birthED VBAC Story - From Sadness to Euphoria
THANK YOU to this sweet family for sharing their story We are so thrilled to have this amazing documentation of your VBAC! If you are VBAC hopeful or even VBAC curious and would like to join us for our VBAC Prep workshop we have one coming up November 1st.
“Born on a full moon! Our baby started his journey earth-side in a wild rush in to my arms. His birth is something I will never ever forget and will always be in awe of my body and how it did something I honestly didn’t think it was capable of doing. ”
Let’s back up to my first pregnancy in 2017 with my daughter. I loved being pregnant with her, I did little to no labor education and just assumed my body would know what to do. WRONG! I went in to labor on my own at 39+3. Light contractions tricked me in to thinking this was going to be a breeze. But 27 hours of back labor, laying on my back in the hospital and an emergency c section was not my plan. It was traumatic, I remember thinking I was going to die from the pain. I felt out of control. I felt great sadness about her delivery and it took me a while to enjoy holding a new baby in my arms. And although she entered the world safe and sound - I felt really sad about my hospital and birth experience.
Fast forward to getting pregnant with Aiden. I immediately researched VBACs. The biggest factor was education and support for me. I started listening to the VBAC link podcast, falling asleep to meditations about releasing fear and hired Liz from birthED as my doula - as well as taking her VBAC Prep Class.
Fear crept in all the time with this pregnancy. I had miscarried in between my first and this pregnancy and I was just scared of the pain and unknown again. At 38 weeks I developed a severe PUPPS rash. A whole new type of pain so intense I wanted a c-section just to get rid of the intense itch.
At 39+3 days, after an entire evening awake and crying in the shower - I threw up from the crying and immediately felt a tense cramp in my stomach around 6:45am. I told my husband what had happened and we both thought it was from being so worked up about the rash. A few minutes later, another one. They never stopped and they were intense from the start. I told my husband he couldn’t go to work that day - he still got dressed for work just in case.
I called our doula Liz and put her on speaker, I could barely talk through each contraction by 7:15am. After Liz listened to my breathing, she said it was time to head in to the hospital, my husband said “no guys, you both told me that we were going to labor at home for as long as possible to prevent unnecessary interventions- you made me sit through that class”. He was right but this didn’t feel right, I was scared and we needed to go in- I felt like I needed to push. This was happening very fast and very soon. I could barely get to our car. Kneeling upright in the front seat, we blew through lights as I was doing my best to keep my baby on the inside until I arrived.
birthEDucated Moment!
What you see here is a baby covered in meconium. Not all babies who pass meconium (first poop) during birth are in trouble. This little kiddo cried right away and didn’t need any help taking his first breath - Liz Hochman FACCE, LCCE, CLC, CD(DONA)
Thank goodness for Liz, she was on speaker the whole way to the hospital. Coaching me on my breathing so I could keep this baby inside. It’s now 8am and I am trying not to push in the car. We get to the hospital, Liz meets us at the front door and we rush upstairs (the best and kindest security guard gets the award for fastest wheelchair ride). They take my temperature, masks are on and it’s 8:45am.
In triage I can no longer speak or sit down, i got wheeled across the hall with everyone to a delivery room and I dropped down to my knees. They checked me and I was 10cms dilated! I couldn’t believe it - it took me 25 hours to get to 9cms with my first labor that ended in the C section. It’s now around 9am and I still have no IV in or monitor on. They put an internal monitor on the baby to distinguish heart rates between baby and mom and I climbed up on to the bed on all fours. Once again, thank goodness for Liz (my husband is basically passing out in the corner from adrenaline and the mask). Liz helped me deal with the surges as my body took over. She told me to get this baby out before any interventions were taken since I still had no IV in my arm - I was too sweaty for anything to stick.
Baby was out in my arms by 9:30am. The midwife and nurses were incredible. They passed the baby (unknown sex still) through my legs up in to my arms and my husband told me it was a BOY!!! It was the most euphoric feeling I have ever experienced. I could feel everything, my legs, my belly, the chord between my legs and this ULTRA gooey- poop covered baby on my chest. The feeling of the placenta being released was equally as satisfying.
This was FAST and nothing like I ever dreamed of happening. I feel incredibly lucky to have experienced Birth this way and equally as lucky to have experienced it with my daughter as well. It allowed me to know what I want in my delivery and pushed me to educate myself and fall in love with the birth process.
