger in her presence. She has a Bachelor of Science in Journalism from Central Michigan University and a Master of Management in Marketing from Aquinas College. Kristin is the host of Ask the Doulas Podcast. Her writing has been featured in Rapid Growth Media and First Time Parent Magazine. Kristin was selected as one of the 50 Most Influential Women in West Michigan by the Grand Rapids Business Journal in 2016 and in 2022. Kristin and the rest of the Revere Clan, which includes her husband, her step-daughter, and her two children, live in Grand Rapids and can be found taking in the sights at local art galleries, parks, music concerts, and community events. Resources from this Episode: Gold Coast Doulas Website Gold Coast Doulas on Instagram Gold Coast Doulas on YouTube Kristin on LinkedIn Ask The Doulas Podcast Supported: Your Guide to Birth and Baby Jane Sponsorship Information: Book a one-on-one demo here Mention the code LITZY1MO for a free month Follow Dr. Karen Litzy on Social Media: Karen's Twitter Karen's Instagram Karen's LinkedIn Subscribe to Healthy, Wealthy & Smart: YouTube Website Apple Podcast Spotify SoundCloud Stitcher iHeart Radio

As a first-time mom, Katie was struggling with potty training and feeling like she didn't know what she was doing. She later became a potty training consultant to help other struggling moms and now hosts the Burnt Pancakes podcast. Katie's first birth was a scheduled breech Cesarean. Her second birth was a spontaneous 36-hour labor at 39 weeks and 1 day with 1.5 hours of pushing and a tough recovery from a 3rd-degree tear and labial adhesions.Katie wanted to go for a VBAC again with her third. Though she thought she would go into labor at 39 weeks spontaneously again, she actually ended up getting induced at 41 weeks. She got an epidural right at the end of her labor, but was able to push her third son out in just two pushes!Meagan and Katie talk about how pelvic floor physical therapy is necessary for both Cesarean and vaginal birth recoveries. No matter how long it's been since you gave birth, it can still be a game-changer!Katie's WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Welcome, welcome everybody. We have our friend, Katie, with us today sharing her 2VBAC stories and before we got started, we were talking about once you have that C-section and you're contemplating having a VBAC and you talk to people and they're like, “Wait, you can't do that. Doctors won't let you do that.” Right? Katie: Mhmm, yep. Meagan: But what have we learned? What have we learned over all the years? Yes, we can. Yes, you can. Women of Strength, if you are listening and you have had one C-section and you are wanting to know your options, we are going to share two stories today. Okay, so Katie– you guys, she is the host of a podcast. Is it Burnt Pancakes? Katie: Burnt Pancakes, yep. Meagan: Tell us more about that. Katie: Okay. So when I became a mom, my oldest son was potty training and it was an absolute disaster. That's probably the point in motherhood I felt the absolute worst. He had a tendency to poop his pants whenever we were in my friend's backyard running around and playing. One day, he had this awful mess. I was cleaning it up. I was frustrated. I was like, “Oh my gosh. He's never going to get it.” My friend looked at me and was like, “Katie, don't worry about it.” Everyone burns their first pancake. I was like, “That just made me feel so validated as a mom.” Fast forward about 8 years and I decided to start my own motherhood podcast and I named it “Burnt Pancakes” because we are all figuring out this thing as we go. Meagan: I love that so much. It's so true.Katie: So true. I'm still figuring it out. Meagan: I know, every day. As soon as I feel like I've started figuring out motherhood and parenthood and all of that, it starts to change on me. Katie: Right. It throws you for a loop. Meagan: Right. If you can relate here, go listen to her podcast and it's just called “Burnt Pancakes”. And you are everywhere, right? Katie: “Burnt Pancakes”. We have mom-versations each week. I love to chat with moms. One of my favorite things to do was meet a mom at a park and hit it off and start chatting. That's what I wanted my podcast to feel like– real moms chatting about motherhood. Meagan: Real moms chatting about motherhood. Then maybe was the inspiration between that whole experience with your son what led to also potty training consulting? Katie: Correct. At the time, I was teaching. I taught for 17 years. It was potty training my first son which was an absolute disaster. But fast forward, I have two more kids. I potty trained them and things got easier. I started feeling very confident in my skills and people started asking me for tips. I decided to become a full-time potty training consultant so now I actually help moms with the potty training process which blows my mind because if you had asked me 8 years ago, “Would you be doing this?” I would have said, “Heck no. I have no clue what I'm doing.” But what I am doing is trying to help moms who are in the same shoes I was in. You can do this. I can help you get through it. I have the answers for you that I didn't have back then. Meagan: Yep. That's exactly how we are here at The VBAC Link. We were in the thick of it. It was a rocky journey. There were a lot of unknowns and if you asked me 8-9 years ago if I was going to be doing a podcast sharing VBAC stories, I probably wouldn't have said yes. I would have been like, “Probably not,” and here we are inspiring and encouraging. Katie: Heck no. Meagan: I'm so excited for you. So tell us where people can find you for potty training because I'm sure a lot of people listening right now especially being pregnant, you probably have a toddler as you are preparing for your birth. Katie: Yes. You can find me at my website. My website is burntpancakes.com. On social media, you can find my potty training information at @itspottytime. Meagan: I love that. Thank you so much for sharing. Katie: Yeah. Meagan: I do have a Review of the Week to share before we get into these stories. Katie: Go for it. Meagan: This is by theblanchardbunch. It says, “Get PUMPED!!!” It says, “Listening to this podcast just gets me pumped. You've had a C-section and you want a VBAC. Absolutely. You've had two C-sections. You go for that VBAC. Oh, you've had three or four? Go get that VBAC, mama, because you are a queen and 100% capable. Seriously, this podcast not only informs you of all the amazing things our bodies can do but also, you are immediately welcomed into a space of understanding and love. Our bodies are powerful but sometimes we just need a little help becoming empowered. This podcast does just that. I'm preparing for my VBAC and I'm currently 36 weeks pregnant. I think that all the time what I'd say or share if I were on the podcast because I am so sure this VBAC is happening. Thank you to all of the mamas who have shared their stories and thank you to Julie and Meagan who have created a space for all of these mamas needing to be uplifted and empowered.” What a fun review. Katie: Aww, that's amazing. Meagan: Oh my gosh. I love this. It's in all caps right here. “GO GET THAT VBAC, MAMA, BECAUSE YOU ARE A QUEEN AND 100% CAPABLE.” I couldn't agree more with theblanchardbunch. I hope that you got your VBAC. Congratulations on your birth and as always, if you have a review, I would love for you to share it. I read them every single week and they really do truly bring me all of the joy. Katie: I love that. Meagan: Okay, Ms. Katie. Let's turn the time over to you. Let's share these stories. Katie: Okay. Well, my story starts 10 years ago. It's really hard to believe it's been that long but I was pregnant with my first son and we got the news at 28ish weeks that he was breech which I at the time didn't even know what that meant. It was just a regular appointment and my doctor just nonchalantly was like, “Oh, he's head up. Okay, you'll probably end up having a C-section.” Meagan: Whoa. Katie: I was like, “Come again?” First of all, what's head up? I don't know. Meagan: At 28 weeks? Katie: Yes. Yes. Crazy. She made it seem like no big deal but for me, it was. I'm a taller girl. I'm 5'9”. I've always had bigger hips, a nice pear shape so I always thought, One day, these hips are going to serve a purpose. When I'm giving birth, these things are going to come in handy. My instant thought was, My body is not going to be able to do that. How can you just drop that on me and not feel anything? She basically said, “Most babies won't turn. There's a chance he could turn but you might just end up having a C-section.” I was like, “Well, is there a chance? What's this?” She's like, “You can try something to turn him but that's just the way it was.” Meagan: No offering of an ECV or anything like that in time? Katie: As the weeks went on, she mentioned it, but for her, she was like, “I've been doing this for years. Most of the time, I don't see them turn.” She just made it seem like a C-section was totally cool and totally normal. I was like, “What? How can this be?” I did try almost everything to get him to turn. At the time, I was taking a yoga class. Side note– Drew Barrymore was in my yoga class. Looking at you right now, I'm like, “You look so much like her.”Meagan: I've been told that for so many years– Drew Barrymore and Winona Ryder. Apparently, those two people I look like. Katie: When you hopped on the call, I was like, “Oh my god. You look like Drew.” I tried to play it super cool because at the time, we were living in LA and I was like, “Oh my god, Drew Barrymore is right next to me.” She even said something to me like, “Hey, mama.” I tried to play it so cool.Anyway, in that yoga class, all the moms were like, “You need to go see this chiropractor. You need to try this.” They were super supportive so I did go see a chiropractor. I forget what they called the procedure but it was massaging your hip flexors really, really hard. I don't know why that makes him turn. It was loosening some ligaments to make them turn. Meagan: Like your round ligaments and stuff? Katie: Yes. I believe that's what it was. It was extremely painful and the chiropractor at the time was like, “You're going to do great in birth because you have excellent pain tolerance.” I was like, “Okay, thank you.” He did not turn. At the time, there was a website called Spinning Babies. Meagan: There still is. Katie: Okay. I literally Googled everything to get him to turn. I lay on my couch with my hips up. I had my husband sing to me “Turn Around” over and over. I did everything. He did not turn so in April, they were like, “Okay, here's your scheduled C-section appointment.” I at least had time to prepare for the C-section. It wasn't an emergency. I took all the notes on tips to do to help recover and in that sense, I felt prepared and I got to be at peace with the fact that I wasn't delivering vaginally. But it was still weird when they were like, “April 26th. That's going to be the day when he comes in.” I'm like, “You're picking his birthday. What if he's not ready at 39 weeks to come?” Then two days before, “Oh hey, the doctor has an opening on the 25th so we're going to take you on the 25th.” I called my husband, “They're changing it to Friday.” Meagan: It's a weird feeling for them to be like, “Hey, you are going to have your baby this day around this hour.” Katie: Yeah and it was earlier than the due date so it just felt really weird. Meagan: Was it a week before?Katie: It was a week before, yeah. He was born at 39 weeks and 1 day. I still wonder. His sign– I can't remember which one it is but the sign he was born on was not what he could have been born and it just doesn't match up. He seems more like a Taurus than this and I'm like, “Is it because they chose when you were going to come?” We showed up that Friday for the C-section and of course, I got to do my hair. I got to take a shower so that was nice. You show up at the hospital and they're like, “Okay, your 8:00 appointment.” You're like, “Am I checking into a hotel here or giving birth?” I never once felt a contraction. I mean, it's weird to say I was sad that I didn't feel that because later I learned what that feels like and I'm like, “That was fun.” Meagan: It sounds weird but at the same time, it's this natural feeling that we've been taught and told that our body does so you mourn that. Katie: Yeah. I want to feel it. That was it. I was mourning the fact that my body wasn't doing what it was supposed to do. A weird thing– we did the hospital birthing class. It was 4 hours. They talked about C-section for maybe 5 minutes of the whole class but then they said, “3 out of 4 people will have a C-section.” That was the statistic from the hospital. I was like, “Oh, well that's not going to be me.” This was before I knew he was breech. That's not going to be me. But I'm like, Why would you spend only 5 minutes if 75% of us end up in a C-section? How is that possible? Yeah. It felt weird. But I did go in somewhat prepared. It still felt very sterile and scary but we had him via C-section. He's totally healthy. There were extra doctors in the operating room just because he was breech so there were four pediatricians. My husband was like, “The room was filled. It was pretty crazy.” But he was healthy. He was fine. Everything turned out great. I do feel like with a C-section though, I was completely out of it for 24 hours. I don't remember my parents coming. I vaguely remember but my husband was like, “Your mom and dad were here.” I was like, “Oh gosh, they were.” I vaguely remembered. Meagan: That's how I was too. I was in and I was out. Katie: Yes. I didn't breastfeed him for the first hour until they got me to the other room and they were like, “Oh, were you planning on breastfeeding?” I didn't know that I could breastfeed him in the first few minutes. I wasn't aware. The recovery for that was a lot harder. Just getting out of bed to go to the bathroom the first day was excruciating. But we were fine. I recovered from it and it was all good. Moving 3 years forward, we got pregnant with our second kid. I found out I was having a second boy which for anyone who has experienced gender disappointment, it's a real thing and it's totally okay to mourn the loss of a daughter or just feel unsure about the gender of your baby. I remember crying. I got home from the ultrasound and was just bawling because I was like, This was my girl. Where is she? This is a boy. It did take me a couple of months after he was born before I was feeling pretty good with it and that's a normal feeling. I think no one really talks about that. But it was a totally normal pregnancy. What we did discover from the first one is that I had very low water fluid in my amniotic sac so they said that could have been the reason. My second son, I definitely didn't have that because I put on about 40 pounds and was much bigger. I was able to stay super active during that pregnancy doing boot camp and lifting weights until the last month. We moved from LA to Orange County so I had to get a different doctor for this pregnancy. The doctor I saw from day one was like, “If you want a VBAC, we can absolutely go ahead and try that.” She actually more encouraged it. Everything I had heard when I had the C-section was, “Your son was breech so that doesn't mean you can't deliver naturally in the future,” but a lot of hospitals and doctors were kind of hesitant about it.” This doctor was like, “No. I don't see any reason why you can't try.” You do have to sign your life away pretty much. I had to sign a thing saying these are all of the things that could happen and that is terrifying. Meagan: I'm accepting that. Katie: Yes and it's my liability here. The doctors are off the hook but she was very supportive about it but she never made me feel like I couldn't do it. His pregnancy went just fine. I went into labor naturally right before the 39-week and 1-day mark. I actually had him at 39 weeks and 1 day exactly the same as the C-section so it made me feel a little bit better like I didn't take my older son too early. I was always worried, Did I take him out too early? I did have a lot of baby blue and a little bit of postpartum with my first and sometimes I wondered, Was it because of the C-section? I don't know if there's any science behind that. He wasn't ready to come yet. Meagan: You guys didn't have your bonding. Your body didn't naturally go into labor. There are a lot of things that could come into play. Katie: All that ran through my mind. Yes. Yeah. Meagan: But sometimes those who go into labor still get those postpartum depression and baby blues. Katie: Totally, yeah. Absolutely. I went into labor and this one was about 36 hours. It was very long. I didn't realize that a few hours into getting contractions, my water actually broke. I thought I peed myself. I was sitting at home laboring and laboring. Things were just taking forever. I was having regular contractions. They weren't as close as I thought they were supposed to be. I don't know what it is. I don't know if other moms feel this but when you go into laobr, it's almost like you go into the zone and it's like, I'm just doing this thing. My husband was like, “Should we call the doctor?” I was like, “No, not yet. I don't think we are supposed to.” I was just in the thing. Meagan: You're focused. Your focus shifts. Katie: Looking back, I should have called the doctor the second I went into labor just to get tabs and figure out when I should go in but I was just like, “No. We've got to keep waiting. I don't feel like I'm ready to have him yet.” We finally got to the hospital hours and hours later and they were like, “Oh, your water broke a while ago.” I ended up being in labor with him for a very long time. I ended up pushing for an hour and a half. I do remember at one point they said, “Okay, if we can't get him out, we will have to go and do a C-section.” That was like, no. I really, really wanted this. I didn't do a whole lot of preparing. With the first one, we did the classes. I did research, but this one was kind of like, I'm just going to go in and trust my gut. I'm just going to see what happens. I was totally prepared that if it was going to be a C-section, I knew what to expect but I really wanted to see if my body could do it. I remember the nurse kept saying, “You've got to keep your eyes open when you push.” For me, it just felt so unnatural to keep my eyes open. I just wanted to scrunch up. She was like, “Relax your face and keep your eyes open.” I was like, “That doesn't feel right.” I think my son had a giant head. He still to this day has a larger head than my oldest son. It just was hard to get him out but he finally came out. I gave birth to him. I was able to walk around so much quicker and the recovery was a lot better. I did end up having a third-degree tear so it's not like vaginal birth is less damaging than a C-section. I have scars from both kids. Meagan: Not always. Katie: But it was so nice to know, I know what it feels like to go through it. I had an epidural with him. I think I was maybe 5 or 6 centimeters so it's not like I ever got to crazy intense contractions and I didn't feel anything when I was pushing. Part of it was I didn't feel anything when I was pushing and I think that was kind of hard because I didn't feel anything to get him out. Meagan: Sometimes that can play into tearing actually weirdly enough and then the lack of ability to push in a position if we are in a back crunch position. We are putting more pressure so if we do have a baby with a little bit of a larger head or is having a harder time coming out– which by the way, first-time moms, you guys, 36 hours with an hour and a half of pushing is crazy but it can be very normal. Katie: It's normal. It's so normal. I think what was hard for me was I looked at the clock when I started pushing because I had friends who were like, “Oh, I pushed for this long. I pushed for this long.” With my third, I decided, Don't look at the clock. Don't think about how long it's going to take. It's just going to take as long as it needs to be, because it was an hour of pushing. One thing that was kind of scary is that his heart rate would go down every time I'd push so they were like, “This could be dangerous.” Another thing was that I might have to get him out sooner so they would have me push for a contraction and then wait on a contraction. It was literally 6 minutes in between pushes. It just took a long time. But he was a healthy little boy and all was good. We thought we were going to have two kids. Everything was wonderful and then a year later, my husband was like, “Okay, are we ready to get rid of the baby clothes?” I'm like, “Umm, actually, I don't think we are done yet.” Part of me still wanted a girl but I just did not feel like our family was complete. It was the weirdest feeling because we had always said, “We are going to have two kids.” We've got a three-bedroom house. It just made sense. Then we both decided– we had a little talk. If we were to have another kid and it ends up being a boy, are you okay with that? We were both like, “Yes. I feel like three is what's going to make our family complete.” I was a little bit older. At the time, I was 38 so I'm like, “If we want a third, let's try for it this year and if not, that's a sign.” We did get pregnant with the third. I did not find out what I was having on this one because I was like, I have a feeling it's going to be a boy and I don't want to feel that disappointment again while I'm pregnant, and if it's a girl, what a fun surprise to wait and find out. We didn't find out. I don't know if anybody else feels this way, but I had dreams about having a boy. My mom gut was like, You're going to be okay with another little boy.  I kind of knew, but I still wanted to wait. This pregnancy went fine. With my middle, I was all for working out and going to boot camp, and felt really great. With this one, I was like, I've got two kids and I am exhausted. I put on more weight than I ever had. I could not move around. I hurt the most. I had the worst pelvic bone pain. Meagan: SPD?Katie: Probably. Probably, but I did not really speak up. I told my doctor, “Oh, I'm feeling some pain.” She was like, “That's normal during pregnancy.” Now, looking back, I know people who saw a chiropractor during pregnancy and I'm like, “That's what I needed.” Meagan: Or even pelvic floor. Katie: Yep. That's what I needed because for a year after having him, I would get pain when I would walk and I'm like, I wish I had known that there was something I could do about that. So if you are feeling pain, speak up because I could have done something about it. With this one, I was very large. I was ready to have him. I got to that 39-week mark and was like, He or she is coming. I know it's any day now. Then my due date hit and he was not there yet. The doctor was like, “Oh, you're already dilated. It's coming soon.” She stripped my membrane and was like, “Oh, in a day or two you're going to have him but let's just schedule an induction in case.” We get to 41 weeks and still was not having a baby. Having two at 39 weeks and then having to wait until 41 was an eternity. It felt like the longest wait ever. I think this was God's way of saying, “You're done now. You're good,” because I remember feeling like I never wanted to be pregnant again. I am never giving birth again. This is the last time and I felt very complete with that whereas with the second one, it was like, Is this really the last time I'm going to carry a baby? Is this the last time I'm going to give birth? It felt really nice. I was still seeing the same doctor I was seeing with my middle son. She was on board. She was actually telling me that if you've done a VBAC and then you have another one, it's not considered a VBAC. Is that what you've heard?Meagan: No, it's still considered a VBAC but your risks go up. Your risks go up for vaginal birth and down for things like uterine rupture. Unfortunately, you're always going to be a VBAC. Katie: Yeah. Okay, so risk went down. Okay. But she was totally on board with it. I had to be induced with this one. I literally have tried everything. I've had a C-section. I've had an epidural birth and I've had an induction. I can't say that one is better. I feel like they are all part of my birth stories. Each one is special but I had to do the Foley bulb. I had to almost not get the epidural. My water broke a couple of hours into the hospital and then a contraction started very fast. I remember waiting for the anesthesiologist and going, “If he doesn't get here, I'm having this baby.” As he was giving it to me, I felt like I needed to push. I didn't say anything because I was like, I really want the epidural, but I was literally like, Oh my god. I have to push. I have to push. This is so hard. I actually did feel the worst contractions with that because I was literally at the end. After he was done, the nurse came in and I was like, “Hey, can you check me because I think I feel like I need to push?” She checked and she was like, “Let's get the doctor. You're ready.” It was like, epidural and now it's time to push. My husband was actually getting food because they didn't allow him in the room when I got the epidural so he was like, “I'm going to go get breakfast.” I'm like, “Cool, cool.” Then I'm sitting there like, “Umm, is he going to get back in time?” They were like, “Let's do a practice push,” and I'm like, “He's not here yet!”I got him out in one and a half pushes and there was my third boy. It was just such a different experience going from, I'm going to have to push for 3 hours. With this one, I remember thinking, I'm just going to let my body do what feels right. I'm not going to have the nurses tell me to push this way and do that. I'm just going to close my eyes and scrunch my face like they tell me not to do, but it felt so much easier. I remember asking her, “I did my practice push. Did that do anything?” She was like, “Yes. Please stop. I need to get my gloves and I need to get this.” So he was out and I had my third boy. I would say with the two vaginal births, my recovery was so much easier. Just hospital-wise, I was able to move around a lot faster. With my middle son, I was able to go to the park with my boys a week later whereas with the C-section, I don't think I left my house for the first 6 weeks because I was so uncomfortable and it didn't feel right. All three births gave me scars but in a different way. Meagan: Yeah. I actually really love that you pointed out that even with vaginal birth, there can be an extra recovery or extra things because I think sometimes in this world, it's like, C-section is bad. C-section is bad. C-section is bad. VBAC is amazing. VBAC is wonderful. Okay. Absolutely. I believe that VBAC is amazing and wonderful. I do not believe that C-section is bad. I do believe that we have way too many unnecessary C-sections and that is bad. Katie: Right. Meagan: We know though that vaginal birth sometimes isn't all sunshine and butterflies. We have tearing. We have prolapse. We have pelvic floor dysfunction for the next however long because we pushed for 2.5-3 hours or even an hour and a half or we labored for a really long time and we are sore or whatever. Sometimes C-sections can be just the most healing and beautiful experiences for someone. I love that you pointed that out. It's just important to remind everybody listening to go with what you feel is best. No, you don't have to schedule a C-section just in case. No, you don't have to do these things but if you want to and that's what feels right, do it. We encourage you. Katie: I absolutely did not have any incontinence problems after the C-section but after the vaginal birth now, doing jumping jacks and running is a different story. Yeah. It's different. Meagan: I want to talk about that because I also didn't have a lot of incontinence. It's not like I have incontinence now but I have pressure and things like that. I just went to a pelvic floor specialist and she said– oh crap. What did she call them? My bones, the birthing bones, they are my pelvis, but my pelvis was stuck in a flared state from birth. Katie: Oh whoa. Meagan: She manually closed my bones. It was insane. I could feel it. She was like, “Oh, there's no give. Can you feel it?” I was like, “Oh my gosh, yeah.” She worked it, did her PT thing and closed these bones. She said, “Sometimes people have these bones get stuck open after birth and it puts a lot of trauma on their pelvic floor and they have incontinence and all of these things.” Katie: Whoa. Meagan: She did two other things which blew my mind. I've never had that happen with a pelvic floor specialist before but my uterus was really, really hard and she was like, “It should move and float within.” She massaged my uterus and then she went internal and my bladder was adhered from the inside. Even though we have C-sections, Women of Strength, and you have had vaginal births and everything, if you've had that C-section, there is a likelihood of you having adhesions or scar tissue in there that may cause pelvic floor issues and incontinence. So anyway, my bladder was adhered and then there was a part of my cervix that needed to be released. She was like, “I wonder if that's why you had such a long end.” My cervix would stretch but it wouldn't stay. Or she said, “I see this a lot with failure to progress or cervical lips where there is this thing that needs to be released.” As soon as it was, I can't even tell you the difference in how I feel. Katie: Wow. Meagan: The pressure is really pretty much gone. I would say there is maybe a little. She even said, “The next visit might need a little bit more tweaking.” I just ran the other day, 3 miles for the first time in forever. Usually after 1 mile, my pelvic floor would just give out. I did fine. Katie: Don't you wish that was something every OB/GYN was like, “Okay, you're going to see me and you're going to go here”? Or you give birth and it's not like, “6 weeks, you're good.” It's like, “Oh, now you need to go see this.” Meagan: Yes and it's not talked about with C-sections either. A lot of time those C-section scars can cause back pain and pelvic floor things, urine incontinence, pain during sex, and things like that. We don't even know that it's related to our C-section because we've never pushed a baby out of our vaginas. Right? It's so crazy. Katie: My youngest is 4 and I'm like, I should finally book that PT consultation and just find out what's all going on down there. Meagan: Yes! My VBAC baby is going to be 8. At this point of this recording, he is 8 and here I am this year just going. I have done physical therapy before and pelvic work but I've never done it to this extent where I was like, Okay, I'm going to get down to the bottom of this and had results like this this fast. Katie: Whoa. Okay, let me ask you a question. Did you go through your doctor or did you just search and find one yourself? Meagan: I did search and find one myself. The craziest thing is I did call to see if insurance would cover it. They do not. It's all out of pocket. So like you said, I feel like this should be a standard thing regardless of C-section or vaginal birth. It should just be part of our postpartum care. I actually think it should be part of our prenatal care. Katie: Totally. Oh my gosh. I know. Someone I know was getting really bad pains so she went while she was pregnant to PT and I was like, That's exactly how I felt a year ago, because she was having it after me. I was like, I wish I would have known about that, because that would have really, really helped. Meagan: Yeah. Chiropractic care for sure. Pelvic PT. Know that not every birth is going to be amazing and beautiful but all we can do is prepare and understand. Katie: Right. Right. And be at peace with whatever is meant to be. I look back at my C-section. I tell my husband this all the time. If we would have lived on the prairie, I would have died during that breech birth. It would have been almost impossible to deliver him. I did seek out, are there any doctors who deliver breech babies? In LA there was one, but to me, it just felt a little too risky to even go down that route. 100 years ago, I might not have survived childbirth so the C-section for me was a lifesaver. It was so comforting to know that. My first vaginal birth though, I did have some complications after so just because you deliver vaginally doesn't mean it's a piece of cake and it's over. At  my 6-week appointment, I remember telling my doctor, “Something doesn't feel right down there.” She was like, “I'll check it out. Let me see.” I was like, “No, really. Something feels wrong.” My labia actually, part of it fused together. She said there were probably mini tears and it literally was. I was like, “I just don't think the hole is big right now.” She was like, “Oh, yes. I see what you're talking about.” It literally fused together. She was a teaching doctor. She worked for a hospital so she was like, “We never see this. Do you mind if I take a picture for my students?” I was sitting there with stirrups. She was like, “I won't get your face or say your name.” I was like, “Yes. For science, yes. Please take a picture of this.” I ended up in just the hospital visit where she had to cut it and then sauter it back together. I was able to do it in the doctor's office. It was a super easy procedure, but I was numb during that and the recovery from having an open wound in that area when you're peeing is not comfortable. So being 6 weeks postpartum feeling like, I should be getting back to normal, then oh God, this. Meagan: There are always hurdles. Katie: It's not all roses when you deliver naturally either. But I was happy that maybe some other mom– because it was extremely embarrassing. I didn't even want to have my husband look or tell my husband what this was but being able to share it with other moms, they were like, “Why doesn't anyone tell you that stuff like this happens?” And thank God for modern medicine because again, had this been the prairie, I would have never had another child after that. Meagan: Might have been too traumatizing. Yeah. It's just so hard to know. Everybody internalizes and processes differently their births and their experiences. Do the research. Get in your head in a good space. Find your provider and do the things and choose the birth that is right for you. Katie: Absolutely. Absolutely. Meagan: Thank you again for sharing your stories. Congrats. Katie: Oh thank you. Meagan: Definitely go see a pelvic PT. Katie: I'm booking one today. It's time. It's time. Meagan: It's time. Women of Strength, I think it's really important that sometimes we forget this. We deserve to give back to ourselves. After having a baby, it's a really big deal. It's a really big deal no matter how you have this baby. And then on top of it, the lack of sleep and feeding a baby, all of the things. Remember to give back to yourself. Katie: Yeah. Yeah. I learned after my third. It took me three kids that asking for help is okay. I remember with my first I felt like, I don't want to ask for help because they're going to think I don't know what I'm doing. I didn't know what I was doing. By the third, someone was like, “Can we start a meal train for you?” I'm like, “Yes. Please do. Yes. I would like everything.” “Can we take your kids to the park so you can have some time?” “Yes please. Let me know what time you're picking them up.” Meagan: Yes. It's okay to say yes. It's okay to take breaks. Well, thank you again so much. Katie: 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

In today's episode, Meg from Nebraska shares her Cesarean and VBAC story. Meg's first birth was an unexpected Cesarean after an almost 40-hour induced labor at 41 weeks and 3 days due to failure to descend. Her pain was not managed well during her surgery and her experience was much more difficult than expected. Meg surprisingly found out she was pregnant just 9 months after her Cesarean. Though she was anxious, Meg decided to go for a VBAC. She found The VBAC Link, prepared her body and mind more than before, found a supportive provider, and hired a doula. At 41+3, Meg went in for a gentle induction. She trusted the outcome would be different and it was. With the help of her doula, Meg was able to move much more, and with the encouragement of her midwife, pushing was a much more successful experience this time around. Meg says that bringing her 9-pound, 14-ounce baby up to her chest was the sweetest and best moment. Asynclitic BabiesHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello everybody. Welcome to The VBAC Link. Today we are going to be sharing our friend, Meg's, story. She is a stay-at-home mom in Omaha, Nebraska and she has a two-year-old daughter who was born after a post-date induction and almost 40-hour labor that ended in a Cesarean. Just 9 months later, she was blindsided by a positive pregnancy test and spent the duration of her pregnancy preparing mentally, spiritually, and physically for the birth of her son. She had a VBAC and she is here today to share her story with you. Some of the things along the way through her story that I thought stood out were one, post-dates. Obviously, this is something that we– if you have been here at The VBAC Link, you'll know that we talk about this. Post-dates– we have seen such a shift over the last few years, well really since the ARRIVE trials in dates and we really see that now the 39-week mark is more true to a 40-week mark. The 40-week mark is more treated like a 41-week mark and it's really starting to become rare to even have people go to that 41-week mark and especially past it. She's going to be sharing her story with you today actually with both births that went past 41 weeks. They were actually both induced so we have an induction that turned Cesarean and an induction that ended in a VBAC. She also has that close duration– that 9 months later, 17 months apart. So if you are listening and you are one of those mamas who may have been pregnant by surprise or chosen to get pregnant sooner than the 24-month mark or even 18-month mark that many providers suggest, definitely listen up for this episode. She also has a larger baby. Her VBAC baby was larger than her Cesarean baby. She also has a failed epidural. There was something that she said in her story that I wanted to point out. That is after many, many, many attempts that were not going well with this epidural, she asked for the highest anesthesiologist there. That is something that you can do right from the get-go. If you are wanting an epidural, you can say, “Hey, I want to make sure I have the top anesthesiologist,” because sometimes it is harder for people to place an epidural or if after one attempt it's not going really, really well, you can just say, “Okay. Stop. I want the head anesthesiologist.” Another thing that we are going to talk about in there is the question. She mentioned The VBAC Link blog that talks about the questions for your provider. If you have not checked this out yet and you are still looking for a provider, I highly suggest checking it out. We will make sure that the link is in the show notes so that you can see more about who you are looking for when it comes to support versus lack of support because if we have not learned anything over all of the years of supporting VBAC clients, our own VBAC journeys, and listening to story after story, that is that support is huge so make sure you find the best supportive provider that you can. Something I wanted to add to this is if you have a female provider, you may want to ask them about their births if they have kids. We have seen here in Utah that there are some providers who will just schedule a C-section. They won't even go into labor and for some reason in my head, that feels like a red flag if a provider doesn't even believe in birth and their own ability to birth. I don't know that they are going to believe in other people's ability to birth so that might be something to consider. Last of all, I want to talk about asynclitic. We have seen many asynclitic births over the year and a lot of the time, once a baby is recognized to be asynclitic, they are pretty low and it can be a little bit harder to get a baby rotated and into a more ideal position for a vaginal birth. I wanted to share some tips that are right here actually on Spinning Babies. Check out spinningbabies.com. You know we love them and we will have a link here in the show notes as well. Do pelvic floor releases and the side-lying releases. Something that is really, really cool about this story is she had her pelvic floor specialist who was also becoming a doula but she had her with her which is so cool. If you are seeing a pelvic floor specialist, I highly suggest asking them if they would be able to visit you during your labor or come and do an exam or treatment during your labor. Just like chiropractic care is a really, really great one to do during labor, so are pelvic floor releases. You want to follow that with the lunge. The lunge will help you work better with the pelvic floor and help that side-lying release become better engage. Doing the dangle should follow the pelvic floor release and the lunge. Again, Spinning Babies is phenomenal and they have all of these like the dangle, what that is, and the lunge and all of these things they have in the link. Make sure you check out this link. Sometimes resting and not pushing is going to really, really help because if we have an asynclitic baby and we are pushing and pushing and pushing, that can get the baby further down and more stuck in the asynclitic position. Something that I have seen work with my own clients is an abdominal lift. We will do an abdominal lift into that side-lying release. You reach your hand underneath your belly and you slowly reach. You pull up and in and it can help pull baby up and in. Vertical positions such as standing, slightly bending your knees during a surge and also that abdominal lift is more ideal during a contraction. Standing with one foot on a stool, we know that asymmetrical movements are really, really great. Even if you can't stand, say you are in a bed or something like that, you can try on your hands and knees or even trying to lay down and try to make your hips asymmetrical that way. Sitting on a toilet with one foot on the stool and the other foot on the floor, pulling on a towel or a rebozo during a pushing contraction, shaking the apples, and keep moving. You're going to notice in this story that is what they did. They just kept on moving. If you have had an asynclitic baby before or you are in labor and you find that your baby is asynclitic, jot these notes down. These are wonderful tips on how to get that baby out of that asynclitic position. All right, right before we jump into this story, I do have a Review of the Week. This one is from srmnewyork and it says, “Thank you, VBAC Link.” It says, “My first birth in 2018 was a traumatic home birth turned emergency C-section. I had done everything I was supposed to to avoid interventions and a C-section but ended up with all of it anyway. The whole experience was crushing and it took years to recover from. Listening to The VBAC Link was a huge part of my emotional processing. Hearing other women's stories helped me feel less alone and gave me the courage to try again. When I became pregnant in 2022, I knew I had to do things differently. I took all of the advice I had gotten from The VBAC Link and put it all into action. I got a doula. I found a VBAC-supportive provider. I took the VBAC online course and was emotionally prepared and surrendered to the birth process. Well, just 12 days ago, I had my VBAC. It was amazing and left me euphoric for days. So much of my success I owe to this podcast. Thank you for helping me experience my dream birth. I am forever grateful.”That was left just about a year about a year ago so srmnewyork, if you are still with us, I just wanted to give you a huge virtual hug and huge congratulations. Thank you so much for sharing that amazing review. As always, if you have a moment, please press pause right now and leave us a review. We love them and love sharing them on the podcast. Meagan: Well, welcome, Meg, to the show. Thank you for being here with us. Meg: Yeah, it's great to be here. Thanks, Meagan. Meagan: Oh my gosh. I'm so excited to talk about your story. I feel like two key things about your story are things that we see honestly on a daily basis in our inbox. That is, “I'm 40 weeks and my provider is telling me that I have to have a baby today,” so the post-date thing. Can we go over post-date? And then honestly, the stress surrounding the close duration of babies is insane for moms out there because these providers are just putting so much stress on these moms saying they can't VBAC with a close duration and we know that studies vary, but I am excited to talk about your stories because you have a 17-month gap, right? Meg: Yes. Pretty tight, yep. Meagan: Okay, so we've got the post-date and 17-month gap. All right, let's talk about baby number one. Meg: Absolutely, yeah. So with my daughter, we found out that we were pregnant just a couple of months after I had a miscarriage actually. So going into that pregnancy, I was already feeling just tender and raw and didn't really know what to expect with how well the pregnancy would go. I did as much as I could to prepare. I took a birth class that a friend had recommended with a doula here in town and really just sailed through that pregnancy. Everything was healthy and good. There was never any real concern from my providers but there was always in the back of my mind, What could go wrong here? Yeah, I was just anxious going into that whole labor. Meagan: Do you think it was from your previous loss? I know it's very common after a loss where you do have that feeling of, I just want this baby so badly so I don't want anything to go wrong.Meg: Yes, absolutely. At every appointment, I was holding my breath waiting to hear the heartbeat, and every time it happened, it got me through to the next appointment. I had actually with that previous pregnancy seen a practice of OBs and then shifted my care to the midwife practice at the medical center here in Omaha. For me, that shift helped reset a little bit for these different stories. With the midwives at the med center, you see a rotating group so you never know who is going to end up being at the birth. They want you to see all of the midwives for your prenatal care. There were definitely some who I connected with more than others. I was definitely hoping and praying that I would get the one who I bonded with the most and also was hoping and praying that labor would happen naturally. Unfortunately, I ended up at post-dates with my daughter. I was 41 weeks and 1 day when the midwives wanted to go ahead and induce me. I went in for that induction and it's kind of funny because I think I expected that induction to go a lot more smoothly than it ended up going. I had heard of one of my husband's coworkers who had been induced at the same hospital a few weeks before and her induction went just right as rain. She had her baby within 6 hours. Meagan: Oh wow. Meg: Was she a first-time mom? Meg: Yeah, she was a first-time mom so I was like, I can do a 6-hour induction. That sounds great. It did not go that way. We went in for my induction at 7:00 in the morning. They started me on Pitocin pretty much right away. They basically said that my cervix was ready enough that they didn't need to do any cervical ripening or anything like that. I was like, Okay, here we go. Pitocin– I know you're not really supposed to go on Pitocin, but I'm here for this induction so I have to do what they tell me to do. It was just me and my husband so we just went with the flow and we just hung out. We watched TV while we waited for the Pitocin to kick in and they came and did their checks every once in a while. I felt like I was in a good headspace at the beginning and was ready for whatever to happen. When they came in and did the first cervical check, I think it was maybe 6 or 8 hours in. I had made little to no progress so I was pretty discouraged by that but I was like, Okay. We'll just keep rolling with the Pitocin. They had to amp up the Pitocin almost as high as it would go and things gradually started to pick up but I think at one point, they took me off of the Pitocin and did a little Pit break or reset my body. I think that did help. When I went back on the Pitocin, it definitely ramped up my contractions more. About 15 hours into all of this, they did another cervical check. I was like, Surely I'm going to be 8 centimeters. I'll be into transition soon. I was still 4 centimeters. I was extremely discouraged at that point and I was exhausted. I hadn't had any pain management up until that point. I was like, Okay, I think I'm ready for the epidural. I don't think I can do 15 more hours of this. If I'm only at 4 centimeters, I'm not even halfway there. Who knows how long the rest of this labor is going to go? I ended up getting an epidural. They let me take a bath before my epidural which I was really grateful for because that's what I originally wanted my pain management to be was hydrotherapy and at the time, I couldn't be on Pitocin and be in the tub. That was the last little shred of comfort that I got before being grounded to the hospital bed. I was able to get some rest then with my epidural and just laid there in my bed. One of the nurses came and she tried to do all of these rotating moves to help things along and I was just exhausted. I didn't want to have anything to do with it. They tried the peanut ball. They tried rotating me and all of this. My daughter was handling the labor really well. I was just so burned out after so many hours of everything. At one point though, they decided, “All right. We're going to go ahead and break your water and see if that gets things moving.” They did that and then they placed a fetal monitor in her scalp which just didn't go super well. I think the midwife tried– I don't know. She tried for a while and my husband was really upset with how long it was taking and how much pain that I was in. Meagan: Oh yeah. Meg: The nurse at one point was like, “Should we call OB and see if they can help you out with this?” The midwife was stubborn and she didn't really want any help with that. She did finally get it in and things moved along great but I was definitely put off by that lack of humility for lack of a better word. I just wanted to have the best care that I could. Yeah. Basically from there, my daughter was doing well again, but toward the end of everything, I finally hit 10 centimeters. I was ready to push. I was so excited. They took a picture. They were like, “All right. This is going to be your last picture as a family of two.” I look like a beached whale in the picture. It's the most horrific picture I've ever seen. Meagan: Aww, I bet you don't. Meg: But we were excited. We were like, All right. The time has finally come. At this point, I think I had been laboring for 25 hours so I was ready to push. With the epidural, for some reason, I just didn't have a ton of mobility. Obviously, with some epidurals, you have mobility and some you don't. With this one, my legs were dead weight so pushing was extremely challenging. Yeah. I pushed for a while. I felt like I wasn't getting any feedback from my midwife or the nurse. My sweet husband was just like, “You're doing great. You're pushing so well.” My provider– I felt like I was staring into a blank face. Nobody is making any sort of encouragement and for me, that was just like, I don't know how I'm doing with pushing. They say everything is fine but I'm not getting a lot of encouragement or feedback. At one point, they brought the mirror because I thought, Maybe that will give me some good feedback. I hated the mirror. Meagan: You did? Meg: For some reason, I was thinking, Oh, if they're bringing the mirror out, you must be able to see the head. That's why they would bring the mirror out. No. You could not see the head. You could not see anything so I was just like, What am I just staring at? I don't want to look at this. Meagan: Maybe they did it a little prematurely because a lot of the time they bring it out and it can help you. They say it can lower pushing time because you are seeing it and there's that connection. Meg: Sure. Meagan: I could see how that would just be frustrating. Meg: Oh man. It was terrible. Meagan: You're like, What am I looking at? Why am I just looking at myself but nothing is happening down there? Meg: Yep. Not great. I had them take that away and continued pushing. I think I ended up pushing for almost 3 hours and at that point, my husband and I were like, “What do we do next? This is clearly not working.” My midwife was like, “Well, let's call in OB for a vacuum delivery consult.” We're like, “Oh, great. That's not a C-section. This will be great.” We waited probably for an hour. They told me not to push while we waited for the OB and she was attending to some other matter in the hospital. We just kept asking, “When are they coming? When are they coming?” They sent I think a resident to come and check things out. By this point, I had so many hands up my vagina. I was like, “If she's going to check, if this resident is going to check my cervix and then the doctor has to check the cervix, can we just skip one of them and just have the OB check so I don't have to have that many hands?” Thankfully, they respected that and we were able to wait for the OB. Finally, they came in and we're thinking, Okay, great. She's going to do this consult and we'll get the vacuum going. She came in and was basically like, “It's not possible for us to do a vacuum delivery at this point.” My baby wasn't low enough for that to even be feasible. So then she was like, “Let's check for forceps delivery.” That wasn't going to be feasible either. She basically said they wouldn't be able to fit the forceps around her head the way that it was. Meagan: She was too high. Meg: She was too high and I think she was also asynclitic so she just wasn't going to come down. After hemming and ha-ing, she was like, “You could push for another hour and then we could attempt a vacuum but we might still end up needing to do a C-section.” We were like, “I don't really want to keep pushing for an hour if a vacuum is a maybe and probably not.” At that point, we basically decided, “Okay, we've been laboring for so long. It doesn't seem like these are going to be feasible solutions,” so we just decided to go back in and have the C-section. I just remember that being a whirlwind process of them getting me ready and I was in so much pain from having pushed for so long that I was just shaking. My shoulder blade just had raging pain while we headed back to the operating room. I just remember feeling everything. I know they had me on an epidural. They had me on pain meds but I felt like I could feel the tugging and the pulling. I was apparently very verbal during the process asking for more pain meds. My husband actually works at the hospital so he knew the anesthesiologist. He is a critical care pharmacist so he is very familiar with medications. He was advocating for my pain meds at that point. Things just didn't go well during that whole process. They did finally pull my daughter out and they held her up to the clear plastic. I just remember she grabbed my little finger through the plastic. Meagan: She did?Meg: Yeah, it was so sweet. They pressed her up and I just stuck my hand up. She grabbed my little finger and after all the trauma from the whole day, that was definitely the bright spot in getting to meet her. Yeah. It was kind of crazy. Then afterward, they rolled us into recovery and I ended up being in the hospital for 3 or 4 more days just from recovering. We had nurses and doctors all say, “You can attempt a VBAC. You should try a VBAC with your next baby.” I was like, “Hold on. What's a VBAC? I just had a C-section. Why are we talking about my next baby?” Yeah. I didn't really know what I wanted at that point. Meagan: Yeah. Meg: Yeah. I was just trying to wrap my head around the disappointment of everything going wrong and just feeling overwhelmed with feeling like all of the things that I had hoped and planned for the birth didn't go as I had hoped. Yeah. So yeah. Meagan: So eventually you did decide, Okay, baby number two. Did you decide? Meg: We didn't. Meagan: That's a legit question actually, right? Meg: My next pregnancy was definitely a surprise. I had spent a lot of time trying to actively work through my recovery with my C-section. I had seen a core and pelvic floor therapist. She and I actually became really close. She worked with me for months. I mean, probably really from my birth until my next birth she worked with me. I felt like I was just starting to recover and I remember the day that I found out I was pregnant. My friend and I had gone shopping all day. I was just exhausted coming home from this shopping trip. I was like, I feel like I'm next level exhausted. Maybe I'm pregnant. I took a pregnancy test just on a whim. My daughter was napping. My husband was on the couch. I was like, This is probably going to be negative. I'm just tired from walking around all day. It was positive and I was shocked. I called my husband into the bathroom and I was like, “I'm pregnant.” He was definitely shocked too. I think I was more devastated because I was like, I'm just recovering from this C-section. Meagan: 9 months out, yeah. Meg: Yeah. My immediate response was just fear and anxiety about giving birth again. I wasn't sure if I wanted to attempt a VBAC because I wasn't sure if I wanted to go through another 36-hour labor to just end up in a C-section again. For me, preparing throughout that pregnancy was critical just preparing emotionally, physically, and mentally. The doula who had taught the birth class for my daughter, I ended up hiring her right away. I was like, “Are you available? I know I need a doula.” I started listening to The VBAC Link. She recommended your podcast and your website so I knew that I wanted to have a doula in the picture. I had pastors and family and friends praying for us for this decision about whether or not I should attempt a VBAC and I also just spent a lot of time. I felt like for me, I really needed to wrestle through some of the spiritual aspects of what I had gone through during my daughter's birth. I found a couple of books that were a really huge encouragement to me as a person of faith just thinking about the concept of birth through scripture. One of the books was called Holy Labor by Aubrey G. Smith. She walks through doing some spiritual exercises to prepare your heart and mind for the process of birth. I think that was just something that I hadn't really done with my daughter so I wanted to spend some time really preparing for this birth and making sure that I was seeking the Lord's guidance and submitting to what I felt like He was asking me to walk through with this birth as it wasn't something that was in my plan to have this birth so close together. For me, that definitely helped prepare my heart and my mind. I also spent some time with guidance from The VBAC Link. I looked through the questions that you guys have for asking a provider about if they are truly a VBAC supporter or not and with it being a team of midwives, with it being a research hospital and a teaching hospital, they are definitely very pro-VBAC. Several of them had VBACs themselves so I definitely felt like I had a great team of midwives who were going to be advocating for me through my labor and delivery. I found out partway through my labor that my pelvic floor therapist was also training to be a doula so I invited her to the birth as well. We had quite the posse with my doula, my pelvic floor therapist, and then this team of midwives. I think in the process too, I'm not sure who recommends it. I'm sure I heard this on your podcast as well. I started doing all of the Spinning Babies exercises pretty early on. I was trying to eat better and walk more and just be healthier in every aspect of that pregnancy. Something that happened during my labor at the med center was that they approved water birth at the hospital and then also included VBAC moms in that so I was super excited to try a water birth. I had wanted to use hydrotherapy with my daughter so getting the opportunity to do that for my next birth, I was really excited about. Throughout the process too, my midwives were very supportive about waiting as long as I could to start labor. I really wanted to labor naturally. I did not want to go through another induction but as we were getting past 40 weeks, I think I went in for at least two membrane strippings before 41 weeks. I think at basically 40 weeks and then midway through the week, I went through and did another one of those. I definitely started to have more contractions after those, but nothing that was picking up and getting ready for actual labor. They basically started encouraging me, “Let's go ahead and schedule your induction.” I remember just being so upset about that and also really not wanting to have the midwife who I had previously. For me, I felt like I needed to have a clean slate going into this to try and attempt a VBAC. Two of the more senior midwives, I ended up meeting with them. I had my regular prenatal appointment and then the one came in and joined us. They basically helped me talk through my fears around induction and my previous experience. They really listened to what had happened and they really wanted to make sure that I had the support I needed going in to attempting this VBAC.Basically, we plotted out, “Okay. We are going to do the induction on this day.” It ended up being 41 weeks and 3 days. The midwife who was going to be on duty throughout that weekend, it was a Saturday. She was going to be there Saturday and Sunday. I would have her basically regardless of how long my labor took. She was going to be there. To me, that was a huge encouragement. She was actually the midwife who I hoped to get with my daughter. I felt really good about scheduling that induction even though I really didn't want to. Yeah. I basically just tried to do everything I could before that. In that week, I was walking curbs. I was doing my Spinning Babies. I went and I talked to my doula. I was like, “Is there anything else you recommend to try to get this labor going?” I had been drinking my raspberry leaf tea. I had been eating my dates. I had been doing all of the things and she recommended acupuncture. Meagan: I was going to say acupuncture maybe? Meg: I went and I tried it, yes. I saw the chiropractor throughout. I had basically been doing all of the things you guys recommend and my doula had recommended throughout my whole pregnancy. The acupuncture was not helpful. It felt like torture for me. I was just sitting there. I think it did start some contractions because that night I felt a lot more contractions but then they waned off, unfortunately. Yeah, so then Saturday morning, the day of my induction, I was finally mentally prepared for, Okay. I'm going to go in and do this induction. I have my doula. I have my pelvic floor therapist. My husband is going to be there. I know the midwife. I like her. I knew that I was going to have this great team there for me. I'm in the tub just getting ready psyching myself up and I get a call from the hospital. They basically were like, “We're going to need to push your induction.” I was so mad. I'm finally ready for this induction. Please don't push this induction. We waited. They were like, “You're on the top of our list to call in. You're 41 weeks plus 3 days. We definitely want to make sure that you get induced today. Call back if you don't hear from us.” I think we did. I think we called back two or three times like, “Hey, are you ready for us yet?” They were like, “We'll call you. Please just wait.” We finally did. I think we went for a walk that morning. We spent some time with my daughter and my mom who was there to stay with my daughter. We enjoyed the morning and we finally sat down to lunch I think and we got the call that they were ready for us and they asked, “How soon can you get here?” We made our way. We put my daughter down for a nap. For me, that was a really sweet moment. I didn't know if I would be coming home from a vaginal birth or a C-section so I wanted to pick her up and put her in her crib one last time, then leaving her knowing that she was asleep and going to be fine during my labor. Yeah. We went for the induction. I think when we got there, they did their initial checks and all of that and started with a membrane sweep. At that point, I was 4 centimeters, 50% effaced. Meagan: Oh, that's good. Meg: Yeah, I was pumped that I was starting from 4 centimeters. I was like, Okay. I'm not going to labor for 15 hours and still be at 4 centimeters probably. Yeah. We all started in really high spirits. They started Pitocin. This time, they had it where I could walk around with it which was really nice. My doula had me walking the halls. We were squatting. We were leaning over the bed. We were sitting on the ball. We were doing everything. She was like, “I'm going to work you to get this baby going.” We did that for a couple of hours. I basically didn't want to get checked for as long as possible. We labored as much as we could. I think we started that at 2:30 in the afternoon. At about 6:30, I started needing a little bit more help from everybody with counterpressure and all of that, then I was requesting a cervical check. I started to feel like something was going on. My midwife came in and did the cervical check. She told my doula because I was like, “I don't want to know if it's bad news.” My doula was like, “Do you want me to tell you?” I was like, “I suppose.” I was still at 4 centimeters but I was 90% effaced. Meagan: Huge progress. Meg: Yeah. For some reason though, I was so stuck on the fact that I was only at 4 centimeters that I was like, “90% is nothing.” Meagan: Oh my goodness. From 50 to 90, that is huge progress. Meg: Yes, so I was like, “Okay. We'll just keep going how we're going.” She was like, “Do you want to try the tub?” I was like, “Oh yeah.” For some reason, I was thinking I was going to love the tub because I was thinking I could just lay in the tub and relax. My doula was like, “No. You need to be squatting in this tub.” I just could not get into a position in the tub that I was enjoying. We got out of the tub and just labored on the toilet. That, I think, is where I spent most of the time actually. Meagan: Dilation station. Meg: Yeah, there you go. My husband and I would just sit in there in the bathroom and just talk and giggle. He really kept me in high spirits throughout the whole labor. I was definitely getting to a point though. I think it was a couple of hours after that first check and I started asking for the epidural. My doula was like, “I think we should wait. You're doing really well.” I'm like, “I'm not doing well.” My husband, the pharmacists that he is, was like, “What else can we try? Can we try some nitrous?” I was like, “I don't think I'm going to like nitrous. I don't know if I'm going to be able to do that.” We were mulling over that. They did a second check at 10:00 PM and I was finally 5 centimeters. I was like, “Okay. We've bumped up the centimeters.” I was 100% effaced so I was like, “Okay, things are moving. I don't want to do an epidural yet.” So we started on nitrous. I labored on nitrous for a couple of hours. That was going well at first. I was in bed because I was just so exhausted at this point. I remember on the nitrous, I could definitely feel pain but I did not care. Meagan: Yeah, it takes the edge off. Meg: Yes, yeah. It was kind of wild. I would have these thoughts while I was on the nitrous like, Oh, this is horrible and everything is going to be terrible, but then the contraction would pass and I would be like, Oh, everything is fine. It was such a wild experience. At that point, they were setting up the table for baby so I was thinking, Okay, they're setting up the table. I must be really close if they are setting up the table for this baby. I was in so much pain and I was like, Surely I am 9 centimeters and we are getting this room ready for this baby. I think toward the end of that couple hours, it was almost 1:00 AM, I was definitely starting to not cope as well. Even with the nitrous, I was screaming and rigid and couldn't handle it. My midwife mentioned pain management. She was like, “I think we should do a cervical check and maybe it's time to think about an epidural.” I was like, “Finally. I've been asking for this for hours,” even though I didn't want to do it in the first place. Oh, I forgot to mention in all of this, my birth plan was to have this water birth. While I was on nitrous, they roll in this birth tub which is one of those soft-sided which I think was a home birth tub. They started filling it with this tiny hose. It was going to take hours for this thing to fill to the point in which it was going to be therapeutic. So I basically took one look at that tub and was like, “Yeah, that's not going to happen.” It was kind of disappointing. I had really wanted to try a water birth. I thought that was going to be so sweet. This is going to be my story. VBAC, first water birth VBAC at the med center since water births were approved. I just let that dream die a little bit. I'm like, If we just have a VBAC, I'll be fine. Yeah. They placed the epidural. They checked me. I was 8 centimeters finally. I was like, Okay. This is moving more quickly. They placed the epidural so I could get some rest and it worked for a little while then it did not work. So they came. Anesthesiology came and tried to problem solve. They were moving me all around trying to get me in a good position to see if that was the problem. My doula was just horrified during this whole situation. She was like, “This should not be happening.” I think they ended up calling in basically the head anesthesiologist finally who was like, “Do you want me to place it again?” I was like, “Yeah, why haven't we done that yet?” So then they placed it again and then it was the perfect epidural. It made the pain manageable but then I could still move around. I got a nap at that point and then we did another check after I took a nap so this was at 4:30 in the morning. They came in and did the check. I was at 9 centimeters so I felt really good about that. I think they put me on Benadryl at that point because there was some swelling from when I was on nitrous. I think I was subconsciously pushing while I was on the nitrous so they were like, “I think we're just going to try to calm this down a little bit.” At that point, my midwife mentioned that if I didn't make progress in 6 hours, we might need to discuss a C-section. I was just devastated. I'm like, “No.” As soon as my midwife left the room, I talked to my doula and I was like, “Okay, what do we need to do to prevent the C-section because I absolutely don't want to do that again?” For the next 2 hours, my doula, our nurse, my pelvic floor therapist, and my husband every 30 minutes were rotating me into a different position. I was on the squat bar. I was over the top of the bed. I was side to side with the peanut ball. I mean, seriously, we did not stop moving basically that entire time. We set the goal of 2 hours to have another check. I think during that time, I had my arms over the back of the bed. I looked down at my belly and was like, “All right little boy, let's do this. I want to meet you today and I don't want to have a C-section.” I was kind of whispering to him. My doula was like, “You're going to meet him today. It's going to be okay.” Yeah. Finally, it hit 6:30. The midwife came back in and I was basically there. I was a 9 or a 10 with an anterior lip. It went away with contractions so she was like, “I think let's wait to push and let your uterus do a little bit more work.” We set the goal to start pushing at 7:30. In that hour, I was psyching myself up to push because, with my daughter, I had obviously pushed for 3 hours and still ended up in a C-section. I was excited to push with him but I was also like, This isn't over yet. We might still have a C-section here.” It hit 7:30 and I think I started crying. My doula was like, “This is a different birth. This is going to go differently than it did with your daughter.” I think I had my husband come over and pray with me. We started pushing. My midwife did not leave my side from that moment on. My team during that whole time was my husband on one side and then my doula and pelvic floor therapist trading off on the other side. My midwife was doing some internal counterpressure to help me feel where I needed to push which after my last pushing experience where I had zero feedback, her telling me exactly where to push every time was such a huge encouragement to know, Okay, I have this purpose and this goal. Meagan: Direction. Meg: Direction, yeah. I know exactly what I should be doing. She gave me encouragement after every time like, “Oh, that's the push.” My doula and everybody was cheering me on. I think I was in such a better headspace during that whole pushing experience. We tried a bunch of different positions but I think I ended up mostly pushing from my back. About an hour in, they started to see his head during the contractions. I think I started crying again. I was like, “I'm going to have this baby from my vagina.” I think that's when it finally hit me, “This is the VBAC. I'm going to have this VBAC.” I think they did bring in the mirror one more time and again, for me, it was nice to see his head this time because I could see his head but it was just too distracting. I couldn't push effectively and look at myself in the mirror. I had them take that away again but they had me feel his head and that to me was really sweet being able to feel his hairy little head. That was the first thing my midwife said was, “Man, this kid's got a head of hair.”Yeah. I just kept pushing. It was kind of funny because again, they were getting the room ready and I'm thinking, All right, this baby is going to come out at any minute. We've been pushing for a while now. He was really stubborn and he would crown a little bit then he would get sucked back in. I think my midwife was getting frustrated at one point looking at some of the video. She basically stuck her hand in there on his head like, “You're going to come out.” Yeah. Finally again, 3 hours later– I started pushing at 7:30 and at 10:21, he was finally born. He came out and everyone in the room, everyone– nurses, doula, everyone– “Whoa.” There was this audible, “Whoa.” We had done a prediction of his weight earlier in the day. My daughter was 7 pounds, 14 ounces and I didn't gain as much weight with this pregnancy so I was like, “I think he's probably smaller. I bet he's only maybe 7 pounds, 7 ounces.” Everybody had their predictions. I pull him out to my chest. I don't care how big he is at this point. I'm just like, “He came out. He's so sweet.” I'm crying. My husband is crying. We did it. We're having our moment. Well then, they get him all cleaned off. They get him weighed and the nurse who weighs him gets the attention of everybody in the room like, “All right, any last guess of how much he weighs?” 9 pounds, 14 ounces so a full 2 pounds heavier than my daughter and I was shocked. I'm sure that's why it took him so long to come out. I'm like, This boy was a big boy in there. Yeah. It was just wild getting to meet him. Yeah. It was really sweet because once they got him back on my chest, I looked up at my husband and I said, “You have a son.” It was such a different experience than my C-section baby. Being able to have this baby and bring him right to my chest was just so sweet. Meagan: Absolutely. There is something about that. It sounds like your husband and everybody was so invested in this birth. Meg: Yes, yep. Definitely. Meagan: I'm sure the room, the positivity in the room and the emotions were high. Meg: Yep. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Meagan: I'm curious. Did you ever get your op reports with your first baby? Meg: Yes, I did. Meagan: Did they give any reasons why you had it? Obviously, you said asynclitic so positioning, but I'm wondering if they ever said anything else in your op reports. Meg: From what I could tell, and the OB who I had at the time said, “This is not because of your lack of ability to push. You have very effective pushes.” I think in the op report, they said it was that her head was tilted and asynclitic and that she was failure to descend basically. I think she was only ever at– I never remember– at one above zero. She wasn't going to come out that way. Meagan: -1 station. We know with asynclitic it can be harder. There are positions and things like that which could help but often are not offered or even known about. Meg: Yeah. Yep. I did look at my chart after listening to your podcast because I was like, I want to know what they said about me in these notes. I definitely scoured those notes and after hearing some horror stories on the podcast, I felt like the care that I had was very respectful and I had a lot of support from everyone at the hospital. Meagan: Yeah. Support is so important. Meg: Yeah. Meagan: So important. Meg: Yeah. Meagan: I'm so glad that you got your powerhouse team and you had this induction that you weren't really wanting but it ended up really great. Meg: Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Meagan: Well are there any tips you would give to moms who are listening and going in for an elective induction or medically necessary induction? Any tips for them? Meg: Mhmm, yeah. I definitely think a doula is key, especially after that 2 hours where it was like, “Hey, you might need to have a C-section,” then my doula and my team worked me like a rotisserie chicken to get that baby in a good position. I do think that part of– who knows with my C-section what could have gone differently but I think if I had a doula there to support me, things would have gone so much differently. I think for inductions in particular, you're going to be there for a while probably so having somebody there who can make that time productive is definitely a game changer. Meagan: Absolutely because if you didn't have someone there, you might have just been hanging out, chilling, and not doing too much. In that 6 hours, maybe something would have happened and maybe not. Meg: Yeah, yeah. Who knows? Yeah. Meagan: Well congrats again and thank you so much for sharing your story. Meg: Thank you. Yeah. Thanks 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 Spinning Babies® techniques are well known the world over for providing the opportunity for women to promote the physiological function of their bodies and prevent pathology in the birth process. Today we welcome Gail Tully, Midwife and creator of Spinning Babies® to discuss her work. This episode is generously sponsored by The Birth Sling by Dr Jess Michaels. As a special gift to Great Birth Rebellion listeners, use code GBR24 for a 10% discount at www.thebirthsling.com. To get on the mailing list for the podcast and to access the resource folders for each episode, visit www.melaniethemidwife.com Premium podcast members Hub Being a premium podcast member gives you access to the transcript and additional resources for each episode AND the 'ask Mel a question' button so you can submit questions for the monthly 'Ask me anything' episode. Only available in the premium podcast members hub Find out all the details here You can find out more about Mel @melaniethemidwife Disclaimer: The information and resources provided on this podcast does not, and is not intended to, constitute or replace medical or midwifery advice. Instead, all information provided is intended for education, with it's application intended for discussion between yourself and your care provider and/or workplace if you are a health professional. The Great Birth Rebellion podcast reserves the right to supplement, edit, change, delete any information at any time. Whilst we have tried to maintain accuracy and completeness of information, we do not warrant or guarantee the accuracy or currency of the information. The podcast accepts no liability for any loss, damage or unfavourable outcomes howsoever arising out of the use or reliance on the content. This podcast is not a replacement for midwifery or medical clinical care.

Women of Strength, we have a truly inspiring story for you today! Ashley joins us from the Liverpool/Sydney area in Australia and shares her VBAC with an inverted T special scar and extension story. During her first Cesarean, Ashley's OB mentioned that she had only performed that kind of incision one other time in her entire career and that Ashley would never have a vaginal birth.Ashley did not find out the actual circumstances around her first Cesarean until she requested her operative notes during her second pregnancy. In spite of what she was told, her heart longed for a VBAC. She committed to doing all she could to try and find a VBAC-supportive provider as long as it was medically safe to do so. Ashley went into spontaneous labor and utilized the tools available to help her baby rotate from a posterior position. She and her provider both stayed patient, trusted the process, and after pushing for 20 minutes, her baby girl was earthside!Special Scars, Special Hope Facebook GroupThe VBAC Link Blog: Special Scars, Special HopeHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello, Women of Strength. How are you today? I hope you are doing amazing. We have our friend, Ashley, with us today and you guys, she is from Australia. It has been so crazy. I don't know why I cannot understand time. We were talking about how we literally had to Google, “What time will it be in Australia if it's this time in Utah?” It was such a challenge to get this scheduled but I'm so grateful for Ashley for taking the time out of her Monday morning recording with us today so welcome, Ashley. Thank you for being here. Ashley: Thank you so much for having me on. Like I was saying to you before, The VBAC Link was so invaluable to me with all of the research and the statistics and just trying to hear other people's stories to help me change my mindset to get through it so I'm really excited to add to that with my story as well. Meagan: Me too. Your story has a little extra tidbit to it. Something that we know happens because we've got lots of stories on them as well. We actually haven't had one for a few minutes and yours is a special scar. You had an inverted T with an extension. Do you want to share with our listeners exactly what that means? We've had some J scars. There are all different special scars. An extension we know goes past the initial cut or incision. But tell us about the T. Ashley: Yeah, so I actually only found out after the surgery that it was an inverted T but I didn't know what that entailed so I had to do a bit of my own research especially when I fell pregnant the second time to know what was involved with that. Yeah, it was really scary just to see that I had a vertical cut in the middle. Obviously, you've got your normal horizontal cut–Meagan: Low transverse, yep. Ashley: Yeah, that's right and then through the center going vertically I had a 3-centimeter cut which was obviously riskier. A lot of providers said no to me when I started to look into it when I was pregnant the second time and started to have a look to get somebody to take me on. Even the public hospital that I had originally gone to with my son actually said, “No, you will have to have a Cesarean if you come through us.” In Australia, they can't really say no to you in a public hospital if that's what your wishes are, but I wanted somebody who was going to be supportive of me and the whole journey. So yeah. That's where I come to going private instead and having an obstetrician this time which I know is quite rare with VBACs. You find a lot of people who won't take you on. I had a really amazing experience if anyone is listening from Sydney. I'm in Liverpool and my provider was Brian Hollis and he's extremely VBAC friendly. He was amazing. He had actually somebody with an inverted T before. Meagan: Really? Okay, so he had also seen one. Definitely there are so many providers out there who do support VBAC and then they have a special scar patient come in and they are like, “I really like VBAC but I don't know. I've never seen this before.” But we know it exists so I can't wait for you to share more in your story and about him maybe because we know it's so hard. It's so hard to find these providers. It's hard enough to just find a VBAC-supportive provider in general and then that's something unique that Australia does that at least here in Utah we don't do with the private and public. We just have this hospital and then we have the birth centers and then we have the home births. There is not the dramatic difference in the hospital system like in your case. Okay. Oh my gosh. I'm so excited to dive it. I do have a Review of the Week. I'm so excited that I'm talking so fast. I do have a Review of the Week and then we'll get into those stories. Like you said, you didn't find out until after. That's is the case so many times. They don't even say during. We'll go into this as well if they went into why but sometimes there's not even a clear answer to, Okay, I now have this different, unique scar but why? We're going to get into that. We have this review from xxooxx and it says, “Informative, supportive, and empowering.” It says, “After having a C-section that I certainly did not want and that I did not know was not necessary, I knew nothing about VBACs. I had dove head-first into this podcast and on top of learning so much, I became informed and empowered to get my VBAC which I got. Thank you, Julie and Meagan, for loving your listeners and pouring your knowledge and support into us. What you do matters and I will always recommend The VBAC Link.”Well, thank you, xxooxx, for that amazing review. Congratulations on your VBAC and I couldn't agree more. This podcast really is so empowering and so informative like you were even just saying. I think a lot of this comes from the storytellers and the moms and the Women of Strength. This is just so amazing. I definitely suggest sharing this podcast to anybody. If they're not a VBAC mom, if they're a first-time mom or a second-time mom, I definitely suggest that because I truly believe that the stories on this podcast will help people avoid a Cesarean in general. Meagan: Okay, cute Ashley. You found out after so how did this first birth lead up to this inverted T with an extension? Ashley: Yeah, so I guess my story starts in 2020. I had a low-risk pregnancy and other than being sick the whole time but giving birth in March 2021 with my son and it was super traumatic. It took a long time to heal physically and mentally from it but my waters broke on their own two days before my due date. I had gone into the public hospital I was booked in for. I had seen the same midwife the whole pregnancy which was really fantastic. Midwives are amazing and just empowering telling a first-time mom, “You can do this.” I had no signs that anything would be wrong. So as usual, I went back home and then the contractions started that night. They started to really ramp up and become heavier so that night at about midnight or so, I tried to get some sleep. I wanted to stay home as long as possible. At 3:30 AM, I had to go to the hospital. I was just beyond. The pain in my back was just– yeah. I didn't know if this was normal but in the end, when I got to the hospital, I was only 3 centimeters dilated. I had used the gas and the TENS to get through the contractions but he was posterior which I was nervous about. I didn't know as many things as I knew in the second pregnancy in terms of Spinning Babies and trying to get into good positioning. With my son, I don't know how it happened but he was posterior and the pain was just unbearable. Meagan: And it happens. We learn through pelvic dynamic courses and things that sometimes really truly, babies have to enter in a posterior position before they get into an anterior position and sometimes that means back labor. It is very, very intense. It really is intense. Ashley: Yeah. Yeah, it was. At this point, it went on for a few hours and I just actually couldn't deal with it anymore so I had the epidural which turned out to be quite a good thing for me. It was relieving of some of that back pain but I still had felt a lot of it through it so it's almost like it didn't seem to work as much as I thought it would at that point. The contractions through my back were still there. We tried to do some things before I had the epidural to get into a better position, but it wasn't working for me. Every contraction, my son's heart rate would drop and the midwife was really good in just letting me keep going. “Let's see. Let's see.” But as soon as the doctor on call knew that it had been quite a few hours came into check me, “You've got meconium in your waters. You have to have a Cesarean.” I was just devastated because I had really thought that this was just going to be a great, empowering birth. I was so excited to give birth and to hear that it wasn't going to go the way that I had intended, I was devastated and crying. But yeah, he was in a compound position as well so he did have his hand up past his head. There were a few things going against me in that time. But despite all of this, they gave me a little bit more time to keep going and I did get to 9 centimeters. I was in a position where they thought, “Okay.” My midwife was pushing, “Let's try. Let's try and see if she can continue and maybe we can try some repositioning to get him out,” but the doctor was, “No. Cesarean. There is meconium in the waters. Let's get him out.” I was so exhausted. It had been 34 hours from the time my waters broke and I just gave in. When I was in that vulnerable position of just so much pain and didn't know any better, I just said, “Okay, I'll give in and I'll have the Cesarean.” During the Cesarean preparing, I heard the surgeon say to her assistant, “She's 9 centimeters,” and explaining it and the assistant said, “Should we just see? The head is almost there.” There was a little bit of whispering and then it all just stopped. I was just laying there terrified like, What's going on? They're talking about how far I've progressed and that they were concerned about me having a Cesarean.Meagan: Your baby was so low. Ashley: Yes. I found out later that he was so low that they had to push him back up during the Cesarean. Meagan: Did they push him back up vaginally? Ashley: Yes. Yeah. Meagan: They do that sometimes where they go in vaginally where one doctor is pulling from the other end and one doctor is pushing from the other end vaginally Ashley: Yes. Obviously the recovery is like you gave birth, isn't it? Meagan: Yeah. Ashley: Yeah. The doctor panicked and I was in such a blur that my husband and I actually debriefed afterward and he said, “I've never been so terrified.” A team of doctors just flew in. She was making calls. Obviously, when she started to begin the Cesarean, she saw that she couldn't grab him. He was too low and that's why they had to cut vertically but nothing was explained to us. We were just lying there terrified. The tarp was up. Meagan: They were doing their thing. Ashley: Yeah. And with our first child, we didn't know what to expect anyway but my husband just said there were all of these people who just flew in and there were all of these conversations and whispers. Not long later, he emerged. The tarp wasn't lowered and he wasn't breathing. He started breathing once they transferred him to resus, but that time was the longest time. Meagan: Absolutely. It feels like 5 hours. Ashley: Absolutely, yeah. I don't even know how long it was but it felt like forever. By the time that they placed him on me for the standard amount of time I suppose, I was in just a shock that the spinal block had made me have the shakes. It was just not what I was hoping for. Meagan: Anticipated, yeah. Ashley: Yeah. They wheeled him away with my husband. They went and then I was to go separately into recovery. Before I did that, the doctor then lowered the tarp and said to me, “You will never have a vaginal birth. I've only had to do what I just did twice in my career.” Meagan: Oh wow. Ashley: Yeah, and just so brutal. Just the shock of that was like, I didn't want this either. It was just really hard to hear because I just had this baby not how I had anticipated and to hear that for the future was a big shock to me. Going into recovery and then later on that initial bond with my son, I was just in so much pain that it was hard to hold him. It really took a long time to recover from it. The next day, she did come and talk to me. She said that she had to cut an extension and cut an inverted T incision of 3 centimeters to get him out. She said, “Yeah. I'm so lucky it wasn't worse.” Meagan: Wow. Ashley: Yeah, then she left and I just had to go home and start my new life as a mum with just this recovery. I could hardly walk. As a Cesarean, it's already painful, but I had all of this pain and it left me with an awful feeling mentally as well. I just obviously adored my son. I was so happy to be a mum but that lead-up and then just bang. That's how you're giving birth, it was just a shock. Yeah, so that's what happened. The details of it I found out with the second pregnancy. I didn't know afterward that was our only conversation we had. I didn't get any discharge notes with that information. It wasn't until I was pregnant the second time that I requested my hospital notes. Meagan: So important. So important to do. I really encourage anybody whether you were at one, two, different hospitals and all of the things, request your records because you really do learn a lot about what really transpired that day in your op-reports. Ashley: Yeah, definitely. Yeah, so I guess that brings me to now with pregnancy. A lot better, a lot happier result but I fell pregnant in May 2023. Both my pregnancies were normal, and low-risk. I was a little sick and I actually got quite dizzy and things like that but nothing that was going to impact me from giving the VBAC a try. Like I mentioned, I had gone to a few different providers and when I had my pelvic floor checks and things after my first son, I spoke to the doctors there and said, “Would it be possible to have a VBAC here?” They said no. That was something that was a big shock to me. I didn't expect that I would have to look for somebody. Yeah. That was a big shock. I found out through some of my friends about this OB who was quite VBAC-supportive and I knew I wanted to give it a try and ultimately, if I did have to have the Cesarean, I would be okay with it but I just wanted to try. I heard about this OB and had an appointment with him. My husband and I after the initial appointment were instantly comfortable with him. He was so supportive. He said to me, “Ashley, is this what you want to do?” I said, “Yeah. I really would like to try.” He goes, “Well, that's what we're going to do.”Meagan: I love that.Ashley: Yeah. I was just like, “Oh my goodness. He's so honest about this is how it's going to be.” “If you want to give it a go, these would be my conditions,” which were to have monitoring which I was fine with. I still was a little bit nervous. I know that some people would rather have no monitoring and just let your body tell you, but with the special scar, I thought if there are any signs of rupture, I really want to know.Meagan: That's actually a very common request from a provider in a VBAC situation. They usually want continuous monitoring. You can fight not to have continuous monitoring, but that's a very normal request. On top of VBAC, having a special scar, it's even more of a normal request for a provider to say, “Yeah, let's totally do this. I just want to monitor things,” because we do know that one of the signs of uterine rupture is fetal distress. Ashley: Yeah, that's right. He was just really supportive about, “Let's put a birth plan together and see what you want to do and I'll see what is the best thing to do.”During the pregnancy, I tried to do as much listening to podcasts. That's how I came across your page and Instagram just constantly looking for information. It's actually a beautiful Facebook group called, Special Scars, Special Hope. Being in Australia, I was just like, this is global. There were so many amazing women on there offering support and advice. There was even information on there– statistics. Yeah. I did a little bit of research but I didn't want to overwhelm myself. I just wanted to have a really strong mindset. There were times of doubt and, Maybe I'll just book the Cesarean, but then I thought, No, this is what I want. Let's give it a try. My OB was really supportive from the beginning about, Let's just see how we go. He retrieved my notes and he found out that all of those details where they had to push him back up vaginally and they had to do this extension cut and all those kind of things. It was good that he was prepared. He knew and I just tried to stay as active as I could through the pregnancy. I did the dates at the end. I did the raspberry leaf tea and the vitamins. I just was always on the ball. I tried to do as much as I could to prepare myself physically, but yeah.The conditions with my OB were that we said I would be giving birth at the public hospital that is next to the private. It was a different one to before because of any emergencies and that kind of thing. He would have to do some examinations every hour or so which I was also fine about. Obviously, I couldn't use water. That was one thing I really wanted. I wanted to be able to get into the tub. Meagan: Birth in the water. Ashley: Yeah, or even just use it for pain management. He said, “No, because of the monitoring,” so that was one thing I was ugh about. I thought, When I do go into labor and it starts, I will try and use water at home before I get to the hospital. My husband was so supportive of me and said, “I will help you. Let's do this. If you want to use the water–” he was a little bit nervous about, “When they start to ramp up, we really need to leave” because the hospital was about 30 minutes away. We just wanted to be at a point that no later than 5 minutes or so apart and they wanted me in. Meagan: Well, and you had already made it to 9 centimeters before so even though you'd be a first-time mom pushing baby out vaginally, your cervix is not as much like a first-time mom. Ashley: Exactly right. That was something that got me through the whole labor. I just kept saying to myself, My body knows how to do this. I've gotten here before. I know what to do. That was just something in times of doubt, I would just keep saying. But yes, my OB said at any point that he was concerned, we'd have the discussion and if anything was to go wrong, we'd be calling a C-section straightaway. I was fine about that. I came in at 39 weeks. Sorry, I booked at 39 weeks for a stretch and sweep but I got COVID. Meagan: Oh no. Ashley: My whole family all got COVID and I was just like, “No.” I couldn't hardly breathe. I was congested and everything. I'm not going into labor like this. I've done that much preparation. So I just tried to rest and get better. It was put out until 40 weeks. I had until 41 weeks then he said we would be having a discussion about a Cesarean. He didn't want me to go too long with the scar. So 40 weeks, my due date. I came in for a stretch and sweep. I came home to relax after, nothing. Nothing at all happened. No pain, nothing. Two days later, I started to have some mild period pains. I carried on the day with my son. I just kept going but I had been attending acupuncture weekly from 36 weeks. I had another session at 6:30 that night and by 9:30, the pain really started to ramp up. I decided to try and sleep but by the time I had a shower, laid down in bed, and at 10:00, they were coming faster, stronger, and I just knew I wanted to stay home as long as possible. I got into the shower then I did some type of positioning that I could get comfortable with the TENS machine on but I knew the pain of the back and I just knew that this baby had to be posterior again because the feeling was just like I had experienced it yesterday. Meagan: Deja vu. Ashley: Yeah. I just said to my husband, “She's posterior. I just know it.” We left for the hospital at 1:30 in the morning. We got there and I had to walk a really long distance from the car to the birthing unit. It was just so odd. There was no one there, no wheelchairs for me, just no one. Meagan: Huh. Ashley: Yeah, I was so shocked. I was like, What's going on? I just said, “This is going to help me progress.” Any little obstacle that would come up, I just said, “I'm going to be able to do this.” Helping I think in the end actually helped my labor progress.Meagan: I was thinking that. This is actually probably really good. That's a lot of movement for the pelvis and good for the baby to rotate. Ashley: I was having these contractions that I had to get on the floor to breathe them out and rock through them. It took us a long time to get from the car to the birthing unit because I had to keep stopping but when I did get there, they were like, “Wow. You are almost 5 centimeters. You have progressed really quickly.” Meagan: Just like you wanted. Ashley: Yeah. The contractions then were so weird. It was like I had to push but it was too early to push. She was posterior. It was confirmed so that pressure was just such an odd labor. I didn't have that at all even though I was posterior with my son too. This one was like an intense pushing feeling that I couldn't control. Then yeah. Once I had discovered that she was posterior too, I just tried to get into some good positioning. I had done a lot of research about posterior because I was terrified of it happening again. I got on the ball trying to rock back and forth and my husband was such a great support because we had done a little bit of information reading about this pressure point on the lower back. Meagan: The sacrum?Ashley: Yes, that's it so anytime I had these contractions, he would just push on there and I swear by that. I have to say more than the TENS machine, more than anything, that got me through that labor. But yeah. At one stage, I sat on the toilet to try and help with the pressure of this pushing and my waters broke. Yeah. That really ramped up from there. I was 6 centimeters at that point and it was unbearable. I couldn't take it anymore. I asked for the epidural and the midwife was like, “Are you sure you want to do that? You said you didn't want to.” I just knew that I had to do it. I couldn't take it any longer. I was at that point where I was asking, “Just wheel me in. I'll just have the Cesarean.” I didn't want that. I wanted to keep trying so I had the epidural and I fell asleep. It was just like my body needed that. Meagan: Yeah. Rest and relaxation can really be the best tool in labor. Even in early labor, we are so excited and want to keep going but rest and relaxation. Ashley: I was so tired, yeah. I just relaxed. My body completely relaxed and I fell asleep for about an hour. At that point, my OB came in to see me and measured me and discovered that baby had turned while I was sleeping and I was 10 centimeters. In that hour, I had progressed that quickly. He looked at me and said, “Ashley, you're having your VBAC.” He said, “You're going to push this baby out. Within a half hour or so, this baby will be here.” I just was in pure– I've got the feeling all over again. I just was so in a pure disbelief. I was just so happy and I just said to my husband, “We've done it. This is it. This is the moment that I really wanted.” Yeah. It's making me emotional all over again. I pushed for about 20 minutes under his guidance. I still had feeling and control in my legs because I didn't have the epidural at full dose so that really helped and within 20 minutes, my baby girl was born.And just that feeling of pure joy and pure connection, that bond was just immediate. Pride, shock. Meagan: It was just all of it. Ashley: When they laid her on my chest, I will never forget my husband– the pride he had in me. Yeah, it was just beautiful and it was truly empowering. It was a beautiful moment. It's just something you never forget. She's 12 weeks now and I just relive that moment over and over. But yeah, it was my healing birth. Yeah, it was beautiful. It was everything that I had hoped for. Just shock, really because it was such a different experience to the emergency that I had with my son. I had that golden hour. She wasn't taken away from me like my son was. They gave me that time with her and it was just pure disbelief in a beautiful way. Yeah, so that's it. I recovered so much quicker and I think for me, that chapter of my life closed. It was just a beautiful way to really celebrate what birthing should be like and how I should feel afterward. You know, that bond that you should have. Yeah. That's me. Meagan: I felt all of the emotions as you were sharing it and I know that I get an extra advantage because I can see your face and I can see you get teary. Oh, just to see it in your face. That moment is amazing when you realize you've done it and it is so overwhelming in all of the ways but holy cow, I am so happy for you. I am so glad that you were able to find the support because it's just so hard. It's so hard and you were even told– you hadn't even met your baby yet really and were told, “Just to let you know, you will never have a baby vaginally.” To even be told that in that space, that in itself is so overwhelming and being told, “No. No one here is going to support you. No one.” When you are proof along with so many other Women of Strength who have had special scars and gone on to have a vaginal birth that it is possible and you do not have to but when you're in that vulnerable state, I can just picture my own C-sections in an OR with the drape up and the bright lights and the beepings and if I were told that I would never have a baby vaginally again, I would already be in that emotional intimate space and vulnerable where I could have and many people could be like, Okay and then just never look past it and that was it. I'll never deliver vaginally. But that's where I think this podcast just is so important for people to listen and hear these stories that you may be told something and that may be true. That really may be the best choice in the future, right? It may be medically best or emotionally best but it doesn't mean it is always what your fate has to be for the rest of your life when having a baby. Ashley: Yeah, and when I was told that and then I fell pregnant, I thought to myself, Okay, if that is what is medically necessary, I will do that. I just want my baby here naturally and safely. If it isn't the way that I had hoped then that's okay. At one point, I even looked at the maternal-assisted Cesarean and I had that discussion with my OB. He said, “Yep Ashley, if you decide you're going to have the Cesarean elective, I'll do that for you.” He's like, “I will make it beautiful for you. I can play music you like. I'll do whatever you like. It will be different from the first.” I said to myself, Okay. That is an option if I just feel that. Meagan: That's a good plan B. Ashley: Yeah, that's right. Exactly. He said if we call it early enough and there are no signs of rupturing, “I can still do that for you.” I still felt really comfortable going in that no matter what, this would hopefully be a better experience than what I had. But yeah, you're right. There's almost this stigma that C-sections, especially with special scars, that your body failed. I wanted to break the mold on that that bodies aren't broken. I almost left my first baby coming home with him and I just looked at him and loved him and adored him but I also felt to myself, That's not how I wanted to bond with you by laying here and I can't move. I felt like my body was broken or it had let me down and this time around, I just believed in myself. I believed in my body and I said to myself, “Your mindset is everything. Going in, this mindset is how I'm going to birth this baby and get through it.” Birthing is incredible and I feel like we should feel incredible afterward. Meagan: Absolutely. Birth is incredible and it really is incredible no matter what, but the experience really does matter. We hear the whole “safe mom, safe baby” but of course, duh. That experience really, really counts and it sticks with us really for the rest of our lives. I mean, my oldest is going to be 13 in just a few months and I still remember her birth. My other is 10 and I remember her birth and of course, my VBAC baby I remember his birth and those are sticking with me. They are sticking with me and it's just I love that your provider was like, “Listen. I'm going to support here and if it goes here, I'm still going to support you and no matter what, we are going to make this a better experience for you.” I love that your provider saw the better experience as an important part. Ashley: Yeah. I'm paying for him and his expertise. But I almost felt like he just wanted me to be happy. For him, it was like, “I can see your pain. I want you to be happy this time around.” We felt that from the initial appointment. It was more than just, “I'm paying for you. You have to do this.” It was like, “Help me get a better experience for you. What do you want? What can I do?” That was so important to me so it was wonderful. It was really important to me to acknowledge him as well because he was such an amazing support. Meagan: Yes. I'm so happy for you. I'm so happy for you. I do just want to mention that group again, you guys. Special Scars, Special Hope on Facebook. What kinds of things did you see in your experience in that group?Ashley: It's just hearing other people's stories because I would see VBAC stories and I was like, Yes, 100%. I need to do this and I need to do that. It's got that little bit of a fear factor with it because it is a special scar and not that many people attempt it. So to have a group of women globally who do attempt it and just empower each other like, “Hey, I had an amazing experience. This is what I did,” that was just invaluable to me taking on all of this advice. Quite a lot of these women are in the U.S. and they do talk about how providers can either be for you or against you and just write you off completely. It is similar here too. There were quite a few who said, “No way.” They don't want that liability so yeah, it was just really great to have that group with such amazing, brave women who are going out there and sharing their story on there because it helps people like me who are like, Look, it can happen. It's rare, but it's not impossible. That group is amazing. I encourage anybody who has had all of these different types of scars on there, not just inverted T. There are people who have had inverted J's and extensions. So anything a little bit special. Meagan: Yes. I was going to go over the C-section incision types. We've got the low transverse which is considered the safest way to VBAC having a low, boring, low transverse. But then we have a low vertical which means they cut lower in the abdominal segment and it's vertical up and down. Then we have classical which is higher and sometimes we have classical scars when maybe a baby is very preterm, very small and the baby can come out that way, multiples, or maybe if a baby is transverse but it's earlier on or something like that, they may have to go higher. Then there is inverted T and like I said, inverted J's and then we have extensions on all of these. There have even been low transverse with an extension where it can go further or that's where it goes into that J. Yeah, there are just so many different types and honestly, the statistics are not that powerful out there. There are not a ton and I don't know. I would say there's not a ton of really solid concrete. There are some but they are smaller. Ashley: Yeah, really hard. I didn't want to overwhelm myself with statistics and things. A lot of people in that group share the rupture risks and the statistics and what they throw at you, these OBs are, “You've got a 20% risk of rupturing,” that would turn anybody away. I just knew from women in this group that I had just glanced over seeing that it's not that high. Don't let anyone tell you it's that high. Obviously, there are situations when you need to have the Cesarean because it is unsafe, but in my case, I knew that it wasn't a 20% rupture risk. I knew that there was definitely less and mine was 3 centimeters. It can be bigger than that obviously, but when I had spoken to my OB, he said, “It is 3 centimeters but in the span of your whole labor progressing, 3 centimeters is not a big deal.”Meagan: That's pretty small. Ashley: Yeah, it's pretty small so even just hearing that, it was like, “Wow, you are telling me something different than all of these other people.” It's good to back yourself up a little bit in your conversations and have just that little bit of research behind you. Meagan: Yes. We are also going to have a bunch of links in the show notes so if you guys want to go check that out, I highly suggest it. Go check out the show notes. We're also going to have the link to that group because anytime anybody has a special scar, I'm like, This is the group. It's so empowering over there. It's so informative. There are not many groups like that. Specialscars.org as well. Ashley: But even most of the people who have had a rupture as well, that group is just a safe space to talk about how you are feeling and there's a lot of women on there who have become friends really just in sharing their experience. So yeah, it's a really informative, great group. Meagan: Yep. Awesome. Well, thank you so much again for taking the time out and figuring out the time changes and being here with us just 12 weeks after your VBAC. Ashley: Thank you and thank you for everything you do to help empower women. Obviously, it's reaching globally and it's just so informative and supportive. Yeah, it's amazing so thank you for everything you do. 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

With her first birth, Amy hired a doula and planned to birth at a birth center. During labor, her baby kept having late heart decels which led to transferring to the hospital. At the hospital, Amy stalled at 9.5 centimeters. Baby was having a hard time descending and continued having decels. Amy chose to have a Cesarean and while she was at peace with the experience, she knew she wanted another chance at a vaginal birth. Amy proactively prepared for her VBAC by educating herself and working with her provider to find common ground. Her labor progressed well, Amy coped beautifully, and was able to push out her 10-pound baby! Amy talks about how recovering from birth can be difficult no matter what type of birth you have. Our VBAC Link Doula, Desiree, joins as Meagan's co-host and touches on the importance of breathwork. As a licensed therapist, Amy also talks about how she uses breathwork with her own clients. “Practice it before you are in labor because then it's easier to do while you're in labor.”Desiree's WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Welcome, Women of Strength. It is an amazing day to listen to another VBAC story. We have our friend, Amy, from Massachusetts coming your way sharing her VBAC story with you. Then we have one of our VBAC Link doulas, Desiree, with us as well. Welcome, ladies. Desiree: Hi.Amy: Thank you. Meagan: Hello. Thank you so much for being with me today. We do have that Review of the Week so I'm going to actually turn the time over to Desiree and read that. Desiree: Yeah, so the Review of the Week this week is provided by Ashley on the VBAC Doula course which I am very familiar with. I am so excited to read this one. Ashley says, “TOLAC/VBACs should be treated just like any other birthing person but there is certain preparation and information that needs to be offered to them. Your course covered that. The value is held in your careful recognition of how to best support our clients who are doing a TOLAC. I cannot praise you two enough for the fear-release activity. Honestly, it is something I can apply to even myself before and after birth and even in life in general. Thank you for that. It has already helped three of my VBAC clients.” Meagan: Oh, that's amazing. That just gave me the chills. I love that. Fear release is so important. Women of Strength, if you are listening, we have that in our course because we truly believe in it. I think fear release in anything in life. We could just be scared to go in and take a test and fear release of that. But when it comes to birth specifically, I don't know if both of you would agree, but we've got to do some fear releases and let go and also process the past, right? Desiree: Absolutely. Yes. I would say it's good for everybody going into birth, but definitely, if you're a VBAC or going for a TOLAC because you take your previous birth experiences into the room with you and if you haven't done the work, then you are just setting yourself up for roadblocks. Meagan: It's so true. I will admit that I did fear releases and I did lots of processing and I still had little bits of bouts of roadblocks in my VBA2C birth. That was really hard, but I was so grateful for the knowledge of how to do that fear release and work through it in those moments in my labor and because I had already done so much beforehand, the little roadblocks that were there even though they were roadblocks, I was able to get through them so much faster and more efficiently. Okay, Ms. Amy. Thank you so much for joining us. Amy: Sure. Meagan: Yes. We would love to turn the time over to you. Amy: Okay. So I actually gave birth to my two kids and then I gave birth in two different states. My C-section story was from when I lived in Massachusetts then I moved back to Minnesota and had my son which was my VBAC and now we are back in Massachusetts. Yeah, so with my daughter, I hired a doula. I gave birth and wanted to give birth at a birthing center that was outside of the hospital but it was connected to the hospital system but it was run by midwives and more holistic, more of what I was aiming for. Just like with your first births, you have all of the plans and I think partly that is some anxiety mitigation of if I feel like I have a plan then maybe I know what to expect. I worked with a really amazing doula. We didn't take a birthing class through the hospital. She did that education and I was feeling relatively prepared as much as you can with a first birth. I had a week's worth of prodromal labor. I always am very cautious. I always call it prodromal labor because I feel like the term false labor is so demoralizing when you're in it like this isn't real labor and I'm like, No, it is. It just isn't progressing the way I want it to. Meagan: Well, but it's still your body working. I think that's what a lot of the time we forget. It's not progressing the way we want but our body is still very much working and making progress behind the scenes whether or not a number of centimeters or a number of effacement is reflecting. We are still doing work and making progress. Amy: Yes, exactly. But my prodromal labor liked to happen only at night so I was going off of probably three or four nights of really not sleeping through the night. Again, as a first-time mom, I didn't really know. I was up with adrenaline because I didn't really know 100% what I was experiencing. I did stop going to work. I was going to work up until labor and then I just stopped going to work the last couple of days because I was like, I'm not sleeping. I'm stressed and tired.I went into labor the night before my daughter's due date and felt the contractions getting a little bit stronger around 10:30. I went to bed. I woke up around 12:30 and told my husband, “Okay, I think this is really actually happening now.” We labored through the night. At 4:00 AM, I called my doula. We met up at the birth center. I was already 6 centimeters. I was obviously so thrilled about that. I was like, “We're going to have this baby by mid-morning. It's going to be great.” Then they started checking her heartbeat. From the beginning, she was having a lot of decels and they kept monitoring it, monitoring it, and monitoring it for 20 minutes which again, wasn't really the plan that I was going to be sitting in bed monitoring her heart rate the whole time. I wanted to be up and moving around but they just couldn't get her heart rate to stabilize at that point so they moved me over to the hospital then. It's a birth center but they are across the street from the hospital so they literally put me into a wheelchair and rolled me across the road. That's when all of the interventions started. From there, I progressed I think to about 8 centimeters but she was having those decels off and on the whole time. Then I think we ended up getting an epidural. I wasn't planning to but I got an epidural about that time. I don't know what time of day this was, maybe noon just because it had been a while now. I was tired and they were like, “Maybe if you rest a little bit, we can get her into a better position or something.” Really, what ended up happening was because of her decels, they wanted me to be on continuous monitoring which made it so I couldn't move around as much because the nurse didn't know how to apply the wireless ones. That happened so it was just one thing after another and my doula was great. She was really supportive. We did try a few different positions, but it was like every time I got in a position that felt good, they were like, “Oh no, we lost her heartbeat. We have to have you move again.” I think the process was frustrating. I did get the epidural. I got all the way to 9.5 centimeters dilated and then we just sort of stalled. And then of course probably around 5:00, this had been close to 20 hours of labor and they were like, “Yeah, I don't know. We could try a few more positions but I think this is just going to keep happening and now we are worried that she's going to get distressed.” So it wasn't really an emergency C-section at all. They were like, “Here's what we think. We'll give you a few minutes to talk about it with your husband and doula and see what you guys think.” It was definitely hard. I was discouraged and frustrated by that but at that point, I just wanted her out. Now that I've read, and when I was listening to The VBAC Link and listening to so many other stories where we probably could have given it more time and all of these other things, they did a C-section and they actually found that her umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck twice. She never really descended into the birth canal fully. She never really engaged in my pelvis. Part of me wonders if it was partly that where she had that umbilical cord and that was going to be tough for her through the birth canal. I don't really know. But she was healthy and everything was good. I honestly didn't feel super traumatized by that experience but obviously I wish it had gone a different way. That was my first birth and then about two years later, well, my daughter was 2.5 when I got pregnant with my son. I was the middle of the pandemic. It was 2020. Is that when I got pregnant? Yeah. It was the fall of 2020. I definitely started looking into VBAC and found your podcast and was like, I would like to really try for a vaginal birth this time around. I think what was challenging about that and as you are talking about going in with fear is that I felt like even though it was my second baby, I felt like I was going through the process like a first birth because I never pushed. I never got to that point with my daughter so I felt like I had that anxiety almost like I was going into my first birth again. That was hard for me, I think, mentally. But we had moved to Minnesota at that point so unfortunately, I didn't get to use the same doula that I had before. I found another doula and I think she had a lot of knowledge and I think she did a good job but I think overall, we just didn't connect as well emotionally. Honestly, I realized that was almost more important to me. Obviously, knowledgeable and certified is good but not feeling like we were always connected, I struggled with that at times. Meagan: Sorry, not to interrupt you but I was just going to say that can impact the way you are feeling and walking into any experience so that connection is really, really key. Amy: Yes. Yeah. I'm a therapist. That's my job and so obviously, I say that to my clients all the time about therapy too. I never got to the point where I was like, Oh, maybe I should look for somebody else, but I think looking back, sometimes I wish I had. But during the labor and stuff, I think she was great. Yeah. It was different than my first time. So yeah, I did a lot of research about Spinning Babies. My doula helped me with some of those exercises. It was stuff I was aware of before, but I didn't look into it as much. Then one of the things I was curious around because when I had my C-section, my OB was like, “Oh, well you have a flat pelvis so it is going to be hard for you to ever have a baby vaginally” is what she said to me. My doula was like, “Well, you know. Around pelvis shapes and stuff like that, that's a very gray area. Generally speaking, we don't subscribe to that because your pelvis is moving and it isn't a shape.” But I was curious about that so I looked into that through Spinning Babies and some of those other resources and about how babies engage in your pelvis and how does baby engage to progress labor.Meagan: Yeah, different stages. The baby can be in sometimes different– I mean, we all have different shapes of pelvises so the baby has to come in different positions and sometimes that even means posterior so sometimes we do all the things to avoid posterior babies, and then our babies still go in posterior but that's actually because of the way our pelvis is shaped or the way it was that day that our babies needed to get into the pelvis in that position. Sometimes they can kind of hang up until we find those positions that can help them navigate down. Amy: Yes. I mentioned that to my doula and we both did some research on it because I think that was part of the issue with my daughter. There wasn't a consistent engagement. Even though my labor progressed for the most part, I was sort of wondering about that. I also was– I can't remember when this exactly happened but I think around 32 weeks, I started measuring big. Of course, my OB who I would say was VBAC tolerant. I wouldn't say she was VBAC-supportive. I did like her quite a bit but she was like, “Okay, your baby is measuring big and because of your history–” she goes through the whole, “here's your percentage of having a successful VBAC.” I'm 5'9”. I'm larger. I'm not a petite person so even if I had been, I don't subscribe to that because of listening to VBAC podcasts and stuff, your body can birth a large baby, but also, I wasn't as worried about it because I know that sometimes those projections are completely off and so it was part of that process of learning to respectfully disagree with a medical professional who I did have respect for and did feel like they had some expertise but to say that we don't have to agree on everything for me to work with you. That was a huge turning point for me just in my life in general working with medical professionals of, I don't have to completely throw everything you say out the window but I also don't have to agree with everything that you say and we can respectfully disagree on that issue. So I was like, “Respectfully, I'm not going to schedule a C-section at that point.” She didn't pressure me at all. She was like, “I understand. Let's move forward with the plan.” That's what we did. I think that was empowering. As we moved closer to my due date, he was big. I was not sure at the time, but I was like, I'm going to go into labor early. That was a mental block for me. Then as it gets closer and closer and closer to my due date, I'm going out of my mind just losing patience. I'm not a good, patient-waiting person as it is so I'm having prodromal labor for the whole week before my due date and at that point, I actually did schedule a C-section for the following week because I needed mentally an out-date. That was what it was in my mind of, Okay. If this goes on for another week, I have an out, even though that's not what I wanted. I think honestly mentally, it took a weight off my shoulders which is counterintuitive to what you would think when everything in me was working toward this VBAC then I was like, No. A couple of days before he was born, I needed that second date in my mind somewhere. Meagan: Well– oh, sorry. Go ahead, Desiree. Desiree: I was going to say I think it actually makes a lot of sense. You say it's counterintuitive, but you're right. We spend so much time and energy thinking about achieving our VBACs and having our babies. Sometimes having– well, even if I don't do all the things, I can still have my baby and then relaxation happens. That's when we see labor starting to take off for a lot of people. Amy: Yep. Yeah, I definitely think that was a piece of the puzzle. Yeah, and I think it was helpful.So yeah, I'm trying to think of how this went. Yeah, so we were doing some Spinning Babies things. We did some side-lying releases all throughout the pregnancy and then on June 4th which was actually my son's due date, having prodromal labor all week and then I felt like there was a little bit more intensity in the contractions I was having that morning so I sent my daughter off to her grandparents' and was like, Okay. I'm just going to focus today. I'm going to focus on getting my body in gear. It wasn't that I was in this mindset of, I'm going to make myself go into labor today, it was just this intuition around I needed to be able to focus on what was going on. We had that plan that my daughter would go stay with her grandparents while I go into labor and I thought that maybe she was just going to go earlier than I thought she would because I wasn't in any kind of active labor. Then I had my doula come over at 10:00 AM and we did more different exercises. I can't remember all of the ones we did because what would happen was that I would have contractions 15 minutes apart, 15 minutes apart and then they would just stop and that would be the end of it and then the next day, the same thing. Or they would be 10 minutes, 12 minutes, 20 minutes– nothing consistent so what we found was if I laid on my left side in the flying cowgirl position, then my contractions were more intense and more consistent. It was again this think of, in my mind I was like, While I'm in active labor, I'm going to be walking around and trying all of these different positions and all of this different stuff, and what I ended up doing is honestly just laying in bed and watching TV in that position almost all day. So again, it was this thing of that's not what I've heard is helpful or whatever but I just think that was where he needed to be to engage in my pelvis at that stage. Then every hour or so I'd get up. I'd do curb walking. I would just get out, walk around, and be active but it was way more laying down than I ever planned to do. You hear that's not how you get your body engaged in labor, but that was what worked for me so that was an interesting, Release what you think is going to work for you and do what your body is telling you is working for you. But it was actually kind of nice. It was relaxing. My daughter wasn't there. It was the summer. We had the air conditioning on in that room. My husband brings me a bubble tea or whatever and I was like, This is actually not so bad. This is okay. Contractions were probably 15, 10 minutes apart that whole day then in the evening is when it ramped up. I turned toward active labor and we called my doula again at 8:00 PM and the contractions were very intense. I was leaning on an exercise ball. My husband was trying to do some counterpressure to get me through it and then she did– and again, this is something where my doula and I were not always on the same page, but I was explaining to her my contractions. “They are about a minute and half long. They were maybe 7-8 minutes apart,” and the first thing she said was, “Oh, well that contraction isn't long enough to progress you at all,” or something like that. She said something about my labor process and it was so discouraging because I felt like I had taken so long to get to that point that when she said that, I was like, Oh, so all of this was for nothing. I know that's not what she meant but I remember just feeling very discouraged by that comment. So that was tough. Then she did the abdominal lift and tuck. I do feel like that helped get my son into my pelvis and more engaged in my pelvis because from that point, contractions were two minutes apart. They were very intense. I ended up signaling. I was like, “I'm ready to go to the hospital.” We agreed to labor at home as long as possible, but I was like, “I think this is the time.” Again, my doula was like, “I think we should wait longer.” My contractions were two minutes apart at that point and I was like, “I don't think we should. I want to go.” I'm glad we did actually because that ended up being the right time. But I remember rolling into the hospital at 12:01 AM and I remember my husband saying, “Well, I guess we're not going to be having the baby on his due date,” because my daughter was born on her due date. I was in active labor on my son's due date and then we just missed it. I remember being like, “That's true. We're not going to make it but that's okay.” So yeah, we walk into the hospital and go through triage. My water breaks while we are in triage and of course, they bring out their little testing stick and they're like, “We're going to make sure this is actually your water breaking.” I was like, “Okay, but I've never wet myself during a pregnancy. This is what it is.” Then we go back in the labor and delivery room and the doctor who is on call is not my doctor. I find out later that this is the most anxious, not-nice-to-work-with OB in that practice. So that was tough. I could tell from the beginning she was just very brusk. She didn't have a great bedside manner at all. She was like, “I see that he's measuring big so we're going to make sure that–” she was really worried about shoulder dystocia. I was very glad again that I had read up on that and that I was not concerned about that. So she was like– they had big birthing tubs there but they don't let you birth in them. They just let you labor in them. I was in there and feeling like I wanted to push for a while and I remember I went to the bathroom and she comes in the room and she's like, “Well, let's get you on the table.” I'm like, “I'm just going to the bathroom.” I don't know if she thought that I was going to try to have the baby without her or something, I don't know. Her whole vibe was very anxious. That was hard. That was definitely discouraging. I think at that point, I actually had asked for an epidural. Both times, I asked for an epidural at transition and then once I'm through transition, I'm fine. They didn't come in time and they checked me and I was already at 10 centimeters so they were like, “Okay, it's time to push. We don't have time for the epidural.” I'm like, “Okay, this is what it is.” That was okay and then I pushed for about an hour on my back which was again, not my choice but the OB was like, “No, I need to be able to see what's going on. I don't want you in any other position,” because again, she was so worried about shoulder dystocia and him being big. Halfway through pushing, she was like, “Okay, you can try on all fours.” But at that point, I was so exhausted that I couldn't even imagine myself getting on all fours. I was like, “That ship has sailed.” That was tough because I had planned the whole time to try to push at least for a little while on all fours because again, knowing about big babies and how that can be a really good position for that, but I just didn't feel like I could advocate for myself. I don't know. In both of my births, when I get in labor, I go very inward. I think having a doula was great, but both times I don't think my doula was super outwardly advocating. But again, maybe they were looking for a signal from me and I was just in my own world. It was okay though. I pushed for an hour. He came out just fine. It was that euphoric moment of, Oh my gosh. That just happened. That was crazy. Having only pushed for an hour felt great with my first vaginal birth. They took him out and they weighed him and he was 10 pounds, 4 ounces. Meagan: Yeah!Amy: Yes. It was so funny because the nurses were trying to guess. They were like, “9 pounds. He's big.” Yes. I felt great and actually, it was funny. The next morning, my OB came in. She was on then. She comes in and she goes, “Well, he was big.” I was like, “And I did get him out, so we were both right.” We were able to laugh about that. Meagan: I love that you said that. Like, “Hey, I was right too.” Amy: Yes. Yes. Yeah, and I felt like it was a good ending. I felt like she was like, “Yep, you're right. You did.” I did tear. I had two second-degree tears which again was maybe not as bad as I expected with a baby that size, but it was no fun. I think that's the other thing that I talk about often is either way, with a C-section or with that kind of a birth, I felt like it took me about two weeks to be able to feel like I could even walk normally. I think the difference with the vaginal birth is that I do feel like I made improvements every day where I gradually got better whereas with the C-section, it was really hard for two full weeks and then it was like then I felt better. It was a different recovery but I would say– and I think other people have talked about this here before but either way, it can be a tough recovery. Meagan: For sure. For sure. Amy: It's hard because my sister had two vaginal births and her second one, she was up and walking. We walked a mile when she was two weeks postpartum and I'm like, gosh. I couldn't even walk down the block at two weeks postpartum after my son. I think obviously not to compare yourself one or the other but I had a big baby and there was some trauma down there and that takes time as well. But it was a great feeling and I think that obviously, it ended up really good. Yeah. That's my story. Meagan: I love it. Thank you for sharing it and congratulations. I think that it's so hard to sometimes have providers who will meet you in the middle. It sounds like you both met in the middle along the way and I think in a perfect world, I just wish that this would happen where providers would meet us a little bit more but there are so many providers who won't even come in. We talk about it all the time with finding the right provider and if the provider is not right for you and if they are not willing to budge at all and meet you in the middle or be a part of the conversations where you were saying things and she was like, “You know what? Okay. Okay. Let's go back to the original plan then.” She said her piece. She said her suggestions. You were like, “No. I don't feel comfortable with this. This is not what I want,” and she was willing to be like, “Okay. Okay. All right. Let's go back to that original plan.” Look what would have happened if you weren't able to advocate and stand up for yourself and be like, “Actually–”, it could have been a very different outcome. Amy: Yes. Yes. For sure. Meagan: Desiree, do you have anything to share on that just as a birth worker or anything to share as far as tips go when we've got situations like that where maybe it seems like it could get really combative but it doesn't have to be? Desiree: Yeah. I mean, I just want to commend you, Amy, for being able to voice your opinion in that way because I think that's really hard for a lot of us to stand up in spaces with doctors who we think are in a position of authority. Yes, they have experience, but no one lives in your body. No one has the lived experience of your body except you. That makes you an equal expert in what's happening. I think it's great that providers bring advice and recommendations and they have a plan for what they want to see, but I think a truly great provider does meet you at least halfway. Ideally, you're right Meagan, they're coming a little bit more than halfway, but I mean, it's nice to hear that your provider was willing to listen to you and follow your plan and probably have hers in her back pocket as the fallback. But that's just great that you were able to advocate for yourself in that way. It doesn't always have to be combative, right? It can be as simple as, “Thank you for your advice. I appreciate your expertise. This is what I'd like to try and if it doesn't work, then we can try something else.” Amy: Yeah. I think that I was feeling anxious about that too and this big realization of, I do. I like her. I trust her as a doctor. I feel like we're on the same page, but that doesn't mean that I have to agree with everything she says and it also doesn't mean I have to fire her and find a new provider. Again, there is a happy medium there. You're right. I was taught that doctors have this authority. They know. They go to years of schooling. Of course, they do. But also keeping in mind that their worldview and perspective might be very different and the lens that they are looking at this through is very different than mine and how do I keep this in mind that they have this medical perspective of what they've seen. They've seen the worst of the worst medical scenarios but also to keep in mind that there's this whole other worldview around that so that ws helpful for me. Meagan: Yeah. That was definitely something that stood out to me with your form. It was, “Disagreeing with a provider doesn't mean that you can't work with them.” You said it in your story too. That is so, so true. It doesn't mean we can't work with them and if it gets to a point where it's like, “Okay, there is no working with this,” and it is actually not working, then we can make a different choice. We can change things up, find a different provider, look at our VBAC Link provider list, and see if there is someone else. But if you can work with it and everything is feeling good and there are a couple of things but we are working together, that is so great. That is so great. Amy: Yeah. Meagan: Awesome. Well, I just wanted to let Desiree share a couple of tips. I love when we have our VBAC Link doulas come on because it's so fun to get different tips and different perspectives from other doulas around the world. Desiree is in California with Be_Earth_Mama. Is that right? Desiree: Yeah. My husband gives me a hard time about this all the time because I guess nobody gets it but it's Birth Mama. Meagan: Oh, I thought it was Be Earth Mama. Desiree: That's what he says. Meagan: That makes so much sense, so much sense. She is in California. Remind us exactly where in California because California is ginormous. Desiree: California is ginormous. I am in the San Francisco Bay Area so Northern California. Meagan: And you do birth and education. Desiree: I do birth and education primarily. Meagan: You do webinars and all the things, right? Desiree: I do webinars. I do online classes. I teach in-person classes. I'm getting ready to start a prenatal belly dance class that I think is going to be in-person for now but might go to virtual if there is an interest so all things birth preparation essentially. That's my niche. Meagan: Really, really cool. Awesome. I know there were a couple different topics that you were talking about and I was like, ooh. Breathing and active relaxing. Tell us all the things. Desiree: Yeah, it's one of my favorite topics and I feel like it's one that is on the list but it's low on the list because you think about breathing. Why do you need to practice breathing? You just naturally do it but if you've been in labor, you know that when that intensity starts to pick up, breathing is the first thing that goes out the window so having a strong breathing practice is the first step to staying really calm and grounded in labor. But even beyond that, I think having a practice is about the process and I think especially for me in my VBAC journey, it sounds like Amy was sort of like this where contractions start and they stop and they start and you are in this waiting game. Is your body going to do the thing or is it not going to do the thing? What's wrong? I feel like having the practice to fall back on gives you a way to stay grounded and centered in your body as you are waiting for labor. So it's two-fold. Keeping your body nice and relaxed while you're actually working through labor but giving yourself the time to be nourishing yourself in those last precious days and weeks leading up to labor I think is almost more important. Something that I work with all of my clients on is having an established breathing practice. It's not about the breathing technique because there are so many different ones out there. There is the up breathing. Up breathing is my favorite, breathe in for 4, exhale for 8. There is box breathing where you breathe in for 4, hold for 4, exhale for 4, and hold that for 4 counts. And for some people, it's just simply breathing as slow and controlled as possible. I think it's about finding something that feels natural and intuitive to you that you can lean into but it's about finding time and practicing really dropping into your body and dropping out of everything that's going on around you and playing into your senses with that. That's something I like to talk about to my clients is hacking your body. Building muscle memory because it's so hard to relax and stay calm when you're going through surges, the contractions are really building, and telling you to stay relaxed is not really going to work. Nobody wants to hear that. But if you have this practice and if you've built in sensory cues– I like recommending people to pick a birth scent either an essential oil or a candle or a lotion, picking a song or a sound, it could be even a meditation track and setting aside just 2-3 minutes every day to run through whatever your breathing technique is with your scent or your sound, maybe you have something to hold onto and practice just actively relaxing every single part of your body through the process of breathing when you get into labor, your body is going to remember that once you launch into this breathing routine and you put on your birth scent and you have your sound or your meditation track playing, your body is naturally going to relax because you've told it that that's what this time is for. I think it's a really special thing that we can do for ourselves to give ourselves this time and this practice where we are just nourishing the deepest parts of us. It's of course helpful for labor, but I think it's also a helpful practice to take into postpartum and into parenthood. I can say I've been doing this for 5 years. My oldest daughter is 5 years old and I still do it every day. I have to run through my breathing practices. Yeah. I think it's especially important for VBAC mamas to have this type of self-care routine. Meagan: Yes. Oh my gosh. I love that so much. Like you said, it just becomes intuitive if we can practice this so much and instill this into our lives, it just becomes intuitive in that labor journey. There are going to be times where we were talking about roadblocks and stuff earlier, but those might come in and breathing in itself is something that can get us through those things. When you talked about the box breathing, I've done that before and I have this weird thing when I do box breathing. My body moves and I'm creating a square. Desiree: I do too. We don't have our cameras up, but I have to do the square. Meagan: Same. I do a square. I literally draw a square with my whole body and my torso and everything looks like a tree swaying in the wind and I can just feel it. I literally, the relaxation from head to toe just comes in. Like she said, there's not any specific way. You don't have to choose one way. You can use them all. You can use anything, just really, really, really having active relaxation practices before you go into labor is so good. And I think it can help along the way. Even when we have a provider who comes at us with, “Hey, we're going to meet you in the middle,” it still can be in our head. We can be like, Okay, she said this. I said this. This is what we're going to do. You've just got that whole conversation and it's just that you're breathing through that and you're processing that and you're going to apply it later on in labor. I don't know. I just love breathing so much. Desiree: I do too. I think it's the most important tool that we have that everybody has. It's the most powerful tool that's available to us. Meagan: We have to do it to live. Desiree: Mhmm. Meagan: We just have to. It's intuitive. We have to do it and we talk about intuition here and tuning into our intuition. If we are really, really tuning into our intuition, that breathing is part of that. Then our minds and our bodies can respond. Amy, did you ever do any breathing or anything like that? Have you ever heard about any of the things we are talking about? Amy: Yeah, yeah definitely. It's something I use in my therapy practice a lot. Meagan: I was wondering if you did. Amy: I work with college students primarily so this is a lot of time for some of them that they are facing some of this but I love what you were saying Desiree about practicing ahead of time because that's what I'll say. They'll be like, “Oh my gosh. I had a panic attack. I practiced your breathing and it didn't work.” I was like, “Did you practice that ahead of time?” When you're in crisis, it's hard to do it then. But if you've practiced it before and cued your body to that place, that's where it is so useful. Ironically, it was something that I didn't use a ton during my labor process as far as intentional breathing practices. I think I wish I had because I think that would have been useful, but my doula would coach me about some forms of taking deep breaths and sort of how you are breathing through some of the surges and stuff. But yeah, I love that. I love the practice it before you are in labor because then it's easier to do while you're in labor. Meagan: Mhmm, absolutely. Such a powerful message. Okay, one more time, Desiree, tell everyone where they can find you. Desiree: Yeah. I'm on Instagram. You can find me at b_earth_mama pronounced “birth mama”. You can find me on my website which is www.b-earth-mama.com and that's primarily where I'm at. Meagan: Awesome. Well, go give her a follow everybody especially if you are in California and looking for a doula. And Amy, thank you from the bottom of my heart for joining us today and sharing your amazing stories. Amy: Awesome, thanks for having me. It was great. 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

Adriana is a scientist and professor at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, New Mexico. During her first pregnancy, Adriana was faced with the possibility of her baby having a severe genetic disease. She became so involved in researching the details of it that she didn't consider the need to research her birthing options as intensely. However, after a long and difficult induction process which ultimately ended in a Cesarean, Adriana was left feeling like she failed as a scientist. She was determined to take charge of her next birth and apply her years of research skills to learning everything about VBAC.Adriana went on to have a peaceful home birth surrounded by a big support system and empowered by her research. She also gives listeners tips on how to interpret published articles on VBAC and explains terms like abstracts, confidence levels, and p-values. “I just found the data is so strong in showing that VBAC is super safe for non-high-risk individuals. Again, having a previous Cesarean does not automatically make you high risk…I had three high-risk factors if you will and still, with those factors counted in, I knew that VBAC was really safe for me just based on the data that I found.”Dr. Adriana L. Romero-Olivares' WebsiteNeeded WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Women of Strength, we have another amazing VBAC story for you today. This VBAC story follows a C-section that was unplanned which let's be honest, most of ours are, and it had a lot of interventions. We have our friend– oh my gosh. I can't speak today. Adriana, hello. Adriana: Hi. I'm so excited to be here. Meagan: Oh my gosh. I'm so excited for you to be here. Tell me. Okay, so you're currently in Mexico. Where were you when you had your VBAC? Adriana: I'm in New Mexico, so the U.S. Meagan: Oh, you're in New Mexico. Adriana: Yes, exactly. In New Mexico in the U.S. and I had both my unplanned Cesarean and VBAC here in New Mexico. Meagan: Oh, you did? Very good to know. You guys, she is a scientist and a professor. She spent many years researching microbes which is really cool. Do you say fungi? Is that how you say it? Adriana: You can say it fungi, fungi, fungi. People say it in different ways and they are all correct. Meagan: It's like fungus, right? And bacteria? Adriana: Yes. Meagan: I have so much interest in that weirdly enough because it is in our gut. I have a really weird interest in gut health right now. Anyway, and how they are impacting the global climate. Something that's kind of cool about her science journey is it really seems like it was spun after VBAC, right? Adriana: Yeah. I mean, I've had an interest in sciences forever, but I guess I had no idea how much science was behind VBAC and getting into this VBAC project that I had for a while, I feel like it really ended up helping me to grow as a scientist which was really cool. Meagan: So cool. We're going to maybe talk a little bit more about the science of VBAC here in the end so make sure to stick with us. I do have a Review of the Week before she starts sharing her story. This is from eoliver14 and it says, “Love this podcast.” It says, “I'm not one to usually listen to podcasts but ever since I came across this one, I haven't been able to stop listening. I'm preparing for my VBA2C” so VBAC after two Cesareans “and these stories have been so amazing and helpful.”eoliver14, I hope all went well if you have had a baby since then or if you're still preparing, I hope that this podcast is still inspiring you. And if just like eoliver14 this podcast is inspiring you and helping you and building you up, please leave us a review. We love them so much and I really truly, truly, truly believe that so do honestly all of the listeners. I think a lot of listeners love these reviews. It's so fun. You can leave that at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or really wherever you listen to your podcasts. Even if you Google “The VBAC Link”, you can review us there. Meagan: Let's get going into this story. So unplanned C-section. Adriana: Yes. I want to give a very brief background of my life just to get into the mindset that I was when I had the unplanned Cesarean. My husband and I have been together for a really long time. We are going to celebrate our 20th anniversary this year. We met our first year of college and then we've been together ever since but we only had our first child in 2021. That is because we prioritized our careers for a really long time. We are both scientists. We are both professors so we did our Bachelor's together then we did our Master's and then we did our PhD's together. Then we did long distance for a while because we were doing post-doctoral research which is a thing. Then in 2020, we both landed a job in New Mexico State University where we are right now so in August of 2020, we moved across the country from New Hampshire and from New York City to New Mexico. We sort of started our new life in a new city during the pandemic with a new and very demanding job. In April of 2021, which was just a few months after we moved to– we live in Las Cruces, New Mexico. When we moved here, the biggest surprise of our life happened which was that I was pregnant. It was a surprise pregnancy. The pregnancy was just overall uneventful in the sense that I just didn't have any sort of discomfort or anything. I was just tired and that's pretty much it but then when I was around 16 weeks pregnant, I got a phone call out of nowhere. I got the news and this is the way that it was told to me. They were like, “You have a 50% chance of your child having a fragile X chromosome which is a genetic disease.” I was like, “What? What is it? What's that?” I had never heard about it and I was like, “50% chances? That's pretty high.” I remember I was in my office and Jovani, my husband, was there when we got that phone call. We were just very confused then when we started to look into it, it's actually a pretty terrible genetic disease to have so all of a sudden, our whole life shifted. We were very concerned. Since the very beginning of my first pregnancy, there were a lot of interventions just because I was of advanced maternal age. I was 36 at the time and after 35 you are of advanced maternal age. It doesn't matter if everything looks good but if you are older than 35, that's it. They were like, “Oh, we recommend this testing and this other testing and this other one” and so on. One of those testings was genetic testing which I think we wanted to do either way just to be prepared in case of anything. So then we started to look into, “What is this genetic disease?” Once again, it was pretty bad. So then yeah, it was 50% chances. That's pretty terrible. That's where I brought in my scientist skills. I was like, “Wait a minute.” So then I got in touch with a genetic counselor. I don't think this is just the way it is for everyone, but the particular genetic counselor that I spoke with wasn't really helpful even though I told them, “I'm a scientist and I have a pretty strong molecular biology background. I understand DNA and genes very well.” I was looking for very specific information and they were just not really helpful. So then both Jovani and I spent so much time digging into the scientific literature and trying to find information about this disease. That's how we came about some newer testing that really looks deep into the DNA sequence that they find in your baby and then they're able to tell very precisely what your chances are of your child having this disease or not based on the genetic sequence. Then we just spent a lot of time looking into that, finding that information, then advocating for my baby to get this genetic testing done because it was not something that my insurance wanted to cover. Long story short, after a few couple months looking into that and making calls and so on, we found a way for that testing to be done. Then when we got the results back, 50% chances were wrong. The information I got was wrong. Meagan: That's some pretty wrong information to get. Adriana: Yes. It got me thinking how many people are probably given this information with the statistics totally wrong? So then the 50% chances when I looked into it went down to 5% chances and then when we did the additional testing, it went down to 0.1% chances. Essentially, null almost. Meagan: Oh my gosh. Adriana: Yes. Yeah. You know, even though we were very grateful for that, it sort of set this tone in my pregnancy where I was so stressed the whole time. I just didn't put any time in researching how I have to prepare to give birth. I was just in survival mode if that makes any sense just grateful that I didn't have to worry about the genetic disease. I think at around week 35, they were like, “Because of advanced maternal age, we recommend an induction at week 39.” I was like, “Okay. They're recommending this. Let's just go ahead and do this.” I'm a very tall person and Jovani is tall as well so we make big babies kind of. I knew the date of conception of my baby and I knew that based on that date of conception, I was going to be 40 weeks on December 31st. Then somewhere around 30 weeks, they were like, “No. Because of what your baby is measuring, your due date is actually December 22nd so then that means we–” Meagan: 10 days earlier. Adriana: Exactly. They were like, “That means we would like to induce you on December 15th.” Once again, I was like, “Fine. Yeah, sure.” So then on December 15th, we went into an induction. It is a very long story, but long story short, the induction lasted three days and nothing happened. I was given Cervadil and Cytotec and nothing happened. I didn't dilate. Nothing. Meagan: Your body was really not ready. Adriana: It was really not ready. I was really desperate. I was like, “What's going on? Why are things not happening?” No one was giving me any information even though I was asking, “What's going on?” They were like, “Just relax.” I ended up asking a nurse because the doctor came in and was like, “Well, we tried Cytotec and Cervadil and it's not working so the next thing to do is Pitocin.” He was like, “Is that what you want?” I was like, “I don't know. Let me think about it.” I asked a nurse, “What do you think about me getting Pitocin?” The nurse was like, “No. No. They are setting you up for failure. You haven't dilated at all. No. Just say no.” So then I just was desperate for any advice. I ended up saying no and I was discharged. They were like, “We're going to discharge you but you have to come back.” It was a Saturday when I was discharged and they were like, “You have to come back on Tuesday for a second induction. But a lot of times after a failed induction, people go home and they come back in labor a few days later.” I wasn't. On Tuesday, I went back. This was December 21st I think or something. So I went back for a second induction and then when I went in, I was already soft on my cervix. I felt things were advancing really well and I was excited. Then it was almost a three-day induction once again. So they started giving me the same thing. They gave me Cytotec first and they waited for a few hours then I had the Foley bulb inserted. It's like a blur because there were just so many interventions. People were coming in and out of the room the whole time. I was still sort of having a hangover of the last induction because for three days I was so tired. I was so hurt. They couldn't find my vein so then I had multiple bruises in my arm. It was just so many things. I felt kind of a hangover if that makes any sense. Meagan: Yeah. Adriana: I started dilating with the Foley bulb. It came out so at the beginning, things seemed to be going well. Meagan: Better. Adriana: Yeah, better. I was like, “Okay.” I think when I– I don't even know how much I dilated, but at some point, the OB/GYN came in and she was like, “You know, I recommend to you that we rupture your waters just so that things start going.” I was like, “Yeah, sure. Things seem to be going well so let's do it.” They ruptured the waters and then that was pretty much it. I don't feel like things started happening or anything. I was getting cervical checks very, very, very often. I think that sort of messed up my head to some level. They hurt me. They are not the most comfortable things to go through. Meagan: Especially early on in labor.Adriana: Exactly. Meagan: Right when your Foley just came out, you probably had a posterior cervix, pretty closed still. Adriana: Exactly, yeah. There was some bleeding going on. It was really terrible. So then a few hours after my membranes were ruptured, I think maybe the doctor could see that I was not relaxed for obvious reasons and she suggested getting an epidural. She was like, “Oh, I suggest you get an epidural because I think that would help you relax. That can speed up things.” I was like, “Okay.” So then I ended up getting an epidural and then I got one and it only worked on half of my body so then I had to get another one later on. After many, many, many hours, things were not happening. I did end up getting contractions after the Pitocin and the contractions, I could feel on half of my body and then eventually, I just couldn't feel them. I could just feel the pressure. That went on for hours. I mean, I think I got the Pitocin. It started at 8:00 PM maybe or 5:00 PM and then they were increasing the dosage and then around 6:00 AM I think they had gotten to the highest dose that you can get and I was not. They checked me and I was at 5.5 or 6. Then the doctor was like, “Okay, we're going to stop the Pitocin and let your body do things.” My body didn't do anything. The contractions completely stopped once the Pitocin was removed and we waited for an hour or two and this time, my waters had been ruptured for over 24 hours so she was like, “You know, there's nothing else we can do. We've tried everything. Nothing is happening. I recommend having a C-section.” I mean, I think when I really felt I had no other option, I was like, This is what needs to happen and what I have to do, so sure. Let's go ahead and do it. Fortunately, it wasn't an emergency C-section or anything. We still waited for 4 or 5 hours just sitting there waiting for I guess the team to get their act together. They took me to the OR and my baby was born around noon. Everything went fine. I had no complications. My baby had no complications so it was pretty nice but the recovery was so tough. It was just that something inside me didn't feel right. I was like, “What just happened? What just happened? Why did I end up having a C-section?” I would just think about it over and over and over at night when I was nursing and when I was alone with my thoughts and so on. I was like, “What happened?” Those sorts of things and why when I asked questions why no one answered the questions. They were just treating me as if I was an uneducated person. They just didn't want to engage and I think that's wrong in general to everyone just the way that you are dismissed when you ask questions is pretty terrible. They are on a schedule and they have no time or interest in my opinion or in engaging. Then I started to think about it a little bit more and then in my mind, I was like, Well, I guess if I have another child, I can always do things differently. That was the mindset I was in for a few months. Then when I went to my 6-month follow-up appointment to check me and make sure everything was okay. I asked the doctor, “So, if I have another child, I would like to have this child vaginally so I would want to know why did I end up having a C-section? What happened? I know it was failure to progress according to your notes but what does that mean?” She looked at my chart for 10 seconds and she told me, “You cannot deliver vaginally because your pelvis is too small.” I was like, “What?” I was like, “No. No. That cannot be.” I know that your body doesn't. You can have your pelvis one way and it doesn't really mean anything based on your body but I have a pear-shaped body so I was like, “I don't think my pelvis is too small.” So then I asked her, “How do you know that my pelvis is really small?” She was like, “Because you failed to progress.” She did not want to engage. She did not want to. I just left that room and I was livid. I was so angry that she did not want to engage. She did not want to have a conversation. I didn't even know if I was going to have another child at that point but I was like, If I ever get pregnant again, I'm just not going to come here. I just kept thinking about it over and over and over. I was like, I just need to reach out to someone who can help me understand this a little bit better. I reached out to a local doula and asked for information about VBAC in general. I didn't know it was called VBAC at the time. I was like, This happened to me. If this were to happen to me again, can I deliver vaginally? She invited me to a VBAC course and the course was super awesome. They shared a ton of statistics on inductions and VBACs and so on. She also suggested doing a birth story processing which was pretty awesome too. So then 18 months later, I got pregnant with my second child and I knew exactly what I wanted which was not what I had before. I knew that I wanted a VBAC ideally and that I wanted as few interventions as possible. I wanted a provider who would engage with me and I wanted a provider who would follow evidence-based facts and of course, a provider who was VBAC-supportive. I looked for all of those things around my town. We have two hospitals. It's not a huge city and I asked around. Basically, the information that I got was that they were VBAC tolerant but because I was of advanced maternal age, probably none of them would be comfortable having me as a patient. So then I ended up finding a midwife practice and that was what I ended up choosing because they were all that I wanted. They were amazing and I did end up having the most wonderful experience throughout my pregnancy with them. Throughout my pregnancy, I did a lot of research on my options. I educated myself on physiological birth and I also took classes on a home birth. I did a bunch of other things. I did a fear-release hypnosis. I did the birth story processing which was I think one of the most helpful things that I could do throughout my pregnancy. I didn't really think that I had trauma related to my past pregnancy or fear of any sort, but then through the birth story processing, I ended up finding out that I did have some birth trauma and I had a lot of fear for this new pregnancy associated to my experience with my last pregnancy. Then I did the Daily Essentials of Spinning Babies every day. I didn't skip any day just in case position was an issue last time. I ended up getting my documents from my last pregnancy like my records–Meagan: Your op reports. Adriana: Yeah. I ended up getting them actually one week before my VBAC. It was always something that I knew I needed to go get this done but then I kept forgetting. Then before my VBAC, I was like, I need to get this report and I need to read it so I can get some closure. I ended up finding out some really interesting things. This is a parenthesis. They said that my uterus was boggy when they were doing the C-section and they said that they had to take out the uterus and massage it because it was boggy. I was like, What is that? I looked into that a little bit more and I ended up finding out that my uterus was so tired from the Pitocin and the contractions that it was not working. That gave me some closure if that makes sense. I was like, It's not because my body wasn't working. It was just overtired. I had listened to the VBAC Link podcasts every day also. I did daily walks and you were my companion throughout those walks and just listening to all of the different stories gave me an idea that birth can go in many different directions and it helped me understand that you really have very little control over your birth experience. You can prepare all you want but then at some point, you have to let go because you can't really control the situation. As a scientist, that is very frustrating because we are always in control of our experiments. But in a way, we can never control the outcome of the experiment so in a way, I was like, Okay, this is one more experiment. Yes. I did have spotting on week 18 of my pregnancy and I was diagnosed with marginal placenta previa and possible accreta so for a few weeks I was like, Well, maybe this is just not meant to be and that is okay. But then it ended up resolving by week 28 so I was cleared for VBAC. Throughout the pregnancy, I kept my plans secret from almost everyone including my parents and my in-laws. I told Jovani, “You are forbidden to talk about this with anyone.” As you start getting closer to your due date, people start asking questions which to me is like, why do they want to know such specific information like where are you giving birth? I never ask that but some people really want to get all the details. I just told him, “Just lie and tell them that it's going to be at a hospital. Just say whatever you want. I don't care. I just don't want people asking questions and just getting reactions over my birthing plans and decisions.” Exactly. I don't want to give explanations to anyone. I don't have the energy to educate anyone at the moment. I know that I am making the right decision for me and that's pretty much it. So that was really difficult keeping that information from some friends but as my due date got closer of course, we shared the information with my parents and just our families in general and our in-laws. I did share my plans with a few very, very close friends of mine. Most of them were supportive. Some of them– I guess I had to deal with some anxiety on their side. My doula helped me a lot with that because I was getting almost angry that they were anxious. My doula was like, “You have to remember that they love you and they love your baby. They are scared for you and your baby so try to understand them.” It gave me that perspective like, yeah. If I didn't know, if I wasn't educated enough on facts, I would probably be anxious too. Especially around week 35, their anxiety passed on to me and I started to have a lot of doubts about my decision. I was like, Is this the right decision? Is this really what I want? By then, I was so soaked on data and stats because I just put so much time into researching all of that, that it was how I calmed myself down. It was like, You know the data. You know the stats. You know the chances of things going wrong. Of course, there are chances of things going wrong, but the chances are so low that it's almost impossible for this to happen. If something were to happen, okay. You were one of those improbable chances, but it was a chance that I was willing to take based on the statistics. Once again, that really helped me deal with the anxiety and if I would have had energy at the time, I would have been more than happy to share all the data and stats with friends and family. This is also how my husband ended up being convinced that I wanted a VBAC and that I wanted a home birth as well. I remember this one day, I think there was some sort of miscommunication between him and I at the beginning. At first, he wasn't super happy that I was going with a midwifery practice but then I was like, “They are trained professionals. It's not like Call the Midwife where she shows up with a tissue.” I was like, “No. These people come with equipment. That's how it is.” So that calmed him down but I think he thought I was going to give birth at the hospital so then one day I was watching, I don't know if you hear of this terrible thing that could happen with an uncertified midwife where the baby was footling breech and it was a really terrible story. I was watching something on YouTube and it came up and Jovani was like, “I don't understand these crazy people who want to give birth at home.” I was like, “Hello, I'm planning to give birth at home.” He was like, “What?” So I told him, “Yes, Jovani. I am planning to give birth at home. This has been the plan the whole time.” He was like, “No, I thought it was going to be at the hospital.” I was like, “No. It's going to be at home.” He was really, really, really nervous for a while so once again, I shared statistics and data with him. The midwives also were like, “Bring him in. Have him bring all the questions that he wants and we will answer them. We are here to help.” All of a sudden after a couple weeks after having that conversation, I shared a lot of resources with him. I told him, “Do you want to come with me to the midwife's appointment so you can ask any questions you want?” He was like, “No, it's okay.” I was like, “Oh, so you're cool with me having a home birth?” He was like, “Yeah, if that's what you want. I respect that. I respect your choices. I trust you as an individual and the choices that you make so that's totally fine.” Giving him resources so that he could see the data I feel like really, really helped him. Then with some of my family members like my brother, for example, he was like, “Why do you want to do this? Why don't you just, why? Why do you want to do this that isn't the norm?” I explained to him my rationale and he was like, “Okay.” I had some other conversations. I have a family member and she is a physician and she was also like, “Why would you want to do this? Cesareans are so easy especially if they are scheduled. You just go in. You don't suffer and then you just come out with a baby.” I was like, “Have you had a Cesarean?” Of course, she hasn't. I was like, “It's not really that easy. The recovery is really, really, really tough and there can be some very serious complications. If it's needed then that's wonderful,” but I know that I did not need one for my first pregnancy and I know that I did not need one right now. So then at 39 weeks, I started to feel very anxious because nothing was happening and I was very worried that I was not going to go into labor on my own because I never went into labor last time even though I know I was early. But I was still worried that, What if I never go into labor on my own? I'm going to start getting very nervous if I go past 40 weeks. Then at 39+5, I had prodromal labor at night so I felt excited to experience real contractions I guess for the first time. I was also very worried that I was not going to be able to go unmedicated because the prodromal labor was quite intense and I got thinking about all of these people who have shared their stories that they had prodromal labor for weeks. I was like, Oh my gosh. That's horrible. I reached out to my doula and I was like, “Okay, I had prodromal labor last night. I'm very worried about not being able to handle the unmedicated birth that I want to do.” She suggested we do a welcome baby hypnosis session and to focus on relaxation so I guess once again, as a scientist, I never thought that I would be into hypnosis. It just ended up being this wonderful resource that helped me a lot during my pregnancy and during labor. On my due date exactly, so I woke up and noticed that I had lost what looked like pieces of my mucus plug and then within a few hours, I started having some mild contractions around 1:00 PM and then the contractions continued to get more intense throughout the afternoon and the evening. At midnight, my contractions were super intense but they were not consistent. I couldn't get any sleep because of the intensity of the contractions but I did try to rest as much as possible. Around 4:00 PM, my doula checked in and she was like, “What's going on?” I was like, “I've been having these contractions on and off.” I felt the contractions where you feel period cramps and they were more in my abdomen. They were so intense in that area but just according to what people said, they were like, “We could feel them in my whole belly.” I was like, “These are just weird. I don't know. Are they real contractions or not?” Just because they were not consistent, I would get them every 3 minutes, every 5 minutes, every 7 minutes. Sometimes they would last a minute but sometimes less and sometimes more so I was just super, super, super confused and my doula told me, “You're probably having prodromal labor again.” I was like, “Oh my gosh. No. This cannot be. It cannot be because I'm not going to be able to withstand this for much longer.” It had been 15 hours or so at that point. So I was tired and I hadn't slept at all. This was around 4:00 AM so then my doula once again suggested I reach out to the midwives and ask them if I could have a cervical check. She was like, “That's going to give you an idea of if this is actual labor or if this is prodromal labor. I was like, “Okay.” So then I texted my midwife. I didn't want to call them because I didn't want to bother them at 4:00 AM so I texted them and I was like, “Can I go to your office?” even though I don't know why I suggested that because it would have been horrible to get in my car and drive to their office. I was like, “Can I go to your office in the morning so that I can get a cervical check?” They replied and they were like, “Yeah, sure. You can come to our office. We will see you there at 8:00 AM.” At this point, it was 4:30 AM and I think it was at 7:00. I was like, “I just don't think I can do this for one more hour.” I texted them again and I was like, “Can I go to your office now? The pain is pretty intense. Can I go now?” Then one of them replied and she was like, “Actually, we can go to your house. We can go to your home and we can check you there. Are you okay with that?” I was like, “Yes, yes.” They ended up coming at 8:00 AM and they checked me. She was like, “You're 6 centimeters dilated.” I was like, “Oh my gosh. Thank you.” I was so excited. I was like, “Oh my gosh. Yes. I knew this could not be prodromal labor for so long.” She was like, “You're 6 centimeters dilated.” I was also leaking some amniotic fluid so she was like, “Things are about to get more intense now.” She offered some pain medication. I don't remember what it was but she was like, “This is the pain medication that I can give you. Yes. It's going to reduce the pain but it's also probably going to slow down things. Are you okay with that?” I was like, “No. Don't give me anything. I just want to get this over with.” I knew understanding– I feel like the first part of labor was very confusing. I was like, “Are these contractions? Are these not? Am I dilating? Am I not?” But understanding physiological birth, I knew very well that after 6 centimeters, things are about to get really intense but they are also going to be faster ideally. I guess I sort of trusted that. I was like, “Things are about to get more intense. I know that for sure and ideally, they're going to get faster so I think I can keep doing this for a few more hours so no pain medication, thank you.”She was like, “Okay. I'm going to check in again with you at 11:00 AM.” It was 8:00 AM at this point. She was like, “If anything happens, just let me know.” She left and I think as soon as she left, things got really intense. I lost my mucus plug and then I had bloody show and I continued to labor peacefully at home. I was just in my room quietly. My mom and my dad were here because they live out of town and I asked them to please come to support me and to help with my son, my toddler. They were here but they were in the living room so it was only Jovani and I in the room. I sort of continued to ride the wave. That was my main coping mechanism. I was like, “Okay. A contraction is about to happen and then I would just count and Jovani helped me with back pressure.” Sort of the next few hours are a blur again. I think I was just so focused on coping with the pain, I was just counting over and over and over. I used a comb for a little bit but just was counting and riding the wave is what helped me the most. At some point, my doula and her student showed up. I think Jovani texted them. I don't know. Meagan: 4-1-1, come!Adriana: Yes. They came in and they helped me. They did some massage and helped with back pressure as well. That made a huge difference. I got into the shower at some point. Huge relief to get some hot water on my belly. That really helped. Also, at some point, I had two midwives and one student midwife. At some point, they showed up as well. They started setting up the birth pool and then at some point, I noticed my contractions were not as back-to-back as they were a few minutes before. Once again, understanding physiological birth, I was like, “I'm getting close. I know my contractions are not back to back anymore so I know I'm getting close to being done.” My midwife– I had asked some questions to her before and I was like, “How do you know? I don't want constant cervical checks so how do I know that I'm about to be done?” I remember she told me, “We know. We are trained to listen to the birthing person and we can tell when they are getting close.” So I guess they could tell and around that time, she was like, “Okay, I think it's time for you to jump into the pool.” I think this was around 11:30 or something. I was on my knees and my arms were on my bed. That was the position that I felt most comfortable laboring in so when I stood up, I felt something coming out. I was like, “Oh my gosh. Something is coming out.” I went into the pool and within a few minutes, I started to feel very strong contractions in my whole abdomen finally. Up to this point, the contractions were only on my lower belly. My body started to push and after two pushes, the head of my baby came out and on the third push, all of him came out. I don't know how long that took. It short of felt like forever to me but they told me it was pretty quick so I don't know, maybe 15 minutes. I have no idea. It's really funny how you lose sense of time. Meagan: Mhmm, yeah. Adriana: During that time. There were so many people in the room at that point. It was the two midwives, the student midwife, the doula, the student doula, my mom, and Jovani but it was pretty interesting because the ambiance was so quiet. Everyone was really quiet the whole time. It was really, really peaceful and then when baby came out, everybody was clapping and so on. My dad was outside the room and he was like, “It was so quiet. I was getting worried then all of a sudden, I could hear excitement and clapping.” I was able to catch him and we did immediate skin-to-skin. I couldn't believe it. I was like, “Oh my gosh.” I couldn't believe it. I got a shot of Pitocin and then birthed the placenta within a few minutes. My midwives tucked me into my bed. My baby was still attached to the placenta. My doula brought me a donut. Jovani got me coffee. My mom brought me a sandwich. Meagan: Oh my gosh. I love it. Adriana: Yes. It was one of the best meals I've had in my life. I was so happy and so excited. I had a very small tear so I didn't need any stitches or anything and the recovery was so easy. It was nothing compared to recovering from a Cesarean in my experience after a long induction. Then it was really nice too because in the next days and weeks, my midwives visited me in my home. The checkups and everything were at home so that was pretty wonderful. I guess throughout this whole process once again, understanding, it was really interesting to me how– I don't want to call it a project but I guess it was a project and like an experiment, like the things we do in the lab. You look for background information. You prepare everything. You inform yourself with data and what other people have found. You look at statistics so it was really interesting to me how this VBAC journey helped me grow as a scientist. That was one of the nice outcomes. Something I forgot to say is that after my Cesarean and when I did the birth story processing– because you give a bunch of information to the person who is doing the processing for you and one of the things that I couldn't point out was why I was so bothered with the experience. If everything had gone well, what was it that was bothering me? She was the one who brought it up because one of the things I kept bringing up was, “I do research for a living. This is what I do. This is what I do every day. I research. I look at data. I look at stats. I read the literature. This is what I do. Why didn't I do any research for my first pregnancy? Why didn't I prepare myself? Why didn't I second-guess what the medical doctors were suggesting me to do? If I'm always second-guessing what everyone says, especially in science, you are always like, where is the evidence? Can I see the data? Why didn't I do that?”It was really interesting that she brought this up. She was like, “It seems like you feel like you failed as a scientist with your first birth experience. It seems like you feel like you failed as a scientist.” I was like, “Yes. That is exactly how I feel. Yeah. I feel like I failed as a scientist. Why didn't I put any work in researching one of the most important events of my life? Why didn't I do that?” I think a way to cope with that in my second pregnancy was doing the opposite and really doing all of the research, looking at all of the data and all of the stats. At some point, I was like, I've done all of the work so whatever the outcome is, it's not on me.Meagan: It's out of your hands. It's out of your hands. Adriana: Exactly. It's out of my hands. So that was something that really helped me throughout my pregnancy and throughout labor. I'm happy that I had the outcome I wanted but I think at some point, especially in the last weeks of pregnancy, I was like, Whatever the outcome is, I've made peace with it because I've done all I can to prepare and that's it.Meagan: Yeah, that's such a great message to share because in the end, just like you said, I actually love how you said it. I prepare. I gather. I do the experiment and not that birth is an experiment, but in the science lab, and then the outcome is really unknown. Adriana: Yeah. Meagan: It's really unknown. Sometimes you can control it by adding whatever into it and sometimes you can't. It's like labor. Sometimes we go to the hospital and we can control it with Pitocin or an epidural or whatever and sometimes we still have these outcomes. Such a great message. Just in the end, it's so hard for the not-average scientist, the average person, not the scientist, to really decode all of the literature out there. Do you have any tips for the listeners on how they can go about taking the preparation like what you did? Obviously, we have blogs and our VBAC course and all of the things to try and help break these things down into English because sometimes they are very hard to understand. Adriana: Don't get me started. Meagan: Yeah, but what suggestions would you give to any of the listeners? Adriana: Yeah, I have a few. The scientific literature– I feel so annoyed having to write the findings of my experiments in that type of language, but I guess that is sort of how things are done. One of the things that I recommend people doing is not one that a lot of people think of, but you can reach out to the authors of the papers. I get so excited when someone reaches out to me and they are like, “I saw this paper. Can you explain to me what it means?” Most scientists are just going to be so excited to have people reach out to them and tell them, “Can you help me understand this?” Most of them are going to be so excited about that. That's one thing you can do if you feel like reaching out to someone.Maybe sometimes they are not going to reply, but I would say most scientists–Meagan: Worth a shot. Adriana: Exactly. It's definitely worth a shot and most scientists are going to be so excited that you are reaching out to them. The other thing is that most papers come with a short summary at the beginning. It's usually called “summary” or “abstract” and in that summary, they summarize the findings in a way that is way easier to understand than if you look at the results in the discussion because sometimes also the plots are impossible to understand, the statistics are very difficult to understand if you are not trained in statistics, so reading the abstract and the summary, especially toward the end, there is usually one to three sentences with the main outcome of the experiment. They are not going to give you statistics or anything, but they are going to tell you what they have found. You will see that most scientists are really conservative on what they conclude from their study. Even if their data and stats are really strong, they are usually very conservative on the way that they conclude and then sometimes that conclusion gets lost somewhere when the information is given to you by your OB/GYN for example so I would really encourage folks to look at those last few sentences to really understand, Okay. My OB/GYN brought up this scientific article. Let me go and see what is actually written there and what they are actually saying. By reading those one to three sentences, you're going to get a better understanding of what the scientist actually found. Meagan: Overall, with VBAC, what was the overall finding? Obviously, I kind of know a lot of the overall findings, but what was the overall finding that you found in your own research when it comes to VBAC and the safety of it? Adriana: Yeah. I just found the data is so strong in showing that VBAC is super safe for non-high-risk individuals. Again, having a previous Cesarean does not automatically make you high-risk and I guess if you think about it, I was “high-risk” because I had a previous Cesarean. I am of advanced maternal age and I also have a higher than average BMI so I had three high-risk factors if you will and still, with those factors counted in, I knew that VBAC was really safe for me just based on the data that I found. Then if you add in too the reduction of interventions, that makes the chances of VBAC really high. Meagan: VBAC high, rupture risk is lower. Adriana: Exactly. If you keep adding things, I found especially when researching for home birth, the data is really messy out there. It's not desegregated and by this, I mean that when they show you the statistics for home birth, they show you the statistics of everything together like people who had unplanned home births for example. The outcomes of those can be very different than that of a planned home birth and they also add people who end up having spontaneous abortions at home and that's included as a home birth. That is ridiculous so we really need desegregated data so sometimes when you go into the scientific literature, you can get the desegregated data in the scientific paper. Once again, I know that is not in an available format for people who don't have the training but again, you can reach out to the authors of the paper and to the scientists for them to explain to you what is the actual finding or read the abstract so that you can see. Most of those papers are like, “We need more research on planned home births.” Meagan: Right. Oh, such great information. I know we have so little time but I have one more random question because in a lot of these articles, they say, “Confidence level blah-blah-blah.” Can you describe what that means as someone who is reading that? What does that mean when an author says that?Adriana: When an author says that, they are taking percentages as their confidence level. When they say 95% confidence, it's that they mean that out of say 100 individuals, the chances of this occurring is less than 5% when there is a 95% confidence interval. Once again, it could mean depending on the type of data that out of 100 people, 95 people we know for sure backed up by statistics that 95% out of 100 individuals are going to have this outcome. That's basically it. They are just giving you a percentage so that it is a little bit easier to understand and we also use this same thing with P-values. P-values are something that you see all the time in scientific literature. It is the exact same thing. We consider P-values smaller than 0.05 as significant so essentially, this means that there is a less than 5% chance that whatever you are studying is happening out of chance. Essentially, it's telling you there are 95% chances that what you are seeing is actually happening and it's not something that is happening out of chance if that makes sense. Meagan: That totally makes sense. Adriana: Yeah. Meagan: Oh my gosh. We could probably talk about this for a long time, but I will not keep you any longer. I appreciate you so much. Congratulations on your birth. Thank you so much for sharing with us and have a wonderful day. Adriana: Thank you for inviting 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

“I leaned back in the tub and I think what I said was just, ‘I've never held one of my babies after they were born before.'It was interesting how there was an element that was sort of mundane about it but I liked that. It was just the normalcy of it all that shocked me if that makes sense.” Since her only experiences with her previous births were in a sterile, surgical, hospital environment, the simplicity and freedom of a home birth felt shockingly normal in all the best ways!Jolie shares her first C-section, her planned home birth turned CBAC, followed by a 15-hour home birth at 43 weeks to an almost 11-pound baby with her third. She gives invaluable advice on how to REALLY know if you have the right provider for you and how it may not always be the VBAC-supportive provider everyone recommends. Jolie's Photography and Coaching Contact InfoTransforming BirthNeeded WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello, Women of Strength. It's Meagan here. We have another VBAC story for you today and we have our friend, Jolie. Hello, Jolie. Jolie: Hey, Meagan. Meagan: How are you today? Jolie: I'm good. How are you? Meagan: I am so great. I am so excited to record your story. There were a whole bunch of little snippets through your story that I'm like, Oh, I want to talk about that. But I wanted to tell everybody that I've been starting to do this. I don't know if you've been noticing but we get a lot of emails of, Hey, where was this person located? What state was that? I'm curious if it was my state so I can try to find that provider. We are going to have her providers and stuff tagged in today's post but you say you are in North Georgia, correct? Jolie: Yes. Meagan: Is that just where your VBAC was or is that where you are residing now? Jolie: Nope, this is where my VBAC was, in North Georgia. Meagan: Okay, so North Georgia people, listen up. This is going to be a great story. I'll tell you guys a little bit more. Okay, so you're a birth worker and a photographer. Are you a doula? Jolie: Yes. Yep. I was trained as a doula in 2020 but I'm exploring different ways to support people in the birth community because, with three young children, I'm just trying to navigate the on-call life and doing things. But yes, I do have experience being a doula. Meagan: Awesome. So cool. Like she said, she has three kiddos. She is a Christian wife to a Biblical counselor. That's awesome. I love how you guys said that you have a vision of a multi-generational team on a mission to God's kingdom. I just love that so much. I am so excited to record your story here in just a few seconds. I do of course have a Review of the Week as always. We always have reviews and just a reminder, if you haven't left a review yet, we would love them. They really do help the show. They help other Women of Strength find these amazing stories and honestly, they just put a ginormous smile on my face. This review says, “Love these ladies and this podcast.” It says, “I love listening to your podcast. I listen almost every day in the car. So often that my oldest son knows you both by name. The stories shared here have inspired me so much. I wish I had all of this information with my first baby. I have had two C-sections. I'm not pregnant at the moment and still have to get my husband on board for a third, but I am so excited to start planning for a VBAC after two C-sections when the time comes. Thank you, Julie and Megan, for creating this amazing VBAC community. I'm so thankful for the education and support.” Okay, seriously, I love that. We keep hearing this. I love that other kids know who we are because they are just so used to listening to the podcast because this is what I love even more than just they know who they are. They are learning. These kids are sponges. We know that. They are always taking stuff in that we are saying and if they're listening to these stories, they are learning. So hopefully if your kiddos are learning and listening, they are going to have a different outcome in their future for their future births if they so choose to because they're going to know, right? They're going to know all of these stories. Anyway, that makes my heart smile. Jolie: That's awesome. Meagan: All right, girl. Are you ready? Let's do this. Jolie: All right. Meagan: All right. Let's turn the time over. Jolie: Okay, so yes. I had a home birth in November, November 5th. That was a home birth after two Cesareans so an HBA2C. I'll just do a small synopsis of the first two births because I feel like that always helps preface the background of where I'm coming from. I think everybody's journey to their VBAC is totally different. Meagan: Yeah, totally different and at the same time, there are so many listening who are like, Oh my gosh, this is just like me. I think sometimes we hold on to those past experiences even if we've processed them. We know that was our past so sometimes we even doubt ourselves because of that so hearing someone's story who is pretty similar to yours and then hearing them go on to have a VBAC is pretty impactful. Jolie: Yeah, absolutely. I can relate to that as well with listening to podcasts and finding those stories of women's journeys to their VBACs. I definitely clung onto the ones I related to. With my first baby, our daughter, she was born in 2019 and I mean, that was like so many, a typical cascade of interventions situation where I was aware of home birth and natural childbirth. I knew that I wanted that, but I also was just young and didn't know and wasn't aware of the resources I had. It's pretty much what I chaulked that up to. I just was getting into birth and eyes wide open and reading what I could but I didn't really know obviously what the future was going to hold for me. I didn't know all what was available to me either. I was seeing a traditional OB group and was planning a hospital birth but wanted just a natural childbirth with no interventions at all. I just wanted in in the hospital. I ended up getting fear-mongered to just put it simply out there. Fearmongered into an induction at 41 weeks and yeah. Quite frankly, it just didn't work. My body was not ready. I was not open at all and I was so determined. I stayed in that hospital working with an induction for a whole week before I had my C-section. I was trying to go slow and steady and I was going a little stir crazy there at the end of that week. I obviously was confused and just downcast and so just sad about what was happening. I was shocked that I was there in that situation. I remember reading Ina May's book and skipping the C-section chapter because I was like, That's not going to be me. Why do I need to read this? Meagan: That's really normal. Even here with the CBAC stories, I think it's really common to be like, I don't want to listen to that CBAC story because that's not going to be me. But at the same time, I think it's good too. Jolie: Yeah. Yeah. There's definitely a balance to that. I found myself at the end of that week pushing 42 and was kind of again just had fear within me and had fear coming from my providers of, “You've been at this for a week. You're not in labor. Your options are to leave or have a C-section.” I was just like, “Leave? I've been here for a week. I'm not going to leave here without a baby.” We opted for the C-section and she was fine. We handled that whole week together perfectly fine. There were no emergencies or hiccups in the road. It was just like, “All right. This is just what we do next,” kind of at this point. She was born at 32 to the day via Cesarean and yeah. That was that. I definitely processed the birth very traumatically because any trauma is how you process what's going on. I know there are births out there that could look like that and people handle it differently. So anyway, for me, I processed it with a sense of trauma. I spent that next year just working through that sorrow and trauma. I started seeing a Biblical counselor which is why I included in my little bio that my husband is one because I saw one and the change that he saw in me is what spurred him on and encouraged him to become one. That was a really cool moment in our family where I was going to this wonderful woman for help and just handling my birth. Anyway, that was really helpful for me in growing and changing the way I was looking at my birth. I was very determined to have a VBAC. My husband I have always said that we want however many children the Lord would give us. I assumed that wouldn't be just one. I wanted another one so I was very determined for a VBAC for my second pregnancy. We conceived my second when my daughter turned one. It was a year later and I was just– the way this pregnancy and birth happened which was a repeat Cesarean, I just put my blinders on and put my head down and was like, I just need to hire a home birth midwife and she's going to give me my VBAC. That was my attitude. Surely if I plan a home birth, I'm not leaving my house. There's no way it will end in a C-section. I was very– I don't know if stubborn was the right word, but there was a sense that I was covering up all that I went through with this first birth to just have the VBAC, have the VBAC. It was almost like that was going to fix the first one. That was how I felt. In hindsight, I see that now. In the moment, I probably did not recognize that that was how I was operating. I hired a home birth midwife who came recommended to me. I knew friends who used her. So then here we are towards the end approaching 41 weeks like the last time and my water broke on 41 weeks. It was the first sign of labor and I had no signs of labor with my first child so that was so exciting. I was kind of scared too. I was surprised. My water broke at 41 and I was talking to my midwife and whatnot. I had some little pitter-patter contractions that night and then nothing the next day. That was on a Sunday. My son ended up being born that Thursday via Cesarean. What happened within that week or a little less than a week was not the funnest of times. I pretty much realized there at the very end when I was needing– you're here at the end and you're like, What's going to happen next? I realized, I hired the wrong midwife, but what do I do now? Meagan: No way. Jolie: Yeah. Like I said, I'm not going to speak ill, but I believe that every care provider is not the right fit for everyone. So just because I heard wonderful reviews, that's not negating the fact that she was wonderful for some people, but looking back, this is pairing it where my head was down and my blinders were on. Now I can see in hindsight the red flags that were coming up. I was like, Oh, she's just tired. Maybe she just got back from a birth and that's why she seems grumpy. She's been doing this for a long time. I was just giving reasons to why she was the way she was. It was nothing more than that we just didn't click well. After my water broke, she took on this fearful attitude. She was very concerned and just didn't know what to do. She really fed into fears that I had and new ones in my head. I was just like, This is not helping. What's going on? All that to say, I think she wanted me to have a biophysical profile done since my water had broken and I was 41 and labor hadn't begun. Obviously, the profile came back that there was low fluid which I knew because my water had broken but there was nothing else concerning with my son. But because of that report, she transferred me to the hospital. She transferred care and she called my husband after the report came back to her and said, “Y'all need to go to the hospital. I'm not going to be able to support you. Just go.” That moment from the report to the hospital was scary for me but on the way there, I had this peace come over me because I was going back to the hospital that my daughter was born at and before this birth, I was very much even just seeing the hospital– I would just not look at it by the side of the road. I had all of this emotion attached to this place. I knew a few people who worked there in the labor and delivery ward. I had their numbers so I messaged them. I was like, “Is there any chance y'all are here?” Long story short, I'm coming. I don't want to be here, but I'm coming. They were. I had a friend come and she prayed with me and I had seen another nurse there who was there when I had my daughter and she remembered me. It was just this very healing moment in the sense of I was respected. People totally were not judging me for coming in as a home birth transfer. I was worried about that that I would get a side-eye or judgment because I was a home birth mom. I was actually going to the hospital and I didn't have a provider there. But no, they were all so very much like, “We are so sorry that you are here because we know that you don't want to be here but we are taking care of you. We understand that this is hard for you to process everything that's going on right now.” That was healing in itself. That healed my emotional attachments to the hospital that were negative. He was fine. They monitored him for a few minutes when we got there. He was fine, but they also– I did tell my husband when we were on the way, “I just know that it's going to be another C-section because I don't even have a doctor here. My water's broken. I'm already a VBAC.” I kind of had accepted that outcome before even getting there and decided to opt for it again. The doctor there was also very respectful with all of that just like the nurses were. He was born at 41 and 5. He was fine even though the water had been broken for some time. So that was that. In processing that birth, it was a little bit different than my first. I definitely felt like I was at a fork in the road though because here I am. I've just had two. I was technically a home birth transfer. I was determined to get this VBAC. What in the world happened that time? I just realized that I had taken any sort of trust and responsibility in the medical community or within myself and just put it in the hands of this midwife and put her up on this pedestal of, You're going to give me the birth that I want. I misplaced that into the whole home birth community. I was like, I can't do that again. But then that is some deep internal work then. If I am realizing that I am making all of these other people responsible for my birth and my outcome and it's not working out great, I need to figure out what the root of this is and really work on it. That began the year journey of just doing some more internal work and more counseling and therapy and stuff like that. I remember it might have been this podcast episode that I listened to or it could have been another birth podcast. It was honestly a lightbulb going off. I didn't realize I could do this. I can't remember. I think it was your podcast but one of y'all said, “I interviewed seven providers before I became pregnant again to pick one out.” Meagan: Yeah. I actually interviewed 12. Jolie: Yes, okay. I wrote that down. I heard that and I was like, Wait a minute. How am I going to do that if I'm pregnant and scrambling to find the perfect provider? I heard you say that and it was almost like, Whoa. I didn't realize I could interview people when I'm not pregnant, but why couldn't I? So that helped me. Meagan: It sounds weird. Why would you go talk to a doctor if you're not pregnant? Jolie: Yeah, but that gave me so much peace and confidence. It was a clear path of, Oh. I'm not pregnant. I've got time. I started. I didn't want to figure this all out until my son turned 1 so I was just like, You need to take a breath. Everybody talks about your next baby right after you had one and I'm always like, Can you just slow down? I just had a baby and I'm going to enjoy this time. So I waited a year not to get pregnant the third time but a year to go after my provider, find my plan, and really do the deep work again. So I did. I started interviewing all of these people. I found my midwife a little over a year before I conceived my third baby. I found her early when I wasn't pregnant. It was just such a God-ordained, perfect experience where my husband and I went and had a conversation with her. She just aligned with us on a biological level, on a spiritual level. That was something I didn't realize how important it was going to be to me to find a fellow Christian who really walked out their life with the Lord and she did. I developed a close friendship with her actually even before I was pregnant. Being in the birth world, I would work with her. I had attended some births with her before I became pregnant so I really just saw her live it out and I knew she was amazing. What's so funny, just the way the mind and body and spirit are connected was when I first met her and did the interview with my husband, I hadn't started my cycle back. I was telling her, “I'm just looking. I need a VBAC. I want a VBAC. I'm not pregnant yet, but I haven't started my cycle either so I have no idea when.” The very next day, I got my period. For me, I felt like it was my body coming into alignment with the fact that I just found somebody who was going to be amazing for my birth. Meagan: You're ready. Jolie: I emailed her, “This is so weird but I literally just started my cycle.” Anyway, that was just a really cool moment for me to recognize that connection.That was when I found my midwife and that was such a key part to my VBAC. Then it was about a year later when I got pregnant with my third. I hired her and we were just so excited. Okay, so one of my big things with interviewing people for my third was, “Okay, I have had two pregnancies and two Cesareans. Historically, I have gone postdates with both of them. I need to know what your deal is with due dates and the whole ‘let me' language and all of that.” I was trying to figure out what I aligned with in that regard and what they would support me with. So here I am approaching 42 weeks. She was very much like, “Whatever. We'll check on you more when you're past your due date if you want and we'll obviously take care of you but I have no cutoff or whatever.” Yeah. So I was 42 weeks and I started losing a little bit of my mucus plug. That was exciting but then another pretty much week went by and here I am a couple days before 43 and I have two nights of prodromal labor where the contractions would wake me up in the night but then I'd go back to sleep. That was the first night on a Thursday night I would have those contractions. Friday rolls around. I am so pregnant and so tired. It was definitely emotionally very challenging that last month. But Friday night comes around. They pick up again and that night, I really couldn't sleep so I would be on the birth ball. I would get in the bathtub and yeah. I knew I was going to need some support on Saturday because of my other children so it did fizzle out Saturday morning, but I had a friend come and play with my kids. We just all hung out together on Saturday. I did have some contractions that were strong every 30 minutes to an hour during the day on Saturday. I was pretty much– that Saturday I was 43 weeks I think. Either Saturday or Friday I was 43 weeks. That evening it started picking up a little bit more and my birth team, so my midwife and her assistant who was going to come to the birth and my husband. They came over around 10:30 Saturday morning and then 30 minutes later– so they got to my house at 10:30-11:00 PM. My kids were asleep so that was fine. I wasn't really sure if I was going to have them around or not. I was going to play it by ear because I wasn't sure what kind of support I'd need from my husband and how they were going to handle it. Through the night they slept which was great and I was laboring that Saturday night. My water broke at 11:00 PM Saturday night 30 minutes after my birth team got there and that was something that I was having to really work with in my mind because of the second birth having my water break as the first sign of labor and then not have the baby for several days. I was really wanting to not have my water break early. Meagan: Yeah. Jolie: But my water breaking actually when it broke at 11:00, I was in labor before then. That was a different situation and I just had this wave of peace come over me again because I knew I was finally in labor and my birth team was going to stay. It wasn't going to be, “Oh, nevermind. We're going to go home now.” They were here and the water was clear. I had no worries. I was actually really excited after my water broke because I thought I wasn't going to be because of my second birth but I was so thankful. Pretty much from there on, it started picking up pretty intensely. The nighttime was a blur. I just did squats and walked around and swayed and just clung to door frames I feel like. I was just sort of, yeah. I definitely struggled with holding tension in my body in the contractions. I did labor pretty much all night on Saturday and then later in the night maybe around 4:00 or 5:00 AM, I finally found a great place to relax and just a position. It was actually just laying in the bed reclined is what did it for me. I was able to melt into the contractions and I could tell that I was opening and progressing. I just slept around 4:00 or 5:00 until 7:00 AM so early into Sunday morning now. I was definitely still laboring intensely but I was sleeping. To somebody on the outside, you would just think, Oh, she's just taking a nap. I was in transition actually. I did not think I would want a cervical exam because of my previous two births– never dilating, all of that. I had to move past that whole belief that my body was not going to open and things like that so I wasn't sure how I was going to do with exams and stuff. But at that time, being a doula and hearing so many birth stories, I was already pregnant for so long, I was just like, I need to know if I have a whole other day of this. I don't want to hear a number but I want her to check me and at least tell me if my energy needs to be hunkered down, conserved, you're not that far, or is it okay, let's pick it up. You're almost there? I did want her to check me but I didn't want to hear a number. I just wanted her to give me a general frame of, “Here's where you need to be in your headspace with this information I've just received.” It was 7:00 AM maybe. She checked me. She was like, “Are you sure you don't want to hear a number?” I could just tell the way she asked that question. I was like, Okay, she knows I'm going to like the number I'm going to hear. I was like, “Okay, go ahead and tell me.” She was like, “You're an 8 and I can stretch you completely open very easily.” I was like, “What? Oh wow, this is amazing. Okay.” She was like, “I think all it's going to take is some different positions. We're going to do a circuit to get the baby's head lined up just a little bit more straight and that will open you up all the way if we just move the baby just a little bit.” I was like, “Okay, let's do it.” I did two circuits of excruciating positions. Side-lying was not the most fun thing I've ever done but I was very much just like, “Tell me what to do and I'll do it.” We did side-lying, knees to chest, and dip the hip where I was standing and I would swap and turn. I don't know how to explain the sensation, but it was probably just the baby moving through my pelvis. It was pretty intense. I did two circuits of that and I was just like, “I need to feel some comfort again and not do this circuit again.” So I was like, “I think I want to get in the birth pool.” I had the birth pool set up. I had tried to get in earlier in labor but got right back out. It was just not for me. I was like, “Maybe I'll try the birth pool.” I stepped in and was like, “Nope. I don't want to do that.” The second time now, this was around 11:30 AM. I was like, “I think I want to get in the pool.” I got in and I was like, “I'm not 100% sure but I kind of think I feel pushy.” It was just one of those things that in a lot of ways I felt like a first-time mom having this labor where I never had a pushing phase with the others. I was just sort of doubting myself a little bit, but the assistant was like, “Well, we can't tell you if you feel pushy.” I was like, “Okay. I know. I know.” Meagan: We can't tell you. Jolie: Yeah. Meagan: That's hilarious. Jolie: I was like, “Okay. Well, I'll just be in this for a few more contractions and see if whatever sensation I'm feeling stays or gets stronger. I think I'll be confident when I am ready to push or if it changes and whatever.” I just was trying to figure out again where I needed to be. So I did feel that pushing sensation and started to in the water. That was definitely such a switch in the way I was experiencing the sensations of labor because the contractions were painful to me, but when I started pushing, it was like relief and very relieving. I felt like, Oh, I'm doing something. This is different. I'm not just getting through this. I'm moving through it in a way where I have this sort of control over it. I really enjoyed pushing and I was in the tub and again, reclining on my back. I never thought I would be in this position for birth because it's usually the hospital stereotype of on your back on the bed but that's where I felt relief and got through transition on my bed so in the birth pool, that's actually how I pushed was kind of reclined back. I was just able to do it better that way. I had 5 minutes between each contraction so that was really nice because I ended up pushing for about 2 hours. That's kind of a long time. I think from start to finish my labor was 15 hours so it was those last 2. I never felt exhausted as in, I can't do this, but I do remember I wasn't really aware of the time. I knew it was Sunday afternoon. I got in the pool at 11:30 and my son was born at 2:05. I was pushing but I had those 5 minutes of breaks so I was able to doze off and float in the water. I genuinely enjoyed those 2 hours. It was just peaceful but I felt myself getting sort of impatient because I didn't know what time it was, but I was just like, Okay. The water is kind of cool. I know I've been in here for a while so I don't know. I really wish this was over now. So finally, there was a candid moment where I saw my midwife getting baby stuff together and I was just like, “Oh, what are you doing?” She was like, “You're pushing. I'm getting the baby stuff out. You're doing this. It's actually happening.” I was just like, “Oh wow. Okay. I guess so.” It was so funny. I don't know. I think there is just this part of where I was just so zoned into what I was doing and what I was feeling that I wasn't really processing it, Oh, this is happening. This is happening. As she told me, I could feel my baby's head and that was mind-blowing. Once I could reach out and feel his head, which we didn't know at the time it was a boy. We were waiting to find out. That definitely brought me into a sense of reality when I could feel the baby's head. It was just like, Whoa, okay. This is happening. There was a slight burn when his head crowned, but there was so much adrenaline when his body was coming out that I don't even really recall that being painful just kind of a burning sensation. His head crowned. I changed positions after his head was born. I was still in the water, but I sort of think I was on my back. I moved up a little bit onto my hands and knees and stayed in the water. My midwife ended up guiding his head and shoulders down and then his body came out. She handed him to me and I just remember knowing it was a boy even though I hadn't seen yet. I leaned back in the tub and I think what I said was just, “I've never held one of my babies after they were born before.” That feeling of an immediate, My baby came out and they are in my arms. That was just so surreal but at the same time it was almost so seamless and intuitive that I was just like, Okay. I just gave birth and it's just a normal day. Everybody around me– I think I had thought built it up in my mind to be this incredible experience which it was. I don't want to say, It wasn't all that, but in a way, birth is so natural and normal that after it happened, it was just like, I'm in my bed and the birds are chirping outside and the day is going on, where before I was in the hospital and it felt like this whole different world. It was interesting how there was an element that was sort of mundane about it but I like that. I don't know. It was just the normalcy of it all that shocked me if that makes sense. Meagan: Yeah. No, I really actually can totally relate. I remember after I had my VBAC after two C-section baby, I was at a birth center. I was in the bathroom on the floor when I gave birth and they were like, “All right, let's get you up and move you to the room.” I was like, “Okay.” I just remember going in there and laying down and starting to feed my baby and just looking around almost like, Did that really just happen? But at the same time, it was like, Yeah, it just happened and now I'm just feeding my baby. Jolie: Yeah, that was it. Meagan: It was so weird. It was so weird. There was a slight disconnect in my brain that what had just transpired transpired. Jolie: Yes. Meagan: So yeah. I really can relate to that so much. Then about how you were saying, “I was pushing for a really long time and I just looked over and realized my midwife was putting the baby stuff together and getting stuff ready,” and you were like, “Oh, yeah. Yeah.” I had that moment too where I was just laboring on the toilet and then all of a sudden, my midwife was just coming in here guiding me to the stool and I was like, Wait, what? She was like, “Let's come have a baby.” I'm like, “What, really?” I couldn't believe that what was happening was happening but I was so zoned into doing this birth, having this VBAC, and then all of a sudden, I realized I was doing that. I was actually doing that. Jolie: Yeah. I think when you have C-sections and when you have any sort of difficulties in your births, your mind clings onto those phrases that people say like, “Oh, your baby is too big. You're not going to open.” Meagan: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Jolie: It makes you feel like this miraculous thing must happen for me to give birth because it didn't work the other times so how in the world? Trumpets need to be blaring and some crazy thing has to happen for this to work but it doesn't and it was just like, Oh. That was it. Meagan: This is normal. Jolie: Yeah, the thing that didn't feel normal was actually the surgical births but the thing that felt normal was the VBAC so it was very interesting but after he came out, they were like, “That's a big baby.” He pooped twice before we got out of the tub like pretty big poops so then by the time my midwife weighed him, she knew that he had already pooped, but I think he weighed 10, 14 so she was like, “He totally was 11 pounds coming out. If I weighed him before he took those ginormous poops.” That was shocking and not expected at all. Meagan: Yeah girl! Jolie: That was really cool that it was not even a part of it because I didn't get any late-term ultrasounds. Looking back, people definitely kept asking me if I was having twins. They were like, “Wow. You look really big.” I just was like, “Ha, ha. I get it. I'm pregnant.” You know the things people say. I'm like, Maybe I actually did look larger than normal because this child could pass for two babies as twins. Yeah. He was almost 11 pounds. I did have one tear that I chose for her to not suture, but that was it. That was the birth. Meagan: Wow, and a surprise big baby. Think about how there are a lot of times in the provider's world of the hospital where they see someone who is a larger baby and they are wanting to do those third-trimester ultrasounds and growth scans and they are like, “What?” When really you didn't need any of those things, you just needed time. And a 43-week baby. I had one of my beginning doula clients and she was 43 weeks and 1 day as well. I mean, it was a 10-pound baby as well. It was 10,12 I think. That girl just powerhoused that baby out but she was getting pressure to get induced at 39 weeks. She was feeling all of that pressure. “Oh, your baby is looking big. You look so big. You are small. I don't know if this is going to be possible.” Then she switched at I think 41 weeks then she went to 43 and 1 and just had a beautiful, vaginal birth. I love that. Okay, so there are so many things. Something that I caught in your story was with your second midwife or with your second provider with your second baby. Everyone said, “This midwife, this midwife,” so you went with this midwife then you realized it wasn't the midwife for me. I think that is something that is important to note especially when we have our supportive provider list, right? We have this list and we're providing these names where people will rant and rave for days and days and days about some of these providers so you're like, Yeah, great. The whole community is going to this provider or whatever. Then you're in that situation and you just take that word for it, but then you get into that situation of birthing and you're realizing, Oh crap. This isn't right. There were red flags and I didn't recognize them because I was just going off of what everybody else said. I just think it's important to note that even though everybody or people might say this provider is the only provider or the best provider that it doesn't mean they are the best provider for you. It really comes back down to what that provider is looking like for you in your mind. Close your eyes. Envision your birth. Think about what they are saying, what they are doing, how they are caring for you. Think about the questions you want to ask them and go and really ask these people these questions that are really something for you. I love that you talked about that with your third midwife how you were like, “These are the qualities I was looking for.” It took you a while to find it but you found it. I love also that you pointed that out. Really you guys, I can't say it enough. Finding a provider when you are not pregnant is night and day from finding a provider when you are. Jolie: Yeah. There was no pressure. I felt like I could be so much more confident in saying no because I didn't feel like I had to say yes. Meagan: Yeah and honestly, our minds are in a different space. Even Dr. Fox a few episodes back talked about that how that is a really great thing to do because we are emotional. We feel pressure. There's time. Our baby is growing and each week matters to find that provider. It's a very different thing. It's a very different thing. Okay and then in your form, we talked about this a little bit before but you talked about radical responsibility and the word radical just stands out to me now because of our radical acceptance episodes that Julie and I have done. We've done two of them so if you guys haven't listened to those, go back and listen. There is a part one and a part two. How would you describe radical responsibility or finding radical responsibility to our audience? Jolie: Yeah. I think that it comes with a lot of coming face-to-face with some core beliefs because for me, when I was realizing was that we all day, “You are the one that cares the most about your baby and your body.” Okay. I think most people can agree that's true. But then how do you actually walk that out when you are pregnant? Because what can happen is you can be subconsciously deciding that this person over here is going to make sure I'm safe, is going to make sure my baby is safe, and is going to do all of these things for me when in reality, I believe that nobody outside of you can guarantee that safety. As a Christian, I believe that I don't even hold the keys to life and death. If that's what we're going to talk about, at the core of all of this stuff, people when they are pregnant, you want your baby after you are born and that's a thing. So that's kind of your basic line. I had to come to grips with even just the reality at its deepest core of, Okay. So if I'm pregnant and I have this baby growing inside of me and I want to birth this way for these reasons, I need to own this. If my midwife recommends I eat this way or do it. She's not going to come over and feed me. She's not going to text me everyday and ask if I took my supplements or went on a walk.That's goes into something else I'd like to mention if we have time of just handling all the things in birth. But with the responsibility aspect, it's hard to pin down but I think that it just boils down to realizing where you have control and where you don't have control and are you giving any control to someone else or are they just there to support you? There was an element where I was at where I wasn't wanting to do a free birth. I know there are very strong opinions for that or with unassisted– different terms and all of these things– but I did glean a lot from books I was reading about unassisted birth because I wanted to feel like I could make decisions with my midwife's support and not the other way around. It wasn't her making the decision and making sure I was on board with it. It was more like, This is what I want to do and I'm going to work with you because I did hire you and I actually hired you more for the essence of womanly support. Midwife means “with women” so I wanted this relationship. The relationship I cultivated with midwife was more of a sisterhood/friendship where I was like, “I need you in my birth. I hired you because I know you have incredible skills and I know that you can use these skills if something arises where I need to do something different in my birth, but more than that, I know that you know that you're not responsible for certain things and I'm not responsible for certain things but we are working together and you are there for me on an emotional level.” That was more important to me. Meagan: I love that. Jolie: Not everybody is going to be there for our births but I think if you're listening and that resonates with you like, I've taken some power and put it in other people or I'm holding my provider responsible for x, y, z at the end of the day, I would just work through that and base those thoughts and beliefs and see if you think there needs to be a change in your perception on responsibility and what we control or don't control. We have to surrender which is incredibly difficult. Meagan: Yes. It is but I love that you are talking about that. We have to walk in. We have to own it but we also have to work together. I like that you said, “I don't want her to have to convince me of this. I want to know what I'm talking about and work with her with this situation.” A lot of the time we have to do that with providers where we need to come in and work together and not be patient versus provider. It just needs to be a collaboration but at the same time, we have to take ownership into everything that we can. Okay, so we were talking about this and you mentioned that you wanted to talk about all the things. We talked about getting enough food, making sure we get the right supplements which we know here at The VBAC Link, I'm very passionate about getting the right supplements and then finding the right provider and figuring out what to do with the kids. There are so many things. Jolie: There are so many things. Yeah, I can talk about that for a minute because I think there are so many things that you can obsess over or shut down over. So one of the things that this goes into my tips of if you are going for a VBAC, here are some tips. A holistic approach– when I say holistic, I mean body, mind, and spirit. There are a lot of things we can do for our bodies when we are pregnant– the nutrition, the walks, the exercises, the Spinning Babies gymnastics. There are all of these body-focused things but you also need to be working on your mind and how you are doing in your mind which was huge for me. I found a birth course and worked with this incredible group of people. They are called Mind Change, but her birth course I think I sent you is called Transforming Birth. It's all about subconscious stuff and rewiring your brain to have different pathways for your birth. Anyway, that's my plug for that. But going into it, prepare your mind for birth. Actually think about what you do want and not what you don't want. Think about what you don't want. Have a plan. You need to have a plan for your provider. Of course, that's responsible. But put that away and spend the real-time immersing yourself in what you want it to look like. And then just your spirit. You could make a whole list of all the things you need to do, but the key is in how you approach it because I remember in one of my previous births, one of them that was a C-section, somebody had said one time– it might have just been on social media, “Oh, I went to the chiropractor every week for my birth and I got this wonderful, fast labor and I know it is because of the chiropractor.” I thought to myself, I went to the chiropractor every week. Why didn't I have a vaginal birth? It's not in the things. That's my main point which is so simple. You might hear that and be like, Duh. But it's in how you approach them. Going to the chiropractor regularly is great for your health but if you are doing it from a place of stress and control like, If I miss an appointment or if I don't hit 3 miles today, then actually, that's not helping you anymore and you should probably not do that and not go on that walk if you are feeling stressed out about having to go on the walk. Don't do it. Approach it from a place of peace and joy and acceptance going back to your radial acceptance. All of the things that can help you in your pregnancy are wonderful, but take them one at a time and make sure that when you're going on your walk, when you have your supplements, you're taking them from a place of peace and acceptance and then it can be helpful for you. One of the– I'll just share one small example of how I did this with my third pregnancy that I didn't really have this frame of mind with my previous two. There was a certain supplement. I can't remember what it was called. It was a combination of herbs that helped ripen your cervix. A lot of people recommend it for VBACs at the end. Meagan: Like Birth Prep? Jolie: It wasn't Birth Prep. It was 5 weeks or something. It had something to do with 5 or 7. There was a number in it and it's like a holistic supplement that has supportive herbs in it for ripening your cervix so I remember coming across this information while I was pregnant and just thinking, Okay. I looked it up. It was all sold out on line and I was like, I feel like in my mind I'm thinking I have to do this to get the VBAC. This is going to help me. If I don't get it, then what's going to happen?  I ended up talking to my midwife about it and she actually had some. She was like, “Oh yeah, I do love this supplement. I have some and they are all sold out right now.” I was like, “I'll take it. I'm going to let you know if I'm going to start taking it. Please ask me if I'm taking it out of a stressful, controlling way or if I'm taking it from a place of peace because depending on the way I answer, I need accountability to not actually do it,” because I wanted to be able to receive it in a way of support in general. That's what she told me. “It's not going to hurt you. They are wonderful herbs that will just strengthen and tone your uterus so you can take it,” but I knew I needed to be in a frame of mind where it wasn't like, this is going to be the thing. This is just a small example of how I embodied that reality of if this is going to stress me out, even if it's a good thing, I'm not going to do it. Meagan: Yeah, okay. I love that so much within our own community and other communities where it's like, You guys, I have 5 days to get this baby out or they're going to make me have a C-section, so then we have this stressful overreaction to do anything we can to get that baby out and actually what it's doing is creating more stress in our body which is not going to help our cervix. I love that message. I do not know what you're talking about exactly like what they used. Herbs are great, but I love that. Do things with intent and purpose. Don't do things out of fear or out of worry or out of pressure. Do things because you think they are right and because you think this is what you need to be doing, not because you're stressed about something. I'm just going to leave that right there because I love that message so much. Thank you so much again for sharing your stories and congrats on your HBAC after two C-sections. Jolie: Thank you, yeah. 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

Lauren has had three very different births. She had a peaceful C-section due to breech presentation with a difficult recovery, a wild, unmedicated VBAC, and a calm, medicated 2VBAC. Due to her baby's large size, she had to have an extra incision made during her Cesarean leaving her with a special J scar. Though her provider was hesitant to support a TOLAC with a special scar, Lauren advocated for herself by creating a special relationship with her OB and they were able to move forward together to help Lauren achieve both of her VBACs. Lauren talks about the importance of having an open mind toward interventions as she was firmly against many of the things that ended up making her second VBAC the most redemptive and healing experience of all. How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hey, hey everybody. Guess what? We have our friend Lauren and her 11-day-old baby. Is that right? Lauren: Yeah. Meagan: 11 days old. You guys, I actually didn't even know that this baby existed until we popped up on the Zoom and she was holding this precious little newborn. She was like, “Surprise! I had another VBAC.” So we will be sharing, well she will be sharing her two VBACs so 2VBAC and something kind of unique about Lauren is that she has a special scar, a special J scar, correct? Lauren: Yep. Meagan: Yeah, so that happened in her first C-section. If you are listening and you have a special scar or have been told that you have a special scar, this is definitely an episode that you are going to want to put on repeat and save because I know that there are so many people out there who are told that they have a special scar and that they should never or can never VBAC again. I know we're not even getting into the story quite yet, Lauren, but did you have any flack with that? Did anyone talk about your special scar at all? Lauren: Yes. Advocating for the VBAC is probably the overarching theme of my VBAC because I really had to go to bat for myself for that without switching providers. Meagan: Yeah. We know that's so common. We see it a lot in our community just in general trying to get a VBAC let alone a VBAC with a special scar. We are going to get into her story but I have a review and I didn't even know that this was a review. It was left in a Baby Bump Canada group on Reddit actually so that was kind of fun to find. It's really nice. It says, “Seriously, I'm addicted. I find them so healing. I had an unplanned and very much unwanted C-section and I have been unknowingly carrying around all of these emotions and trauma about it since. I thought I was empowered going into my first birth, but I wasn't strong enough to stop the medical staff with all of their interventions. Don't get me wrong, I believe interventions are necessary in some instances. But looking back now, I realize those interventions were put in place to make things easier involved in delivering my baby. Anyway, I won't get into all of that here, maybe in a separate post. The point of my post is checking out The VBAC Link podcast. I listen to them all day now while caring for my babe. They also have a course you can take focusing on preparing for VBACs. Even if you just like birth stories, they have CBAC stories I believe as well. On the podcast, a guest also pointed out that what do you want for a VBAC birth– peace, redemption, etc.? She talked about how you can still feel those things if you need a Cesarean.” I love that point of view right there that you can still have peace and redemption even if you have a scheduled C-section or if your VBAC ends in a Cesarean. It says, “Another mom pointed out when she was feeling hesitant about saying okay to a C-section, her midwife said, ‘You have permission to get a C-section,' not in a way that a midwife was giving her permission, but telling this mom, ‘C-section is okay and you shouldn't feel like having one is wrong.' My baby is 8.5 months and we aren't going to try for a baby until they're about 18-24 months mostly to increase my chances of VBAC, but I really love these podcasts.” Then she says, “Okay, I'll stop raving now.” I love that. Her title is, “If you're considering a VBAC, I highly recommend The VBAC Link.” Thank you so much to– I don't actually know what your name is. Catasuperawesome on this Baby Bump Canada group. Just thank you so much for your review. As always, these reviews brighten our day here at The VBAC Link but most importantly, they help other Women of Strength find these stories like what we are going to be sharing today with Lauren's story. They help people feel empowered and educated and motivated and even first-time moms. They are really truly helping people learn how to avoid unnecessary Cesareans. I truly believe that from the bottom of my heart. Meagan: Okay, Lauren. As you are rocking your sweet, precious babe, I would love to turn the time over to you to share your stories. Lauren: Awesome, thank you. It's so nice to be here finally. I'm so excited because this podcast truly is the reason why I had my VBAC. I am kind of weirdly unique in that I didn't really feel like I had any mothering instincts. My husband and I had been married for 6.5 years before we decided to get pregnant because I always swore off children. I said, “It's not for me. I'm never going to have children. I want to travel and I want to do all of these things and children are for other people. I can't imagine myself as a mom.” My husband said, “Well, let's wait until we are 30,” because we got married really young. He was like, “Let's just wait until we are 30 and we will revisit the discussion.” I always find it kind of nice when I hear stories of women who feel similarly to the way I did because it's so relatable and I feel like we are very few and far between. That's another reason I wanted to share my story because I know there are other women out there like me. So anyway, it just so happened that at this time, my sister was pregnant. My brother was pregnant. My husband's brother was pregnant. We were like, “You know, we're almost 30. We've waited a long time. If we're going to have kids, we might as well have a kid when he or she is going to have all of these cousins.” My husband was like, “Let's start trying.” I'm like, “Great. I'm going to give it two months and if we don't get pregnant, we're not going forward with this. I'm going to say I tried and I can tell everyone I tried and that it didn't work.” Well, God has a sense of humor because two weeks later, I had a positive pregnancy test. Meagan: Two weeks later? Lauren: Yes. Meagan: So you were already pregnant when you had this conversation. Lauren: I was already taking birth control. I was multiple days into the pack. I just threw it in the trash and was like, “Let's just see what happens.” I guess when you do that, you can get pregnant. I don't know. I didn't really have a cycle. I got pregnant. I was so naive about how it all worked. I'm like, “Okay. The test is positive. I'm pregnant. It is what it is. I'm very much pregnant.” I had not doubt. I had no worry about miscarriage, nothing because I had a positive pregnancy test. That's sort of how I went through my pregnancy, kind of disconnected, very naive, and a little bit in denial that I was actually pregnant all the way up until the end. I read one book and it was called The Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy and it's this really sarcastic, funny book. She's very flippant about pregnancy and very straightforward with my sense of humor. I liked it because I felt the same way. I wasn't mushy or emotional. I had no connection to the pregnancy. I am pregnant. That's a fact. Anyway, at 26 weeks, my doctor was like, “You know, I think he's breech.” I was like, “Okay.” I knew what breech was, but I'm like, “Okay, what does that mean?” She was like, “Well, I would start doing some Spinning Babies exercises. Let's just keep an eye on it. I was going to a chiropractor this whole time. This is important for people to know. I was going to a chiropractor before I even got pregnant regularly. This chiropractor was seeing me. I told her that the baby was breech. “Can you help me flip him? Can we do some bodywork?” I continued to see her. I don't know if it was once or twice a week but it was often. 36 weeks rolls around and I see the midwife in the practice. She is not finding the heartbeat where it should be. She finds it up higher and she goes, “Lauren, I think your baby is still breech.” I thought there was no way. I had been seeing a chiropractor. I had been doing body work and stuff. She was like, “Well, why don't you go see the chiropractor that our practice recommends?” I'm like, “Okay.” I call this chiropractor on the phone. I leave her a message and I'm like, “I've been seeing another chiropractor, but my baby is breech.” She immediately called me right back and she was like, “What has the chiropractor been doing?” I'm like, “It feels like a normal adjustment like nothing different from before I was pregnant.” She was like, “So you've been on your side and she's been twisting your back and your pelvis away from each other?” You know how they do those kinds of adjustments? I said, “Yes.” She was like, “Oh my gosh.” She's like, “How soon can you come see me?” I started seeing her. My OB actually also recommended moxibustion. She got me set up with an acupuncturist in the area which I thought was really cool that she was like, “Some people say they swear by this. You need to do more Spinning Babies. I want you to go to acupuncture.” I saw this chiropractor and she was like, “What that chiropractor is doing to you is not pregnancy-safe. She's not Webster-certified and you needed to be seeing a Webster-certified chiropractor.” That's one of my regrets because I feel like had I known, obviously, I can't say I blame her 100%. I was also working out a ton because I'm like, “I don't want this pregnancy to change my body. I'm going to be skinny.” That's all I cared about so I'm sure I was holding my abdominal muscles way too tight too. I'm sure I contributed to it as well, but just knowing that probably was a major contributor to what ended up happening to this day irritates me. But anyway, he never flipped. He was solidly in my ribcage. He never moved. I would push on his head and he would not even budge an inch. My doctor was like, “You know, I would normally recommend an ECV, but he seems very wedged in your rib cage. He's stargazing,” which means his head is tilted up. His chin is pointed up. She said, “You are on the low end of normal for amniotic fluid.” She was like, “You have these three strikes against you basically. We can try it if you want to try it, but I'm going to say it's probably not going to work.” I had to wrestle with that. I ended up calling my husband's aunt who is a labor and delivery nurse for 30 years. I asked her for her opinion. I'm like, “Have you ever been in on an ECV? Tell me about it.” Naively, I went with her advice. She said, “If your doctor is not confident, then that means it's not going to work.” She's like, “I've seen so many births and I believe that every baby should be delivered via C-section because birth is dangerous and it's scary.” I'm like, “Okay, okay. I'm just going to move forward with the C-section. I'm so glad I talked to you.” Meagan: Whoa. Lauren: We scheduled the C-section and you know what? It really wasn't that big of a deal. My friend's husband was actually my anesthesiologist. My doctor was there. It was very happy. It was very pleasant. I had gone out to dinner with my friends the night before. If you could plan the perfect C-section, it was the perfect C-section. I just talked to my friend's husband the whole time. Again, not connected to this pregnancy at all. It was very much like, “Okay, a baby is going to come out. What is this going to be like?” I remember the doctor held him up over the curtain. I made eye contact with him and I was like, “Oh my gosh. I'm a mom.” The nurse was like, “Do you want to do skin-to-skin?” I was like, “What's that? Sure.” “Do you want to breastfeed?” “I think so. Sure.” Very naive. What ended up happening was that the recovery was just really tough. The surgery was great, but I did not expect the recovery to be so tough. I feel like the way people speak of C-sections is so casual. “Oh, just have a C-section. I had C-sections for all my babies. It's no big deal. It's a cakewalk.” That's the mindset I went into it with. Same with my husband because I reassured him, “It's no big deal. We're just going with the flow.” No. It's awful. It's major surgery. I'm allergic to– I think a lot of people are– the duramorph that they put in the spinal so I had the most severe, horrible itching for 24 hours to the point that they basically overdosed me on Benadryl because I could not cope and my vitals were crashing. I was barely having any respiration. They had to shake me awake and put cold washcloths on my head. They were like, “Hello,” because I was having such a hard time with the itching. Not only that, but the pain. It's painful. In my surgery, backing up a little bit, the doctor said, “Wow. He's really wedged in there and he's a lot bigger than I expected. I thought he was going to be maybe 7.5-7.25 pounds.” She goes, “He tore your incision coming out because he was so big.” She was like, “You have a J incision now so your incision goes horizontal and then vertically up.” She said, “Unfortunately, that means you'll never be able to have a VBAC. You're just going to be a C-section mama.” I was just lying there like, “Whatever. You're asking me what skin-to-skin is and breastfeeding and no vaginal births.” It was just a lot of information to process and take in and make decisions about. He ended up being 9 pounds. He was a good-sized baby. Anyway, that was my c-section experience. I know I'm probably one of the lucky few who could say that their C-section was so peaceful, really no trauma from it. I just thought, “I'm fine with that.” I watched my sister have a failed TOLAC and it looked kind of traumatizing and she was still traumatized from it just a couple months before my C-section so I'm like, “It's fine. I'll just be a C-section mom, but that recovery was terrible so I'll have one more baby and that's it.” I'm not going to have any more kids. I don't want to experience that again. That was May 2019. Fast forward to COVID times. We were thinking about getting pregnant before my son turned one but COVID hit so we were like, “Let's just give it a couple of months and see what shakes up with this pandemic.” The world stopped. I'm in real estate so for a while, we weren't allowed to show any property or do anything so I just was sitting at home doing nothing. I remember one night, I was just sitting there doing a puzzle bored as heck and I'm like, “I'm going to go listen to a podcast while I do this.” My phone suggested The Birth Hour. I hope I'm allowed to say that. Meagan: I love The Birth Hour, yes. Lauren: I was scrolling through the episodes and there was one on VBAC. I'm like, “Okay, I'm going to listen to this.” The interviewee mentioned The VBAC Link so I was like, Okay, I should check that podcast out. I was like, Why am I even listening to this? This is so not my wheelhouse, childbirth. I still didn't care about it, but listening to these podcasts opened up a whole new world for me. I'm so glad I found it all before I got pregnant. I started listening to all of those podcasts then I think I found through your podcast. I don't think it was The Birth Hour. Someone mentioned Dr. Stu so I started listening to his podcast and man, that guy set fire. He had so much great information. I listened to every podcast pretty much that he had done, especially the ones on VBAC because he talks about VBAC a lot and just how it really shouldn't be a big deal or shouldn't make you high risk and all of that. At the time, he was still graciously reviewing people's op-reports for them and now he doesn't do that. I think you have to pay for it, but I emailed him. I reached out to him and I emailed him my op report and I just said, “If you could look at this, my provider told me I wasn't a VBAC candidate but I want your opinion.” He got right back to me and he was like, “There's no reason you can't have a VBAC. This scar is really not that big of a deal. Yes, it's a special scar, but it shouldn't take away from your opportunity to TOLAC.” I ended up getting pregnant in the fall of 2020 and I went to my first appointment and my OB was like, “What do you want to do for your birth this time?” I'm like, “Did she forget what she told me? She must have forgotten.” I was like, “I want a VBAC.” She was like, “Okay, I'll give you my VBAC consent form and we can talk about it as your pregnancy progresses.” I'm like, “Okay, cool.” I saw her again at 12 weeks and she was like, “I'm having some hesitations because you had such a big baby and your scar is not normal. I think we need to talk about this a little bit more but let's not worry abou tit now. We can put it off and worry about it later.” I was like, “Okay.” I was so bummed because I love my OB. Funny story, I met my OB when I was worked for a home design company called Pottery Barn and I met her one day just helping her buy pillows. I'm like, “What do you do for work?” She was like, “I'm an OB.” I'm like, “Cool. I need an OB.” I had just moved to the area so I just started seeing her. I think I was one of her first patients so she knew me. It wasn't like she was a friend and a provider I only saw once a year, but we always picked up where we left off. We had a good relationship. I really did not want to change providers. I don't want this to sound like I was being manipulative, but I was like, I'm just going to really lean into this good relationship we have and just try to win her over. As the pregnancy progressed, at the next appointment I think I saw a midwife. I talked to the midwife about the VBAC and my OB's opinion and she was like, “I've seen a lot of women VBAC with a J scar at my old practice. I don't think it's a big deal, but I'll talk to the doctor for you and hopefully, we can figure this out.” I was like, “Okay.” Then I want to say I went to my 20-week appointment and they told me, “Okay, your baby is gigantic.” They said, “He is going to be between 9 and 10 pounds,” because he was measuring two weeks ahead. They said, “But the other concern we have is that you have marginal cord insertion and that could make for a small baby.” I'm like, “Okay, so is he big, or is he small?” Clearly that marginal cord insertion is helping him not being 12 pounds? What are you trying to tell me? They're like, “Either way, we suggest that you come back at 32 weeks. We have concerns about his size. He might be a tiny peanut. He might be enormous.” I'm like, “I think I'm good. Thanks, but no thanks.” Thanks to you guys, you push advocation so much that I'm like, “This doesn't add up. You can't tell me that he's too big and too small. I'm just going to go with fundal height and palpation if my doctor has a concern, we'll come back.” I never scheduled that growth scan. I was very protective of this pregnancy. I didn't want any outside opinions. I was so afraid that if I went and had this growth scan, I would be pushed to do a C-section. I wanted an unmedicated birth. I was terrified of the hospital. I was listening to so many podcasts all day every day. It was like an obsession so then I told Meagan before we were recording is that I felt like I was almost idolizing the VBAC. It was all I could think about. It was all I could talk about and it became this unhealthy obsession. Right around 25-26 weeks, I decided to hire a doula and move forward with the VBAC. It didn't matter to me what the doctor said. Right around that time, I was having some hesitations. Just getting that pushback from my doctor and knowing he was big, I started to let the fear creep in. I told my husband, “You know what? Maybe we should just do a C-section. I think I'm overanalyzing this so much. I'm just going to push aside this research I have done because clearly I'm obsessed and it's consuming me.” Meagan: Yeah, which is easy to do. Just to let you know, it really is easy to let it consume you. Lauren: It totally is. I think that we have to take a step back sometimes, come back to reality, and if you let the information override your instincts which I think is really easy to do, I think you can get too wound up or too set on something that might not be meant for you. Speaking of instincts, that night, I still remember. I had told my husband, “I'm just going to have a C-section.” I went to bed and I had a dream. I was in the hospital in the dream and I was holding my baby and my dad walked in. I have a really great relationship with my parents but especially my dad. I love my dad. He comes in the room and he's like, “How did it go?” He was meeting the baby for the first time and I burst into tears in the dream. I said, “Dad, I didn't even give myself the opportunity to VBAC. I just went in for a C-section. I just have so much regret about it and what could have happened if I had tried to have a VBAC.” Meagan: That just gave me the chills. Lauren: Yes. It was so weird. I have never really had a dream like that before. I woke up and I was like, “There's my answer. I have to move forward with this.” Having that dream gave me this peace that there is the instinct I need to follow. Yes, I have all of this information that is consuming me, but it was like, Keep going. I hired a doula which I found through The VBAC Link Facebook page. I put it out there, “Does anyone know a doula in my area?” Julie commented and it happened to be her really good friend who had just moved back to my area. I called her and it turned out that we had mutual friends. We connected really fast. I think, like I said, it was about 26 weeks. I go to my OB again and we had more of a pow-wow like a back-and-forth on the VBAC option. She was like, “I'm just worried about it. A C-section is not that big of a deal. We could just tie your tubes and then you won't have pelvic floor issues.” False. I said, “I got a second opinion from another doctor.” I didn't say it was Dr. Stu. I didn't say it was some guy with a podcast in LA. I said, “I got a second opinion and I feel like I just want the opportunity.” We didn't really land on anything solid, but she got up to leave the room and she got to the door and she turns around. She came back over to me and she gave me this big hug. She said, “I don't want to disappoint you. I want you to be happy, but let's keep talking about this.” I was like, “Okay.” That gave me a little bit of reassurance that I was leaning into that relationship I had built with her over the years because it had been 6 or 7 years of seeing her. I would also bring her flowers. I would always try to talk to her about her life and making a social connection with someone. If you let your doctor intimidate you just from the standpoint of being a stranger, I feel like that can really change the course of your care. But if you try to get to know people, and that's not necessarily a manipulative thing, but I think it's important. It should be important in your relationship with your doctor. If you don't feel like you can connect with them, there is issue number one, but I really felt like I could connect with her. I leaned into that. I have a cookie business on the side. She loved my cookies. We just had some other things to talk about other than my healthcare and I feel like it set this foundation of mutual respect. What doctor comes over, gives you a hug, and tells you, “I want you to love your birth”? So fast forward again, I see her again the next time and she said, “Look. I brought your case to my team and because we support moms who have had two C-sections, we felt like your risk is similar to theirs and that it shouldn't risk you out of a TOLAC so I'm going to support you if this is what you want.” I had given her this analogy that I think was Julie's analogy. She said, “If you needed heart surgery and you were told that you had a 98% chance of success–” because I think my risk of rupture was 2% or maybe a little bit lower, maybe 1.5. I told her this. I'm like, “If you told me I needed heart surgery and I had a 98 or 99% chance of success, we would do it. There would be no question. I have this 1% risk of rupture. I'm coming to the hospital. What gives? I should at least be able to try.” The problem is, I'm sure some people are like, “Why didn't you just switch providers?” We have three hospitals in my area. One is 20 minutes from me and two are one hour away. One of them which is an hour away is the only place where I can VBAC and there isn't a VBAC ban. There is maybe a handful of providers who deliver there. I knew my provider was VBAC-supportive sort of. She had the most experience of a lot of the providers around me so that's why I didn't switch. I had very minimal options for care. I couldn't go to LA or I couldn't go somewhere further away. It would be a four-hour drive either way. We are in an isolated area. I felt like that was a huge win. We are set to go. I remember I told Katrina. Katrina was so happy for me, my doula. I just soldiered on. I started taking Dr. Christopher's Birth Prep at 36 weeks. I was doing my dates and I was really busy in real estate. That's part of my story. I was so busy working super hard and I was getting to the end of my pregnancy. At 38 weeks, I went in and I had clients lined up showings coming up. I was like, “I can't have a baby anytime soon.” I was talking to my provider about it. “Maybe at 40 weeks, we can talk about a membrane sweep or something. I have so much on my plate. I can't have a baby this week.” My husband is a firefighter and his shift that he was going to be taking off was starting maybe the following week. I'm like, “He's not even going to be home. He's going to be gone most of this week. This is a horrible week to have a baby.” I let her check my cervix because I'm like, “I want to see if my birth prep or my dates are doing anything.” At the same time, I still had this fear of, What if I do all of this work and I don't even dilate? That was kind of what happened with my sister so I had that fear in the back of my mind. She checks me and she was like, “You are 2 centimeters dilated, 50% effaced. You're going to make it to your due date no problem. We're not even going to talk about an induction until 41 weeks.” She was like, “I'm just not worried about it. He doesn't feel that big to me. He doesn't feel small. He doesn't feel too big. He feels like a great size.” I said, “I know. I feel really confident that he's going to be 8 pounds, 2 ounces.” I spoke that out. I said, “That's my gut feeling. I just have so much confidence and peace about this birth. I just know it's going to work out.” I go on my merry little way from that appointment. I'm walking around. We had gone down to the beach. We were walking around and I'm like, “Man, I'm so crampy. For some reason, that check made me so, so crampy.” This was 38 weeks exactly. We go back home and I have prodromal labor that night. I'm telling Katrina about it. She goes, “You know, I bet the check irritated your uterus.” The next day, I start having some bloody discharge. I'm like, “What is this? What does this mean?” I told Katrina and she said, “It could mean nothing. It could mean labor is coming soon. We'll just have to see.” I hadn't slept the whole night before. She was like, “You need to get a good night's sleep.” I had to show property all day. I met these clients for the first time. I showed four or five houses to them and meanwhile, I'm like, “Gosh, I'm so sore and tired and crampy.” I told them, “I'm very obviously pregnant, but my due date is not until the end of the month.” This was June 10th and my due date was June 23rd. I said, “We have time. If you need to see houses, it shouldn't be a big deal. I don't want my pregnancy to scare you away.”That night, I get home and I'm like, “I'm going to bed. It's 8:00. I'm going to bed. I'm going to take Benadryl and I'm going to get the best night's sleep.” They call me at 9:00 PM and they're like, “Lauren, we saw this house online. It's brand new on the market. We have to see it.” They lived a couple of hours away so I'm like, “I'll go and I'll Facetime you from the house. I'll go tomorrow.” Tomorrow being June 11th. I'm like, “We'll make it happen. I promise I will get you a showing on this house.”I texted Katrina and I'm like, “Oh my gosh. I feel so crampy and so sore. Something might be going on, but I have to work tomorrow. I'll keep you posted.” I wake up the next morning. It's now June 11th and I lose my mucus plug immediately first thing. There was some blood. It was basically bloody show. I told Katrina and she's like, “Okay, just keep me posted. I have a feeling he's going to come this weekend. It was a Friday. I'm like, “Well, he can't because my husband works Saturday, Sunday, Monday. I don't have time to have a baby.” We go to the showing. I'm finally alone without my toddler and my husband. I'm in the car and I'm like, “Man, my lower back hurts. It's just coming and going but nothing to write home about, just a little bit of cramping.” Of course, I never went into labor with my first so I did not know what to expect. I get to the showing and this house had a really steep staircase. I'm Facetiming my clients and I'm going up the stairs. It was probably at noon and I'm thinking to myself, Man, it's really hard to go up these stairs. Why do I feel so funny? I finish up the showing and they're like, “We want the house. This is the house for us.” I get back in the car. I'm getting all of their information. I'm talking to the other agent. I start the offer and I'm like, “I'm just going to drive home and get in my bed because I don't feel good. I'm just going to write this offer from my bed and everything will be fine.” I get home and I tell my husband at 2:30, “I'm just going to sit in our bed and get this offer sent off.” Mind you, I had a work event, a big awards event that night for my whole office and we were going to have to leave at 4:00 PM. My in-laws were going to come get my son and take him to sleep over. It's 2:30. I'm writing this offer and I'm like, “I don't feel good.” My partner calls me. I tell her, “Listen, I don't know if I'm in labor, but I don't feel well. Maybe I have a stomach bug. I'm going to write this offer. I'm going to give you my clients' information and I want you to take over for me a little bit. They know I'm really pregnant, but this could just be a sickness but either way if something happens, I want them to have the best care and be taken care of if we are going to send this offer off.” I send the offer off. It's 3:30 at this point. I close my computer and I'm waiting for them to DocuSign. I text my husband, “There's no way I'm going tonight. I don't feel well. Something is up. I'm not sure what.” He didn't see my text for a little while. He comes in the room at 4:00 and he starts to talk to me. I literally fall to the ground with my first contraction. I'm in active labor.I don't know it yet, but I'm in active labor. I'm just like, “It feels like there's a wave crashing in my body.” That was the best way I could describe it. I'm like, “I feel this building. It's an ebb and flow,” but it reminded me of playing in the waves as a kid because I grew up in Orange County at the beach and just that feeling of the waves hitting you when you are playing in the surf. I'm like, “This is really intense. What is going on?” I'm like, “I'm certain it's a stomach bug.” I told him, “I have gas or something.” I was just like, “I'm going to give myself an enema and this will all go away.” I did that and sitting down on the toilet, I was like, “Oh my gosh.” It made everything so much more intense. I texted Katrina, “Something is going on. I'm not really sure it is.” She's like, “Well, why don't you try timing some contractions for me and let me know?” I crawl into my closet. I can hear my son and my husband getting ready. My son was 2 so of course, 2-year-olds are not always behaving. I can hear them interacting. I crawl into my closet and I'm lying on the floor in the dark. The contractions are 3.5-4 minutes apart lasting a minute. I was like, “I'm still pretty sure this is a stomach thing that is happening every 3-4 minutes.” I call Katrina and I'm like, “I don't know. I think I'm in labor. This is the length of my contractions. It's probably just prodromal.” I had so much prodromal.She was like, “Um, it doesn't really sound like prodromal labor, but I'll let you just figure it out. You let me know when you are ready for support. Make sure you are eating anything. Have you eaten anything today?” “No.” “Have you had any water?” “Not really.” “Okay. Please eat something. Please drink some water and keep me posted.” She goes, “Can you talk through the contractions?” I said, “I can cry.” She's like, “Okay. I'm ready to go as soon as you tell me.” Then the next thing I know, literally, this is probably an hour later so at 4:00 I had my first contraction. Now it's 5:00 and I'm like, “The contractions are 3 minutes apart and lasting a minute.” I said, “Maybe you should come over. I think Sean (my husband) is getting a little nervous.” We were still so naive. We didn't know what labor looked like and what was going on. We were like, “If we're not going to the event, why don't we just keep August (my son) at home? I'll just make him dinner and I'm going to make you dinner.” He starts prepping dinner and I'm like, “I don't think either of us really know what's going on.” Of course, Katrina knew what was going on and probably thought I was a crazy person but I was very much in denial. We texted her to come over and she gets there. I'm lying in my bed and she's like, “Okay, yeah. They're coming 2.5-3 minutes apart. If you're ready to go to the hospital, I'm ready to go with you.” I'm mooing through these contractions, vocalizing everything. I'm like, “It just feels good to vocalize and I just really keep having to use the bathroom. It's probably just my stomach.” She's like, “No.” I can hear her outside my bathroom telling my husband, “I think we should go. She's really vocalizing a lot and that usually means it's pretty substantial, active labor.” Meanwhile, all I can think about is, “I've got to get this offer in for my clients.” I'm waiting on DocuSign, checking my email. Finally, it comes through. This is 6:00, maybe 6:30. I see it come in. I send it off and I'm standing at my kitchen counter with my computer on, mooing, doing this freaking offer. I go to cross my legs as I'm leaning over and I'm like, “I can't cross my legs, Katrina. I feel like my bones are separating.” She's like, “Yeah, baby is probably descending into your pelvis. I think we should get going if you're okay with going.” We have a 45 to an hour drive depending on traffic and the time of day. It's a Friday night so basically where I live, there's not a ton of traffic but we get in the car. She's following us and we get to the hospital. It's probably 7:15-7:30 or something like that. I'm telling my husband as I'm mooing through these contractions, “This really isn't that bad. If this is labor, it's intense and it feels like there's an earthquake in my body, but I would not tell you that I'm in any pain right now.” He's like, “Okay, whatever you say lady.” We ended up having to walk across the whole hospital parking lot to the ER because the regular hospital entrance was closed. As soon as we walked in the hospital, the hormones changed. The adrenaline kicks in. I start feeling pain. I start feeling a little bit panicky and it starts getting harder to cope through these contractions. I'm on the floor of the triage room crying into a trash can and everyone is staring at me. Katrina's like, “They need to stop staring!” She was trying to defend me while my husband is answering all of their dumb questions like, “What's your favorite color? What city is your mom born in?” They're like, “Let's just put you in a wheelchair and get you up there.” I'm like, “I can't sit.” Anytime I tried to sit, the contractions were a minute apart and they were so intense. I get there and I was so protective of this birth and outside interventions, I just was like, “Everything is evil. Cervical checks are evil. The epidural is evil. Everything is going to make me have a C-section.” I was like, “I don't want to know how dilated I am. I don't want anyone in this room to know except the nurse. That's who is allowed to know how dilated I am.” She checks me and the doctor comes in. It was the hospitalist and of all the providers in my area, it was miraculous that I got this hospitalist because he has so much experience. He is so calm, so kind, so supportive. He just said, “Hi, Lauren. I'm Dr. so-and-so and you're in labor. Happy laboring.” No concerns about my TOLAC, nothing. He didn't even bring it up. He didn't ask to check, nothing. Just, “Happy laboring,” and he left the room. I'm like, “Okay. Clearly I'm in active labor.” So then they were getting the tub ready because my room had a tub and as we were waiting for it to warm up, I'm sitting on the ball. I'm having all this bloody show. The nurse asked to check me again before I get in the tub. Unknowingly, I had been 5 centimeters when we arrived. I was 7 now when we got in the tub an hour later. I get in the tub and I wouldn't say it provided me any relief. Honestly, I was so in my head and not necessarily in pain, just so mentally unaware of everything going on, in labor land, but also very overwhelmed by the intensity of it. I told Katrina, “George Washington could have been sitting in the corner watching me labor. I would not have known.” I barely opened my eyes. I had a nurse who was there sitting with us because I had to have a one-on-one nurse for being high-risk and I had to have continuous fetal monitoring. Because I was in the water, she needed to sit there and make sure the monitors didn't move. I couldn't have told you what she looked like, nothing. I didn't speak to her. I was in another world. I think I maybe was in the tub for 30 minutes to an hour. It's probably 9:00 or 10:00. I can't even remember the timeline of it but it wasn't that long of a labor. My water breaks and I start grunting. They're like, “Let's get you out of the tub. Let's get you out of the tub.” I think I was 9 centimeters at this point. We arrived at 7:30. This is probably 10:00 PM or something like that. I'm like, “Okay. I'm just going to lean over the back of this bed and just moo and make noises.” Me being who I am and not super emotional, I'm making jokes about how I sound. I'm like, “You guys, I sound like Dory in Finding Nemo. I'm so embarrassed. Please don't look at my butthole.” I was naked. I'm making all these jokes and coping, I would say pretty well in terms of pain but just very overwhelmed by the intensity of it. They come in and check me and they're like, “Okay, you're complete.” This is at 11:00 PM maybe or 10:30, something like that. But she was like, “You have a little bit of a cervical lip.” It was a provider I hadn't met before at my OB's office but they were like, “We will just let you do your thing. You sound pushy but please don't push because you have a lip. Let's just let him descend.” I could feel his head inside of myself. I could feel his head coming down. I was like, “I want it to be over. I want it to be over.” I'm still in denial of this whole thing this entire time. Are we sure it's not poop? I know there's a baby coming out. Once my water broke, I'm like, “Okay, I guess I'm having a baby.” That was really, truly the first time that I was like, “Okay, this is really happening.”Maybe 30 minutes later, the hospitalist peeks his head in the room and he's like, “Lauren, why don't you try laying on your side?” I tried and it was too painful. I flip over on my back and three pushes later, he comes flopping out. I screamed him out and it was super painful. I was so overwhelmed by how painful it was. I just screamed like a crazy, wild woman. He's on my chest and he's screaming and I'm in all this pain and then she's like, “I've got to give you lidocaine. You tore a little bit. I'm going to stitch you up.” It was just all this pain happening at once, but I was like, “I got my VBAC. That's all that matters. No one touched me and I got my VBAC. I don't care about anything else.” Anyway, it was great. I would not change it for the world because I never had a ton of pain. I never really thought I needed an epidural, but it was a little bit mentally overwhelming. Meagan: Mhmm, sure. Lauren: Anyway, that was my first VBAC. The doctor said, “You pushed so primally. That was the most amazing thing I've ever seen.” The hospitalist was like, “That was incredible to watch. You are a badass.” I was like, “That was such a compliment because I didn't know what I was doing and you're this doctor with all the experience.” Anyway, fast forward to my third pregnancy. This is now the summer of 2023. We decide we're going to have one more baby. I of course had no issues with the VBAC this time because I had a successful TOLAC with my second. I made it to 20 weeks. I had COVID, RSV, and the flu all right around then so they were telling me, “Your baby is measuring totally normal.” I'm like, “Yeah, because I've been sick as a dog for 6 weeks.” I'm like, “Maybe I'm going to get this newborn who is a normal size,” because my son was born at 38 and 2, the second one, and he was 8 pounds, 3 ounces. I had told my doctor 8 pounds, 2 ounces. I was one ounce off. I was like, “Maybe I'll get this little peanut baby and it's going to be so great. I'll finally have a newborn who fits in a diaper for more than two days.” Then I hit 33 weeks and I got huge. I just exploded inside. I go to my OB and I'm like, “I don't feel good. I'm too big. This baby is too big. Something is wrong.” She's like, “No, Lauren. I really just think you make big babies and he just went through a growth spurt. Let's not worry. I'm not going to have you do an ultrasound or anything like that. If he continues to measure 2-3 weeks ahead,” because I was measuring 36 weeks at 33 weeks, “then we can talk about it, but I don't want to worry about it.” I was like, “Okay.” I was having all of this round ligament pain more than I had with my others and prodromal labor was so painful. I remember telling Katrina who I hired again, “I feel like something is wrong with my muscles. I just am so uncomfortable. But I don't want to make any rash decisions based on it. I might get an epidural if this keeps up because this doesn't feel normal. “She was like, “Okay, whatever works.” So I get to my 38-week appointment and I'm thinking, I'm going to have this baby at 38 weeks just like I had my second baby. I had everything ready. Everything was good to go at my house and then day by day, it ticks on. Baby is not coming. Baby is not coming. I was due April 6th. This was just this year, 2024. I get to 38 weeks. I tell my doctor, “Just strip my membranes. I don't even care.” She was like, “Okay, I guess if that's what you want.” She did. Nothing happened. 39 weeks rolls around. She strips my membranes again. Nothing really happens and then the night of Easter, I had this strange experience where I woke up in the middle of the night and I had this contraction that wouldn't end. I couldn't feel the baby move and it freaked me out. I did everything I could to get him to move. I was in the shower. I was eating. I was drinking and doing all of these things. Finally, I called Katrina at 2:00 in the morning. I'm like, “My baby's dead. I'm 100% sure he's gone. What do I do?” She's like, “Lauren, just relax. Lie on your side and drink something sweet.” We were ready to go to the hospital. I remember we had a stethoscope. I got the stethoscope and I put it right where I knew his heartbeat was and I heard a heartbeat. I burst into tears. It was the first time I've ever cried with any of my babies even being put on my chest. I just felt this relief because I had so much anxiety about him with my size being so big and the pain I was having. I was like, “I just want this baby out.” I never really felt that way, but it was this desperate anxiety. A couple of days passed and I'm now in week 39. I'm like, “My uterus is silent like a little church mouse. She's not doing a thing. She's not cramping. She's not contracting. No discharge, nothing.” I'm like, “This baby is never going to come.” I tell my doctor at my 39-week appointment, “If this baby hasn't come by Friday, I'm back here and I want another membrane sweep.” I felt kind of crazy because I'm like, “This is technically an induction, like a natural and I'm intervening.” Me who never wanted anyone to touch me and now I'm like, “Please touch me and pull this baby out of my body.” She goes to check me and she's like, “Lauren, I think he's coming tonight. Your body contracted around my hand when I tried to sweep you. I just wouldn't be surprised. Don't worry.” I'm like, “Okay, well you're breaking my water on Monday.” I was 3 or 4 centimeters dilated and I'm like, “We're waiting until Monday but I want you to break my water because I'm over it.” She's like, “That's a good idea. Let's threaten this baby and he'll come right out.” This was early in the morning on Friday, the 5th. Anyway, I had all of this anxiety and I just felt like he needed to come out. I couldn't get any peace until I knew he was alive and happy and healthy and on my chest. Friday afternoon, I felt crampy just a little bit the whole day and then at 4:30 PM, I feel this gush and I'm like, “Okay. Is that my water or is it my pee?” because his head felt like it was on my bladder. I didn't say anything to anyone. Then 6:00 rolls around. I text Katrina. I'm like, “Listen, I felt a little gush and I keep feeling it. I put a pad on and it doesn't seem to be urine. I'm not really sure what's happening. I'm just going to do some Miles Circuit and I'll update you.”At 7:30, I'm cleaning my kitchen and all of a sudden, I'm hit with an active labor contraction. I'm like, “Not again. I want labor to start normally so I know what's happening.” No. Baby's like, “I'm ready.” At 7:30, I tell her, “Okay, I'm feeling contractions. I'm getting in the shower to see if it will stop. It might be prodromal. Let's give it an hour. I'm going to text you, but they are 2.5 minutes apart.” She's like, “I'm at dinner. I'm getting boxes. Just let me know.” I was like, “Okay. It might stop though so I wouldn't worry about it.” No, it did not stop. She gets to my house at 9:00 and my car is already running. I'm like, “We're going.” I am mooing through these contractions. I'm going to pop this baby out right now. I had thankfully put some chux pads in the back of my car. I'm on all fours in the back of my car. Mind you, we have to drive an hour to the hospital. I peed all over the chux pad. I just was like, “He's on my bladder. He's on my bladder.” It was so painful and I couldn't control anything. I'm like, “Is this water? Is this pee? I don't even know what's happening.” We get to the hospital. He did not come in the car, thank God, but we did have to go to the ER again and the ER was taking forever. It took a half hour to get me up to labor and delivery as I'm actively mooing in front of the hospital. I was like, “I'm not going in,” because there was a little girl sitting in the waiting room and some convict sitting with a police officer. I'm like, “I'm not having my labor in front of these people!” Even the police officer came out and he was like, “I don't understand what is taking so long. You are clearly about to have this baby. I will bust open these doors for you and walk you up to L&D myself if that's what it takes.” Finally, they got me up there. I arrived. I told Katrina and my husband, “You guys, I'm getting an epidural.” I said, “I have had so much anxiety and so much pain. This does not feel like my previous labor. This feels like I'm suffering.” I said, “I just want to smile. I just want to smile. I want to smile this baby out.” We get up there. I'm 8 centimters dilated. This was the part of the story that I feel like it comes back to advocating for myself. I go in there and I'm like, “I don't care what you need from me. I just need the epidural and stat.” The nurses are scrambling and this doctor walks in. I am on all fours on the bed just staring at the ground, actively transitioning. I see this doctor walk in. I see his feet and he had his shoelaces untied. Immediately, I'm just like, “No. It's a no.” I don't know why. I just was like, “Your shoes are dirty and they are untied. You seem like a hot mess. I'm already a hot mess. I want someone to come in and just be like clean-cut and normal.” He starts asking me all these questions. He's asking me my whole health history, everything about my grandparents, my parents, all of this stuff. I'm in transition then he goes, “You're aware of the risk of TOLAC, right?” I said, “Yes.” He goes, “That your uterus could burst wide open?” I literally saw red. I'm in a contraction and I just screamed like a wild lady. I was like, “Get out.” I wanted to add on some expletives and tell him to get out of the room. I just said, “Get food.” He was like, “I'm  just saying.” He ended up leaving and my nurse peeks her head under. I look over and I see this nurse peeking her head right into my face and it's the same nurse who was there with my first VBAC. She goes, “You don't have to accept care from him.” She goes, “Your doctor is actually the backup on-call doctor tonight.” She goes, “If you refuse care, we can call her and she can come in.” I was like, “Oh my gosh. This is a miracle.” We get the epidural. I'm like, “We've got to slow this thing down. I don't want to have this baby and have this crazy man who I cannot stand anywhere near my body parts, anywhere in this room.” We get the epidural and everything slowed down. I labored down. My doctor ended up coming in and she checked me. She was like, “Your bag is bulging. It feels like rubber. It's so thick.” She was like, “I think that's why he's not coming out.” We got to the hospital at 9:30-9:45. By the time we got in the room, 11:00 by the time I got the epidural, and the anesthesiologist was like, “You're going to have this baby in 30 minutes. I'm certain of it.” To slow it down, I'm closing my legs and doing all of these things to slow it down.My doctor comes in. She breaks my water and fluid goes everywhere. It floods the floor. She goes, “I don't remember any time I've ever seen this much water come out of someone without polyhydramnios. Maybe you had it. I don't know but this is an insane amount of water.” She breaks my water and then my epidural was a pretty low dose because he thought I was having the baby in 30 minutes. It's now 2:30 in the morning and I haven't had the baby yet. I'm getting up on my knees. I'm leaning over the back of the bed and I feel him descending. Then my doctor comes in an hour later and she's like, “Let's get this baby out.” It was 3:30 in the morning and she's like, “Let's go.” She feels me. She's like, “You're complete. I feel his head right here. You just need to push and you can't feel that his head is right here.” So I just get on my back, in lithotomy with the freaking stirrups like I said I would never do with the epidural I said I would never get and I pushed him out in three pushes. He was 9 pounds, 7 ounces. I am so glad I got that epidural. No regrets there because that's a really freaking huge baby. His head was in the 100th percentile or something like gigantic. I tore a little bit again, but I feel like the tradeoff was this peaceful, happy birth. I was making jokes. I had this nurse that I loved and knew. I had my doctor I loved and knew. I had Katrina and I had my husband who were the only people in the room and we laughed our way into this birth. I laughed my baby out basically. I was making jokes the whole time and I just had this peaceful experience. I told my husband, “I know I railed on the epidural my whole pregnancy and I said I would never get it,” but it's a tool ultimately. It's a tool. If you use it wisely, I was very far along. I said, “I don't think it's going to stop my labor.” I felt really confident in my decision. I didn't feel like anything was pushed on me. I made the decision. I'm happy I did it that way. Would I do it again that way? I don't know. I think with every birth, you should be open-minded to the possibilities and your needs. I hear so many stories where women are like, “And then I got the epidural. I had to.” I'm like, “It's okay. Own that decision. You're no worse off for getting it and it doesn't make you any less of a mom or any less of a good person for getting it. It's okay to not feel every single pain of labor if it's overclouding your ability to be in the moment.” Meagan: Yeah.Lauren: So anyway, that was my second VBAC story. Honestly, it was so redemptive because there was no trauma from the pain of having this wild, chaotic, primal birth. It was just peaceful and happy with all of the people. If I could have dreamt up a list of people who could have been with me, that's who it would have been. Meagan: Good. Oh, I love that you pointed that out. Well, I am so happy for you. Congrats again, 11 days ago and right now I want to thank you again so much for sharing your story. Lauren: 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

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

Got a show or guest idea? Send us a text!With her skill and natural superpower of intuition, Emmy has always been able to tap into what was needed for each client. As a massage therapist, certified birth and postpartum doula, childbirth educator, and advanced lactation counselor, her knowledge of the human body and the physiological design is extensive. She is also certified in Spinning Babies birth practices. Growing up with her mother running a home daycare, she was destined to be working with babies. She prides herself on always being an advocate for body autonomy, and she continues to use her voice for pregnant and laboring mothers all over the world. Having a home birth (HBAC) with her 2nd daughter after a traumatic and preventable emergency cesarean with her first daughter, she is very passionate about helping prevent birth trauma and helping mothers have a true redemptive and trauma free birth. She has been featured on national TV shows, podcasts, and national radio sharing her wisdom and education in hopes to stop medical bullying and help couples learn how to be an active participant in their own birth experience. Emmy offers Somatic Birth Empowerment Training online and in person, which focuses on healing sexual, ancestral, or birth trauma stored in the body in order to fully release and experience an empowering first time or redemptive birth. Check out her podcast Empowered Birth, Love and Life on Spotify or Apple Podcasts and her role as Jane Walinski in the film Protocol 7, an Andy Wakefield film releasing this summer. Emmy can be found at https://emmyrobbindoula.comTo work directly with Erin, visit heartwinghealing.comSupport the Show.

Upon arriving at the hospital during her first labor, Sami was told that her baby's heart rate wasn't stable, Pitocin was necessary, and a C-section was most likely going to be the safest mode of delivery. After laboring for a while, she was wheeled to the OR but the anesthesiologist was running behind schedule. Sami was checked and discovered she was complete! She pushed like her life depended on it and with the assistance of a vacuum and forceps, was able to vaginally deliver her baby in the OR. Sami was thankful to have had a vaginal delivery, but it wasn't the empowering experience she hoped for and she knew she wanted something different the next time around. But when her second baby flipped breech during labor, Sami unexpectedly consented to a Cesarean. During her third pregnancy, Sami did everything in her power to set herself up for a VBAC. She found out her baby was breech and exhausted all options to try to flip her. A few weeks after a successful ECV, Sami had a precipitous VBAC, pushing her baby out within one hour of arriving at the hospital!Sami's Fitness AccountHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details 01:23 Review of the Week04:26 Sami's first pregnancy06:41 A vaginal birth in the OR07:55 Second pregnancy and switching providers11:00 Flipping breech during labor13:10 Sami's C-section and feeling invalidated16:50 Third pregnancy24:19 A successful ECV29:38 Going into labor32:38 Pushing her baby out within one hour of arriving at the hospitalMeagan: Hey, hey everybody. We have another VBAC story for you today from our friend, Sami. She is actually local to me here in Utah. Hi, how are you?Sami: Hi, I'm good. I'm so excited to be here. Meagan: So excited to share these stories. I was going over your story and it's just crazy to think how things can twist and turn and the unexpected can happen. I love that about stories sometimes and then I don't love that it happens but I also love the uniqueness of that. Does that make sense? Sami: Yeah. Yeah. I feel like literally and figuratively, my babies twist and turns happen. Meagan: Yes. It's important to know that going into birth even though we are planning one way, sometimes twists and turns can happen and then it's up to us to figure out how to navigate through that space and it's not always easy. It's okay to not always have it be easy and then sometimes it is easy. That's another thing I wanted to talk about too is pointing out that to some, a twist and a turn might be no big deal to someone and then to some, it rocks their world. We are all in different spaces here and you definitely like you said both figuratively and actually have some twists and turns. 01:23 Review of the WeekMeagan: We're going to share her story in just a minute but of course, we do have a Review of the Week and I just wanted to quickly share it. This is by– okay, I'm probably going to butcher this. It is mitaywa. I'm so sorry if you are listening and you are like, You are telling this so wrong. It says, “I hope this plays over the speaker in every OB/GYN office.” I love that. That's a cool subject. It says, “I cannot even begin to describe what encouragement these podcasts have been for me. I have completely binged on these the past few weeks and they have grown my confidence for my up-and-coming VBAC baby. I cannot stop sharing everything I'm learning and even help encourage first-time moms to educate themselves on how to avoid a Cesarean in the first place. Thank you so much for this no B.S., truth-declaring and empowering platform that I know has encouraged so many more than just myself. Keep being amazing. I can't wait to share our story in just a few short months. All of my love.” Aw, that's such a great review. I love that so much. I hope that you got your VBAC and that all went well. I'm so excited to hear that this podcast is doing exactly what we intended it to do– empower, educate, inform, and inspire people to know their options for birth after a Cesarean and like you said, how to avoid a Cesarean in the first place. 04:26 Sami's first pregnancyMeagan: Okay, cute Sami. I'm excited to hear these stories. Thank you for joining us today. Sami: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It's a really cool full-circle moment to be here after binging on the podcast for months and months and months so I'm excited to be here. Meagan: All right, well every birth story starts with baby number one, and your first baby actually wasn't a C-section, right?Sami: Yeah, with my first baby, I got pregnant in 2017 and had him in 2018. I feel like as so many other people on the podcast, I felt like I was pretty informed going into the birth. I mean, I read two books. To me, I'm like, I am so informed. I took a HypnoBirthing class but I had a provider who had just been my OB/GYN for a long time so I decided to stay with her. Even though I didn't have a C-section with that first delivery and pregnancy, it definitely wasn't what I was hoping to get out of it. I went to 40 weeks and thought that I would have my baby right then and there. I didn't have a doula. I hadn't talked to a lot of people but I was planning on going unmedicated in my delivery and then the days kept going on. I got to 40 and 5 and finally started to go into labor. I was really excited because my OB had scheduled an induction for me I think the next day actually. I got to the hospital and everything changed. We got there. We were excited and fresh-faced. We were having our baby today. The minute we got there, they were picking up a lot of heart decels. They didn't feel like the baby's heart rate was doing well. They told me that I needed to get on Pitocin immediately and that I would be really lucky to not have a C-section so my hopes for an unmedicated delivery went out the window immediately. My OB came in and told me, “I really do think that a C-section is going to be the best course of action for us but let's give you a couple of hours and see how things do with Pitocin, get you an epidural just in case,” and after a few hours, came in and said, “I really think we need to go to the OR right now. We need to get your baby out for his safety.” 06:41 A vaginal birth in the ORSami: We scrubbed up, my husband and I. She took us back to the OR. I was a wreck. I was crying and just so upset because no one had prepared me for that. In my HypnoBirthing class, all of the stories that were shared were really positive. We didn't really talk about what would happen in this type of situation. Like I said, I didn't have a doula. We got to the OR and the anesthesiologist was actually running behind. He was doing another C-section and they didn't have another one on call I guess. She was like, “You're dilated to a 10 so if you can get this baby out right now, I'll let you push and try.” So I pushed like my life depended on it trying to get this baby out. He was sunny-side up so she did end up using forceps and a vacuum. We got him out in that timeframe. It was so cool honestly after having this experience that felt really scary and just not what I was wanting, I was riding the high of my life to have still been able to deliver him. So I didn't get my unmedicated delivery, but I was just really happy to have him there with me. Meagan: Yeah, yeah. 07:55 Second pregnancy and switching providersSami: So fast forward to my second pregnancy, I got pregnant in 2019 and had him during the pandemic in 2020. I decided to switch providers just because I felt like after going through that experience with her, it wasn't a bad experience, it just wasn't what I was wanting. To get there and have her immediately pushing a C-section– Meagan: That's kind of unique. Did she ever tell you exactly? It was just the heart rate? “You're heart rate is wonky. Let's put you on Pitocin.” Those two things often don't match. And then it's like, “Oh, you'll probably end up there anyway but we'll let you keep going.”Sami: It was so bizarre. Looking back at it for me, I do feel like there were signs that she just wasn't going to be a supportive provider of an unmedicated delivery all along. I told her I didn't want to have an epidural and she said, “Well, good luck. You'll probably change your mind, but I support you doing whatever you want to do.” We found out after he was delivered that the cord was wrapped around his neck twice. That was what was causing the decels to happen, but that was what was hard for us to understand too. We were like, “If it's emergent, why aren't we being taken back right now?” Yeah. It just felt like she wanted to get the baby out. I was over 40 weeks. I felt like even though I had a great experience postpartum and I was fine, I couldn't trust her anymore. I didn't feel like she was a safe person or someone who would honor my wishes during birth. Meagan: Right. Sami: I had heard of a doctor locally. A few of my friends had just raved about him. He is pretty popular in my neighborhood. I feel like a lot of different people go to him, but it's Dr. Thackeray and INC. Meagan: Oh yeah. Sami: Yeah, so I switched over to him for that second pregnancy and immediately just really liked him. He was warm. He took a lot of time talking over everything, getting to know us in a way that most OBs don't in the hospital setting and I let go of my hopes of having an unmedicated delivery. It just felt like with my first birth and postpartum, everything that could have happened did happen. I had this plan. I had the birth plan. I wanted to have that unmedicated labor and it all went out the window the minute that we got there. I felt like, What's the point in even trying to go unmedicated? There are so many unexpected things that can come up in birth. I went forward with that pregnancy. It was a pretty normal pregnancy. Honestly, I felt great. I'm one of those weird people who enjoys being pregnant. I just soaked up the time with my oldest son. We were having another boy, but when the pandemic really started to get serious, we were terrified. We were being told every week that things were changing. You could have people come with you and support you. You couldn't. My birth partner may not be able to be there with me. We were a little nervous about that. 11:00 Flipping breech during laborSami: I got to 40 weeks exactly and went into labor again. I was so excited. It's really funny because my husband and I took pictures outside of the hospital. We were both really excited to hopefully have a more normal experience of being able to deliver in the delivery room without all of those interventions. We got checked into the hospital. They checked the baby's position and they told me that he was head-down. Then shortly after that, my water actually broke. They called my OB to come in and just check on how things were progressing. When he came in, he checked me and he was like, “I don't think that I'm feeling the baby's head. I think I'm feeling the baby's bum.”They did an ultrasound. Meagan: So breech? Sami: He was breech but he wasn't even just complete breech. Meagan: Like sideways? Sami: Yeah. He was transverse. It brought up a lot of anxiety and emotions from that first delivery. I'm like, “No. I avoided a C-section. I really don't want to go back to the OR. I don't want to have forceps. I don't want to have all of these things happen.” They tried to perform an ECV. They actually tried for 45 minutes to get him to flip but because– Meagan: Which is also impressive just to say for a provider to do that during labor. That's impressive. Sami: Yeah, he was. He brought in one of his partners. I could tell that they were trying really, really hard but he would not budge. They told us that because my water had broken, it was just likely that there wasn't enough fluid in there to get him to flip back. Meagan: Rotate. Sami: Yeah. We don't know at this point. The nurses who checked us in told me that he was head down, but we don't know if he flipped when my water broke or if he had been sitting breech for a long time. In any case, he wasn't flipping. My husband and I asked for some time just to think about our options, but his foot became prolapsed and they told us, “This is an emergent situation. We need to get him out right now. If the cord prolapses, it could be pretty risky.” 13:10 Sami's C-section and feeling invalidatedSami: They rolled us back to the OR. It was kind of like Dejavu from my first delivery. I'm sobbing. I'm like, Oh, I don't want to have a C-section. I've got a baby at home to think about this time around. I told him I'd be back in two days. Just a lot of emotions were brought up. They took us to the OR and kept having to give me medication after medication. They lay you down obviously. So many people listening to this story are going to be able to relate to what it's like in there, but it's freezing cold. They laid me down and strapped me onto the bed. I was shaking. I felt like I was going to vomit. They just kept giving me all of these medications. They finally started to perform the C-section and I just had tears rolling down my face. The anesthesiologist bent down and was like, “Don't worry. My wife had to have C-sections with all of our babies and she's fine.” It was just the weirdest situation. Meagan: Yeah, probably out of the goodness of his heart of, “You're going to be okay. My wife was okay,” but it's not really what you say to someone in that moment either. Sami: Yeah. It just felt kind of invalidating that I was having a hard moment. Meagan: Yeah.Sami: Ultimately, they got my son out. They took him and cleaned him off and when they brought him over to me, I can barely remember what it was like but I couldn't hold him. I was shaking. It was a really hard moment to not be able to have that immediate connection with him. We got back to the recovery room and things went fine for the most part. I did have a pretty bad hemorrhage and they kept having to come in. They were going to open me back up at one point, but all in all, it was fine. My son was healthy and I was really grateful for that. I think the hardest part for me was just like I said with the anesthesiologist just feeling really invalidated in how hard the situation was. I wanted to get back to see my son. I'm pretty into fitness and health like I talked about and hadn't really wanted to have this really long recovery from all of that. People just kept saying, “Well, your baby is healthy. That's what matters. At least your baby is healthy.” I think that's a really hard thing sometimes for moms to hear because as the mom of the baby, I want them to be healthy more than anyone. Meagan: It's a no-duh situation. Sami: Yeah, that's my number one goal. Funny enough, I found The VBAC Link in the hospital while I was lying in my hospital bed those three days just feeding him and spending time with my baby and I started listening to the podcast then. I just thought, If I ever go down this road again and have another baby, I really want to have a different experience from these first two deliveries. I want to be able to hold my baby the minute that they are born, not be so drugged up that I'm having to come out of being groggy and things. To make a really long story a little bit shorter, my postpartum situation with my son– the recovery was okay but it was really hard. It brought up a lot of postpartum anxiety for me, a lot of different things with the pandemic. We weren't able to have visitors, not be able to be outside or move around the way I wanted to immediately. The podcast really helped me get through a lot of that. 16:50 Third pregnancySami: Fast forward to 2023 and I got pregnant for a third time, I was just excited to hopefully do things differently this go-around. We had two boys and found out that we were expecting a girl. I'm a pretty type-A person so I devoured all of the information that I could about VBAC and realized that I really hadn't known that much going into my first birth. I thought that HypnoBirthing class was enough and it really wasn't. I hired a doula who was local here to me in Salt Lake. She is amazing. Her name is Jamie Kowalk. A friend had referred her to me. I just got to work on a lot of different things. I did chiropractic. I worked with a pelvic floor PT. I actually worked with a therapist too to go through some of the postpartum anxiety that I had experienced after the second time around and hopefully have someone in my corner in case I had that going on again. But once we found out that we were pregnant, I did consider switching providers again. I just thought, Can I go through another delivery with the provider who did my C-section? I did interview a couple of other providers. We met with a midwife pretty early on and had a weird experience. I don't blame her. I don't fault her or anything, but she was the first person to give me an ultrasound when I was pregnant and she had thought that we were having twins so she gave me the ultrasound and said, “You know, I'm kind of seeing two babies here. I don't see two heartbeats. I think it's likely that you lost a baby fairly early.” When we went to get an ultrasound after that that she recommended, the tech was like, “That's not two babies. That is a yolk sac. This is just the baby. This is the yolk sac. You're only pregnant with one.” Yeah. It was a surprising experience but what I realized from that was that I had wanted to call my old OB the whole time and just verify everything that she was saying with him. I just didn't think that I could fully trust her because I already had a pretty strong relationship developed with him. I did choose to stay with my same provider. I had some friends who had known him and shared stories of him doing VBACs that they had heard of. I talked to him about it. The one thing that was kind of hard was that he was really VBAC-supportive when I shared my plans to hopefully have a VBAC, but he wasn't a huge cheerleader. He wasn't like, “I'm going to get you your VBAC. We're going to go in and do this.” It was really realistic. “We'll try to do everything that we can and see how it goes.” Meagan: Right. Sami: I appreciated that ultimately. I had a fairly normal beginning part of my pregnancy. I found out we were expecting a girl which was shocking to us after having two boys and then I got to the gestational diabetes screen which was something I had never worried about. Like I said, I'm pretty involved in health and fitness at a high level. I watch my diet really closely. I failed the screening pretty badly, like pretty terribly. Sami: I ended up going on to pass the 3-hour test which was good but after that, I really felt pretty excited about the VBAC. I felt this hope that I could do it. I feel like meeting with my doula was really powerful because we went through not only my ideal situation and scenario of what would happen but also what things could look like if I did have to have another C-section. I think that was one of my favorite parts of the process of working with her was just planning with her when there weren't emotions at stake in it and not trying to make decisions in the heat of the moment in labor but making them far ahead of time. Meagan: Yes. It's so important. Sami: Yeah, it's a total game-changer. But then we got to about 36 weeks and I had been doing, when I say all of the things, I really had been doing everything in my power to hope for an optimal positioning with the baby. Like I said, the chiropractor, the Spinning Babies, and everything, but I asked my provider for an ultrasound that they don't usually give at 36 weeks unless there is some type of indication that it's necessary. He had been feeling the baby externally and thought that she was head down, but I just didn't want to go into the delivery with any unknowns or surprises. We got that ultrasound and went in. The minute that the tech touched my stomach, they were like, “This is a really breech baby. This baby is completely breech.” Yeah. That brought up a lot of emotion for me from my previous deliveries like, What am I going to do? We haven't had a baby in a good position yet. I've already been doing all of the things to hope to get her in an optimal position. When I met with the nurse right outside the room, she was like, “Well, it's fine. You can always have a C-section. It's not a big deal. We just did a couple today.” Meagan: You're like, “Again, not what I'm wanting though.” Sami: A lot of my hopes and dreams and everything went out the window. From there, I got to work on all of the things that I could do to get baby to flip. I was reading forums. I was Googling. It was honestly so exhausting. I look back on that time and for anyone else who has had a breech baby and tried to get them to turn, it is an emotional rollercoaster. Meagan: Oh yeah. Sami: Yeah. We did acupuncture. I did moxibustion. I did the Spinning Babies “Flip a Breech Baby.” It is so funny, but I downloaded this hypnosis track to try to get your baby to flip. I was doing hypnosis. I went to the pool and I attempted to do handstands in the pool at 37 weeks pregnant. I was not successful. How anyone can do that, I have no idea. But I was lying upside down on an ironing board trying to encourage her to flip. I put ice packs on the top of my stomach. It was completely exhausting. In hindsight, I wouldn't change the effort that I put into hoping to get her to move, but it's hard to be in that space where you are so far along pregnant and then trying to do that and being unsuccessful. Meagan: It's consuming. It consumes you because you are like, I want this so bad. It's sort of within our control, but a lot of it is out of our control. Sami: Totally, yeah. Yeah. I actually ended up posting in the Facebook group and just asked if anyone had recommendations local to me for a provider who would consider delivering a breech baby. Someone recommended Dr. Silver at the University of Utah. We actually did meet with him when I was 38 weeks pregnant. That may be wrong. It may have been 37. 24:19 A successful ECVSami: We went and met with him. He told me, “This baby is breech and if you want to try to deliver her, I'll do it but I think that you should have an ECV first and exhaust all of your options.” I was a little hesitant to go into another ECV after having one that didn't work. I didn't have high hopes. I went and met with Dr. Thackery and he did perform an ECV. I didn't use an epidural or any medications but she actually flipped really easily. Meagan: Good. Sami: It was super quick. Yeah. It was really cool. I think something that I didn't share, but leading up to that, I was working with my therapist a lot just on my mindset. I was pretty devastated when I found out that she was breech. I had to come to terms with the fact before we even went into the ECV or met with Dr. Silver or any of these things that I'm trying to control all of these different variables. I've done this with all of my births and it hasn't really gone the way that I wanted to. With my first baby, I thought it was going to be fine to do unmedicated. My second baby, I was like, I don't care what we do as long as I don't have a C-section, then it ended in a C-section. Then to have her be breech, I was exhausted from all of those things that I was doing, but I just had to realize that, I can show up and I can try to flip this baby on my own and I can try to get an ECV and I can try to hypnotize myself all day, but if that's not what's best for her and if that's not in the cards, there is a level that is outside of your control when it comes to birth. I feel like that was one of my biggest lessons. When I was lying there as he was performing the ECV, I was just talking to myself and visualizing her flipping but I was talking to her and just saying, If there is a reason why you can't flip, if this is not going to be safe for you or if this is not what's best for you, that's okay. I'm going to do whatever you need me to do in order for you to get here healthy. It was only an ECV but that was actually a really powerful moment for me in my third pregnancy in just letting go and letting the outcome be whatever it was going to be. Meagan: Yeah. Sami: She did flip like I said then after that, I was doing deep squats every day. Meagan: Get that baby engaged. Sami: Yes. Get her engaged in my pelvis. I had a few more appointments with my provider and every time would ask him to do a scan just because I didn't believe that she would stay head down, but she did. I felt like we had overcome our last hurdle. I was utilizing HypnoBirthing tracks again. I don't think I mentioned it, but I did want to try to go for an unmedicated this go-around just because I found that every time I would get the epidural or get Pitocin or get anything, that's when everything would go wrong. I was trying to prepare for all of that. We found out that our provider was going to be out of town a few days after my due date. He got asked to go on a last-minute family vacation and said yes. A lot of the other providers in his office are VBAC-supportive, but I didn't really feel comfortable with anyone else being the one to deliver my baby. I had to just again let go. I'm like, Okay. We've almost had gestational diabetes. You've been breech. We did the ECV. Now if we can just deliver this baby, it will hopefully all go well. Yeah, I just kept doing those things the last couple of weeks of pregnancy and on the Fourth of July, I started to go into labor. I was so excited. I started to feel those familiar contraction pains and didn't tell anyone. We went to a barbecue with some friends. I didn't say anything and then I decided to stay up all night on the Fourth of July because after you've had two babies, who would stay up when they are in labor? I'm like, what was I even thinking? But I stayed up all night watching TV and timing my contractions, getting excited. I didn't want to wake my husband up or anything. But in the morning, they kind of fizzled out. There wasn't a lot happening. I had an appointment with my doctor later that day. I should say at that point, I was 39 weeks and 3 days, 39 and 4. I went to that appointment. My husband ended up driving me and we brought our two kids with us because we didn't have any sitters lined up at that point. He said, “I think that things are going to pick up in the next day or so. I think that you're going to have this baby.” We were going to do a membrane sweep that day. That was something I felt comfortable doing but we ended up not doing it. We drove back home because we live about 45 minutes from the hospital that we were delivering at. I decided to make dinner and give my youngest a bath. By the time I had that bath water halfway filled, I couldn't even do it. I was just laying on the floor trying to breathe through contractions, but not able to do anything. 29:38 Going into laborSami: I'm yelling at my husband in between, “Please come upstairs. Give Harvey a bath.” We had not packed anything. I feel like we were the worst third-time parents. We were not ready to go. I think there was so much pressure getting her ready to flip and trying to prepare for all of these other things that I think it would almost jinx it to be super ready for the delivery. We were throwing things into a bag. We had my mom come over because she was going to watch our two boys while we went to the hospital. We just turned around and essentially went back. It was really funny because when we went to go get checked in, they brought us back to a room. I was like, “Are you guys going to check me? Are you going to triage me?” They were like, “No, you seem pretty serious. We're just going to admit you and you can stay.” Meagan: Awesome. Sami: Yeah. We were really excited about that. Again, I wanted to be really excited like I was in my second birth with taking pictures and everything. I have a friend who uses the term “cautious optimism”. I think about that a lot. I was optimistic but also cautious because of everything that had happened in those prior experiences. We did get checked in and we called our doula who decided to come in and meet us, but we didn't get a nurse for 10-15 minutes. I felt like my contractions were really picking up. I remember I opened the door and was looking around like, This hospital is dead. Where are all of the nurses? Why is no one coming to do anything?She finally showed up and it was pretty clear. My doula got there about that same time that our nurse was not super unmedicated supportive. She also didn't seem super VBAC supportive. The minute that Jamie walked in, I was just like, Okay. Now I can breathe. I have someone here who can advocate for us and be an ear to bounce things off of. She started to check me in and go through all of the paperwork, the insurance stuff, and I remember just being on the birth ball. We were trying a couple of different things because I felt like my contractions were pretty strong. Probably 15-20 minutes after Jamie had gotten there and our nurse had come in, I just started screaming, “I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't do this,” at the top of my lungs. I remember it feeling almost like an out-of-body experience. I didn't feel like I was screaming anything. I didn't feel like I was saying anything, but there were just words coming out of me. My nurse said, “I think that we need to check you.” 32:38 Pushing her baby out within one hour of arriving at the hospitalSami: They checked me and I was complete. Meagan: Whew!Sami: Yeah, it was wild. We had not been there long. They started to get everything ready to go and I thought from doing HypnoBirthing and preparing and hypnosis and meditation and all of these different things that I would be able to be calm and present and that was not my experience at all. For a long time, I should say afterward, I felt embarrassed. You hear these stories or you watch Christian HypnoBirthing in these different cities of these people smiling and singing and they are quiet as they are having their babies. That was not me. Now I can look back on that and I'm like, That's okay. I was just loud. I was roaring through birth. It all was happening so fast. I felt really comfortable being on all fours. I was in that position trying to start to push, but when my doctor came in, they actually did have me flip to lying on my back which is something looking back I wish that that wouldn't have happened, but yeah. I flipped over and probably had her within 20 more minutes. When we look at the timeframe, it was an hour after we got to the hospital that she was born. It was just the most amazing, incredible moment of my life. I think one of the coolest things about the whole thing was after she came out, they just handed her to me and put her on my chest and they were like, “Do you want us to wipe her off? Should we go clean her off? Do you want us to put a diaper on her?” I was like, “No. No one touch her. Just leave her right here.” Yeah. We got to snuggle and cuddle and had that golden hour. It was incredible. Meagan: You got that experience that you were waiting for. That minute where you were like, Okay, I did this. It's all over. I don't have to question anything anymore. That happened. She's here on my chest. I love that. I remember having that feeling. It was just utter joy feeling that human right on top of you. I feel like your photo is exactly that. It just says it all. It says it all exactly how you were feeling. Sami: Yes. Meagan: Just pure joy, amazingness and I am so happy for you. I am happy that even with the curves along the way with this baby, she was able to flip really easily, you were able to go through and show the efforts that you were able to do yourself and truly have this better experience. That is so fast. An hour after getting there and not really having too much going on from being at your visit to going home. That's quick. Sami: Oh, it was shocking. It was really shocking. I feel like for me that was part of the reason why I was so loud. It was hard to believe that it was happening so fast. Meagan: Oh yeah, that transition. Sami: I told my doula, “I want to do the rebozo. I want to try all of these different positions,” and we didn't really get to do very much. Meagan: You didn't need it. You didn't need it either. 35:56 Fitbliss FitnessMeagan: That is so awesome. I know you had mentioned in your summary that you are a personal trainer, right? I would love to talk about that too and all of the things that you did during pregnancy that you would suggest to anyone checking it out. I know physical abilities are always different in pregnancy, but can you tell us about that too? Sami: Yeah, absolutely. I am a personal trainer and a coach with a team here. We actually started local to Salt Lake called Fitbliss Fitness. I'm a coach and I'm also our COO. We coach women in bodybuilding, powerlifting, strength athletes, and macro coaching but primarily I'd say the bulk of my clientele are women who want to get stronger, feel empowered, and change their body composition in a lasting way that is not just a 6-week shred or a quick fix. It's all about creating sustainable habits and then getting strong while you do it. For all three of my pregnancies, a huge part of that has been resistance training at a high level and it's been different throughout each one. I was actually, it's a sport called powerlifting. I don't know if you are familiar with that, but it's essentially bench presses, squats, and deadlifts where you compete to try to get your best number or PR, a personal record. I power lifted throughout that whole entire first pregnancy. Meagan: Nice. Sami: There has been some research to support easier, quicker, labor and delivery when you are familiar with resistance training and that's something that you are doing consistently. The second and third, I think I did go a little bit easier not in the sense that I wasn't still training. I trained 4-5 days a week, some weeks 3 throughout my entire pregnancy but just listened to my body more and not feeling like I had to prove anything or be as strong as maybe I once was. Yeah, so the big things that I focused on during pregnancy was resistance training specifically. Still doing movements like squats and core work that is important for a pregnant person– not things like crunches or obliques or twisting but things like pall-off press, side planks, and there are a lot of different movements that you can still safely do working on transverse abdominal breathing throughout my pregnancy. Then the other thing that I focused on the other side of the coin there was just my nutrition at a high level so a lot of protein intake. Protein is huge. Fiber in my diet throughout, a lot of veggies, fruits, getting in really good sleep each night, sun exposure, and just a lot of different things to take care of your body during a time when it's doing so many different things. It's not only filling you but also your baby and if you are depleted, that's not going to be ideal for either of you. Meagan: Right. Absolutely. I feel like with my first, I kind of started doing the running. I was like, “I'm going to train for a half marathon,” then my provider was like, “Oh, you have round ligament pain. You can just stop. Stay walking.” That was such a bummer to me that I did that and that I stopped. Then I didn't focus on my nutrition at all. I mean, seriously my husband worked 2:00-10:00 and I was eating Chinese food all of the time. My protein was probably not even close to 50g a day. It was really, really, really bad and I think that's another one of the reasons why I feel so passionate about good nutrients and physical activity because yeah, I ended up training and becoming a Barre coach and stuff but really dialing in on that. I really do believe what you were saying that studies have shown. I had a better postpartum. I had a better labor along the way because I was able to focus on that. One, I love that you did it and two, I love that you help people do it and break it down and understand. If someone wanted to check you out, do you do only online? Do you do just in person? What does that look like? Sami: Yeah. I used to be a personal trainer in a gym here locally alongside my clients but now ever since COVID, it's fully online. We have a website that is fitblissfitness.com and I'm on Instagram at sami.g.fit. Yeah, it's really cool. There are a lot of stereotypes out there about what women can and can't do when they're pregnant and oftentimes, it's not the advice that we need to hear. I remember someone in my first pregnancy saying, “Oh, don't move that chair over. You're pregnant. You wouldn't want to hurt yourself.” You can still lift and be strong. You can enjoy foods that you like still too while eating enough protein and giving your body what it needs. Meagan: Getting the right nutrients, yeah. That helps you and your baby as well. Okay, I love it. We will make sure to tag you so everyone can go find you and we'll put it in the show notes. Thank you so much for sharing your stories and I'm so stinking happy for you. Sami: Thank you. Thanks 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.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

The Episode was made possible by Immune Intel AHCC® & WeNatalMy guests today are some of the more important voices in birthwork in the United States today. Gail Tully is the founder of Spinning Babies®. Nicole Morales is a Spinning Babies® instructor and author of several books. Both of these women attend home births, and both fully embody informed consent and an individualized approach to maternity care. In this conversation, we get into positioning, movement, and breath to have a more easy birth, methods for getting your baby situated in the pelvis appropriately, and we even get into a soft debate around dogmatic concepts like “cardinal movements” and breech being a “variation of normal”. I love both Gail and Nicole so dearly, and I'm so excited that they're going to be educated at the upcoming 2024 Born Free Twins-Breech. Grab your ticket before we fill up!Visit the show notes for more.Connect with Gail:WebsiteLinkedInInstagramConnect with Nicole:WebsiteInstagramLinkedInReference from the show:Dynamic Body Balancing by Dr. Carol PhillipsForward Leaning Inversion to help baby turn from breech to cephalicA Manual of Midwifery, 1886 textbookLevels of the PelvisS.A.F.E. technique for breech (Adrienne Caldwell)Side-lying release to help with asynclitismBreath and the pelvic floor with Julie Wiebe, PTBIRTHFIT online programs (code BORNFREE for 10% off)2024 Born Free Twins-Breech Conference:Join 150 birth workers and 20+ amazing presenters in Louisville, August 8-11, to learn some new skills, make some new friends, and show up holistically for your birthing clients!Visit the website and...

Our friend, Kelsey, shares with us today what giving birth is like in Canada. From moving and traveling between provinces, Kelsey had experienced different models of care and when it came time to prepare for her VBAC, she was very proactive about choosing a birth environment where she felt safest. From a scary Cesarean under general anesthesia to an empowering unmedicated VBAC in a birth center, Kelsey's journey is entertaining, beautiful, and powerful. We love hearing the unique details of her story including giving birth at the same time as her doula just in the next room over! The personalized care she was given during her VBAC is so endearing and heartwarming. As her husband mentioned, it should be the gold standard of care and we agree! The VBAC Link Blog: Assisted DeliveryFetal Tachycardia in the Delivery RoomIs There Still a Place for Forceps in Modern Obstetrics?Forceps Delivery ComplicationsNeeded WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details 07:36 Review of the Week09:27 Kelsey's stories11:47 Logistics of giving birth in Canada14:38 A normal pregnancy17:50 Arriving at the hospital21:37 Stalling at 7 centimeters26:22 Asynclitic and OP positioning29:31 Kelsey's Cesarean under general anesthesia34:50 Second pregnancy and VBAC prep41:07 Switching to midwives46:14 Beginning of labor51:07 Driving to the birth center54:49 Pushing baby out in two pushes1:00:24 Differences in care1:02:11 Enterovirus1:08:02 Risk factors for forceps and vacuum deliveriesMeagan: Hello, Women of Strength. We have our friend, Kelsey, from Canada. Is that correct? Kelsey: Yes. Yeah. Meagan: She's sharing her story with you guys today. Something about her first story of her C-section that stood out to me was that she had a forceps attempt that didn't work out. Sometimes that happens. I want to talk a little bit about forceps here in just a minute before we get into her story. Kelsey, I wanted to ask you that this is something that in our doula practice we will ask our clients. If it comes down to an assisted birth with forceps or a vacuum, what would you prefer? It's a weird thing because you're like, Well, I'm not planning on that, but a lot of people actually answer, “I would rather not do those and go straight to a C-section.” Some people are like, “I would rather do every last-ditch effort before I go to a C-section.” Did you ever think about that before? Had it ever been discussed before as their style? That's another thing. Some providers are really vacuum-happy. Some are really forceps-happy. I know it's a random question, but I was just wondering, had you ever thought of that before going into birth? Kelsey: So no. I didn't think about whether I wanted a C-section or a forceps delivery. However, I was really staunchly against having a C-section. That was primarily nothing against it, it was just that I have a really huge fear of awake surgery so with my forceps attempt, the OB who was there because it wasn't my provider. That's not the way Canada works. The OB who was there who was called in said, “Are you sure you want to do forceps? You could tear.” I told her, “I would rather tear than have a C-section.” That was just a personal preference for me because I was so terrified of having a C-section. Meagan: Yeah. I think that is very common and very valid to be like, “No, I would rather try this.” Kelsey: Yeah. Meagan: So I did. I wanted to go over just a little bit. I mean, I have seen a couple of forceps and they are not happening as often these days, but there was an article that said, “Is there still a place for forceps delivery in modern obstetrics?” I'm trying to say obstetricians and obstetrics. We're just going to stop. Kelsey: We know what you mean. Meagan: You know what I mean. There was an article and I was like, That's a really good question, because I think a lot of people think they shouldn't be done anymore or a vacuum shouldn't be done anymore either. It talked a little bit about the background. it says, that nowadays we are seeing a decrease in instrumental deliveries and a continuous increase of Cesarean rates. That makes me wonder if we were to increase vaginal and help instrumentally if that would decrease, but one of the things that I thought was interesting is that it says, “The prevalence of forceps delivery was 2.2% and the most common indication for a forcep delivery was fetal distress.” It is very common where it's really, really close, baby is struggling. Baby is so low and let's get baby out. That's 81.6% which is crazy. It says, “Among mothers, the most frequent complication is vaginal laceration,” which means we have tearing at 41% and third and fourth-degree perineal tears were noted. It says, “Regarding neonatal APGAR scores, around 8 around the first and the fifth minute,” which is around 91.2% and 98% of newborns which is pretty great. An 8 APGAR is pretty great. I think a lot of people worry about that. It says, “8.8% experience severe birth injuries like hematomas and clavicle fractures.” Those are probably shoulder dystocias. That's probably why they were having. It says, “Although fetal distress is the most common indication for forceps delivery, the vast majority of newborns were actually in good condition and didn't require NICU care.” That's something that was kind of cool. Obviously, there are a ton of more studies and deeper studies on that. This was just one, but it was kind of interesting. It was like, all right. That is a good question to ask as we are preparing for VBAC is hey, if for some reason a forceps or a vacuum is necessary, that's something to think about. What do we want to do at that point? I love how you were like, “Yeah, I didn't want a C-section. I feared that more than I did that.” Anyway, getting off that topic now so we can get this review and get on to your story but I think it's a topic we don't talk about and it's not something that we are thinking about so as you are preparing, Women of Strength, for your VBAC, it might be something that you want to discuss and learn more about both vacuum and forceps and discuss with your provider what their tool of choice is and just have that in the back of your mind. 07:36 Review of the WeekMeagan: Okay, so onto today's review. It is from laurenswat and it was back in 2023. It says, “Thank You.” It says, “I listened to as many episodes as possible when preparing for my VBAC. The stories on here were so encouraging to me and Meagan is so knowledgeable and reassuring. I am happy to say that I had my unmedicated hospital VBAC last week and I caught my own baby before the doctor even got in the room.” Oh my gosh, that is awesome. Seriously, catching your own baby is so amazing. I loved it personally myself as well and highly encourage it to anyone that is sort of interested because it is a really cool feeling. Thank you for your review and as always, we are looking for reviews. It is what helps people find this podcast. It helps us grow as a community. You can leave it on Apple, Google, email us, or whatever but we are so grateful for your reviews. 09:27 Kelsey's storiesMeagan: Okay, Kelsey. Kelsey: Yeah? Hi. Meagan: Hello. Welcome to the show. Kelsey: Thank you. I'm super, super excited. Meagan: Me too. Me too. I would love to turn the time over to you. Both of your babies were born in Canada. That's correct, right? Kelsey: Yes. Yeah. Meagan: Tell us the story. Kelsey: Yeah, so basically my husband and I got married in November 2019. Just prior to that, we had actually been living in New Brunswick. Just prior to getting married, we decided to move back because we are from Ottowa. We moved to Ottowa. We were living with his parents, his dad, at the time. We went to Mexico for our honeymoon and on our honeymoon, we decided to start trying to have a baby. We decided to start trying but not preventing it because we weren't sure how long it was going to take and there was no indication that it could take a while but my husband is actually an IVF baby. It had taken 7 years for his parents to conceive him. Meagan: 7 years, wow. They are amazing. That's a long time. Kelsey: He was actually their last attempt. When his mom got up to say our wedding speech, she was like my 1 in 7 or something like that and I was just bawling. So because of that, we decided to start trying and not preventing but there was nothing indicating it would take us a while. We started trying in December of 2019 and it just wasn't happening for us so around the year mark, we had a lot of friends who started trying around the same time as us and were getting pregnant really, really quickly. I was going to so many baby showers and crocheting baby blankets that just weren't for my baby. Actually, the year mark rolled around and I got my period the day of. My best friend gave birth the day of. I was trying so hard to be happy and stay positive and whatnot, but it was devastating. 11:47 Logistics of giving birth in CanadaKelsey: We ended up being referred to a fertility clinic. They did a full work-up on both of us and there was nothing. They didn't come up with anything. So they said, “You could keep trying or we could start IUI.” My husband and I said, “Let's do 3 more months of trying on our own, and then we will try for IUI.” Our fertility clinic was in Ontario and we ended up moving to Gatineau, Quebec in July 2020.The way it works in Canada is you have your healthcare which covers. You can go inter-provincially and give your card unless you are from Quebec. If you are from Quebec, it's kind of like living in another country. If you have a RAMQ card, you actually have to pay for your care in Ontario. The Quebec government will reimburse you but only for 30%. It's super weird. If you are from Ontario and go to Quebec, the Ontario government will cover you in Quebec. Meagan: What? So weird. This world is so weird. Kelsey: I know. It's super bizarre. So essentially we moved to Gatineau because the housing market was a little less expensive. I was working in Gatineau at the time as a teacher. I was extremely stressed out in my job especially once COVID hit. We were sent back to the classroom before any of the other provinces were. Anyway, I was extremely stressed out in my job and I decided to switch to the Ontario side because you can go between the two. Where I lived, you cross a bridge and you can get to Ottawa so you are in Ontario. Essentially, we went through the fertility clinic. They said that nothing was going on but because the Gatineau government will cover you for IVF and any fertility treatments up to a certain price so we had to be referred back to Quebec for IUI. The month that we were referred back to Quebec for IUI, it was the day before my appointment that I found out I was pregnant. Meagan: Oh my gosh, yay! Kelsey: Yeah, on our own. It super just happened and some weird funny things happened. The day before, my husband and I went for a walk around our neighborhood. I found a quarter and was like If pennies are lucky, then quarters must be super lucky. I picked up the quarter and put it in my pocket and the day after, I found out I was pregnant. These weird things kept happening. My pregnancy made me oddly psychic too which I'll get into after. 14:38 A normal pregnancyKelsey: I got pregnant in March. I was due November 28th. I had a super easy pregnancy. I was nauseous for the first little bit. I was working for a virtual school in Ontario so I didn't have to go into the school which was really nice. I just got to hang out in my basement and yeah. I mainly had nausea as a symptom but I was also extremely anxious because it had taken us so long to get pregnant. It felt like it was so long. It was about 15 months. I was super anxious. I had heard so many stories of miscarriage and whatnot, but luckily, we were followed by the fertility clinic because we were with them so we had a scan at 5 weeks and we had a scan at 8 weeks and then at 12 weeks once we graduated which was really nice. It was a really, really normal pregnancy. I ended up going back into the school in September and I was working as a French teacher. I went off work at 36 weeks. It was pretty normal. The reason I say that I was psychic during my pregnancy is that I kept saying all of these things about my baby. I had this gut instinct that he was a boy and sure enough, it was a boy. Mind you, it's because my husband's family only really has boys but then with certain things, people would say, “When do you think he will be born?” I'd be like, “Oh, I think December 4th.” I would make off-hand comments like, “Oh, he's going to have really dark hair.” My husband and I were both born at 5:00. I was born at 5:00 at night. He was born at 5:00 in the morning. I said, “Wouldn't it be funny if he was born at 5:00?” I said, “He's going to be over 9 pounds. I can just feel it. He's going to be 9 pounds.” Then the other weird thing is that I said he would be born December 4th, but someone told me, “No, you don't want him to be born on December 4th. He will share a birthday with your cousin.” I was like, “Okay, December 3rd.” December 3rd rolls around and I am 5 days past my due date. I wake up in the morning to go to the washroom and my water breaks. I had not been well-informed about birth. I was just going into it like, Yeah. Everything is going to be fine. I had a bunch of friends who just had babies and everything was smooth sailing. The only time I had heard of a C-section was when my aunt had two C-sections because she had a breech baby and a special scar and then they didn't give her an option for a C-section. I was like, Oh yeah. It's going to be fine. My provider told me, “If your water breaks, go straight to labor and delivery.” Meagan: Many do, by the way. Kelsey: Yes, I do know that. Meagan: It's a very normal thing for people to say, but we don't have to do that. Kelsey: Exactly. Meagan: I did the same thing, the same exact thing. 17:50 Arriving at the hospitalKelsey: Yeah, so we went into labor and delivery. Actually, we went slowly. My husband was like, “I'm going to take a shower.” I was under the impression that baby was going to be born in a couple of hours. I was like, “We've got to go.” He was like, “No, no. I've got to take a shower. First impressions are important.” I was like, “All right.” Then we went and we got Tim Horton's because I was super hungry. I figured This will be the last time I eat.We got to labor and delivery. They monitored me for two hours and I didn't have a contraction until 6:00 right as I was leaving and I was only a centimeter dilated. She was like, “Come back in 12 hours or sooner if your contractions get intense.” So I went home. I decided to go to sleep but I was having irregular contractions. I woke up probably around noon and I was starting to get uncomfortable. My contractions were starting to get closer together and they were more intense. I could feel them in my back and in my bum. I learned a lesson. Anyway, I'll get into that after. I could feel them mostly in my back and in my bum. My husband was like, “You look like you're really uncomfortable. We need to go to the hospital now.” He was afraid of getting stuck in traffic because I ended up giving birth in Ontario even though we lived in Quebec. The reason is the hospital I gave birth at actually takes your RAMQ card, the Quebec healthcare card so we weren't going to be charged for it or anything. The Gatineau hospitals are not known for being super well-equipped for much so we preferred to give birth in Ontario. We drove to Ontario which was a 30-minute drive so not super terrible, but traffic can be bad going across the bridge sometimes. The whole way there, I had really uncomfortable contractions. We got to the hospital and the doctor had me in the waiting room for 30 minutes, not terrible. The doctor meets with us and immediately, I just was not into him. He just put me off. He made an off-hand comment about nurses. He was like, “I see pain. Do you want pain medication? Do you want Advil or Tylenol?” I was like, “Whatever you can give me, I don't know.” I told him, “One of the things going into it is that my husband would really like to catch the baby. Can we do that?” He was like, “Well, do you think you can handle it?” I'm like, “Well, he was a firefighter so he's pretty okay with that kind of stuff.” Yeah. I can't even remember the comment now, but he made an offhand comment like, “Well, that's what nurses are for,” or something like that. I just was super put off by him. We went into our room and I didn't know at the time that maybe I could have asked for someone different or whatever. We go into our room and we get set up and they were like, “We have to monitor you for a little bit.” I was like, “I'd really like to labor in the tub. Can I get in the tub?” They said, “We need the monitor on you for an hour.” I'm like, “Okay.” They monitor me for an hour. They give me a shot of Demerol or whatever. I was under the impression and my mindset going into it was that when you give birth, you use pain medication as pain management. I hadn't researched anything else. I was just like, “I want the epidural as soon as I can get it and whatever you can give me for the pain is great.” 21:37 Stalling at 7 centimetersKelsey: I was monitored for about an hour and they let me get in the tub. For two hours, I laid in the tub and that's my best memory of my birth with my first. I laid in the tub and listened to music. My husband and I were in the dark. It was very calm, soothing, and relaxing. When I got out, the doctor was like, “We need to check you.” He checked me and I was at a 1 but he could stretch me to a 3. He said, “If you want your epidural, you can have it now.”I didn't know any better so I said, “Yeah, okay. Give me the epidural.” Overnight, I was progressing 2 centimeters every 2 hours. We got to 3:00 in the morning. I told a nurse, “I feel a lot of pressure in my bum.” I said, “I feel like I have to push.” She checked me and she was like, “No, no. You're only at a 7.” 5:00 AM rolls around. My nurse comes in again and she checks me and she's like, “Oh, you're at a 9.” Another nurse comes in right after and she says, “She's not at a 9. She's at a 7.”The two of them were like, “We need to get a doctor in here to confirm.” It's 5:00 AM. The doctor didn't show up until close to 7:45. He's like, “I'm not going to check you because the changeover will happen in 15 minutes and the new doctor is going to check you. I don't want to introduce any more bacteria.” The new doctor came in at 8:30. She checked me and she goes, “No, you're still at a 7. You've been stuck at a 7 for a few hours. We really need to start talking about a C-section.” It was the first time she had seen me. I had been lying in a bed now for almost 12 hours. They gave me the peanut ball for 2 hours and then they took it away I think because my son's heart rate had started to go funny or they lost it or something like that but he was doing fine. They lost it because he moved or whatever. They took the peanut ball away and nothing showed that he was under any distress at all but she was like, “You've been stuck at 7 for a while so I want you to talk about it with your husband.” I was in tears because again, the whole time, all I said to my own provider was, “I don't want a C-section. I don't care what happens. I don't want a C-section.” So I'm in tears. She's like, “Talk about it with your husband.” She comes back an hour later and we were like, “We want to wait a little bit longer.” She goes, “Okay, what we're going to do is put you on the highest dose of Pitocin.” She was like, “We're going to start you on Pitocin and every 5 minutes, we're going to increase it until you're at the highest dose. Then we'll wait 2 hours, check you again, and if you haven't gone anywhere, you'll have to have a C-section.” I didn't know any better so I was like, “Okay.” They started me on the Pitocin but I'm having intense pain and pressure in my bum. I'm like, “I feel like I have to push. My body feels like it is pushing.” I knew that if you pushed too soon, your cervix would swell. That's one of the few things I did know. They put me on Pitocin and I was crying because I was panicking. My husband was having to push my bolus every 15 minutes when it came on because I could feel everything through the epidural. The nurse was not super kind about it. She was like, “You need to stop pushing. If I check you now and you're not an 8, then you're going to have a C-section.” She just was not overly compassionate or anything. Well, finally, she suggests, “Why don't we put you on your hands and knees?” She put me on my hands and knees and I felt immediate relief. Something changed in baby's position. I sat there and I was able to talk. I was comfortable and I was fine. I think we got to an hour and a half and then they checked me because what happened was they put me on my hands and knees and my feet lost circulation and turned purple and went numb. Yeah, so then they put me on my back again. They checked me and they were like, “Oh, you're at a 9.5.” I'm like, “Yes.” I progressed. 26:22 Asynclitic and OP positioningKelsey: Finally, we got to 10 centimeters and I was a typical you push on your back type of thing. The doctor said, “We cannot wait to let baby descend. Your water has been broken too long.” Then she checks me and she's like, “Oh yeah, and baby's OP.” I should have learned. Had I done my research, I would have known all that pressure was my OP baby. So she said, “Baby is OP. We're going to start pushing.” I was so frustrated by her because she would leave the room and then she'd come back and she'd sit there just with her hand inside of me and checking her watch and stuff. She was just waiting for the hours to pass. I'm doing everything I can. Once they told me that I could push, I was like, “Yes. Let's get this baby out.” I pushed for 3.5 hours and then they said, “We'll give you 30 more minutes and if you cannot get baby out in 30 minutes, we'll try forceps but we'll need an OB to come in because if forceps fail, you will have a C-section.” I decided to push for 30 more minutes and the nurse came in and said, “Let's flip you.” They flipped me again and I lost all of my progress. They had also told me that not only was baby OP but he was asynclitic so his head was tilted to the side. They said, “That's probably what's happening.” But when I flipped, I lost my progress. There was a new nurse who couldn't figure out how to get the monitor on me so I couldn't push in that time. They were like, “Well, we're going to stop pushing because whatever.” 30 minutes passed and I had lost all of my progress. They're like, “Okay, we're going to get the OB in.” She comes in and she says, “You could tear.” I said, “I would rather tear than have a C-section. I don't want to have a C-section.” Then I said, “What are the chances that this will work?” She said, “I wouldn't do it if I didn't think it would work.” As she tried to get the forceps on, I could feel my body pushing. I'm like, “Can I push? Can I push?” She's like, “No, don't push right now.” My body is doing it for me and she can't get the forceps on so she's like, “I can't do it.” As she was trying to put the forceps on, baby started getting tachycardic so they said, “Things are going to get really scary for a minute because this is an emergency C-section. A lot of people are coming in here and we have to turn on alarms in the hallway because we have to get you to the OR really quickly.” Meagan: Wait, so baby's heart rate is high not low, and just because baby's heart rate went a little high, they treated it as a true emergency. Kelsey: Yes. Meagan: Okay. 29:31 Kelsey's Cesarean under general anesthesiaKelsey: They start throwing clothes at my husband. There were people piling in. I'm in a hospital that is French-speaking. I can speak French but not medical terminology. Nobody is talking to me. They're all just talking around me and they're rushing me down the hallway. I'm bawling and I'm like, “I don't want this.” I have no idea where my husband is. They're trying to push my legs together but baby is so low that it hurts to do that. I'm telling them to stop and whatnot. We get into the OR and I was inconsolable because I was terrified. They gave me my spinal which didn't take. They gave me the pinch test and I was like, “I can feel it. I can feel it.” I'm crying, “Please just put me out. I don't want to be awake for this. I'm scared.” They're not talking to me and that's the last thing I remember is saying, “I can feel that,” and they put me out. I was under general anesthesia and I woke up 2 hours later in recovery by myself. It was COVID. It was in December 2021. My husband couldn't be there. I asked where he was and they said, “Oh, he's in your room with your baby. Everything is fine.” I was sobbing. The first thing she said to me was, “Everything went great. You are a great candidate for a VBAC.” That stuck with me. The whole way back to my room, I was staring at the ceiling. I couldn't look at anyone. I was just devastated by how everything had gone. I didn't think I could ever look at my husband or my baby ever again. I was just like, What happened?I hear my husband. He is like, “You need to see. Our baby is here. You should see him. He is so beautiful. He has the most beautiful eyes.” He came around to my bed and he passed me my son and nothing mattered. None of it mattered. He was 9 pounds, 8 ounces so I was right. He was born on December 4th which I had said at 5:11 PM. Meagan: Oh my gosh. Kelsey: Yeah. He had a full head of dark hair. He was born in a snowstorm. That was the other thing. I said, “He's going to be born in a snowstorm,” because my husband and I were both born during a snowstorm and he was born during a snowstorm. Yeah, he was perfect. He was huge and he was chunky and he looked exactly like me. Normally, they look like their dads is what I've heard but he looked exactly like me and was so beautiful. Throughout my pregnancy, I don't like being pregnant because I don't like sharing my body I've learned. Throughout my pregnancy, I said, “I don't want another. I don't think I want another.” When he was born and I held him, I was like, “I will do this again in a heartbeat.” 34:50 Second pregnancy and VBAC prepKelsey: Postpartum was good. I ended up starting therapy 5 days after my C-section. He latched and he did not have breastmilk for his first feed which makes me really sad. I was devastated from the C-section because I didn't get to see my baby be born. I didn't get to hear his first cry. I didn't get to touch him first and my husband wasn't there. He wasn't allowed to be in the room. Postpartum was fine. I was seriously anemic. I was incredibly swollen. I had no knees because I was on fluids for so long and getting around was awful, but I just focused on our baby. He was perfect. He was so easy and 6 weeks rolled around and I was like, “Let's have another.” But we waited. We decided around 9 months to start trying again and loosely trying because again, we were wondering how long it would take. Meagan: Right. Kelsey: We ended up trying got 6 months and I got pregnant in April of 2023. My due date was December 29th. Again, super, super easy pregnancy throughout. Immediately after my C-section, I decided to look into VBAC because that stuck in my head. I had been listening to a different birth story podcast. I searched for VBACs and there weren't many and then I searched VBAC in general on Spotify and came across you guys.I started listening to VBACs before getting pregnant and I started doing lots of research about it. I learned about the cascade of interventions and how my case was really typical. I started learning about OP babies and how the pain I was feeling correlated with that. I wanted to try for a birth in a birthing center. Now, when I got pregnant with my second baby, I was living in Gatineau but we had a bunch of stuff happen. My mother-in-law ended up splitting up with her husband. We said, Hey, let's buy a house in Ontario together and we'll move in. I found out I was pregnant about 2 weeks before we put in an offer on a house and we moved in in July when I was 15 weeks pregnant. At the time, my GP was my provider for my first and I started off with her with my second as well. The thing was when I found out I was pregnant, I went to her. Sorry, I should have said. After my C-section, I went to her and said, “I was told I was a good candidate for a VBAC.” She said, “Yes, but you cannot go over your due date. We're going to monitor your baby to see how big it is because you had a big baby before. You cannot be induced. You need to have 18 months between pregnancies.” Typical. Meagan: All of the red flags. Kelsey: Yeah. This was before I started listening to your podcast. Then I started listening to your podcast and when I went in to see her when I found out I was pregnant before I had gone into a birthing center, I said to her– and I'm not an outspoken person. I struggle to advocate for myself. I said, “I want to try for a VBAC, but I do not want you to put limitations on me.” I said, “I know that I can safely have a VBAC even if there is less than 18 months between my pregnancies. From birth to birth, it was 2 years and a bit so it didn't matter. I said, “I know that big babies are 10 pounds+. That is macrosomia. I know that.” I said, “I know that I can't be induced.” In Canada, they generally don't do Pitocin for VBACs at all. They don't generally induce for VBACs at all. I said, “I do know that there are safe ways to induce though and I do know that I can safely go past my due date.” She said, “I believe in informed consent and if you understand all of this, I think that you are well prepared and we can move forward with a VBAC.” I said, “Great.” I had applied for birthing centers prior to this but it is really hard to get into them here. I ended up being able to get into one in Gatineau. I was concerned about moving over cross-provinces again. It ended up working out. I did stick with my GP until I was about 20 weeks pregnant just in case. It didn't work out with the birthing center after my move. What happened was, she was super, super supportive, but she would say things like, “Do you want me to book you an appointment with an OB just in case?” or “Do you want me to book you a C-section at 40 weeks just in case?” I was like, “No, I don't want you to.” She said, “Okay,” but around 20 weeks, my midwife was like, “We can keep you on even though you live in Ontario. It's no problem.” I said to my GP, “My midwife will keep me on.” My GP said, “You sound like a really good candidate so go ahead. I really hope it works for you. I hope that it's everything that you want.”Meagan: That's good. Kelsey: She was very supportive of it so I felt really good about it. 41:07 Switching to midwivesKelsey: I switched to the midwives full-time. My pregnancy was super smooth again, but there were little hiccups. I didn't pass my one-hour gestational diabetes test. They said, “If you have gestational diabetes and it can't be managed, we will have to transfer care.” Around 37 weeks, I started measuring large and they said, “We think we want to send you for an ultrasound just to be sure of how big baby is.” I said, “I know that those ultrasounds aren't super accurate so I'm not sure that's what I want.”I ended up getting a doula through The VBAC Link. I found a doula. Meagan: Yay!Kelsey: Yeah, what was funny about the doula is she was pregnant too and her due date was a week after mine and we found out that we were giving birth at the same place. Meagan: Oh my gosh. Kelsey: So she was like, “I'll keep you on and I'll do your prenatal appointments, but I probably won't be at your birth. I have a partner who is a nutritionist.” She ended up being amazing. My son was in daycare. I got sick a lot and I couldn't take anything for it so she would help me find natural ways of dealing with a cough. I think I had pregnancy rhinitis for the last trimester. I was constantly congested. I had terrible acid reflux. She originally had prescribed chest openers, but my midwife ended up putting me on medication for it because of the trigger to cough. She was afraid that my cough could trigger my water breaking too early. I couldn't give birth at the birth center if baby came before 37 weeks. I had to make it past 37 weeks. Yeah, so pregnancy was smooth. I was extremely nauseous in the beginning. It was really hard with a less-than-two-year-old. I kept him home because I'm a teacher. I'm home over the summer. I kept him home over the summer and it was rough because he just is needy and my 9.5-pound baby continued to stay in the 99th percentile for height and weight. He wanted to be carried everywhere but he is so heavy and he is still so heavy. I was a lot more active during this pregnancy than I had been prior. I tried really hard to walk and whatnot and do lots of stretches. Around 30 weeks, baby was still breech and I started to panic a little bit. I started doing Spinning Babies exercises and lots of inversions and whatnot.When I first met with my doula, I talked with her about everything. I was able to just spit out facts that I had learned from you guys. She was like, “I've never met someone who is this prepared or who knows this much.” She was like, “I have all of this stuff to go over with you, but you already know it.” She ended up as well becoming certified in HypnoBirthing so I took a HypnoBirthing class. I was really concerned about doing an unmedicated VBAC because I didn't know if I could handle the pain of it. I had originally wanted to VBAC in the hospital, but I watched– what is that documentary with Ricki Lake? Meagan: Um, okay, hold on. Kelsey: The Business of Being Born. Meagan: Yes, that's all I could think of was Born. The Business of Being Born. Kelsey: My entire perspective on birth completely changed. My husband watched it with me and he was blown away by it. He was just like, “I want that. I want that for us. I want to be a huge part of this. I want to help you through it and be an active participant. Let's do this.” We did the prenatal classes with my doula. He learned all of the pain management techniques. He was so excited for counterpressure and he wanted to be active. He was fully supportive and he wanted to catch our baby. This time around, we didn't find out the sex of our baby. We wanted it to be a surprise. I was 100% sure it would be a girl. I didn't even pick out a boy name. Anyway, we get to December 21st. I get checked and she can't even reach my cervix. It was so posterior. I was super discouraged, in tears discouraged because I was afraid of going past my due date and they were afraid that this baby was going to be so big because I was measuring large. 46:14 Beginning of laborKelsey: Overnight, I started to have contractions. They were kind of regular, but they were manageable. December 22nd rolls around and I'm still having contractions on and off and I start feeling sick. I had pulled my son out of daycare to prevent getting sick. I started to get a cough and I was really congested. I wasn't feeling well at all. I was supposed to go to Costco with my mom that day. I texted her in the morning, “I'm having contractions. Not feeling great. Let's cancel,” but because my son was home, things started to slow down with the contractions. I said, “You know what? Never mind. I need something to do today.” My mom picks me up and my husband and her are joking that I'm going to go into labor at Costco. We walked the entirety of Costco as I was having contractions. My 18-year-old brother is in the back of the car. I'm breathing through them and he's like, “What is happening right now?”I get home. I started timing them and they were 6 minutes apart. My husband decides that he is going to take our son. He was kind of off work so he took over care of our 2-year-old. I ended up going and taking a bath and all of the contractions stopped. That night, they started again and then on the 24th of December, they were still pretty inconsistent but my doula was suggesting things like, “Oh, if you're comfortable, have sex, then take a shower. Sit on the toilet and do nipple stimulation for 15 minutes on each side and see if that gets things going.” We had sex and then it all stopped. We kept trying things and then my doula was like, “I just think that maybe your body needs to rest and relax so let's try resting and relaxing.” Well then, the 25th is Christmas Day and I decided to host Christmas. Meagan: Because that would be a really good distraction. Kelsey: Yeah, I was like, “It's going to be fine.” My mother-in-law was like, “I'll cook Christmas dinner.” Prior to that, I had all of these ideas. I'm going to make bread by myself. I'm going to make all of these desserts. I'm going to make puppy chow. I'm going to wrap all of my kid's Christmas gifts. I'm going to put together his Pikler Triangel we got for him and wrap that. Just all of these things that I wanted to do for Christmas. By the 24th, I was so exhausted from the contractions that I didn't bake anything. There was no way. But I did host Christmas dinner and everyone told me, “Why? Why are you doing that?” I was like, “Well, it will be easy,” because my husband and I are both from divorced families. We'll just have everyone over for Christmas, and then we won't have to worry about going to anyone else. We had my mom and my brothers came over and his step-mom came over and my step-dad came over. It just was not great. Meagan: Like Christmas Vacation where the door keeps opening and all of the family members keep showing up. Kelsey: I know. I was still having contractions. I couldn't stand up or sit down without having a contraction. I was just exhausted and uncomfortable and felt huge. People are like, “How are you doing?” I'm like, “I'm surviving. Right now, I'm just surviving.” So anyway, finally Christmas Day is over and Boxing Day, I wake up at 7:30. I had a weird contraction. I went to the washroom and I had my bloody show. I was like, “I'm just going to try to go back to bed,” because my son and my husband weren't up but my back started to hurt. I was like, “Okay, I'm actually just going to get my son up and go downstairs.” My husband got up with me. We go downstairs. We started getting my son ready. I'm like, “I'm going to get in the bath and see if my contractions stop because I'm really uncomfortable.” I called my midwife from the bathtub and I said, “They are 5 minutes apart and they haven't stopped, but I'm scared to come in because what if this isn't real?” She said, “If you're in the bathtub and they are still going, this is real labor. You need to get here now.” 51:07 Driving to the birth centerKelsey: We get all of our stuff in the car. It was a 50-minute drive to the birthing center. Meagan: 50? 5-0?Kelsey: 5-0. Meagan: Okay. Kelsey: The good part was that they were regularly 4 minutes so I could look at the clock and know that I was going to have a contraction and I could breathe through it. I was managing pretty well at that point, but before we had left, my mother-in-law decided to stop me at the door. She was like, “So where are you feeling them?” I'm like, “I just need to go. Please just let me go. I can't talk to you right now.” My husband is trying to get me out the door too because he knows. We get to the birthing center. It was nice because I could choose the color of my room. They had options for the color of your room so I chose purple. I get into my room. It's now 10:00. I could hear in the next room a woman screaming, literally screaming. I start panicking. I can hear her yelling, “Get out of me already!” Meagan: Aww. Kelsey: My vagina is on fire! I'm panicking. My midwife says, “I need to monitor you for a little bit, so can you get on the bed? I'm going to monitor your baby's heart rate and then I'm going to monitor your contractions.” She could get baby's heartbeat and she couldn't get my contractions on the monitor. At this point, I'm starting to panic because I can still hear the woman screaming. My husband's like, “I'm going to get you your headphones.” He gets me my headphones. Meagan: Very good call. Kelsey: He gets me my headphones and puts on my birth playlist. I'm laying there and things start getting really intense really fast. I was panicking that the same thing that had happened with my son was happening again. But I started getting irate and my midwife still couldn't get the contractions on the monitor. I remember flinging my headphones off and just being like, “I need to go to the bathroom. Let me up. I can't lay here anymore.”She's like, “Okay. If you need to go to the bathroom, go to the bathroom.” I'm sitting there on the toilet. I'm crying and I'm telling my husband that I can't do this. In the back of my head, I know what that means, but I couldn't ration with myself at that point. My midwife hadn't checked me yet at all so she goes, “I really want to check you because we haven't done that.” I had to get off the toilet. I didn't want to and as I was getting off the toilet, I was so hot. I'm flinging my clothes off. I get to the edge of my bed and I'm like, “It's not me. It's my body. I'm pushing.” I saw my stomach contort. It was just like my whole body was not me at all. It was so wild to me. My midwife gets me on the bed finally and she checks me and she goes, “You're at the 7th centimeter.” She said, “You're a second-time mom so if your body feels like it, it remembers. You can start pushing whenever you want.” It was such a different experience from being told in the hospital, “Do not push,” when I'm at 10 centimeters to my midwife being like, “If your body is pushing, it's fine.” 54:49 Pushing baby out in two pushesKelsey: So she put me over a ball and then she called in the assistant midwife because she was like, “This is happening very soon.” The assistant midwife comes in and that was funny because she goes, “My name is Gabrielle.” I had a friend who had gone to the birth center who had Gabrielle. I turned to her and said, “You know my friend, Kelly.” She was just like, “Yeah.” I'm like, “I heard you're really good.” She's like, “Okay, let's–.”So over the ball, my husband tried to do counterpressure on me and I was like, “Don't. Don't do it.” But he pressed my tailbone down and that made a huge difference and I just kind of let my body do its thing. They had to flip me a couple of times and I ended up being put on my back to push for the final little bit because they needed to keep monitoring baby's heart rate. It kept going down every time I had a contraction so they were a little concerned. At one point, they said, “Don't panic, but we are going to call an ambulance just in case just because we keep seeing this. We're going to call an ambulance just so that they are here.” Yeah, so I pushed on my back for a while and I remember at one point, she said, “The head's right there. If you reach down, you can touch it.” I was like, “I'm going to have my baby vaginally.” My husband was like, “Yeah, you are.” I was just so excited. In one push, his head came out and she goes, “Ope, he's OP.” He was sunny-side up. My husband was like, “He's looking at me.” Well, sorry. That's a spoiler. “They're looking at me. I can see the baby. Their eyes are open. Their mouth is going.” And then she said, “Okay, next time, one really big push,” and he came out on the second push. My husband caught him and put him right on my chest. I was like, “What is it? What is it?” It was another boy, so spoiler alert. We didn't have a name. I got to hold him on my chest for 2 hours. We did delayed cord clamping. My doula made it in the last 15 minutes and she said to me, “I think Victoria is in the next room having her baby.” Meagan: Nuh-uh. I wondered when you were saying that. I was like, I wondered if that was her doula. Oh my gosh. Kelsey: Literally, our babies were born 2 hours apart. Meagan: Oh, that's so cool. Kelsey: We were in the birthing center at the same time which was wild. I got to see her on my way out which was really nice. Meagan: That's so special. Kelsey: Neither of us knew what we were having and we both had little boys. They weighed him and my super big baby was 8 pounds, 3 ounces. Meagan: Perfect. Kelsey: Perfect. Yeah. People were like, “That's a good-sized baby.” I'm like, “My first was 9.5 pounds. He's tiny.” My husband got to tell me the sex of the baby which was another thing I really, really wanted. We did delayed cord clamping. We had the golden hour. We just got to sit there and compared to my prior experience, I just felt so cared for. I remember a midwife putting a cold cloth on my head and I thanked her. Her response was, “I know you are grateful. Save your strength.” She was just like, “You don't need to tell me thank you at this moment. Just don't talk at all. I know you are thankful.”Meagan: Enjoy. Kelsey: Yeah, I was given water in between pushing. My doula sat there and rubbed my eyebrows so I wasn't tense because I learned about the fear/tension/pain cycle. My husband got to be a huge part of it and he got to cut the cord. He didn't get to do that with our first. He got to hold our baby. He touched him before anyone. It was just– my husband and I talked about it for a while afterward and he was just like, “You know, why is this not the gold standard for birth? Why is this not what we do every time? This is the most incredible thing.” We recorded the entire thing. Meagan: Yay. If you decide you want to share, post it in the community. Kelsey: There is a 30-minute video out there because my son was actually, so my first birth was 38 hours total. My second birth, I had my first real contraction at 7:30 AM. My son was born at 12:38 PM. There were 5 hours. Meagan: Another five, by the way. Kelsey: I know, so weird. I was not psychic for this birth because I had a boy. I was so convinced I was going to have a girl but he was a little boy and he was baby no-name for four days. We ended up naming him Oliver. 1:00:24 Differences in careKelsey: Yeah, I just felt so cared about and looked after. There were differences like my husband had to go out and search for food after I gave birth after my first. He was so exhausted, he couldn't get out of the parking lot so my mother-in-law had to drive in to bring us food. I ended up scarfing down Popeye's but I had been intubated and my throat hurt so badly. I ate the world's driest biscuit and thought I was going to choke and die. But with my second birth, they had a postpartum doula who was there. She offered me lentil soup and a grilled cheese so that was my first meal. Meagan: So much better. Kelsey: Yeah, lovely lentil soup and grilled cheese. My son had been placed on my chest but I still had my bra so they washed it for me before I left. Just small things like that, I felt like I was cared for. Meagan: Yeah, absolutely. Kelsey: We ended up leaving at 5:00 PM. We were home in time to eat dinner at home. Meagan: Yeah. Yeah. Kelsey: That postpartum experience was incredible. We literally, I was able to get up and walk and I wasn't dizzy or anything. I barely felt like I had a baby. I did have a second-degree tear but for some reason was just completely unbothered by it. My midwife came to me postpartum which was really lovely. 1:02:11 EnterovirusKelsey: However, one thing I did want to touch on was I had a cold during labor and this is something I wanted to mention because it is not something I knew about. I had a cough and five days postpartum, on New Year's Eve, my doula came. Not my doula, my midwife. As they do, she temped my baby and he was measuring a little hot. She temped him a second time and he was normal. Around 4:00 AM on New Year's Day, I realized he was very warm. I temped him and he had a fever. I only know Celsius but it was 39.9 which is really high. I temped him a second time and he was 39.2. Anything over 38 is a fever. I ended up having to take him to the hospital and I didn't know what the protocol was if your baby gets a fever below two months. We were pretty much admitted on the spot. He had the full workup. He had bloodwork done. He had a lumbar puncture done. He didn't have a birth certificate and had to have a lumbar puncture done because the problem was that they were looking for infections. When they did his lumbar puncture, they did find something. He had a virus called an enterovirus. In adults, it's just a common cold, but if you get it while you are pregnant, you can pass it through your placenta to your baby just before you deliver and your baby can be born with the virus. It can just present as a fever, but it can also progress to viral meningitis. Meagan: Oh, scary. Kelsey: My son was kept in the hospital for two nights. Because of the fever, he stopped nursing. He was super sleepy and they make you stay for two nights even if they perk up and are nursing and everything seems fine. They will keep you for two nights because they are looking for things to grow on the lumbar puncture. If a fever indicates an infection and because the blood/brain barrier is so thin, infections can spread super quickly to the brain. Meagan: Scary. Kelsey: He ended up being okay. He didn't have viral meningitis and I had the most incredible angel nurse while I was there. I was so grateful for her. I forgot my Peri bottle at home and she made me one. She did everything she could to prevent my son from being put on an NG tube while still getting the fluids he needed. She managed to get him nursing enough that we didn't have to switch to an NG tube. We didn't have to switch to bottle feeding. He continued to nurse. She stuck up for me when a resident came in and was like, “Well, what's his urine output like?” I was like, “I don't know. I have no idea.” She was like, “All of that is in his chart if you just check it. She's obviously very tired. Leave her alone.” I had a lovely angel nurse but it is something I wanted to touch on because I had never heard of enterovirus. I did know what to do if your baby got a fever, but it definitely is that you take them right to the emergency room. Generally, they will admit you for two days. But yeah, otherwise, my postpartum experience was night and day compared with my C-section. I was up and moving and I did experience baby blues with my first. I cried for weeks. With my second, I was just so over the moon. But yeah, that's my VBAC. Meagan: I love it. Thank you so much for sharing that. I had actually never heard of enterovirus.Kelsey: Enterovirus.Meagan: Enterovirus. I was like, What the heck? That's actually with an E. I didn't know that. I just Googled that so it's really, really good to know that's a thing. It does look like it's pretty rare but it's something to take seriously. Sorry, my dog was barking in the background. He's got something to say too.I'm so happy for you and I'm so happy that you could see that it was a very similar situation with an OP baby and things like that and you were still able to deliver vaginally. Maybe it was a little bit of that asynclitic position that maybe made it a little harder to get under that pubic bone. It sounds like in ways they were willing to help you, but they also didn't help you too much either. Kelsey: No. Meagan: Yeah. I just love that you were able to prove to yourself too. Not that we have to prove anything to ourselves or anybody, but it is definitely nice when you are like, This is the same situation and look, I did it. Yes, my baby was a little smaller, but it probably wasn't the size more than it was just a slight bit of position and probably the cascade. I love that.1:08:02 Risk factors for forceps and vacuum deliveriesMeagan: Okay, so before I let you go, I wanted to touch a little bit more on those risk factors for forceps and vacuum because we talked about that in the beginning and tearing. Tearing is definitely a risk. You even said with your VBAC baby that you tore a little bit which is really common with a posterior baby coming out vaginally too just to let listeners know. Tearing can happen. It can happen with any baby. We can get rectal pain. Posterior babies, oh my gosh. Amazing to not only labor with one but push one out. It is hard work. You did an amazing job. Yeah. It may have a lower chance or a higher chance of coming out vaginally just in general. For baby, that bruising to the head or even nerve damage. It's really rare but it is a thing. Temporary swelling, skull fractures– again, it's rare but it is a thing so these are all things to take into consideration. For vacuum, we've got weakened pelvic floor, tears as well, possible even larger tears weirdly enough so that's a thing and then yeah, for baby, the suction can pop off and need to be replaced or cause hematomas there. Just all things to take into consideration. In the show notes, I know this wasn't a complete forceps delivery, but because it was something within your story, I wanted to touch on that today and make sure we included links. If you guys want to learn more, check out the show notes. Also, I just think it's so fun that you and your doula were at the birth center at the same time giving birth at the same time. There are so many fun things about this story. Amazing support it sounds like from your husband, from your family, and from all of the things. I just loved your story and appreciate you so much. Kelsey: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Meagan: Absolutely. 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.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

Emily's first birth experience was a home birth turned hospital transfer which ended in a C-section and then a birth center VBAC ending in hospital transfer and another C-section with her second. She found herself feeling alone, frustrated, and surrounded by people who just didn't get it as she worked to process the trauma and grief of not one but two back-to-back traumatic births and C-sections. Throughout her journey, Emily took charge of what she could, learned about her options, and made the right decisions even when they were disappointing. Emily has been proactive about physical and emotional healing. She has been open to new perspectives. Emily is grateful to share her story and all that she has learned for other mamas who have found themselves in similar situations. And we are so grateful that we can feel of her strength! The VBAC Link Blog: How to Cope When You Don't Get Your VBACThe VBAC Link Blog: Deciding on VBAC vs Repeat CesareanNPR ArticleSpinning Babies: What to Do When...Needed WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details 05:02 Review of the Week09:10 Emily's first pregnancy and labor14:59 First C-section17:47 Second pregnancy21:16 Moving and switching providers33:20 Pushing for 5 hours35:45 Transferring37:47 C-section41:29 Tips for adhesions44:20 Hospital births are beautiful49:09 All about transferringMeagan: Hello, everybody. It is Meagan and we have our friend, Emily, with us from Texas today. Hello, Emily. How are you?Emily: I'm good. How are you?Meagan: I am wonderful. I am so wonderful. I love recording these stories if you can't tell. We are producing them a lot because I love recording. I love hearing these stories and sharing these stories. Your story is a CBAC story which I think is so important to share on The VBAC Link Podcast. As technically a CBAC mama myself because I don't know if anybody knows who is listening, but I had a C-section then I wanted a VBAC and had a Cesarean and then I had a vaginal birth. So all over the place. CBAC is really special to my heart and I think that this is such an important topic to share on the podcast because we know that obviously, so many C-sections are happening, right? I also think it's important to know that sometimes even when we are preparing for a VBAC, it might end in a Cesarean birth and even more important, I think it's really important to know that Cesarean births can be healing and are a lot of the times healing. Would you agree with me, Emily? Emily: Yes. I mean, I loved hearing the healing stories. Mine was not and I think that's what I yearned for to her is that I'm not alone and it's okay to have a repeat C-section and I hate calling it a failed VBAC, but a repeat C-section that wasn't wanted and wasn't healing. I mean, my second birth was much more traumatic than my first. I mean, I hate saying traumatic because I have two beautiful, healthy babies, but I also want listeners to know that just because you have a healthy baby and you didn't have serious complications you can't feel what you felt about the trauma of it all. Meagan: Okay, and I love that you point that out too because just as much as Cesarean birth can be healing and can be amazing, it can also have a lot of that trauma. Trauma, I think, is a completely valid word to use. It can be used to be described as traumatic. It can be described as hurtful. I was angry. I was angry when I walked myself down for my second C-section. I didn't want that. That was not what I wanted. It was not what I planned. Yeah. Also, going into that it doesn't always happen the way we want to. It can go both ways so that's why I think sharing CBAC stories on this podcast is so important because we have to learn both sides of things. We have to know that Cesarean birth can be healing and it can be exactly what someone needs and it can also be traumatic and not what someone needs. I think that through these stories and through the journeys, this is how we learn how to try to avoid trauma and anger and hurt along the way. 05:02 Review of the WeekMeagan: Before we get into this story, I do want to read a review. Okay, Emily, so remind me. You had a home birth transfer? Emily: Yes. A home birth transfer C-section and then birth center transfer C-section. Meagan: Birth center transfer C-section, yeah. I also want to talk about transfers at the end. We're going to talk a little bit about transferring and when it might be a good time to transfer, when it might be starting to give us signs that we might not be in the best place, and then also how to go about what to do after you transfer if you're transferring because that can also be a big mess too sometimes transferring depending on how the hospital responds to you. We'll dive in to these stories but I do want to read a Review of the Week. This was from winben18 from Apple Podcasts and it was on May 19, 2023, so a year ago right now. It says, “I had my first baby in 2021 11 pounds at 42 weeks via Cesarean because he wouldn't descend. I was told I couldn't birth him because he was too big and my pelvis was too small, but I always knew that wasn't true. My mother, a very petite woman, birthed me naturally and I was 11 pounds, 9 ounces. In 2023, I had my VBAC with another 11-pound baby. No epidural, 7-hour labor, and I credit that success to The VBAC Link. I started listening to them religiously at 38 weeks when my provider started fearmongering me about birthing a big baby. I needed every little bit of encouragement and The VBAC Link provided that. It's incredible how your body's physical capabilities start with your mindset. Thank you ladies for all of your stories. I wouldn't have been able to do it without you.” Wow, that was an amazing review and so grateful. Holy cow, winben18, yay for an 11-pound, 8-ounce baby. I agree with what she said that it starts with our mindset. A lot of the time it does. We can also be in the best mindset ever and things might not unfold that way but if we can set our mindset and get going and get the education and the empowerment and the encouragement, you never know. Things can go a really long way. So as always, if you guys have a moment, we would love your reviews. You can leave it on Apple Podcasts. You can leave it on Google even or on Spotify. We would love a 5-star review and if you can, comment. Tell us what you guys think. Emily: I love stories of petite women birthing big babies actually because I'm smaller and I had big babies. I'm like, I know I could do it.Meagan: Yes. Yes. She talked about fearmongering. A lot of people do get fearmongered. They start saying, “Oh, I don't really think you can,” and it's so hard when we have a lot of people doubting our own bodies and then we start doubting them even though we didn't have doubt originally. It's so hard. It can be a tough cycle, but Women of Strength, it is possible. 09:10 Emily's first pregnancy and laborMeagan: Okay, Emily. Let's dive into these stories. I know you mentioned in the beginning that you had a second Cesarean and it wasn't amazing. It wasn't amazing, so I would love for you to of course share your stories but also maybe talk about tips you would suggest for someone in your situation maybe looking back where you're like, Oh, I could have done this, or tips for people in your situation. Emily: Okay, so my first son was born in May 2022. I got pregnant with him in September 2021 and I knew immediately that I wanted midwifery care. I wanted a home birth and to be honest, I had no fear. I was very confident. I was like, I can do this. I'm in shape. I eat healthy. There is no reason why this isn't going to go perfectly. I mean, I can't be the only one who has thought that and it was the complete opposite. It was a fine pregnancy. I was very, very sick until about 20 weeks. I lost almost 10 pounds in my first trimester, but it turned out to be a wonderful pregnancy. I love being pregnant. I love it. Anyway, I went into labor at 6:00 AM and I guess active labor really started around noon. We were at home. My husband started filling up the birth pool. My midwife was on the way and she had an assistant midwife with her. So really, we just labored at home. Then I would say probably about early evening, they checked me and I hadn't made very much progress. I think I was at a 4 or a 5 and I'm trying to remember correctly. I think that's when they told me that the baby was at a tilt. Meagan: Asynclitic or the whole body? Emily: You know, I really don't know and I think a lot of it has to do with why I have struggled so much with that birth because I feel like that birth catapulted me into the next C-section, but I feel like they had said anterior tilt, but I don't think that is correct. They broke my water because I wasn't progressing and then they were trying to turn him after the fact. I think that's where things went downhill. They checked me. I wasn't progressing. They were like, “We can break your water. It will speed things up.” And I agreed. I think that was my first mistake. I think a lot of that has to do with me not preparing as well as I should have and me with the mindset of, I can do this, no problem. That is my first regret from my first birth.Anyway, so they broke my water and then after that as everyone knows, contractions were off the wall. They had me laboring in one position on the bed on my left side to try to get him to turn and then they had me on the toilet so I went back and forth between there. Every other contraction, they were in there trying to turn him. So basically, this went on until about 4:00 AM at home. It was my first labor. I was in an extreme amount of pain and I just was exhausted. I felt like it wasn't going like I planned obviously. So anyway, we transferred to the hospital. That was about a 30-minute drive to the hospital which was not fun at all. It was the wee hours of the morning so we went in through the emergency room, got up to triage, and I think I got my epidural within 45 minutes to an hour and just from what I remember, that was a very intense hour. I just remember thinking, What the heck? This is not how childbirth should be. Anyway, so I got my epidural. I labored with an epidural for a few hours and they started me on Pitocin so epidural, Pitocin– Meagan: The usual. Emily: Yeah. Nothing was really happening. They were doing Spinning Babies with the peanut ball and the bed to try to get him positioned better. Long story short, we got to an 8 and this was probably gosh, almost 48 hours later that I got to an 8. The hospital where I birthed is very home-birth and transfer-friendly. I had midwives on staff there who cared for me. One of the midwives home birthed her babies too so that was cool to have her caring for me and understanding my mindset of wanting to birth at home and then obviously I wasn't at home anymore. But regardless, they were saying, my water hadn't broken for over 24 hours. They weren't concerned about that and I loved the evidence-based care there. I love that. But they did tell me, “You know, the way things are going, you could get to a 10. You could push for a couple of hours and end up in an emergency C-section.” It's almost like that verbiage right there was enough for me to be like, “This is it. Let's call it. Let's get the baby out. We want to meet our baby.” We were being surprised on the gender so we were very excited for this baby to get here. I went to 39+5 with him. 14:59 First C-sectionEmily: And so anyway, we called it and we did the C-section. I don't think– obviously the birth was traumatic for reasons like I explained, but the C-section wasn't awful. I didn't feel any tugging. It was a very pleasant Cesarean. They did delayed cord clamping, not traditional delayed clamping, but they waited for it to stop pulsing and cut it. They took him to the table and did all of the hospital things and then wrapped him all up and gave him to me. I was able to do skin-to-skin and nurse while they put me back together. Then they took him off to the nursery. I remember them asking, “Do you want your husband to go with him?” I'm like, “Yes.” I think it was just those little things. Those are the moments and tidbits that I think any mom who has experienced traumatic births thinks back on. I didn't get to touch him right away and I had all of these dreams. I wanted a water birth and my whole pregnancy, I was like, I'm going to pull this baby right up to my chest and nurse him and it's going to be beautiful. When you have that dream and then you get the most extreme opposite, I mean not to the fact that I was under general anesthesia and it was horrible, but in my mind, it was the complete opposite of what I wanted and it sucked. Anyway, so then we go back to recovery and I'm nursing him and everyone who has had a C-section listens to this podcast or most of them. You don't really feel a lot of pain until the second and third day when most everything wears off. It was just hard. It was a hard recovery. It was hard to hold him. He was almost 9 pounds. It was hard holding him. When you nurse a baby, they sit on your belly. It was just hard. I also struggled with vertigo and I got horrible vertigo on my last day at the hospital. I was throwing up which is awful after abdominal surgery and they gave me a pill to stop the vertigo. Then the lactation lady comes in and says, “Oh, that's a level 3 dry-you-up pill.” So then I'm into supply issues and it was just an awful, awful recovery. I hate saying that. I want to be positive, but it just was not fun then on top of that, I was doing triple feeds. I was nursing, then supplementing, and pumping. My milk really didn't come in for 3 weeks. I was very blessed. When it came in, it was in and I got over the dry-up. All in all, it wasn't great. 17:47 Second pregnancyEmily: Anyway, fast forward, I got pregnant 6 months later. It was not planned. I remember taking a shower and I have unscented face soap and I could smell it. I was like, Oh my gosh, no. I took a test and it was positive. The baby was asleep. He was asleep in his bassinet right by my bed and I went to my husband, “I'm pregnant.” My husband, I want to give a shoutout to husbands who are supportive and there. I could not ask for a better partner during labor, during births, and recoveries. He is right there. He is an amazing man, so I want to give a shoutout to him. But yeah, so then I'm pregnant again with a 6-month-old and I knew immediately I wanted to VBAC. I started to look for supportive providers and we were in Austin which you would think Austin has wonderful doctors. It is very progressive in the medical industry, but I was really struggling to find a provider who would accept me. A lot of midwives turned me away. Birth centers turned me away. Meagan: Was that because of the duration or just because you were a VBAC in general? Emily: It was the duration. Meagan: Okay. Emily: I should note that. My babies were 15 months apart. Most of the birth centers want you to be 12 months postpartum by the time you get pregnant and then OB offices are a hit-and-miss, I feel like, with any VBAC. But I found, for anyone who is local to central Texas, I found Austin Doulas I think it was what it was called. I called them and they gave me the name of an OB office. They assured me that all of the OBs on staff were very VBAC-friendly. I contacted them. I should note also that when I found out I was pregnant, I called my first midwife. I was like, “Listen.” I love my midwife. We connected on so many levels. I do think there were things done in labor that shouldn't have happened that catapulted me into the transfer and the C-section, but nonetheless, I loved her. I called her and I was like, “Hey, I would love to do my prenatal care with you and then maybe deliver at the hospital.” This is where my mindset was at the time. She basically told me that yes she could do my prenatal care but I would have to have a planned C-section at 39 weeks. At that point, I was like, Okay. I have learned enough in the little prep I had done in my first birth to know that was not necessary. So I go and she did schedule me for a growth scan because I did not know how far along I was. I ended up being almost 8 weeks pregnant by the time I did the growth scan. Anyway, so then I started my care at the OB office around 12 weeks. They were very supportive. I remember at one of my appointments, they gave me this sheet. It was a VBAC facts sheet and they had you initial every line on every item. It was very much saying that VBAC is safer than a repeat C-section for the right client. I told my husband, “Wow, this is great. I love this.” So we stayed there for a while. I know I shared in my notes I transferred care at 34 weeks. I feel like before I talk about that, I should say that at 6 months pregnant, we moved. 21:16 Moving and switching providersEmily: For anyone listening, unless you have to, I don't recommend that especially with a 10-month-old. I think he was 8 or 9 or 10 months at the time. It was a lot of work, but we were living in Austin. Austin is very busy. We didn't have any family around. Our friends were far. It was a good hour drive from any of our friends so we decided to move back to my husband's hometown where we had friends and family. It was just like we needed to go. As we know, the real estate market was in a really good position. I know it ebbs and flows but at the time, we were like, Now is a good time. Let's just do it.So anyway, we moved. I was 6 months pregnant when we moved and we continued care at my OB office in Austin. I was driving. I would take the baby to his grandma's and then I would drive into town, a 2-hour drive for these appointments. At this point, it felt so difficult for me to find care and we live in a small town. Now after the fact, it's hard to find supportive providers where we are without driving into Houston or Austin. So anyway, around 34 weeks, and this is probably silly on my part, but they stopped calling me a VBAC and started calling me a TOLAC, a trial of labor. Meagan: But they were calling you a VBAC prior. Emily: Yes. Yeah. We got closer and I think also when you've had midwifery care and you go to a traditional OB type of care, it's just worlds different. You get big and big and later and later in your pregnancy and you are hormonal. It was just like, I did not get the warm fuzzies. I was in and out in 5 minutes. I had to ask them to feel the belly to find the baby's positioning. I had a lot of trauma from the first birth about baby positioning. I worked very hard during this pregnancy to make sure I did everything that I could do to make sure this baby was in a good spot internally. So anyway, the appointments weren't great. They started calling me a TOLAC. They started telling me things I couldn't do in labor. They were talking about inductions at a certain time period and scheduled C-sections for X, Y, and Z. I told my husband, “Look, I know this is going to be expensive.” I prayed on it and I was like, I just feel like I need to switch. I should also note that I found this birth center when I was around 30 weeks pregnant and I was always like, Man, I wish I would have found them earlier. But they are extremely VBAC-supportive. For anyone in the Central Texas area, I cannot say more wonderful, amazing things about these women. They are Christian-based, very VBAC supportive, multiple VBAC supportive, wonderful success stories. They do breech births. Meagan: So good to know. Emily: Yeah. In my mind, I'm like, Oh gosh, with my last baby, positioning was hard. I know these women will be able to get this baby out. If the baby flips, I don't have to stress out about a repeat C-section. Blah, blah, blah. So I switched to them at 34 weeks and like I said, it was the most wonderful care. Everything you would want from a midwifery practice. Meagan: What was their group called again? Emily: They're called Dulce Birth and Wellness Center and they are in Killeen which if you are familiar with Texas, it's north of Austin in between Austin and Waco on 35. But yeah. I was driving to that so I was driving an hour and a half to my OB office. I started driving 2 hours to the birth center for appointments. For anyone who is scared to travel in to birth somewhere that you feel fully supported, comfortable, at home, yes it can be difficult, but it is so worth it and even though I didn't get my VBAC, I would have 1000% done it the same way that I did. 27:47 Going into laborEmily: So anyway, I'm with them at 34 weeks and I go into labor at literally 40 weeks on the dot at midnight on my due date. I was like, Wow, this baby is punctual. Meagan: Yeah. Emily: Yeah, so I started contractions around midnight. It wasn't active labor. I was in contact with the midwives throughout the night. Around 10:00 AM the next morning, my contractions were pretty steadily 10 minutes apart. My doula, I also had a VBAC-specific doula who works with the birth center pretty closely. She was turned to my point. I asked her, “Can you just be my point of contact?” She was like, “Yes.” So around 10:00 AM, my contractions were 10 minutes apart and they were like, “I think y'all should head in.” My husband was at a meeting 45 minutes from the house so he came home. We packed up. We had all of the birth center cooler food prepped. I was going to bring some beers for after the birth. I was ready. I was so excited.During this pregnancy, I prepared so much. I had chiropractic care. I had pelvic floor therapy once a week. I was doing the stretching, the exercises. I was doing breathwork. I was on it, on it, on it and I was so excited and I was so ready. I just knew that I could do this. So we drove in. I got adjusted as soon as we got into town because it's a 2-hour drive. We went to the chiropractor and got adjusted. We got a hotel so we could labor at the hotel for a while before we went in. I was talking to my doula and they were all like, “Go out to lunch. Have a good day in the city.” So we ate lunch, checked into the hotel, laid by the pool, went out to dinner, and that was really when we got to dinner. We walked into a Chinese buffet. I don't know why I thought that was a good idea. We got seated and I told my husband, “I can't. They are too intense to eat here.” So we went to a sandwich shop, ate some sandwiches and by the end of dinner, I was like, “Okay, we've got to get back to this hotel.” Things were picking up. They were 5 minutes apart at this point. We got to the hotel. Our doula comes over. Probably within 45 minutes, I was at 3 minutes apart. I remember thinking to myself, Oh my gosh, Emily. You're going to do this. Your labor is picking up. The contractions are how they should be. We packed up our bags. The birth center was 10 minutes away from the hotel and we went to the birth center. I was 3 minutes apart. I walked in and I think they got a new location since then, but regardless, the whole setting was just beautiful. Dimmed lights, we had a big birth suite with the pool, and bathroom. I labored and as soon as I got there, they welcomed me with open arms. They are just the sweetest ladies. Like I said, I would recommend this birth center a million times over to anyone even if you are not trying to VBAC. I labored in the shower for a while. That was nice. I had a birth ball in there. I was doing squats. Like I said, I was in a freaking good mindset. I was ready to have this baby. This baby was a surprise as well so I was excited. A surprise gender I should say. This baby was a surprise all around. So yeah, we labored in the shower for a little while then went back to the birth suite. I was in and out of the pool and the bed just doing whatever felt right which is another big reason that I wanted to switch because if you're birthing in a hospital, you're on a bed especially if you are a VBAC, you're strapped to a monitor. At least that's how they were going to do me. They weren't going to do the intermittent monitoring because of the VBAC.It was just a wonderful laboring experience. Contractions were picking up. They were starting to become not on top of each other yet, but I would say a minute apart. Meagan: They were a minute apart? Holy cow. That's on top of each other. Emily: When I tell my stories, my friends are just like, “Oh my gosh. You're just insane.” I'm like, I can't be the only one who labors like this who has had these types of births. Like I was sharing with you earlier, I just wanted to find similar stories because it's the similar stories that help you work through things in my opinion. So anyway, I got onto the toilet and they had the TENS unit on my back. That was okay. I had heard a lot of women. I listened to a natural birth podcast as well during this pregnancy and a lot of women were like, “The TENS unit was awesome.” Personally, it didn't do anything for me. We went back to the bed. My water broke naturally and that's when it was like contraction, contraction. It was no break at all. I guess I didn't know any of this, but they went and got Trevor, my husband and they were like, “The baby is coming. It's time.” They were like, “Okay, it's time to push.” I pushed forever. 33:20 Pushing for 5 hoursEmily: I was on the birth stool and I just kept pushing it felt like. I'd be like, you know you're in labor and you're unmedicated. You have choice words like, “Where is this baby? What's going on?” I had chosen not to get cervical checks because the last time, cervical checks just really messed with me mentally with progression and everything. Anyway, I was on the birth stool and I was pushing. It was nice. I was on the birth stool with the hanging thing from the ceiling. Meagan: Yeah, like a rebozo. Emily: Yes. Meagan: Were you having the urge to push? How did they feel like you knew?Emily: Yes. Meagan: Okay. Emily: And I'm sorry if my story is sporadic and all. Meagan: No, it's good. This is good. Emily: But yeah, I had the urge to push and I had really done a lot of practice of breathing. You hear these women, “Oh, I breathed my baby out.” Anyway, I was trying to breathe and finally, they were like, “Okay, I think it's time to push,” and I was like, “Okay, thank God. I'm ready.” So I pushed and my husband would tell me after the fact, “I mean, I was so excited. We were going to have this baby at a birth center.” He was like, “I could see this much of her head. She was coming.” Meagan: Oh, okay. Emily: Long story short, I pushed for 5 hours. I decided to get checked because I was like, What the heck is going on? I was fully dilated. I was practically crowning at this point, but she checked me and I had a cervical lip. I hadn't done a lot of research on that. I do know that sometimes they naturally push out of the way, but she had me do some different positions during contractions to get the lip to go away. Then finally, as a last resort, she tried to push it away during contractions and that was just so painful. I just remember it being so painful. I know you're unmedicated and you can feel everything. At that point, I was like, “Just give me the numbers. What are my chances to get this baby out here?” She was like, “Emily, I'm going to give you a 60/40.” At that point, I was like, “I need to transfer.” They were trying to get me to breathe through contractions and to not push because I was so swollen. It was like I couldn't. My body was just doing it and I had no control. 35:45 TransferringEmily: So to speed things up, we transferred to the hospital. It was the same hospital system which I was grateful for. That's St. David's in Austin. My first baby was born at Main. This baby was born at the North hospital, the women's center. They are very holistically minded, as much as you can be at hospitals. That transfer was a 50-minute drive so that was fun. I was like, Here we go again. Let's do this transfer. We busted into triage, guns hot. They knew I was coming. I got my epidural pretty quickly within 30 minutes. They had me push a couple of times then they checked me and they were like, “You're an 8.” I was like, Okay. Here we go again. Meagan: Swollen. Emily: Very swollen. I know I had probably regressed on the drive over just with everything going on. I'm trying to speed my story up so I can get to my thoughts and reflections on it, but basically, I labored at the hospital for a very long time. They started Pitocin. I know I keep saying long story short and it's just a long story, but they came in. The baby's heart rate wasn't doing well. They took my temperature. It was 103. Boom. I had an infection. They gave me Tylenol. It brought the fever down, then around 2:00 AM and this was two days later. I don't know with the timing how to explain it, but they were like, “It's time.” My midwife and my doula who came with me agreed. It was nice that I had that second opinion. I just was so upset. I was crying. My husband was crying just because he knew. I think he just knew how badly I wanted it and how hard we worked. Meagan: Yeah. Emily: Anyway, I met the surgeon and he was wonderful. He was like, “What do you want? I want to make sure this is done right.” He gave us everything we wanted. Delayed cord clamping, my doula was in there. She took photos and everything. 37:47 C-sectionEmily: The C-section wasn't great. I'm glad I had my doula in there. She was a VBA3C mama so she knew her stuff. I'm explaining, “I can feel tugging. I can feel this and that.” She was like, “That's normal.” I didn't feel that with my first C-section.Yeah, they pulled her out. She was a baby girl. She was freaking screaming bloody murder, nothing like my son. My husband had announced both babies. He said, “It's a girl,” and they let me touch her immediately. I just wanted to touch her and this is probably weird, but I feel like moms understand this. I wanted to touch her fresh out, blood and all. That's my baby. I was able to do that and they took her away. I had a really bad infection, chorio. They had to flush my uterus and my abdomen. I was on double antibiotics for three days in the hospital. They were having to– I call it stabbing. They stabbed the baby every day to check on her and it was tough. I had in my mind, “When did this infection start?” I didn't get checked until the very end. I don't know. Yeah. It was hard. When we were in the C-section, he was like, “Who did your last C-section?” In my mind, I'm like, That's a great question, why? “What's wrong?” He was like, “You have really bad adhesions.” He fixed everything up. He came and checked on me the next day. Long story short, I will birth at this hospital again. But it wasn't a healing Cesarean. It was tough. Again, the nursing, the pain. I feel like both times, I really struggled. I'm not saying I didn't bond with my babies, but I think the toughest part of my births were the postpartums. It's such a hard recovery. I feel like people who have never had a C-section before, they don't really understand. I'm not saying that vaginal births aren't difficult to recover from, but it's not full-blown abdominal surgery and then boom, caring for a new life. I couldn't hold the baby like I wanted to. I couldn't do the things I wanted that I dreamt so hard of when I was attempting this VBAC. This mentally was hard because it was like, boom. A double C-section. All I've ever wanted were hands-off, holistic births. That's why I struggled so much with the two C-sections. I don't want to knock anyone. I had very supportive friends and family, but the “at least you have healthy babies”. Yes, I know I am so blessed. I don't want to downplay that because I know a lot of women who don't get that, but it doesn't fix the birth and how awful it was. It was a tough C-section. I had incision issues, but I healed up and I was fine. I started scar work right away. I went to my pelvic floor therapist. She had me doing diaphragmatic breathing. I know I need to wrap up. So to kind of summarize, after my first C-section, I don't think I took the steps necessary to really heal myself with the scar work. I was petrified to touch my scar. I'm sure other people can relate to that. Then I was pregnant and I was like, Well, what's the point? It's stretching out anyway. 41:29 Tips for adhesionsEmily: To any mom who has just had a C-section or is preparing for a VBAC or a birth and you don't know if you are going to have a C-section, that scar work and that internal breathing, that pelvic floor is huge on your recovery. I learned so much about adhesions. Last time, it was the baby positioning. With this next baby, I'm going to be freaking out about adhesions. But yeah, it was tough. So my midwives, bless their hearts. They do a home visit 3 days post-birth. They drove all the way out to where we were to do a home visit. They brought us dinner and my midwife was saying, “Emily, I could not believe that that baby was not flying out of you. You have a great pelvis. Your contractions were so strong. Your pushes were strong. I just could not believe it.” She was like, “I think it was the adhesions.” I had never even heard about adhesions which is silly. Again, prepping on my part, why did I not know about that? But yeah, so that is what they think held her in. It was a baby girl. I don't know if I said that. Meagan: Adhesions, really, that's a really common side effect or I don't really know the right– it happens after a C-section. Sometimes it can happen more and we have really dense or many adhesions and then sometimes people have lower. That's why I love pelvic floor therapy and people like Ask Janette on Instagram because they do talk about that care early on and how important it is early on. So many people like you don't feel comfortable touching their C-section or their scar or they don't like looking at it or have a negative feeling when thinking about it so processing your birth can also help get to that next step of working through those adhesions. Emily: Yeah. I will say my second birth was much, looking back on my first birth, yeah it was kind of traumatic, but this second birth was tough. I was FaceTiming my friend in the hospital afterward just sobbing about the infection. I don't want to put this baby on antibiotics. I'm very holistically minded. The epidural and the Pitocin were a huge blow to me personally. I can't be the only one who feels that way and that has had to have two C-sections. 44:20 Hospital births are beautifulEmily: In summary, I really want to share this with listeners. From my first positive test in September 2021 to now, my views have changed drastically on the hospital system for the better. I didn't have an awful hospital experience. I think the trauma came from the extremities of my situation not getting what I wanted. It might seem selfish, but it's the truth. Anyway, I am very grateful. I am very, very grateful for conventional medicine. I don't know what would have happened with that first baby. He came out looking like he had been in a cage fight just beat up from whatever was going on in there and then my second baby with the infection and then myself, gosh. What a blessing that I didn't go septic. I'm very grateful for conventional medicine. I am grateful for that second C-section even though I am still struggling to process. I didn't want it, but to clean up the adhesions, to clean out the infection and all of that. But yeah, my views have changed drastically. I feel like I should share yes. I attempted a home birth. I don't want to call it failure. I didn't get my home birth. I didn't get my birth center birth. You know, I'm not done having babies. That's why VBAC is so important to me. Also, just pulling your baby out yourself, how cool. I want that so badly. I think I've wanted it from the get-go.My plan is I want to birth again at St. David's, at the women's center. Yeah, I will travel in to do that. I feel like also, I got to the point in my labors where I couldn't hold back pushing. I think it's important to note for any women to weigh your pros and cons of, Do I want to birth in a birth center? For me personally, I don't think that is a good option again. If I'm getting to the point where I can't breathe through contractions and I'm swelling, that's what modern medicine is there for. An epidural can calm you down and maybe get things going back on track. Between that, I told my sister-in-law, “I feel like God is working on my testimony through my births. I feel pulled by Him to share what I have gone through so other people know, yes. You may want a holistic pregnancy, a holistic birth, hands-off, do-it-yourself, midwifery, and that may not be in the cards. That's okay. Don't lose hope in the medical system. There are wonderful OBs. There are wonderful midwives who work in conjunction with hospitals and they know their stuff just as much as the holistic midwife does.” I think going in armed and ready and doing your research, not relying 100% on your provider to save the day is huge. But yeah, I just feel like that's important to note because I know the holistic community, I don't want to call it toxic, but you hear all these things like, “Oh, hospital births are bad. Epidural and Pitocin are so bad,” but it's not bad for everyone. I think that's something that needs to be shifted to where you have holistically minded medicine and conventional medicine working together. I feel like I'm the perfect example of how it didn't go as planned, but my views have changed on that and I am very grateful even though the births– I'm not trying to downplay it. I still struggle to come to terms with why. Why? It all goes back to that first birth. If I could have avoided that first C-section, what could I have done? But I did the best I could with what I knew at the time and what a blessing that I've learned as much as I have since then. I want to share that with other women who want that holistic birth. There's so much that you can be doing during pregnancy to set yourself up better than I did. Anyway, I'm rambling on and on. Meagan: No, you're just fine. The prep is really important and to know how to prep and all of the ways to prep and it's a lot. It's so much. It's so much for someone wanting to have a baby in general and then for VBAC moms, there is definitely this extra thing when it comes to preparing mentally, physically, emotionally, and all of the things. 49:09 All about transferringMeagan: I wanted to touch a little bit on transferring. If you are planning on a home birth or a birth center birth and it comes down to a potential transfer, one, what are some signs that we may need to transfer? For you, it was like, Okay. I just got this percentage. That, to me, was confirmation to transfer. You can have those questions. What are things looking like? Is this going to happen? What can we do? Is there something we can do? Sometimes in that holistic world with home birth and birth center, they may give Benadryl or they may have nitrous to help avoid the urge or whatever. They might have homeopathic stuff, I don't know what your location has, but there are things you can try and then sometimes you are like,  I don't know. We're going to go. Or maybe you want epidural relief or baby has been having some nonreassuring heart tones here and there and that's enough to make you want to transfer or for someone to want to transfer you. For first-time moms, I think NPR shares a little article and it says, “For first-time moms choosing home birth, up to 37% transfer to a hospital largely because the baby is unable to come out.” There is a lot of the time within this. I hear this and I'm like, why? Why are we not having babies come out? Sometimes I do feel like we push too early or we don't recognize a positional thing. So a lot of the time when there is a cervical lip, we might have a malpositioned head. I mean, literally ever so slightly that needs some help, but it's hard to know or there may be scarring or there may be something going on causing that lip to stay. Then, it can. It can swell so when people say, “Oh, you can't go backward.” Well, yeah. It can swell. You can get swelling which then closes. So transferring and getting an epidural or getting an epidural at that point even if you're in the hospital is a really great option for a lot of people because they want to avoid that urge to push causing more swelling. You just have to weigh out your pros and cons. They do point out that planned home births end up with fewer Cesareans. 53 births to 1,000 compared to 207 per 1000. This was in 2019. It's been a little bit. We'll include this in the show notes if you want to go give it read, but I think it also comes down to find the best location for you and then follow your heart. I love that you pointed out that hospital birth doesn't have to be bad. It's so true. There are so many beautiful hospital births. I've seen them personally as a doula. They don't have to be traumatic and they don't have to be crazy. Do your research. Find out the locations next to you and around you. I love that you mentioned that you traveled. Traveling is worth it if you find the right provider and right location that's going to help you feel supported and loved and guide you through. I am grateful that you shared both of your Cesarean stories. I am sorry that it didn't happen exactly how you wanted it to. It's so hard when you're like, The why. The why. Why did this happen? What could I have done? It reminds me of Julie's radical acceptance episode. I don't know if you've heard that, but it's so hard to not understand the why or take out the what if, but through these experiences, I think we learn and we grow and sometimes we have to let go of the why. I still don't know some of the why's that happened in my VBAC. It's frustrating and sometimes I find myself latching on and feeling very angry or frustrated or confused. It's so hard to have those feelings, but I think that we grow. We grow as individuals and I can see that you are growing. You also said that you changed perspectives which can be sometimes hard to do so you are. You're growing in the right directions. I hope that for your next births that whatever you decide to do, vaginal or a Cesarean, that they are a healing experience for you. Emily: Yeah. Well, I mean, like I said, I appreciate coming on so much. I just encourage everyone to listen to y'all even if you haven't had a C-section. Knowing what you can do to avoid it from the get-go is huge. Also, I feel like I should say that I found an OB close to where we live and I hear a lot of them say, “Well, if you would have just had a C-section because of a breech baby.” It's the trial of labors that turn people away from the VBA2Cs. “Your two C-sections were–” I already explained them, “and that's why you're not a good candidate for VBA2C.” You all have so many stories on here where people have failure to progress, small pelvis, you're too small, your babies are too big. This, that, or the other I don't feel are good reasons to just not attempt a VBAC if that's what you are wanting to do and that's where I have found myself is I'm trying to figure out what I want to do next because I already know the minute I find out I'm pregnant, people are going to be like, “No. No, no, no.” Meagan: Yeah. That is so hard. That is so hard. We'll include a blog, How to Process When Things Don't Go As Planned. We'll include the blog, Cesarean or VBAC: How to Decide to try and help anyone who is in your same boat and relating to at least have a starting point of how to go and what to do. I just really appreciate you. Congratulations on both of your babies. I am so grateful that you were here today and have a wonderful one. Emily: Thank you. You too.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

Today's episode is full of love. Meagan's doula partner, Christin Carlson, joins as co-host today to hear their client, Janelle, share her beautiful VBAC story.Janelle's first baby was determined to stay frank breech even after two ECV attempts. Her water broke on its own before her scheduled date. In prep for her surgery, Janelle unexpectedly experienced vaginal cleansing. Though the surgery went well, it was not the introduction to motherhood Janelle was hoping for. She was also hit hard with postpartum depression. Janelle shares how she found The VBAC Link and became obsessed with all things VBAC prep. Surrounded by the most loving and empowering team, they helped her stay steady when labor was most intense. Even though it was harder than she imagined it would be, Janelle was able to dig deep and achieve the unmedicated VBAC she desired. Vaginal Cleansing ArticlePostpartum Depression ArticleHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details 02:40 Janelle's PPD experience07:25 Janelle's stories12:06 Arriving at the hospital14:05 Janelle's C-section17:00 VBAC preparation19:24 Appendicitis and second pregnancy24:22 Going into labor27:35 Laboring at the hospital30:30 Transition34:21 Achieving her VBAC38:47 The power of a supportive partner43:53 What is vaginal cleansing?50:26 Symptoms of postpartum depressionMeagan: Hello, everybody. You guys, today I have a very special episode to my heart because this is one of our own doula clients here in Utah and another even more special thing is that this is my partner, Kristen who ended up attending her birth, is co-hosting. Hello, Christin and Janelle. Janelle: Hello. Christin: Hi. Meagan: How are you guys today? Janelle: So good, so good. Meagan: Before we started recording, we started talking about time and how fast things are going. You guys, I mean I think you probably know if you are pregnant or have a newborn in your arms how fast time goes, but really, holy cow. We were with Janelle, we just talked about, 8 months ago from the time we are recording which is wild to think about. Janelle: So weird. So weird. It's crazy. Christin: It seems like it was a couple of weeks ago. Janelle: Yeah, it's not fair. Meagan: I know. How have things been? How have you been going with postpartum?Janelle: Things have been really good and I think that's one of the things that pushed me to want a VBAC so badly is I was hoping for a better postpartum experience. I had pretty severe postpartum depression with my first baby and I felt like having the VBAC would be some sort of heavenly gateway into not having postpartum depression. In the beginning, that was true, but I ended up still having some of it. Things are good now, though. Meagan: Good. I actually love that you touched on that because I think that sometimes especially after a traumatic Cesarean or a traumatic experience that did lead to postpartum depression or anxiety or anything like that, that can be a big motivator for a different experience. I love that you talked about, “Well, it was a better experience, but I still had this a little bit. I've had to work through that.” I'm glad that you're good now, but even sometimes when we have a different experience, we have similar things. So it's important to recognize that. I love that you just pointed that out. Janelle: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Meagan: Before we get going into the episode, do you have any tips on tackling that the second time around too? How were your feelings about things when you were starting to feel it and see it creep in? 02:40 Janelle's PPD experienceJanelle: Well, with both experiences, it did creep in just like you said, but with my daughter, it felt really dark really fast. She was my first baby and then with my first son, the VBAC, it was kind of a little bit sneaky. I guess just having someone on your support team. For me, it was my husband and I just said, “Look, if you see any of these signs, please say something to me.” It wasn't like we had a code word or anything. He was just really open in his dialogue with me and said, “Hey, I think something is up with you. You are not your normal self.” As soon as he said that, I was like, “Yeah. You're right.” It was really hard to admit because you want to be this strong mom and you want to be there for everyone and be everything that everyone need, but sometimes that's just not how life works. It's literally a chemical imbalance in your body and in your brain. It has nothing to do with your circumstances. Just having someone on your team and on your side to say, “Hey, I love you. Let's get help,” was absolutely integral to helping me get on the other side. Christin: I think it may have helped because you had been through it before so you were aware of the warning signs. That's something I think that we don't realize because I struggled with postpartum depression too but it didn't happen until my third baby so I didn't have any inclination that that was even something that I was going to deal with. I think it's important. We do all of this work to prepare for our VBACs and to prepare for the arrival of a new baby, but sometimes I don't think we educate ourselves on what those warning signs of postpartum depression are because they can be very sneaky. It's not always deep, dark thoughts. Sometimes it's postpartum rage or postpartum anxiety where just you are either extremely emotional or extremely angry all of the time. To have your husband looking out for you or someone on your support team who is keeping an eye out for those things and noticing a shift in the way that you're behaving, I think, is super important. I think that's great that you guys have had this conversation ahead of time. Meagan: Yeah, and we will talk a little bit more about some of those signs and symptoms. Like Christin was saying about how they can differ between rage, anxiety, depression, and the baby blues a little bit more at the end for sure because yeah, I think Christin just nailed it. We focus so heavily, and I think even more sometimes– I don't want to say this as a fact, but sometimes I feel like more as a VBAC mom, we are so hyper-focused on the end result of a vaginal birth that sometimes I feel like we do forget a lot. That's like everybody. I think they are so focused on getting baby here, but VBAC sometimes has to fight harder, search harder, read more, and emotionally work through things a little bit more so yeah, we can forget. Then that creeps in or like Janelle said, it was like boom and darkness came over. We want to know how to handle that so we will talk a little bit more about that in the end. 07:25 Janelle's storiesMeagan: Okay, you guys. I wasn't there, but in our practice, we have something that is like a live timeline that we have so whoever is at the birth can take notes of the timeline and we like to share that with our parents. We were all just sitting there watching it, checking in, and I just remember feeling this utter excitement inside of me for them as I was looking at the notes and following along with Christin's updates. I'm excited to now be here with you both and hear it in a different way. I'm going to turn the time over to you. Janelle: Yes. I'm so excited. I was actually telling Meagan before we started that I was actually fangirling out. I don't know exactly how I got started listening to The VBAC Link, but after I had my daughter, somehow I got onto it and I binged so hard on this podcast. It's just really surreal to be recording with you. So thank you for allowing me to be here. Christin: You've come full circle. Meagan: Full circle. Janelle: I have. Meagan: I love that that happens with The VBAC Link. I love that it's so often that it's like, “I listened every day. You were in my ear and now here I am being in someone else's ear. Janelle: Yeah, yep. So just to all the mamas out there who are preparing, you've got this. You can do this. With all VBACs, of course, there is a Cesarean that starts the story, right? We tried to get pregnant with my daughter for 14 months. We finally got pregnant and the pregnancy was super easy. I was going for a HypnoBirth unmedicated birth. I didn't have a doula. I didn't really have– I don't know. You just don't know what you don't know and as a first-time mom, you think you know, but you don't. You just don't. Meagan: Or we have apps that tell us so we really think we know because the app said so. Janelle: Yes, but then you just don't know until you're in it. I gained 60ish pounds which was a lot, but I never had hypertension or a lot of issues with that. I never ended up with gestational diabetes which I was really grateful for and worried about, but in hindsight, it really wouldn't have been a big deal. At my 36-week appointment, we found out my daughter was breech. Homegirl was freaking stuck. Let me just tell you, she has been stubborn ever since. We tried everything. We decided to do an ECV. We did it at 37 weeks and we just did that. I think a low dose of Fentanyl was the only medication. I was just trying to use my Hypnobirthing to breathe through it. The doctors told me that I was doing really well, but she was just stuck, and that one failed. We tried going to the chiropractor. We tried Spinning Babies. We tried basically everything that I could think of. We did not do acupuncture. That's the only thing that we didn't do and I never hired a doula. I could have done those things, but I didn't. We tried a second ECV at my 38-week appointment. We did that one with a spinal block in the OR because they were like, “Well, sometimes on the second attempt, it can throw you into labor.” So I was like, Okay, well if that happens and we have any problems, they can just do a Cesarean right there. She was very, very stuck in my pelvis and the maternal-fetal medicine doctor actually tried to push her up vaginally and that was unsuccessful and very uncomfortable. Even though I was numb, it was still like, This is weird. I don't know. I don't like this. She just was stuck. She was frank breech, so I was like, Okay. We're just going to go through with the Cesarean. I had 2 more weeks so two days later, I went out to dinner with a friend and then that night when I was sleeping, I got up to pee like you do a million times when you're pregnant at the end and some water was leaking out as I was walking back from the bathroom and I was like, What the crap? I just peed. How is this happening?My water had broken and there was meconium. I knew that it was going to be a little bit of an issue with meconium just because my doctor told me something like they were just worried about meconium with a breech baby. I don't know. I don't know if that's true or evidence-based or not. 12:06 Arriving at the hospitalJanelle: We drove to the hospital and we got there at 5:00. They had to do a COVID test and they cleaned me out. I don't know if you've ever heard of that. Meagan: Like rectally? Janelle: No, like vaginally. They took some sort of– Meagan: They cleaned you out vaginally?Janelle: Yeah, I don't know if it was because of the meconium, but they took some iodine-something and it felt like a membrane sweep. I never have had one of those, but if I could imagine what that was like, that's what it felt like. Meagan: Christin, have you ever seen that? Christin: It's funny that you say that because I had never seen it before until Janelle told me that she had it and I was like, That just sounds so odd, but I actually just saw it at a birth the other day. Meagan: What is it for? I actually don't know what this is. Christin: I had never seen it previously and I thought it was just an anomaly with your birth, Janelle, but I saw it the other day again. Janelle: Do they have a name for it? Meagan: I'm Googling it right now. Christin: They didn't name it. They just used iodine swabs and just cleaned her out. Janelle: Was that also for meconium? Christin: Yeah. Janelle: Okay, interesting. Christin: Now that I think back on it, there was mec but I don't think we knew there was mec until baby was born so I don't know. Janelle: Oh, interesting. Okay. So yeah, that was the most unpleasant experience ever on top of mid-contraction, I was having the COVID swab up my nose so that was really great because this was early 2021. So yeah. Anyway, we waited for the ORand the nurse came in. I asked her, “Can you check me? I know I'm going back there for surgery, but I'm just curious. I'm having contractions. Can you just see if I'm dilating?” She's like, “Yeah, you're at a 4.” So I was like, "Oh, that's kind of nice. My body's actually doing the work here.” I was really excited about that. 14:05 Janelle's C-sectionJanelle: Jumping to the surgery, I was so terrified. I don't know what it was. You're just going through so many emotions. You have to put so much trust in the nurses and the doctors and the anesthesiologists. You have to put so much trust that these people paid attention in med school that they know what they are doing, that they care about you, they care about your baby, and chances are they totally do and they did pay attention and they got good grades, but I just felt nervous as a first-time mom. They jostled me around and the anesthesiologist was really nice and he was just talking to me and telling me everything that was happening. When she was born, I knew it because I felt them yank her out. They had a clear drape, but I couldn't see over it so I was really sad that I couldn't see her. Because of the meconium, they had to take her and they cleaned her up and stuff. I was 16 minutes or something before I got to see her. In hindsight, it's not that long, but it felt like forever. Then I got to see her sweet little face and oh gosh, it was just the most precious thing ever. My husband snuck a video of it. You're not supposed to in the OR, but he snuck a video of it and it's such a treasure for me to look back at the moment that I got to meet her because I didn't get to be the first one to hold her. Yeah. Christin: I love that he did that though so you have the record of that memory. Janelle: Yeah. I never even asked him to. He just knew that I would want that. He's the best. One thing I didn't know about postpartum regardless of if you have a C-section or a vaginal birth, your nurses will push on your abdomen and it hurts like a mother trucker. Let me just tell you. Meagan: Crede-ing. Janelle: It's what? Meagan: It's called Crede-ing. They Crede and they are checking where the uterus is, if it's clamping down, and making sure it's not getting boggy and filling up. Janelle: Yep, and if you're bleeding too much or not enough. It sucked. Then I had really bad postpartum depression. This one was not sneaky. This one was almost immediately. I felt like I bonded really well with my daughter, but there was just some darkness that was in my heart and I couldn't figure out what it was. It took a while. I was actually maybe 6 or 8 weeks at my postpartum appointment and my doctor did the screening. She's like, “Yeah, your score was really not good. Let's get you some medication.” I was like, “Okay.” I was very reluctant, but I saw almost an immediate difference. I had it for a while, but it did help. 17:00 VBAC preparationJanelle: Anyway, so that was my daughter's birth and ever since then, like I said, I was obsessed with The VBAC Link. I knew right away that I wanted a vaginal birth. Actually, come to think of it, right before we went back to surgery, I was talking to the doctors and I was like, “I really want to have another baby after this. Is there any way you guys could make sure that my scar looks really good and I could have more babies vaginally? That's really important to me.” They were like, “Yeah. We will make sure you are taken care of.” I was very grateful for that. What I wanted out of this birth, I don't know if what I told Christin is still what I have on my birth plan that I wrote down, but what I really wanted was a healthy mom, a healthy mindset, and a healthy baby obviously. Those are the minimum, right? Then I wanted baby out of my vagina. I wanted skin-to-skin. I wanted to be the first one to hold baby and I wanted to be fully present and fully included in all of the decisions. I don't know if it was just, yeah. I don't know exactly why that was so important to me at the moment, but it just felt like I didn't want any of this robbed from me. I didn't want any of the experience to be done to me. Do you know what I'm saying? I wanted as few interventions as possible. Those were what I really wanted out of this birth. Is that what you have, Christin?Christin: Yeah, pretty darn close to that. I also have skin-to-skin was super important. Janelle: Yes. Christin: And I think it's worth noting that you wanted to catch and deliver your own baby. You said I wanted to be the first one to hold her– sorry, hold the baby boy– but you also told me that was super important to you. You actually wanted to deliver your child. Janelle: Yes, okay. With my son, my daughter was maybe 20 months old. It was the Sunday before Thanksgiving and I felt some pain in my side. We had been trying for 6 months and something was just wrong. I didn't have a big appetite and it was Thanksgiving dinner at my mom's house and I just didn't feel good. Something intuitively was just wrong and I knew it. My husband was like, “Well, why don't you just try taking an antacid?” I was like, “No. I know something is wrong.” 19:24 Appendicitis and second pregnancyJanelle: We went to the ER and I had appendicitis and I was pregnant. So that was really fun to find out all at the same time. Because I was 3 weeks, 4 days pregnant, I had not even missed my period. I hadn't taken a test, they said that nothing in the surgery would change because baby was still so small. I was like, Okay. Well, that's good. I was really nervous for the surgery and that there were going to be complications afterward, but everything was fine. As soon as I started to heal from surgery, I got so nauseous. I was so sick the whole pregnancy until maybe 25 weeks. That's when it finally started to wean off. Like I said, I lived in VBAC mode. I binged the podcast on the daily. I went on walks. I would listen to it while I was cleaning, driving, naptime, all of the things. I also was very into the Evidence-Based Birth Podcast because I was very curious about water birth and home birth and all of the statistics. My husband actually pulled me aside while I was in crazy VBAC mode as we call it. He was like, “Janelle, I'm just worried if you end up having a C-section, where are you going to be at mentally? Are you going to be okay with this if that ends up being your path?” I was like, “You know what? I really do need to prepare for that too,” because things really can go in any direction with birth. As soon as he said that to me and I started to prepare that way, I just became like, Okay. Whatever happens happens. This is okay. I did have the same VBAC-crazed mindset but I was also okay with things happening. I don't know if that makes sense. Meagan: Yeah, it totally makes sense. I think a lot of the time as we are preparing for that, it is important to note that things can go and still prepare for the other but prepare, prepare, prepare, and then do all of those things while you are preparing so if it doesn't happen, then you don't have to look back and be like, But what if this and what if that? Then you are confident in the way you prepared, but then you know, Well, it could go this way. It's not what I'm going to plan for, but it could go that way and I'm going to be more content because I'm doing everything within my control. Janelle: Yes. At 20 weeks, my insurance changed and I had to find a new provider. That was a whirlwind. I actually found my midwife through The VBAC Link list of providers. Her name is Kira Waters and she is the best. I love her so much. The first thing that I said to her when I interviewed her was, “How do you feel about VBACs?” She said, “I love VBACs!” I was like, “Oh my gosh, okay. Say no more.” Yeah, after we met Kira, then we were on the search for a doula. I came across you guys. I met with Christin and the stars were just aligning like, this is going to work out. This is going to be perfect. I don't know how to explain it. It wasn't like an instant connection, but it was this deep trust that I instantly had in her if that makes sense. Meagan: Mhmm, yeah. Janelle: It was almost like I'd known her for a long time, but not like a high-school friend. She's my long-lost aunt, I guess. She's full of wisdom. Christin: I'll take it. Meagan: Well, and there is something about a doula. Don't you think? Fun fact, Christin and I actually had the same doula, but there was something about our doula– her name is Robin. She is amazing. I didn't even know her that well. I mean, I knew her through the birth community and stuff but I didn't know every detail about her, but there was this weird sense of confidence where I was like, It's going to be fine. Then her partner, Angie, was also somebody who I was like, I know she has to be in my corner. I just knew that those two people had to be on my team and yeah. It wasn't like I instantly knew them and felt the connection of being childbirth friends, but I was so deeply connected right away and still am to this day to them. Janelle: Mhmm, yep. It's interesting. I'm kind of a private person and I didn't want my mother-in-law or my mom in the birth room, but as soon as I met Christin, I'm like, “Yep. Come to the birth.”24:22 Going into laborJanelle: Let's see, I think it was my 34th or 36th appointment and I met with the OB because if you are with the midwife, they want you to meet with the OB. He did the VBAC calculator. I think it said 47%. It was 47 or 50% chance. It was a pretty moderate chance of success. He was really nice, but I just was like, Eh, I don't really want him to deliver my baby. Let's see. I had gained a similar amount of weight, but again, no hypertension. Everything was pretty much the same to this point other than baby was head down at this time. I was 37 weeks and I went out to dinner with a friend. Fun fact, it was the same restaurant and the same order. That night, I went into labor. Christin: You're onto something. Janelle: It was Zupas. Meagan: I was going to say, what was it? Zupas? Janelle: It was Zupas. Christin: Now we have to get your order too. Meagan: What was your order? Janelle: I want to say it was the pulled pork sandwich. Maybe one of the soups, like the cheesy soup, the Wisconsin…Meagan: The Wisconsin Cauliflower? Janelle: That one, and then the pulled pork sandwich. That's what I ordered both times. So if you want to go into labor…I don't know if that's even tried and true, but it was so interesting. Christin: I'm pretty sure it's not evidence-based. Janelle: No, but for me. Christin: For you it is. Meagan: You've got some good stats. Janelle: Yeah. So I went into labor that night and my husband, I didn't say this before but when I went into labor with my daughter he was like, “No!” because it was so early and he's a gamer so he was up that night playing games on the computer and he was just really tired. The same reaction was had from him this time too. He was like, “No!” Christin: It was early in the morning. Janelle: He was like, “Dang it!” I wanted to labor at home as long as I could so let's see. I think we texted you pretty close to that time. Was it at 4:00 or 5:00? Christin: I got a text at 3:06 AM that you thought your water broke. Janelle: Yeah. So I labored at home in the tub for a while. My husband made me the best peanut butter and jelly sandwich that I ever had in my entire life. I ate a peach. I just hung out in the tub. When I would listen to the podcast before bed, I would listen in the tub and hang out and relax. It was a safe space for me that I was very used to. I hung out there for a long time. It really wasn't that long, but when you're in labor, it feels like a long time. I had my mom come over so she was with our daughter. Once my contractions were 4-5 minutes apart, we were like, Okay. Our hospital is 30-45 minutes away. We should probably head in just to be safe. 27:35 Laboring at the hospitalJanelle: I got admitted around 6:00. Is that what you have, Christin? Christin: Yeah. It was around 6:00, a little bit before 6:00. Janelle: I agreed to be checked at that time. I didn't want a lot of checks because I didn't want to introduce bacteria by having my water being broken, but I was curious about where I was at. They said I was at a 4. I told the nurse beforehand, I was like, “I don't want to know,” but she let it slip. She was like, “Oh, you didn't want to know, huh?” I was like, “No, but that's okay.” Meagan: Isn't that where you were with the first one?Janelle: Yeah, kinda. I was like, Okay, well at least I got this far before. She said I was 50% effaced and -2 station. At this point, my husband and I were kind of clueless because we only had one meeting with Christin. We hadn't gone over counterpressures. We hadn't gone over how he was going to be actively supporting me in birth so we were just like, Okay, now what?Christin: I think we had your second prenatal scheduled for the day after you went into labor. Your baby just decided to beat us to the punch. Janelle: He was so excited. He just wanted to be a part of it. We were really clueless and I started feeling the contractions really intensely. I was not as prepared as I thought I was for contractions. I was second-guessing all of my life decisions because I again even wanted to be unmedicated. I even signed a consent form for the epidural at this point. I was like, Okay, just call it. I'm done.Christin: Christin joined us I think an hour after I got there around 7:00. The second that she stepped in the room, the energy just shifted. I don't know how to explain it. She just brought so much excitement like, I've got this. I got you. It's all right. It's going to be okay.I know she wasn't intending to be my savior, but she kind of was in that moment for energy's sake. I don't think I could have done it if she hadn't walked in with the confidence and the joy that she had, just the excitement for birth, the passion to be there, and it just made such a huge difference in our experience and I just love you so much, Christin. Thank you. Christin: You're going to make me cry. Meagan: She's all emotional. Janelle: We're all just crying here. It's fine. Christin: It's really the best job in the world. It's the best job. Janelle: It's really a sacred space. Like I said, I didn't have my mom or my mother-in-law there. I just wanted it to be very intimate and Christin was so good at honoring how intimate it was. 30:30 TransitionJanelle: Let's see. Let me jump back to the story. Around 10:00, I got a new nurse. This nurse was awesome. Her name was Alisha and she was at St. Mark's. If you ever get Alisha at St. Mark's, she is a godsend. She was great. There were multiple times where Christin, Alisha, my midwife Kira, and my husband were all taking turns doing counterpressures on me. They all synced up and were so harmonious. Okay, so at 10:00, I was still 4 centimeters, 100% effaced. I labored in the tub at this point for a while. It really wasn't that long, but in the moment, it felt like a long time. I loved and hated the tub because I didn't have anything to brace myself on. Michael, my husband, couldn't give me any counterpressure in the tub, but the relief afterward in the water was so amazing. I really loved that and then Christin was like, “I'm going to leave you two alone and have a little moment.” I think you had even brought these little tea light, like the electric tea lights. You had set those up in the bathroom and the lights were dimmed. It was such a special, sacred moment with Michael and I. He just was like, “I really get why you hired her. I love her. She is amazing.” I was like, “Yep. This is why.” He was like, “Yeah, we don't ever want to do birth without her.' Christin: Have more babies. I'll be there. Janelle: Yes. Undecided. But we do, absolutely. Christin: Fair enough. Fair enough. Janelle: That was at 10:00. I was at a 4. Then I got in the bath. At 11:15, I was out of the bath by then. I had a cervical check and I was at a 7. I jumped a lot in that time. I was doing a lot of work. I was 100% effaced and I was at 0 station. I was moving all over in positions. We did the throne position. There was one where I was on hands and knees on the birthbed, but I didn't have the birth ball. At 11:40ish, I was feeling really pushy and I got so emotional. Christin will remember this. I sobbed. It was ugly crying for a good half hour. This is now what we know is transition, but it was rough. I was having Charlie horses and oh, it was just rough. I just was crying a lot. I don't know exactly what was happening, but I just was preparing, I guess, and releasing emotion for the baby to come out. Around 12:30, I was pushing here and there, and around 12:45ish, I started really pushing. Again, at this point, I was in the lithotomy position which is sitting upright how you picture in movies and stuff how people have babies. I was screaming this baby out. I was the loudest person on that floor of the hospital for sure. Meagan: I think there's something to it. I think sometimes roaring your baby out is what people need. Christin: Absolutely. Janelle: I was absolutely a screamer. Christin: It's funny because I don't remember you being loud. Janelle: Oh my gosh, really? Christin: Yeah, I don't remember it. Janelle: Oh, praise be. That's great because I remember at one point– Christin: There's a good chance you weren't as loud as you thought you were. That happens a lot of the time. You think you are very loud and you probably aren't. But I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. A lot of women roar their babies out and it's very powerful and very primal and natural to do so. Janelle: Mhmm, yeah. 34:21 Achieving her VBACJanelle: I remember at one point, there was a nurse that came in. I could tell she was one of the baby nurses because she had the baby cart and stuff. I was in mid-push and I remember saying, “Get the f- out!” I'm pretty sure that everyone in the room thought I was talking about the baby, but I was talking about the nurse. I was like, “Get out!” Meagan: Like, “I don't want you here.” Janelle: I was like, “I don't want anyone in here seeing this. It's ugly.” Meagan: Oh my gosh, that's funny. Janelle: Anyway, so I finally pushed the baby out at 1:30 so I was pushing for an hour. The moment that I got to push him out, I was very emotional and my midwife handed him to me and helped me finish. She delivered the first part of him and I had a little bit of a cervical lip so she was like, “You've got to really push him out,” or maybe it was the shoulder. Was it the shoulder that was stuck? I feel like I'm butchering this last part right now. Christin: No, you didn't have an official shoulder dystocia. He just needed a little extra strength to get the rest of his body out. Janelle: Okay, yeah. That's where we were at. She was like, “You really need to push here.” I just remember like you said, roaring him out. She helped me pull him to my chest and having that warm, gooey, slimy baby was just everything that I could have hoped for. I would not change that for the world. That oxytocin hit that you get from smelling that baby that comes out of you is just unreal. I was so happy that I got to be the first one to hold him and see him. I just am really, really grateful that I had the support that I did because I don't feel like I could have done it without my husband, without Kira our midwife, without that nurse Alisha. Okay, like I said, I am butchering this best part because I forgot to say so many things that I wrote down. Okay, let me back up a little bit. So right around the time that I was crowning, I just felt like my skin was crawling and oxygen was not enough for me. I couldn't get comfortable. I couldn't get on top of my breathing. I was asking for an epidural. I had already signed the consent form, but my nurse Alisha was like, “Oh, the anesthesiologist is busy and by the time he comes, it's going to be too late so sorry.” Sneaky little nurse because she knew what I wanted. I actually asked for a local anesthetic. I was asking for lidocaine or something. I was like, “What do you use to stitch people up? Use that on me because I am struggling here.” My contractions were, Kira told me they were three little ones and then one really, really big one then I would have a 5-minute break. That's how my contractions were up until the end. Like I said, I couldn't get on top of my breath. I remember looking at Christin and my husband. I just couldn't figure it out. There was this moment inside of me that even though I had them there, I had to dig so deep in my own body and in my own soul. I even said a prayer to God and I was like, I have got to have some help here. I cannot push this baby out alone. Can you please send some angels or something to be with me because I can't do it?I got a little bit of a longer break in between contractions and I finally had Christin and Michael help me to get on top of my breathing and that's when I was able to push the baby out. Meagan: It's crazy how breath really is so impactful but then we are always told to hold it, so you've got to find the breath and find the strength and regrasp. Sometimes, that means taking a step back and rebreathing and finding that regrounding. Christin: Yeah. Janelle: It's so hard in the moment. Like I said, you think you know but you don't know until you're there. 38:47 The power of a supportive partnerJanelle: But I do have to say that the second I pulled him out and he was warm and gooey and on my chest, they were trying to arouse him a little bit because he was a little bit slower to take his first couple of breaths, I was just screaming, “I did it! I did it! I did it!” a million times. My husband just said, “I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of you.” I actually wanted to say what he told his family. He said, “Today I saw what Janelle was made of and she freaking did it. I'm so proud of her.” The way that he said that about me unprovoked was really sweet. Yeah. So there it is. There's my story. It's choppy. Meagan: No, listen. I love that. I love that. And would you have anything to add, Christin, to that?Christin: I would just say that Janelle went into this whole thing very prepared. She had educated herself and she was very prepared for whatever came at her. She did her work ahead of time. She found a fantastic provider and she knew what she was doing. She knew everything that she needed to know about a VBAC, but at the same time, she was very welcoming to let birth just unfold how it was going to unfold. There was a time. We talked about this a little bit earlier. You got to the hospital. You had been laboring really well at home and contractions had been coming very quickly. You were progressing really well and then you got to the hospital and everything just stopped. That's completely normal. We see that happen all the time in birth where just that chance in scenery and the commotion tends to slow things down a little bit, but that didn't get to you. You just needed to get back into your groove. You got settled back into the hospital and you and Michael had some time together. I don't think we should ever discount those special moments that you have with just your husband. When I step out to give you time in the bathroom, that's not me necessarily trying to take a break myself, it's to give you guys time to help that oxytocin get flowing, to get labor progressing again, and to protect that intimate space. You guys were a phenomenal team. It was incredible to watch the two of you together. Michael was so incredibly supportive. That moment where he leaned down and just said to you, “I'm so proud of you, Janelle,” it was so touching just to watch his love and his pride for you. It was incredible. Janelle: He really is the best. I'm so emotional just thinking about him because I just love him. Obviously, none of my family would be possible without him, but I couldn't do mom life without him and I couldn't do the birth without him. He really was everything. So get yourself somebody who loves you and who loves the ugly parts of you too. Christin: You know, I say this too. I don't think– I mean, moms obviously are going through so much during labor, but I don't think dads are ever given as much credit as they deserve because they are watching someone they love go through the hardest thing they've ever done. While there are things to help mitigate some of that, there is nothing they can do to fix it or take it away and it is emotionally taxing on them. Meagan: I agree. I was just about to say the same thing. As mothers, thinking about your child doing one of the hardest things in their entire life and how they feel. Now, you are not his child, but you are someone he loves probably more than anyone on this earth, and especially at that time, he was feeling those things too and he watched you. He watched you prepare and he even was questioning, “I see how much you want this. How will this affect you if it doesn't go this way?” He was literally taking into consideration that far before the birth even happened thinking about you that deeply. It just is amazing. I think that's one of my personal favorite things about being a doula. Of course, seeing babies being born is just incredible. It's absolutely incredible, but seeing what Christin just described, these two people who love each other more than anything that just brought this human into this life, and seeing them bond and grow and take pride in on another during the support of their baby is just really one of the coolest parts about being a doula. Janelle: When my kids are a little bit older, I think that's what I want to do, but we'll see. Meagan: Yes. Listen, I think that's how a lot of us start. We get inspired by our own births then we find the time in our life when the journey feels right and we take off. I encourage you to. I encourage you to become a doula. Yeah, it's such an amazing journey. 43:53 What is vaginal cleansing?Meagan: I definitely want to touch on the postpartum stuff that we wanted to talk about, but I also found a little article thing on the vaginal cleansing. I just wanted to share. Janelle: Oh, okay. Meagan: It's actually from cochrane.org. This was published in April 2020 4 years ago. We'll make sure to have the link here in the show notes, but I was just curious more about what it was and in one of the articles, it said “vaginal toileting”. I'm like, What? That's weird.Janelle: Odd. Meagan: Yes, toileting is a really strange vocabulary, but maybe in my head, I'm thinking that maybe they are getting rid of– I'm not going there. It's called vaginal cleansing with antiseptic solution before Cesarean delivery to reduce infections after surgery. Janelle: Oh. Meagan: Kind of interesting. I'm not going to go through the whole thing because I really want to get to postpartum, but it says, “What evidence did we find? We searched for new evidence in July of 2019 and in this update, we have included 21 randomized controlled studies involving a total of 7,038 women” –which to men kind of sounds small– “undergoing a Cesarean section.” It goes down and it says, “Cleansing the vagina with antiseptic solution immediately before a Cesarean delivery probably reduces the incidence of post-Cesarean infection of the uterus. 20 trials of 6,918 women showed moderate-certainty evidence” –so they are moderately confident– “that the reduction was seen for both iodine-based solution and chlorhexidine-based solutions.” It says, “The risk of postoperative fever and post-operative wound infection was probably reduced by vaginal cleansing both moderately again.” It goes on even more talking about wound complications and infection of the uterus may be lower in women receiving pre-operative vaginal cleansing with solution. So that is interesting because one of the things for me and maybe I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that meconium was sterile. It's poop, but the reason why they get so worried in the lungs is because it's really thick and tarry poop. If you think about our lungs and tarry poop, right? That's what my understanding was. It was more of that versus it was toxic to them but maybe I don't know. Maybe I need to research my meconium evidence. Do you know, Christin?Christin: I don't. Does that study say that they do it specifically related to meconium or just in prep for a C-section? Meagan: Just in prep for the C-section. When you guys were talking about the relation to meconium, it just made me think because I thought that meconium was okay. It doesn't really talk about it here at all. It did say that they did not observe any difference between groups of women with ruptured membranes and women with in-tact membranes which to me says– because in-tact membranes mean no meconium, right? Janelle: Right, no. Meagan: Yeah. They wouldn't know or it wouldn't be present, so it's interesting. It's interesting. Janelle: Yeah, interesting. Christin: It must have just been a coincidence with your C-section and meconium being present. Like I said, the one that I just saw– it might have been a week ago. Meagan: It ended in a Cesarean? Christin: Yeah, it was for a C-section, but I don't think they knew that meconium was present at the time that they did the cleansing or the vaginal toileting I guess that we are calling it. Janelle: Vaginal toileting. That sounds so gross. Meagan: Vaginal toileting, I know. This article says vaginal cleansing specifically, but yeah. Janelle: I prefer that. Meagan: There was another article that talked about the effects of vaginal douching and another article that talked about the effects of vaginal toileting before a Cesarean. Janelle: I'm not a fan regardless. Meagan: Yeah. It's so interesting. I honestly have never seen that. I mean, it was 4 years ago so maybe some places are catching up. I mean, I don't know. Anyway, moderate. It may. It may not. It's not complete. But anyway, there was that. I just had to throw that in because that was a big question. Janelle: Yes and touching on that, I think maybe it's okay to decline that and I would have declined that had I known that was what was going to happen to me because it very much happened to me.Christin: Yeah. Absolutely. Meagan: Yeah and it wasn't discussed. You still didn't even know the reason right now. You were still processing. Those are the types of things that as those things are happening, you can stop and say, “Hey, whoa. What is the evidence on this?” You can ask about that. Or, “Hey, can you tell me the pros and cons here because I don't know if I want this?” Then again, it's ultimately up to you to choose if you want that. Now, if you're not expecting a Cesarean and all of a sudden they are doing this, that might be a red flag to start asking questions because they may be mentally on the other side of the wall preparing you for a Cesarean that you are not aware of. Christin: Yeah, I think this is a good example of just in general how much they don't let you know how much is actually voluntary. A lot of times, the way they phrase things is, “Okay, I'm doing this to prepare for this or I'm going to do this” without letting you know, “Hey, if you don't want this, we don't have to do this.” Janelle: Right. Christin: So I think that happens with a lot of things, especially as a first-time mom, you don't know. You don't know what is– Janelle: Protocol. Christin: What you have to consent to and what is protocol and even if it is protocol, you can still decline it. You don't know a lot of that stuff. Meagan: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so we'll be quick and we'll include this link in there. 50:26 Symptoms of postpartum depressionMeagan: This is from the Mayo Clinic. It talks about the different symptoms of postpartum depression. We talk about baby blues. I'm just going to talk about this really fast. I encourage everyone to go click on it. But baby blues symptoms may include things like mood swings, anxiety, sadness, irritability, feeling overwhelmed, reduced concentration, appetite problems, and even crying. No, postpartum depression symptoms they have listed as depressed mood or severe mood swings, crying too much, difficulty bonding with your baby, withdrawing from family and friends, overall tiredness, hopelessness, feeling worthless, restlessness, super anxiety, and stuff like that. Postpartum psychosis, getting confused and lost. A lot of the time, people with postpartum psychosis will be mid-thought and then they just stop and they literally have no idea what's going on. They're very confused. Having obsessive thoughts about your baby. Hallucinating kind of sometimes goes into that feeling very confused. Not sleeping or having too much energy. Almost feeling like you're so exhausted but you are really, really, really high. Does that make sense on energy? Making attempts to harm yourself or your baby and then there is more. So when to see a doctor— if it goes past 2 weeks after your baby is born, you are noticing it getting worse. Your partner is noticing it getting worse. It is making it harder on you to physically take care of your baby or yourself and things like that. All good things to know and be aware of. Yes, like Janelle said, it is very hard to admit sometimes because we are in it, but get that supportive team. This is also a really great conversation to have prior to having a baby even if you have never had a baby before or never had any of these symptoms before to talk about it and create a plan for if these symptoms are coming in, what to do, what you want to do while you are in a different space. All right, I just ran really quickly through that because I know our time is up, but definitely check that out. Women of strength, know that it is okay to ask for help. It is okay. Janelle: Yes. I agree 100%. Christin: Absolutely. Meagan: Thank you guys so much for joining me today. It was such a pleasure. I loved seeing the emotion, the waterworks, the smiles, the uncontrolled laughter. It just was so much fun and I absolutely adore you both. Janelle: Aw, I love you. Thank you so much for having me. I love you, Christin. I love you, Meagan. Christin: Love you too. Meagan: Love you. Christin: Thank you so much, Megan. 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

Katie joins us today to tell us about her two birth experiences in Germany. Although she strongly advocated for herself during her first birth, Katie was extremely mistreated. Her labor and horrible C-section experience left her with intense PTSD straining her relationship with both her baby and her husband. Katie knew that if she wanted to have another baby, she had to plan for an out-of-hospital birth. She continued to advocate for herself by not only learning the evidence but by showing it to providers and defending it. Though she wasn't able to find a supportive backup hospital, Katie labored beautifully at home with her husband, doula, and midwife until she knew it was time to transfer. When she transferred, Katie was able to go to the hospital she wanted to go to and was finally treated with respect. Her wishes were honored and she felt heard. Though this labor was also over 40 hours and had its own unexpected twists, Katie experienced so much healing from her VBAC. She was able to achieve the glorious feeling she hoped she would have from a home birth even in the hospital.  TOLAC in Germany ArticleEvidence-Based Birth Blog: Friedman CurveInformed Pregnancy - code: vbaclink424Needed WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details 04:41 Review of the Week07:27 Katie's stories11:14 Start of labor16:55 Going to the hospital20:22 Interventions29:44 Katie's C-section32:06 Preparing for VBAC34:34 Second pregnancy42:01 Labor begins47:11 Getting support from her birth team50:12 Transferring to the hospital53:32 Feeling intense scar pain56:23 Asking for the vacuum58:42 Katie's advice for listeners1:01:47 The Friedman Curve1:06:16 Trusting your intuition1:08:56 Doula supportMeagan: Hello, Women of Strength! We have a story for you today where a mama gave birth in Germany. So I love, love, love when we have out-of-the-country birth stories because we often get messages from people outside of the country wondering if VBAC is still possible and the answer is YES. 100% it is possible and we have our friend Katie today. Hello, Katie!Katie: Hi.Meagan: She is going to just be sharing her story showing that it is possible to VBAC. Now, one of the things that I actually really love about Katie's story is that it shows that things can change, and even when things change it doesn't have to be bad. I sit in that because I personally wanted to birth out of the hospital and when I was in labor, in my mind, if I had to transfer, I was for a little while telling myself that that was a bad thing. And that it wouldn't happen, or people would be looking down, or whatever. I was spiraling. I was just going through a moment in labor. But something that stood out to me with Katie's, is she talks about how after a really long labor at home, planned home birth, her intuition, which we talk about a lot, knew that she needed to make another choice in her labor and that was to go to the hospital. Right, Katie?Katie: Exactly. Yep.Meagan: And so I love that we can talk about how plans can change and that doesn't mean it has to be the be-all end-all. Is that how you say it?Katie: Yeah.Meagan: It doesn't mean it has to be over or it doesn't mean your chances of VBAC are done. If you are planning a home birth and you make the choice, or even if it was medically necessary, like sometimes it is, right? That doesn't mean that it has to be bad. And so I love that part about her story and that she listened to her intuition. And then also another highlight, is that intervention happened, right? And that sometimes in this community we fear the intervention. I understand why we don't all usually want the intervention, we just want it to be left alone. But sometimes intervention comes into play and sometimes those interventions help us get the birth that we wanted. And so I'm just going to end there because I want Katie to be able to share her story but those were a couple of things that, for me, as I was reading her submission, stood out to me and I thought were really important topics to touch on because plans can change and even when plans change, it's okay. 04:41 Review of the WeekMeagan: But I do have a Review of the Week so I want to review that and then I'll turn the time over to you Katie. Okay, so this is from our Google reviews, which we absolutely love. Even our Google reviews help people find the podcast, our blogs, our course, our resources, all the things. If you wouldn't mind heading over to Google. Google “The VBAC Link,” and leave us a review, we would absolutely love that. So this is from, I think it's Eimear. Sorry if I am butchering this name. They gave a 5-star review, so thank you so much. But it says that, “This podcast was my constant source of reassurance and inspiring stories throughout my last two pregnancies. I achieved my VBAC in 2021 and was empowered with so much knowledge and mental strength going into this birth because of The VBAC Link. I had my second C-section in 2002 which was not what I wished for but I do plan on having more children and know that VBA2C (vaginal birth after two C-sections) is a possibility for me because of this podcast. I continue to listen to your inspiring stories each time I hop in the car and I'm so grateful for all that you share. I hope to share my own redeeming story with you in time, too.”Thank you so much for that review. I love that you said that VBAC after 2 C-sections is possible. We see that a lot in our Q and A's. “If I've had 2 C-sections is it possible?” The answer is yes, absolutely, 100 percent. So if you want to learn more check out the podcast or head on over to thevbaclink.com and search VBA2C and you'll get to find more about that. 07:27 Katie's storiesMeagan: Okay, Katie! Welcome again. Thank you for being here. Katie: Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to share my story.Meagan: Oh my gosh, me too.  And I know you've got your little one by you. So how old is your little baby?Katie: My daughter, Scarlett, is just shy of 5 months.Meagan: 5 months. Okay, so you're still pretty in the thick of it. Katie: Yes, still sleepless nights.Meagan: Yes, and you're coming from Germany. I don't even know what the time zone is there, but hopefully, you're not up way too early or way too late.Katie: It's like just late afternoon here.Meagan: Okay good, I'm so glad. Well I would love to turn the time over to you to share your stories.Katie: Okay, great. Well, I'll just get started with my C-section story. My son, Charlie, is 2. He was born in 2021. I'm originally from the U.S. but as you mentioned, I live in Germany and I had been in Germany for about 5 years when I had him. And then as just some background, I'm actually an intensive care nurse and I worked in the United States as an intensive care nurse and then for a bit here and have since transitioned into the corporate world. I'm not like a labor and delivery nurse, but I have a lot of knowledge about birth from nursing school. I think there is a little bit of a misconception in the U.S. that everything is better in Europe, that they're more natural or that the healthcare is better, blah blah blah. I just want to say that has not necessarily been my experience especially working as a nurse. I can really see that the shortage of trained healthcare workers is significantly worse here. And there's kind of like, we have our issues in the U.S. too about making sure we're providing evidenced-based care. We try but it's hard to keep up and stuff. I would say it's even harder here and then doctors here are super paternalistic. So when I was pregnant with my son, I had that impression as I was going into it. And also, the way it works here is, you just go to a gynecologist for your pregnancy care and then you just go to the hospital to have your baby. You don't get to pick your doctor. There's just staff, so you just get who you get. I didn't really like that when I was planning my birth for my first pregnancy, but I was kind of like, well what else am I gonna do? That's the way it is. But I felt at the time really confident about my knowledge and that I'm pretty tough and well-informed, and I'll manage to get through it. This is just like the way it's going to be. Didn't have any thoughts about trying to do a home birth or another out-of-hospital environment, it was just like you go to the hospital and baby and go home. So my pregnancy was pretty good. I had the normal kind of aches and pains. There was some concern with my son's placenta. It wasn't functioning great but we didn't have issues from it, just extra growth scans and there were really no problems. He was due December 27th, so around Christmastime. I think if I had known I would have never gotten pregnant to have a baby around Christmastime because my impression was with the hospital, that they were really short-staffed when I ended up having him. 11:14 Start of laborKatie: So I ended up going into labor– he was born on the 22nd, so I went into labor on the 20th of December. I woke up around midnight with really bad back pain and I felt like I was going to have diarrhea. That's probably TMI.Meagan: I totally get that. Katie: Yeah I kept going to the toilet thinking I had food poisoning, and nothing would happen. I would go and sit down, and as soon as I would sit down I'd feel like I'd have to go to the toilet again and I would run back there. This kept going on and then eventually after a little while I had some bloody show and my mucus plug came out. And I was like, “Oh! This was the contractions.” I was not expecting it at all. It was just this stabbing pain in my back and I didn't feel like my uterus was really doing anything so I was kind of surprised. I was like, “I guess I'm in labor,” and it hurt so bad. People always talk about how it starts out kind of light and builds up, and it was really full force. Like I said, I kept going to the couch and trying to sit down and trying to get comfortable and I'd have to keep running to the bathroom. It just kept coming. I was like, “Oh my gosh, is this baby going to be born really fast? This seems pretty intense.” I was like, “No, no I probably have a long time to go so calm down.” I took a shower and got my birth ball out and started trying to work through it. At some point, my husband woke up and I was like, “I think I'm in labor. Go back to bed and I'll get you if I need you.” I labored throughout the night. But around 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning, I started noticing contractions. They weren't quite as painful and it was spacing out a little bit and I was like, “Oh, maybe I should try to sleep.” So I laid down on the couch and I was able to kind of sleep in between these contractions. My husband woke me up a few hours later because I had my 39-week doctor's appointment. And I was like oh well we can just go to the doctor and have them check me there and just see how we're going. We walked to the doctor because I was afraid my water would break in the subway so we just decided to walk. But that didn't happen and by the time we got to the doctor, they had spread pretty far apart. I had waited in the waiting room for a while and I only had a couple while I was waiting.My doctor checked me and she said I wasn't dilated and then they did put me on the CTG there for just a little bit to just see what was happening and I didn't have a single contraction while I was hooked up on the CTG. But the second they took it off and I stood up again, it started again. But it was more how people describe early labor. It came every few minutes. It was totally manageable. I just had to take a few deep breaths. We ended up walking home and the rest of the day, that went on. I labored in the afternoon and I thought at some point I should try to take a nap, but every time I tried to lay down it would be really uncomfortable so I got up. Then my husband and I decided, “Well, this baby is probably coming. Let's go do some grocery shopping, get some snacks, and be prepared.” Katie: So we went grocery shopping and my parents were visiting. They were staying in a hotel, but they came over. We all had dinner together. I was convinced that it wasn't labor, and I was like, “This is probably just fake labor,” so I didn't want to tell them. My mom later told me, “We totally knew you were in labor. You did not fool us for a minute.” We made dinner, we all ate, and they left.It was only 7:00 or 8:00 PM and I was like, “Let's sit down and watch some TV and try to relax.” As soon as I sat down, the intensity really picked up and the frequency. I wasn't timing them, but I really saw that they were coming quite often and it wasn't comfortable to sit down anymore. I thought, “I've been doing this all day, almost 24 hours now. I think I deserve to use some of my coping mechanisms that I'd planned for.” So I had planned to listen to these hypnobirthing tracks and had bought a ton of really nice bath supplies to make nice hot baths. So I got in the bath and was just using this app to do the HypnoBirthing tracks and I found it really helped me and I was doing really well. And then after a while, my husband came in. I think he felt like he should be doing something too. I was like, “You can press start and stop on this app because it's really annoying to dry my hands off,” so he was like, “Okay.” He was there for 10  minutes and something popped up on the app that was like, “You should go to the hospital now,” and he started panicking. I was like, “I'm fine.” In my mind, compared to the contractions I had the first part of the previous night, my contractions were going to have to be at least like that or worse because I hadn't dialed at all, so I was like really mentally prepared this is going to be so bad. Right now I still feel fine. They were just coming close together, but I had no feeling the baby was coming. I felt fine.But he was just like, “Oh my gosh, this app is telling us we should go to the hospital,” and ugh. After a while of him freaking out, I thought, “Okay, let's just go to the hospital and do a check. They'll reassure him that I'm tops 2 centimeters dilated and he can relax and I can continue to labor in peace at home.” 16:55 Going to the hospitalSo we get packed up and drive to the hospital. They put me on the CTG and checked me. I'm 2 centimeters. Then after half an hour, they come in and say, “Well, we don't have any beds so we're going to have to send you to a different hospital.” I said, “Whoa, hold the phone.” In my mind, I'm thinking that I have at least 12 more hours of labor to go. I'm a first-time mom. And I was like, “I want to go home and labor. I don't want to labor in the hospital. I want to go home. Can't I come back at like 6:00 AM and check me again?” It was about midnight at this time. And they were like, “Oh no, you're not going to make it to 6:00 AM. Your baby is coming and will be here by morning.” And I was like, “Seriously?”Meagan: “It's midnight, I've got some time.”Katie: And I was like, “I really don't believe that.” But they were so insistent that I had to go to the hospital and they were even like, “We called an ambulance to take you to the other hospital.” Meagan: Oh my gosh.Katie: I was like, “I don't need an ambulance. I'm not dying, I'm just having some contractions. This is crazy, guys.” They were like, “Are you sure?” I was like, “No, I don't want to be separated from my husband and go in an ambulance. Absolutely not.” They were like, “Well, we're going to send you to this other hospital.” I said, “No. This particular hospital has a really bad reputation.” I said, “No, I don't want to go there. I want to go to–” my second choice was blah, blah, blah. They were like, “Oh, they're full.” I was like, “Okay well, my third choice is blah, blah, blah.” “Oh well, they're full too.” And basically, every other hospital in our city was full. I was just like, “Okay, great.” My husband's freaking out. I really don't want to go to this hospital but they're telling him I need to stay. I was like, “Okay, we'll go over there and I'll just get registered and I'll tell them that I want to go home and labor.” So we drive over and the whole time I'm like, “I don't really want to go to this hospital, but okay.” And then I told my husband that I had no idea where the labor and delivery ward was at this hospital. I had never been there. So I said, “Okay, let's park at the emergency room because usually this late at night, hospitals' other entrances aren't open.” We parked in the emergency room and nobody at the emergency room could tell us where labor and delivery was. And I was like, “What the heck?” I was the one looking at the map on the wall figuring out where it was, having these contractions. We walked there and we finally arrived. I had such a bad feeling there. It was kind of icky and old and gross, this hospital. They also hooked me up to a CTG and checked me. They told me that my cervix was completely closed and so I said, “Okay, great! I'm going to go home.” They started trying to put an IV in. And I was like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Why do I need an IV? I want to go home.” They also said, “No, your baby is coming imminently.” I was like, “That doesn't really make any sense.” In that kind of labor land you're so easily kind of–Meagan: Persuaded and convinced.Katie: Persuaded. And I also observed that I didn't have the support of my husband anymore. He was losing it basically. I thought, “Okay, I guess.” They had a bathtub and I thought, “Well, maybe I can take a bath here for a couple of hours and go home after that.” So we got in the bathtub and I really didn't like it. I'm not really a big water person so it really wasn't for me. So after awhile I got out. 20:22 InterventionsKatie: And oh, I forgot to mention. Before that happened, before they brought my husband back, the midwife was like, “Your cervix is like steel and we want you to take some medication to soften it.” She was like, “Don't worry. It's homeopathic.” I was like, “I don't want to take anything homeopathic. That's fake medicine. I don't want to take that.” She was super insistent. I was like, “Okay, let me see what this is. I'll look it up online and tell you if I want to take it or not.” She handed the pill to me and it was Tylenol with codeine. Meagan: What?Katie: And I was like, “Excuse me?” I was like, “This is not homeopathic medication. This is a narcotic.” She was like, “No, no. This is homeopathic.” I said, “No no. This is a narcotic.”Meagan: Like, “I'm not dumb.”Katie: That really shut me down. Also with this labor land, I was like, “Maybe codeine means something else in German?” I got super confused, do you know what I mean? In hindsight, I've given patients Tylenol with codeine hundreds of times. I know what Tylenol with codeine is. But in that moment, I got confused about it. I was in this labor land kind of thing. Meagan: Yeah. Katie: But it totally set off my fight-or-flight reflex because it freaked me out. “Is she lying to me? Or does she just not know? I don't get this.” I really told my husband that I wanted to leave and he was like, “Where are we going to go? Everywhere else is full.” And I was like, “Well, I'll just stay in the bath. I don't know.”At some point, I got out of the bath and I had been up basically the entire night before, just trying sleeping in between contractions. I wanted to lay down and rest. She came in and was like, “Oh no, you need to get up and move around.” She made us go for a walk around the hospital. This was probably 4:00 or 5:00 AM. I just felt so uncomfortable, I didn't want to be walking around the hospital. I wanted to be in my own little cave. So we went back and then she told me, “Well, you haven't had your baby yet so we're going to have to discharge you to the antenatal ward.” I was like, “Okay, at midnight when I got here, you said my baby was coming imminently and I had to stay and now you want to discharge me. If you're going to discharge me, I'm going to go home. I'm not going to go labor on an antenatal ward.” She was like, “Oh, let me talk about it with my staff at our staffing meeting,” blah blah blah. I don't know whatever came of that but I was so weirded out by it. Meagan: Yeah.Katie: And then like at 6:00 or so in the morning, she came in and they were again like, “Your cervix is as hard as steel. You need something to relax it.” Again she said, “I have something homeopathic for you.” It was Demerol.I again was like, “This is not homeopathy. These are narcotics.” I got really mad and I even said to her face. I looked her in the eye and I said, “It's appropriate to give patients narcotics or birthing women narcotics if they want them but you can't lie about it.” That's so unethical. That's not okay. I was so shocked by it. I had thought about it and I didn't really want to take narcotics. I'm intolerant of them. I've had some dental procedures and they make me really confused and I didn't want them during labor. But I thought at this point, it had been like 30 hours, and I thought, “Well, maybe it's time to try something.”My mom had always said when she had us that she would get a shot of Demerol and dilate to 10 centimeters in an hour from that. “Well, maybe I need that too. Maybe I'm like my mom.” I did consent to it but I felt like pushed into it. I kind of more consented to it because I wanted them to leave me alone. I told her again, “I'm really sensitive to narcotics. They make me confused. Please give me like the lowest dose.” I got my records later and I know now that it was the max dose and she had mixed other things into it so I totally became delirious. I could not cope with the contraction pain anymore because I didn't have this ability to be like, “Oh, I'm a flower, my cervix. Every contraction brings me one step–.” Being able to work my way through it was gone and it was sheer pain. They don't help me. It was just downhill from there. I didn't have the strength anymore to leave. At some point, they tried to make me take another walk. I was so dizzy that I kept falling over. Oh my gosh, if my patient was this dizzy, I wouldn't let them get out of bed but they were forcing me to go for a walk. They told us to leave the hospital and walk around outside. I remember standing at a red light and totally swaying back and forth clutching onto my husband so I wouldn't pass out. I was like, “I should not be outside. This is ridiculous.”So we went back and I'm not exactly sure what happened all afternoon. I forgot to mention we had a new midwife now. At some point in the afternoon they come in and say, “Well, you haven't had your baby yet. You're only a couple of centimeters dilated. We're going to start you on Pitocin.”Katie: And I said, “No, no. I don't want Pitocin.” They said, “Too bad. We're giving it to you anyway.” And I again was not in any kind of state to fight or protect myself. They started it and I didn't have any pain management at all. This was like 4:00 or 5:00 in the afternoon so it had been like 10 hours since I had that Demerol. My contractions were always that really bad back pain. It was so bad with the Pitocin. I ended up getting an epidural which was such a bad moment for me because I actually had more anxiety about getting an epidural. I have a fear of being paralyzed and I thought, “I absolutely don't want an epidural.” I ended up getting one and it didn't really work. They just kept turning the Pitocin up. And I kept telling them, “This isn't working. Can you get anesthesia here? There are things you can do to fix it.” They wouldn't do anything.They kept telling me, “If it doesn't work, it just doesn't work.” I was like, “That's not true. I know a lot about epidurals and there are a lot of things you can do.”At some point, I had realized that I hadn't peed in 12 hours and tried to go to the bathroom and nothing came out. I asked them in they could put a catheter in so I could pee. This midwife just kept ignoring me. I was like, “I really need a catheter.” I had felt really hot. I was like, “Can you take my temperature? I'm worried I have a fever.”Meagan: Oh my gosh. Katie: I also kept asking her if she would help me because I was laying in the bed, halfway falling out of it and I needed some help to reposition myself. I kept pushing the call light and she would come in and yell at me for pressing the call light. And after a few hours of this I finally had a little bit of fight back in me. I remember screaming at my husband, “You need to get me another midwife right now!”They must have heard us fighting outside because somebody else came in. I was like, “I need a catheter. I need someone to take my temperature and I need some help moving around.” So she catheterized me and there was like 500 milileters of urine in my bladder. She took my temperature and luckily that was normal. She helped me get up out of bed so I was sitting on a ball. At that point, I realized that the pump for the epidural was sitting right there. I remember turning to look at it and the pump wasn't even on. I was like, “I've been complaining. I have no idea what happened if it had been off the whole time or something, but it was supposed to be a patient-controlled epidural and it wasn't even on. I was like, “What is this?”At this point, it was midnight. I had been going on 48 hours now and only at like 4 centimeters dilated. They just kept telling me, The only way you're ever going to have this baby is if we keep turning the Pitocin up.” I kept asking them, “Are there positions we can do?”I also forgot to mention in the beginning that the people in Germany told me, “You don't need a doula in Germany because the midwives do all of that kind of stuff.” I never got a single suggestion on how to maybe reposition the baby or if there was anything. I kept asking, “Is he posterior? Is something weird going on?” “No, no. Everything's fine.” With these Pitocin contractions, I felt this pull in my pelvic floor. It felt like my body was fighting against it. I can't believe this is working. I can feel my muscle close with that. 29:44 Katie's C-section Katie: They told me that wasn't a thing, blah blah blah. My cervix had started swelling. And they were kind of like, “The only way you're going to have this baby is having a C-section,” and you know, that's just what happened. I ended up consenting to it because I was so afraid that they were going to do something to harm me. There had been like so much–Meagan: Weirdness.Katie: Weird stuff. I'm not going to die because childbirth is dangerous but because these people don't know what they're doing and they're somehow going to hurt us. And the C-section was just awful. I could remember on the way down, they knocked a bunch of the equipment over that was attached to me. When they started operating, I had a strip on my right side where I could feel everything. I was like, “I can feel what you're doing there. I was screaming.” The birth of my baby was the worst moment that I could imagine. It not joyful or happy at all. What has happened? What has happened to me? How did this happen to me? I just like couldn't believe it. Meagan: Yeah.Katie: What else could I have done differently? I don't know. How did everything get out of control? It was just crazy. I ended up having really bad PTSD afterward that I would have nightmares about the surgery. Postpartum was so rough because I had no connection to my baby and I honestly resented him almost in some ways where it was like, “If I hadn't had you, I wouldn't have gone through this.” It was just really hard to work through.I was also so mad at my husband. I really thought, “How could you? Where were you? You were supposed to be my support. You were supposed to help me.” I don't think he really got it. I kept telling him how much he was going to have to help me. “I really needed you to be strong in that moment and you just weren't.” It was a really low point in our relationship, too. 32:06 Preparing for VBACKatie: But he promised me that if we ever had any other kids, he would try to make it up to me. “Let's try to work through this.” And I got some treatment for my PTSD and I ended up taking Zoloft. I obviously listened to the stories on VBAC Link and other podcasts and I realized this is not unique. This is happening to a lot of people. I really knew that I wanted to have a VBAC. I never really thought there was something wrong with me. I thought it was the way I had been mishandled and that they didn't follow guidelines and that it was really inappropriate care I received. If it had been better, maybe I would have been able to do it. Anyway, I had a lot of anxiety about doctors and I didn't think, “If I have another baby, I want to go to the hospital. What am I gonna do? If I ever have another baby, should I go back to the United States to do it? Can I review clinical literature from my job?” And just from listening to podcasts and your story, Meagan, and the others, I realized an out-of-hospital birth is probably the best option for me if I ever have another baby to have a VBAC. I found a paper from 2019 about birth in Germany, about VBACs in Germany. And the success rate was like 40% in the hospitals to 60% in the birth center and 80% if you planned a home birth. They said that the outcomes for mom and baby were similar. So I said, “That's it. We have real literature that we're going to have a home birth if I ever have another kid.” Before I even got pregnant, I researched home-birth midwives in the city. I started speaking to a doula before I even got pregnant. And I had signed with her and she said that even if she wasn't available when I got pregnant again, she would help me find someone who was. I actually ended up getting pregnant really fast. We got pregnant on the first try and that was about– my son was 14 months when we got pregnant again. They're 22 months apart. 34:34 Second pregnancyKatie: I was like, “I'm going to do this. This is super important to me. I really need to do this.” I listened to VBAC Link stories and other VBAC stories every day. There's some other podcasts that I listened to. I read all the books like Ina May's Guide to Childbirth and Childbirth as a Rite of Passenger by Rachel Reed and I was just only thinking and talking about birth. That was the only thing I paid attention to in that time.I read all the guidelines from every major organization and I read a lot of the literature that they used to come up with the recommendations. I had pretty strong opinions then that I would be okay with. But mostly I just wanted to be left alone. I didn't want any interventions because in my mind, with my sons birth, the intervention is what had ruined it. Katie: I worked out a lot with my first pregnancy, too. But with my VBAC baby, I did the Mamastefit fitness program.Meagan: Love Gina.Katie: And at the end, there's a lot of focus on relaxing your pelvic floor. I started seeing an osteopath. We really worked on trying to relax my pelvic floor. I mostly focused on stretching. I kept doing the HypnoBirth stuff. The pregnancy went on. I registered at a hospital just as a backup just in case we needed to transfer. I went to the registration appointment at this hospital. They were supposed to be the best VBAC hospital and they claimed to be the best VBAC hospital in the city, but the doctor there was so anti-VBAC and just talking about, “Oh, you are causing all of this risk if this happens.” I was really kind of shocked by it and at one point, she was like, “Oh, we need to do this ultrasound,” and I was like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you want to do this ultrasound for?” She was like, “Well, we need to make sure your baby isn't too big and that your scar is thick enough.” I said, “Well, I know that those growth scans, you might as well flip a coin so I'm not interested and also, there is not any research supporting the use of ultrasound measurements of the scar with predicting the risk of rupture so no, I decline.” She said, “Well, no you have to do it.” I said, “No, I don't and I'm not doing it unless you can tell me what evidence you use to come up with these recommendations and what are the cutoffs? How thin is too thin is too thin for the scar? You have to be able to tell me that and you have to tell me what evidence you've used to come up with that definition and I will not consent to the ultrasound until you tell me that.” She just couldn't do it. She kept just going on about like, “Well, you have to. You have to.” I said, “I don't have to do anything. I don't consent. If you don't know the answer, find someone that does.” My doula was with me and she ended up going. This doctor ended up going and getting their boss. She came in and my doula had told them something about how we were just planning this as backup for a home birth. They were like, “You absolutely cannot have a home birth.” I was like, “I absolutely will. That is my choice and you can't tell me what to do. I'm doing that.” They were just like, “No, no. You can't do that. You can come here and have the birth.” I said to them, “I know I'm going to need a long time to labor. I was in labor for 48 hours with my son. I need a lot of time. There was nothing medically wrong with my with my son. It was just this pure, bureaucratic nonsense. I was pressured into it because I took too long. I know that and I need support to get through a long labor and it's safer for me to be at home and it's safest if there is a midwife at home with me that can check on the baby and make the recommendation when it's time to transfer. That's the best course of action.” They were like, “No, no. You can only plan to birth here.” I was like, “Well, if that happens, then I'm going to be home alone without anybody there to check on the baby. How is that safe?” They just kept saying, “You can't do that. You can't have that here.” Katie: We ended up not having a backup hospital. That was kind of a tough conversation but I was really proud of myself that I had stood my ground so much. Just a lot of women talk about how you always want to be polite and non-confrontational. I was like, “I'm not going to be that way. I'm going to demand answers. I'm not going to do things just to be nice.” I was very proud of myself that although I was basically banned from that hospital, I was proud of myself for sticking up for myself. I really felt and the literature also supported that homebirth was a safe option for me, but we went into it not having a backup hospital. 42:01 Labor beginsKatie: I'll move on to the actual labor and birth with my VBAC baby. So that also started around midnight. I woke up feeling kind of funny. I went to the bathroom and a little bit of amniotic fluid came out. I was like, “Oh, great.” I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do in that situation so I got on my birth ball and bounced. I listened to an episode from Evidence-Based Birth about the premature rupture of membranes. I listened to that and was like, “No, no. I feel best about waiting for labor to start on its own.” I kept having some mild cramping throughout the night and then around 5:00 AM, I went to the bathroom again and I had some bloody show. Around 9:00, I texted my doula and my midwife just to let them know. My midwife, Julia was like, “Let me come over. I have a lot going on today. Let me just come over and see how you are doing.”I was like, “You can, but I'm not really having any contractions. I'm just having some cramps.” She came over and we chatted. She offered to do a vaginal exam to see where I was at. I said, “No, I'm not really in labor yet. I don't want to risk it.” She left and then a few hours later, I started having “contractions”. I was so excited because they were actually contractions, this wave feeling in my uterus because with my son, it had always been this stabbing pain in the back. I'd never felt my uterus doing anything. I was like, “Oh my gosh. Everything I did worked. I'm having real contractions.” I was so excited. We just kept working through them. We made a plan to have my son go over to my sister-in-law. I was convinced that oh, maybe labor won't really start. I don't know what I was thinking, but my husband and I made a plan to just have a nice dinner together and send our son off so if I went into labor, he would have somewhere to stay and if not, we would have one more nice evening together before the baby came. But I was in denial. The contractions kept ramping up throughout the day. Finally, at dinnertime, we were eating our dinner and my husband was like, “Do you want me to call Johanna?” Johanna is our doula and I was like, “No, it's way too soon. It's only been a few hours.” He was like, “Are you sure?” Then I realized. I took that as a sign that he needed the support. I was like, “Great. Let's have her come over.” I totally thought she would come over and be like, “Yeah, she's fine. Let's go to bed and we'll take care of this later.” She came over and supported me through some contractions and was like, “Hmm, how would you feel about having your midwife come over?” I was like, “it's way too soon. It's only been 7 hours. The contractions are too far apart and too short.” She was like, “No, I've been timing them and they are over a minute long and three minutes apart.” I was like, “I guess you can call her if you want to.”They called her and she listened to me having some contractions on the phone and was like, “Yep, that sounds like active labor. I'm coming over.” She came over and we all labored together. Katie: At some point, I started having back labor again. During the day, it had been this really nice wave feeling, but then the back labor started to come in. Around 11:30ish, my midwife checked me and she told me that my cervix was really posterior and that the baby was actually just pressing on the lower segment of my uterus. I didn't want to know how much I was dilated, but I knew that it was probably not much based on what she was saying from that.Later, after the birth, I found out I hadn't dilated at all. She actually manually moved the cervix down and held it under the baby's head and had me do a couple of contractions like that. It was awful. She really recommended that I try to lay down as much as possible during contractions because her theory was that something was pulling my cervix back so if I was moving around too much, it would keep pulling it back. It was so painful to lay down. She ended up leaving to go get some sleep. I kept laboring like that throughout the night. I got super nauseated. I was throwing up. It was just the only way I could get through contractions was to sit on my birthing ball. I had hung a sling up and I would hold onto the sling because I just could not have anything touching my pelvis. It felt like along my SI joints, they were going to just split in two.We labored throughout the night like that and they really did a really good job supporting me. They made sure– I had told my husband that his one job was to make sure I was eating or drinking and that after every contraction he should offer me something to drink and he did that to the point of annoyance during labor but he kept doing it and they did a really good job. 47:11 Getting support from her birth teamKatie: Around 7:30, throughout the night, the back pain was getting worse and worse. Around 7:30, we decided to call the midwife and have her come back. This is probably the first moment that I realized, “I think I'm going to need some help here.” I had read so many books talking about how childbirth is a physiological process and everyone can do it. You can do hard things. I really believed that, but it was really that I was starting to realize that, “Yeah, the majority of women are going to get through it fine, but I'm in that minority that really maybe does need some help.” I didn't say anything at that point. My midwife came over and again, I didn't know it at the time, but she checked me and I hadn't progressed at all throughout the night. My cervix had slipped back again into a posterior position. She did that thing where she held it in place again and really had me try to be laying down as much as possible to again with her theory about how my cervix was being pulled back. It was just so painful but it worked.I started progressing which was really exciting, but at the same time, I started having this weird contraction. It felt like my body was doing a kegel uncontrollably and involuntarily doing kegels during contractions. I could feel my pelvic floor closing up on itself. I was like, “I thought that was just because the Pitocin was on too high for my first birth, but this is my own natural oxytocin and I'm having this feeling again.”I kept laboring throughout the day. They somehow found a TENS machine for my back pain, but anyway, around 11:00 or noon, I said to them, “I think I'm going to need some help. I'm not sure anymore.” I had been so adamant during my entire pregnancy that I absolutely do not want to transfer to the hospital. Only if there is a medical reason and they were like, “No, you are doing so good. Let's stay home.” They really kept working with me, but by 4:00 or 5:00, I was like, “I think I really just need to accept that I need help.” We did a lot of massage and position changes. We did all of the Spinning Babies stuff. I could not get my pelvic floor to relax. It had been at this point 30 hours and I was like, “I did everything right this time. I feel safe. I set up a beautiful birthing space. I'm not scared. I want to have this baby and it's just not working. I just need to accept that. I don't know. I need some help.” 50:12 Transferring to the hospitalKatie: We went to the hospital and I thought I was going to be treated like crap because I was a home birth transfer and I didn't register ahead of time. We were just so lucky. We got the greatest people and I remember– I'm going to cry. They placed the epidural and I was finally doing some intake paperwork with the midwife that was going to be taking over and I was like, “I know you think I'm crazy, but this is so important to me. I have to do this.” She said, “Of course, you're going to do it.” It just felt like, I don't even know. It was just like, “Yeah, I am going to do it.” We talked to my anesthesiologist and I was telling him about what had happened at the last hospital. We talked about how I was really scared about another C-section because I had felt it during my first one and I didn't want another C-section. We talked about it. I was like, “You know if I need to have another C-section, I want to be put under. I don't need to experience that again. As much as I want to be awake for meeting my baby, I don't need that to feel it.” We had an agreement that if it ended up going toward a C-section, he would put me under. I felt like it was such a night and day difference. The staff at this hospital was again, way more modern. The staff was so respectful and always asked my permission to do things. We always talked about the plan and what we were going to do and explained the benefits and risks and all of those things.I had to get a Pitocin drip. I understood that with getting the epidural but they were like, “We won't turn it up too high. We will go slow. We'll probably have to break your water at some point, but we're going to wait until as close to the birth as possible.” They really laid out a plan. They checked me 2 hours after I had gotten the epidural and I had progressed to a 7. I just burst into tears. I had just gotten the epidural. At that point, I wasn't sure if it was the right choice or if I had just basically signed up for a C-section by going to the hospital. I didn't know at that point, but since I was at a 7, I was like, “Oh my gosh. I am going to make it.” It took another 10 hours, but I made it to 10. Throughout the night, I had the same issues with the epidural not working, but this anesthesiologist worked his butt off. He came in and he tried so many things like repositioning it and trying different medications, trying different types of concentrations. He tried so many things to help me and I could really tell that he felt bad that he couldn't totally take the pain away. Just that alone was enough. I was like, “It's okay. As long as my pelvic floor is relaxing, I can get through it.” 53:32 Feeling intense scar painKatie: At some point, around 4:00 AM, they gave me a really big bolus because they wanted me to get some sleep but I couldn't feel anything. I was completely numb. They said, “Okay, why don't you labor down a little bit? Your baby looks fine on the monitor. Everything is okay.” Around 6:00-6:30, I woke up and that bolus had completely worn of. This back pain that I was having was in that moment a thousand times worse because her head was down in the birth canal. I could feel. I remember checking and I could feel. I could only go about a fingertip in and could feel her head. It was so intense. My pelvis felt like it was on fire. I thought I was going to burst into flame. They had me start pushing and she was right there, but she was just not descending anymore. At some point, I remember they had me try to get onto my hands and knees. I was like a wild animal so I can't really remember everything, but they had me get on hands and knees. I realized, “Oh, I don't want to be on hands and knees because I can't brace my scar when I'm pushing,” then I realized, “Oh, my scar is kind of hurting.” Then I was like, “Why is nobody else worried about my scar hurting?” I was like, “Oh, I haven't said anything to anybody that my scar was hurting.” It was getting more and more painful. I was finally like, “Oh my gosh, my scar, my scar. It hurts so bad.” The midwife got a doctor to come in and they did an ultrasound and the doctor said, “Your scar looks fine.” It just kept hurting and it was hurting more and more. They were cleaning up the ultrasound machine and the pain wasn't going away in between contractions. Even though they were saying everything was fine, I just felt like things weren't fine. I almost had an out-of-body experience where I envisioned a future where my uterus ruptured and I got rushed out to the OR and it was really nasty. I was like, “No. I can't let that happen,” so I started yelling at them. I was like, “A vacuum, I need a vacuum.” They were like, “Are you sure?” I was like, “Yeah, yeah. I really need a vacuum. I need a vacuum right now.” I remember the doctor asking the midwife, “Well, how long has she been pushing?” In my mind, it had been 10 minutes and they were like, “Oh, it's been over 2 hours.” I was like, “Yes. Yes. Now. I need my baby to be born now, like right now.” 56:23 Asking for the vacuumKatie: They got a vacuum and pulled her out. I can't describe it. Although there was so much intervention and stuff, I felt like it was this home birth experience that everyone talks about because I got this crazy flood of oxytocin and I just bawled my eyes out for an hour and I felt like you know when you are a kid and it's Christmas morning and you've been waiting for weeks to get your Christmas present and you finally get to open it and you're so excited? It was like that feeling times a million. It was just an incredible feeling. She was there. I didn't know at that point if she was a girl or a boy so I got to look and I was like, “Oh my gosh. It's a girl.” It was just a really incredible moment. Meagan: Yes. So amazing that you were supported and that they listened to you. Katie: Yeah. I mean, my husband and I have talked about how this is the hospital that I should have had my son at. I don't know if I would have had a different outcome. I might have still ended up with a C-section there, but I don't think I would have had the same amount of trauma because the staff was so respectful and they were very capable and competent. It made just such a huge difference. Meagan: Absolutely. It sucks that a lot of the time, it comes to that– where we are and who is in that space. Katie: Exactly, yeah. Meagan: You know, we can't always control that which is a little nervewracking sometimes. We've just got to trust, but I love that you– I mean, honestly even with the first birth, like you said, you got to a point where you weren't in your brain-brain because you were in labor land, but you were really amazing at advocating for yourself overall. I just want to say congrats on that because that's really, really hard to do. Katie: Thank you. 58:42 Katie's advice for listenersMeagan: I don't know if you have any advice for listeners to be able to have your voice be heard or find that space inside of your soul that can come out and say what you need when you need it, and how you need it, but that's a really hard thing to do in labor. Katie: Yeah, I would say that I think it really made a difference that the doula was there. I think it created another layer of protection where she could run interference too and take on some of that burden. I think it was a little bit of her. I was like, “A vacuum, a vacuum, I need a vacuum.” She was the one like, “Yes, yes. She is asking for a vacuum. She wants that baby to come out now.” I didn't have to carry on the fight anymore because there was a moment in that when they said, “Everything on the CTG looks good.” I could have said, “Well, if they are saying that everything looks fine, maybe I could keep trying,” but I felt so strongly in myself that the baby needed to come out. Since I didn't have to keep fighting for myself, I verbalized what I needed and she carried the torch basically I would say, it really made a big difference that she was able to keep saying, “Yeah, yeah. She wants the vacuum now. Let's get it.” I guess preparing for a VBAC, you have to read all of the stuff and know because people will come and tell you things. You really need to be able to come back and say, “Actually, the guidelines don't support that.” I think it helps too if you have real citations. Do you know what I mean? You can actually say, “There is a paper that is supportive of this or not supportive.” You have to be able to have that knowledge almost and feel really confident that you know it to have those discussions with people as well. Meagan: Yeah, having the evidence is– not only knowing the evidence but having the evidence. That was something​​ that was really important to Julie and I when we were writing the course was not only giving the evidence but sharing the citations for those. Yeah. I mean, going back to the scar thickness and this and that. You were like, “Listen, no and no. I'm not going to do either of these things,” and they really couldn't come in with the evidence. That was so clear that the evidence wasn't there. They just wanted to bully you into making the decision that they wanted you to make. Katie: Right. Meagan: So having that knowledge and of course, having the evidence in general, but having those actual sites within links on your phone or in a manual or whatever. Katie: Exactly yeah. Meagan: So then you can be like, “It says this right here. Do you see anything different? Do you have anything new and updated?” Katie: Right. 1:01:47 The Friedman CurveMeagan: So talking about new and updated within your story, one of the things you mentioned that you wanted to talk about was the outdated and poor quality research that was done by the Friedman curve that is still being used. Do you want to talk about that at all? Katie: Yeah. That was something I came to the conclusion when I read a lot of papers and in my first birth and in my documentation, the diagnosis was “prolonged labor and failure to progress”. I was like, “What does that even mean?” I couldn't really find a definition in the literature of what prolonged labor was and what I realized was that it's way more that there are economic reasons to speed up labor, not clinical reasons. That's why it was so important to me. I was like, “If I need to have my baby by C-section, I will proudly walk into that OR if there is a medical reason or a clinical reason, but not a bad management reason or not because it's just taking too long.” I just couldn't find anything really convincing and one of the big criticisms of the research that Friedman did was that it was only a very narrow population at one hospital in the 50s. In the 50s, everyone was getting twilight sleep and all of the babies were being pulled out with forceps. It really can't be applied to us as modern birthing women. Yeah, there's an idea of on average, women take so long, this 12-24 hours. That's about true, but there are corner cases like mine or if I remember correctly from your story. You were also in labor for a long time. Meagan: Mine too, yep. Katie: Just because you're in labor for a long time doesn't mean that it's bad. The question is how is Mom doing? Is she healthy? Is baby healthy? If the answer is yes and also if Mom is up to keep going, because I think there are a lot of stories on The VBAC Link Podcast too of women who decided, “I'm only going to labor for so long and if I'm not dilating, then I'm going to call it.” I also think that's great that some women make that judgment call of, “I really want a VBAC, but I just don't want to do it for days and days.” I had the opposite decision for myself where I was like, “I'm going to do this until my baby comes out unless there is a clear medical reason that we need a C-section.” Meagan: Right. Katie: Yeah, I think it's just important to know that there's actually not great research for what is normal and just because you are outside of normal doesn't mean it's bad or dangerous. Meagan: Yeah. I agree. We're going to provide the little bit of a risk factor in Germany specifically with the different locations and then Evidence-Based Birth who we love and adore, they actually have a blog on the Friedman's Curve. They talked about how in 2014– you guys, it's 2024 so 10 years ago– ACOG came together with the Society of Maternal-Fetal Medicine, so MFM, and they published new guidelines on labor progress. They said their new “normal” of labor is longer than the Friedman definition. There is more room for flexibility such as when an epidural is being used. In addition, new timelines were developed to define when labor progresses abnormally slowly. They are recognizing that sometimes labor does progress abnormally in their minds. That's abnormal to them. New terms were defined with purpose and they talk about how it's changed from 4 centimeters to 6 centimeters and things like that. I mean, this is a really wonderful blog. I'm going to drop it in here but I love how you talked about that. Just because it doesn't go as someone thinks it should go or the lack of really true evidence all around shows it should go doesn't mean it's bad. It doesn't mean something is wrong and it doesn't always mean you have to do something different. It just means you may need more time. 1:06:16 Trusting your intuitionMeagan: Now, you may want to do something different. You may feel you need to do something different like transfer to the hospital. These are things where we have to tune into that intuition and think, “Okay, what is my body telling me? What am I supposed to be doing?” But long labor, you guys, kind of sucks sometimes to have to keep going and keep going but at the same time, it's so amazing that your body can do that and is doing that. We have to trust that. We have to trust that process and trust our intuition. Katie: Yeah, and I have to say my first labor was 48 hours and I had the C-section. It's a trauma and this one was 45 hours and it was super intense the entire time basically for at least 38 hours of it I would say, but I can barely remember it or even connect to it anymore because I was just so happy to have the VBAC. I always had this attitude that it's just a day for me or a few days that it's going to be tough, but it's going to be so great afterward and that's really the attitude that I had. For me, that's been true. Postpartum is always hard, but I have so much more resilience this time and I really had that attitude that “I can do it. I can do hard things,” and I can. Meagan: You can. Yes. I love that you pointed that out. Yeah, it's a few days but it's a few days that led to this cute little baby that's joining us today on the podcast. Well, we will make sure to have the links for those two blogs that we mentioned and the study. I just want to say congratulations. Amazing job. Katie: Thank you. Meagan: Really good job of advocating for yourself. To the point of having a doula, even when those doulas aren't speaking out loud for you, they have this space that they hold that makes you feel like you can and then they support you and rally behind you. I love that you mentioned that because I mean, even with myself with my own birth as a doula at that point, having doulas, I truly felt like that, like I was able to have the extra voice that I wanted to speak. It came out so I'm so happy that you had your doula and I'm so happy for you and congratulations again. 1:08:56 Doula supportKatie: I just wanted to mention too with my doula if she ever hears this, she was with us for 38 hours and just– Meagan: Oof, so long. Katie: We had a contract. There was an exchange of money, but at the same time, I would have understood if she had said, “I've been away from my own children for so long. I need to go check on them.” She really stayed with us and helped us that entire time. It has just been the biggest gift that somebody would set aside their own needs to make this difference in our family. I don't know– I wasn't very good at expressing that to her. I feel like in the moment, I didn't have the words for it, but I hope if there are any other doulas listening, the work that you are doing makes such a huge difference. Meagan: I love that. Thank you for sharing. Katie: I also wanted to say thanks to everyone who has ever shared a story about actually having a uterine rupture because listening to those stories, they all always mentioned that they felt that something wasn't right and having heard those stories really gave me the confidence to say, “Things aren't right. I need to get my baby out.” I know it's scary, but if anyone is planning a VBAC, I think it's important to also hear those stories as well because it really empowered me to get the help that I thought I needed and to stand up and advocate for that. Meagan: Yeah, I love that you touched on that because those stories, even with repeat C-section stories, are really hard to listen to or allow in your space when that's not what you are wanting, but a lot of those times, if you can find the space to join in on those episodes, they really do bring a lot of education as well. I think if it does end in a C-section or something like this, it can also bring some validation and healing weirdly enough by knowing these episodes. Katie: Yeah, I agree. Meagan: Yeah.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

Jenny's story is one of pure gratitude and joy. She is so grateful to be a mother, for the miracle of her pregnancies, for a breech baby who flipped late in her second pregnancy, for the chance to experience labor, and for a beautiful, successful VBAC. Jenny talks about all of the ways she prepped and how she even had to travel over a mountain pass during a snowstorm while in labor to get to her VBAC-supportive provider. Meagan shares some statistics about breech birth and why we so badly need more providers trained in vaginal breech delivery.A long-time listener of The VBAC Link Podcast, Jenny shares her story with so much joy hoping to inspire other Women of Strength just as she was inspired by so many others. PubMed Article: Risk of Vaginal Breech Birth vs. Planned CesareanHeads Up DocumentaryInformed Pregnancy - code: vbaclink424Needed WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details 02:58 Jenny's first pregnancy with gestational diabetes06:10 Low amniotic fluid, breech presentation, and a C-section10:22 Healing in different ways14:16 Getting pregnant again and doing all of the VBAC prep22:52 Gestational diabetes test27:59 Breech at 34 weeks32:33 A head-down baby35:11 Traveling the mountain pass in a snowstorm39:43 Checking into the hospital45:42 Fetal ejection reflex49:20 Pushing out baby and postpartum blood loss57:10 Jenny's advice for breech mamas1:00:22 Statistics on vaginal birth versus planned Cesarean for breechMeagan: Hey, hey. You are listening to The VBAC Link Podcast and we have another amazing episode for you today. We have our friend, Jenny. Hello, Jenny. Jenny: Hi. Meagan: How are you today?Jenny: I'm good. I'm so excited. This is just– I am reeling actually that this is actually happening today. Meagan: I am so excited that it is. You know, it's so fun to get submissions in and then when we send them out, people are like, “Wait, what? Really?” Jenny: That is exactly how I felt. I was like, “This is never going to happen, but I'm just going to go for it. I'm just going to submit it.” I mean, The VBAC Link was such a huge part of my whole story and just to be on here and hopefully share something inspirational with somebody else, hopefully it helps somebody. That's my goal today. Meagan: It will. It's absolutely going to. The whole podcast, sorry if you guys hear any noise in the background by the way. I'm getting a new furnace today and he's installing it downstairs literally below me. So sorry if there's any extra background noise. But this podcast is literally something that I wish so badly that I had when I was going through my VBAC. Obviously, that's one of the reasons why we were inspired to create it, but every single story, even though they all might have similarities or even be in similar places, they are so different and unique and I love that. I love that almost 300 episodes in, we can prove that every birth is different. It's true. Every birth is different and you went through a lot with your births. I mean, I've got her list right here of things. You guys, this is going to be a jam-packed episode. She's got gestational diabetes, breech, advanced maternal age, and trusting the process. We're going to talk about traveling literally over a mountain pass. She drove over a mountain pass to find what she needed so I'm so excited to dive into your episode in just one minute after the intro. 02:58 Jenny's first pregnancy with gestational diabetesMeagan: Okay, Jenny. Here we go. You are– are you ready? Are you ready? She is dancing in the background. You can't see her but she is literally dancing. You can see she is so excited to share this amazing story with you. Jenny: I am so ready. Okay, so let me go back four years to my C-section baby. I can't believe it's been that long. Being a mom was never in the cards for me. I'm just going to start out by saying that. My husband and I, we had been married for 15 years. We went on this fabulous cruise and we were just having the time of our lives. We had a conversation that if I was past 30, it just wasn't going to happen for us and that was okay. So we never planned to have babies and then we had the most wonderful surprise of our whole lives. One day– I don't even know it had been since I had my period so I was like, “Oh, I'll just take a test.” He saw it and was like, “What is this?” I said, “I'm 98% positive that it's going to be negative. I just do this sometimes. It's fine.” I get out of the bathroom with this blazingly positive test and he's like, “No way. I don't believe that.” So I had to go the doctor and prove to him that I was. Anyway, I loved being pregnant. It was so incredible. The miracle of just growing a baby is beyond words. Just that first flutter to knowing that you are creating a human inside of you to the first ultrasound– anyway. I started listening to “The Birth Hour” and I went down the rabbit hole. I love it so much because like you were saying before, it shows you so much about the differences. I didn't know what I didn't know, so it was just an education in itself. I went down the rabbit hole and I am such a birth nerd now. I had no idea. When I found out I was pregnant, the first thing that came to my mind was, “I have to give birth. I'm so scared,” because of all the fear. We get so much media fear. You see all the people screaming and pushing. It just looked traumatizing then I remembered I had seen The Business of Being Born and I was like, “No.” I have always been this closet hippie. I was like, “No. I'm going to do this and I'm going to do it right.” I found myself at 28 weeks. We did a gestational diabetes test and I walked into the doctor's office and she was like, “You have gestational diabetes.” I was like, “No I don't. No, I don't.” She was like, “Yeah, you do.” She was like, “You are going to give birth at 39 weeks here. You are going to be induced. You will give birth on your back. You will do this. You will do this.” The language she used with me was so– I felt so defeated and I was only 28 weeks. I was so disappointed and it was a midwife. It was a midwife practicing under a hospital OB practice. But I live in a really small town, so it was the only midwife I could find really. Home birth wasn't an option for me. We do have a home birth midwife, but it wasn't affordable at the time. 06:10 Low amniotic fluid, breech presentation, and a C-sectionJenny: It turns out that I had low amniotic fluid and you know, they send you in for all of these screenings and tests once you know you have gestational diabetes. They were really concerned about it one time when I went in and they were like, “I don't see any amniotic fluid, like any.” They actually kept me overnight and pumped me full of saline.Meagan: A bolus?Jenny: I was drinking water. Yeah, it was crazy. They checked the next morning and they said, “Yeah, you still don't have any amniotic fluid so we're going to send you to an MFM over the mountains,” which is about an hour and a half away in the city. When I got over, the MFM walked into the room. She didn't even say hi to me. I was 34 weeks at the time and she was like, “We're keeping you here. You're going to have this baby. You're not going to leave this hospital until you do.” She hadn't even talked to me. She never said, “Hello.” I mean, she just looked at my chart. She didn't do any tests on me. I was just blown away by how she talked to me. I was just like, “Are you kidding? Hi. I'm a person.” The did the test right there and then. It turns out the city doctor and their tests are so much better. Based on the total amount of amniotic fluid, they released me that day. As I was walking out the door, she was like, “By the way, I'll see you back here for your delivery because your baby is breech and you're not going to have her naturally.” I was just like, “Okay. I'll show you. I'm going to flip this baby.”Anyway, I went down the rabbit hole. I did everything. I even signed up for the ECV. I don't want to traumatize anybody, but there were three people pushing on my belly trying to get that baby to turn and she didn't budge. She was there. I did have some lower amniotic fluid.Meagan: That can be a sign too if baby really, really, really isn't budging that's usually a sign that an ECV– and if it's extremely painful, sometimes the ECV just isn't going to be successful and sometimes we have to trust those little babes, right? There is a reason why. Jenny: Mhmm. Mhmm. I totally agree with you too. I even was mourning the loss this whole time because I so badly wanted to give birth just to experience it. I don't know. It's an innate woman thing. Men can't do it. It's something that I never experienced in my life. What else can we go through in our lives that you have to wait until you're an adult to feel? It was just this phenomenon. I was so curious about it and I wasn't even getting the opportunity. I was telling a nurse about it one day when I was getting a test done, “I just want the chance.” She was like, “Oh, honey. You don't want to ruin your cervix by pushing out a breech baby.” I was like, “Oh, so I would break myself?” I didn't say anything because at the time, I was this pushover. I was just like, “I'll do whatever,” but inside, I was dying. I just wanted the chance at everything. So I got to the point where I just walked into the OR with the MFM because she does five of them a day and I trusted her more than I trusted our small-town hospital. Jenny: The C-section was uneventful. It was really easy. We did the labor baby dance before we went in there and then I saw her come out of my belly and I was thinking, “I don't know this baby.” I felt disconnected but at the same time, I was overjoyed. I cried because they took her right over to the warmer. The anesthesiologist was right by my head and she was like, “Why are you crying? Are you okay? Are you in pain?” I was like, “No, that's my baby and I can't hold her and I'm right here.” The didn't tie me down. Nothing was traumatic. I was very prepared. Meagan: They just didn't bring her over. Jenny: No, I was separated. They were weighing her and laughing about how she was and I was trying to see her. Anyway, it's just not natural. I mean, it's just not how you want to have your baby. They did put her on my chest and everything was great. 10:22 Healing in different waysJenny: Fast forward six months, I was done with it. I was like, “Maybe we'll only have one. Maybe this will be it.” We weren't planning on having a baby anyway and we were just loving being in that baby nest. COVID started and talk about a crazy time. I definitely suffered a lot from postpartum anxiety. I had a lot of expectations maybe about motherhood and stuff. I really learned a lot. The transformation to motherhood is like a phoenix rising from the ashes as a total personality makeover. You're just coming out of this, “This is who I was and this is who I'm becoming and this is what I'm learning.” Kids really teach you that, don't they? They teach you how to fight for yourself and fight for them if you can't fight for yourself, and I just found that postpartum is harder than it should be. We don't have the support we have and it really, yeah. It made me go into a deep dive of what was going on with me. I started listening to The VBAC Link actually. I found it one day when I was listening to a “Birth Hour” podcast. It was six months and I was like, “You know, I'm just going to listen.” I was like, “I love this. I enjoy it,” but I couldn't relate to it anymore. I searched VBAC on Spotify and you were the first person that came up– you and Meagan at the time or, you and Julie. I was like, “This is me.” I could connect to all of the stories because women were sharing the same feelings that I felt and the same things so thank you so much. It was inspirational to feel like, “I can do this. I can do this again.” I remember even talking to the OB when she was stitching me up in the OR. I was like, “I can have a VBAC, right?”At the time, I wasn't really planning it or whatever and she was like, “I'm doing the double stitch, don't worry. You are a good candidate.” I was like, “Okay, that's cool.” It was so far out but just listening to the stories and knowing that I could do it, it was like, “I could do this again.” But I needed to listen for a long time to feel like I was ready and stuff. A lot of your episodes talked about working through past trauma so I started doing that. I started EMDR. I did pelvic floor physical therapy and I just want to talk about that for a minute because I cannot believe how ashamed I was to do it I guess maybe. I just want to say that really quick because I have a vaginismus and that's when your muscles involuntary close into your vagina and it's because of past trauma. So doing EMDR coupled with the pelvic floor physical therapy was really something that was so useful and I was so ashamed to do it because I've had it for years and I remember my GP suggesting it one time and I was like, “Absolutely not. I'm not having anybody touch me.” I just wasn't ready. Meagan: You're vulnerable. Jenny: It is. I was so ashamed and I don't know why. I was talking to my pelvic floor PT about it. It was the first session I had with her. I was like, “I was so ashamed and I'm ready now.” She was like, “I can tell you are ready.” It was so healing to go there and to work through some of that. While it never got better for me, I know how to work with my body now and that kind of comes into play with my vaginal birth because in a way, I was a little bit relieved. Sometimes when I thought about it, I was looking at the silver linings of the C-section. You just walk right in. I was also thinking that I wouldn't have to deal with this problem that I was really afraid of having. 14:16 Getting pregnant again and doing all of the VBAC prepJenny: So anyway, big plug for pelvic floor physical therapy. Since I had gestational diabetes, I read Lily Nichols' book. I just listened to the episode on her. She is amazing. I can't believe I didn't know about her before. I had heard her on another podcast and I just thought, “I need to read this book.” She is amazing. Meagan: Yeah. Jenny: There are so many amazing birth workers out there– her and Rebecca Dekker from the “Evidence-Based Birth Podcast” and the “Down to Birth Podcast”. All of those people taught me something very unique and special about birth. It's just this education, right? All of this knowledge and trust that we really have to get. We have to work through some of our things– traumas or whatever it is. Things that culturally have been accepted in our mind about birth and we get to this point where all of a sudden, I was excited. I was like, “Maybe I could do this again.” I did all of the things. I started eating eggs, Vitamin D, and magnesium and taking the protein supplement, the collagen powder. I even went non-toxic for my cosmetics and my house care. I started this. I heard this girl's birth story. Her name is Bae. She is from Australia. She does this whole program– Core and Floor Restore. I loved her birth episode. I listened to her. I went to her website. She has this whole program on how to help your pelvic floor and how to exercise post-birth. The way she talks to women in there, she is like, “Do you. You do you. Don't push it. Don't force something that you can't do. If you can't do this exercise right now, modify it so that you can.” It was just this education of how to trust your body, how to trust birth, how to–Meagan: Trust our minds, our hearts, and our gut. Jenny: Yes, that's part of it. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, all of this transformation got me to the point where I was like, “I have to be a doula.” It wasn't in the cards for me to be a birth doula even though I am a huge nerd. I have to have a scheduled life. Meagan: Maybe postpartum? Jenny: Yes. Yes. I was like, “I want to be a doula, but I will be a postpartum doula.” I actually really love helping women work through some of these things that were so transformational to me. Just overcoming some things that you didn't know about yourself but you are forced to face in motherhood, so I became a postpartum doula and it is incredible. I love it so much. Then I decided I was ready. I was ready to have this second baby. I was ready to have my VBAC and I did a deep dive into providers because that was what you told me to do. I needed to know if I could do this and so I went to my hometown hospital and I was like, “Hey. Can I have a VBAC here?” They were like, “Absolutely not. We will schedule you for a C-section at 39 weeks so that you don't go into spontaneous labor.” I was like, “Okay.” So I went to the midwife and I was like, “Hey, can I have a VBAC here?” She said, “Well, I could support you but I shouldn't. I don't have the resources. I would want to support you, but ultimately, I shouldn't.” So I was like, “Okay. Okay.” I was like, “I've already established myself at this big hospital over the mountains. I'm going to ask them.” I went to them and they were like, “Yeah, we'll support you.” They had this outlying hospital in the mountains. It is absolutely beautiful, these giant windows looking out over the Pacific Northwest and I'm telling you, I live in the best part of the country but it's really bad so don't move here. That's for anybody that's thinking about moving here because we like it being a small town. I had my heart set on this beautiful outlier hospital. I called them. I'm getting ahead of myself. I had a conversation with my husband after I found them. I was like, “Hey, we should have a second.” He was like, “I don't know. It's really hard. We're older now.” I was 35 at the time. He was actually 44. We have a pretty big age gap. We weren't going to do it in the first place so we had some big conversations. I was like, “Okay. Let's just try for 6 months and if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. It wasn't meant to be.” We have a really strong faith so we were just like, “Maybe we weren't meant to have it.” It was really fun actually trying instead of trying to prevent pregnancy. I had never been in that boat oddly enough having a baby and stuff. But it was really hard and I was trying to visualize conception. I was like, “It seems impossible how it all happens.” Meagan: Timing and everything. It's amazing. It's amazing. Jenny: It's incredible just visualizing it all. It's incredible how it can actually happen. At the time, I was thinking, “Man, it's not going to happen.” Five months went by and I was doing all of the testing. I was making sure and it was really fun to nerd out on this side of it beyond the total planning side of it. I love that part. Yeah. Finally, one day seven, six days after I ovulated, I felt all of this cramping and I was like, “Maybe this is the implantation.” I think five days after that, I tested and I had the tiniest, faintest line. I was like, “Holy crap.” I did not think it was going to happen. It was just so amazing. I kept it to myself all day. It was my little secret except I went in and told my little one. She was three at the time. I went over and I was like, “Hey, you're going to be a big sister.” She looked at me and I was like, “But keep it quiet for a day.” Meagan: Don't tell anybody. Jenny: I wanted to take the test the next day that said you are pregnant because I didn't want the same reaction from my husband the second time. I was like, “I'm going to give him the test that says, ‘You are pregnant'.” So I did. I did. I gave him the test and he was like, “Oh my goodness!” Actually, I had her give it to him the next day. It was so cool. It was just this sweet little moment. My age really concerned me. I thought I would be so chill because the first pregnancy was like, “Whatever, I didn't plan this. Whatever happens.” With the second one, I had the fear in me that my age was against me. His age is against me now.I spent more time than I wanted and I regret feeling not anxious but just disconnected. I was really afraid to connect to this pregnancy because I know a lot can happen in early pregnancy and I really want to say that to other people who might have the same feelings that you are not alone in feeling that way because it is really scary. I got to my 20-week ultrasound and I was holding my breath the whole time she was doing the test.  She was looking and looking. She was being really fast and really efficient. They actually asked us to leave the room and go wait out in the lobby for the doctor to come get you. I was like, “This doesn't sound good. I don't think this is right.” I was so anxious and the doctor just walked up to us casually in the lobby and was like, “Everything looks good. See you guys later.” Nothing was wrong. I started bawling and I could not stop sobbing for so long. I'm not really a crier either. It was the confirmation that everything is going to be okay and we did it. I can't believe it. It's so hard to get pregnant and then everything is going good and stuff. I was really excited about that. I was also really hyper-aware of her positioning because obviously, I had this past breech. So from 20 weeks on, I was legit obsessed with sitting upright, leaning forward. All the time, I was turning my chairs around. I was never reclining on my couch. Even in my car, I was sitting straight up. I was like, “I'm uncomfortable 100% of the time.” I was trying really hard not to have a breech baby because even at my 20-week ultrasound, they looked and were like, “Yeah, she's breech but anything can happen.” I was like, “I know, whatever.” 22:52 Gestational diabetes testJenny: I was doing all of the things, right? Spinning Babies, I was going to acupuncture. I was going to pelvic floor physical therapy, the chiropractor, all of it. I was chugging along. At 26 weeks, I get my gestational diabetes test. I talk to my midwife about it and she was like, “Yeah, we can just do the two-hour test because we know you had it last time. You might have it again this time.” I was like, “Okay. I think that's a good idea.” I didn't mention this before, but with my first test, my midwife wouldn't even let me retest. She just said, “You have diabetes.” It was just the one-hour screening. It's not a diagnostic, but I got the diagnosis from it anyway. I was like, “Why wouldn't you let me retest?” She said, “Your number, I just felt like you have diabetes.” I don't know. I was pretty upset about that. They wouldn't even let me try. I know other people who retest all the time and they are negative with the three-hour test. It didn't make sense to me. So anyway, I went into this one pretty informed. I was like, “Hey, I want the three-hour test. I want to know if I have it,” because if you have it, it's not a good thing and you really want to control it. My first one was diet-controlled. She ended up being 6 pounds, 9 ounces. Meagan: Little. Jenny: She was tiny and she was 39 and 6 when she was born. I wouldn't let them take her earlier than that even though they wanted to. I was like, “No.” They were like, “We won't let you go to 40.” I was like, “Okay. You can have her at 39 and 6 then.” I was so mad at them. Anyway, I digress. Jenny: Okay, so I did the two-hour test. I felt so sick. I was like, “For sure, I have it again.” I had been eating a gestational diabetes diet the whole time. I was like, “I'm just going to take care of my body.” I felt amazing taking care of my body like that so it's really kind of a blessing in disguise having it. I would not say that having been diagnosed with it the first time. I thought that I was a failure and whatever, but you're not. Meagan: No. It just happens. Jenny: Yeah, it happens. My mom has diabetes. I shouldn't be surprised, but I was healthy and I was thinking that it would never happen to me and it did. So anyway, I took the test and it turned out negative. I couldn't believe it so whatever Lily Nichols did in her book, I did all of the things that she told me to and it worked so I'm just going to give a shoutout to her. Thank you because you helped me have my VBAC and I couldn't be more grateful for just not having it because then I kind of ate whatever I wanted. It was great. I gained a little weight and it was really fun. It was the opposite of my first pregnancy. I was carefree and I had a lot more flexibility to do things I really wanted. Anyway, that was really cool. But also at my 26-week appointment, my midwife felt my belly and she was like, “You know, your baby is frank breech.” She was like, “I'm just saying that. There is obviously plenty of time for it to turn, but we want to see a head-down baby by 30-32 weeks.” I need to back up just for a second. I wasn't able to use the midwives that I wanted at that outlier hospital from the city because I chose to do a bloodless program and they don't support that even in the outlier hospital. It is only the ones in the city. It was an hour and a half drive through city traffic and a mountain pass. I was due in February and our mountain pass is no joke. It closes for multiple days during the winter a lot of times, so going that far was part of our conversation in having a second. I was like, “I'm not having a VBAC here in town. Can you drive me?” He was like, “I'm not scared. Let's do it.” That comes into play later, but it was a lot. I had to use the bloodless program in the city which meant traffic, snow, ice, all of it. They chose to support me which was great. I found them and I'm grateful that they were but they weren't the dream team as far as being really supportive. I would say they were tolerant of me being there. Meagan: Tolerant of you going for it but not super on board. Jenny: Yeah, exactly. They were like, “Yeah, this is great.” They weren't saying, “This is what we need to see.” They weren't saying, “You need to be in spontaneous labor by 39 weeks.” I was drilling them. I was doing all of the things. I was like, “What do you require of me? Can I go to 42 weeks? I want to know.” I had never felt a contraction before so it was honestly like, I knew I went to 40 with my first so I'm definitely going to go to that with my second at least I thought. I did all of the things to try and flip her obviously when they said that, but at 35 and 6, she was still breech. Actually, it was 34 weeks. I had even gone to acupuncture and felt her physically flip. She did the flip in my belly. I'm not joking. I felt her move the entire way down head down. I woke up in the morning and she was breech again. I was like, “Okay. She can do it. I know this baby can do it.” 27:59 Breech at 34 weeksJenny: I kept doing all of the things until 34 weeks which is when most babies are head down. I was like, “You know what? I've listened to enough podcasts and stuff to know that I needed to let some things go.” I regretted a lot about my first birth. I hoped until the last minute that I was walking into the OR that she was going to flip and she didn't. I was like, “You know what? I want to enjoy this pregnancy. I don't want to feel like I'm doing all of the inversions of my life.” I was doing headstands in my hot tub. I was doing everything and I was like, “I'm going to let this go.” I chose to let this go at 34 weeks and I was like, “I'm going to enjoy this whether I have a C-section or not even though I really want a VBAC.” My faith is a really big part of that because I was just praying, “I believe so much that our bodies are incredible and they were made for this.” And to not have the chance to even try is heartbreaking. It's sad that we don't have breech providers because these OBs are professionals. They are professional. They get trained for years in how to do this and that we don't even have a chance with them boggles my mind a little bit. Meagan: I know. Jenny: Anyway, I've heard a lot about just having the chance to experience what women are made to do and just feel. Even if it's hard and even if it's painful and whatever, I just wanted the chance. I found this renegade OB in a different city. He was willing to do this ECV on me because I heard he had a good success rate. I was like, “I'm going to do it again. I don't care. I'm just going to try.” At 35 and 6, I binged on the Evidence-Based Birth Podcast because she has a couple about VBAC and she has a couple of episodes about birth. I wanted all of the stats in my head. I was like, “They are not going to deny me this ECV because I have this scar on my uterus.” I was dead-set. I knew ACOG by this point. I walked in and I was like, “I'm going to do this. Let's do this.” He was like, “Okay. This girl knows her stuff,” because he was like, “I probably shouldn't do it because of the C-section.” I was like, “No, ACOG recommends that I am not a risk.” I knew and he was like, “Girl, you know your stuff. All right. You know the risks. Let's try it.” Meagan: That is so interesting that he was trying to scare you out of it but because you knew the stats, he was willing to do it, but if you didn't know the stats, what would have happened?Jenny: Right? I wonder and I don't think it's fair that women have to become experts in the field that's not our job. Our job is to grow this beautiful baby in bliss and instead, we've got to fight for everything, something that we should be able to do. 32:33 A head-down babyJenny: I get in there and he puts the ultrasound machine on my belly. As I was driving myself there, I was thinking, “Man, these kicks are weird.” They were fluttering up here and I was like, “That's so weird.” It was under my rib instead of down below. I thought, “That's really weird.” He put the ultrasound machine and he was looking right down where my cervix was because that's where he should see feet and he laughed and he was like, “That's a head. Your baby is head-down.” I was like, “No, it's not. I felt her head last night right under my ribs.” He was like, “No, her head has moved.” I poked, poked, poked and I was like, “Are you kidding me?!” I hit him and was like, “You're kidding me, right?” He was like, “No, girl. You've got a head down baby.” I was like, “I've never felt this before! I've never had a head down baby!”I was in my second pregnancy, 36 weeks along pretty much and I had never had a head-down baby so I just want to say to all of the breech mamas out there, it can happen and maybe it can't. I don't know. I was convinced that I grew breech babies at that point because I was pretty far along there. Anyway, so that was the biggest surprise of my whole pregnancy. At that point, I was like, “I've got to find a doula. I've got to take a birth class. I've got to do all of these things.” I had been holding out for this opportunity to have a chance and now I had it. It was the most incredible, freeing feeling. When I was driving home, I was just like, “I can't believe it!” I was yelling in the car. I called my sister right away, “I have a head down baby!” She was like, “Okay.” It's just not a big deal to people. It was just so thrilling to feel like I could get the chance. So anyway, I took this birth class that B does from Core and Floor Restore and she talks a lot about physiological birth in it and how the movements that we make and the sensations that we feel all help in this balancing act of getting our babies out. I was just like, “I've got to try. I've got to try. I need the chance. I'm getting the chance now and now I've got to try.” So I did all of the dates and I did all of the classes. At 39 weeks, I stopped work and I just lived it up. I was just laying around and I was just having a good old time with my baby girl. That was one day that I had and the next day, I put her down for a nap. 35:11 Traveling the mountain pass in a snowstormJenny: I was at 39 and 4. I told my baby as I put my toddler down for a nap, I was like, “You know, I'm ready. I'm ready to see you. I've got all my meals in the freezer. I've done the work. I feel good.” Meagan: You were prepared. Jenny: I'm a postpartum doula. I had my ducks in a row and then my girl was just starting to sleep and I felt my first contraction. I was like, “No. This cannot be happening. Are you kidding me?” I just laid there super still and I was like, “That was another one. It's happening.”I went to the bathroom and I had a little bit of my mucus plug and bloody show. I texted my doula right away like, “Oh my goodness.” She was like, “Oh, you know. Things are happening. Yeah.” I was like, “I know. I know. I need to go to sleep. I'm just going to go to sleep.” I looked at the pass because that was the biggest factor in what was happening. I looked. It was 2:00 in the afternoon. I looked at the pass and it said it was going to have 7-10 inches that night of snow. I was like, “Okay. Nothing is happening now, but maybe we should.” Our plan was to get over on the other side of the mountains in case it closed on us, we would be on that side. I was going to have this chance for VBAC no matter what. I texted my husband right away and I'm like, “Hey, I had a contraction. I've had several. I've got some stuff going on. Can you head home from work? He never responded.” 6:00 rolls around. My daughter got up. My contractions slowed just like they do when your toddler is awake. I was like, “Did you get my text?” He was like, “No, what?” I was like, “It's going to happen today. I've been having contractions. I feel it.” He was like, “Okay. I was like, “But the pass is starting to snow already up there and I think we've got to go. He was like, “Well, let's just see.” I was like, “Okay. All right. Let's do this. When she goes down for sleep, I bet it's going to pick up.”Sure enough, it did. 7:30 rolls around. I put her down and it started again just small contractions, but I felt it. He went to sleep and by midnight, I was having timeable 5-minute contractions trying to lay there. I was like, “I can't do this anymore. I've got to get up.” So I got up and I got in the shower. He came in and he was like, “Are you okay?” I was like, “I am having some pretty intense contractions. I cannot lay here.” He was like, “Okay.” We were just reading each other's minds at that point. We've been married so long and we were both thinking about the pass. What are we going to do? Who was going to come over at this point and see our kid? I was spiraling and I was like, “I'm going to get in the hot tub. I'm just going to get in the hot tub and slow these down. I know this is probably just prodromal so I'm going to get in the hot tub.”I get in the hot tub and I'm sitting there and it was the most beautiful night. The stars are out. The moon is out. The sun was not out. It was the middle of the night. It was 2:00 in the morning and I was sitting there. It was this surreal, beautiful moment. Having these contractions and the warm water, it was incredible. At that moment, I was so grateful to have the opportunity at this point. I had never gotten this far. It was so cool just to sit there. That was definitely one of the most beautiful moments of my labor. Jenny: Unfortunately, my contractions sped up in the hot tub instead of slowing down. Meagan: So they were real. Jenny: Which is good, they were real. I was thinking, “Oh gosh, what do we do?” They were 2-3 minutes apart by this point lasting over a minute. We called our midwife on the other side of the mountains and we were like, “Hey, this is happening I think.” She was like, “Do you think you can make it?” I was like, “I don't know, but we've got to try.” She was like, “But you pull over right away.” We knew where the hospitals were along the way. She was like, “If you feel like you are going to start pushing, you pull over right away and you call an ambulance.” I was like, “Okay.” We called somebody and woke them up in the middle of the night to come over and stay with our toddler and we started the trek over the mountains and it was insane. It was so insane, the snow. We were all over the place. There were semis in one lane and my husband was passing them on the other side. Just like I thought it would, my labor slowed down. It was a good thing because I was obviously in fear at that moment. I sat in the back. I sat backward. I put my TENS machine on and I was going to be in the zone. 39:43 Checking into the hospitalJenny: When we got there, they checked me and unfortunately, I was only 1 centimeter but I was 70% effaced. She was like, “It's real.” Meagan: Hey, that's good. Jenny: But it's prodromal. I was like, “Awesome. We just spent the whole night getting over here.” It was so crazy, but it felt really good to be on that side of the mountains at that point. That hurdle was overcome for us. We went to our relative's house that was close by. That was part of our plan and we just went to sleep. We just went there and tanked for the morning. I got a couple of hours of sleep. My contractions started to pick up again. She fed me some eggs and I threw them up right away. It was real. It was really happening. It was 2:00 in the afternoon. It started getting really intense. I got in the shower and the whole time, I was trying to stay on all fours. I was trying to lean forward. Part of B's birth class is getting all of that pressure forward and moving your body. It was so incredible. I lost so much more of my mucus plug that I didn't know was possible. I started having more and loose bowels and all of that. By the time my contractions were 4 minutes apart, we looked at traffic and it was insane rush-hour traffic, back-to-back. We called the midwife and she was like, “You'd better start making your way in here.” I was like, “Okay.” We got in the car and it took over a half-hour to get to what should have taken 15 minutes in bumper to bumper. It was so insane just sitting in the car. One of my friends who traveled to do her birth too, I asked her what she did in the car because I knew I was going to be in the car. She was like, “I concentrated on something. I found something to concentrate on and it helped me to cope.”I was like, “I'm going to time these and I'm going to use my TENS machine at the same time. I'm going to keep my mind distracted.” I also kept my birth affirmation cards in front of me and they were so helpful. I'm not one of those people who needs affirmations, but for some reason, telling my mind in that moment, “You're okay. You're safe. It's okay to do these things.” I had one that was a vortex. I don't know if that was on this podcast. I think it was where a girl was looking at this vortex and pictured herself opening. Anyway. It was so helpful. I felt like I was dilating. I really felt true movement at those moments. Of course, I was doing really slow, diaphragmatic breaths and trying to breathe through each one and stuff. Jenny: By the time we got to the hospital, my contractions were 2 minutes apart. They checked me and I was 5 centimeters and 100% effaced. Meagan: Yay!Jenny: I know. It was so wild. But my midwife wasn't on shift yet. They only had OBs. Anyway, they stuck me in triage and just left me on the monitor. It was so cool though. They worked with me. I was like, “I'm not sitting. I can't lay down. I have to keep moving and I have to keep swaying.” She was like, “Good. Let's put this on you and let's keep you in that position then.” She was like, “I think I can get a reading.” While they did have to do continuous fetal monitoring, it was okay. It really worked out. I was really worried about that. A lot of people talk about that and think it was one of the biggest hurdles, but it was really doable if you've got somebody who's going to work with you through it. My doula came and it started to become a blur. My husband started to read me my birth affirmations which was really kind of sweet because he is definitely not that way at all. One of them that came from the VBAC podcast was, “My vag is a waterslide.” I loved that one. We had such a good laugh because he was reading it to me. It was a really funny moment. Things were moving, man but we were stuck in that room for over 2 hours. It felt like 10 minutes to me because I was just in the zone. My doula tried to do a hip squeeze on me and I hated it but I couldn't even tell her because I was so in the zone. I could not verbalize at that moment. My nurse was moving super slowly. I think they were just stalling to get the midwives on staff.At 8:00, they finally moved me to my labor and delivery room. As I was walking by, the nurses were like, “Go, Jenny! You can do it!” It was so cool to hear them cheering me on and stuff. It felt like the victory line running towards the goal. It was really cool. I got in my room and it took her over 10 minutes to find her heartbeat. She was just sitting there trying to find it. I was almost like, “Maybe I should be worried,” but I was too in the zone. I was on all fours the whole time trying to move and just work with my body through it all. When she finally did it, she got the wireless monitors on me. I had been saying for 2 hours straight, “I just want the tub. Please give me the tub.” As soon as we got into that room, my doula went in. She drew the bath. She put the candles in there and all of the things. I was sitting on the bed just moving and I was like, “I've got to poop. I've got to poop. It's going to happen. I've got to go to the bathroom.” They were like, “Okay.” I walked away and I ran into the bathroom real quick. I was sitting on the toilet and I was thinking, “Man, this is insane. I feel like my body is just going to break apart. This is insane, the pressure.” It wasn't super painful, but it was but it wasn't. It's like pain with a purpose. Anyway, I was sitting on the toilet and I was like, “Man, nothing is coming out. This is crazy.” All of a sudden, another huge contraction hit and I jumped onto the floor and sat on all fours looking at the tub. It's right there. All the water was finally filled. I could get in after this contraction was over and my body started bearing down. 45:42 Fetal ejection reflexJenny: It's like I was throwing up from the back of my body. It was like down and out. It was like a feeling that I'd never felt before. It was so incredible. It was happening, the fetal ejection reflex and there was this new nurse next to me that was like, “You're pushing, huh.” I was like, “I'm not trying to but I think it's happening. I'm getting in the tub now.” She was like, “You're going to come back and get on the bed actually.” I was like, “No!” For 2 hours I had been begging for the tub and now I have to push. I was like, “I'm scared. I can't do it. I can't do this. It's all too much at this moment. I'm not ready.” Meagan: Yes. Jenny: I got on the bed. This new midwife just walks in. I had never seen her before. She locked eyes with me and she was like, “Let's do this.” I was like, “Okay, I guess we have to.” She checked me one last time. She was like, “You're 9.5 with a cervical lip, but I think it's time for you to start pushing.” I was like, “Okay. I can't help it. I'm pushing anyway.”I had this big contraction. I was still on all fours. They were trying to get the saline hep lock on me because they hadn't even done any of the things. I was GBS positive and they couldn't even get that in me fast enough. I had a contraction. I looked down and she was in my other arm because that vein had blown in that period of time. I was just like, “What is happening? It is so fast and crazy.” Labor land is such a blur, but at the same time, each time I came out of the contraction, people were like, “What do you want for this? What do you want for that? What's your preference?” I was like, “I want a physiological birth. That's all I know. I just want to do this. Let me do this.” Anyway, they had commented later that they don't normally see that in labor where the mom can verbalize what she wants but I had never met this midwife before and she was like, “I honestly don't know what your preferences are so I'm asking you now.” It was really nice that she was trying, but she was like, “With this next contraction, push.” I was like, “Okay.” I got on my hands and knees and I faced her which felt wrong and weird. She was like, “Okay, push.” I didn't because I was like, “I don't like this. This doesn't feel right to me.” But I couldn't say that. So then she was like, “Okay, with this next contraction, I want you to flip over on your back and I want you to push.” In my head, I'm like, “There is no way I'm going to do that. No,” but I couldn't say that.In the moment, I'm such a compliant person. I was like, “Okay, whatever. I'm just going to give her what she wants.” I flipped over on my back. She was like, “I want your knees up to your ears and I want you to bear down super hard.” I was like, “No, I know that's not right. None of that feels right.” I did and I didn't push at all. I was letting my body do its thing. I was just lying there for a second. She put her hand inside of me and she was like, “I want you to push here.” I was like, “I don't like that either.” As soon as I came out of that contraction, each one I was visualizing the wave coming up and cresting and coming back down. It was a really good visualization for me because I love the ocean. I came out of that and I was like, “I didn't like that. I want to do something different. Can you help me with that?” That's all I said to her. Meagan: I love that you said that. Jenny: It felt so good because I'm not normally somebody who stands up for myself, but I was like, “I want to do something different.” She was like, “Okay. Flip over on your side and hold your leg up and pop your knee out.” Do this crazy maneuver. Immediately, it felt right. It felt like the key in the hole locked into place. With that contraction, I pushed and she started crowning. 49:20 Pushing out baby and postpartum blood lossJenny: All I said with that contraction was, “There's so much pressure!” I was yelling it and yelling it. The contraction was over and instead of letting go, I held her there and clenched down so she would stay there and not go back up or anything because I could tell she moved right down and was right there. They were like, “Feel your baby's head!” I was like, “Okay, yeah. Whatever.” I tried to feel it. Meagan: Yeah, okay. Whatever. Jenny: Yeah, yeah. This is happening right now. I touched it and I was like, “Cool, okay. Yeah. There is a lot of pressure. I can't do this right now. I'm so scared.” At that moment, I was like, “The only way out is through. I have to push. I've got to do this.” With the next contraction, I just barely pushed and she just twisted and flew right out. It was insane, that feeling of a baby coming out of you. I just can't even describe it and I'm so grateful that I can describe it because it's incredible how we are made. I'm in awe. There are so many things that have to go right to get to that point. I am so grateful it did and I got to experience it. She came out right away and immediately, I was in business mode. I was like, “Is she breathing? Is she okay?” I was rubbing her down. People were kind of just hands off letting me do my thing. She started to crawl right up to my nipple. She did the breast crawl. It was all of the things that I wanted and never got with my first and it was so incredible to see this miracle happening right in front of me. I felt like I didn't do any of it. It was like it just happened almost. It was so incredible and unfortunately, I had a tear. She was looking at it and she had to go up and scrape some. I was trying to enjoy my baby at that point, but I was like, “Hey, can you just give me a Tylenol or something?” I hadn't had anything. She started to numb me and I felt all of that. I felt her stitching. I was like, “Can you give me some more of that because this really hurts?” I had an inside tear. After that, my nurse was kind of concerned that I was bleeding a lot, but my midwife wasn't. It was kind of weird. It almost seemed like nobody new my nurse or liked her. I think she was new. She was really slow so they were just like, “Yeah, it's fine. No big deal.” They were tracking my blood loss, but I got up to use the bathroom and at one point, she went out to fill my peri bottle and the water just wasn't getting warm. I was sitting for a long time on the toilet. I felt like a waterfall was just coming out of me. I was thinking, “I'm pretty sure this is normal. I don't know.” Anyway, she came back a minute later and she helped me go to the bathroom. I got back to bed and I was like, “Oh man, I don't know if I feel good.” They were like, “Okay, we're going to move you to your postpartum room.” I got in my wheelchair and I held my baby and I was like, “Hey guys, I think I'm gonna–” and then I passed out. When I woke up, I was having this cool dream and when I woke up, the whole room was filled with people who were all freaking out. My husband was looking at me. He told me later he was like, “I thought you were dying.” It was super traumatizing for him. I was holding the baby and they were trying to help me so they were all diving. He was diving for me with the nurse. Anyway, he was pretty upset having seen that and stuff. It turns out I had lost about half of my blood and they just hadn't been able to track it properly because they couldn't tell why I had passed out at first. They were like, “We don't understand. You didn't lose that much blood.” But they took the test. It came back. Meagan: Okay, this is interesting. This happened to me. Jenny: I know. I remember your birth story about it. Meagan: We still couldn't find it. Jenny: Yeah, isn't that crazy? Meagan: I still to this day don't know where it went. Jenny: I'm convinced mine was the waterfall in the toilet. I know that sounds so graphic. I'm sorry. Meagan: No, but that is a lot. Jenny: Yeah, it just felt like so much was coming out of me and nobody was there to document it. I was by myself. Meagan: Yeah, they were going to find the bottle. Jenny: Yeah, yeah. Meagan: Mhmm, interesting.Jenny: I know. It was crazy. Luckily, I was at a place that would help me with my preferences on blood loss and stuff so they worked with me really well. I'm so happy that there is alternative medicine out there so all of the rest of the people who can't take blood for whatever reason, it's available to them too. I'm grateful for that position and stuff. They work hard to help us in ways that maybe we don't think about. Meagan: I know. In some ways, I had regret that I didn't take the blood, but then I couldn't deny that my gut was telling me not to. It was just the weirdest. It was a disconnect. I still today don't know why. I've let it go and it's fine other than I'd be interested to know why, but we are just so grateful for those abilities to have those options. Jenny: Yeah. I'm really grateful I was where I was too because they were there within seconds to help me. It all turned out okay. I was fine. I was pretty weak and kind of gray for a little while, but I got a couple of iron infusions and that really helped. I was feeling like myself not as soon as I wanted. I was really hoping I felt a little bit better because you have the toddler at home and you want to do all of the things. I felt maybe disappointed in that regard of being so weak. The recovery was harder than I thought just with my tear and stuff too. I was surprised how hard it really was, so I'm really impressed by all those people who say that vaginal birth isn't that big of a deal. I've done both. My husband was like, “I really preferred the C-section honestly. The pass was open​​. We got to walk right in.” I was like, “Yeah, but it's just not the same.” Those moments.Meagan: There is something about it. There is definitely something about it. It's not to say that C-section can't be beautiful or amazing or healing even. My second C-section was completely healing, but yeah. There's something about it. There are no words but then there are so many words to describe it. Jenny: Mhmm, mhmm totally. I could talk about it all day. It's so exciting. Meagan: Well, oh my gosh. I'm so happy for you. I'm so glad you made it over the pass. I'm so glad that you were able to be there and even just find comfort even though you weren't super far progressed at first and that you were able to have this beautiful experience. I am sorry that you had these little hangups. It just goes to show that not every VBAC is perfect in every way just like every C-section isn't perfect in every way, but C-sections can be beautiful and so can VBAC. You just have to ultimately decide what is best for you. For you, you had that feeling and you were called to know what else your body could do. You knew it went through a really tough, tough birth with your first. Then you went through another tough birth, but an amazing one. One where, yeah. You were able to have that experience that you wanted. I'm so happy for you. Jenny: Thank you. Thank you for having us. Meagan: Oh my gosh. Absolutely. I'm so happy that you are here. 57:10 Jenny's advice for breech mamasMeagan: I did want to talk a little bit about breech. You said, “My baby turned. Maybe that's normal. Maybe it's not.” Yes, it can be normal and what breaks my heart is that so many people are left without an option. They are left without feeling like they could even try because we don't have those breech providers. They are few and far between. We love Dr. Berlin and the Informed Pregnancy Podcast and Informed Pregnancy Plus and Heads Up documentary and all of the things that they are providing because I feel like they are advocating. And Dr. Stu, they are advocating for breech birth that it is truly just a variation of normal. Anyway, if you have a breech birth, what would you give as advice for someone who's trying to figure out what to do? Do you have any that you would give?Jenny: Yeah, if they've tried all of the options because even the providers, I've talked to a couple of providers who do support breech birth and even they encourage you to try and get your baby to turn so if you haven't done all of the things, it's a good thing to try and do those things first. I mean, acupuncture, I couldn't believe how amazing that was. She wasn't moving a ton and then she flipped completely. So yeah, there's kind of something to that. Even though she didn't flip again until way later, yeah. I could still feel her moving a lot more during acupuncture than I did with any of the other treatments that I was going to. I was trying to see a Webster chiropractor and all of that too. There's a lot of things you can do to try and get your baby to turn, but I think trusting too is a huge one. Yeah, because I mean, I learned that a lot with my second birth too just to trust your body and if she's not turning or they are not turning, maybe there is a reason and to just go with that. Accept it. I am glad I tried to accept it sooner because maybe I relaxed more and she turned. Meagan: Hey, yes. Jenny: I wonder if that was part of it. I let it go. I really did. I just was like, “You know what? I'm going to listen to her. She's saying she wants to be breech. I'm just going to go with it and I'm not going to care anymore.” Then she turned. I don't know. Meagan: That's how my son was. It's kind of fun that we actually have some similarities here in our birth stories. But yeah, my son too. He kept flipping breech for whatever reason and we would flip him. My midwife would manually flip him and do an ECV, then I would feel those hiccups again up in my ribs. I'm like, “Dang it, he is breech again.” Jenny: That rascal. Meagan: Yes. I found myself very angry and I'm like, “If I have to have a third C-section because this baby is breech,” which I've never had a breech baby before, “I'm going to be ticked.” Then finally, my midwife said, “We have to. We have to trust him.” He flipped head down and stayed head down and it was all good. 1:00:22 Statistics on vaginal birth versus planned Cesarean for breechMeagan: I found a PubMed research paper on maternal and fetal risk of planned vaginal breech delivery versus planned C-section for term breech births. It shows that it was published in 2022 so just a couple of years ago. It goes through. It says, “The meta-analysis included 94,285 births with breech presentation.” Now, that's actually pretty decent. 94,000 births. It's also crazy to me to think that there were 95,285 people who had breech babies and it also just says that isn't that just a variation of normal? These babies are head up. I mean, 94,000 babies. But anyway, it shows the relative risk of perinatal mortality was 5.48 which had a 95% confidence interval. Sorry, 5.48 times higher in the vaginal delivery group compared to 4.12% for birth trauma and then the APGAR results show that the relative risk of 0.30% percent higher than a planned Cesarean group, so in the end which is kind of confusing I'm sure. I'm going to provide this in the show notes. It says, “In the end, the increment of risk of perinatal mortality, birth trauma, and APGAR lower than 7 was identified in a planned vaginal delivery.” We know that breech birth can become complicated. That's one of the reasons why a lot of these providers out there are just not willing to try. However, it says, “The risk of severe maternal morbidity because of complications of a planned C-section was slightly higher.”It's something to consider here where we are like, “Okay, well there is some birth trauma.” We know that sometimes we can have tissue tearing. We can have pelvic floor issues and trauma. We know that babies can come out a little stunned because of what happens when their body is delivered and their head is inside. And APGARS lower than 7 which is less ideal. However, even with a Cesarean, those rates were even slightly higher. In the end, we need to figure it out but what we need is more providers. We need more providers being trained and offered. They need to go to Dr. Stu's course. They need to listen to Heads Up. They need to get informed and offer people these options because just like Jenny and I, and even more Jenny than I, there is a lot of stress that goes into having a breech baby, and think about all of the things that you just said. If you had run out of options, meaning that you had done everything in your own power to try and help this baby flip and are now just relying on faith, which let me tell you, faith is amazing and we need to rely on faith all the time, but even then, if we are still at that roadblock, that is so hard. It's so stressful. I truly believe that we could lower Cesarean rates by a lot. I mean, even looking at these 94,000 people, we can lower that Cesarean by a lot if we just took one little step forward and offered breech birth again and trained providers. Jenny: I totally agree with you. I know. Just listening to all of the things I had to go through to get my VBAC, it could have all been prevented if I just had her, my first, vaginally. All of that stress and all of that, I wouldn't have had to do any of that. It could have just been normal. Instead, it's just this huge, stressful event and I can't say that enough because our lives are already stressful. Why should we stress more? Meagan: Yeah. I mean, it's 2024 which means that 24 years ago, breech birth started fading. We are really behind and it's something that breaks my heart to see if it's going to disappear. We can't let it disappear. We can't. Jenny: I agree. Meagan: Also, side note, if you listen to this episode and you know a provider who is willing to do breech, please message us at info@thevbaclink.com so we can get them on our list so we can help Women of Strength all over the world find a provider that may be willing to help with them. 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

“Control what you can control.” Brooke's birth experiences have not been without challenges. She first had an extremely difficult miscarriage during COVID followed by intense bleeding due to massive subchorionic hemorrhages during her other two pregnancies. Her first delivery was a very traumatic C-section from not being completely anesthetized. After that, Brooke committed to doing everything in her power not to have that experience ever again and to do everything she could to avoid a C-section. Along with another subchorionic hemorrhage, her third pregnancy presented another challenge when she found out her baby had a bowel obstruction and would need surgery along with a NICU stay immediately after birth. Brooke was disheartened learning that she needed a medically necessary induction, but she was still committed to doing everything she could to achieve her VBAC. Her efforts to surround herself with a powerful team paid off. Everyone around her championed her VBAC. Brooke was able to go from the most traumatic birth imaginable to the most beautiful, empowering, and healing birth she literally dreamed about. Brooke's WebsiteInformed Pregnancy - code: vbaclink424Needed Website - code: vbac20How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details 04:36 Review of the Week07:19 Brooke's first pregnancy11:18 Miscarriage15:01 Brooke's dream17:20 Second pregnancy21:26 Going into labor and getting admitted28:06 An extremely traumatic C-section32:53 Third pregnancy38:17 Bleeding again43:09 Finding a bowel obstruction in baby46:57 Switching providers the day before her scheduled induction50:57 Progressing to complete dilation54:54 Getting an epidural and pushing for three hours59:40 15 tips for birth1:04:22 Control what you can controlMeagan: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening– whatever time it is that you are listening to this episode, I hope that you are doing great. We are excited to get into another VBAC story today from our friend. Okay, so I'm trying to think. Remind me. Are you in North Carolina now or are you in New York City now?Brooke: No, I'm in North Carolina now, but the story starts in New York City. Meagan: The story starts in New York City. She's in North Carolina now. Her name is Brooke. Tell me a little bit more. You are an educator. You are helping kids read, right? Is this what I'm getting from your website? Brooke: Yes. Meagan: Okay, so tell us more about what you do. Brooke: I worked in New York City public schools for 10 years. I was a teacher, a literacy coach, and an administrator so I have experience both in the classroom and in school leadership. After we welcomed my daughter and after the pandemic, we moved to be closer to family in the Raleigh, North Carolina area and here I'm an education consultant. Meagan: Education consultant. Awesome. We will make sure to have your website linked for anyone listening. What type of people would want to go to your website? Brooke: I offer a number of services. The first thing that I do is pretty classic consulting in elementary school. I provide literacy support. My expertise is in pre-K through 3rd grade so early reading foundational skills. I help schools with their reading programs. But additionally, there's a big home school community in the Raleigh area. Meagan: I saw that on your website. Brooke: Yeah, I've had a really wonderful experience so far working with families getting set up on their homeschooling journey and supporting parents and caregivers in taking on the teacher role at home. Meagan: Awesome. Awesome. I think home school, especially since COVID has really taken off. I know a lot of people, some of my best friends in fact here in Utah even homeschool. It's a great resource. In addition to all of the amazing, great things you do, you have a VBAC story to share with us after a Cesarean that was performed pretty early, right?Brooke: Yeah, it was a pretty preterm and traumatic C-section. All VBAC stories start with a C-section so that's part of my journey. I'm so, so, so, so grateful. Thank you so much for welcoming me onto the show today. Putting this story out there, being on this podcast, and sharing my VBAC was part of my birth plan. It was on my vision board. It was a goal that I had set so I am just so, so, so grateful to have this opportunity to share that. Meagan: I'm really excited that you're going to dive in today. We talk about this a lot of the time with this podcast. Without these stories, without women of strength just like you, we wouldn't even have a podcast. I mean, probably I could get some content for sure but I think these stories are what makes this podcast. I'm so excited to dive in in just a moment. 04:36 Review of the WeekMeagan: I do have a Review of the Week. This is a review that actually was just given this year in 2024, the current year that we are recording. It's from a Bailee Atkins. She actually emailed us in a review. If you guys didn't know, you can email in us a review. It makes our hearts smile so big when we open up our email in the morning and we get these amazing reviews letting us know that everything that we are doing right here is helping, is inspiring, and encouraging, and educating.This says, “I just want to start off by saying I am OBSESSED with this podcast. I'm a labor and delivery nurse of four years, currently 29 weeks pregnant with my second baby. I'm praying for a redemptive VBAC this April. I absolutely love this resource for evidence-based information. Being that I am at the bedside as a nurse, I have plenty of knowledge. However, I don't have the experience of home birth or a birth center birth, so it's great to get all of the insight. I can't escape negative birth situations and stories as a pregnant nurse so this podcast is often my escape and positive note for the day. I've been listening since 2022 and couldn't feel more empowered for this VBAC. It is my dream to be on the podcast one day, so be on the lookout.” Okay, I love that. This is being aired probably after her due date. I mean, I don't know when her due date was, sometime in April, but we are now in May, so Bailee Atkins, if you are still listening, if you haven't already, email us and let us know how it goes and we would love to have you on the podcast. 07:19 Brooke's first pregnancyMeagan: Okay, cute Brooke. I am so excited to hear your stories. You also have a miscarriage story, too. Is that where this all began? Brooke: This is where it all began. I'm glad you brought it up because I did want to just say at first that my story– I just want to put a note out there to any listeners who are kind of sensitive. My story does include loss and a lot of medical trauma so I just want to put that on the listeners' radar. Meagan: Yeah. I think that's important. I know some people don't feel like they need any trigger warnings, but when you've gone through loss or medical trauma or things like that and it hasn't completely been worked through or processed or anything like that, and even if it has, it can be really triggering so we just wanted to make sure to mention that. It also is your story and I think that's also really important to share. Brooke: Yeah, so thank you for that. It was actually four years ago this week at the time of this recording. This is a really lovely way to kind of just close that chapter. It just is all working out beautifully.I'll set the scene. It's December of 2019. The world is still turning. Things are great. I'm at a New Year's party in Brooklyn. I'm just thriving. I had just come back from a great backpacking trip with my husband for the summer across Asia. Life was– we were on a high. Meagan: Wow, super exciting things happening. Brooke: Yeah. It was great. It was a great time. We call it the great grand finale. We are at this New Year's party in Brooklyn and I go to pour myself some champagne and I think, “Maybe I shouldn't. I think I could be pregnant.” I'm like, “No, no, no. Whatever.” Anyway, I take it easy. We go home early. A couple of weeks later, I'm so ill. I am so sick. I have the worst cough and cold situation I've ever had in my life. My boss at the school was like, “You need to go to the doctor. This has been too long.” I go to the doctor and I'm at urgent care. It's a Saturday morning and they're like, “Oh, we need to do some x-rays. We think you might have pneumonia. Is there any chance you might be pregnant?” I was like, “Oh my gosh, yeah. I didn't drink at that New Year's party. That was two weeks ago. I can't take this x-ray.” I go to the store. I pick up a pregnancy test. I go home. I take it. It's positive. I'm over the moon. This is the happiest moment of my life up to this point. My husband gets home. We are jumping up and down. We are so excited. Everything is smooth sailing. Everything is great. I immediately start getting sick and I'm breaking out. I just feel awful. I was complaining. As this pregnancy is progressing, the world is really starting to get a little bit of that pre-COVID hysteria. It's just starting. Meagan: Yeah. Especially in New York. Brooke: Yeah, right? I'm in New York City at this time. I go to the doctor. My husband is still allowed to come with me and things like that. This is the time before. We see the baby. Everything is normal. We go back again. We see the baby. Everything is normal. My doctor offered the NIPT genetic testing and I was like, “Yeah, let's do it.” We took the blood sample. I think I was about 10 weeks at that point. We got the results 7-10 days later in that window and it was inconclusive. The doctor was like, “It says there's not enough fetal DNA. We might have just taken it too early. This happens sometimes. Nothing to worry about.” I was like, “Okay, nothing to worry about.” 11:18 MiscarriageBrooke: It was maybe week 11 and I had miraculously felt better. I was like, “Phew. I don't have any more symptoms.” I'm there at the end of the first trimester and everything is fine. I go in. It was March 9th. It was a Monday. I had my nuchal translucency 12-week scan then and I was going to be 13 weeks the following day on Tuesday. It's Monday. I wake up. I'm getting ready for work and I start bleeding. It's just spotting. I call my doctor. She's like, “Spotting can be normal. I wouldn't stress about it just yet. You have an appointment later today.” I was like, “Okay.” I tried not to worry about it, but as the day went on, the bleeding got really bad. Really bad. I got in a cab and I called my husband who was at his last day of work at the job he was at. I was like, “You need to leave right now and meet me at the doctor's appointment. I know it's not until 3:00 but I'm going now.” It was around 1:00. I showed up at the hospital early and went in for my scan. I was like, “I'm bleeding. I can't wait 3 hours. Can you just take me now?” I was so shaken. Meagan: Yeah, that's a lot. Brooke: I was so scared. This is March 9th. People are masked. Everybody is a little bit scared of the hospitals because in New York, things had been happening at this point but nothing was closed down yet. I went into the room. A doctor I had never seen before because this was my first MFM visit does the scan and she comes in. She's like, “The baby isn't growing.” My husband is there with me and he's immediately crying. I'm just not computing. I'm like, “Okay, so does that mean he's going to have delays? What does this mean?”She's like, “No, there's no heartbeat.” I was like, “Okay, so what can we do about that?” I was just not understanding what she was very delicately trying to explain to me. I was like, “What do you mean he's not going to grow anymore? What does that mean? Is he going to have defects?” She was like, “No. The baby stopped growing 3 weeks ago somewhere between 9 and 10 weeks. You are 13 weeks now. We need to do a D&C.”It was like I was in a whirlpool. I had no idea what was going on. I just became a complete zombie. I just moved through the next two days just absolutely devastated like catatonic. It was the worst grief I had ever known. It was just so surprising. She was like, “You had a missed miscarriage” which I had never heard of to that point. I was like, “What does that mean?” Meagan: What does missed miscarriage actually mean? Brooke: Another term for it is a silent miscarriage. It is when the baby's heart stops when you have a miscarriage, but your body continues to grow. Your body grows. You still have symptoms. Your body doesn't recognize that the baby is not growing anymore and isn't viable anymore and doesn't properly miscarry. It was several weeks later before I started to bleed. It was that day. I didn't know. In retrospect, it's like that's why the NIPT came back the way it did. That's why my symptoms stopped. Those things on their own, in my first pregnancy, I didn't understand. 15:01 Brooke's dreamBrooke: On the 11th, we had the D&C that Wednesday and on Friday, March 13th, New York City shut down. I came out of this procedure just so sad and then was basically locked in my house for a year. My husband and I were grieving in total isolation. It was just a really tough time. Typically, after a procedure like that, you would go in for a follow-up appointment several weeks later and the doctor would make sure everything was okay. But because it was only emergencies in the hospitals at that time, my doctor just emailed. She was like, “Let me know if you have these symptoms and then I'll see you, but otherwise it's safer for you not to come in and you can get pregnant now.” In retrospect, I think she meant you can, not necessarily that you should but I was like, “Okay. I can get pregnant again.” This is maybe a little too much for some people, but I was crying myself to sleep just so, so, so sad and I was like, “I want my baby. I just need to know that it's going to be okay.” I went to sleep and I had the strangest dream that I watched myself through a snowy window of a nurse handing me a baby girl in a pink blanket and then I didn't see her, myself in the hospital bed didn't see her, but through the window, I watched the nurse also take a baby boy and lay him next to me. He was asleep. Meagan: That just gave me the chills. Brooke: Yeah, I'm happy. I'm holding a baby girl. I woke up and I just felt okay. Two weeks later, I found out I was pregnant again. The whole time, I was like, “It's a girl. It's a girl. It's obviously a girl,” and it was. I just knew right from the outset that I was having a baby girl. 17:20 Second pregnancyBrooke: I tested positive at 4 weeks. At 5 weeks, I started bleeding and this time, I was angry. I was like, “What is wrong? Why am I miscarrying again?” I go to the doctor and my OB who is amazing, my New York City OB took such incredible care of me. She is just really an all-star doctor. She was like, “I don't know why you are bleeding so much, but the baby is fine. They are still in there.” I went back a week later. The bleeding never stopped. When I say bleeding, I mean I'm passing clots the size of golf balls. Meagan: Whoa. Brooke: At 7 weeks, I went in. At this point, my OB was like, “I don't know what's going on. I don't understand why you are bleeding so much, but the baby seems fine.” Meagan: There's no placental tear? Brooke: No. Meagan: Subchorionic? Nothing? Brooke: At this point, they didn't know what it was. They did find out. I got on the table and I was like, “I'm really bleeding a lot.” She was like, “Okay.” She put me on the table and she was like, “Oh my goodness. It literally looks like you've been shot. There's so much blood just everywhere.” I mean, I'm not a doctor obviously, but I was like, I don't know how I can go on with this much blood loss. It was really extreme. Then the psychological impact of all of that bleeding when I've just had loss. The world's not turning. I'm locked in my house other than going to the hospital. There are field hospitals everywhere. I can see them from the window. It is really just apocalyptic. We go through the next several weeks. I go to the MFM. They diagnose a very, very large subchorionic hemorrhage. It was three times the size of my daughter. They were like, “We don't know if she's going to be able to sustain this much blood loss and there's really nothing we can do to stop it.” They were like, “There's not a lot of research on this kind of thing. We don't know how it's going to go. We'll just keep seeing you once or twice a week, making sure you're not losing too much blood and make sure the baby is still okay.” The whole pregnancy, she was totally fine. I bled and I bled and I bled. I was on total bed rest because any walking I did at all just aggravated it and caused more bleeding. I was so scared of that. I was really, totally isolated. It was very tough emotionally and physically, but my doctor took excellent care of me, helped me find mental health resources, and helped me to get a prenatal nutritionist just to really give me well-rounded care throughout the pregnancy. Brooke: By 24 weeks, it went away. Prayers were answered and the hemorrhage went away. Meagan: Halfway through the pregnancy. Brooke: Yep, by 24 weeks, it was gone. I didn't have any new bleeding although I was still bleeding, but it wasn't the full hemorrhage bleeding that I had been experiencing up until that point.I took it easy until 36 weeks when I was like, “I need to start walking and moving. I've been in bed this whole pregnancy. I know that's not good.” I'm usually a very active person, so I was a little anxious about that. Around 36 weeks, we started taking the daily hot chocolate walk. We would walk to a different spot and we would get a hot chocolate. It's winter time now. It's December. It's Christmas. We were just relaxing and then on January 15th, it was snowing in New York City. I was 38 weeks and 6 days and I went into labor. 21:26 Going into labor and getting admittedBrooke: I woke up at 3:00 in the morning and I was like, “I'm in labor.” I was so excited. It was happening. I labored at home for 14 hours and then we went into the hospital. The traffic was so bad from the snow that I ended up walking down 5th Avenue for 10 blocks because we were in gridlock. I was like, “I'm in labor!” I was nowhere near ready to go to the hospital but I didn't know. I went to the hospital way too early. Classic C-section red flag right there, but I didn't know. I got there and my doctor happened to be on call. I was so excited because she was just incredible. We had such a good relationship after the care she had given me throughout both of these pregnancies and I was just so excited. But then she left. She had me in triage. I was only 2 centimeters. She was like, “I think you should go home.” Meagan: You're like, “I just walked blocks to get here.” Brooke: I was like, “I can't.”She was like, “It's probably going to be another 12 hours until you really need to be here.” I was like, “I can't come back at 3:00 in the morning tomorrow.” I was so anxious. My anxiety from what I had been through, I was like, “There's no way I'm going home.” She was like, “I'll push it. We'll admit you now.” She was catering to my emotional and mental needs to have this baby monitored. I was so scared. Brooke: I get admitted. By the time I get upstairs, my poor husband is not admitted at this point. He's outside in the snow just walking around Central Park. Not until I'm in my room is he allowed to join me because he had to be tested for COVID and all of that. This is January 2021. Now, mind you, two days before that, I think the 14th was one of the worst days of COVID that we'd had up to that point in New York City. That is what everybody is focused on in the medical world. They're not like, “This routine birth. This girl is in labor. She's 39 weeks tomorrow.” Nobody's stressed. I get the epidural. By that time, I'm 5 centimeters. Two hours later, my water broke. I was at 8 centimeters. It's 7:00 PM. I'm 8 centimeters. I'm like, “This is happening.” Everything is smooth. I go to sleep. I keep telling everybody that the epidural is not working. I can feel the epidural on the right side of my body. The nurses moved me around, trying to get the medicine to other places, they had me just lying this way, laying that way, but I got up. Never walked around. Didn't get in any other position other than my back or my side. I went to sleep. I woke up in the morning and was still 8 centimeters. I had stalled out and now, everybody is starting to worry. The doctor who was on call, my doctor, who left after I was in triage, was someone I had never met. I have lots of friends who she delivered their babies and they had great experiences with her, so I'm sure she is absolutely wonderful, but I didn't know her and I felt really unsafe. She seemed very busy every time she came in and I was very anxious at this point. I was like, “I thought I was going to have this baby yesterday. What is going on?” My angel of a nurse just was so reassuring that whole time, but I kept telling her, “I don't think this epidural is working.” She was like, “Well, this is the max that you can have. Let's give you more Pitocin to get those contractions to kick in so we can get you all the way.” More epidural, more Pitocin. More epidural, more Pitocin. The cascade of interventions. This is all for a labor that I went into spontaneously. It's 39 weeks now. I'm full-term. My nurse goes on lunch break. It's now Saturday the 16th. My nurse went on lunch break and another nurse came in, someone I didn't know which is a theme throughout my whole VBAC journey. I really liked to know my provider. Meagan: That's an important thing, by the way, to know. It doesn't happen as much anymore, but to know who is going to be with you is very common to want that. It was for me. Brooke: It was not something that I thought I would care about, but at the moment, it was something I really needed. So this nurse I didn't know came in and took my temperature and was like, “Oh no. You have a fever. This is bad. I'm going to get the doctor. She's going to operate.” I was like, “What are you talking about I have a fever. What?” The OB comes in. She's washing her hands. She's putting on the fresh gloves. She's doing it. She just came out of C-section. She was like, “You have a fever? You've been at 8 centimeters for how long? All right. We're going to the OR.” I just immediately start hysterically crying. I was terrified. My nurse is back and she was like, “It's okay. Look. Your baby is perfect. She's not in distress. Everything is okay. It's just taking too long. You have this fever. We don't want the baby to get sick. This is the best thing.” The OB was like, “Why are you crying? Everything is fine.” Meagan: Oh my gosh. Brooke: My husband was like, “You know, she's been through a lot with the loss and the hemorrhage. We are scared.” The doctor was like, “What hemorrhage? What are you talking about? This wasn't your first pregnancy?” I felt in that moment like she didn't know me like she didn't know my case and I felt really unsafe. She's a great doctor and she knew what she was doing, but I felt nothing. Meagan: She wasn't really talking to you. She was telling you what you were going to do, not talking. Brooke: Exactly. In retrospect, I can appreciate that they are in the middle of a pandemic and it was truly unprecedented. I understand now where she was, but it was not good for me. 28:06 An extremely traumatic C-sectionBrooke: I go back into the OR and I'm sure all of the listeners are familiar with this moment where you are being prepped for surgery and it's really overwhelming. I was like, “Oh my gosh. I hope my husband is not in here right now.” I couldn't see. You're just staring up at the lights. I was like, “I hope he's not in here right now seeing this.” They bring him in and I'm prepped for surgery and they are testing where they are about to perform this surgery. I was like, “That really hurts.” They were like, “No, no, no. It's just pressure.” I was like, “No, it's pressure on the left side of my body, but it's pain on the right. I am telling you as I have been telling you since I was 5 centimeters yesterday, that the epidural is not reaching the right half of my body.” They were like, “Okay. Here is some pain medication through your IV, but we've got to do what we've got to do.” Meagan: Oh my gosh. Brooke: I think it was extremely traumatic for my husband also because I was screaming through my whole C-section. I was in extreme agony. I'll liken it to when you watch a Civil War movie and you're watching an amputee. I was being operated on and was not fully anesthetized. It was the worst thing I have ever experienced or could really imagine physically. It was excruciating. My daughter was born and they said, “The baby is out.” That was maybe the longest moment of my life because she didn't cry. The first thing I ever said. The first words my daughter ever heard me say were, “Is she alive?” I was like, the baby is out but she's not crying. They were like, “Yeah.” She cried. They did the suction and she cried. 100% healthy, perfect APGAR scores, everything was fine, but all the while, I'm just screaming. After they checked her, they handed her to my husband and they made him leave. He was down the hall taking the baby to where I would ultimately meet them in postpartum, but he could hear me screaming all the way down. Meagan: Oh, so traumatic for both of you. Brooke: Yeah, it was horrible, to say the least. I hate saying that because it was my daughter's birth and so amazing for so many other reasons, but my experience was bad. Bad. I was thankfully able to nurse her really well and hold her and everything from then on was just totally smooth sailing. She was perfectly healthy, but I knew immediately that I never wanted to have another C-section. Brooke: The next morning, they were doing their rounds in recovery, and the anesthesiologist who was there, not my anesthesiologist, someone I hadn't seen before. My husband and I were like, “Will this happen again? If I were to have another baby, would this happen again? What's wrong with me?” He was like, “Well, I'm not sure, but you probably have a window in your spine and yeah, this would happen with any epidural so I wouldn't recommend it in the future. We'd have to go a different anesthesia route for a different C-section or you would have to give birth unmedicated.” That was the story in my head moving forward. After that, I was like, “I'm not having another C-section,” so in my head, it was like, “I'm going to have an unmedicated VBAC in the future.” That was day one. To process all of that trauma, I started listening to VBAC podcasts. I just was listening to VBAC stories because that was really the only place where I was hearing C-section stories. I had so many friends who had C-sections before me and I didn't understand how horrible that recovery can be for some people. Mind you, lots of my friends had great C-section experiences, but I did not and it really took a lot of work to process that. At my postpartum visit, I was back with my doctor and she was like, “You know if you do decide to get pregnant again, we will do an anesthesia consult and really explore that and make sure that that never happens to you again.” Life goes on. I'm raising my daughter. We're in New York. We decide to move to North Carolina to be with family and to try again for another baby. We're in our new house and I don't really know anybody here beyond some family. 32:53 Third pregnancyBrooke: I found out that I'm expecting again and we are so excited, but there is obviously a lot of anxiety after everything that I went through. I was like, “This time around, I need a doula.” I was like, “We're in a different time. It's not New York at the height of a pandemic. I need a team. I know now after 2 years of listening to VBAC stories what I need to do. I'm going to control every single thing I can control so that this will go how I want it to go.” I made a vision board about it. I looked at it on my desk all the time. I was like, “These are the things I need to be doing every day to hit this goal.” Sharing my successful VBAC on a podcast was on that, so I am really excited to be able to do this today. Brooke: The first thing that I did was hire a doula, but I didn't know any doulas and I knew that I wanted one who would really support a VBAC that had experience with the emotional elements of it. I interviewed several doulas with that in mind, but what I did that I would definitely urge listeners to do if they don't have a supportive provider is I asked every doula that I interviewed if they knew of or could recommend or had worked with in the past any VBAC-supportive OBs. I knew for me and my anxiety given the complications that I had with the hemorrhage and the loss that I wasn't going to go the midwife/birth center route. I knew that I would want an obstetrician. I was looking for a hospital provider that would be VBAC-supportive. Every doula I interviewed recommended the same practice and the same hospital. I was like, “That's where I need to go because if all of the doulas are recommending this practice, that's where I need to try and get in.” I was relieved to find out that they delivered at WakeMed Raleigh and I say that because it's important to note that it is one of the lowest C-section rates in the country, that hospital. That alone was really reassuring to me because I was like, “They are not going to do it just because it's taking too long.” It's really going to be based on that medical evidence. If I need to have one medically, then that's what we have to do, but I wanted to make sure that it wasn't the result of interventions or stalling. I don't know if I had done things differently if my C-section would have or wouldn't have happened, but I know that I didn't set myself up for success. This time around, I was really determined to do it. I got a doula. I got a supportive provider. Through my doula, I did childbirth education classes. They recommended Spinning Babies and yoga. I did that. They recommended a Webster-certified chiropractor and I did that. All things really stemmed from my doula and the doula group that she was with. I cannot recommend that enough. I know getting a doula can sometimes be cost-prohibitive, but there are so many doulas on Instagram that share a lot of this information on social media that just following those recommendations, I tried it all. I really did. I drank the tea. I ate the dates, but early in this pregnancy, I hadn't even hired a doula yet. 38:17 Bleeding againBrooke: 6 weeks, I started bleeding again. I was like, “You've got to be kidding me.” I wasn't as scared because I had just been through my daughter's pregnancy and I was like, “This just must be the way that I am.” So I go and I get an appointment with this practice because I knew right away that that was where I wanted to go. They took me even though I was a new patient. They took me right away even though I was 6 weeks because I was bleeding. I don't think all practices bend the rules that much. Their policy is, “Oh, don't come in until 9 weeks,” but they took me. I really appreciated that. I loved the staff. They were like, “Yeah, we don't know why you are bleeding.” I said, “Well, I do. I'm telling you right now that it's a subchorionic hemorrhage.” They were like, “We don't say anything.” I was like, “You will.” Pregnancy was pretty routine after that. The bleeding stopped. I didn't worry too much and then I took my daughter to a museum at 12 weeks, 5 days which if you recall is just about to the day and the time of my loss. It was 12 weeks and 6 weeks when I started bleeding. I had a huge bleed. I mean, bad. I was like, “How could it be that I am miscarrying on the same day?” I was like, “This is crazy.” We went to the ER because it was nighttime and I was like, “I just have to know if there is a heartbeat.” The ER checked and it was incredible too because I could feel that the doctors were nervous for me and then I felt their relief telling me that there was a heartbeat. They were like, “We don't often get to give good news in the ER and we are just so happy to tell you that your baby is fine and you have a subchorionic hemorrhage.” I was like, “Knew it.” I continued to bleed for a few days. They were like, “Do you want to do bloodwork and see if there's anything else?” I was like, “No. That's what's happening. I don't need to stay for bloodwork. This is what it is. I've just got to ride it out and take it easy,” which is tough with a toddler, but I did my best. The bleeding stopped and everything was fine. The rest of my pregnancy was great. I had that second-trimester glow and it's sunny North Carolina. I'm with my family. I've made some friends. Things are going smoothly. Then at my 24-week appointment, I said to one of the OBs there that I was feeling pretty anxious. I was like, “I'm a little bit nervous just because I did hemorrhage this pregnancy. I hemorrhaged all last pregnancy. I don't feel okay with this being my last ultrasound until delivery. Can we just put  a growth scan on the chart?”She was like, “Of course. You need to feel comfortable.” I appreciated that. She didn't have a medical reason to do it, but she was like, “You're right. You've been high risk. Let's go ahead.” At 30 weeks, it was the night before my appointment and I had the strangest dream. I had a dream that I had the most amazing birth. My doula was there. I was standing up. I pulled my son from my own body. It was this redemptive, joyous dream. I felt this happiness. Then all of a sudden, it went dark and everything was dark. I was walking around an auditorium, a dimly lit auditorium with a bunch of empty bassinets. I was looking for my baby. I wasn't scared, but I was a little bit nervous walking around there, then all of a sudden, the nurse handed him to me and they were like, “Here he is.” I was like, “Where has he been all this time?” She was like, “Oh, he's been with us, but he's fine. You can go home.” I was like, “Okay.” Then I woke up. I went on with my day and I was like, “That was a weird dream.”I went to my 30-week scan and mind you, I had been put on there because of my advocating for myself. I looked at the ultrasound. It was just me and the tech in the room and I said, “What the F is that?” I had seen through weekly ultrasounds my entire pregnancy with my daughter. I'm not a tech, but I have a lot of experience as a mom looking at ultrasounds and I was like, “This is not normal.” His belly looked like sausage links. It was like nothing I'd ever seen before and the tech was like, “I need to go get the doctor.” 43:09 Finding a bowel obstruction in babyBrooke: She brought in another doctor at the practice. This is a big practice with lots of different OBs, all of whom were wonderful. This doctor who this was my first time meeting was just so sweet as she told me that my baby had a bowel obstruction and that he would need to have surgery and stay in the NICU for a while when he was born and that it was really likely that I was going to have to deliver him prematurely.I immediately became hysterical. She was so sweet. She asked if she could hug me. I was like, “Please.” It was just the most incredible practice of doctors. I felt just really supported by them. She sent me to the MFM where I had to get an ultrasound at least once a week. They did the antenatal screening there to check his intestines every few days because they wanted to make sure that they were balancing the risk of letting me go as close to term as possible while not risking his intestines bursting basically. Meagan: Right. Brooke: This was very scary again so I was like, “Oh my gosh. What is going on with me?” I go through with the rest of the pregnancy. I did have polyhydramnios because he is not passing fluid as he's supposed to be. It's all getting stuck where this obstruction is. But because it's a picture of a belly inside a belly and your intestines are so long, you can't see through ultrasound where the block is. There were five causes that they were going through. They weren't sure where this block was or if it was part of a larger disease or if this would cause lifelong issues. There were so many questions, but I just was like, “Listen. I had a dream with my daughter that I would have a baby girl in the snow and I did. I just have to trust that this baby is going to be fine too and I'm going to take it home too.” I'm going to have that VBAC and at every single appointment, once or twice a week, I ask, “Does this impact my ability to have a VBAC?” He was like, “No. It has nothing to do with pregnancy and delivery. That's going to be what it is. You make those choices based on your history. It's just that when the baby is born, you will have to have a huge team out there. The NICU team has to be there. Pediatric surgery needs to be there. You're going to have to give birth with 15-20 people in the room.” I was like, “There goes my unmedicated, serene vision with no epidural, no medical intervention, beautiful hospital birth in a dimly lit room with the candles. No.” All that planning is out the window. It's gone. I can't have that experience. So I'm like, “I have to control what I can control. The MFM is saying I can still do it. I'm still going for it.” So then at just before 37 weeks, they were like, “Okay, it's time. We need to get him out and get this surgery underway.” They were like, “He's doing well. You're doing well. Let's have an induction.” For a VBAC, being induced, I was like, “Oh no. This feels just like a death sentence to my VBAC plans, but this is what we have to do.” 46:57 Switching providers the day before her scheduled inductionBrooke: I'm meeting with one of the OBs and it's the day before my scheduled induction. This is on Monday. I like this OB a lot. We've worked together in the past. She's been great and supportive, nothing bad to say about her. But we were talking about my induction which was going to take place and I asked her a question about Pitocin. I just asked a question because I didn't know. Her response was along the lines of, “With all due respect, you need to let the nurses do their job. You're not trained in Pitocin and you need to let them do that.” Right then, I was like, “Mm-mm.” Medically, she's right. Would she have delivered my baby safely? Almost certainly, but I knew right then that was not the energy that I needed in the room. I felt immediately like I shouldn't have asked the question and I was like, “I can't feel like that this time.” I didn't ask any questions at my daughter's birth. I just went along with it. I was blind and this time, I need to be with a provider that I feel like I can ask anything and that I will get an answer. So I emailed the MFM and said, “Do you think it's safe if I push the induction a few days? I'm not comfortable with the plans we have right now. I want to give my baby and my body a few more days. What's the last possible day I can push this to?” He was like, “I'll let you go 72 more hours, but I really think we've got to get this moving.” I messaged the doctor I felt the most comfortable with in the practice and I was like, “Listen. I really want to have my baby with you. I just feel the most comfortable with you. You had mentioned you were going to be on-call that day.” I didn't do it because I wanted to do it sooner so I had scheduled it with a different doctor, but he was like, “Let me see what I can do. I have a full load that day, but let me call the hospital and see what I can do.” He called me back and he was like, “I pulled some strings and I got you in. I'm going to deliver your baby. We're going to do this induction. You're going to have your VBAC. I don't want you to stress at all. We're going to have your VBAC. Your baby is going to go to the NICU. He's going to be fine. You're going to come home happy.”I was like, “This is what I need.” I just felt like, “Ahh.” I was like, “Do you think it's safe to be induced? Is it safe for a VBAC?” He was like, “It is totally safe and I will let you know the moment things become unsafe and we will change the plan. But right now, this plan is safe and I will let you know when I don't think it is safe anymore and we need to do something different.” I was like, “Okay.” I went in for my induction and it all moved really fast from there. I had a Foley induction on the night before. I went in on Tuesday night and they gave me a Foley, but all that prep work paid off. I was already 2 centimeters dilated when I showed up at the hospital at 37 weeks for my induction. I was like, “Yes.” That baby was in a great position. I was in shape. I had done that Spinning Babies yoga. It was paying off. I had drank the red raspberry leaf tea. I ate the six dates a day and I will never eat one again.I was like, “Yes.” They put the Foley in. It fell out around 8:00 AM the following morning so this is on Wednesday now. Wednesday, September 27th. At 8:00 AM, they started Pitocin. By 10:00 AM, I was in back labor. It was mild. It was manageable. I was not stressed at all. My nurse was amazing and she helped me get into a lot of different positions. We got baby to move and back labor subsided. That made all the difference. 50:57 Progressing to complete dilationBrooke: By noon, just a few hours later, I was 100% effaced and I was 5 centimeters. I really wasn't feeling anything. I was totally fine. I was able to sleep and I was already 5 centimeters on Pitocin so I was feeling good. I was like, “Oh, I can do this. I do not need an epidural. This is happening.” My doctor came in and he was like, “I want to break your water. You have a bulging bag. Let's break this.” I was like, “Okay,” because I fully trusted him. He was so respectful of my birth plan. I had put on there that I wanted limited cervical checks because in my previous labor, I got the chorio infection and I was like, “I want to limit cervical checks because I don't want to have that infection again that caused my first C-section.” He was like, “I'm not going to check you unless I feel like we really need to and we can talk about it.” He was just so respectful of my wishes and how I wanted my birth to go. He was barely there. My contractions weren't intense, so at 2:00 PM, my nurse upped my Pitocin to a 10. I'm not really sure what that means as the other OB pointed out. I'm not trained in Pitocin. Meagan: It's starting to get into the higher does. Usually at 20 is when OBs will cap it off or try to get MFM involved to get more clearance or do an IUPC and stuff like that. 10 is low but still getting there and getting higher. Brooke: Okay. Okay. She put it to 10 and said, “It's time to get things going. I was just still coping fine and I was starting to get a little bit worried that I wasn't going to get past 8 centimeters because so far, it had been similar to my previous labor. It was taking a while, but I was feeling fine. I texted my doula. This was 2:00 PM. I texted my doula and she was like, “Go get on the toilet. Sit backward. I call it the dilation station. Just go sit there for a little while and I'll check back in with you at 3:00.” But at 2:10, so 10 minutes of doing that, I texted her that I was at 8 centimeters and I was in so much pain. I was like, “You need to come in right now.” 10 minutes. I was so sick. I thought I was going to throw up. I was screaming. I was not prepared for how bad this was going to hurt. I was not expecting that. It came out of nowhere. She got there at 2:35. I was pacing up and down the room yelling and I was screaming that I really wanted the epidural. My nurse gave me IV pain meds and I kept telling her I would get relief during the contractions but the contractions themselves really hurt. My doula was there applying counterpressure, helping to move me into different positions and she and my nurse were working together to get me from just one contraction at a time. One contraction at a time. I mean, I was just in labor land. I could not see beyond the moment that I was in. I was begging for an epidural. My husband didn't say anything because he was really supportive of just supporting my wishes, but I was like, “I really want an epidural.” My goal going into the birth was to have a good experience and not necessarily to have an unmedicated birth because the unmedicated part was because I was afraid that the epidural wouldn't work again. That's why I didn't want the epidural. It wasn't because I wanted the unmedicated birth. It just felt like that was my best option. 54:54 Getting an epidural and pushing for three hoursBrooke: I'm hysterical and I'm like, “I want the epidural. This is not a good experience. This is not on my birth plan.” My doula was like, “I think you're right.” My nurse checked me. She was like, “You're complete. You're complete. You can just push.” I was like, “I am not pushing without an epidural! This is not what I want!”An angel of an anesthesiologist came in and gave me that epidural. I was complete and I got that epidural and let me tell you, there is nothing wrong with me. There is nothing wrong with my spine. That was the most incredible relief that I have ever felt. I know now it was the right decision. My husband was so against it because he was so scared that I was just giving up and throwing in the towel at the final mile. But he didn't say anything at the time. The anesthesiologist was amazing. He kept coming in to check on me, making sure I was doing okay. That was around 3:30 that I got the epidural. I stayed on my hands and knees. My doula was giving me peppermint essential oil to help me cope with the nausea. She kept checking on me and I felt that relief around 4:15, then it was calm and joyous. I knew instantly that I had made the best choice for me. The nurse kept trying to get me to do practice pushes and my doula was like, “You don't really have to do that.” I was like, “I don't have to practice doing anything. My body is just pushing.” It was involuntary. It was just happening. I pushed for 3 hours. Yeah, 3 hours of pushing. Meagan: All right. All right. That's some time.Brooke: It was a long time. I started pushing around 4:15-4:30 and my baby was born at 7:28 PM. I had no tearing and it was exactly like my dream. His head was out and my doctor was like, “Reach down, Brooke. You can do it.” I reached down and pulled him from his shoulders up onto my chest and I got that completion of that circular motion. Pushing the baby out, completing the circle with putting him on my chest. He was crying and looking up at me. I had that skin-to-skin moment. Mind you, this is happening with 15-20 people in the room. The team rushed over. They took him. They checked him. They laid him back on my chest and they left. They were like, “He's perfect. We're good. We'll see you in an hour.” Meagan: Oh my gosh. Yay. Brooke: Yeah. Yeah. So I got to hold him on my chest and have that golden hour. It was just me, my husband, and my doula. It was the most incredible, healing moment of my life. I was pushing him out and I was like, “I could do this again! This is amazing!” It was just– at one point in pushing, I even asked my OB. I was like, “Oh my gosh. This is taking so long. Do I need to have a C-section?” My doctor was like, “Brooke, I'm touching his head. No. You're having a VBAC. It's here. It's done. You did it. This is it.” I was like, “Oh my god.” The baby was never in distress. He did great the whole time. They didn't feel any need to rush it because medically, he was monitored the whole time. I was monitored. We were both doing great. It just took a while. It was absolutely perfect and then they took him back to the NICU after that hour and he ultimately did need to have bowel surgery and stayed there for almost 6 weeks, but I'm happy to report that he is a 100% normal almost 6-month-old baby now and just absolutely perfect. It was the healing VBAC that I had pursued and I am just over the moon about it. It will remain one of the best experiences of my whole life in spite of all of those challenges that I had with another hemorrhage, an induction, and my baby with this obscure birth defect. Having that VBAC and that VBAC success really just completely changed my outlook on the whole situation. I could drive to and from the hospital to see him. I got to hold him for that hour. It was an amazing, amazing, amazing experience. 59:40 15 tips for birthMeagan: I am so happy for you and I'm so happy that you felt you were able to advocate for yourself. It is definitely something hard to do. It would be hard to email and be like, “Actually, I'm not going to go with this provider” or even say, “Yeah, okay. Great. I'm 10 centimeters, but this is not the experience that I'm wanting anymore and I'm going to do this.” I think that is something also they tell people a lot. You can't get an epidural after a certain number of centimeters. That's not necessarily true. Sometimes it can be heavy and harder to push, but a lot of the time, it is what a mom needs to push. You had 3 more hours. You knew what you needed. That was the most perfect decision that you could have made for you. Brooke: Exactly. Exactly. Meagan: You had that amazing full-circle moment of bringing your son up, feeling him, and holy cow, intuitive. Your dreams are on point. I'm just so, so happy for you and I do want to talk a little bit. There is something that you said a couple of times that stood out to me and it's something that I feel like I just in life in general, not even just in pregnancy and everything that I stick to. You can only control what you can control. That, in birth, is hard so what you did is what you could control. I want to give some of those tips. I've got 15 tips and I'm looking down here and I'm like, yeah. You did a lot of them. Learn the facts. Learn what the evidence says. A lot of providers are on the opposite side of your provider where they are like, “No. Pitocin is not safe. It is not acceptable. We cannot do this. You have to go into labor by tomorrow or we have to have a C-section.” Right?Brooke: Right, totally. Meagan: That's not what the evidence states. So you learned the facts. You found the provider. That's the next one. Find a supportive provider. Hire a VBAC doula if you can. I want to talk a little bit about doulas. Obviously, I am a doula and I have a whole doula program here at The VBAC Link so I advocate for doulas every single second of the day, but I know sometimes it's not possible and you mentioned that financially. There are avenues. You can go to Be Her Village or instead of a baby shower and getting a whole bunch of extra clothes, you can ask for support for doulas. There are ways around that but then I wanted to also talk about hiring a doula. Just like hiring a provider who is supportive of VBAC, you also want to try to find a doula who is supportive of VBAC as well. We had a story just a while ago that talked about how she had an amazing doula and it sounds like she was honestly amazing, but VBAC was something that made her uncomfortable. She didn't know that until she was in that space. Brooke: Yeah. I experienced that in my interviews. I did talk to a few doulas who were like, “Well, I've never done a VBAC but physiologically, it's the same as any other birth.” While that is definitely true, I knew that I needed somebody in my corner who understood the emotional impact and what this was going to do for my psyche. Physiologically, man. I have been listening to your podcast. I was like, “These women can do it. I can do it.” A very good friend of mine had a VBAC and the whole time through her pregnancy, I was cheering her on. It was in my head. I was like, “It has already happened. This is done. It's a done deal. You're going to have a VBAC.” Then it was my turn and I was like, I had that faith in my friend. I need to have that faith in myself. I can do this. I really can. I got that from listening to your podcast and hearing other women have this success. That was absolutely critical, but knowing that a doula who understood that and who had been there for other VBAC moms was critical for me. Actually, the doula that I ended up having with me that I hired and that was with me in my birth, she was the doula for her sister who had a VBAC so I was like, “She knows. It's personal to her.” It was perfect. It was perfect. Yeah. It's another part of your team that supports you and understands. Even if they haven't had a VBAC themselves, they are supportive of VBAC and really understand again those facts and the evidence surrounding VBAC. 1:04:22 Control what you can controlMeagan: Finding the birth location. You mentioned you knew that this other location may not have been the best idea and this is where you would feel more safe and you chose that. That is so important to choose where you feel comfortable and what resonates with you. Avoiding induction, however, we know induction happens. Here we are. An induction happened and an induction can happen. Avoid an induction that is not necessary, but also know that if induction comes your way, that doesn't mean that your birth dreams and your birth preferences and everything just go completely out of the window. It's still possible to VBAC if we didn't just prove it with this episode and many other episodes before with an induction. Processing past birth experiences, creating a birth plan. I love how you had a vision board and you were like, “This is my vision. I'm going to do these things. These are within my control.” Surround yourself with the people who support you even outside of your birth team. Going to the massage therapist, and chiropractor, doing Spinning Babies. All of these things are really, really going to help you have a better chance of a VBAC, but then also I feel like if a VBAC doesn't end up happening, you can go back and say, “I did everything I could do in my power and I controlled what I could control.” That message stuck out to me during your story. You said it just a couple of times, but that to me is very powerful. Control what you can control. Brooke: Yeah. I would want anybody listening to really hang on to that and to have faith in yourself. In my second pregnancy, I felt like I just needed to go along with what the doctor said. I had a high-risk pregnancy. I was bleeding like crazy. I didn't know what was going on. Everything felt really uncertain at that point in the pandemic and where I was living and it was just that I didn't take any control. I just did not own my birth at all. I will always wonder if I had done things differently. If I wasn't on bedrest and I was moving and if I drank the tea and if I had a doula which wasn't an option at that moment in time, but if I had done things differently, would I have had such a traumatic Cesarean birth? Would that experience have happened? I will never know, but I wanted to know going into this one that I did everything that felt right to me. My doula would make suggestions and I did the things that I was like, “Yeah. That's something I'm going to do.” Then there were suggestions that she made that I was like, “Mmm, that doesn't sound good to me,” so I just didn't do it. I followed my gut. I had faith in myself. I was like, “I'm going to do X, Y, and Z. I'm not going to do A, B, and C.” Doing what feels right to you and your body, my provider, and I had the mantras too. My provider was amazing, but I knew going into it that obstetrics is not as old as the wisdom of my body and I need to trust it first. My OB is one man. If there is something wrong, they are there to course correct but I just need to let my body do its thing. My provider was so supportive of that and I think that controlling that was huge. I mean, I literally changed doctors the day before my induction. That is something you can do. In my first birth, it was so obvious that I was just routine. I was in and out of the hospital, just another mom giving birth. Nameless. This is the biggest moment of your life and you have to do what you can do to make it the experience you want it to be. I knew that going in, my son needed an induction and that was the whole pregnancy, I was like, “I won't be induced. That's where I draw the line. I'll go for a repeat C-section before I get induced,” and it was time. They were like, “We need to induce.” I knew that was what I had to do to save my son. I was like, “We're going to go for it.” My provider made me feel really safe and I'm just really glad that up until that last minute, I was advocating for the birth that I wanted and that was when I got the birth I wanted, but I knew that if it ultimately ended in a C-section because that was what he needed or if something would occur that that was what I needed, that that is what was needed and not just, “Oh, time's up. Oh, you have an infection.” Control what you can control. Meagan: Yep. That's the message of the day. Control what you can control. VBAC is possible. You did it. I'm so happy for you and thank you so much for sharing your story with us today.Brooke: 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

In this episode, Dr. Shannon and Doula Rachael discuss the concept of Spinning Babies. They explain the main principles of balance, movement, and gravity, and how these principles can help optimize fetal positioning and promote efficient labor. They also highlight the importance of resting smart and incorporating daily exercises into pregnancy routines. The conversation emphasizes the need to explore all of your available resources and options fully.In this conversation, Doula Rachael and Dr. Shannon discuss various exercises and stretches that can help improve fetal positioning and overall comfort during pregnancy. They cover topics such as walking, forward leaning inversion, sitting posture, stretching, pelvic tilts, and emotional release. They emphasize the importance of consistency and gradually increasing the intensity of exercises based on individual fitness levels. The conversation also highlights the benefits of rest and relaxation techniques, such as creating a hammock for the baby and practicing deep breathing. Overall, these exercises and practices can contribute to a more efficient and comfortable labor experience.Resources mentioned:Spinning BabiesEp 55: Optimal Fetal PositioningChapters00:00 Introduction to Spinning Babies06:11 The Three Balances: Jiggle, Forward Leaning Inversion, and Sideline Release13:39 Resting Smart and Incorporating Daily Exercises28:08 Moving Consistently and Holding Conversations34:54 Stretching for Loosening the Hips and Preparing for Labor42:37 Pelvic Tilts for Relaxing the Lower Back49:06 Emotional Release and Relaxation TechniquesSupport the Show.Want 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.

Welcome back to part 2 of my interview with the amazing Gail Tully! This is an episode we have aired before and are publishing again, because it is just that good of an episode.  In part 2, we are talking about inductions, and how spinning babies can help support you if you're having an induction. We also talk about VBACs, special considerations regarding VBACs and Belly Mapping. If you haven't heard of belly mapping before, it is a concept created by Spinning Babies to figure out where your baby is positioned in your pelvis. Super interesting! If you haven't listened to last week's episode, you might want to hold off on this one and listen to last week's episode first, as that is the first part of this interview. Otherwise, jump right in and enjoy Part 2 of ‘How to have an easier birth'   Want to feel in control before birth?  Use our FREE Birth Plan Templates to take the first step towards the birth experience you desire.   Have an even better birth! 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!   Resources mentioned in this Episode Spinning Babies techniques and resources    About Gail Tully Gail Tully is a Midwife, renowned author and educator and creator of the Spinning Babies® approach that has contributed to a paradigm shift in childbirth care around the world. In her home town of Minneapolis, USA, Gail has been coordinator and consultant to multiple well known Doula Programs and is a founding mother of the Childbirth Collective, one of the largest doula organizations in the USA.  Books by Gail Tully Breech Birth Quick GuideSpinning Babies® Quick ReferenceBelly Mapping® Workbook Videos by Gail Tully Spinning Babies® Parent ClassDaily Essentials (with Sarah Longacre of Blooma)Resolving Shoulder Dystocia

Carol Gautschi has been attending births in the Pacific Northwest for 48 years. Over this time, she has developed a truly holistic view of birth, including unique inquiries into the “why” behind malpresentation to begin with. I invited her onto the podcast for an exclusive audio interview ahead of her presentation at the 2024 Born Free Twins-Breech Conference to better understand her approach to "holistic nutrition", which is as much about food as it about other means of "nourishing" our persons, through emotional, mental, and spiritual means. She has continued teaching and attending births due to her calling to help birthworkers re-member the essence of this work. This one was a real honor to record!Come meet and learn from Carol at the 2024 Born Free Twins-Breech Conference happening in Louisville, KY, from August 8-11, 2024! She'll be joined by international keynote speakers Mmatshilo Motsei, PhD, and Doña Angelina Martinez Miranda, Kristine Lauria, CPM, the team from Breech Without Borders, the team from Spinning Babies, Stu Fischbein, MD, Tracey Vogel, MD, Hermine Hayes-Klein, JD, and many more presenters and speakers. Be sure to register soon, as spots are filling up quickly, and those who register earlier rather than later save money!www.BornFreeTwinsBreech.com

This week, I've got a special treat for you guys! We are traveling back in time and re-airing the most popular episode in the history of this podcast.  I'm so excited to put this out again for you guys because I'm talking to Gail Tulley (full bio below) and she is such a wealth of knowledge! She is the founder of Spinning Babies, which talks about the physiology of your baby in the womb and the importance of creating as much space in the pelvis as possible.  In this episode, we talked about ample fetal positioning and why it's so important to consider which way the baby is facing and how flexed the head is. Gail makes all this really, really easy to understand. We also talked about exercises and movements, posterior babies, what to do when your baby is breech and so much more! Enjoy part one of this super informative episode on how to have an easier birth.   Want to birth without an epidural? Get our FREE Natural Birth Prep Pack to gain the confidence you need - because simply wanting it might not be enough!   Have an even better birth! 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!   Related Episodes and Resources Spinning Babies techniques and resources  Optimal Fetal Positioning book by Jean Sutton and Pauline Scott  Ina May Gaskin's book about orgasmic birth Debra Pascali-Bonaro's work on orgasmic birth   About Gail Tully Gail Tully is a Midwife, renowned author and educator and creator of the Spinning Babies® approach that has contributed to a paradigm shift in childbirth care around the world. In her home town of Minneapolis, USA, Gail has been coordinator and consultant to multiple well known Doula Programs and is a founding mother of the Childbirth Collective, one of the largest doula organizations in the USA.  Books by Gail Tully Breech Birth Quick Guide Spinning Babies® Quick Reference Belly Mapping® Workbook Videos by Gail Tully  Spinning Babies® Parent Class Daily Essentials (with Sarah Longacre of Blooma) Resolving Shoulder Dystocia  

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

“If you don't know your options, you don't have any!”April is Cesarean Awareness Month and we hope this month is one of information, empowerment, and love from us here at The VBAC Link to you. Referring to the amazing resources provided by the International Cesarean Awareness Network (ICAN), Meagan and Julie break down the mission of Cesarean Awareness Month. Whether you are a first-time mom, VBAC mom, CBAC, or RCS mom, there is space for all of you! This month is meant to not only reduce Cesarean rates overall. It is also meant to inform everyone about birthing options, hospital rights, and ways to make Cesarean births better. We need all of our experiences to make positive changes in the birthing world for future generations! ICAN's WebsiteCesarean Awareness Month ToolkitInfant Mortality Statistics from 2022Informed Pregnancy PlusNeeded WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details 07:03 Review of the Week09:29 Why we need Cesarean Awareness Month13:12 ICAN's Cesarean Awareness Month toolkit16:00 Ways to make Cesarean births better21:20 Common reasons for Cesareans25:59 Your hospital rights32:10 The safety of home birth36:52 Lower Cesarean rates = lower infant/maternal mortality rates40:38 A message to the CBAC communityMeagan: Hello, hello everybody. It is Meagan and I have Julie with us today. I always get so happy. Julie: Hello, hello. Meagan: We are going to be talking about International Cesarean Awareness Month. Now, this is sensitive. It's sensitive. It can be sensitive. It's a month, a whole 30 days or 29 days. I don't actually know how long April is. Julie: April is not 29 days you crazy. That's just February once every four years. Meagan: That's just February. Maybe 30, maybe 31. I don't know. Julie: April is 30 days always every year. Meagan: Is it? I don't know my months apparently. Julie: Apparently. Meagan: It can be a long month for people and we're going to talk a little bit more about that. But it stands for International Cesarean Awareness Month and it is a month that is truly just brought to create awareness around unnecessary Cesareans, around advocating for vaginal births after Cesarean, improving Cesarean recovery after, and really just spreading the word and getting the information out there because as someone who has been in the VBAC world before, we have been told many times that VBAC isn't possible and Cesarean is a must. You know, Cesarean isn't desired by everyone, and a VBAC isn't desired by everybody, but it's important to know the options. One of the coolest things is that ICAN which is a nonprofit organization created this mission and I'm just going to read it. Does that sound appropriate? “ICAN is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to improve maternal/child health by reducing preventable Cesareans through education, supporting Cesarean recovery, and advocating for vaginal birth after Cesarean for VBAC.” We are really grateful for ICAN. They do a lot of amazing things and I know that they were a big part of my journey. I mean, wouldn't you say yours too, Julie? I think that's actually where we might have met is an ICAN chapter meeting maybe. Julie: Where did we meet? Now I'm going to think. Meagan: I feel like I can picture you in a living room in a chair up front. You were very involved with the presenter and I was just there. Julie: Wasn't it at your house? Meagan: No. Julie: Okay. Yeah, I remember that one. Meagan: It was at someone else's house and anyway, that's the first day I remember seeing your beautiful face. Crazy, but we love ICAN and we support them. Julie was just looking and they had a t-shirt. One of the things it says is, “You have options.” That is going to be one of the things that we are talking about today. Julie: Yeah. That was last year's theme but they haven't posted this year's theme yet. I mean, we're recording this in February so they haven't gotten a lot of the information out yet, but I love last year's theme. Meagan: I know. You have options. And you do. You have options even though a lot of the time we don't feel like it. 07:03 Review of the WeekMeagan: Julie, do you want to read a Review of the Week before we get going? Julie: I was going to say, yeah. I feel like we are already getting going. Yes. Let me read a review and then we will do the intro and then we will go. Hold on. Now, I've got to get back to it. Perfect. This review is from unhappyggfan so hopefully she's unhappy about GG and not The VBAC Link. Unhappyggfan. She says, “Truy helped me achieve my VBAC.” She says, “I found and started listening to this podcast a couple of days before my due date.” Oh, that's cool. “I was walking a ton every day to encourage labor so I just binge-listened to these episodes one after the other. My due date came and went and I got more worried about having a successful VBAC. I kept listening to these episodes while I walked for hours every day. Fast forward to 12 days past my due date,” oh, poor thing “when my water finally broke right at the beginning of a massive storm and flooding in my city. My doula was unable to make it to my labor and delivery due to flooding on her street and the stories from the women on this podcast truly acted as my virtual doula.” Aw, that's sweet. “As I labored for 16 hours, I thought back to the many stories I had listened to and the words of encouragement and wisdom from the podcast hosts and their guests. I thought of things I had learned and learned as I pushed for an hour and then my son was born. I truly believe that listening to the stories shared on this podcast helped me to have my VBAC. I wish I could thank every guest whose words gave me strength, but I will just say it here. THANK YOU. This podcast truly means so much to me now. A must-listen if you are preparing for a VBAC.” I love that. Virtual doulas. Meagan: I love that. Thank you. 09:29 Why we need Cesarean Awareness MonthMeagan: Okay. All right. I know the motor started and we were gently tapping on the gas before we started reading that review, but yeah. Let's dive into it. So we kind of talked about ICAN and what their mission is, but Julie, when you hear Cesarean Awareness Month, what do you hear or feel? What does it mean to you? Julie: I feel like here at The VBAC Link, it's always Cesarean Awareness Month. Do you know what I mean? We are always focusing on that. But I feel like I love the collective call to action for the entire birth community and hopefully, even the world to focus on this. I was just thinking about this and ICAN hosts this big month for awareness to rally for donations and pushes for things like increased access to VBAC and lower Cesarean rates and things like that, but I was like, “Okay. What more is it? What more is it?” I wanted to get into maybe a little bit more about why we need awareness about Cesareans. What's the point? Why are we worried about this? Why are they worried about this? I really love that they have it on their ICAN website. It's ican-online.org/cesarean-awareness-month-toolkit and I'm sure that will be updated for 2024. I will link it in the show notes, but it has a whole toolkit that you can use with all sorts of things you can do. What I really like about their page is that they talk about why we need awareness for Cesareans in the first place. I love the bullet points that they show. Researchers estimate that almost half of the C-sections performed could be safely prevented. The next one is, “If families don't know these options don't exist, they can't advocate for them.” Obviously, we are huge proponents of that here. If you don't know about your options, you do not have them. You do not have options if you do not know what they are. The next is, “Cesareans can be more or less family friendly depending on the practices and protocols of the facility and the support level of providers. Preventable Cesareans may be responsible for up to 20,000 major surgical complications a year including sepsis, hemorrhage, and organ injury.” I feel like sometimes we forget that C-sections are major surgery. They are a major surgery that comes with all of the risks that major surgeries come with. The last one is, “The future risks to birthing people and their future pregnancies and children are not even mentioned when we are talking about Cesareans.” What are the future risks to these mothers and their kids and their families? I feel like that's the big need to protect our women and the children that are being born and to reduce the amount of people suffering from major birth complications. It's just a medical safety issue. Yes. We probably should put a plug in here that we have literally seen C-sections save the lives of both moms and babies. We have seen it. We are not arguing that. We are not questioning that. What we are questioning is their frequent use, how overused they are, and how quickly they are jumped to for many reasons besides the true risk to life and health of the people they are trying to save. 13:12 ICAN's Cesarean Awareness Month toolkitMeagan: Yeah. Yeah. It's so hard. I feel like there's this line of– I think I still even have anger about how many unnecessary C-sections happen. I kind of want to talk about, okay. We have a large chunk. We are really high. 32% of Cesareans are happening and I want to know that percentage truly how many of those people didn't desire it at all. I'm going to guess a large chunk of them didn't desire it, but I'm also going to guess that a large chunk of those went on to have future Cesareans which again, is fine. But like she was saying, you have options, and a lot of the time, the options aren't presented so if we don't know that we have these options, we just keep having Cesareans. They might not be desired. Julie: You're right. It's true. I feel like everybody listening right now should go and download this Cesarean Awareness Month Toolkit because I feel like there is so much value here. It gives you so much information even when it's not Cesarean Awareness Month. Just go download it. They have obviously links to social media graphics that you can share for Cesarean Awareness Month. There's a t-shirt that you can buy to support the cause. You can become a member of ICAN. It shows you how to donate to the cause. It gives you social media calendars, Facebook groups, and templates for writing a proclamation to your governor or mayor. There is a press release that you can tweet and adjust to send to your local media outlets. There are instructions on how to invite ICAN onto your podcast. We should do that by the way. We've had someone on in the past, but it's been a while. Meagan: We should. Julie: There are webinars that you can follow and listen to. There are ICAN chapters all across the world in 20+ countries. It talks about how to find supportive providers and supportive options. It gives you options. It gives you facts. It outlines things. It tells you how you can have a more peaceful and family-centered Cesareans. It talks about knowing your rights and ICAN and the whole organization there. It talks about how Cesarean can be a lifesaving technique and it's worth the risks involved when it is a true lifesaving measure. It goes into so much, so much. Go download it now. There is going to be a link to the ICAN website to go and download this but I feel like it is so helpful for all birth workers and families to have. I am just really, really impressed with how thorough this toolkit is. Meagan: Yeah, me too. As I'm looking through it, I'm like, “Wow. This is amazing.”16:00 Ways to make Cesarean births betterMeagan: Let's talk about– okay. Their mission is to– they say Cesarean recovery and stuff like that. One of the missions here at The VBAC Link is that we want to make Cesarean birth better. So if you are wanting to have another Cesarean, let's talk about ways that you can make it a better experience. We can make it a better experience by having more people in your OR and having your support people there. Julie: Like your doula and your birth photographer. Meagan: Yep. Yep. Having those people there so when baby is born and birth partner, dad or whoever is there, goes over with baby, you're not just left alone. I mean, okay. You're not left alone. You've got anesthesia there and stuff like that, but you don't know that man or woman. Julie: Yeah. You deserve a dedicated support person for you and there's just not a dedicated support person for you in the OR when your partner has to leave and go with baby. Meagan: Yes. One day in my life, I hope that I can somehow help that policy change because it drives me crazy. Julie: P.S. Layton hospital is working to get doulas in the OR and birth photographers in the OR. It's a steady thing. You can get into the U with no problem as a doula and as a birth photographer because I'm also a doula. But can we just talk about the whole partner thing though? Do you know how many times when I have been in the OR or as a birth photographer, do you see the partner or the husband when the baby is born and taken to the warmer? This is what happens every time, I swear. The husband looks at the baby and then looks at their wife, then looks at their baby, and then looks at their wife. You can see on their face. They want to go with their baby and they want to stay with their wife or their partner. They are making a decision, then the wife inevitably says or the partner, the birthing person always says, “Go be with baby, every time.” Meagan: Yes, or I was going to say that the mom is saying, “Hey, when this baby is born, I want you to go be with baby,” but Dad is like, “Yeah. I want to be with baby, but I need to be with you. Julie: I also want to be with you. I know that probably having an extra person in the OR is not going to alleviate that sense of obligation to two humans at once, but I do know that I have had partners come back and tell me that they are so glad that I have been there because they know that their partner is being watched over and cared for more so than just what the nursing staff can provide and the OBs obviously. Meagan: Yes. Yes. So yeah, having that extra person, not strapping down our arms, right? That's something–Julie: I feel like that doesn't happen too much anymore but sometimes. Meagan: Really? I still see it, but I haven't been in a birth for a minute. Julie: Mm, in the OR. Meagan: I usually see one arm. Julie: That's weird. Meagan: I know. So yeah, there's that and then a clear drape if you want, maternal-assisted deliveries are really, really uncommon but I really hope that we can keep advocating for them and make a change to see them happening. They are happening in Australia and they obviously have pretty strict protocols and reasons for how and why and when, but it's happening. It's happening and it is up to us to ask the question and say, “Hey.” Maybe if enough of us ask the question in our Cesareans for a maternal-assisted Cesarean delivery, maybe someone is going to be like, “Okay. This is being asked for a lot. This is desired,” and maybe someone out there will start making a change. Julie: Sometimes, the way to make change is to keep asking for it. You might 1 of 1000 to ask for it before the change is made, but then with the next person, there will be change. I know that the next person getting the change and not you sounds like a bummer, do you know what I mean? But also, what if that next person is your daughter or your kid? So let's help pave the way for future generations too by continuing to ask for these things. Do you know what? Every time I have a client, regardless of whether it's a doula client or a photography client, I always ask if it ends up that they need to go back to the OR, I always ask. I know what hospitals are going to say yes and I know what hospitals are going to say no. I still ask even the ones that I know are going to say no because you never know why. A few months ago, I got allowed in the OR for a C-section as a photographer in a hospital that I have never been allowed in in the past almost 9 years now and even in the hospital chain. There is a whole chain of hospitals that is notorious for not letting us do that, but they let me in. The doctor and anesthesiologist were on board and it was fine and it was beautiful. I had this image that I took that is one of my favorite images ever. I sent it to the doctor and she is really happy about it. You've got to keep asking. Ask every time. You're going to get a bunch of no's before you get yes's, but you'll get yes's as you keep working and advocating for it. It takes a lot of us to make change. Meagan: Absolutely. I agree. I agree. 21:20 Common reasons for CesareansMeagan: Yeah, that also goes for asking for that extra person, asking for assisted delivery, and asking for music to be played. Always asking. Okay, they might be like, “No,” but if you don't ask, again, you don't know you have options unless you know the options you have. Does that make sense? I'm saying that backward. Julie: You are. If you don't know your options, you don't have any. Meagan: That's it. If you don't ask the question, you might not have the option is what I'm trying to say. Julie: Yes. Yes. Keeping baby, skin-to-skin, doing these things. We can make the Cesarean experience better. That doesn't mean that a Cesarean is always bad or traumatic if we don't have these things, but these are things that can help to make things better. Meagan: Yeah, so doing that and then also learning how to avoid unnecessary Cesareans. What types of things lead to Cesareans? We know that we have 4-5 most common ways that Cesareans are suggested or happen. One is breech. If your baby is breech, then you are more likely to have a Cesarean. Now, we do have things like external versions and Spinning Babies and chiropractic care and things that may encourage that baby to rotate. They may just rotate, but a lot of the time, we have providers just scheduling a C-section and that's it because we are not seeing people having babies vaginally with breech babies much anymore which is heartbreaking. Maybe we are being told, “Well, you're looking a little bigger and you're close to 41 weeks so let's just induce you.” Right? We've got due dates. We have breech fetal position. If you're in labor and your body is not progressing at the timeline that someone wants it to, failure to progress. We have small pelvis. Maybe you're at 10 centimeters and you've been pushing for two hours and your baby is having a harder time rotating, but instead of stepping back and looking at, “Hey, where is this baby's position?” or “Maybe this baby is really high up and we need to rest and descend,” we're just saying no. We're cutting it off and we're going to have a C-section. 25:59 Your hospital rightsMeagan: Let's see. What else, Julie? What are some things that you feel like we can learn to avoid Cesarean? Julie: I mean, all of those things you said are great, but I just want to pull it in a different direction for some reason. I'm so sorry. Meagan: No, that's fine. Julie: But knowing your rights. Knowing your rights. Meagan: That's funny because that's on this toolkit right now. Julie: I know. I'm staring at it right now, but I love where they say, “Consent forms from the hospital or provider are not contracts.” Meagan: I love that. Julie: They are not a replacement for true, informed consent discussion. They are not a replacement for a true and informed consent discussion. They are not. They are not contracts. You can revoke your consent at any time. No one is going to sue you because you signed the consent form. Do you know what I mean? Meagan: You can change your mind. Julie: Gosh, my mind is reeling right now. I feel like consent forms might be another way of coercion. Meagan: Mhmm. Julie: I really do. They are a way of coercing you into feeling like you are locked into this decision or you are locked into whatever consequences might come from that decision. But also, I feel like hospital policies are the same thing. Hospital policies are not contracts. Hospital policies are not an excuse to not have a discussion and get true, informed decision-making. Hospital policies, a lot of the time, are not set up to help the patient. They are set up to cover the butts of the providers and the hospital. I feel like when you are falling back on a consent form or when you are falling back on hospital policy, then that's another form of coercion, of getting people of what you want them to do because it's policy because you signed the consent form. Meagan: Exactly. Julie: Yikes. I can't stand it sometimes how parents don't feel like they can change their mind or how they don't have all of the information and maybe they wouldn't have made the same choices if they had all of the information or maybe not and it's not anyone's place to say what they would or would not have done. I'm not trying to vilify hospitals. I'm not trying to vilify providers or nurses or anybody who sticks to these policies and things like that because it's not their fault. It's the fault of the system that they have been born into. It really takes a lot, I think, for a provider and a nurse and an OB and a midwife or whatever to step up and go against the system. “Hospital policy says you have to have an epidural, but you can do just really do whatever you want. I don't care if you have one.” There is a midwife in our area, a hospital midwife who says that to every VBAC patient. She's like, “The hospital wants you to have an epidural, but you can totally say no. I don't care if you have one or not.” I've never had a client there who has an epidural placed just because they are a VBAC which is a whole other episode I feel like we are going to talk about at some point. Yeah, anyway. That's just where my mind was wandering. You have rights. Just because you are in a hospital doesn't mean you are in jail. You are not in jail. You are a human with rights and feelings that should be respected and talked to like an adult and not like a kindergartner who has to follow a strict schedule and go to recess at a scheduled time. Do you know what I mean? Anyway, sorry. I'm getting a little off-topic there. Meagan: No. I think it really goes hand in hand. Here are the reasons why Cesareans happen. I mean, there are other ones too. These are common ones. Okay, you've been pushing for 2.5 hours. Your baby is not making a ton of progress, but making slow progress. Your provider says, “All right. We're cutting this off. it's time. We're having a C-section. It's time. You have to have a C-section.” What are your rights in that situation? If you are like, “I am totally down for that.” Then, okay. But if it's like, “No, I don't want that,” but a provider is saying, “You have to. You have to. You have to. It's time. I won't do this anymore.” What are your rights in that situation? No one can perform a Cesarean, no one, unless you say, “Okay.” Julie: But they can manipulate and coerce you and tell you that your baby is going to die. You're not in your logical brain. You're in labor land so of course you're going to do a C-section. Meagan: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. There are things like that or there are true emergencies. We don't want to disregard those where it's seriously true and to save you and your baby. But you can say no. You also can say, “Thank you so much for your time. I'm going to keep going. Can you get another provider in here? You're fired.” That sounds crazy, but you can literally let your provider go in the middle of labor and in the middle of pushing. If it's not working for you, you can let them go. You're not in jail like she said. You can still make choices. It's just so important. I love that you brought that up. One, know the reasons why Cesareans are happening, but then really truly know your rights most of all. It's hard. It's so hard.Julie: Ideally— it is so hard. It is super hard. It is especially hard when you are in that position in the first place for one reason or another. But the best thing you can do to avoid getting put in a position like that where you are pushing and pushing and a provider wants to do a  C-section and now you have to fight for it is first of all, hire a doula, but second of all, don't be in that position in the first place. Leave the provider. Surely there are red flags. There are things that are telling you that this is not a right fit and a lot of times, we hear people say, “Gosh, I knew I should have switched, but I didn't.” Listen to that and honor that and honor things ahead of time because odds are by the time you get to that point, you're just going to do the C-section. 32:10 The safety of home birthJulie: I hate to say it, but I'm never going to dance around the issue or tell you a lie but if you are there and you've been pushing, you can't be the only one that wants to keep pushing. Yes, legally you can say, “No”, and legally, they have to provide care for you, but it's going to be a circus. It's going to be really hard to do that.Then what happens to your body? Your body is stressed out because it has to fight then that is not conducive to the natural labor hormones. I don't know. It's a hard fight. I feel like going back to I really like that ICAN is highlighting home birth as a safe and reasonable option after Cesarean because one of their graphics from 2023 highlights that there was a 2021 study that found home birth after Cesarean is associated with a 39% decrease in the odds of having a repeat C-section. 39% decrease, you guys. Meagan: Pretty impactful. Julie: I wish that more people would consider home birth as a safe and reasonable option. We were talking about this earlier before we started our episode. I was watching this show last night. You can tell me if you don't want me to tell you this. Meagan:  You can tell it. Julie: I was watching a show last night about mystery diagnoses where this provider is a doctor. She's a legitimate doctor and she's done lots of really cool things. She's started outsourcing diagnoses for people who have these mysterious medical diseases to social media. She goes through all their medical records and she makes reports and she broadcasts it on a blog and then people send in videos from all over the world about what they think the diagnosis is. It's really, really cool how she is using social media to help them when they are just baffled. There was this girl who has had 9 years without a diagnosis and it turned out to be this really simple thing that she just had to change her diet for. Anyway, I don't remember the name of the show but you can message me and I can tell you if you want. The point is that this provider is a doctor so she's been through all the schooling and everything. She said something that really stuck out to me. She said, “The goal of the hospital is to keep the thing that is trying to kill you from killing you.” I was like, “That is the goal of the hospital to keep the thing that is trying to kill you from killing you.” She said, “If you want solutions outside of that, you have to go outside of the hospital.” It just really hit home for me for birth.I know you guys might get sick of hearing me talk about home birth because most women do birth in a hospital, but the hospital's job is to keep you and baby alive. That is literally their job and it is their main focus. It is what they are going to be focusing on. It's why we intervene so quickly. It's why we rush to Cesarens so fast. It's because it's the easiest and fastest way to keep you alive. Now, out-of-hospital births also really love alive moms and babies. I'm just going to say that. It's not different. The goal is similar, but their focus is not on keeping the thing from killing you. Outside of the hospital, the goal is promoting the physiologic birth process and trusting the body to do the thing that it's made to do. Now, there are circumstances. I feel like we have to say this every time because there are circumstances where out-of-hospital birth is not a safe option for some people. There is a time when labor just needs a transfer to a hospital for additional care. But when the focus on out of the hospital, promoting the physiological birth experience and trusting the body versus the hospital where they are trying to focus on keeping you alive, you're going to have completely different levels of care. Those levels of care sometimes do more harm than good which is why out of hospital, when you're going for a birth after Cesarean out of hospital, your chance of having a C-section is significantly lower. I say significantly in the literal way by the study but also in the way we all think of it. 39% decrease in Cesarean is a huge deal. How are we thinking about birth? How are we addressing it in-hospital and how are we addressing it out-of-hospital? Not everyone is eligible for out-of-hospital birth and it's unfortunate that not everyone has those options, but for women with healthy pregnancies without complications, it is a reasonable option and it's worth looking into even if you just rule it out. There is my home birth soapbox. 36:52 Lower Cesarean rates = lower infant/maternal mortality ratesJulie: What are we talking about? Cesarean Awareness Month, yeah. Meagan: My home birth soapbox. Home birth can be an amazing option. It can obviously reduce the chances of things like interventions and even Cesareans that are unnecessary and pushing those things on people. Typically, I feel like my clients who are in home births really do feel this sense of– I don't know if awareness is right. Connection, maybe. They are more connected with their labor, their birth, and their team. I'm not saying people in the hospital aren't connected with their team or their labor or anything. Julie: It's so different. Meagan: It's different. It is. It's very different and until you've experienced or if you've experienced it, you know what we are talking about. There is something different and it's very unique. Julie: One more thing, sorry, and then I promise I will close it off. Meagan: No, you're just fine. Julie: I really like in here– I think it's worth pointing out because I'm sure there are going to be a lot of people cringing about what I just said about how the goal is to keep the thing from killing you. It's pretty well-known now. The United States has one of the highest infant and maternal mortality rates in the developed world. The highest in the developed world. Okay? But we have also the highest number of C-sections. One of the highest numbers of C-sections. Okay? I love one of these Cesarean Awareness Month graphics from ICAN states that most places that successfully reduce maternal mortality have a lower Cesarean delivery rate. I'm not just spurting out garbage, you guys. There is information and there is information and statistics and evidence to support that higher Cesarean rates do not equal safer births. Higher intervention rates do not equal safety for mom and baby. It's all over the place and I really love it since 2020 especially how there has been more information and more research coming out supporting the safety of home birth and home birth after Cesarean. It's just wild how much the medical system– or not the medical system as much as the people who do these reviews and systemic reviews are getting on board with showing the safety there. I'm not just talking about my anecdotal views as a birth worker. I'm talking about actual evidence for these things. I'm going to read that again. “Most places that successfully reduce maternal mortality have lower Cesarean delivery rates.” It's science. It's just science. Meagan: It's science. Julie: It's science. Okay, now I'm done. Meagan: Okay, it was back in November 2023 and it says, “Infant mortality in the United States provisional data from 2022 period linked/infant death file.” Now, this is going to be a lot but I'm going to have Paige, our amazing transcriber– Julie: Love Paige. Meagan: –and poster of our podcast put this in the show notes for you guys. If you want to go there and read a little bit about where things have gone, it breaks it down between the methods, the gestational age, the maternal race, infant sex, state of residence, maternal age, leading causes of death, and more. It's got a lot of studies and things like that and a lot of stats that could maybe be scary actually to find out, but also nice to know the information. We'll have that in the show notes. 40:38 A message to the CBAC communityMeagan: Then next on the goal of ICAN's mission is to help advocate for VBAC. I think this is one of the areas that a lot of the times our amazing CBAC community struggles with. I do not mean this in any– I don't mean to say this rudely, but a lot of moms who have had Cesarean birth after Cesarean dislike April because of this. I feel like I see it every year. It's a very tender topic and very hard. I mean, I'm going to always– for some reason, the radical acceptance episode that we did relates to so many things, but a lot of the time, we have unprocessed trauma, unprocessed guilt– guilt is a really big one. There is a lot to unpack and a lot of the time, that is not all processed or unpacked, and then April comes around and we're like, “Ugh. Everybody is advocating for VBAC when I wanted a VBAC too but I didn't have a VBAC. I didn't have that option or I didn't feel like I had that option” or whatever. There are so many things. “My body couldn't do it. I tried but it didn't work” or “I couldn't find the support despite looking for provider after provider.” I mean, there are tons of reasons why people have CBACs. I mean, I am a CBAC mom myself. I don't know if anybody knows that, but I am. I've had two Cesareans and I did want a VBAC. I was going for a VBAC and I ended in a Cesarean. Now, I didn't want that Cesarean at all, not even close. That was not what I wanted. But I had it and I tried to make the best of it. It was a healing experience. I am grateful for that Cesarean which a lot of people don't understand how I could possibly be grateful for the birth that I didn't desire, but that's something that I truly am. Julie: You had to work for it though. You didn't just get to be grateful. You had to work for that. Meagan: Really, truly work, and let me tell ya. I was still working pregnant with my third. Really, I was reading my op reports. I was so frustrated. I was bawling. I was like, “Why? Why did this happen? This was not what I wanted. Why didn't anyone tell me?” There were so many things so I get kind of wanting to feel angry about your unprocessed birth or your undesired outcome. I will promise you that in time– it might take years– it can come. It can. This healing can come and you can see Cesarean Awareness Month as a positive thing but also be an active participant in knowing that not only is it to help promote vaginal birth after Cesarean and lower the Cesarean rate, it's also to make Cesarean birth better. Julie: And safer. Meagan: And not have traumatic Cesareans as often and to support the CBAC as well. So I don't know. I feel like I'm talking in circles. I don't know how to say it, maybe, but my message to you is if you are struggling with Cesarean Awareness Month and if you are hating to see all of the posts and all of the things saying, “Yes, I got my VBAC” and “Yes, vaginal birth is better” or whatever. We see those all in the month of April. It's mid-April and again, we are recording this in February. I mean, I guarantee you that we've seen at least a dozen of these types of posts at this point when this is aired. Try your hardest to step back and also find self-healing within yourself so these months don't trigger you. April doesn't have to be a triggering month. It can be an empowering, motivational month to stand up and be like, “Hey. I didn't want that C-section either. It's not what I desired, but here I am and I am here to help people know their options for Cesarean and have a better outcome and reduce the Cesarean rate,” because yeah. I didn't want it either. Okay. I don't really know. I maybe am just off-base, but I just feel so passionately about our CBAC community too and I know. I see them. I see them struggle through April. If you are listening, I don't want you to struggle. I want you to hear a different message when you see Cesarean Awareness Month. Julie: I agree. I agree because it's hard. There is space for all of us here. There is space for all of us. Do you know what? Maybe, in April if you are really triggered with all of the Cesarean Awareness Month things, maybe the best thing you can do for your mental health is mute everything before they are talking about C-sections and VBACs and everything. Maybe you leave the group. Maybe you unfollow the page and then come back when it's a healthier time for you. Maybe that's the thing that you can do to love yourself the most if you're not in the space to confront your triggers head-on. Maybe that's the best thing for you and that's okay. It's okay to create space for yourself to grieve and heal and mourn that loss no matter what form that takes. But when you're in a more healthy spot, we absolutely want you to come back here and rally for us more. Rally with us, not for us. Rally with us more to improve access to better care options for our pregnant people to make Cesareans safer, to allow other support people in the OR, to increase evidence-based practices in hospitals, and things like that. It's just more than just about reducing the overall Cesarean rate. It's about so much more than that. We love you here. I mean, there is space for you here and we have all been there. We've all been there. Some of us are still in that journey and that's okay. We're all in all different spots of our journey and yeah. There's space for you and we love you. But if you also have to take a step back for a little while, we still love you and we honor that journey and we honor that part of you. Meagan: Mhmm, absolutely. Okay. We will leave this here and we will let you know right now. We love you. Just like she said, we honor your journey. We support you. Let's rally together. This month, let's build each other up and let's spread the information, and let's talk about our stories, and let's talk about how someone else can have a better experience based on learning. Download the toolkit. Check out the links right here in the show notes and Happy Cesarean Awareness Month. 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

Hayley joins the show today sharing her breech Cesarean and unmedicated hospital VBAC stories. Meagan and Hayley dive deep into the pros and cons of getting an epidural and why providers tell women so many different things when it comes to epidurals and VBAC!While Hayley had the dreamiest birth she could have imagined and everything went according to plan, her postpartum experience with prolapse was not something she was prepared for. Hayley shares her symptoms, what she wished she knew, and what she has done since to recover and feel like herself again. Needed WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details 02:47 Just-in-case epidural04:16 Dr. McGuire's insight on epidurals08:42 Using an epidural as a tool10:44 Hayley's first pregnancy and birth12:00 Doing VBAC research before pregnancy13:51 Hayley's second pregnancy18:15 Labor begins20:16 Going to the hospital24:20 Pushing27:05 Hayley's prolapse experience32:01 Symptoms of uterine prolapse35:29 Prolapse can happenMeagan: Hello, hello Women of Strength. You guys, I am excited about today's episode. I love talking about VBAC obviously, but specifically, we are going to talk a little bit about unmedicated versus medicated. Our friend, Hayley, from North Carolina has had a beautiful unmedicated hospital VBAC so I want to also talk about the opposite side of that and talk about medicated VBAC. We have so many people in our community that I see type, “I want a VBAC, but I don't want to go unmedicated and my doctor says I have to. I can't have an epidural” or the total flipside of that where, “I really want an unmedicated VBAC, but my doctor says I can't go unmedicated. I have to have the epidural.” Did I just say that correctly, Hayley? Hayley: Yes, yeah. Meagan: It's either one or the other. We've got providers telling people they can't have an epidural or they have to have an epidural. So I wanted to just talk a little bit today before we get going on those two topics. First of all, let's talk about unmedicated birth. Hayley and I are living proof today. We are on this episode that unmedicated VBAC is 100% possible, achievable, and safe. A lot of those providers come out and say that they can't go unmedicated because they say it's not safe. In the rare chance, we know that uterine rupture happens but it is rare. In the rare chance of a uterine rupture, that is where they say that is not okay. Or they will say things like, “But you wouldn't want to be knocked out for your birth,” which is scary. I don't want to be knocked out for my birth and I know people have. A lot of the time, it is not the most pleasant experience. Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about that. Unmedicated vaginal birth is unmedicated vaginal birth. That's what it is. I'm just laying it out there. Yes, we have a slight increase in uterine rupture. Yes. What happens if we have a uterine rupture and we are unmediated? A lot of the time, we are noticing that there are signs of uterine rupture. When we get an epidural and a spinal, we go back and have a C-section. Simple as that. Or if it is a true medical emergency, yes, there is that small risk of needing to be put under. Small risk and small risk equal risk of course, but it's low. 02:47 Just-in-case epiduralMeagan: What about if we have the just-in-case epidural? I seriously sometimes just want to sock someone who says “Just in case”. We don't need to be placing an epidural just to have it ready to dose because guess what? In the event that it is a true emergency and we really do need to go in for an immediate Cesarean, it's the same thing. We get knocked out. I know that these words are kind of big and harsh words. We get knocked out, but we get put under general anesthesia if we don't have anything in our system. Now, let's talk about an epidural. You actually have an epidural placed. It's running. It's dosed and we have a uterine rupture. Guess what? Women of Strength, more than likely, it still has to be dosed further because an epidural is not like a spinal. It's just not. They have to dose it further. With my first Cesarean, I had an epidural. They had to come in, dose it to a deeper extreme so I wasn't feeling my surgery and I had to wait. Right? We are still waiting. It's the same thing. There is always a wait and it takes time. It takes about 15-20 minutes for any epidural to kick in deep enough. 04:16 Dr. McGuire's insight on epiduralsMeagan: Dr. McGuire wrote for Yale Medicine. She talks about this epidural and is it safe and how are they different. She talks about how they truly are different than they were back in the day because they are dosing them lighter. We know that. We have seen that, but we still have some pretty serious risks as well with epidurals even though again, they are smaller. There are blood clots, spinal infections, spinal headaches, them not working, and things like that, and blood pressure. I'm going to say as a doula, I've attended over 350 births. As a doula, I will say a large portion of any client, not just VBAC, who receives an epidural has a blood pressure dip. Even when they have a large amount of fluid because a lot of the time they will cram fluids in to try to help this, but there is some sort of blood pressure dip and baby seems to struggle when that happens. Then it's the cascade– rolling over, move, move, move, move. Baby doesn't recover or mom's blood pressure doesn't recover and we are off to an OR. One of the biggest questions that I think is a really hot debate in the medical world is does an epidural raise your chances of a Cesarean? Most people out there are going to say, “No, it doesn't.” The studies are pretty low, though. I think in one study there were 2,000 people or something like that and they showed it didn't. But I mean, from a doula's standpoint, I know I don't see as many births as these OBs, but I definitely see it seems to do that– the blood pressure drop thing. So is it safe? Yes. Do you have to go unmedicated if you have a VBAC? No. Do you have to get an epidural if you have an epidural? No. Do what is best for you. What she says is, “Those studies we know that have a higher concentration of epidural medicine was associated with an increased risk of Cesarean, though lower concentration we now use actually promotes normal, spontaneous vaginal delivery without assistance.” When she says assistance, a lot of the time when we have epidurals, we have vacuum or forceps assistance because we have lack of mobility. That's what she was saying here. I want to make sure to provide the link and some other links on our blog for epidurals so you can decide what is best for you. But for now, we are going to get into a story of an unmedicated, vaginal birth. 08:42 Using an epidural as a toolMeagan: Okay, Ms. Hayley. Welcome to the show. Hayley: Thank you for having me. It's really crazy to be on here sharing so thank you. Meagan: I talk about how it's crazy to be full-circle where you are listening. You are preparing. All of the people in your ear are motivating and then here you are today sharing your story motivating others in your same space x, y, z months ago. Hayley: Yeah. It's crazy. It really is a full-circle moment like you mentioned. Meagan: Yeah. Well, I am so honored that you are here. I would love to turn the time over to you. Hayley: Sure. So yeah, I also love what you were saying really quickly on the epidural versus not. Full transparency, when I went into this, I definitely recognized that an epidural is a tool and I knew and wanted to prepare myself. If I am– obviously, birth is not pleasant. It's not going to be a walk in the park. But I knew there was a difference between being in pain versus suffering. I really wanted to know that for myself. It if turned into that suffering, I wouldn't have been opposed to helping my body to get my baby. Meagan: To the next point, yeah. Hayley: But there is a difference between being in pain and suffering. Meagan: As a doula, we talk about that a lot where we are like, okay. We are planning to go unmedicated. That is fantastic and then we talk about that pain versus suffering and that transition because when we are suffering, we start having things that come up later. We don't think about it. We are suffering now, but postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, and postpartum trauma. We have these things that are not worth it, so in the end, you have to do what's best for you and keep you in that positive space and recognize pain versus suffering. Hayley: Yeah. Exactly, so I love that. 10:44 Hayley's first pregnancy and birthHayley: To start this whole story I guess, is back in April 2021, I had my daughter. She was breech. For me, I knew pretty early on that she was breech. She was so active. I knew that, “Oh, you are trying to flip in there.” I did all of the things. I did Spinning Babies and tried all of the things, but it was still COVID time so I just didn't go to acupuncture. I feel like if it wasn't COVID times still, I maybe would have tried more things. But with that being said, I felt like she was literally trying to turn because I'm like, “What are you doing? If you're not flipping, then I'm not sure. Then you can't.” I just felt in my body that there was a reason. I didn't try manually flipping her or things like that. To help with peace of mind, I opted for a Cesarean even though that was the last thing I wanted. I'm terrified of surgeries and needles. I was like, “I do not want this. This is the absolute last thing I want,” but at the same time, I was happy that I could mentally prepare for that instead of it being sprung on me. And honestly, I feel like I had a pretty good recovery with that. At the same time, I knew for any future children, I did not want to have another C-section. 12:00 Doing VBAC research before pregnancyHayley: So fast forward. We moved across the country when she was about 9 months old. I was definitely not pregnant yet, but we were thinking about expanding our family. I had already started researching providers in the area, joining Facebook pages like the ICAN Facebook group in the area and literally preparing even though I wasn't pregnant because I just really wanted to make this. Meagan: That is important. Hayley: Yeah. I just did my research. I really, really wanted to be not in a situation where I'm like, “Oh shoot. I'm pregnant and now I need to struggle to find a supportive provider,” because unfortunately, it's hard to find VBAC-supportive providers. I wish that wasn't the case, but I feel like that's unfortunately the majority. Meagan: The reality, it sucks. It's stupid. I have a lot of words for that, but it is the reality. It is more often that it's hard to find that true support than it is to find the opposite. Hayley: Yep. I remember I made a couple of appointments just to talk with people to be like, “Hey, how do you feel about this? I'm looking to establish care.” I remember I went to two different places. One was an OB and they did have some midwives there, but yeah. They were like, “Well, you can or you can try that,” and I was like, “Cool. This doesn't sound like 100%.” I eventually found a group of midwives. I felt was a total 180 with the way that the care felt. Not that you can't get that with OBs, but they were like, “Yeah. We're going to do that.” It was just like, “Cool. We're going to do that.” Meagan: I love that. You're like, “And great. I was almost not expecting you to say that so fantastic.” Hayley: Exactly. I'm like, “Perfect.”13:51 Hayley's second pregnancyHayley: Fast forward, I then get pregnant with my second. I established care through them. I felt like the whole process was just so chill. Even just with anything, maybe it's just the difference between your first pregnancy and second pregnancy where you are so nervous about everything with the first, but even the ultrasound that just felt very– with my first, they would really make me feel like they were really making sure, not that you shouldn't make sure things are okay, but they just really made me feel like everything was so medical and things could go wrong or something. With my second, they were just like, “Yeah, baby is great.” Okay, cool. Perfect. So that was awesome and definitely not what I expected. Again, it's a different office and a different state. It was a totally different experience and amazing. But I was definitely in my head the whole pregnancy. I did not want this baby to flip. I just kept doing everything I could throughout my whole pregnancy, really working on my mentality and my mindset. I found a doula. I went to a chiropractor towards the end of my pregnancy. I went to pelvic health, physical therapy, and I did all of the things because I'm like, “I want to do everything that I possibly can to make this happen.” That way if I didn't, I would at least know, “Hey, I did everything and I totally prepared.” So mentally, that's just what I needed. But yeah. I was definitely so in my head like, “What if this baby decides to be breech again? I would be so sad.” But luckily, that did not happen. I also fell on my tailbone. I hurt my tailbone when I was 4 months before delivery so that was really not great either because one thing that once I would get into labor, I had so much tailbone pain and that was just something that I was not expecting. So the pregnancy definitely had ups and downs. I feel like maybe you can answer if this is your experience too down the line with pregnancies, but I feel like your body just feels everything so much quicker with the second pregnancy. Like, “Oh, I'm already sore and it's not even the second trimester. What's happening?” Meagan: I believe that. Hayley: Yeah, so I found that really preparing is my number-one tip of doing your research, listening to podcasts, really get in that space of there was no doubt in my mind that I wasn't going to be able to have a VBAC and I feel like that really helped me out when labor came because it wasn't something that I even thought about. I can psyche myself out of I didn't get worried. Meagan: How amazing is that? I feel like that goes again, it's like the full circle of, “Okay. I am educated. I have the support. I have the body and the baby ready to do this.” When we have gaps in our circle where it's like, “Okay, well I'm educated so I feel confident in my ability,” but then we have a provider who is wishy-washy and shutting me down or I have a family member who is like, “Oh, you are really making a bad choice,” or starts questioning us and placing doubt, but then we are confident in our body. We are healthy and all of these things. But when there are gaps, we can't go into birth with that mentality. That's something I wish for every single person going in to have a baby no matter what is just feeling confident and having that mentality of stress-free of the doubt. There are always the what-ifs and the wonders and every birth experience is different, but to not doubt ourselves or our ability and it comes with education, support, and all of those things. Hayley: Yeah, exactly. Like reading my books and listening to stories and being like, “Yeah. My body can do this. This is what people have done for all of time.” Meagan: Forever. Hayley: We can do this. Yeah. Definitely, I agree. If you don't have every single one of those aspects, it just makes things so much harder on yourself and everything. 18:15 Labor beginsHayley: So fast forward, I never went through labor with my first, so I still felt like a first-time mom in the sense that I was like, “Will I know when I'm in labor? What's it going to feel like?” It was February last year. I don't know, whatever day it was. I guess it was the 22nd. I guess I was having cramping. I don't know. They were really mild so I didn't really think about it. I was working and taking care of my firstborn. Looking back, I'm like, “Oh, I guess it was maybe early labor.” But I didn't really think about it. But I had pasta for dinner which I think is hilarious. I just ate pasta because fast forward, I am putting my little one to bed at 7:00 PM and I start getting really bad stomach pains. I'm like, “Is this from my dinner? Is my stomach just upset? I don't know what's happening.” I remember I had to have my husband finish putting her to bed. I was really not feeling good. I was like, “Okay. Am I just really not feeling good? Is this labor? I'm not sure what's happening.” So I get in the shower and I'm like, “All right. Let me just get in the shower and see what's up.” Then my husband comes back in and I'm like, “Hey, I don't want to freak you out. I'm not sure if this is labor or not, but maybe it is.”It's getting closer to 8:00 PM or so and things are really starting to ramp up. I'm like, “Okay, this is probably labor.” I do remember having a thought of, “Shoot. If this is how early labor is and I'm already feeling it like this, I'm worried. I don't know that I can do this.” I had those thoughts. I feel like I quickly got out of that, but it freaked me out. I wasn't prepared for that. I know you can have those thoughts down the line in active labor, but I was like, “If I'm already feeling this and I don't even know if I'm in labor yet, shoot. I'm in trouble.” 20:16 Going to the hospitalHayley: Fast forward, we started timing the contractions around 8:30 or 9:00 at night so only an hour and a half or so after I first had that contraction that I felt. They were already lasting over a minute long and coming 3-6 minutes apart. It got really intense really quickly. I was like, “All right.” We put on Harry Potter. I was like, “Let's just try to get some sleep. Let me rest here.” Jokes on us. We did not rest. We did not get sleep. I ended up calling our midwives and our doula. They were like, “Okay. You should probably think about coming in.” We left our house at 11:00 PM. We live an hour from the hospital or 40 minutes. I was freaking out because one of the concerns I feel like everyone has is, “I don't want to have my baby in the car,” but you don't want to get there too soon. It's one of those things. I really, truly believe though for me-- people say it's nice to labor at home because you are comfortable and I do get that but for me, I wanted to get to my place of birth and I feel like that was a huge thing for me and my mindset. Once I got to my place of birth, I was like, “Okay. This is where I'm giving birth. I don't need to travel.” I relaxed a lot. That was also something I assumed I wanted to be at home longer, but for me, I was like, “No. I need to feel comfortable and in my space.” However, when I got there, I was already 100% effaced, 0 station, and 7 centimeters. Meagan: Nice! Hayley: So I was already pretty far along. Meagan: You pretty much labored at home very well. Hayley: Yeah, exactly. So I was like, “Okay.” But I just really wanted to get to the hospital. I was like, “Get me to my people because I need support.” Meagan: Yeah. Hayley: So we finally get to the room. They had a bathtub which was great so they filled the tub up. I did have an IV placed but they didn't have it hooked to anything. They just had it placed. What was annoying about that was they forgot to tape it when I got in the tub so of course, it fell out. So they literally I think, tried to stick me like 10 times. I'm not even exaggerating. It was a whole situation so that was not fun. Yeah. Laboring in the tub was great and on the toilet was great. But it really, yeah. Once I was there and had my people, I just felt like I was in the zone and everything seemed a lot better than when I was at home in my head just being like, “What's happening?” So yeah. Everything moved really quickly but I wasn't prepared for tailbone pain. Then I mean, I guess I probably should have. It was kind of in my head that this should be a thing because of when I fell, but man. The back pain and the tailbone pain so even things like the double hip squeeze that I thought, “Oh yeah, that's going to help me” were like, no. Meagan: And sacrum, oof. Yeah. No wonder the toilet felt really good because you were able to sit without pressure open and release that. Hayley: Yeah, exactly. That was perfect or hands and knees in the tub because yeah. I couldn't sit. It was a whole thing. I don't remember honestly from when my labor started at home, I don't remember honestly peaking and getting any worse. It just honestly felt the same. Intense from the beginning all the way until the end which was also something that I was not prepared for. I think obviously it is different for everybody, but that was something I was like, “Oh.” I was pleasantly surprised in the sense of at least it wasn't like, “Shoot. I'm totally screwed later,” but also, it was intense very quickly early on and throughout. 24:20 PushingHayley: So fast forward, I feel like now it's 7:00 AM. We get to the hospital at basically 1:00 AM. At 7:00 AM, I'm at 10 centimeters and I feel the urge to push so we start pushing in different positions. One thing I really wanted for myself was to not push lounging on a bed. However, with my tailbone, I felt like everything hurt so it ended up where we tried so many positions but I was kind of semi-reclined just because I felt like I needed that support. I don't know. I told myself to be okay with ultimately pushing in the position that I “didn't want” and being okay with that was something that I was like, “You know what? Listen to what I need in this moment and do what's best.” So it was one of those moments where it was like, “All right. I need to just let go of what I was assuming and do what's best for me.” We pushed for a while. It was 60 or so minutes which was– Meagan: That's actually not bad for a first-time mom. Hayley: Really? I think it was 60, maybe 70 or so. But I do remember pushing being harder than I thought. That was not something that I had prepared for. I feel like for any mamas out there listening, prepare for pushing. Meagan: Yeah. Pushing is hard work. Hayley: It's hard. I think that tired me out honestly more than the labor. It was pushing and I think it was half because I did not prepare as much for it and because obviously at the end of it, you're already tired and exhausted. But yeah. I did not prepare for pushing to last as long either. I feel like I did know that, but mentally, I feel like, “Wait. This is still happening,” and it being intense. But then he finally was born and I just literally grabbed him. My husband was helping catch him, but I literally just took him right away. Meagan: Aw, cute. Hayley: It was great. So then I had this huge high of like, “Wow. I did this VBAC unmedicated. This is great,” then fast forward to postpartum, the nurse had kind of mentioned or my midwife had kind of mentioned, “Oh, you have a slight uterine prolapse.” I was just like, “I don't know what that means. Cool.” They mentioned it as we were in the hospital and it wasn't until afterward that I still was like, “No one is telling me what any of this means. What is this? I don't even know what this is.” They were being so casual about it and I wasn't getting any information. 27:05 Hayley's prolapse experienceHayley: That was something that was frustrating because then postpartum, a couple weeks in when I was starting to have some symptoms of prolapse, I was like, “Well, no one is giving me answers. Nobody told me what this is. Now I'm postpartum feeling confused and in the dark.” It was really interesting to go from this high high of, “Wow. I had an amazing birth, successful VBAC, unmedicated” to now questioning, “Well, what did I do?” You question yourself. Did I do something wrong? Could I have done something differently? Why did this happen? Because no one else apparently had this which is actually not true. It's just not talked about. So that was a very big part of postpartum that I was not at all prepared for. Meagan: Yeah. That's hard. Let's talk a little bit about the symptoms that you were receiving. What symptoms did you have? Hayley: Yeah. So at the beginning, I felt like I was like, “I don't know what this means. I'm not really feeling it. You just said I have a slight uterine prolapse. We'll check that later.” Then you don't go to your visit until however many weeks postpartum. So I was like, okay. But then when I was home a couple of weeks later, maybe two or so weeks, I was feeling heaviness or uncomfortable or pain a little bit. This doesn't feel normal. I felt bulging in the beginning. That emotionally and mentally really got to me. I was like, “Why is my body doing this?” Then I would remember messaging my midwife on the little portal and they were like, “You're really early postpartum. We will talk when we see you,” and no help. I'm like, “Well, that doesn't help me now when I'm not feeling great. It doesn't help me when I'm just like, yeah. They were like, “Most of the time, it will resolve” or whatever. It's like, okay but I'm not happy right now. I'm not feeling great now. So finally, as soon as I did have my pelvic floor PT from before, I emailed her like, “Hey, is there anything you can recommend because I'm not seeing my midwife for a while? No one is really helping me out.” She was like, “Yeah, you can come in. I can't really do an exam yet because you are still so early, but I can see you. I can talk to you. I can look at things and see what is happening.” So that was really helpful. What's interesting is now, I'm however many months postpartum, but even I feel like a month or two when I could go onto my pelvic floor PT, she didn't see any sort of uterine prolapse, but I think I have a slight bladder cystocele so I'm not sure where the uterine thing happened in the beginning of when I delivered and they had said I had uterine prolapse, but now, it looks like it's just a slight cystocele. But what's frustrating about what I've noticed with people with prolapse is a) the grades don't seemingly matter in that you can be a grade 1 prolapse which I think technically I probably am, but if you are having symptoms, then let's get that figured out because so many times, people would be like, “Well, it's not bad” or “I don't even see anything,” but it's like, “Okay, well I am feeling these symptoms and it is mentally causing me– it's making me in my head. It's making me depressed. It's making me upset about my body so let's find someone to actually work on that with me instead of dismissing that was huge because yeah. I don't have a grade 4 prolapse or grade 3 or whatever it is that you consider back, but if it's making my day-to-day and me not be able to do things, then that's a problem. Meagan: Yes. I love that you are talking about that. Women of Strength, at least here in the U.S., take way too long to be checked in on after having a baby. Six weeks is mind-boggling to me. A lot happens in six weeks. We have a lot of hormones shifting. We have a lot of recovering. We have a lot of things that may need to be addressed earlier on or that can start helping us with our mental health. There are so many things. I agree. If you are experiencing any type of these symptoms and your heart is like, “This isn't good or this is affecting me,” reach out to someone. If you're OB or your midwife's office is like, “We'll see you at six weeks,” go to that pelvic floor PT. Review with them. 32:01 Symptoms of uterine prolapseMeagan: I want to talk about some of the symptoms of uterine specifically and what it is. Uterine prolapse occurs when the muscles and tissues in your pelvis are weakened. We know that through childbirth, that happens. We push and sometimes when we push longer hours or whatever, we can weaken that. But most people with uterine prolapse are a little older. They are 50-80 years old but it can happen in childbirth. So here are some of the symptoms. Leaking of urine, inability to completely empty your bladder– so you go to the bathroom, you stand up and you're like, “Oh, there's more,” or you start leaking more. That heaviness down there– so I had a cystocele as well. It's so weird, but I remember wanting to sit on the corner of the couch or on the edge of the couch just to put some counter pressure. Do you know what I mean? Hayley: Yep. Yep. Meagan: That bulging, lower back pain which a lot of the time we are like, “Oh, back pain. We are nursing. We are recovering. We are hunched. Yeah, that's normal.” Lower back pain is not necessarily normal. Aching or feeling that in your lower abdomen or down in your pelvic area and even severe constipation. We know that after childbirth, especially if we have an epidural or we've had a lot of intervention and stuff like that, constipation can happen. A lot of people get iron supplements and stuff like that to have that be lessened, but these are symptoms that truly need to be discussed and not ignored for six weeks because like Hayley was saying, it can start wearing on our mental health. I remember wanting to go out and walk around the block with my kids and just wanting to hold myself down there because it was so bulgy and achy. Hayley: Yes. Meagan: According to a study, it said that around 35% of women who have recently given birth suffer from prolapse. 35%. That's a lot of us, you guys. A lot of people. The cystocele is when the wall between the bladder and the vaginal wall weakens so we can't kegel. It's not tight. It's weakened so it comes down. Again, if you are experiencing any of these symptoms, know that it's not necessarily something you have to just deal with. And yes, it will probably resolve in time, but you could also probably get some help sooner rather than later and help yourself mentally not worry about that. I have a friend who had a pretty high-grade prolapse. She ended up scheduling which is totally fine. She ended up scheduling C-sections for the rest of her births because she was so terrified of having that issue because she did have bladder and fecal issues. When you are peeing and pooping yourself, that's not fun. It's not fun, but you can get the support out there and you deserve the support and you do not need to be pushed off for six weeks. Make sure to follow your heart and get the help you need. 35:29 Prolapse can happenHayley: Yeah, exactly. I think another thing that I would have loved to have known, I feel like no one talks about prolapse. When I went through my pregnancy classes or even just with the doctor or with my midwife, no one ever mentioned, “Oh, this could happen. This could be a complication. This could happen after birth.” No one ever mentioned that to me, so I was like, “I don't even know what this is,” then I felt really alone like, “Why am I the only postpartum person who has this happen?” Meagan: Right or that's just talking about it. Hayley: In reality, I'm not. Meagan: No, you're not. Yeah. There are a ton of risk factors, but giving birth is easily the highest risk. Think about the amount of pressure that we are putting on our pelvic floor and our organs when we are pushing out a baby. I think that is another reason. I know you did this. I know you went to pelvic PT beforehand, but especially if you've had this in the past or you are thinking about this, talk to your pelvic floor PT and say, “Okay. Can you give me some guidance on pushing? Can we talk about how to try to avoid this?” I actually had another client– my other one was just a friend. I wasn't her doula, but this was a client. She had some pretty rough PT things and had to go through a lot of PT. That was her thing and they said, “As soon as you feel this, I want you to change positions. I want you to push differently. I want you to breathe differently.” She believes that her work before and her work during and her different style of pushing helped. Baby came out really fast. She actually didn't have any pelvic issues which was a really grateful thing for her because she had a pretty severe complication. Yeah. It doesn't always have to be that so that was another message. If you have it, it doesn't have to be like that next time or it doesn't mean it's always going to be like that next time. But know that if you are having that, you're probably not the only one. 35% of us, that's a large chunk of people. That's right up there with the Cesarean rate. It's quite high. Hayley: That's true. Meagan: So know that it's okay to talk about it. It's okay to open up. You do not have to deal with it. You can get help and you deserve it. Hayley: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I feel like for a while, I just cried to my husband and he was like, “It's okay to feel this way.” Stop blaming yourself. Really getting out of your head. You didn't cause this and yeah. You can absolutely get help. If people are pushing you off, let's find somebody else then who will talk to you in the meantime because your mental health matters. How you are feeling matters because yeah. Now, here I am getting close to a year postpartum and I'm feeling so much better, but it's because I've been listening to my body and I've been working with a PT doing exercises and supporting myself and working on drinking water, not getting constipated like you said and all of these things. Again, were there times in my postpartum journey when I was like, “This is not what I want to be dealing with?” Yes. But you can absolutely– it does get better. If you're feeling this way, it sucks and you feel like it's never going to get better. I get it. I was there, but it really does and you're not the only person. At the same time, I don't want to scare people. This may not happen to you either for sure. But if it does, listen to yourself and you can get help. Meagan: And that's the message, right? It's not going to happen to everybody but it does happen and it's important to know that you don't have to ignore it. You don't have to suffer in silence. You can get help and have a better postpartum. There are tons of things– I think I've talked about this– in my postpartum journey where I was like, “I got the birth I wanted, but I'm so frustrated that these things are happening.” You can also have both of those feelings. You can be super happy for your birth but also really frustrated with your postpartum journey or vice versa where you're like, “I had a really crappy birth, but man, I'm so grateful for this postpartum journey.” You can have those feelings together. You don't have to be quiet because you had the birth that everyone knew you wanted. Hayley: Right, exactly. It doesn't diminish how proud I am of having a natural VBAC and doing that even though at times in the beginning, I did question that. Meagan: Oh yeah. Yeah. That's natural. Hayley: But looking back, I'm like, “That's amazing.” I'm so proud of myself that I achieved a VBAC and had an unmedicated one. It's just crazy to me. Meagan: Absolutely. Well, thank you for sharing your story today. Hayley: Thank you for having me. I know I can talk a lot. Meagan: It was wonderful. 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 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

Grace: “'If you are COVID-positive as the mother, you are not allowed to do skin-to-skin, you are not allowed to breastfeed your baby, and you are only allowed to hold your baby two times a day for 15 minutes.'”Meagan: "That's what they told you?"Grace: "That's what they did. That was their policy."Today's episode is a must-listen for everyone in the birthing community. We know 2020 was an especially tough year to give birth and Grace's first birth story shows exactly why. Grace unexpectedly tested positive for COVID upon arriving at the hospital for a recommended induction after providers were worried about her baby's size. She was immediately subject to the hospital's policies for that day. Grace felt like her birthing autonomy was slipping farther away with every intervention. She ultimately consented to a C-section for failure to progress. Her lowest point was watching a nurse feed her new baby a bottle in her hospital room while she felt perfectly fine and capable of doing it herself. Grace was a compliant and obedient patient, but her heart was broken.Though she went through so much, Grace's positivity and commitment to a redemptive second birth experience are so inspiring. Grace is sharing all of the warning signs she wishes she recognized before along with so many helpful VBAC preparation tips. While we wish Grace didn't have to go through what she did, we are SO very proud of her resilience and strength!Additional LinksThe VBAC Link Blog: 10+ Signs to Switch Your ProviderThe VBAC Link Blog: How to Find a Truly Supportive VBAC ProviderNeeded WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello, Women of Strength. I am bringing another VBAC to you for you today. I always do that. To you, for you. It is for you today. We have our friend, Grace, and she is actually from New York, right? Yes. Grace: Yes. Meagan: New York. Yes. That too, is something I want to start highlighting on the podcast because we have a lot of people being like, “Well, where are they from? I want that provider. How possible is it for me to get that provider?” She is from New York, everybody, so if you are from New York, definitely listen up extra sharp on this one. Yeah. She is going to share her traumatic C-section story and her healing VBAC. It just tickled me so much when she said in the beginning when we were chatting that this podcast truly helped her so much. It truly is so heartwarming to hear those things because this is exactly why I'm still doing this podcast. It is because I want everyone to have these stories, to be able to feel empowered, and to learn along the way because I think in addition to inspiring, these podcasts really, truly inform and educate. We can learn from other peoples' stories. We can be like, “Oh, I didn't even know that was a thing.” Even though birth is really the same, it's just the same concept. Our cervix gets to 10 centimeters. We get 100% effaced. Our baby comes out through our pelvis and we push a baby out, it's just treated so differently truly worldwide. That's what is kind of crazy to me still that we haven't caught up to evidence-based birth in every state or country and we do things so differently. I think that's something really cool too to learn where people are from so we can learn what birth looks like in that state or in that country. Review of the WeekWe are going to read a Review of the Week and then we are going to turn the time over to our cute friend, Grace, to share her stories. Grace: Yay. Meagan: This is from stephmeb and her title is “Positive Stories Inspire Birthing Women”. It says, “As a VBAC mama myself, I have to say that one of the things I drew strength the most from were the most positive birth stories. I wish this existed with my previous babies and cannot wait to listen and gain strength from the stories that we are blessed enough to have one another sharing.” It says, “What a beautiful thing to have and it all is in one place.” I love that she highlighted that. That is something that we love to do here at The VBAC Link. That's why we created it. We wanted you to have all of the things– the stories, the information, the education, the resources all in one place because I too, when I was going for my VBAC, had a hard time scrambling all over the place trying to find out the information. It says, “These ladies are really blessing and inspiring birthing women, VBAC or not.” I love that. Thank you so much. As always, we love your reviews. They truly make us smile. They keep us going. I even still to this day will get a review and send it over to Julie so she can see that her legacy is still carrying on today. So if you haven't left a review, we would love one. You can help us on Google if you just Google “The VBAC Link”. You can leave us a review there. It helps everyone out there looking for VBAC to find us, to find this podcast, and to hear these amazing stories. Or on Apple Podcasts or you can even email us. Thank you so much for your review. Grace's Stories Meagan: Okay, Grace. Before we were talking, we talked about not the best C-section experience. Grace: Horrible. It was horrible. Meagan: We talked about being COVID-positive. That was a really hard time. We are still having COVID. COVID is not going away, so I think this is also a really good thing to hear about what things to do or what things to know if you are COVID-positive. Fortunately, the hospital system has changed substantially since then. I was probably one of the most angry people that I have ever been. I was a very angry person during COVID watching what was happening to my clients and what was being told to my clients. It was heartbreaking to see and I can't imagine going through that. So if you are a COVID mama birther whether you had COVID or not, just know I am sending you so much love because I know you went through hell a lot of the time. And then you had a redemptive VBAC. I am going to turn the time over to you to share with the listeners your stories. Grace: Awesome, yeah. Going back, since my first birth which was a C-section, my first is three and a half. It's been crazy trying to go over what happened before I started recording with you just so I had all of my points down. I started to cry at one point just because it was so traumatic. I don't know if other women have gotten as traumatized as I have, but I'm sure some have because it just was terrible. So maybe that's why it's good I have everything written down. I don't know where I should start because it's just so much. So again, I was COVID-positive. This was 2020 and this was right when COVID started becoming so serious that they shut everything down. So March and April 2020, I had to start working from home. At that point, I was 6 or 7 months pregnant with my first baby. I didn't think anything of it. COVID at the time was scary, but because of my age– and I didn't have any other conditions. I wasn't a diabetic or anything where COVID can be really scary. Other than that, we were just isolating the way we were supposed to. I am a teacher and we didn't have to go to work so that was actually kind of nice. I got to work from home. I went on really long walks and just enjoyed the end of my pregnancy. Nothing was phasing me. I had a regular OB. I picked this OB. Why did I pick this OB? I think it was that I wanted to give birth at this hospital that when I was picking hospitals in my area, I was told that this hospital has the best NICU. I'm like, “Okay.” I had no reason to think my baby should need a NICU, but when you are picking, you're like, “What are the pros and cons?” I picked that one and I went with the OB practice that was connected with that one. It was, I think, private. There were a lot of providers in that practice. A few people did say, “Just so you know, a lot of people have C-sections there.” I already knew two women who went there and both had C-sections. Warning sign number one, if you are hearing people say that a particular provider or practice is likely to give you a C-section, just be aware of that. Meagan: Yeah. Yeah. Grace: I didn't listen to that. So probably in mid-April, I started losing my sense of smell. Immediately, I'm like, “I might have COVID.” My husband and I about a few weeks earlier than that did have five days where we didn't feel great. We were tired. We were run down. We kept thinking, “Maybe it's COVID,” but our symptoms were super mild. No fever, no difficulty breathing. And remember, in early 2020, everybody was petrified of COVID and expecting it to be this super terrible thing. You're going to go on a respirator and all of these things. We had that one week. We weren't feeling great and then mid-April which was a few weeks after that, I lost my sense of smell so I was like, “Crap. I think I might have COVID.” I hope I can say that. Meagan: Yeah, you can. I just said “hell” so “crap” is good. Grace: I called my OB and I called a few other people. I said, “I don't know what to do. I lost my sense of smell. I feel fine.” I felt fine. They were like, “Okay. Isolate for two weeks. Let us know how you are doing.” We were. We weren't going anywhere. We were just working from home. I would go out with my mask and my gloves. We did all of the things then, but we didn't really go to work or anything. So then those few months go by. This is something I didn't want to forget to mention. Even at 20 weeks of my pregnancy, almost every appointment that I went to whether it was a checkup or a sonogram, they started saying, “Your baby is very big. It's big. He's going to be–” Not that they would give me a weight, but they were like, “He's going to be a big baby. He's going to be a big baby.” He was a boy, so I was big in the front. I was gaining weight which was concerning me. Meagan: Also normal to gain weight. Grace: Right. Totally normal, but when they started saying that so early, and then at the time, my sister had her first and her son was, I want to say 8 pounds, something. She really struggled to get him out. I'm not going to tell her story, but the things she had to go through to get him out were tough. She didn't have a C-section, but when I started hearing, “Oh, he's big,” it started making me concerned like, “I hope I can get him out.” Again, another foreshadowing that you're not seeing the right people because they shouldn't be saying that to you. They should just be letting the baby get where it needs to get and letting you know that everything is going to be fine. So I'm going through isolation. Time goes by and I'm getting into my third trimester. As we all know, women who have been pregnant, when you get to the end, you start to lose your mind. You start to get very vulnerable. You start to be like, “Please get this baby out of me.” By that point, I was rotating OBs so I had met everyone because you don't know which OB you're going to get. So I went to this one OB and he was the main OB of a girlfriend. She would only want to see him. He did make a comment that was bad bedside manner and it should have been an indicator that this guy was not looking out for you. He said, “Oh, you're having a boy? We don't like when you ladies have boys.” Meagan: Oh, whoa. Grace: Yeah, he said that to me. I giggled out of awkwardness, but after leaving, I was like, “Who says that to somebody?”Meagan: Yeah, I don't like that. I don't like that at all. Grace: I didn't like it either. I think that was the first time I had seen him. I only had seen him twice during my whole pregnancy and then the last time was before I got admitted to the hospital. It was at 40 weeks. I think I went in to see them and he goes, “Okay, again. Your baby is really big. Let's give it a few more days and then we'll schedule an induction for you.” You know, at the end of your pregnancy, you're like, “Yeah, get it out.” Meagan: Vulnerable, yeah. Grace: Vulnerable. And because my sister had gotten induced that January, inducing didn't seem like any kind of fearful thing to me. I had heard stories of women getting induced and getting a C-section, but I just kept thinking, “I'm full term. I'm healthy. There's nothing wrong.” Again, I didn't want my baby to get too big. They kept putting that thought in my head. They scheduled my induction and right when I told my mom, my mom had five kids all natural. She never had any chemicals put in her body every. When I told my mom they scheduled my induction, she flipped out. She was like, “No!” Another warning sign for me that I should have listened to. “Don't do the Pitocin. Don't do it. It's not good for you. You don't need it. Your labor is going to be really hard. It's going to be really long.” She was telling me, “Don't. This is a terrible decision.” “You know,” I'm like, “But they're telling me that this baby is going to get too big. I don't want it to get any bigger. I don't want to go too far.” Meagan: It's scary.Grace: And it's scary. They do say my risk goes up once you go past the 40 weeks and all of these things. But I did it anyway. I go to the induction. We get to the hospital. They're like, “Oh, you have to do a COVID test when you get there.” I thought it was a good thing. I'm like, “Oh, good. They're making sure the COVID people are separate. It's such a good thing.” No thought in my mind that I would ever be positive. I felt perfectly fine. We were keeping ourselves in the house, wearing the masks and doing all of the things. They do the test. Meanwhile, my husband and I are sharing a water bottle in the room. Then they were taking a really long time to get back in the room. I remember thinking, “That's not good. Where are these people? We took the test at least 30 minutes ago and these tests don't take that long.” They come back in full get-up, all three– the OB and the two nurses– full get-up of the gown and everything. Immediately, my heart sank. They're like, “So it turns out that you are COVID-positive. Your husband is COVID-negative so he can stay.” If he was COVID-positive, he would have had to go home. Yes. I'm hearing this. I'm starting to freak out. Remember, I'm a first-time mom. I'm already petrified of giving birth in general, so hearing that, I'm like, “Oh my god. Oh my god.” Then they told us that the policy that day– because the policy with COVID patients was changing every day. They were like, “So if you are COVID-positive as the mother, you are not allowed to do skin-to-skin and you are not allowed to breastfeed your baby, and you are only allowed to hold your baby two times a day for 15 minutes.” Meagan: Shut up. That's what they told you? Grace: That's what they did. That was their policy. Meagan: No. See? This is why I was the angriest doula in my life. It was the angriest time I have ever been because of this stuff. That doesn't even make sense. Grace: It made no sense especially because I'm thinking, “I'm bringing the baby home with me.” The baby is going to be 100%. I'm going to nurse this baby. I'm going to have this baby on me.” If I was coughing and had a fever and a runny nose and all of these horrible, contagious symptoms, obviously, it's like, “Yeah. I shouldn't maybe hold my baby. I don't want to get my baby sick.” At that time, COVID was scary, so it's like, “Okay, if I am this COVID-positive, deathly-looking patient, fine. I get it. Baby's safety first,” but I was fine. I said I was sharing germs with my husband who was negative. I kept saying, “Please retest. Please? Clearly, these tests are wrong.” I actually did all of this research that the COVID-positive gene or swab or whatever it is in you will stay in you for months and I was pregnant. My immune system was not what it normally is. Meagan: Well, and you were pregnant meaning you were sick. You had the antibiotics. Guess who has the antibiotics? Baby is inside of you. I don't actually know the evidence, so I can't say that there is no way, but in my head, it doesn't connect. There's a disconnect there. How did baby not– anyway. You were the same human– I mean, human in human during that time. Grace: Yeah, like you said, not only could I not do the skin-to-skin, but neither could my husband which all of the antibodies and all of the healthy things, my baby really didn't get any human skin touch until he got home which was three days later. Meagan: I'm so sorry. Grace: Yeah. I mean, I know he's fine, but there are these things. Now he's three and a half, when he has sensory issues or anything, I always go back to how his birth was horrible. Obviously, there's more. So that hit me like a ton of bricks. I'm just devastated and I'm calling all of my family. I can't see any family. No one can come to the hospital and I'm just crying. Already, it's like the downhill is starting. So that happened. I have to just– over the few hours that I'm there getting everything set up, I have to come to terms with, “I can't have skin-to-skin. I can't nurse. I don't know how I'm going to handle that.” Still thinking about that makes me really upset. Meagan: Even the nursing too, those are good antibodies and strong. That's what helps our babies. Grace: Yeah. I know. It's completely backward. The OB that was there was actually no one I had met before. She really didn't seem concerned. She was totally– what's the word– I use this when it comes to these healthcare workers in the hospitals. They are desensitized. That's the word. They were desensitized to my reaction and my husband's and all of it. They were just like, “Yep. This is how it is. Whatever.” Anyway, they get us in the room. We had to be locked in the room. Anytime another nurse came in or whatever, we had to put a mask on. Meanwhile, every time they came in a room, it was the full getup so obviously, I was already a patient that they didn't want there. That was how you kind of felt. The nurses weren't nasty or anything, but they gave you the vibe of, “Oh, great. She's hitting the button. We gotta go help the girl with the whole getup.” You know? I know I'm not the only COVID-positive one there, but you don't want to feel that. You don't want to feel like that type of patient. So you know, they started me on Pitocin. We're trying to get through it. We're watching TV. The contractions weren't too bad. I was getting through it. I'm moving around like crazy. The first nurse I had made a joke. She said, “I've never seen a pregnant woman move around as much as you.” I was trying so hard to get contractions going. Meagan: Movement is good. We should be moving around in labor. Grace: 100%. I mean, I had to do it in my room. I couldn't go anywhere which was dumb, but I'm doing all I can do. Hours are going by. Again, Pitocin is slow to go. I think after, I'd say maybe 10 hours of it, I go, “I am so tired and I'm not really progressing.” I think I was only 2 centimeters after 10 hours. I'm like, “I am so tired.” I was feeling contractions at that point that was enough that I needed a break. This is another warning sign that I should have said no to. I was only 2 centimeters. She comes in and maybe it wasn't 10 hours yet. Maybe it was 8 hours. She comes in. She checks me. She's like, “Yeah.” I'm only 2 centimeters. She suggested to break my water. She said, “Yeah. That'll get things going.” I'm like, “Oh, great. Break my water. Totally. Do it.” Now, I shouldn't have done that. I had read books and I had learned things, but again, you don't even– it all goes out of your mind when you are trying to have a baby and get from A to B. You're uncomfortable and you don't have support around you and all of the things. Already, my vulnerability was so high because of COVID and the fact that I couldn't hold the baby. At that point, I said, “Great. Break my water.” 2 centimeters? Who does that? Crazy. What was I thinking?Meagan: You're not alone. You're not crazy because you weren't in the space to make a “better informed” decision. You were being told by your medical staff that this is what could help so you are not crazy. Offer yourself some grace, but yeah. It's just one of those things that we take as a learning experience and a nugget for next time. Grace: Yes. That's what I think is upsetting. She knew that. My OB knew that. She wasn't technically who I would consider my OB to be because the one woman I was seeing each time, I don't think would have done that to me. Meagan: The attending OB. Grace: Exactly. It's like whoever you get in that Russian Roulette lottery of that day. She didn't even know me. She clearly didn't care about me. Oh, and she also made a horrible comment to me that day. I don't remember if it was before or after she broke my water. I think it was after. She breaks my water. Contractions are going again and they are way more intense. At that point, so much time had gone by that I was exhausted. It was maybe 10 hours. I don't totally remember exactly, but I think it was 10 hours that I spent. I said, “Let me get an epidural because I can't take it anymore. I need sleep.”After I got the epidural, I was in bed and I feel like either the next morning or maybe it was the night right before I went to sleep, I was crying to her. I said, “I'm really upset. Is there anything we can do? I would really like skin-to-skin with my baby.” I said, “Wrap me in a garbage bag. I don't care. I really hate that I can't have that with the baby.” She looked at me and she said, “Well, you don't want to give your baby COVID.” I couldn't believe she said that to me. I was crying already. I'm like, “Of course not.” It made me cry more. How could you put that out there and look at me right now? If it was you and it was your baby, how would you feel that it got taken away from you and I felt perfectly fine? I'm like, “Obviously, it's not me. My husband just took a test and he was negative.” For her to say that to me, I didn't want her back in my room again. So the epidural came and I was under the impression– again, looking at my sister's birth– that with the epidural, I would go to sleep. I'd wake up at 9 centimeters and I wouldn't even feel a thing. I didn't know. Again, because my sister did something similar. I don't think she woke up super dilated, but she definitely progressed after she had gotten her epidural, so I was like, “You know what? Maybe that's what I need.” And my water was already broken. I get my epidural. I go to sleep. I get some rest and then the next morning, the OB comes in and I'm relaxed. I'm calm. She checks me and I'm only 3.5 centimeters. I barely moved. It was very disappointing. I couldn't even handle it. I'm like, “Okay. Will I have more time? There is more time now. It's okay. It's okay.” But then, yeah. No. I didn't progress again. This is another warning sign. The OB comes in around a quarter to 4:00 and I remember hearing this on other podcast episodes that it's that 5:30 PM C-section time, right? Meagan: It does happen.Grace: It's before the end of the day. I mean, listen. Maybe it was coincidental, but given the fact that she comes in. She checks me. She's like, “Listen, you don't have much more time because you broke your water however many hours ago.” I don't remember the amount of hours after you break your water. You probably know. I don't remember. Meagan: Well, there's a lot of other factors than just the time. It's like, “Are we having signs of an infection? How is baby doing? How is mom doing? Are we making change in other areas?” You know? So after 6 hours of getting in labor, 6 hours after waters have been broken with no progress, they will start discussing things but it doesn't always have to be a C-section. Grace: Oh, so she definitely gave me a lot of time. She gave me more than 6 hours, but I wasn't progressing at all. I don't really know. I will be honest that my timeline will be a little funky because of how long ago it was. This I do remember because of the time he was born. He was born at 4– oh my gosh. I should know the exact time. I think it was 4:36 or something like that. Meagan: Whoa. Really fast after. Grace: That's just it, right? She comes in. “You're not progressing. We really don't have much more time before we're going to have to give you a C-section. Otherwise, the safety of the baby is going to be at risk.” Now that she says that, I'm freaking out, right? Meagan: Of course. Grace: I'm like, “Oh my gosh.” You know what? A lot of women I had spoken to before said that C-sections are no big deal. It's fine. Don't be afraid of them. They're fine. At that point, I said, “You know? I'm already going through hell right now. Let's just do it. Let's just get the baby out.” It's so crazy how they are so slow to do so many things, but the moment I sign that form, nope. The operating room is ready to go. The team is ready to go. It's within seconds. They are so ready to get you on that operating table. It's almost like they want to get you out of the door. She wants to get out of the door. We all know that C-sections are going to bill your insurance way more than if you just had the baby naturally. I hate to think that is how a provider would think, but given the time and given everything that would happen, it's like, what else am I going to think now? It's not clear, but I feel like that was a piece of it. They were just trying to get me in and out. Oh, on the operating table, she yelled out, “Just know that this patient is COVID-positive!” to the whole staff. I'm just the diseased person that is in the room. I was walking around like a perfectly healthy person. It was just so awful. So they begin the C-section. I hope I'm not sharing too much and talking about things that don't have meaning, but I guess I have to live through it a little bit. Meagan: This has meaning. You're sharing them. We can feel it. Yeah. Grace: Okay. Now, at that point, during the C-section, you're on a lot of pain meds. I come out of the operating room. Everything is fine. I'm not having any issues. I didn't throw up or anything. All I wanted was to see and hold my baby. I heard the baby cry. My husband got to see the baby. No one got to hold the baby just yet. We'd get in the room. They immediately put the baby, I think, in the isolette. This is at the time where if you were COVID-positive, the baby could be in the room with you, an isolette I think? Or an isolette? Is that what it's called? Meagan: Like another room? I don't know. Grace: You know for NICU babies, they're in this– Meagan: Oh yeah, I do know what you are talking about. I don't know what it's called actually. Grace: I think maybe it's called an isolate and that's what the rule was. When you are COVID-positive, your baby would stay in the isolette. You couldn't hold your baby unless it was those two times during the day for 15 minutes. He went into that. My husband came in. I think that the attending nurse I had at that time–Meagan: Your husband wasn't with you in the C-section?Grace: No, no, no. He was. I'm in a bed. I'm just trying to go through it again in my head. Meagan: No, you're fine. Grace: So the whole time, I kept thinking, “I just want to hold him. Please just let me hold him. I won't do skin-to-skin. I'll follow all of your rules, whatever. Just let me hold him. It's my brand new baby.” Again, I'm a first-time mom. I do think regardless if you are or not, I totally get it. It could be your fourth baby and you would still feel that way. When my mom had my sister who was her second, she was like, “The nursery can have her. I need rest.” There is a sense of, “I've been there. I've done that. I don't necessarily have that need to hold them in that moment,” but as a first-time mom, seeing my first baby, that was all I wanted in the world was just to hold the baby. So this one nurse comes in. I don't know. I think she was just a post-delivery nurse and she was very tough. I was like, “Please, can I hold him now?” She was like, “You need to wash your hands. You are COVID-positive.” Nasty. I'm like, “Okay, fine.” I can't move becaus I just had surgery. They bring me over this bucket of soap and everything. I'm washing my hands and I'm just constantly looking at him trying to get him. She yelled at me. She was like, “You're not washing your hands enough.” She was like, “I'm an ER nurse during COVID. You have to take this seriously,” just belating me. It was so horrible. But they did finally let me hold him. It was great, but it was obviously short-lived. Then after that, they took him. The nurse had to feed him a bottle. I wanted to breastfeed. I didn't want to give him any formula. I remember just seeing her sitting there with him thinking– I'm so sorry– that I failed. My body failed. This woman has to feed my baby for me and I'm right here. I can do it. I couldn't even give him a bottle. I just felt like such a failure at that moment. I did not think I was going to start crying, but just to see a stranger do that just really upset me. That was pretty much that. Right then, I was there and then that nurse would come and feed him every 15 minutes. You know, it's a baby. You have to feed them every 30 minutes or something. But then that moment when she first did it, I thought I was such a failure. Meagan: Not a failure. Grace: I know. My husband had no idea what was going on. They never really do. He was very much like, “We have to listen to the hospital.” When they would leave the room essentially, I was like, “Give me the baby. Let me just hold him. What are they going to do? There are no cameras. Even if there were, what are they going to do? Kick me out? I just got cut open.” Honestly, I was so ready to break those rules. The baby was going to be right there. My husband was like, “They could walk in. You could get in so much trouble.” He didn't know what could happen so we had to just follow the rules. He got to hold the baby, but every time he'd pick up the baby, he had to put on a new thing of gloves, a mask, and a gown, and he ended up having to feed the baby because he was allowed to. That started to drive him crazy because he was also on no sleep. If you go back from when we got to the hospital to when we had the C-section, it had already been two days of time where we were just there. He wasn't really getting the best of sleep. He has had so much going on, so now he has to care for this newborn baby. He's never held a baby in his life. That ended up being what was going on at that point. Now at this point, the epidural was still in me and I wasn't in any kind of crazy pain. Then the nurse comes in. She's a new nurse and was actually very nice. She goes, “Listen, I have a few other pills.” I can't remember what they are but then she goes, “I have oxycodone for the pain.” I was like, “I really don't want to take any opiates because I'm going to try to breastfeed when I get home and I am pumping. I don't want to have any opiates in my system.” I was saying this while the epidural was still in my system. She looked at me like, “Okay,” and I have a Motrin allergy. I can't take ibuprofen so all I was taking at the time was Tylenol. She gives me probably the Tylenol at that point. The epidural was still there. I'm like, “This will be fine. I'll just take Tylenol.” But it was a dumb thing to think. When that epidural wore off, I don't know how many hours later, I was in so much pain. I could barely talk. Motrin and Tylenol work together because some women don't take the opiate, but working together helps a lot. But when I wasn't getting Motrin, all I had was Tylenol. It just was so, so painful that she got to my room. I look at her. I go, “You need to get me the oxycodone right now. I can't move. I'm in serious, serious pain now.” So she gets it for me, but the thing is with pain– oh, I'm sorry my friend texted me– when you don't catch up to the pain and you have the pain meds in your system, you kind of can never stay on top of pain. Does that make sense? Meagan: Mhmm. Chasing it.Grace: You're chasing it. So even with the oxycodone in my system, the pain would finally subside, but then once it came back, it came back so bad that I just never felt okay anymore. I just constantly was uncomfortable and in pain. Those moments when the meds would wear off to get your new set of meds, I could barely talk. It was so intense. Then also when you get surgery, you get gas that radiates up and that was insanely painful. The night nurse ended up being late with the oxycodone at that point. It was 3:00 AM. My husband was sitting next to me. He couldn't even sleep because he was so worried about me because of that pain. I wasn't myself anymore. I don't know if other women with C-sections have gone through anything like that, but it was just really bad. He was sitting next to me. It was 3:00 AM and he was like, “I'm really worried I'm going to lose you.” I actually muttered, “I think I'm going to die.” That's how intense it was. She was probably 45 minutes late with the medication and again with pain meds, if it's not in your system, you feel everything. That made it even more intense and horrible on top of everything else– all of the emotion, the fact that I didn't even want a C-section, and it just kept spiraling into horribleness. I will say one positive good bit though that I look back on and I remember. The attending nurse that I had during the day of my C-section actually came in after and was so sweet. She did know that I wanted to breastfeed, so she was trying to get the colostrum to give to the baby. One thing my sister told me to do was she goes, “Make sure before you are planning on giving birth that you start eating lactation cookies and getting your supply to come in.” Because I had done that, when I showed up and she wanted to get colostrum, there was tons of it. He was in shock. He was so happy. He was a bit older, almost like you could tell he was old school. He was like, “I've never seen anything like this. This is amazing.” It made me feel like somebody had faith in me instead of some diseased, horrible person. That's what I felt the whole time. That was nice having that moment. But yeah, so then with the pain, that was starting to make the whole experience really bad. We ended up leaving a day early and even the day we left, the pediatrician made a point to me. He was telling me about the baby and things to do with the baby and everything. I go, “I'm so really worried. I'm COVID-positive. I don't want to get the baby sick. Everyone is making it like I'm going to make the baby sick and what should I do? Can I hold the baby? Can I do these things with the baby?” She looks at me and says, “Of course you can. You are going to take your baby home and you can nurse your baby. You're going to hold your baby.” She was like, “Wear a mask,” and was almost looking at me like, “This hospital is crazy. This policy is horrible,” but because this is the routine for them and they are desensitized to everything, I wasn't getting that from anyone else. It was just common. It made me really look back and say, “How stupid that they put me through this.” I don't even know. I think there were some COVID-positive mothers where their babies went in other rooms and they couldn't even see them at all. Meagan: Mhmm. Grace: I mean, I'm sure you've heard other horrible stories. So we go. We get to leave and my husband at that point had no sleep either. It was maybe three or four days that we had been there with no sleep. I had no sleep because I was in so much pain. We get home and my mom opens the door because she was waiting there for us to help us. My mother was really upset too. She was crying all night that I was going through that. She looked at me and was like, “Oh my god. What did they do to you?” I had dark circles under my eyes from being exhausted but also from crying. Meagan: Yeah. I was going to say, I'm sure that you instantly knew that you wanted a different experience next time. Grace: Oh my god, yeah. I wanted it different and you know, I have a beautiful, healthy baby so it's not like it was the worst experience it could have been, but it wasn't at all what I wanted or what I thought it would have been or that it really should have been. So many things went wrong and I take a lot of blame that I should have researched providers better. I should have researched the policies better. I didn't know, you know? You never think it's going to happen to you. You think everything's going to be fine. My one girlfriend, I think had placenta previa. Something like that, but she said, “I immediately knew I was having a C-section. There was no question there.” That's one thing. You have physical limitations where it is very dangerous. Okay. It's fine. You have a C-section. It's fine. But when you are put in a horrible hamster wheel of horribleness where they already know you are going to have a C-section and they don't even care, it's so long. And the COVID-positive on top of it was just really, really hard.My husband said, “Honestly, Grace, the C-section wouldn't have bothered you as much had you been able to actually hold your baby.” Yes, and all of that positive adrenaline and endorphins in your body probably would have helped you heal faster. So when I brought him home, we had to get him latched and that was a whole other hurdle, but I did. I had a lot of nursing issues with him because he had this torticollis. He had all of these issues, but I totally powered through and I still did it. But now with my daughter, I'm sharing her VBAC story, right? I'm sorry. I hope I'm not talking too much. With her, I had no issues. Nursed fine. She is a thriving, wonderful, beautiful baby and I totally believe that it is because of the birth with her and it went so differently that it is just so much better for me and it was better for her. It was better for my husband. It was better probably for my son too. That was my horrible, horrible C-section birth. Meagan: I'm so sorry. Grace: I think I covered everything. I'm sorry too. I keep talking. Yeah. It was horrible. I mean, looking back, I've learned so much and hopefully, other women can learn from it. I hope I covered all of those warning signs I want women to look out for. I don't know but hopefully I did, but yeah. My heart goes out to the COVID-positive mothers who went through something similar or worse. I can't even imagine. I do think that if you are positive and you are sick– if I were visibly ill, it's so different to me. My mindset would have been way different. I would have still been sad, but I wouldn't have felt like my autonomy was taken away from me. Meagan: Stripped. Grace: Yeah, stripped, which is much more where you feel like you are at their mercy. You don't feel like you have freedom at all and it's horrible. Meagan: Yeah. Grace: Yeah. So I get pregnant. My son at that point, I think, was about a year and four months. He wasn't 18 months just yet. I got pregnant with my daughter and again, I knew I definitely wanted a VBAC, however, I had known a lot of other women who wanted VBACs too, and still ended up getting a C-section. They would say, “Yeah, we are going to try for the VBAC, but if it doesn't work, you will have to have a C-section.” Every woman I spoke to who said that, ended up with one. As I was going through my pregnancy, I was trying to educate over time. I was like, “What is this that they are missing that I don't want to miss?” I did not want another C-section. I did not want to ever go through that pain unnecessarily again. Obviously, listen. C-sections save babies. I am not against them. Meagan: Absolutely, yeah. Grace: You know that and you know that in so many ways, they are super important, but for me, if I have a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby and I don't have anything going on that would require that other than I had a C-section prior, then I am going to do everything I can to not have another C-section. So I discovered The VBAC Link, I want to say it was further into my pregnancy. I want to say I was at least 5 months into my pregnancy. Meagan: Yeah. Grace: How many weeks would I have to be for that?Meagan: 20?Grace: Was it 20?Meagan: 20 weeks is about 5 months so probably a little over. Grace: It was a little over 20 weeks and I discovered The VBAC Link. I am like, “Okay, I will give this a thought.” I already found a midwife. I didn't want an OB and the midwife that I had, I really liked her. She had VBACs of her own. Meagan: Awesome. Grace: I was super adamant. I'm like, “I do not want another C-section.” She understood. Here's the thing, though with these providers and I liked her. I'm not trying to make it seem like she did anything wrong, but they don't educate women on what to do. There are so many things that women can do to get themselves in the best situation to have a nice, vaginal birth potentially not even needing medicine. They don't. I don't know if it's that they don't on purpose, but a midwife is not an OB. She's not going to give me a C-section, so why wouldn't she want to give all of the resources to her patients? I didn't even know what Spinning Babies was until I listened to your podcast, then I researched Spinning Babies and I used Spinning Babies. So anyways, I discovered you guys or you ladies and I started listening to you every day on the way to work and the stories were just so wonderful. I learned a lot. I learned that one of the big ones was to find a hospital that is more likely to support a VBAC and has a high success rate of a VBAC. Now, the hospital I picked, I was told it was a good one. It is a good hospital. Nothing specific about childbirth or anything. It was very close to me. I had known other people who had delivered there and it was fine, but I'm like, “You know what? Let's look at their success rate versus other ones.” Their success rate was 7%. Is that high or is that low? Meagan: That's low. 7% of their success rate of a VBAC, that's low. Grace: That's low. That's low. There was another hospital I heard about from someone who gave birth there and it was an hour away. Most women who gave birth there had the best experience. It's a hospital and then it had a birthing center connected to it. Because I was a VBAC, just birthing centers wouldn't have let me go there because if they needed an emergency C-section. That setup was great. I looked at their VBAC success rate and it was 22%. Meagan: Higher than 7. Grace: Now that you say that, it was probably still fairly low, but that was the highest I found. Meagan: Yeah. Grace: Yeah, and now I went ahead and listened to your podcast for a few months and I started getting scared. I was like, “I don't have a doula. I don't have a lot of information that a lot of these women had.” Now that I have it, I was already at that point, I want to say 7 months in my pregnancy. Not going by weeks just because I don't know why months make more sense to me. That's when I started becoming very much doing more research and being more actively aware of my birth and wanting to make sure that this birth goes better. I find this hospital. At that point, I go, “I'm going with this hospital and no one is going to stop me.” But because I was already so close, I was actually in my third trimester already and I told my– the way it works is I was very lucky. My provider was part of a bigger company. I'm not going to give out any names or anything unless should I? Meagan: If you have a supportive provider that you would suggest, I highly suggest giving the name because also, Women of Strength if you are listening, we have a provider list. We actually have that, so we will be adding this one to your list. But if you guys have a provider that you highly suggest as being VBAC-supportive especially if there are multiple Cesareans, please send us that at info@thevbaclink.com because we want to add them to our list. Grace: Okay. Okay, yeah. I definitely will. At the time, they were called CareMount near the area where I was, but they just got bought out by a new company called Optum. Meagan: Optum, okay. Grace: Most adults of my age remember them as CareMount because it was super recent that it changed. Optum was in my area and because they were big, they also had a practice up near this hospital. I called the practice up near the hospital and I said, “Listen. I've been going to midwives down by me, but you have all of my information because it's all the same system. I want to go to your office because I want to deliver at this hospital.” Can I say the name of the hospital? Meagan: Yeah. Grace: I can, right? It was Northern Dutchess. They are amazing. They have a birthing center. The staff there is incredible and yeah. I said, “That's what I want.” The immediately were like, “We don't take on patients so close to the end like this, but given that you are in the system, I guess it's okay.” I was going to say to them, “I don't care if it's allowed or not. You're going to help me give birth in your hospital.” I also was going to be like, “I don't want to see any OBs. I only want to see midwives.” They still had me see two OBs and it's actually fine because even their OBs were just better. They were more understanding. Believe it or not, the male OB was even more. I was scared to see the male. Nothing against men, but the fact that with my son it was a man and he made that comment to me, treating me, I don't know. They didn't give him any kind of nickname, but I think he was known for only really doing C-sections. I was so scared to have a man especially because by the time I saw him– so before I even get to that, they do the switch and at that point, again, I was listening to your podcast still and I'm like, “You know, I really should get a doula.” I'm in my 35th week or something. I'm like, “I need to get a doula. I need this birth to be what I want it to be.” I find a doula in my area. She is amazing. She said the same thing. She was like, “We're meeting pretty late, but it's okay.” She was super understanding. I told her about my whole horrible birth and she said, “You'd be surprised but that part is super common.” Not the COVID part, but the whole story. Meagan: The whole story, yeah. Yeah. Grace: Also, I think me being allergic to Motrin and that recovery being so– I hate to say it but traumatic for me because when you're in so much pain and you are already in so much emotional pain, it is just horrible. She was like, “Yep. It's a super common story. I'm not going to guarantee you a VBAC, but you're going to get through this birth. It's going to be beautiful. You're going to have a wonderful connection with your baby.” She said, “Don't worry about the COVID thing anymore. It's not at all what it was in 2020. Try to think of all of the positive things.” She introduced me to Spinning Babies. I started researching so much of my own and I was like, “Should I do all of the dates and tea and the stretching and the walking?” She goes, “Do all of it.” It's what they say. It's like an old wives' tale, but it's not going to hurt. Do all of it. Take a deep breath. I started to get almost obsessive at the time. I even made a joke to my provider at an appointment. I was like, “I'm sure it says in my file that I'm the crazy VBAC girl.” He laughed. He said, “It doesn't say that,” but I was very determined. Again, your podcast helped me so much because there were so many women who have gone through so many things and had to work even harder to get the providers that they wanted and get the support that they wanted. It's so important and it's so wonderful that you have it. So thank you. Meagan: Mhmm, yes. Thanks for being with us. Grace: So then, yeah. I changed my provider. I get the hospital. I get the doula and then I start those last, I want to say 5 weeks. I'm walking every day. I'm eating a disgusting amount of dates. I don't think I'll ever eat a date again. I'm sure you've heard that, but it's true. Doing the tea and I was doing these stretches I saw on YouTube every night. My husband was very supportive. He was a little scared for me. He was kind of like, “Oh my god. If this girl doesn't get her VBAC, what's going to happen in the world?” I was very intense about it and then, yeah. We just waited and waited. Toward the end, this part was scary for me. We also joined this Evidence-Based VBAC Facebook group and it was not– I can tell by your face. Yeah. Meagan: Ugh. Grace: It was not what I thought it was going to be. Meagan: No, unfortunately. Grace: Because I did this all kind of late, by the time I was up to 40 weeks, I went on that page maybe a week before or at 39 weeks. I started reading and I'm like, “Oh my god. Now I'm terrified to go into labor.” Note to listeners, please don't go on that Facebook page. Meagan: Join The VBAC Link Community. Grace: Yes, 100%. Meagan: Shameless plug right there. I think our community is just one of a kind. Grace: 100%. But the thing is at that point in time, to read any of that at 39 weeks put me into a fear mode. At 40 weeks, I started crying every day that I wasn't going into labor. I wanted to go into labor at 39 weeks, but that likelihood I think was very low because I was late with my son. I never even technically went into labor with my son. With my son, I was 40 weeks and 5 days when they induced me. So from 40 weeks on, again, because of reading those posts, I started really freaking out. I was crying. I was calling my doula every day. I'm like, “I'm not going into labor. I really don't want a uterine rupture. I'm scared.” This and that. She was so great. She just was like, “You need to relax. Everything is going to be fine.” She said, “If something is going to happen, it could have already happened. One of my best friends is a nurse and she actually was a nurse in an OB's office for a while. Every time I would go to talk to her, she would go, “You need to stop.” She would be like, “Anything could happen.” Meagan: Spiraling. Grace: Yeah, yeah. But it was good to have that. It was good to have somebody say, “Anything that could happen. You can't sit there and say that just because you have this thing which is unique to you that you want to have a VBAC doesn't mean that you're definitely going to have something happen. You could have a perfectly healthy pregnancy and everything would be fine and then something bad would happen. You can't worry about it. It's not in your hands right now. You need to just relax.” That was a tough part though, just going through that week and then I started getting really bad prodromal labor about a week after at 41 weeks. I started getting it really bad and I kept thinking, “Should I go to the hospital? Is this it? Can I get the baby out?” I was so excited and my doula every time would go, “No, no, no, no, no. You're not going anywhere near that hospital right now.” Thank God she said that. So then I think I had prodromal labor for about three days or four days or something. Then finally, on the final day, my mom was over and I was in so much pain just from all of the prodromal labor. I'm like, “Something is not right.” She looked at me and she was like, “You are in active labor. I can see your stomach contracting.” I'm like, “But I called. My doula said I shouldn't go. I don't know what to do.”I already lost my mucus plug a few days before that. I had never gone through anything like that. Nothing like that. Meagan: You're getting into labor though, yeah. Grace: Yeah, but my mom again, has five kids. She goes, “No, no. This is labor now. You really should go.” She even talked to my doula two nights before that because I thought that two nights before that I was going into labor and my doula was saying to my mom, “No, not yet. She's not ready yet.” I don't know how she knew that. At that point, I called my doula again. She said, “You know what? Your mom is probably right.” I was timing them. I don't remember what the times were, but they were so strong. I think my mom was like, “I don't even think it matters. This is labor now.” I get to the hospital and I was 100% effaced and 5 centimeters dilated. Something to start. Meagan: Yay! Getting ready to get into active labor right there. Turning that transition. Grace: Yes. He tells me that. I was COVID-negative. It was like the clouds were opening up. Things were falling into place. The only thing is and this is a totally okay thing. My doula had another birth that night so she couldn't go. I forgot to mention this. She already knew she was going to not be there. She actually called a backup doula and this was actually the morning before I went into the hospital. I called her. We had a nice conversation. She was like, “I will definitely be available.” I go, “I'm having a lot of prodromal labor. It's really uncomfortable. I'm tired.” I'm like, “I just don't know what to do. When should I go?” She was like, “Okay, at this point in pregnancy, it's totally normal. Why don't you just go on a two-hour walk?” What? Meagan: A two-hour walk? Grace: I was walking every day for two months. A two-hour walk? I'm struggling to sit. I'm like, “Okay.” She told me at 9 AM. I went on a two-hour walk and listen, I was at the hospital by 4:00 PM that day. She totally knew. She ended up coming and she was so sweet and amazing. I had never even met her before. I would totally recommend either doula if anyone is asking. If it means anything, their rates were nothing crazy. I listened to a bunch of doulas which again, I got from your podcast that you want to really interview your doulas and make sure you know your doulas. They were super reasonable and both were wonderful. That all fell into place. I was just starting to have my contractions. She was there to do all of the lunges together and all of the movements together. She put me in all of the right positions and I ended up not needing an epidural. Let me rephrase that. I ended up not having to require an epidural even though it was very, very painful. But it was a very welcomed pain. I was in labor for about 14 hours. It was a long, long day. I made a birth playlist which I did for my son too and I never got to really use it. One moment during labor, that particular experience was when the doula goes– this was around 6 centimeters, maybe 7 centimeters. She goes, “Why don't you go dance with your husband?” I had my birth list on and I think it was a Justin Timberlake and maybe Beyonce song. It was a very romantic, lovey dovey song. We were just standing there. The lights were off. We were dancing and it was just so beautiful. The nurse told me after. When you're in labor, you're not totally aware of your surroundings. She told me the next day after the baby was born and everything and she goes, “I almost started crying when I saw you and your husband standing there dancing.”Meagan: Such a precious moment. Grace: Both she and my doula I remember were kind of off to the side standing there. It was just so wonderful and yeah. She got me through labor and I had to push for a solid, I think, hour which was fine. It was really painful. At one point, I screamed, “I want someone to help me!” You know, it was really hard, but she was there. I give a lot to her. She did all of these things to help me feel comfortable and safe. I was with someone who was going to make sure I was going to be okay. Yeah. The midwife came and I loved the midwife. She was wonderful. I had met her before. She was very knowledgeable. She wasn't necessarily the most nurturing. She was much more like, “I've given birth to thousands of babies. I've done VBACs before. We've got this, no problem.” At one point, she came in and she was worried my contractions had slowed down, but right after she left, my doula was like, “All right, let's go. Get up. Ramp up the speed. We're going to do this. We'll put you on the peanut,” and all of the things because she knew I didn't want an epidural. I am curious about having the doula there if that is why they didn't push anything on me. They didn't push anything. Meagan: Good. Grace: Part of me is curious but I also think the hospital is known to not do that. My sister gave her second baby there and they didn't push anything on her. So now again, you want to go to a good hospital that takes care of you. Meagan: Yes, you do. Grace: She came out and how big was she? She was 7 pounds, 8 ounces. My son was 8 pounds, 5 ounces. He really wasn't even that big. Meagan: No. Grace: He could have come out. Meagan: He wasn't. Yeah. Grace: No. I actually forgot to mention that before. He wasn't even that big. They gave me all of that nonsense and yeah. Everything about her birth was wonderful. She went right on my breast. He latched not right away, but within 24 hours. He latched and was eating fine. It was wonderful. I didn't have to change rooms or anything. They let me stay in the same room. I got to get up and walk around. Yeah. It was exactly the experience that I had wanted. Meagan: Yeah. Grace: Yeah. Meagan: I'm so happy for you. I'm so happy that you could have that more healing, redemptive experience where you felt the love. You felt that connection. You had the people there for you. You felt safe. You weren't being pushed. You weren't having people rushing in like you were some scary alien. You weren't having these things that honestly doesn't help our cervix dilate. There are so many things from your first story where I'm like if we can create a special environment, a comfortable environment for us, then that is going to help us progress in labor. We know one of the number one reasons for a Cesarean is failure to progress and a lot of the time, it's situational. We did this and it's baby's position or something like that, but a lot of the time, I think it's truly the environment and what we've got going on and if we feel safe because our bodies are smart. If we don't feel safe and if we don't feel comfortable, we are not going to progress. We're not going to have those things and so yeah. I'm just so, so happy for you. I'd love to touch on a couple of signs when it is time to switch your provider or time to switch your location because I think it is one of the most daunting things to change your provider mid-pregnancy. It can be hard. Grace: Yeah, yeah. Meagan: And/or change your location. I changed my provider and my location at 24 weeks and it was emotional a little bit too. It was just like, “Oh, I hope it's okay. I don't want to hurt any feelings and this and that.” Anyway, just so much. We have some blogs on so many topics that we talked about today. But number one, I want to talk a little bit about some of those warning signs because like you said, you were like, “That was a warning sign. That was a warning sign. That was a warning sign,” but you weren't in that space. Sometimes that's how it goes. I had the same thing. I go, “Whoa. I should have switched.” One, I want you to know, Women of Strength, that it's okay to switch. 100%. We do have that provider list if you are looking for a provider in your area or you start hearing some of these signs and you're like, “Oh crap.” If one of those fits, email us at info@thevbaclink.com and remember VBAC is spelled V-B-A-C instead of V-B-A-C-K. Email us and our team will get you that list. Okay, so warning signs. Recommending a third-trimester ultrasound to check on the baby's size. When you go in for that 20-week ultrasound and they're like, “Oh, this baby is big.” Right there, that's a huge warning sign. I'm just going to say, if your doctor is talking about your baby being big in general, that's a red flag. That means that they are starting to doubt your ability. Their confidence in you is going down to get that baby out and they will probably push things like induction and all of those things, right? So talking about your placenta dying. They actually use these words. “Your placenta could die if you go past 40 weeks pregnant or past 41 weeks pregnant.” Not true. Not needed. You know? It's not. You don't need to have an induction just because you are 40 weeks. Your placenta is okay. Yeah. Making those one-off hand comments of, “Your baby is big. Your pelvis could be too small. You're looking big. You're really a petite person.” I don't like that. Refusing to let you go past 40 weeks. Refusing to induce at all. If your provider is completely refusing to induce you because you are a VBAC, they are not following evidence-based care. I cannot tell you that enough. We see it all the time in our community where it's like, “I can't be induced because I'm a VBAC.” False. False, false, false. False. Big F. False. Now, is induction ideal?Grace: No. Meagan: It could be less ideal. It is less ideal. Not even could be, it is. It is less ideal. But it is not impossible. If you are facing an induction or a C-section, do the research. Learn about it. Know that it is still possible and you will not just for sure rupture because you are induced with Pitocin. That's another myth out there. Overemphasizing the risk of uterine rupture. Telling you that you last time didn't have good success so you are unlikely to have good success this time, putting doubt there, and so much more. We actually have a blog about it. We are going to put it in the show notes today on 10 Signs it Might Be Time to Switch Your Provider. I also think there are some really good tips for preparation. You talked about that. You did the Spinning Babies. You ate dates until you literally probably couldn't eat any more or you couldn't stand the smell of them. You did all of these things. Preparing for birth. You got the doula. You found the location. You researched your area. You found your birthing location. You found your hospital and midwife. You found a VBAC doula. Even in the end of pregnancy, you can find a doula and if you didn't know, we have a resource online at vbaclink.com where you can find a doula that is actually VBAC-certified. They have taken our course. They understand all of the things about VBAC. They can help you find a VBAC-supportive provider. They can help you find that confidence. They can help you and see those moments of, “This is a really great time. Go dance with your husband. Let's release the oxytocin naturally,” or “This is prodromal labor. Maybe don't go to the hospital right now. This is what you can do instead.” Okay, you know? Those types of things. Mental– Grace: Get you off the ledge. Meagan: Yes, talk you off of the ledge. Mental preparation– preparing, we have the VBAC Link Course. We have the blogs. We have the stories. We have the communities. This is what this is for. Mental prep, finding the confidence, processing your op reports, and these things. Physical prep– doing those things. Eating the dates, drinking the tea, and making sure you have good nutrients like our favorite Needed. You're making sure that you are taking care of yourself nutritionally so that you can also prep in other ways and so many more. We're going to make sure to have that. We're going to have blogs and books and things to suggest at the bottom of the show notes. I think that this story although it did start off with a heartbreaking experience– I could see you. I could feel it. Your experience is hard. It's three and a half years ago and it's still with you. These experiences stay with us. I think that's where we owe it to ourselves to give us the best experience and to put us in the best situation possible. Sometimes, I think it's, “Oh, well a doula could be more expensive. Oh, taking a course is a lot,” but in the grand scheme of things, if we look back at our experiences, my first two C-sections and even with my second, I had educated pretty okay. I'd say okay, not great. If I had looked back and taken the course to help me know that information, if I would have hired the doula to help me feel not so backed in a corner, absolutely. Yeah. I would have paid that no matter what. Grace: Yeah. Money is of no value at that point. Meagan: It's of no value and it is. Money is a huge thing in this world, especially with the way our world is going. Money is a big deal, but in the end, you deserve it. You deserve to get those prenatal massages, to go to the chiropractor, and to get those prenatal vitamins that are going to truly help you. You deserve these things. Women of Strength, it's okay to spoil yourself for your birth. Grace: Right. Meagan: Recognize these things and get the tools we can so that in the end, even if it ends in a repeat Cesarean, it can hopefully be a more healing experience. You're going to know the things. You're going to know your options. You're going to know you did everything. I just think there is so much power in these two stories all along the way that you can