birthED VBAC Story - Trusting the Process
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 please join us for our upcoming VBAC Prep Workshop on June 12th.
Birth is amazing yet unpredictable. It may not always go according to your plan, no matter how much you prepare and plan every little detail. Your baby and your body take the reins on their own collaborative agenda. Trusting this natural and instinctive process with the addition of an outstanding support team is what gave me my unmedicated VBAC story.
My due date comes and goes. My provider, Dr. Ryan Dick, reassured me there would be no need for a medical induction and I would be allowed whatever time I needed to have the baby. I was having regular contractions but nothing that was gaining in intensity or frequency. My prodromal labor lasts for a couple of days. At 40+2 I notified our doula team at Midwest Doulas that contractions started to get more intense and frequent. By the following day, contractions were continuing to gain in intensity but spacing out in frequency. Our doula, Ale, suggested she come to our house and see where labor was at.
“After mentioning that she wanted to go into the hospital, because things were 2-3 minutes apart, I offered to come over because I felt like she needed some positioning help to get baby into a more optimal spot and I wanted to see how she was coping in person” - Ale (doula)
When she arrived, it was mid Sunday morning around 9:30am. Ale observed a few contractions and recommended different positions to try and help labor progress. We spent all morning doing different exercises to give baby a better position to engage. As the contractions continued to get more intense, my husband would apply counterpressure which greatly helped my comfort level in the midst of a surge. A morning of different positions turned into an afternoon of different positions. My contractions remained intense but the frequency was inconsistent. My husband and I had asked our doula multiple times throughout the day when we should leave for the hospital and she kept saying “we have time”. She was the professional after all, so we trusted her judgement and experience.
“First we started with a sacral and psoas release, then we used the Gilligan’s Guide algorithm for repositioning an acynclitic baby” - Ale (doula)
By 7:30pm that night we still were not any closer to leaving for the hospital. We took an hour long mental and physical break to regroup. As tired as I was from being up most of the night, in labor, and moving every 10 minutes, I was not able to rest (or sit still during a surge). My husband and I started to doubt the labor process. Should we be going to the hospital? Is baby positioned OP like our first was? Why isn’t this progressing faster? Ale calmed all of our worries and normalized everything about my labor. She wanted to try just a couple more positions... So, we tried more positioning. They were getting harder, along with my surges, to tolerate as baby engaged in my pelvis. I was running out of energy and hope that I could have this baby myself, if I could “do this”. Ale was my biggest advocate and reminded me that I was doing it already and that I could do it, if I just stayed the course.
“At this point I don’t think we are at a place to go to the hospital, but I do trust that this baby is trying to rotate and when it finally makes that rotations I expect the birth to move fast” - Ale (Doula)
At about midnight, something drastically changed. I got an uncontrollable feeling of getting sick and contractions were back-to-back. All three of us agreed, it was time to go to the hospital, now. We had a 45-minute drive north to Woodwinds and I wouldn’t be able to receive the counterpressure that I had been receiving all day. Again, I started to doubt whether I could get through 45 minutes of contractions alone, in the backseat of a car. Ale was quick to tell me that I absolutely could do it myself and we came up with different comfort measures to utilize. That hour drive to the hospital, I entered in a totally internalized mental state, and don’t remember much of the car ride.
I had our doula take a picture of my husband and I in between contractions for our “I’m at a 10, now let’s have a baby!” picture. Yes – I even smiled. I was on cloud 9.
When we arrived at the hospital at 1:00am, the downward pressure in my pelvis was undeniable. We slowly shuffled into the hospital and was admitted to labor and delivery. The nursing staff there asked about a cervical check and I agreed. I need the peace of mind to see where in the labor spectrum I was. “You’re at a 10. You’re complete!” is something I will never forget hearing. I cried tears of joy. Even though my baby was not here yet, I already felt like I had won the race. I was SO proud of myself for preserving and staying the course.
“I was a bit baffled on how she had gotten to 10cm with no bloody show, but I could tell by her demeanor and the way she was laboring that she was close to 10 if not there already.” - Ale