The VBAC Link

154 Bec's VBAC + Evidence on Due Dates

Meet Bec from Sydney, Australia! 

 

Though her first birth was very much dictated to her by hospital policies and unsupportive providers, Bec fought and researched relentlessly to make sure she was involved in every.single.decision. during her next birth. When hospital VBAC policies and outside opinions tried to prevail, Bec stayed steady and determined. 

 

She built a birth dream team, and at the center of that team was the most important member of all—her baby. 

 

Bec describes her journey from feeling inferior, inadequate, and controlled to becoming informed, empowered, and respected in every way. Her hard work paid off beautifully and she finally got the birth of her dreams. 

 

We also discuss the most up-to-date evidence on due dates. Why do so many providers refuse to allow a VBAC past 39 weeks? Why do so many providers refuse to induce for a VBAC?

 

The most important piece of information that we want you to have during your search for a VBAC supportive provider is this:

 

There is no evidence to support the hard-stop deadline of giving birth at 39 weeks or 40 weeks for a VBAC.

 

Do not let an unsupportive provider dictate your birth. Keep fighting for that birth of your dreams, Women of Strength. You can do this!

 

Additional links

Evidence on: Inducing for Due Dates

VBAC After 40 Weeks: Is it Safe to Go Past Your Due Date?

How to VBAC: The Ultimate Preparation Course for Parents

 

Episode sponsor

This episode is sponsored by our signature course, How to VBAC: The Ultimate Preparation Course for Parents. It is the most comprehensive VBAC preparation course in the world, perfectly packaged in an online, self-paced, video course. Together, Meagan and Julie have helped over 800 parents get the birth that they wanted and we are ready to help you too. Head over to thevbaclink.com to find out more and sign up today.

 

Full transcript

Julie: Good morning, Women of Strength. It is Wednesday, December 9th and it is a very special day for our guest today. It is her VBAC baby’s birthday, which is so exciting because-- I sent it out in an email a little while ago and I think we’ve talked about it a little bit before on the podcast, but Meagan gives me such a hard time. Not a hard time. She just teases me, or giggles, or whatever, because it always seems like whenever we air the podcast, the date has a special meaning.

 

Meagan: It’s without fail. It has never not happened when you are like, “Your episode will be airing on this day,” and they’re like, “Oh my gosh, it’s my anniversary!” “Oh my gosh, that’s my child’s birthday!”

 

Julie: “That’s my mother-in-law‘s birthday!”

 

Meagan: Yeah. It’s so funny how it happens.

 

Julie: So, Happy Birthday to VBAC baby. We’ll wait and let you decide if you want to share her name or not, but something even more exciting about our guest today is she is from Sydney, Australia. 

 

We were chatting a little bit before the show and it’s been my dream since I was a kid, ever since I could learn to say the word “Australia”, it’s been my dream to go there. When I was growing up, I always dreamed I’d marry someone from Australia, so I could listen to their dreamy accent all day telling me that they love me. I had this huge fantasy and then I married Nick from Sandy, Utah. Don’t get me wrong. Nick has many, many, many other strengths, but he does not have an Australian accent. 

 

So, I’m really excited to talk to Bec today. Bec is really, really just an amazing person. She lives in Sydney. She’s married to her husband, Phil. She works in PR for a motoring organization. Wait, what? Motoring?

 

Bec: Yeah. I think in America, you guys have the AA. It’s sort of the equivalent over here. Not Alcoholics Anonymous, the Automobile Association.

 

Julie: Oh, the AAA.

 

Bec: AAA. There we go.

 

Julie: Lost in translation, clear over my head. Alright. She has a hobby sewing business and makes baby stuff, like bibs and nappy wallets. She loves the beach and beers with her neighbors, “on the front steps of our homes while playing with the kids.” 

 

And that sounds amazing. Except for me, instead of beer, it would be Red Bull or Pepsi.

 

Meagan: Yeah, I was going to say, Pepsi.

 

Review of the week

 

Julie: We are so excited to hear Bec’s story. But first, Meagan has a review of the week for us.

 

Meagan: Yes, I do. This is just a short and sweet one, but I love it. It is from Apple Podcasts and it’s from snrrrrr. Her title is, “Obsessed.”

 

It says, “Thank you for bringing facts to my ears as I prepare for my VBAC. I love hearing all the stories from my fellow women of strength. I feel so inspired and encouraged.”

 

I just love that. It’s short, sweet, and powerful. These types of reviews, as you all know, Julie and I just love. We love hearing your reviews. We love hearing what you think about it and we would love for you to tell us what you think about it, so head over to Apple Podcasts, Facebook, Google, wherever you listen to your podcast, or wherever find us, which is everywhere, and leave us a review. We would love to read it on the podcast.

 

Episode sponsor

 

Julie: Do you want a VBAC but don’t know where to start? It’s easy to feel like we need to figure it all out on our own. That’s what we used to do and it was the loneliest and most ineffective thing we have ever done. That’s why Meagan and I created our signature course, How to VBAC: The Ultimate Preparation Course for Parents, that you can find at thevbaclink.com. It is the most comprehensive VBAC preparation course in the world, perfectly packaged in an online, self-paced, video course. 

 

Together, Meagan and I have helped over 800 parents get the birth that they wanted and we are ready to help you too. Head on over to thevbaclink.com to find out more and sign up today. That’s thevbaclink.com. See you there. 

 

Bec’s story

 

Julie: Alright. I am so excited for today. Bec deserves a special shout out because she is in Australia and in Utah, where we’re recording, it’s 9:30 in the morning, but in Australia, it’s 2:30 in the morning.

 

Meagan: We’re nice and fresh.

 

Julie: She literally woke up at 2:30 in the morning to come and record this session with us. I was just saying, nothing gets me out of bed at 2:30 in the morning, unless I’m getting called to a birth.

 

Meagan: That’s dedication.

 

Julie: My kids, no. My husband deals with the kids at 2:30 in the morning. Like, nothing. Earthquake-- I will stay in my house and let the ceiling fall on my head. Nothing gets me out of bed at 2:30 in the morning. So I was saying, she must really love us if she gets up so early to share her story with us.

 

I’m really, really excited. We’re going to talk after her story about due dates because she went to almost 42 weeks with her VBAC. I know that a lot of people have pressure from their providers to induce even before 40 weeks or to just schedule a Cesarean. We’re going to talk about that a little bit at the end.

 

But before we do, we are going to have Bec share her incredible story, and just sit here and swoon over her really fun Australian accent.

 

Meagan: I know. It’s so beautiful.

 

Bec: The pressure’s on. I feel like I should be a Hemsworth talking to you if you want the sweet nothings.

 

Julie: No, it’s beautiful. Well, we’ll channel our inner Thor vibes while we’re listening to you, but yes. You’re great.

 

Bec: Oh, very funny. So I guess I’ll start with my first birth. Jack was a breech baby. I found out he was breech at about 34 weeks. Everything had been quite smooth sailing up until that point. 

 

I’m somebody who, as soon as I find out something’s going my way, I throw myself into the research. We joked that by the end of this pregnancy, I could have nearly been a breech expert. I could’ve stood up and given a lecture on the breech term trial papers, everything about the system, and why the system wants us to have a Cesarean for breech babies-- which is kind of bitterly ironic because he was a Cesarean. 

 

I had three unsuccessful ECVs. I did handstands in the pool. I had all the smelly stuff that you’re supposed to do. I did absolutely everything I could possibly do to try to turn him. But he was, and still is-- he’s 3 1/2 now-- very stubborn, and wanted to stay wedged in my pelvis with his bum down.

 

My labor started pretty much on his due date and I went about a day. I went for a walk. I tried to move through contractions. It was a really uncomfortable day, but it was really manageable. That was on a Monday night. Tuesday was that manageable day. 

 

By 6:00 p.m. on the Tuesday night, my midwife said, “Okay, I think it’s time to come into hospital. We’re just going to monitor you.” I thought, “Okay, no worries. That’s what you do.” I now know that I should’ve just stayed at home for a bit longer.

 

As soon as I was strapped to the bed, I felt like that was it. I wasn’t allowed to move. I had a particularly-- I don’t know how to put it politely, but a midwife on shift whose vibe just didn’t work with me. Every time I moved and tried to move through a contraction, she would say, “Get back on the bed. The monitors are going to fall off. What do you think you’re doing?” So, if the monitors did fall off, obviously, then the doctors would come in, “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?”

 

The silly thing was, everything was fine on the monitors. The baby was fine. I was fine. I just needed to move like a woman does in labor through those contractions to get everything going, but I felt like a caged animal. I was just being pushed back and trapped. I couldn’t do all of that. I remember saying to her, “This is just so hard. This is so hard,” after a contraction and she said, “Yeah. Well, you chose to do this.” 

 

Words like that to a laboring woman who needs to feel very safe-- you know, for that labor to progress. No wonder it wasn’t progressing.

 

Meagan: Well, and feeling trapped and confined like you were. That is not going to bring a relaxed cervix. Like, a relaxed body to let the cervix open. Comments like that only makes it worse.

 

Bec: Exactly. I felt like a naughty, little schoolgirl. I felt like it was this flashback to sitting outside the principal’s office.

 

Julie: That’s so funny.

 

Bec: All I was trying to do was have my baby my way. My body was trying to do that, but I had these external forces pushing me, telling me, “No, no, no.”

You shouldn’t be doing what my body was trying to do. Which was really unnatural.

 

That was a long night. I remember my husband sleeping on the floor. I went to turn the music down and then I thought, “Wait, hang on. I am the one in labor here. Why am I turning the music down to make him comfortable?”

 

By about 4:00 or 5:00 a.m., I said to the midwife, “Look. Can you just give me some guidance or direction? What’s happening here?” And she gave me the most excruciating internal in the middle of a contraction and I thought, “Oh gosh, you cruel woman.” She said, “You’re not even in labor. You’re not even in labor. You’re about 4 centimeters. That’s not labor.”

 

Julie: Oh my gosh. How defeating. I would feel like Meagan said, “Cervix closed.”

 

Bec: Exactly. Exactly, and I just felt like I totally failed. I’m like, “Wow. I’ve been through all of this. It’s now been more than 24 hours and you’re telling me I’m not even in labor.” I just felt sort of stupid that I had been there and if that wasn’t labor, what was the labor? But I now know, I was in labor.

 

By the time the day started and the obstetrician came in-- who is the head of department who I was seeing. I was under the care of the midwives, but if anything sort of falls out of the norm, they bring in one of the obstetricians. This particular obstetrician is a really big vaginal breech birth fan. He even speaks at international conferences. He’s amazing. He’s Mr. Breech Birth, but because he was being given the information from that particular midwife-- and I don’t really know what that information was. I’d love to know. 

 

I’d love to go back and get her out of the room, but I didn’t know you could say, “I don’t want you.” I felt like it was all being dictated to me, which is really sad looking back. So he came in and said, “Look. I’m going to recommend a Cesarean. How do you feel about that?”

 

I burst into tears. My husband burst into tears. He knew that my number one fear of anything happening in birth was a Cesarean. I wasn’t scared of dying, but I was scared of Cesarean, which is the gravity of the fear I had for that because I was just so determined that this was not going to be a Cesarean.

 

I was wheeled into the theater absolutely bawling and when I was lying there, they checked me and they said, the obstetrician said, “Oh wow, good. You’ve made it to about 6 centimeters. Well done, that’s really good.” And so I thought, again, I felt like it was the principal said that I did a good job. It was that whole sort of-- they were telling me how I was going with it, which played on me a little bit later on. 

 

Anyway, so Jack was born. I specifically said to one of my midwives in an appointment, “I want to find out the gender first,” but nothing was written down. I said that I wanted immediate skin-to-skin, but that wasn’t written down.

 

When they pulled him out, a random voice said, “Here he comes. It’s a boy!” I thought, “Oh, that’s not my husband‘s voice.” But anyway, then a little baby was sort of-- a crying baby was shown to me and then taken away. I remember lying there feeling like, “Oh my god, all of this is happening to me. There’s a baby in this room. It just is a baby.”

 

There was no connect that that was my baby. They wiped him down, wrapped him up, and brought him over to me. I remember holding him and shaking so much from all the drugs, which a lot of people do, but just feeling a real disconnect like they just handed me a baby. I didn’t really have that immediate rush, and that bond, and everything that— I think a lot of unplanned Cesarean moms probably feel that way.

 

Julie: Yeah, I felt like that too. A lot of my clients do. The most important thing is just getting to hold their baby right away, first thing.

 

Bec: Yeah. But I wanted that slimy skin-to-skin. I wanted my baby on me, with me. As soon as they took him away, wiped him down, and started doing all the weighs and checks and measurements, that was taken away from me. You can never give a woman that back. It’s gone. To some women that’s fine, they don’t really want that, or it doesn’t matter. But for me, it was something that I really yearned for. I told them that. And it was still taken away from me. That was hard for me to get over for the years afterward, always reliving that baby over in the corner of the room.

 

Anyway, we had a beautiful, very healthy baby boy. Because he was breech, I had to get his hips tested at about six weeks. I took him back to the hospital and actually ran into the supervising obstetrician in a corridor and I said, “Hi. I’ve been thinking, remember in theater, you said I was about 6 centimeters? If you knew that before you gave me the spinal, would you have let me continue to labor?” And he said, “You know, we probably would have.”

 

Julie: Oh my goodness.

 

Bec: And I felt like-- yeah. I felt like my world just fell out from under me. He must have seen the look on my face and he said, “But you were very exhausted.” To try and make up for what had happened. So I lived with that for a few more years, trying to understand that, feeling so much resentment and a massive lack of control over what had happened to me.

 

I was determined to have a VBAC the next time. I did end up bonding very beautifully with Jack. We had a lovely breastfeeding journey. Everything‘s been wonderful.

 

By the time the second pregnancy came around, I was just so determined. I had started my chiro appointments really early to make sure my pelvis was in great shape, to make sure positioning would be good, to try and avoid having another breech baby if we could.

 

I practiced all of my HypnoBirthing breathing from the start of the pregnancy. I did a lot of yoga and Spinning Babies® exercises, meditation— I just tried to do everything to get myself in the right position and mindset for a really good, smooth pregnancy and to have a successful VBAC.

 

I found my hospital’s VBAC policy, staff procedures, and guidelines online. I went through all of this paperwork with a fine-tooth comb. My approach to this birth was that these are the recommendations, and I have the choice to make informed decisions based on these recommendations. I am the customer in the hospital. It’s not something that’s going to be dictated to me this time and I was very, very determined.

 

In the policy and guidelines for the hospital-- I did hire a doula, and she laughed because I printed it out and I wrote next to almost every single line, “No thanks. No thanks. Not for me.”

 

I went to the Evidence-Based Birth® website and that was such a good resource for me. I found an answer to almost every one of those guidelines that worked for me. That helped me write out my birth preferences. I took those back to that obstetrician and it took three rounds of edits before he and I were both happy with what was to be the final birth plan. He said to me, “Look, I’m okay with all of this. It’s my hypervigilant colleagues who won’t be, and I don’t know who’s going to be on shift when you come in.”

 

Julie: Oh my gosh.

 

Bec: I really respected that. I respected that he was on my side and that he was being honest about the system, but it also made me angry, because why should it take a really bad birth to become so aware, that you have to be so educated to fight the system to get what you deserve? Every woman deserves the birth that is right for them. 

 

You shouldn’t have to have a bad birth to have a good birth.

 

Julie: Yes. Exactly. I agree, 100%.

 

Bec: Yeah. It makes me so sad that there are so many women-- you stand at the playground and every mom in the playground says, “Oh, my birth was this,” or they’ve got negative stories. You might find a very rare mom who says, “My first birth was amazing.” 

 

It’s because we have to go through the system where it’s dictated to us, and it’s so sad, and it’s so wrong. But it’s why education is so important as well, and things like your podcast, so that we know that these are choices and that we should be making those informed decisions.

 

So anyway, the pregnancy was quite straightforward. My doula, Erica, who was quite amazing-- she told me the most important tool for me was my mind, and that the best way to achieve this VBAC was to labor for as long as possible at home.

 

At 20 weeks, I did test positive to GBS. Under the hospital policy, that meant antibiotics through a cannula on admission in labor. After my first experience, I didn’t want any cords and cables. I didn’t want the monitors. I didn’t want to be strapped like a zoo animal again. 

 

I went and read the most recent Cochran Review, which found that no evidence exists to prove that antibiotics on admission really protects the baby from infection. I discussed that with the hospital and again, the doctor was like, “Yes, that is the most recent research and I agree with it, but hospital policy isn’t yet up-to-date with that research.” Which is, you know. It’s just another little bit of frustration.

 

Anyway, he took a look at my veins and he said, “Look. You’ve got big veins. They’re pretty easy to find. I think if something happens and we really need to insert a cannula, we can do it at the time.” He signed off on me not having cannulas. But again, it was only because I went and found that research to then present back to the hospital. I’m not a health professional. I am a mom. It’s not my area, whereas they should be the ones saying to me, “Hey, this is the latest research. But they don’t.”

 

Julie: I agree. Do you know what? I went off the other day. On our Instagram page, it was like, why does the burden of proof lie on the parents? Why is it that when you disagree with your provider that you have to be the one to show the current research and evidence-based practices? Why don’t providers have this information? And why aren’t they the ones looking it up to make sure that they are providing the right level of care? I mean, I’m sure there’s a complex answer to that. But like, it really frustrates me that the burden of proof lies on the birthing person. It’s frustrating.

 

Bec: Absolutely. And do you think that applies to like-- if you’ve got cancer and you go to your oncologist, you’re not going to be presenting them with the latest research. You’d feel really silly doing that. That’s why I think a lot of women would feel the same in pregnancy. Like, you’re telling the experts how to do their job and it’s a really uncomfortable thing to do. But if they can discuss it with you like this amazing obstetrician--

 

Anyway, my doula said, “Soak in a bath of diluted apple cider vinegar for a few days and you’ll test negative to GBS,” and I did. So that was good. I got to avoid fighting the system anyway.

 

Meagan: How much did you put in the bath?

 

Bec: I put 2 cups, or I think it was 2 cups. Maybe one cup of apple cider vinegar in a bath that was up to my belly button. So, quite diluted.

 

Meagan: Nice. That’s awesome.

 

Bec: I have no idea if it was a coincidence but hey, we got the results.

 

Meagan: It worked!

 

Bec: Exactly. Through this pregnancy, I did start to feel-- I’ve never had any mental health issues and I did start to feel-- I think the trauma from my first birth was manifesting itself in a lot of anxiety and it was really, an odd thing for me. That made it scary. 

 

I’d be waiting on the train platform to get the train home from work and I’d have really shocking images of my son on the-- I know it’s a bit brutal. You might want to edit that out. My son wouldn’t even be with me, but I’d see him lying on the train tracks when the train would come, and things like that. It was so graphic and horrible. I would have panic attacks and break down and cry, and have to leave the train station, and think, “Oh my god, how am I going to get home?” 

 

But things that were never going to happen, because my son wasn’t even with me. I’ve since learned they’re called intrusive thoughts and they’re really, really, really common, especially with moms. I was too scared to-- even when the baby was born, I was too scared to cross the road, because I was certain that cars were going to hit all of us and that the kids would be taken. They were unreasonable because there weren’t even cars on the road when I would be crossing. I think that all of these overwhelming thoughts in my mind and this trauma was manifesting itself in this new form of mental health that I hadn’t dealt with before.

 

I started seeing a psychologist who specializes in perinatal mental health and it was wonderful. She helped me so much. She gave me so many tools, but it’s something that I’m still-- to this day, I’m learning how to deal with that. 

 

It’s something that I think is important to talk about because we don’t realize just how common mental health issues are. Again, we don’t talk about it enough, I don’t think. Women think they’re alone and they suffer alone, but really we just need to talk. Talking it out is amazing. Having a cuppo with your neighbors, having a chat with girlfriends can help so much with that. But that was a big part of this pregnancy because it was just unexpected. I’ve never had anything like that happen before.

 

So probably about 33 weeks, I had an unexpected bleed. I went to the toilet and went, “I’ve got my period.” And then I went, “Oh, hang on. I’m pregnant. I’m not supposed to have my period. Oh, wow.”

 

Meagan: You’re like, “Wait a second.”

 

Bec: I rang my midwife and she’s like, “Yeah. You need to come straight in.” I just bawled because I had worked so hard to have this VBAC. My mind was on one path and then all of a sudden, I got thrown this curveball.

 

We went in the hospital. We monitored. I stayed for a while. I stayed overnight, but they couldn’t find anything. They couldn’t find a cause. I actually think I was burning the candle at both ends. I was stressing myself out a little bit. My head had told my body to chill and I ignored it, so then my body overrode that, and then I just needed to rest. So at 33 weeks, I finished work and I went to the beach every day. It was so lovely.

 

This was November, December in Sydney. It was just before the bushfires started that you guys would have seen in the news last year. The beach every day was quite spooky. The sky was getting darker.

 

Julie: Yes. That was scary.

 

Bec: Yeah, it was. The day after my baby was born, I walked down into the hospital corridor and the whole corridor was like out of a movie. It was like someone had turned a smoke machine on from a party. The whole corridor was just thick smoke. It had come through the hospital air conditioning and everything. We thought that was a scary time to give birth. Little did we know, COVID was to hit a few months later. 

 

So I would go to the beach every day, and every day I would put a little story up on Instagram. My friends would say, “Oh, you’re still pregnant.” Yep, still pregnant. I got to 37, 38, 39, 40 weeks. Yep, still pregnant. 41 weeks. Yep, still pregnant. I had people say things to me, “But why are they letting you go so long? Why haven’t they induced you yet?”

 

I’d say, “I don’t want to be. I feel fine. The baby will come when the baby is ready.” 

“But how are they allowing you to do that?” Even my mum would say things like that. My mum would say, “What are the doctors saying? Isn’t this-- the baby’s going to be like a shriveled up little raisin. We can’t have this happen.” And I’m like, “Oh no, Mum. The baby’s fine. The baby doesn’t know the date on the calendar. The baby is okay.” But as much as I was okay with going “late”, it was the pressure around me. As much as you might say, “I’m okay with this,” it’s those little comments every single day.

 

“Oh, are you sick of it? Oh, that baby must be so big. Are you sure that baby is okay?” I went in for a scan at 41 weeks just to check everything was okay and the sonographer said to me, “You do realize you are seriously increasing your risk of having a stillborn by choosing to go over your dates with this pregnancy.”

 

Julie: I hate it when they use that. Like the statistics are there, yes. It does increase. But it increases— I mean technically you could say it doubles, but it goes from .02% to .04%, so it’s still a really, really small percent risk. But when you say it like that, “Oh, your risk of stillbirth doubles,” then it’s way scary sounding.

 

Bec: And also, is that a sonographer’s job? Or is that a midwife’s job to tell me that?

 

Julie: For real.

 

Bec: Yeah. I did tell my midwife. I said, “I’d like to complain about a sonographer,” because I’m going in there with all the education. I know the stats because I research everything, but a lot of women don’t. If she’s going and saying things like that to women, they’re probably leaving there petrified that the baby is not okay. It’s totally not her job to do that. To her, that was just a flippant comment and off she goes and has a cup of tea or lunch break. It doesn’t-- you know, there’s no consequences to her. 

 

People in these jobs have to be so careful with the language that they use. Even like in my first labor, “Oh, you’re not even in labor.” Or, “You chose to do it this way.” All of those little comments can stick with you and keep niggling in your head for years.

 

Meagan: Oh yeah. Totally. I had that happen with my birth when my doctor was like, “Oh, I’m so glad you didn’t VBAC. You for sure would have ruptured.” So then what happened when I was going to VBAC after my two C-sections? I’m in labor and in my head, I’m hearing that. You know? It’s just, Ugh. Like you said, they say things and they probably never think about it again ever, but it sticks with us.

 

Bec: It’s something that keeps turning over in your mind. At about 40 weeks-- we already know that I went towards the end, but at about 40 weeks, I did go and have some Chinese foot reflexology. I said, “Could you hit all of the trigger points? I want this baby out.” 

That night, I woke up to contractions and I was like, “This is it.” They were about 8 to 10 minutes apart. They were really full-on. I was listening to my HypnoBirthing tracks. I was trying to rest. I was trying to breathe. I couldn’t-- I thought, “Oh, yep. We are on.”

 

And then of course, by 9:00 a.m., they were gone. I thought, “What was that?”

 

Julie: Prodromal labor is the worst.

 

Bec: I just went into labor and I stopped. What the hell? Another week went past. I knew the pressure was coming from the hospital. Depending on who I saw, some of them were okay with me, but some of them were like, “You know, once you hit 40 weeks-- even though we are signed off on you going to 42, once we hit 40,” And I’m like, “Well, you’re not doing what you just signed off on by saying that are you? You’re putting that pressure on.” 

 

So I said to my midwife, “Alright. Let’s have a talk about having a sweep,” because it’s the only type of intervention I was comfortable with, especially if that was going to help me avoid more induction pressure closer to 42 weeks. I know if I was going to be induced, then I was going down that slippery path of heading more towards another Cesarean and I was just so scared of touching anything that would go down that path. So we did a sweep, didn’t really do anything. Three days later, we did another one. It didn’t really do anything.

 

Then on a Saturday afternoon, I had a bit more foot reflexology. I’m like, “Well, it triggered something last time. Let’s give it another go,” and then I went for a sweep. I don’t know which one it was, but in the car on the way home, I started to feel that heavy period pain come back and it was fading in and out.

 

That was Saturday afternoon. By midnight, I could not sleep anymore. I was timing the contractions. They were about five minutes apart lasting about 50 seconds, so I thought, “Yep. We are on here.”

 

In the morning, I said to Phil, “Can you take our son to my parents’ house?” He got halfway there and realized he forgot something. He rang me in a panic, “Have you got time? Have I got time? I’ve got to turn around. I’ve got to get his bag that I forgot.” I’m like, “Oh, I think you’ve got time, I guess. I don’t know. Just hurry up and do it.” 

 

Anyway, we did not know that the day was going to go on and on. We spent all day trying to help me move. The contractions were really paralyzing, so we thought, “We need to get it going.” But, we went for a walk. Every few steps, I’d have to stop and just hold onto a tree, hold onto my husband, hold onto people’s fences. So, this is Sunday afternoon. This has been going on now for about 24 hours.

 

That night, it just continued and I thought it was ramping up. I got in the shower. We had the TENS machine going. I got in the shower. Our bathroom wall is a shared wall with the neighbors and it’s the side of neighbors that we don’t know very well. I’ll never forget that night at about 10:00 p.m. bellowing like a cow, just roaring. It was a full-on zoo. There was a zoo happening in our house. And thinking, “These poor neighbors next-door must think something really freaky is going on.”

 

I got out of the shower and I went, “Call Erica. We’ve got to call the doula. And of course, she came over and she made me feel calm and safe.” They sort of subsided a little bit. She came over at midnight on Sunday night. She was still there the next morning. We knew that the midwives clocked on at 7:00 a.m., so we waited until 7 and called the midwives. One of them came and did a home check, and she’s like, “Yeah, you’re about 5 or 6 centimeters,” which is great because I knew I was already still at home at the point that I was lying on the operating theater table a few years earlier.

 

That was good, but as the day went on, they were still about five minutes apart, but they weren’t getting any closer. So by Monday afternoon, Erica said, “Okay. Let’s call in some other people. Let’s see if we can get maybe some acupuncture or-- what can you think of?” And I went, “My chiro. I remember listening to a VBAC Link podcast where a chiro did an adjustment in labor. Let’s give it a go.”

 

I texted my chiro. She came over and she didn’t do a lot. She did a little-- a few feels around my hips and adjustments and she said, “I think you should do some side-lying releases, the Spinning Babies® exercise.” So we did that. We laid down, and as soon as I sat up, I went, “Whoa.” This gush. My waters had broken. It was so incredible that just a little bit of feeling around recognized that there was tension in my right hip. Once we released it, labor kickstarted. 

 

This is still Monday afternoon now and it started on Saturday afternoon. So I had been going for a long time. There was a lot of vomiting. There was a lot of—yeah. Everything else coming out of my body.

 

I went into hospital, and it was the most excruciating car ride-- like I know everybody says, but we got into hospital and Erica was behind us in the lift. She said she knew it was happening because she said I was just shaking. She said that involuntary shaking means you’re there which was really cool. 

 

So we got in. My midwife said, “Would you mind? Do you want a check?” All of her language was really good, which was cool. She wasn’t telling me, “I’m going to check you.” She was, “Would you like me to?” And I said, “Yeah. I want to see how far along I am.” And she said, “Wow. You’re a good 8 centimeters.”

 

I had done all of that on my own at home, which I was really pleased with. So she then put some monitors on. She said, “I know you don’t want these, but we just have to see.” And I had, of course, envisioned this beautiful water birth like everyone wants, but she said, “Look. Baby’s heart rate is decelerating after contractions. If you don’t want to be hooked up to the machines, the wireless monitors are a thing that we can do, but it means you can only get into the shower and not in the bath.” I thought, “You know what? I just need that water. If I can move and if I’ve got this amazing circle of really cool supporters around me, then I don’t really care. I could be in the corridor. I don’t really care where I am. I felt so safe in this circle.” 

 

Erica had told me, “Every time someone comes in, even in appointments before labor-- if someone comes in and makes you feel like they’ve got the wrong vibe, just stretch. Pretend you’re stretching, but put your hands up and do a circle. That’s your forcefield.” 

 

It’s so funny because it worked and I imagined that every time. I imagined this little bubble around me and I had those protectors around me and my God, that was so different to the first time. It was so powerful to have these people around me that I loved and trusted. It was my midwife, my favorite student-midwife, my doula, and my husband. It was our team. It was the A-Team and at the center of that team was my baby. We were all there for her, which was really cool.

 

I was on the floor in the shower and contracting. The baby was crowning and my midwife said, “The registrar-- the doctor on duty wants to come in and make herself known to you.” I’m like, “What? What do you mean?” She said, “You can say no, but if you do, they’re going to be knocking and knocking and knocking. So, up to you.” I went, “Fine. Just let her in. Say hello, but she’s not doing anything to me, and then she can go.”

 

So, I’ll never forget. I’m on the floor in my zone. I look over and I see this little clicky pair of plastic heels. I look up and there’s this doctor wearing scrubs and she bent down and looked at me and she said, “I need to tell you about the risks of what you’re trying to do. A VBAC is very dangerous.”

 

And I kind of, I wasn’t laughing because I was in the middle of a contraction probably, but I thought, “You’re so pathetic.” She didn’t even penetrate my little forcefield that I’d visualized around me. She just-- it was like a little fly coming in that we could just shoo off and Phil said, “Not now,” really loud and really firmly. I was so proud of him because he’s not that kind of-- this was all not his zone, so it was really cool that he did that. She just sort of backed off and she went.

 

Meagan: That’s awesome.

 

Bec: It was so good. And I, I felt-- I was on the floor and I knew something was happening but I didn’t know what was happening, but I needed to get in the corner. I wanted it to be dark. I didn’t know what was going on, so I said, “Can you lower the bed onto the floor?” My midwife was like, “Okay, why?” What do you think? I don’t know? I needed to be somewhere safe that wasn’t that hard shell floor. We moved over and she’s like, “Yeah. You are ready.”

 

I pushed for a half an hour. I didn’t want coached pushing but I did want whatever help I could get to not tear. And so the girls would help teach me how to breathe down through each contraction and then to hold off a little bit. It was a little bit funny because every time a song changed, my midwife would say, “This is a good song to be born to.” I go, “Okay,” and the song would change and she’d go, “This is a good song to be born to.” And about the fifth time, I went, “You just say that to every song!” She goes, “Okay, yeah. I do.”

 

Meagan: You’re like, “Any song is a good song for this baby to be born to!”

 

Bec: But I knew that when my husband’s favorite songs came on, he’d squeeze my shoulder and say, “This is a good song to be born to.” And I’m like, “Not you, too!”

 

Anyway, Tilly was-- she did come out. She was born at a quarter to midnight on the eve of 42 weeks. She was fine. She was a beautiful little girl. Her head was out and the midwife said, “Do you want to feel her head?” which was so cool as before the head came out, putting my hand down there and feeling this little, slimy, hairy head was just such an amazing feeling because we had made it. I knew by that point we had made it and we had done it all together. We didn’t need anybody or anything else. It was really hard and it was really tough, and I went for a really long time, but I just trusted that bubble of safe people around me and we did it. 

 

She came out. I did want to lift her out myself, but she was-- the girls said something about my cord not quite being long enough maybe, so I picked her up but they handed her to me. She was straight on me. I got my skin-to-skin and I got my slimy baby girl that I really wanted. I had requested to wait, to have that golden hour, to have all of that skin-to-skin to wait for my placenta. 

 

We waited for the cord to stop pulsing and then after a half an hour, my midwife came back in and she said, “Hospital clock says we have to get placenta out. How do you feel about giving it a tug yourself before we give you the injection?”

 

I was like, “Yes.” It was so cool. So with one hand on my baby, the other hand down between my legs, I gently pulled on the tug and it was like a giant tampon string. I just pulled in and my placenta flopped out. It was so cool and it wasn’t painful. It was just-- I mean a baby had just come out. For me, the placenta was just, and I was scared of-- you know, women say, “Oh, they don’t tell you how painful it is when the placenta comes out.” It wasn’t actually. I think because I had just left it and let my body do its thing and I only just assisted a little bit with a little tug. So that was really cool.

 

And then I clamped the cord and I cut it myself. That was important to me.

 

Meagan: Oh my gosh. That’s awesome.

 

Bec: Yeah. It was so beautiful because to me, it signified the end of our internal connection and the start of our external connection. It was all about her and I doing that together.

 

We didn’t know we were having a girl. I hoped, of course, that we were having a girl because we had a boy, but she was on me for a little while and then someone said, “What is it? Have a look.” And seeing that it was a girl-- it was just so beautiful. Everything was just so lovely.

 

So we got there, and we got there without the system dictating it to me. It was so wonderful, but it still makes me so angry that people have to fight the system to get what they deserve.

 

The notes on my discharge form after Jack’s birth said that the Cesarean was due to a failure to progress. It had nothing to do with his breech positioning, but failure to progress. That labor was half the length of time as the second labor and the notes on the second labor’s discharge form say, “No complications.”

 

So what does that tell us about hospital clocks? Hospital policies dictating what Mother Nature can take care of herself? If we are educated and determined, then we can get what we deserve. But I know I keep saying, “You shouldn’t have to have a bad birth to get a good birth.” We know that my body just labors for a really long time. Some people are like, “Why did they let you labor for so long? Why did you want that to happen?”

 

Julie: Oh my gosh. Why did they let you? What do you mean let you? Oh my goodness.

 

Bec: Who’s they? I said, “There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s my body and that’s the way my body labors. It’s not fun. It’s pretty ordinary, but that’s the way my body does it.”

 

Failure to progress, for me, is something that infuriates me when women tell me, “Oh, I had to have a Cesarean because ‘failure to progress,’” I just feel sad. And I, yeah. My whole journey was very draining, but it was very much full of growth as well. I’m really passionate about people knowing that they can have that birth, not the birth that a policy or an opinion tells them that they should be having. They should be having the birth that they deserve. 

 

So yeah, that’s my story. The VBAC rates in Australia-- they’re 12%. I was just looking this up. People use that as a reason for not having a vaginal birth, but I think of those who attempt a VBAC, 87% are successful. So when you say only 12% of women will have a VBAC, that’s not because they’re failing. It’s because it’s dictated to them that they have to. We really need to change that. That success rate of attempt at 87% is really high. That’s a really cool figure. We need to be working with that, not the 12%. So, yeah. I just feel so passionate now after going through that, that we are all so cool, aren’t we? Mother Nature‘s got it. Our bodies have got it.

 

Julie: Yep. That is so true. The rates are similar here in the United States actually. The VBAC rate is anywhere from 10 to 12% every year, but the studies show that only 60 to 80% of women who attempt a VBAC will be successful at that attempt. But I say that more would be successful if they had a provider that was truly supportive instead of just saying, “Okay well, we’ll have a VBAC as long as you go into labor by 40 weeks and as long as it is spontaneous because we don’t induce VBAC, and as long as—" You know, all of this list of criteria.

 

So I think we have probably a lot more providers in the United States that are not supportive when women make that choice, but also, just like in Australia their providers just aren’t giving them the option which is why only 10% of women will have a VBAC.

 

Bec: Exactly.

 

Evidence on due dates

 

Julie: So it’s just super frustrating and very can be very confusing to a parent after having a Cesarean. But what I want to do really fast before we get off the phone, is talk about due dates for VBAC.

 

Now, Evidence-Based Birth®, we love them. They are incredible. You can go onto evidencebasedbirth.com and find anything about anything. They have a really, really lengthy blog about due dates and induction. They talk about the ARRIVE study and several other studies that have come up about induction at 39 weeks versus spontaneous labor or inducing later on in the pregnancy. 

 

They have a section specifically about people planning a VBAC and I’m just going to go ahead and read what she wrote here. It’s not too long, but I love it because Rebecca Decker, the owner of Evidence-Based Birth®-- her and her research team are so good at digging deeply into the studies and unveiling what the studies really say and what they mean. 

 

I’m just going to go ahead and read this. We’re going to link to the article in the show notes, so if you are wondering how to find this article, you can just click on our show notes or you can Google “Evidence on Due Dates” and it’s just right there-- the first response to show up in Google.

 

And so, I’m just going to read this. She says:

 

“What about people who are planning a VBAC?

 

“Many people who are planning a vaginal birth after Cesarean (VBAC) are told they must go into labor by 39, 40, or 41 weeks or they will be required to have a repeat Cesarean or induction.

 

“Research has shown that only about 10% of people who reach term will spontaneously give birth by 39 weeks (Smith, 2001; Jukic et al., 2013). So, if a hospital or physician mandates repeat Cesareans for people who have not gone into labor by 39 weeks, this means that 90% of people planning a VBAC with that hospital or physician will be disqualified from having a spontaneous VBAC. Also, some hospitals and providers will not provide inductions with VBACs, which means some people who reach the required deadline will only have one option– repeat Cesarean.

 

“There is actually no evidence supporting hard-stop ‘must-give-birth-by-39-weeks’ or ‘give-birth-by-40-weeks’ rules for people planning a VBAC.

 

“In 2015, researchers looked at 12,676 people who were electively induced at 39 weeks for a VBAC, or had expectant management for a VBAC (Palatnik & Grobman, 2015).”

 

Expectant management, just a little side note here, means either spontaneous labor or inducing if there is a medical reason, or electively beyond the arbitrary deadline which, in this case, is 39 weeks.

 

“Elective induction at 39 weeks was associated with a higher chance of VBAC compared to expectant management (73.8% versus 60-62%). But there was also a higher rate of uterine rupture in the elective induction group (1.4% versus 0.4-0.6%).”

 

So it’s almost three times more likely a uterine rupture at 39 weeks elective induction than the expectant management group.

 

“For people who chose not to be induced, the risk of uterine rupture was fairly steady at 39 weeks (0.5% uterine rupture rate), to 40 weeks (0.6%), to 41 weeks (0.4%).”

 

So, right around there. Not a statistically significant difference in the rupture rates no matter how far you go gestationally as far as labor is spontaneous or expectant management.

 

“The first large meta-analysis to specifically look at the link between weeks of pregnancy and likelihood of VBAC was published in 2019 (Wu et al. 2019).” 

 

Which is really exciting, because it’s very recent.

 

“It included 94 observational studies with nearly 240,000 people attempting labor for a VBAC. Interestingly, they found that gestational week at birth was not linked to having a VBAC— whether someone gave birth at 37 weeks, 39 weeks, or 41 weeks—it didn’t make a difference to whether someone had a VBAC or a Cesarean birth after Cesarean.”

 

Basically, what that is saying is that this huge comprehensive study shows that there’s no change in your chances of having a VBAC related to what week gestation you are, but there’s this other study that shows-- a much smaller study with a lot less people if you compare 240,000 people to 12,676 people. Significantly fewer people. It shows that elective induction at 39 weeks triples your chance of having a uterine rupture. The expectant management of labor in that group showed that there was a higher chance of VBAC success at the 39-week induction group. 

 

But this much larger study shows that there is no difference. So I would definitely go with the larger study, just because you have 20 times the amount of people in that study, which gives you a more definitive look. It doesn’t talk about the risk of uterine rupture, though, in that larger group. So, we have those two.

 

Apparently, Meagan is writing a blog right now on this.

 

Meagan: I am writing a blog. So, by the time this enters, we too will have a blog and it will be titled “The Success Rate After 40 weeks for a VBAC”. Check it out on our blog.

 

Julie: Meagan, there’s a study right there.

 

Meagan: I know.

 

Julie: Go ahead and Google “Evidence on Due Dates” and scroll down. There are several studies linked. Go back and look through our blogs, go back and look on the Evidence-Based Birth® website. But this is the thing that I just want to highlight. Really important— double emphasis, bold, underline, exclamation points:

 

There is no evidence to support the hard-stop deadline of giving birth at 39 weeks or 40 weeks for a VBAC.

 

There is no evidence to support that. And, your likelihood of having a successful VBAC at 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, or even 42 weeks does not change. Your odds of having one does not change, no matter what week gestation you give, if you go into this expectant management protocol, which again, is either waiting for spontaneous labor or waiting for a medical need for induction.

 

So, yeah. Any questions?

 

Meagan: No.

 

Julie: We should do a live podcast one day. I wonder how we could do that, or people could just ask questions while we were recording. That would be super fun.

 

Meagan: That would be amazing. Yeah.

 

Julie: Alright. Well, Bec. We are so grateful for you and Happy Birthday to Tilly today.

 

Bec: As I was saying to you guys earlier, the name Matilda means “strength in battle”. So, she is a woman of strength from day one. Happy Birthday to her today.

 

Julie: Happy Birthday today. Alright well, we are going to let you go and snuggle your sweet little baby of strength. Although, it’s 2:30 in the morning, so you should probably just go back to bed.

 

Bec: It’s 3:30 now. I’m going back to bed.

Meagan: I was going to say-- it’s 3:30 now.

Closing

Would you like to be a guest on the podcast? Head over to thevbaclink.com/share and submit your story. For all things VBAC, including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Julie and Meagan’s bios, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.

153 Marilys' VBAC + The untold CBAC and VBAC stories

Calling all listeners! Whether you’re preparing for a VBAC, have already had your VBAC, had a planned or unplanned CBAC, or are a birth worker, this episode is for YOU.

 

Mari Vega is a powerful force in the birth world. Through her VBAC experience, Mari found her voice. Not only did she find it, but she realized that it is loud, it is confident, and it is beautiful. Mari is now on a mission to help all moms with any birth outcome feel heard, valued, and loved.

 

To the woman who has faced obstetric mistreatment during any birth, we see you. To the woman who is struggling with finding a VBAC supportive provider, we see you. To the woman who fought so hard for her VBAC and did everything right, yet got an unwanted CBAC, we see you. We see you, women of strength, and we love you. We are proud of you.

 

Also joining us this episode is one of our VBAC trained doulas, Allie Mennie, who has a true gift with words.

 

We have a special assignment for all of our listeners at the end of this truly impactfull episode. Tune in to find out what it is. We cannot WAIT to hear from each of you!

 

Topics today include:

- How to get your VBAC everything is working against you

- The importance of reporting obstetric mistreatment

- Finding the strength to share your CBAC story

- Releasing sorrow from any birth outcome to find greater joy

 

Additional links

Mari Vega’s website, Instagram, and Facebook pages

 

Alli Mennie’s website, Instagram, and Facebook pages

 

Email your letters to info@thevbaclink.com 

 

Episode sponsor

This episode is sponsored by our very own Advanced VBAC Doula Certification Program. It is the most comprehensive VBAC doula training in the world perfectly packaged in an online, self-paced video course. Head over to thevbaclink.com to find out more information and sign up today.

Full transcript

Note: All transcripts are edited to eliminate false starts and filler words.

 

Julie: Alright, Women of Strength. It is Women of Strength Wednesday and we are here for you with a podcast with one of our newest, most favorite people in the world. Her name is Mari Vega and she’s doing a lot of really amazing things. 

 

But before I try and talk about four things at once like I tend to do, I am going to let you guys know that Meagan is out doing some very important things right now. Lots of very important things and she could not make it on the podcast today, unfortunately. But I am very, very lucky because we have one of our VBAC trained doulas with us and her name is Allie Mennie. Is that how you say your last name?

 

Allie: Yep, Mennie.

 

Julie: Mennie. Allie Mennie. I love it. Allie Mennie with North Shore Doula in North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Now let me tell you, when I first saw that she was North Shore Doula, I was thinking about North Shore Doulas in Louisiana in the United States, where we were supposed to go travel to before the coronavirus turned the world upside down. So, completely other country, completely other end of the continent. Well kind of, not really the end of the continent. You’re midway through the continent I suppose. 

 

But guess what, Allie is really cool because she used to be an alpaca wrangler at a kids’ petting zoo in Los Angeles when she was in high school. I’ve got to tell you, I was not expecting her to say the most valuable lesson that wrangling alpacas taught her for birth work. So, I want her to share that with you. Allie, tell us about wrangling alpacas and birth work.

 

Allie: Yeah, I find little things that have helped me all throughout my life. I can attribute everything to something. But specifically, wrangling alpacas as a teenager was very stressful for celebrity kids’ parties in Los Angeles. Before every single event that we would put on, I’d have to walk up and bow to the alpacas, so they understood that there was no power struggle. I would bow down so my head was well under theirs and they would give me this look. I’d be like, “Alright. Don’t take a kid’s finger off today. We are on the same page. Here we go.” 

 

But I say that it gave me very good insight into working with anesthesiologists. “I understand. You are the king in the room. I will bow to you. There is no power struggle here.”

 

Julie: Yes. Be submissive. That’s awesome. I grew up training horses. Very opposite-- you have to be the dominant one. You face them directly head-on and then they know that they are not supposed to approach you, because that’s a horse’s nature-- the dominant male in the group. If he stands up straight to you, then you’re not supposed to approach him until he turns his shoulder to the side. 

 

So that’s what we would do. In part of my training, I would face forward, slowly turn my shoulder towards the horse, then have it come up to me and all of those things. It’s funny how opposite that is. That explains maybe why I have a power struggle sometimes in the birth room. Not a power struggle anyone can see, but an internal one.

 

Allie: You’re like, “Turn your shoulder.”

 

Julie: Yes. I’ll be like, “I am standing, facing you. Don’t you dare move.” Oh, just kidding. Okay well, kind of. 

 

Anyways. I am really excited to talk to Mari Vega. Meagan and her have been working together to pick the perfect topic. I’m really sad that Meagan can’t be here today, but I’m really excited that Allie can.

Review of the week

Julie: Before we get to Mari, we are going to have Allie read a review of the week for us.

 

Allie: Sure thing. This one comes from Mandym826 from Apple Podcasts reviews. She says, “I am preparing for my VBAC in a few weeks and this podcast has taught me so much! I have had many fears and worries about it and the research and birth stories covered in this podcast have helped me stay focused on my goals. I hope to be contacting you, ladies, with my successful VBAC story one day soon! Thanks for all that you do!”

 

Julie: Oh, I love that. Okay, now my mind is going into stalker mode. That review was left in January and it is now October. What was the name of the reviewer?

 

Allie: MandyM826.

 

Julie: Okay. While Mari is talking, I am going to go look for Mandy M. in our Facebook community, see if she’s in our Facebook community, and I can stalk her to see if she had her birth, because it’s fun. I can’t have these types of things without the closure. You can’t just say you want to share your story on the podcast without me wondering if you had your VBAC, or how your birth went.

 

Allie: We are coming for you, Mandy.

 

Julie: I love it.

Episode sponsor

Julie: Birth workers, listen up. Do you want to increase your knowledge of birth after a Cesarean? We created our Advanced VBAC Doula Certification Program just for you. It is the most comprehensive VBAC doula training in the world perfectly packaged in an online, self-paced video course. This course is designed for birth workers who want to take their VBAC education to the next level so you can support parents who have had a Cesarean in the most effective ways. We have created a complete system, a step-by-step road map that shows exactly what you need to know in order to support parents birthing after a Cesarean. Head over to thevbaclink.com to find out more information and sign up today. That’s thevbaclink.com. See you there.

Mari’s story

Julie: Well, we are here today and so excited. This has been a long time coming. Mari Vega is an incredible woman. She is on a mission to support women in tapping into their intuition so that they can nurture their entire selves and experience motherhood with confidence. Her personal and professional experiences evoke a deep sense of advocacy to voice the vulnerabilities of womanhood and parenthood. As an author, coach, speaker, and podcaster, Marilys-- is that how you say it?

 

Mari: You’ve got it so right. Yes, go girl.

 

Julie: I’m practicing my accent. Marilys gives voice to the raw, vulnerable truths of motherhood and offers coaching and support for breastfeeding and VBAC mamas. Mari has a lot of resources for you on social media. On Instagram, she’s @mari_vega and on Facebook, she is Mari Vega Motherhood.

 

We’re going to link all of her resources in our show notes. So if you want to find her, just go ahead and scroll to the notes on this podcast episode and click on the links that you find there.

 

My goodness, we have had such a fun time finding a topic to talk about today on the podcast. I don’t even kind of know what this podcast episode is going to be titled yet. I’m going to name it when we’re done. 

 

After Mari briefly shares her VBAC story with us, we are going to talk about how we handle VBAC when we feel like everybody’s working against us or everybody’s doubting us, how to cope when we don’t get a VBAC or when we have an unplanned Cesarean and why people kind of shy away from sharing that story. We are going to talk about doulas— being a doula and how to cope when your client doesn’t get her VBAC because we are so emotionally invested and want that VBAC birth for these parents almost as much as they do, and it can be really hard to process through all of those things. So, look forward to all of those things in this episode.

 

I’m just really excited because these are some things that I don’t necessarily have answers to myself. I’m glad that we’re going to have a discussion about all of these things. So before I keep on rambling-- I’m really hard at making the transition. I feel like I have to have a hard stop and then the other person starts talking, or else I keep on talking because silence is awkward for me. Anyways, Mari, why don’t you go ahead and share with us a little bit about your VBAC birth.

 

Mari: Yes, so thank you for that wonderful introduction, and Allie, I’m so excited to also get your perspective on this call. Just to quickly add to the introduction, I recently also became certified to be a chapter lead for Northern New Jersey’s ICAN organization. I share that because I’m new to that role and holding space for CBAC mamas has quickly become a big topic for me. So I’m happy that we get to have this conversation today. It feels very timely. 

 

I guess to set the stage, I had my daughter, my first child, in 2016. I had thought it would take longer to get pregnant, so I don’t think I was emotionally ready. I was 27 years old. I had a lot of friends in their 30’s having trouble getting pregnant and so I thought it would take us a long time. I was in love. I asked my partner, “I want a baby. I don’t want to go through the whole, ‘get engaged to get married, buy a house, have a baby.’ I love you. Are you down for this or not?” And after a few months of thinking, he said, “You know what? I get why you want to try so that we’re not in a position where you’re really upset every month that you don’t get pregnant.”

 

I wanted it to be a surprise. I remember still being like, “Wow. I didn’t think I’d get pregnant in two months.” That was a big shocker. I don’t know why, but I just went on YouTube or the Internet and I saw a video of one woman having a natural birth and screaming in pain, a video of someone having a Cesarean-- I’ve never had surgery so that looked scary, then I saw a woman look peaceful with medication in a bed, having a baby with an epidural, and I was like, “Well, that looks like a great medium. That’s what I’ll go for.” That was honestly the extent to which I thought through what my labor and delivery could look like. I just assumed that I would have medication to not feel pain and that my baby would flow out of me, and everything would go great.

 

I get to the day that I’m going to give birth. My water breaks in the middle of the night and I’m having contractions every two minutes. I’m having back labor-- not that I knew any of this vocabulary at the time. I gave birth in New York City, so I was just so happy to go into labor in the middle of the night because traffic jams are just an absolute nightmare in the city. I was like, “Great. We’ll get to the hospital in no time and everything.” 

 

I get to the hospital. They’re like, “Yeah, you’ve got your water broke. Go ahead. We’re going to admit you.” I’m like, “Give me the epidural. Give me the epidural. Can I get the epidural? I just don’t want to feel pain. I don’t like this pain. It’s too much. It’s too much.”

 

I get an epidural. I go to sleep. I push for two, two and a half hours and then I’m told I need a Cesarean because my daughter is not coming down, and it will take another eight hours of me pushing for her to come down.

 

Julie: Oh my gosh. They said that to you?

 

Mari: Yeah. I was pretty devastated because I had my asthma acting up. I couldn’t even get through-- you know how they ask you to push ten times? I think around breath seven I couldn’t even breathe anymore, so I couldn’t even breathe through my contractions. I was hyperventilating. 

 

No one offered me oxygen. I look at mom videos sometimes, or their photos and they’re holding the oxygen mask and I’m like, “How is it possible that nobody offered me oxygen in a hospital?”

 

Like, what? I also delivered at an educational hospital. I have a lot of friends who are studying to be in the medical field and so I thought, “Well, let me be kind and let me agree that I can have students.” I had millions of students coming in, checking me. I had no idea what I was getting into and I had absolutely no privacy. I was full of fear. I was full of anxiety. 

 

I couldn’t breathe and I was in excruciating pain because the epidural was off. I was 10 centimeters and pushing, from having had full medication to now no medication. I started crying my eyes out and I signed a waiver of release for a Cesarean and I was rolled into the operating room. I had the joy of listening to the OB teach my Cesarean birth to a bunch of students on the other side of the curtain. 

 

Julie: Oh my gosh. 

 

Mari: I remember it was horrific. I just remember thinking, “I’m going to die.” I remember I was-- at this point, I had vomited everything I had before getting my epidural and resting. I had probably not eaten for about almost 24 hours. I’d only had water. I was so exhausted. I was so thirsty. I vividly remember looking at my husband and saying at the time, not even having the energy to articulate to him like, “Will you spit in my mouth?” That is how thirsty I was and how low my energy was, where I generally kept thinking, “I’m not going to make it.”

 

I was shaking. I was cold and my arms were tied down. I kept having a very chipper, cheery college student in my ear saying, “Honey, your vitals are great. You’re not going to die.”

 

Fast forward to 2020, and the rate of Cesarean and the maternal mortality rate, how it keeps rising in the US. We’re a First World country and we’re number 52 or 53 in the list of countries for maternal mortality. That is absolutely irresponsible. 

 

We are a first-world country. Why are women dying as a result of birth or pregnancy-related—or in their first year of being a mother. That’s just unacceptable. Actually, knowing the statistics and looking back at that feeling, no wonder that was so hard for me to let go of the feeling that I was going to lose my life. In that moment, that’s what it felt like.

 

So I share all that just to say that obstetric violence aside and obstetric bullying aside, I also just generally had that fear that I wasn’t going to make it, and so I know that this can’t be life. This is absolutely not what I want in the future.

 

This is a small detail that I sometimes skip over, but I think it’s important to note. I was asked in front of my two support family members that I brought-- my stepmom was with me and my husband. I was asked in front of them, “Are you being abused at home?” If that was my only opportunity to get help, they just blew it for me.

 

Allie: Wow.

 

Julie: Oh, yeah. You know what? I ended up in the ER in the middle of the night a few nights ago for a really, really horrible migraine. I went and got what they call a “migraine cocktail”. That’s the only thing that could save me at that time, but my husband was there, like two feet away from me, answering all my questions. The doctor looked at me-- you know the admittance questions, and he’s like, “Do you feel safe at home?” And I’m like, “Yeah.”

 

Even in my painful, migraine state, I could know that “Yeah, nobody’s going to say ‘no’ when their husband is two feet in front of them.” I mean, I do feel safe at home for the record, but I just-- yeah.

 

Mari: For the record, me too. Exactly. But you know, I encourage you to go back and report that because I did at my six-week post-op. I did report that back to the OB and actually, on the spot, he called the hospital teacher and said, “Immediately pull all the students and tell them what I just heard, and that they better not make that mistake again.”

 

Julie: Wow.

 

Mari: It did feel good to know that this kind of feedback is important.

 

Julie: Because who knows who you saved by having that educational moment.

 

Mari: Yeah, and there’s something about us getting to give the feedback back to the doctors, which I know is kind of what we were thinking we’ll talk about on this episode. But you know, there’s something about giving our feedback to providers whether it’s positive or constructive. These doctors need to be well-informed of how let down we are with the way that they didn’t hold space for us on our ways to VBACs.

 

That’s, I think, the big thing for me. I had all this rage during my pregnancy and I truly wonder looking back, how much of it was because all these doctors didn’t believe in me. Nobody wants to feel like that from their medical provider. I almost feel like if we can create a campaign to write a letter to your-- you know how they say to write a letter. You don’t need to mail it. You just release your pain. Write a letter to the OB with what they said to you because maybe they will forget the words, but people never forget the feeling-- the way you made them feel. These doctors, they need to get this feedback, and that’s how they are hopefully going to try to turn it around.

 

Quickly then, just a highlight of my second birth, I ended up getting pregnant two and a half years later. I had, at that time, researched ICAN. I knew the statistics and had found The VBAC Link and The Birth Hour and listened to all the stories. I knew what to do.

 

When I went to interview midwives, I really wanted to go with them. Financially, it wasn’t wasn’t going to work out because I have pretty awesome insurance, so it was really hard for me to try and go out of pocket and pay thousands when my insurance was going to cover basically everything. I struggled to find in their in-network providers that were supportive. I ended up going with providers that were near my house-- literally a three-minute drive. I was just like, “You know what? I’ll just stay comfortable. I have to see them so often. I’ll just stay nearby.”

 

From the get, I was told that I had clearly a small pelvis and that if the baby didn’t descend the first time, that my second baby would probably be bigger and probably also not descend. My first child was 8 lbs. 8 oz. and failure to descend when you’re at stage -2-- it was pretty condescending to say it was due to a small pelvis because baby wasn’t even in the birth canal. Ready to pop out-- I do know that for some women when you say for a fact, it’s because you saw it. You know what I mean?

 

How dare you say something like that, but anyways. He was really VBAC tolerant, not friendly. He was like, “Well, if you go into labor by your due date-- because we can’t induce you. If you go into labor by your due date and if everything goes the way. The best bet for you, I’ll let you push for one hour and then you have to get a C-section.” I was like, “What are you talking about?” So I’m like, “Alright, let me just wish for the best.”

 

It was Christmas Eve and I was coming for my 22 or 20-week appointment and a new provider-- because they have like, five providers. One of them, she came to me and she’s like, “Well, let’s read through your paperwork.” And so she’s like, “Is this your name?” Yes. “Is this your date of birth?” Yeah. “I see here it says you’ve elected a Cesarean.”

 

And I flipped out. I’m like, “I’ve literally talked about VBAC—"

 

Julie: Oh my gosh!

 

Mari: Yeah. I’m like, “Who wrote that? Did the doctor write that?” And she’s like, “Ma’am, sometimes we make mistakes. That’s the purpose of reviewing the paperwork with you.” And I was like, “Yeah, but I have said VBAC till I’m blue in the face, so for anyone to write the words ‘elective Cesarean’ in my paperwork is just plain disrespectful. I need to leave this practice. Please check my baby and get out of my face. Like I can’t. I can’t. Like I remember—"

 

Julie: Good for you. You know, one of my friends that’s a fellow doula-- sorry to interrupt.

 

Mari: Go ahead.

 

Julie: For her first birth, she was wheeled into the operating room, screaming that she did not want a Cesarean. Her doctor wrote on her op report that it was an elective Cesarean, that she chose it. Does that not just light your fire?

 

Mari: These are the types of things. These are the kinds of things. We have to go back. We have to go back and advocate for ourselves, even after the fact.

 

Yeah, so that made me switch providers. I spent all Christmas and New Year’s looking for a new provider. I find a new provider and I switched to that office. They’re like, “Yep. We are super VBAC friendly. We’ve got you. We’ve got you.” And I go, “Okay.”

 

At my 30 week appointment, they want to book my C-section, “just in case”. I said, “You know, I can understand that. I can understand that, however, I’m not booking it.” A lady still calls me and I said, “Okay, you know what? I’m comfortable with this particular date that’s six days after my due date, just because if I’m going to end up with a Cesarean, then I at least want the date to mean something to me.” That date meant something to me. It was my great grandma‘s birthday. She had passed many years ago. But I was like, “You know what? If I have to have a Cesarean, then give me until—" and it was almost 41 weeks. I was comfortable with this particular date.

 

Well, she has a vacation. “She’s not going to be around, so I can’t give you that date. We have to go sooner.” I was like, “Okay, sure.” I set up the appointment. I hung up. I went to an ICAN meeting and said, “When you start to assume that you’re just not going to show up to your Cesarean appointment, should I switch doctors?”

 

They’re like, “Yeah. You really shouldn’t just not show up. That’s a sign that you probably should switch again.” I’m like, “Yeah, but I’m 30 something weeks pregnant. My husband‘s going to think I’m crazy because my husband-- he just lets me do my thing, but his family is very much pro-Cesarean. In fact, on Christmas day, they decided to remind me that I should be selfless and get a Cesarean to not make this about myself. That was really a wonderful Christmas present. Oh gosh, they’re going to hear this and be like, “That’s not what we said.”

 

But anyway, ultimately at the end of the day, they had a natural birth with their first child and things didn’t go as planned. She has lived a certain life because of that with certain limitations. They’re just saying, “Why would you even risk having something go wrong in the birth canal? A C-section is clearly much easier. You can ensure your baby won’t have any trauma.”

 

I don’t blame them. People just assume that a baby having to go through the birth canal is traumatic. Meanwhile, that entire time your body is letting them know that something is going to happen. You don’t think it’s traumatic that you’re chilling there and then somebody just rips you out of your warmth?

 

Julie: Yes, yes!

 

Mari: You’re in mommy’s belly and you’re like, “What is going on?!”

 

I mean, it’s also how things are marketed. I think we’re all-- if you’re listening to this and if you’re tuning into the VBAC link if you’re a doula if you’re in the birth world, you know the marketing tactics that have gone into why people think this way. So I can’t even blame them because they have been conditioned to think this way.

 

Julie: Well, and that’s the thing too that I think sometimes we forget. Our family members, they love us and they want the best for us. They want the best for our babies. They think that they are coming at you from a place of love and concern, and they are. They probably are coming at you from a place of love and concern. They’re just not educated about the things that you are.

 

Mari: Exactly. This process alone, going for a VBAC is such an amazing process because regardless of VBAC or not, at the end of the day you advocated for yourself. You educated yourself. You did all the things. You left your comfort zone. You fought a doctor. You discussed it with family members.

 

All these things help you grow and help you become resilient. At the end of the day the process in itself-- I wish I didn’t have to be this way. I think we’re all in our own ways working to change that, but it is a process that did help me grow a lot in my life and it’s probably one of the most resilient stories I could ever tell.

 

I guess just to wrap that up, I did go to an ICAN meeting. It happened to be a very popular meeting that day. We had like 10 or 12 women and usually, we only had like 3 or 4. It was all of us in the room. Some of them were on their second VBAC, third baby, fourth baby. It was so empowering. I left and the next day, I called the best provider in the area known for taking women-- allowing them to switch super late in their pregnancies. It was a midwife. Something had changed, where it was later in the year so I had met my deductible and they could take me without charging me more. Everything just worked out.

 

I let them call the provider and break up with them for me. The provider called me and said, “Oh my gosh, are you leaving us because we scheduled you your Cesarean?” And I’m like, “Yeah.” They’re like, “Well, we can just cancel it.” And I was like, “That’s not the point.”

 

Allie: That’s not the point. Exactly.

 

Mari: “You showed your colors. That’s not the point.” Are you serious? They tried to keep me, you guys. How crazy is that?

 

Julie: People don’t realize that they don’t have to have that conversation with their provider. Their new provider can just call and get the records from them. They don’t even have to talk to them.

 

Mari: FYI, exactly. All you’ve got to do is sign a release form. They send that release form and it shows right there in black ink, “Send me my forms. I’m breaking up with you.” So that was nice.

 

I ended up going into labor the same way as my first labor. In the middle of the night, my water broke. I Immediately started having back labor again— back labor meaning, I didn’t have contractions in my belly. It was all in my back as if someone was breaking an ax on my back. But this time I still went in the shower. I was doing goddess pose with the shower hot water on my back. I had essential oils. I had my HypnoBirthing music.

 

I brought the yoga ball into the shower. Yeah, that was not a good idea, I actually fell off of it. It was very painful. I was bouncing on it, the water shifted, and I bounced down, which, I can’t even believe I did that and survived. I’m in there the whole time. I call my doula. She comes. My husband takes my daughter to someone who is going to watch her for us. I’m begging to go to the hospital because I am like, “I’m not going to make it. I’m going to the epidural. Sorry guys, I’m going to need the epidural. This back labor is crazy. Let’s go to the hospital.”

 

We go to the hospital around 8:00 a.m. When we get to the hospital, I’m about 4 centimeters and I wanted to be 5. Last time I was 3 centimeters. I was like, “Okay well, at least I know that I am progressing, so I’m proud of myself.”

 

I know the epidural will take time, so at least I know that the epidural is coming because my contractions are too much right now. I’m in the hospital. It takes two hours to get the epidural. When they come to give me the epidural, I’m 7 centimeters and I’m like, “Oh my god. I am progressing. Thank goodness.”

 

So I’m 7 centimeters. I take the epidural. Of course, it slows things down, but I’m using a peanut ball. I’m taking a nap and I’m switching-- I am in goddess pose on the bed, and all this stuff.

 

When it’s time to push, I make a fear-based decision. I want to highlight that fear-based decisions have no place in your birth. You need to leave the fear at the door. You need to process the fear during your pregnancy and face it all, because right when it was time to push and I felt all the pressure, I hit the epidural button. It hit me so much medicine that it paused my birth for three hours. I couldn’t feel anything. I couldn’t feel anything, so I couldn’t push.

 

They talked to me and we hung out until I got the urge to push and felt something again. Then, for three hours, my son was in my pelvis. While I could touch his hair, I couldn’t push him out. For three hours. Luckily, I learned later on, that when you touch a baby’s head, it calms their heartbeat. It can help keep them calm. So, I was touching his head to motivate myself to push harder, but thank goodness for three hours, he was my little champ. His heart was just perfect. It never decelerated. They were calm letting me keep trying.

 

I had a full, women staff. It just happened to be that everybody was a woman that day. The woman OB on the clock comes in and she’s like, “I’m giving her 15 minutes, and then she needs to get a Cesarean.” I’ve never met this woman and I’m like, “Oh my god.”

 

My midwives have been texting the back-up doctor. She’s somewhere else trying to rush over to me because she’s willing to assist me. Because the midwives can’t step in and do-- what they wanted to do to me, was an episiotomy and a vacuum-assist.

 

People feel very different ways. There are different, varying opinions about that. I was comfortable with the research that I did that if I needed to do that, I’d be comfortable with it. Ultimately, she flew in, literally five minutes before they were going to pull me into the OR. She was like, “Alright mama. Do you consent?”

 

I want to say this very clearly. She asked for my consent.

 

I said, “Yes. I consent to an episiotomy and a vacuum-assist.” Five pushes later, my son was here.

 

When I pulled my son up-- by the way there was meconium. They knew that there might be meconium. But when I pulled my son up-- so many women talk about that moment. I cry every single birth story I listen to. I listened to like, every VBAC Link story and every Birth Hour story. I always cried when they’re like, “I pulled my baby,” and I thought, “To this day, I don’t remember that moment.” I just remember, “I did it. I effing did it. I effing did it. F all those doctors who said I couldn’t do it.” That’s all I was saying in the hospital room. That’s all I was thinking.

 

They take my baby and they’re checking him. I asked somebody, probably my doula, “Can I get my phone?” And I decide-- this is 15 minutes after. I’m delivering my placenta and they’re stitching me up. I decide to take a video because I never wanted to forget that moment in my life. I decided to take a video. It’s a 15-second video and it’s basically just me, cursing at the doctors the whole time being like, “I told you, I could I effing do it. I am so effing proud of myself.”

 

Julie: Did you put that on Instagram in your stories? I am pretty sure we’ve heard it. I have seen that video. Is that how we met?

 

Mari: That is how we met. So, yes.

 

Julie: Oh, I love it.

 

Allie: I love that.

 

Mari: I think we will definitely share this video.

 

Julie: Yeah. I’m pretty sure we need to re-post or upload to our IGTV, or your IGTV. It’s probably on yours. Oh gosh, yes.

 

Mari: Oh my god, I know. It was amazing. A few months postpartum I decided to post just 5 seconds of me cursing instead of 15 seconds of me cursing, but I posted it. It blew up. I got so much support from women all over. January Harshe was in the comments defending me. Women, who are like, “Ew, why she cursing?” She was like, “That’s what you feel like!”

 

Julie: Exactly!

 

Mari: I was like, “Oh my gosh! I literally feel so good right now.” She’s a goddess! I was fangirling. You guys were shouting me out. Birth Hour was shouting me out. I was like, “Oh my god, I made it. I made it in the birth world! People know my VBAC story.” To this day, I still get DM‘s from having that full story on The Birth Hour.

 

That’s my story. Honestly, I think a lot about that moment. I’ve deemed myself a VBAC unicorn, so I created #VBACUnicorns to help us unite as women of strength who got through such a difficult experience. I want to celebrate being the unicorn that the doctors told us we couldn’t be.

 

Julie: I love it. I love it so much. I love the VBAC unicorn but also, it makes me feel sad. Let me explain though because it’s sad that it has to be such a rare thing. Such a thing that people don’t believe in, and such a thing that you’re looked at like some special creature after you have your VBAC. It’s amazing. It’s such a good feeling. You triumph and you have this victory over these providers, the naysayers, and your family or friends maybe who didn’t support you, and that’s a really powerful feeling, but it’s sad that it has to be that way. I don’t know. I just—does that make sense?

The unheard CBAC mom 

Mari: Oh, absolutely. It makes sense. It’s even sadder when you are advocating and helping women on their way to their VBAC and then when they end up having a Cesarean for one reason or another, it creates this distance between women who were on a journey together and suddenly, “my journey veered right and yours veered left.” There are all of these unsaid feelings and emotions around that.

 

I want it to be made very clear that if you’re listening to this and you end up having a CBAC or you’re listening to this because you had a CBAC, I want you to know, when you don’t get your VBAC, a Cesarean is not a reflection of how hard you worked, or whether you did the right thing or the wrong thing. You don’t need to have done anything wrong to have a Cesarean. Your body did not fail you. Use your “best friend voice” with yourself. You wouldn’t tell your best friend, “Your body is a failure. You failed.” So don’t use that terminology with yourself.

 

Julie: I think that’s really important. When I first became a doula, I thought I knew everything. Just like when, with my first pregnancy, going into my first birth. I thought I knew everything. I was so confident and I was like, “Yes. I am here to rule the world. I was made to do this.”

 

The more births I’ve been to, the more I realize that I am never done learning. Every birth that I go to teaches me something. One thing that I have learned is that a lot of birth is preparation and intuition, but a lot of it is also luck. Sometimes luck is not on your side and something happens. Sometimes it’s easy to see and we have answers. We can say, “Oh my gosh, yes. That’s what happened and that’s why I needed a Cesarean.”

 

Sometimes there are no answers. Sometimes it’s just bad luck and you have zero control over that. It’s really, really a hard place to be in when you did everything you possibly could or everything you even knew to do, and still end up with a repeat Cesarean.

 

I really want to segue into all of the things right now, but I’m not quite sure where I want to take this. Let’s talk about the CBAC mom and the unheard CBAC mom. What have you seen with that? I remember you told me a story before we started recording about one of your ICAN parents about after they had their CBAC.

 

Mari: Yeah. I facilitated a conversation between two CBAC mamas. One mama who-- around 37 weeks pregnant, due to her blood pressure, had to actually just get a C-section right away. She didn’t even get that opportunity to go through labor and she also didn’t get to labor with her first birth.

 

She cried out all of her feelings and she went for her CBAC and it was what it was, right? But she articulated feeling confident in her decision knowing this time around, having asked all the questions, understanding the benefits, risks, and alternatives. She felt empowered going into her CBAC. The mindset really helps in the process.

 

Versus another mother who was 42 weeks pregnant and had done all the things, and on her 42nd week, was walking into the hospital to have her Cesarean. She really tried until the bitter end. It was two months postpartum and she still hadn’t told anyone. She hadn’t talked about her birth. Obviously, we knew, because usually, like you were saying before, we start stalking them to see if they had their baby or not.

 

Julie: Yeah, we need closure.

 

Mari: We need closure.

 

Julie: Not to make it about us, because it’s not about us, but we wonder and are concerned.

 

Mari: Not at all about us, but because we want to hold space for them, right? Not so much because we’re like, “Did you get your VBAC? Let’s check the box.” But more so because we want to hold space for them. We know it’s a very delicate time and it’s something that you can’t hide. You know, everything else that happens to you is something you can hide, but a baby is something that is physically, outwardly-- it appears. You have people in your face and you’re also still processing, and you can’t hide anywhere. We all know. Your baby can’t be in there for 12 months, so we know you had your baby.

 

So I said, “Cara, listen. Are you going to come to the next ICAN meeting? I’m going to make it all about CBAC because I want everybody to be able to also process their CBAC.” A lot of our conversations in ICAN are about VBAC only because we are serving that kind of community and that’s the women coming in the door. It doesn’t mean that we don’t do education and support for a Cesarean birth and talk about birth trauma, but predominantly a lot of VBAC mamas come to our meeting.

 

And so, she genuinely thought that she wasn’t welcome back because she didn’t have a VBAC. I said, “Of course, you are welcome. We are first and foremost education and support for Cesarean birth. We are not first and foremost only for VBAC.”

 

But it really got me thinking that if that’s the impression that she got, how many other women who got their CBAC and therefore didn’t return to these spaces that before that were circles of strength for them and support?

 

We’re still all the same. We’re still mamas just wanting to advocate for our wants and desires for our bodies. But ultimately, every baby makes a decision of how they’re going to enter this Earth. And so, I think that’s what we all wanted to talk about.

 

Now I’m curious, I know Allie has been an active listener--

 

Julie: Yeah, I know. I was just going to ask her.

Processing a CBAC as a doula

 

Mari: Yeah. As a doula, Allie, how have you held space or how do you process throughout that when you’re dealing with your clients who have CBACs?

 

Allie: I think one of the biggest things that I took out of my VBAC Link training was sort of separating-- even just the acronym, VBAC, is full of outcomes. We are immediately defining outcomes. I think one of the most amazing things I got out of my training through VBAC Link was really breaking it down from that and understanding that there’s empowerment in any birth outcome. Any birth outcome can be a positive birth.

 

And so, when I’m working with clients and it’s becoming a CBAC, we do a lot of positive affirmations, and a lot of slowing things down, and bringing it all back to, “This isn’t a rush. We have time to process this stuff.”

 

Julie was saying earlier something about how when you started out as a doula and you had all these thoughts. It was like the same-- when I first started out as a doula, one of the first births I ever attended was a Cesarean. I was so nervous. We had labored for 40 hours and it was this whole thing. When the OB came in to consult with the midwife and with my client, I asked for everybody to clear the room. I turned out the lights and played their worship music, and just left the room and let them have their conversation.

 

She went for her Cesarean. Her epidural was garbage and they didn’t do a spinal, so she ended up under general. She didn’t see baby for five hours. I was with dad that whole time. She finally came out and I was just like, “This is the worst thing in the world.” And she was like, “This was the most beautiful experience. This was amazing.”

 

It was really just one of those times where it flipped something in my head to stop obsessing over outcomes and start obsessing over people’s feelings in the moment.

 

Like you said, you made a fear-based decision. I want to be supporting people in the moment to not be in that place in their mind that they’re going to that kind of decision making. I want to go back to your story though, Mari. One of the things that I really took away was the fact that you said, “I didn’t know anything my first time. I didn’t know anything. I watched these three YouTube videos and tried to compare at all,” but you did!

 

You knew so much because you knew when you felt like you were dying. And you knew what was not okay when they asked you, “Is there abuse at home?” with family members in the room. You knew so much. We know so much instinctually. And so, I think you need to give yourself some credit there. For sure.

 

Mari: Oh my god, Allie. You’re going to make me cry. You’re so nice, thank you.

 

Allie: I loved that part though when you said that, because I feel like as doulas and as birth workers, we don’t know a lot of stuff. I just peruse through The Birth Partner when I’ve got nothing else to do and I’m drinking my coffee in the morning, but there are also things that you can’t read in any book that are just instinctual to us. You had so much of that in your first birth.

 

Even though you had more, maybe “knowledge” behind you in your second, and you switched providers, and you knew how to advocate for yourself, and kept trying to find the person that was going to work for you, in the first you knew so much. You knew so much to actually take it to the next level and report people. I honestly-- I am in such awe of you. You’re such an inspiration. It was so wonderful to hear your story. Thank you for sharing.

“Everything Left Unsaid” project

 

Mari: Thank you for having me. This conversation needs to continue. I don’t know how you guys feel about this, because The VBAC Link is your platform, but you know to the mama hearing this and resonating with this story, I think we should all write that letter to either the birth we wished we had, or that letter to the unsaid things that weren’t said to that doctor, or throughout that experience so that we can release all that shame that we carry, and sometimes all that sorrow that comes with the outcome that wasn’t what you desired.

 

That way, it can allow us to focus on what we did know and what we did experience. I always try to remember, “Sorrow prepares you for joy.” We have to feel the sorrow and release it. I am personally going to write a letter that I’m probably never going to mail. But I’m going to write a letter to all those doctors who said I couldn’t do it. I do encourage women to do that. If we get a bunch of letters, I would love to read them all. It could be so healing.

 

Julie: We should do an episode where we just read letters that these women write to their doctors, but obviously don’t include their personal information or whatever. Oh my gosh, let’s do it. Let’s get back together.

 

Allie: I’m literally having a letdown thinking about this right now.

 

Julie: Obviously, we’re going to have to kick Meagan off the episode because she was not here for the decision. No, we’ll have you back Allie. We’ll have Mari back and we’ll have Meagan. Let’s spread across our platforms. Allie, you too, and Mari. Let’s ask women to email us their letters. They don’t have to include details. They don’t have to go through their personal information. They can even make up their own Gmail address that’s completely anonymous and send it to us. And we can read that letter.

 

So if you know me at all, then you know I love giving homework to my clients. I am giving homework to every single person listening to this episode right now and your homework is:

 

Write a letter of the things you wish you would have said, or wish you could say, to your provider’s face about how-- anything about your feelings about how your birth went.

 

About how the things that they said hurt you, or about how-- Meagan, after her birth, the first words out of her mouth after her VBA2C was, “Screw you, Dr. Blank,” because I’m not going to throw anybody under the bus, even as much as we would want to. She said, “Screw you, Dr. Blank,” who told her, “Good luck out there. Nobody’s going to want you.”

 

She just said, “Screw you.” Even if it’s just that short, then email it to us at info@thevbaclink.com or you can send it to us on Facebook or Instagram, or Mari-- any of her connections that we are linking down below. Get us the letters and we are going to do an episode where we read these letters. We’ll probably talk a lot about them too, to be honest.

 

Mari: Absolutely, absolutely. I see that being such a healing process because at the end of the day, everything left unsaid is going to keep festering inside of you. And you know, I just want women to live motherhood with joy, but there are so many things that keep us from our joy, so I love this. Thank you for collaborating with me on it.

 

Julie: Yes. “Everything Left Unsaid.” That’s all we’re going to call the episode. Not this one. This one is going to be called something else, but our episode where we read all the letters-- it’s going to be called “Everything Left Unsaid.” I’ll write my letter. Mari, you write your letter. Allie, are you a VBAC mom, or do you want to write a letter to anybody? Any provider? Your provider or providers maybe you’ve seen because there are a couple providers of births that I have attended that I would really like to write letters to. Do it.

 

Allie: Oh, I’ve definitely got ideas.

 

Julie: Done. Okay. Let’s ready, break. And then we will meet back-- let’s see. I’m trying to plan this out so that everyone listening now can know when this is going to be coming. Let’s see if I can actually block it out right now. It’s kind of far because we are recording, so we don’t have to record anything through the holidays. It would probably be the end of January, like January 20th. I’m putting it in my spreadsheet now.

 

It is officially known that January 20th, the episode that will air then shall be called “Everything Left Unsaid.” We will read all of the letters. Send them to Mari. Send them to me. Send them to Allie. Send them to Meagan. Get them to us anyway, however ways you want and we are going to hash it out.

 

Allie: I’ll make a box on my contact on my website and link it in my bio so you don’t even have to put an email address in.

 

Julie: Perfect. I’m going to figure out some way to do that on our end as well. (Inaudible) does our website right now. I don’t have to do it anymore and it makes me happy, but then I’m like, “Wait, how would I do that now?” Oh, “Everything Left Unsaid.” I love it. Oh my gosh, yes. This is going to be really powerful.

 

I’ve got a couple of things I’ve got to do to wrap up the episode. First of all, Allie, thank you so much for being my co-host. I’m so glad to have you on here and your insight, and we are going to be welcoming you back. Block it out, January 20th  everybody and then Allie, people in Canada. Vancouver. North Vancouver, right?

 

Allie: Yep.

 

Julie: How do they contact you?

 

Allie: Yes. So, I am on Instagram @nsdoula and nsdoula.com if you want to get in touch with me. Thanks so much for having me on. This was really amazing and Mari, again, thank you so much for sharing your story. It was just so wonderful and beautiful to listen to. I’m not lying when I say I think my bra is soaked. (Inaudible) no, I’m like, “Oxytocin!”

 

Mari: That’s hilarious. Thank you so much.

 

Julie: I love it. Again, echoing what Allie said. Mari, you are amazing. Oh my gosh, I am so, so glad that you made that video because that video has brought so many good things to the birth space and it’s even still doing good right now, and on January 20th, and whenever we record in January, and it’s powerful.

 

You are powerful and I hope that you, and every other person who has given birth by unplanned Cesarean, can look back and see that there is strength and find some strength in their story even if they don’t feel anything but miserable about it right now, because no matter how your babies are brought into this world, you are an incredible woman of strength and you did some really, really amazing work. We are all proud of you for that. So, Mari. How can people find you? Again, we are going to link everything to both of you guys in the show notes.

 

Mari: Absolutely. Well, thank you both so much for having me and for your kind words, both of you. I could be reached on my website, which is www.marivega.me, or on Instagram @mari_vega. And again, Facebook was Mari Vega Motherhood. Thank you so much for having me.

 

Julie: Perfect, and thank you. Again, guys, you can find that information in the show notes, and stay tuned. January 20th is the day. Send us your letters to any three of us or email them to info@thevbaclink.com.

Closing

Would you like to be a guest on the podcast? Head over to thevbaclink.com/share and submit your story. For all things VBAC, including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Julie and Meagan’s bios, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.

152 Liz's Surprise HBAC + Emotional Release

Can crying really help solve prodromal labor? Is it possible that an emotional release can suddenly turn manageable contractions into full-blown pushing? YES! 

 

Listen to our friend, Liz, share her incredible surprise HBAC story that will reinforce your confidence in the power of a woman’s ability to birth. Liz was prepared to birth at the hospital without her husband due to COVID restrictions, but her baby had other plans. 

 

She says, “I got to have my baby in this completely natural way that I didn’t even realize how much I needed. I went from having a birth where I had literally zero control, zero-knowledge, and everyone else telling me what to do, and then a birth where I caught my own baby, suction bulbed him, and walked out carrying him while he was still attached to me. It’s so incredibly empowering.” 

 

We also discuss specific ways to find fears within yourself and how to release them. 

There truly is physical power in just letting go.

 

Additional links

How to VBAC: The Ultimate Preparation Course for Parents

The VBAC Link Blog: How to Turn Prodromal Labor into Active Labor

VBAC Without Fear: Five Minute Fear Release Video

Natural Hospital Birth: The Best of Both Worlds by Cynthia Gabriel

 

Episode sponsor

This episode is sponsored by our signature course, How to VBAC: The Ultimate Preparation Course for Parents, that you can find at thevbaclink.com. It is the most comprehensive VBAC preparation course in the world, perfectly packaged in an online, self-paced, video course. 

 

Together, Meagan and Julie have helped over 800 parents get the birth that they wanted and they are ready to help you too. Head on over to thevbaclink.com to find out more and sign up today. 

Full transcript

Note: All transcripts are edited to eliminate false starts and filler words.

 

Julie: Happy Wednesday, women of strength. We are really excited for our story today, as usual. I don’t think we’re ever not excited about anything, really. But today we have a really cool story. We just love our friend, Liz. Her story is really, really exciting because it was an unplanned, unassisted home birth after Cesarean and I’m dying to hear all of the details of this story.

 

Liz is from Houston, Texas and she is the mother of two boys. Her youngest boy’s name is the same as my oldest boy’s name. I thought that was really, really cool. They have a dog and she’s a Montessori teacher. What is that like right now?

 

Liz: Oh my god, to add more stress to the situation, right? We are still doing it virtually right now and it’s pretty wild because, in Montessori, you’re teaching three different levels. Not only are you teaching three different levels, but then every individual child has their own path that they’re on. And trying to do that via Zoom-- it keeps you on your toes. But thank God I’ve been doing it for a while. It’s a good challenge. It’s keeping me busy.

 

Review of the week

 

Julie: Oh my goodness. Well, we can’t wait to hear your story, but before we get into it, I am going to read the review of the week. The review of the week this time is from Jill Dash. It’s actually a Google review. If you didn’t know, you can find us on Google. Just search for The VBAC Link and our business will pop up on the right side. You can click there and leave a review for us if you do not have Apple Podcasts. Or if you do, that would be awesome too.

 

Jill Dash on Google says, “I started listening to the VBAC Link about four weeks before my due date, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Knowing I couldn't have a doula at my birth or attend in-person birth classes, I was desperate for as much knowledge as I could gain from the internet. I listened to The VBAC Link on my nightly walks as I prepared for my own birth and was so inspired, encouraged, and comforted by hearing everyone's stories. I love how supportive Julie and Meagan are of their guests and of everyone's stories. There is so much to learn from this podcast! Thank you for existing.”

 

Oh, my gosh. Jill Dash, thank YOU for existing. Thank you so much for writing this Google review. I know we probably say it all the time, but when we get reviews— Monday, we get our podcast reviews, all of them in our inbox. Whenever you leave a review on Google, it pops up at that time you leave it in our notifications. It really does bring a smile to our faces. I know it has turned my day around more than once for sure. It makes the harder things about running a business like this a little bit more bearable when we get those really awesome reviews.

 

So thanks again Jill Dash and everyone else who has left a review. If you haven’t already, go ahead to Apple Podcasts, Google or even head over on Facebook and leave us a rating. Let us know how The VBAC Link is helping you on your birth journey or as a birth worker.

Episode sponsor

Julie: Do you want a VBAC but don’t know where to start? It’s easy to feel like we need to figure it all out on our own. That’s what we used to do and it was the loneliest and most ineffective thing we have ever done. That’s why Meagan and I created our signature course, How to VBAC: The Ultimate Preparation Course for Parents, that you can find at thevbaclink.com. It is the most comprehensive VBAC preparation course in the world, perfectly packaged in an online, self-paced, video course. 

 

Together, Meagan and I have helped over 800 parents get the birth that they wanted and we are ready to help you too. Head on over to thevbaclink.com to find out more and sign up today. That’s thevbaclink.com. See you there. 

Liz’s story

Julie: Alright. Well, you guys. I don’t even know enough details about this story to even start telling the story for her. I guess that’s a good thing, but I’m going to turn it over to Liz to start sharing her story with us. I am going to be sitting on the edge of my seat waiting to hear the details of this really exciting story. So go ahead and take it away.

 

Liz: Cool. I think it’s important to tell the highlights of the birth of my first son first. My older son is almost exactly two years older than my son who was just born. They’re two years and six days apart. 

 

With my older son, first, off he was “late”, which, as someone who’s been through pregnancy and birth twice now understanding that that’s no big deal, but when you’re in your first pregnancy, it can seem like the longest amount of time ever. I had an OB who seemed to be pretty pro-natural birth and then throughout the time of my pregnancy, it became more clear that she was not as supportive of that and letting things run its natural course as I was hoping.

 

I had found a doula who I think was really not much of a doula. She was a wonderful massage therapist but when it came to knowing me, having a relationship with me, giving me advice on anything, I didn’t really have that.

 

Meagan: This sounds like Julie‘s first doula. 

 

Liz: Yeah?

 

Julie: My husband calls her the most expensive foot rub I’ve ever had because she rubbed my feet for an hour in labor. I mean, she was great. She’s a nice person. She’s not a doula anymore. I think I was her last birth so she might have been like, “I’m out of here,” after that. 

 

Liz: It’s funny that you say that. I feel like this was kind of the end of the run as well. I’ll get more into it as I talk about my experience with my second son, but it’s one of those things that if you don’t have frame of reference, you’re like, “Well, I guess this is how it works,” if you don’t have a lot of other people that you can go and talk to. 

 

She had a lot of boundaries around being a doula in that I was only to see her one time and if my labor went over a certain amount of time then that would cost exponentially more. There was a lot of stress going on. 

 

Oh gosh, this was the other thing. It would cost more for her to come to my house first and labor with me at home and then go to the hospital with me as well, which was a pretty weird thing considering the fact that we lived down the street from each other. 

 

Meagan: I was going to say, was she in another super far away city? What?

 

Liz: No. We’re literally in the same neighborhood and we live in the medical district.

 

With that all being said, I didn’t have a lot of guidance. With my first son, I experienced a lot of— what I came to have found out as prodromal labor. Laboring at night, going through the whole process of contractions that feel very legitimate and have patterns, but then waking up in the morning and your body just going, “Well, it’s time to go back to work, right?” and slowing down again. 

 

That went on for a while until I went into what seemed like full-on labor. I’m texting my doula. She texted me back. We are talking about it and then get to the “five minutes for an hour” situation.

 

I go to the hospital and I am not even near ready to be even admitted. I don’t even think I was 2 centimeters. They sent me back home and they said, “Don’t even come until you are two minutes apart because you’re so close. You’re going to have lots of time.”

 

That was really good advice. Hours went by. They got closer. I’ll get into it more when I’m talking about my second birth, but these were totally manageable contractions. Were they contractions? Sure. Was I needing to moan through them or bend over? Not even close. I think that that’s notable.

Meagan: Did your doula give you any advice? Like, “Yeah, I think it’s time to go,” or “Actually, I think it would be beneficial to do this, this, and this and then reassess,” or anything like that?

 

Liz: No. She was very hard to get a hold of and you’ll understand why in a minute. It was just like, “Okay, we’ll go if you want to.” 

 

I go back and I am barely a 3 when they admit me. Once I get admitted, I text her and I’m like, “Hey I’m here. Ready for you when you’re ready to come.” And then she decides that now is the time to tell me that she’s in another birth.

 

Meagan: Okay, so not being totally honest along the way.

 

Liz: Right. With anyone, I try to consider that they’re coming from a good place, so she was probably trying to not upset me.

 

Meagan: Yeah, I could see that. But at the same time, being honest is good.

 

Liz: 100%. So the deal was, if this were to happen because this happens all the time as y’all know as people who work in the birth industry, you’d have backups, right? But instead of a backup doula, she sent one of her massage therapists which was awesome and felt nice, but this person didn’t have a lot of experience when it came to birth stuff.

 

I am actually backing up and remembering that I went into labor the day that they were going to induce me because I was “late”. We get to the hospital. Of course, all the checking in, everything, labor stalls like it totally does all the time. This is when I found out that my OB was really not on board because she goes, “We were already going to induce you today, so we might as well just start some Pitocin.”

 

Julie: What?!

 

Liz: “We might as well start some Pitocin because you’re not in full labor.” She then decides to tell me that she has to leave soon-- you guys are going to love this-- because she had to get her windshield of her car repaired.

 

Julie: Okay. Do you know what? I guess nothing because I am at a loss for words. I thought I had words, but I just don’t have words. That makes my skin crawl. It just makes all doulas look bad.

 

Liz: No, this is the OB, not the doula.

 

Julie: Oh shoot, okay.

 

Meagan: It’s just unique. This is the frustrating thing. Obviously, doulas and providers are all different, but this just happened the other day with a client of mine. I was going to her birth. She called her provider. Her provider’s phone went right to voicemail and was like, “Here, call this person. I am out of town.”

 

She was like, “I literally saw this person yesterday and she said nothing about this.” I don’t know why, but that frustrated me so much because as a doula, a provider, and a person on call-- I’ll just say, it’s hard to be on call, but at the same time it’s really important if you’re going to have that profession. It’s important to take it seriously. Be honest and open, not just not show up. Do you know what I mean? It’s just frustrating.

 

Liz: I think their thing is that when you’ve worked in a profession especially like healthcare for so long, you don’t even realize that it’s the other person‘s first experience with it. So you’re like, “Yeah well, I’m going on vacation because whatever”. Not excusing this, but more just understanding that this happened a lot to me. With nurses, even just the way people would talk about your birth and your experiences. It’s so new, fresh, and terrifying to you in so many ways and you’re not even on their radar.

 

Meagan: You’re like, “Listen this is my first time. These things are scary. I’ve never done this. It’s all new. Please talk in a gentle way.”

 

Liz: Right, totally. I did not know and this is not my bad, but just a new experience. I didn’t do all this research on all of these other things because it never occurred to me that they would happen. I never researched Pitocin and what that would do because I was like, “Oh, well I’m just going to have a natural birth with this doula and everything‘s going to be fine.” Which, yeah.

 

Pitocin kicks in and it’s terrible. The IV popped out of my vein and infiltrated my arm. I had all of the liquid going through my arm instead of into my vein.

 

Meagan: Were you just puffing up?

 

Liz: It was terribly painful. It made the contractions look like nothing. Everything goes terribly. I’m done. I’ve been in labor for a good amount of time now, probably 12 to 15 hours or something. Doula finally shows up and I’m at my peak. I’m already on Pitocin. I’ve already had this infiltration. 

 

Oh, and my OB told me that I only had a 40% chance of giving birth naturally because my son hadn’t dropped yet. There was so much stuff thrown at me. 

 

Meagan: What?! Because he hadn’t dropped yet? You weren’t even…

 

Liz: Yeah, it was bad. She got there and I was like, “I’m done. I’m done. I want an epidural. I’ve hit my peak.”

 

Anyhow, long story short, I had my son in the most common, over-told story like, “Goes into distress because that’s what happens all the time when this set of interventions gets thrown into play” and ended up with an emergency C-section which I never prepared for. I don’t think I was too emotionally broken by it because, at the end of the day, I just wanted everyone to be safe. He was there and it was wonderful, but I didn’t realize how painful a C-section is and I didn’t realize how completely unable I would be to walk and do things.

 

Notably, my husband was in a cast in his right arm at the time. I just did not have the support that I needed. So that’s that story. Kid was fine. Everything was fine, but it was very “meh” at the end of the day.

 

Meagan: Man, I am sorry that you had frustrating things like that. That’s just so hard.

 

Liz: I am grateful that everyone was okay. I’m grateful that— I don’t know. I mean, I could sit here forever and talk about how terrible and horrible it was. And it was. There were traumatic moments of it. And those-- I didn’t even realize I was so upset by it until I got very close to having the birth of my second son.

 

But what I can say, is that what was more important, is you should research every kind of possible situation that could happen to you and birth because so often, things could go in all of these different ways. I just wasn’t prepared and I didn’t have the support. I didn’t have anyone on my side. My dear husband just wants me to not be in pain, right? So he’s going to do anything I say.

 

Meagan: Right, yeah. This is something that we talk about on the podcast all the time because we share stories of all types. We share VBAC, CBAC, we share uterine rupture. We really share all types of stories. We have had people write to us and say that it actually upsets them that we share these stories. We talk about it and say that the reason we share these stories is because we want to prepare you in all the ways. So no, you don’t have to listen to this story at all, but it’s important because we also felt like we were there too. We didn’t plan on having a C-section. C-section wasn’t even in the midst of what we were imagining. I’m sure Julie didn’t plan on getting preeclampsia. That wasn’t her plan.

 

Julie: I was superwoman when I was pregnant until I wasn’t.

 

Meagan: Right. I also didn’t know the difference between a VBAC supportive versus a VBAC tolerant provider. There are so many things along the way that I think it’s so important that we research because we don’t expect them to happen to us. We hope that these things don’t happen to us, but they can. If we are prepared a little bit mentally-- not like we’re planning on that happening-- but if we’re prepared that it’s a possibility, then it doesn’t hit us like a freight train when it happens if it happens.

 

Liz: Right. It’s all about informed decision making too. You can 100% end up, not even attempting a VBAC, you can just decide, “Oh I want to have another C-section.” But to be able to go through the process of understanding what that means and what consequences, either negative or positive, come from that, it’s a peaceful way of understanding. I think that I was just like, “Oh, well I am young, I am hip. I am just going to have this baby.” 

 

There’s so much of motherhood from breastfeeding to discipline to everything. It doesn’t come naturally. You do need to reach out and talk to people and ask for support and learn all of these different ways because that’s how you can make the decision that you can feel okay with and feel at peace with.

 

Meagan: Exactly. I couldn’t agree with that better.

 

Liz: Oh, and the baby came. The end. Y’all want to dive into this crazy story?

 

Meagan: Let’s hear it.

 

Liz: Cool. I think everything about my second kid has been this exciting surprise. The irony being that probably a week before we got pregnant with him, we had just sat down and had this conversation about how we were going to wait another year and it wasn’t the right time right now. Then surprise! There he is.

 

So, a surprise pregnancy. I just kind of assumed, “Well, I had a C-section with the first one so I guess this one will be a C-section too. That’s nice because I can schedule it and I know when he’s coming. It’ll make teaching easier because I can say, ‘Oh this is when I’m going to take off and blah blah blah.’” 

 

It never even occurred to me. A few people had mentioned VBAC to me and I was like, “I don’t know.” I feel like I had kind of just given up on that whole idea of having that type of birth because everything just went so wonky with my first kid that it was like, “Well I guess that’s just not in the cards for me.”

 

But I did switch OB’s. The OB that I switched to was actually the woman who ended up doing my C-section for my other child because, as I mentioned earlier, my OB had to leave. So this other doctor swooped in at the last minute when things were actually going awry. My kid was not doing well and she saved his life. In the hour that I spent with her, I felt more connected to this woman than I had in the nine months that I had with my other OB.

 

Julie: That’s when you know you’ve met the right one.

 

Liz: Yeah. She was funny, we were joking around, she was holding my hand and she was just so in tune. I didn’t even know this woman. She randomly just walked in. So I sent her an email. I had to go through an actually kind of silly process to switch OB’s. It wasn’t as simple as saying, “I’d like this one now.” I had to get permission.

 

Anyhow, so I switched to her. I walked in and it was a totally different experience right away. She was the one who was like, “Do you want to try and go for a VBAC? Because you are a perfect candidate. You should do this.” And I was like, “Really?” She said, “Yeah!”

 

Well, I hadn’t really thought about that. So I went home, thought about it for a while, talked to some people and I was like, “Okay sure, yeah. Let’s do this. This doctor seems to think it’s a good idea so why not, right?”

 

I kept going through the pregnancy in a much more calm way thinking, “Okay, at some point I’m going to have to start thinking about this whole VBAC thing.” As we got closer, she started talking about how interventions are to be avoided the best we can to have a successful VBAC and how she wants me to stay on my feet for as long as possible. She wants me to labor at home for as long as possible. She wants me to start working on my squats and all of the stuff and I’m like, “Okay, okay. So no epidural, no Pitocin. That’s good. Okay,” and thinking about it.

 

I was at home and I stubbed my toe. My sweet husband— I was crying, “Oh, my toe hurts.” And my husband was like, “There, there.” And I go, “Oh my god. I have to hire a doula.” Because I realized that this man was not going to be able to support me enough through unmedicated labor.

 

Julie: That’s funny. That’s really funny.

 

Liz: I was like, “Nope. There, there is not going to work for me.” When I call epidural, I’m going to need someone to say, ”No.” So I started researching and then everything started clicking. I was like, “Oh my gosh. I have to have a relationship with this woman. She’s going to see me and my most vulnerable state. I should like her. We should agree on the same things fundamentally.” All these things that just didn’t even occur to me when I was looking for a doula the first time.

 

Then I met this super awesome chick named Jolie. We talked right away and both of us were like, “Oh, this is going to be great.” She had a lot of success with VBACs and I just loved her. Everything was wonderful. We met I think one time, maybe twice, and in one of those first or second meetings she mentioned, she was like, “Hey we are watching this COVID thing.” I was like, “Oh yeah, that’s a thing.” She was like, “Yeah. I don’t think it’s going to be a big deal especially because you are due in May. No big deal. But just so you know.”

 

Meagan: Little did she know…

 

Liz: Little did anyone know!

 

Meagan: I know, right?

 

Liz: She was like, “I’m sure this will all be taken care of, but you should know that in some states they are starting to limit hospital visitors. Just be aware of that.” 

So after a long discussion, we decided, as things got worse with COVID and especially in Houston. Actually, we didn’t even really get bad until July, but my husband and I decided that it would be better for him to stay home with our older son because I didn’t want someone else coming into our home and for Jolie to go to the hospital with me because I wasn’t going to be able to have both of them. And I was like, “If someone’s going to be with me while I am in labor, I love my husband, but I think I would rather have my doula.”

 

That was the plan. I’m trying to think. I was around 39 weeks and then I started having that prodromal labor again. Laboring patterns through the night every ten minutes, sometimes every eight minutes. It got down to five minutes. Wake up in the morning, nothing.

 

Meagan: Prodromal labor is terrible. We actually wrote a blog about it because a lot of people don’t even know about it. There are things you can do to help, but sometimes it doesn’t even help then. I’m sorry that you’ve had this twice.

 

Liz: It just makes you feel crazy because you’re like, “Okay, this is it. We should start really thinking about it. It’s going to happen tomorrow.” Then you wake up and nothing. But what ended up really happening is that yes there was some prodromal labor, but what was really happening is, it would seem as if it was stopping during the day, but really my contractions were spreading out so much that I wasn’t taking note of them. So I think really I was in labor a lot longer than I thought I was, which is why everything ended up happening the way it did.

 

So it would happen, I labor at night, wake up in the morning, and then it was Mother’s Day. It was Sunday. It was Mother’s Day. Over the night, I was having pretty strong contractions. Jolie had finally said, she goes, “Look. Don’t even text me or call me unless you have to moan through these contractions because at this point you’re just going to drive yourself crazy thinking, ‘Oh this is it. Let me text Jolie. Oh, now it’s not it. You’re going to be disappointed. Relax, and let it happen.’”

 

Oh man, guys. I almost skipped the best part. Whew! That would have been rough. Okay, back up. She came up around Saturday before Mother’s Day and she said, “Can you think of anything emotionally that is keeping you from maybe fully going into labor?” And I was like, “No I think I’m really good. I think I feel really comfortable and confident about all of this.”

 

She was like, “Why don’t you just take a long bath tonight and maybe find a way to let some emotional release happen? Maybe you watch a movie that always makes you cry or listen to a song or something like that.”

 

I went into the bath and when I was in the bath, I started talking to the baby. I was like, “Hey kiddo. It’s time. You’re ready, almost 40 weeks. You can come out now.” And through that conversation I told my husband, I said, “It felt like I was reciting a monologue, this memorized monologue of a character that wasn’t even me because it was so tucked away in my feelings that I didn’t even know I felt this way.” 

 

I started talking about how I didn’t know who this baby was and he was just this stranger who was coming in. I was so sad about losing my alone time with my older son and how we had gotten to a place where everything was so good with him. I had such a strong relationship with him and who’s this new kid who’s going to come in and mess this whole thing up? Is my kid going to be mad at me and resent me for having this other child? We finally figured it all out and now we’re going to start this whole process all over again. I just burst into tears in the bath, just crying, crying, crying, crying about it, and then went to sleep and started having pretty regular contractions.

 

I woke up the next morning for Mother’s Day and they kept going so my husband, my son and I had a picnic in the front yard while having contractions. I called my doula and said, “I think I am actually in labor now. I think it’s time to come over.” She goes, “Okay, well, I’m going to take my time.” I was like, “Yeah I’m not worried. We’ve still got time. No big deal.”

 

So she started to head over. I think it took her like an hour, an hour and a half to come over, nothing too big. We were sitting in my son’s playroom and I was building blocks with him and talking with him. I would stop and have a contraction.  I would lean over and I would moan through it and then get back to talking with my son. I go, “Oh Jolie, I have to tell you this story. I have to tell you. I think I figured out the emotional thing that was keeping me from going into labor. I told her the story about how I was just so sad about missing time with my kid and then I started crying to her.

 

Literally, right after I finished that story and wiped my last tear, I leaned over and went from having a 45-second contraction every four minutes to having a minute and a half long screaming, so intense contraction. My two-year-old came over to me and put his hand on my back and held my back while I was having the contraction. 

 

Then my water broke. It was like I finally let everything go and I said, “Okay, I think my water broke. It’s time to go to the hospital. These are getting closer.” It was like they were starting to speed up. 

 

I was like, “Let’s get ready to go. Let’s start packing things.” I tried walking to the bathroom and fell to the ground and was like, “Whoa. Something is different. This is wild.”

 

I was scared. It went from manageable contractions, not great, but I could deal with them to, “I can’t think straight, this is so painful. So I think I made my way to the bathroom after that next contraction. I reached in to feel what was going on and the baby’s head was right there.

 

Jolie was like, “We need to go to the hospital now.” I said, “We are not making it to the hospital.” She was like, “Oh, okay.”

 

So you know, doula. Not a medical professional. She’s like, “We need to call the EMTs. We need to get someone here.” They call them and I had two more contractions and then was crowning after that.

 

Meagan: Oh my gosh!

 

Liz: Yeah. My house was built in 1940 and I have this little tiny half-bath underneath the stairs that’s smaller than Harry Potter‘s bedroom. Jolie is somehow standing in there and my husband is off holding my kiddo who’s like, “Why is mommy screaming?”

 

I start pushing because here’s the thing. This was the labor that I knew existed out there in the world that when you’re ready to push, you have no other choice than to push. You don’t need anyone to tell you, “Hey it’s time to push now.” You know what to do.

 

My husband started repeatedly telling me that he loved me and I very kindly told him to shut the explicit up.

 

Julie: That’s when you know you’re getting close when the F-bombs start dropping.

 

Liz: Yep. I was like, “Don’t you talk to me.” Jolie was rubbing my back. I said, “Get your hands off me. Don’t touch me.”

 

I was on hands and knees. The EMT came in after my son‘s head was out and in, I think it was three pushes, baby came out. I caught him, then the EMT who— gosh bless them but they had no idea what they were doing. They were just so out of their element. They were like, “We are used to car crashes, ma’am. I don’t know what this is.” Oh, at one point he goes, “Ma’am just push.” I said, “Sir, I know that.”

 

Meagan: “Leave me alone. I know what I’m doing. You just sit there.”

 

Liz: “You just be there.” So he takes the baby and I’m like, “Hey can you pass him to me?” He goes, “How?” And I said, “Through my legs.”

 

I suction bulbed him. I rubbed him and Jolie was like, “Holy moly.” I was like, “I know!”

We are holding this baby and then it’s like, “Oh my gosh what do we do now?” Because I had no plan to give birth at home. I mean, I had Jolie there but no medical professional. I just got this baby. What are we to do now? And placenta is still in, blah blah blah.

 

So this is where, depending on who you ask-- It is so interesting guys, how many people have opinions on a birth that has nothing to do with them.

 

Julie: Oh my gosh. Say it again because that is so true. I just can’t even.

 

Liz: It’s fascinating. There was a picture that my doula put up of me from this birth that kind of went vaguely viral and I would have people talking about how irresponsible it was of me to have a VBAC at home, and that this was clearly planned by me and my evil witch doula. We were just trying to cheat the system, right?

 

Julie: Oh, girl. I got called a selfish cow on my YouTube video of my home birth.

 

Liz: Isn’t that nice?

 

Julie: Yeah. I think the same girl commented on Meagan’s video that court-mandated Cesareans are a good thing. That’s what she said on Meagan’s video.

 

Meagan: Yeah. She attacked my VBA2C. I swear she told me that I deserved to go to jail because I had my baby at a hospital.

 

Julie: People are just awful.

 

Liz: Yeah. It’s wild. It is wild. So we had that and then on the completely other end of the spectrum-- So I ended up going to the hospital after I had the baby because I want to make sure everything‘s okay. It’s a VBAC. I don’t know if everything is cool with me. I don’t know if everything is cool with the baby. The placenta is still in.

 

I got up and walked myself out of my house carrying my baby still attached to a gurney and that’s where my doula took this picture of me getting on there. I got him breastfeeding. I am lying on this gurney and the sun is bright. It’s Mother’s Day. It’s really cool, right?

 

Then, on the other end of the spectrum, this other person was commenting so much on this picture about how ridiculous it was that I would go to the hospital and how it was that patriarchy that had made me think that I need medical assistance blah blah blah. The point is, is that you can’t win. I am either irresponsible because I had a home birth or irresponsible because I went to the hospital. You know? It’s interesting.

 

Julie: Yeah. I feel you on that one, especially right now.

 

Liz: There’s no good choice.

 

So I went. Everything was fine and it was good I went because I had some tearage that I needed to get taken care of. But the point is, is that I had this accidental, Mother’s Day, COVID-19 home birth. The cool thing was that I didn’t have to pick between my doula or my husband because everyone was there. I got to keep my kid safe. 

 

I got to have my baby in this completely natural way that I didn’t even realize how much I needed. I went from having a birth where I had literally zero control and zero-knowledge and everyone else telling me what to do, and then a birth where I caught my own baby, suction bulbed him, and walked out carrying him while he was still attached to me. It’s so incredibly empowering and on Mother’s Day. It was so cool. It was so cool.

 

Meagan: So special. One that you won’t ever forget. That’s for sure.

 

Julie: Okay, I have got to ask though. Is that picture the one you attached to your story?

 

Liz: Yeah.

 

Julie: Okay. So if you want to see the picture, go to our-- Oh my gosh, I love it. I just opened it. Wow. Okay, if you want to see this picture which, trust me you do, go to our Facebook or Instagram pages. Search for The VBAC Link and look for her episode picture because wow. Like, wow. This is a really impactful picture.

 

Liz: It’s pretty cool.

 

Julie: I’m glad you shared it. Meagan, are you looking at it?

 

Meagan: No, I actually had just closed out of my thing so I’m going back in. As soon as you said that I was like, “I am going to find out.”

 

Julie: Well, we are just about out of time but before we wrap up and while Meagan‘s looking at the picture...

 

Meagan: Oh wow!

 

Julie: There you go. There it is.

 

Liz: We joke about how we want to frame it.

 

Meagan: Wow. Wow. I have chills. I have freaking chills. Oh, amazing. Look at your legs and the door, the patio steps. How awesome is that?

 

Liz: I know.

 

Julie: Yep. Oh my gosh.

 

Liz: It’s pretty cool. It’s pretty cool. Yeah, we want to frame it and put it in the bathroom he was born in so we can be like, “This was you.”

 

Julie: The look on your face-- It’s like the stillness and the peace but then clearly you just had a baby because of how your legs are and the patio steps and everything. There’s so much emotion and power in the picture.

 

Liz: Yeah, I love it. It is really good. I am so glad she caught it. I wasn’t even thinking about it. She just clipped it on my phone. When I got to the hospital later, I was looking through my phone and there was that picture. I was like, “Holy moly.” It’s a good one.

Emotional release

Julie: Well Meagan, do you want to do a really quick review on emotional fear releases?

Not even necessarily fear releases but just releasing emotions.

 

Meagan: Yeah. You experienced talking about these things. You said, “It was like I didn’t even know. I said it and it changed everything.” Sometimes we don’t think. Like you said, “No I’m fine. I’m good. I feel good about this.”

 

But sometimes there are other things. I had an experience with a client of mine who’s actually on the podcast as well. She is a VBA2C mom. She had started a podcast for stories of C-section birth. She’s had two of them. She feels inspired that C-section moms need to be able to share stories as well. 

 

Anyways, so she’s in labor, her water breaks and nothing happens. The next day, nothing happens. The next day, nothing happens. I mean, she’s contracting on and off, here and there. It’s been three days with her water broken. She’s being monitored very closely by a skilled professional midwife and she even did dual care in a hospital. Everything was going great. 

 

The weird thing is she would start contracting, start contracting, start contracting, and then it would stop. Then she’d start contracting again, stop. We are like, “What is going on?” The midwife said that she could feel the tension in her cervix. Like, actually feel it. She sent her home and everything and she’s like, “Come over. Just come be with me.” I was like, “Okay.” We go over and she is talking a lot about her podcast. She’s like, “Well if I have a vaginal birth then how can I have a podcast for C-sections?”

 

I was like, “Whoa whoa whoa. You can absolutely have a podcast for C-sections.” She’s like, “Yeah but then they’ll probably think I’m not really supportive because I chose to have a VBAC.” She started like going over what is in her head. I was like, “Okay. Let’s hold up.” 

 

I got some paper and we started writing things down. I said, “Write down all your thoughts.” So we wrote them all down and then we solved them. If that makes sense.

 

We solved each of them. Right after she read them and we solved them, she burned them right there. On hands and knees, she burned them in this pot on her floor. Her, her mom, and I. We were all just gathered around her. 

 

It was so interesting. After each piece of paper that she burned, her contraction would pick up. And not just happen, like intensity. So after we processed all of this, it really seriously did make a big difference. She went on and she totally rocked her VBA2C after five days of labor but there was a lot that she needed to let go emotionally and physically to allow this baby to come. 

 

I also had an experience myself. There’s actually a picture of my midwife hugging me and talking to me. She’s like, “You’ve got to get out of your head. You’re going to be okay. Stop doubting yourself.” She kept saying, “Stop doula-ing yourself.” I’m like, “Oh okay.” I got out of that space and things changed. 

 

You processed this thing that you weren’t super thinking about all the time, but obviously, it was there. Your subconscious was thinking about this and then it changed everything.

 

I think that the more you can work through things, fear release before you enter birth, the better. But know that it’s okay to work through it during labor too. It’s okay to stop and let labor go if that makes sense. Let it just be and then process what’s going on. Talk about it. That’s another reason why it’s so important to have people in your birth space that you trust, can discuss and talk about because once you discussed this and you said it out loud, to the point where someone was listening, boom. Things went from 0 to 90 it sounds like.

 

We talk about it in our course and we talk about it with our clients because it’s important. There are tons of ways you can do it. Like I said, you can burn them. Julie has a video on our YouTube, right? It’s on YouTube, not Instagram stories right? Or maybe it’s on both.

 

Julie: Yeah. Well, I think it’s on Instagram stories or IGTV and on our YouTube Channel, The Smokeless Fear Release. But notice, it’s only smokeless if you are only burning a small amount of paper because one time we did it in a class at my house. There were six people burning their papers and we totally set off my smoke alarms still.

 

Meagan: Yes. So there’s that, writing it down. In our course, we have a fear release activity that we do where we try to figure out where the stem of the fear is coming from because sometimes there’s a lot of static and it seems like it’s so much more than it really is. If we can break it down and find the stem, or the root I should say after last year, then all the little leaves on the fear tree don’t seem so big. Don’t we have a free download, Julie, on our blog?

 

Julie: I don’t think we have the fear release worksheet as a free download.

 

Meagan: Oh, maybe we don’t. Darn it. I was going to say, “We have one to download.”

 

Julie: It doesn’t have to be anything formal. You can just write down your feelings. Write down all the things that are on your mind. Just write and write and write. It doesn’t have to be perfect writing. It doesn’t have to be punctuated correctly. It doesn’t even have to be legible. Just write it down on paper. Don’t even go back and reread it. Write it down, then burn it or flush it down the toilet or-- probably rip it into small pieces before you do that-- or bury it, throw it into a river, shred it and toss it into the wind, or something to get rid of it. There’s a lot of power in doing that.

Q&A

Meagan: We have some questions that I would love to ask you. We did go over maybe what some of the answers would be, but the first one is, what is a secret lesson or something that no one really talks about that you wish that you would have known ahead of time? What we just said pretty much covered that. You didn’t know all of these things, but is there anything you’d like to add to that?

 

Liz: Read the books. It’s a happy medium between making yourself crazy by hearing a bunch of different stories that could go wrong and just understanding the scope and sequence of birth.

 

Meagan: Right. Totally. The other question is, what is your best tip for someone preparing for a VBAC? We personally love this answer that you wrote down, but I love every single one of them. What would you say?

 

Liz: Listening to The VBAC Link religiously and I can’t-- Oh, I know how I found you. I had to think about it for a second.

 

Meagan: Yeah. How did you find us? We love learning how people find us.

 

Liz: It all just came from a hashtag. I started getting really into it. I got onto Instagram and started looking at VBAC as a hashtag. Y’all are right up there at the top.

 

Julie: Boom.

 

Liz: You have all your little tips and I was like, “Who are these people?” I think I started following you and reading the stories. At some point, I saw a picture and it was like, “Listen to so and so‘s birth story.” I hopped on over. It was perfect timing with COVID happening. There was all this time to walk around and listen to podcasts all of a sudden. So that’s how it happened. 

 

I would say, do that. I would say, find a book that resonates with you. There are lots and lots of different books that give you all kinds of advice. The one that I really loved and worked for me really well was-- I can’t remember who wrote it-- but it was Natural Childbirth in the Hospital or something to that extent. It talked about how to have a birth without medicine in the hospital. It was really cool.

 

Meagan: I am looking it up right now. Having a natural birth at the hospital does that sound--

 

Liz: That sounds really really familiar, yeah.

 

Julie: I think it’s Natural Hospital Birth or something.

 

Liz: That’s it.

 

Meagan: Natural Hospital Birth: The Best of Both Worlds by Cynthia Gabriel.

 

Liz: The coolest thing about it is that it’s a workbook in a lot of areas. It has you do this thing that was so helpful to me. It had you write down your dream birth. Not like your dream reasonable birth, but your dream if space and time didn’t exist. You could do fantasy kind of things. Like, “Oh, well here you are in Arizona during the early birth.” Then when you’re transitioning, you were here. This music’s happening. I got to write down this crazy, ridiculous could never actually happen birth, like my ideal birth. 

 

Going through that process I was able to find things that I could actually take into real life that would be important for me to experience during birth. I thought that was really cool.

 

Megan: I love that. I need to read more books. Sometimes I am just like, “Man.” You guys, I swear I just can’t read.

 

Julie: We all know that you don’t like to read by now, I think, and it’s okay. You don’t have to like to read. That’s what podcasts are for.

 

Meagan: I know. I know I just can’t do it but you learn such valuable things.

 

Julie: You know, I used to love to read. I buy books and I intend to read them, but now by the end of the day, kids are in bed, I crash and I’m like, “Reading is too much work.”

 

Liz: Book on tape, book on tape.

 

Meagan: Yeah, I do listen. I do listen to that and I cycle. So I sometimes will listen to books that way. It’s kind of nice. But yeah. Oh, another thing you added on that was fitness and good health. I love that. I am a big advocate for that. I’ve seen a big difference in my own births because of that.

 

Liz: That’s huge. I think that’s one of the amazing things that COVID contributed to because again, I had all this time now. It happened in this beautiful time in Houston where it actually was great weather. It was not hot in March when all this started. I was going on two hour walks every day with my two-year-old all around the park. That was so incredibly important to having a successful VBAC.

 

Meagan: I love it. Yep. With my first pregnancy, I gained 42 pounds and was really swollen. I was a hot mess. With the next one, I really dialed into nutrition, fitness, and all that stuff. I didn’t have a VBAC with that but I don’t think it was because of anything. I think that my all-around pregnancy and everything was so much better because of where I was at.

 

Liz: Yeah. I gained 50 pounds with my first so I hear you girl.

 

Meagan: Yeah. It’s funny. I have people in my neighborhood-- They didn’t know me when I was pregnant with my first. They’ve seen pictures and they’re like, “You’re unrecognizable.” I am like, “Yeah. I know. I was an Oompa Loompa.” But yeah. 

 

Well, awesome. Thank you so much.

 

Liz: Thanks guys, it was awesome talking to you.

Closing

Would you like to be a guest on the podcast? Head over to thevbaclink.com/share and submit your story. For all things VBAC, including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Julie and Meagan’s bios, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.

151 Gretchen's VBAC + Prenatal Anxiety

“A lot of people have the idea that if you’re in therapy or if you’re using extra help, then it’s a weakness and it’s not. It’s a strength. It really is. It’s okay to need support and to need help.”

 

Gretchen is a licensed professional counselor, a marathon runner, and a mom of two boys from Marietta, Georgia. She also has battled severe anxiety throughout her life. As Gretchen shares her unique obstacles from both of her pregnancies and births, her story is sure to be a message of inspiration and hope. 

 

Throughout her birth journeys, Gretchen experienced unexpected stressors like infertility, medical complications, and a pandemic that threatened to let her anxiety take over and win. But Gretchen didn’t let it. She chose to strengthen herself and made a plan. Through bi-weekly therapy, education, and a powerful birth team, Gretchen found the support she needed to stay well. She trusted her intuition, found her courage, and had a victorious VBAC, confirming to herself something she already knew-- that she is stronger than her anxiety.

 

We get very vulnerable in this episode as we talk about the importance of asking for help and how much we all need extra support, especially in the birth space. 

 

Additional links

Antepartum Depression Blog

Better Help Therapy

 

Episode sponsor

This episode is brought to you by Nourisher. Whether you are in the prenatal, postnatal, or nursing stage of motherhood, Nourisher bars have your nutrition covered without sacrificing flavor. Their delicious flavors include Blueberry Coconut, Chocolate Banana, Maple Walnut, Papaya Turmeric, Spirulina Ginger, and Strawberry Rosehip. Check them out at thevbaclink.com/go/nourisher.

Full transcript

Meagan: Hello, hello. It is Wednesday and you’ve got Julie and Meagan with you today. We’re so excited as usual. I don’t feel like we’re ever not excited to be recording. 

 

Julie: We’re kind of a happy couple of people. 

 

Meagan: We are, and it’s so fun to get to know all these people from all over the world. Today we have our friend, Gretchen. She is going to share her story. She’s actually from Georgia. Is that correct, Gretchen?

 

Gretchen: Yes. Marietta, which is a suburb of Atlanta. 

 

Meagan: Yes. So, she is going to share her story with us today. I want to tell you a little bit about her. She calls herself an “old mom”. I don’t think she’s old. I do not think she’s old. 

 

Julie: Um, we’re the same age, Gretchen, and I also feel old. 

 

Meagan: No! You guys are not old. But anyway, she’s got two boys. One is two months and one is two years. She’s actually a licensed professional counselor but has, of course, been wanting to be a mom. She’s been taking some time off. We’re excited to hear her story and if you guys have not seen this amazing picture of her, please go to Instagram right now @thevbaclink and check it out. It is so awesome. It gives me the chills. Go check it out and let us know how it makes you feel. 

 

The raw photos after birth or right as birth happens are so amazing. A lot of people are like, “Oh, I was so ugly crying.” And when I say that, that was me. I said that. I was like, “I’m such an ugly crier.” But I love it. I love it because it is so true and raw. It gives you the feeling of what that moment felt like. This is definitely one of those images that I just feel it. But Julie has a review of the week of course so we want to pass the time over to her and then we will get into Gretchen’s awesome story. 

Review of the week

Julie: Yeah. We’ve been reading a lot of reviews from Apple Podcasts lately. So I’m going to take it back to Google this week. Most podcast apps don’t allow you to write a review, except for Apple Podcasts. So if you don’t have Apple Podcasts, go and Google The VBAC Link. Our business will pop up right there. You can leave a review on Google for us. That’s pretty awesome because when those reviews come in, it really makes our day. It brings a smile to our face and it helps us push through the screaming children and the hot chocolate all over our counters and the little pieces of cut-up paper on the floor and the parmesan cheese mixed up with cocoa pebbles thrown all over the couch. I mean, hypothetically here. 

 

Meagan: Yeah, that doesn’t happen at my house. Julie’s kids-- I don’t even know. 

 

Julie: I don’t know if they’re smart, if they’re super problem solvers and figure out how to get what they want, or if they just want to live on the edge…

 

Meagan: Every time you send me pictures I’m like, “Holy cow.” Like, whoa. They’re fun. 

 

Julie: My kids are not well-trained. That’s probably it. Okay, so my oldest, when he was 20 months old, when I was pregnant with my VBAC baby-- he figured out how to move a chair over to the countertop, climb on the chair, climb on the countertop and climb up on top of the fridge to get the Halloween candy down. He wasn’t even two yet. And now my current two-year-old is climbing up on the fridge. Anyways, holy cow, that was a big digression. You guys, it’s been a rough day at my house. Let’s just get on to the warm and fuzzies, shall we? 

 

Alright, this is from Hayley Killpack on Google. She says, “The VBAC link made a world of difference for me in achieving my successful VBAC!! Because of the VBAC Link, I was able to arm myself and feel completely confident in my choices for MY birth. I was able to determine that my hospital midwife was only VBAC tolerant and made the switch around 28 weeks to a VBAC supportive midwife at a birthing center. I listened to every single episode as I prepared for the birth of my second baby after a very traumatic first hospital birth. With the knowledge, I gained, and the support I felt, I was able to achieve my unmedicated VBAC water birth just over one month ago! Thank you Meagan and Julie for supporting, caring, and providing us the information and tools to have a successful VBAC! I now feel like the woman of strength that I am, and knew I always could be!!”

 

Yes! I love that so much. Thank you, Hayley Killpack, for giving us some warm and fuzzies to get us through the terrorist childhood days. Mine. Meagan’s are obviously angels. 

 

Meagan: Mine are definitely not angels, but man. I don’t have cocoa powder all over my house. 

 

Julie: Yeah, that was awesome. It was a good day. I need to lock the pantry. We have a lock on our pantry and the fridge for these reasons but sometimes we leave them unlocked and it’s like a spidey sense. They just know. They just know when the pantry’s unlocked. 

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Gretchen’s story 

Meagan: Okay, Ms. Gretchen. We are going to turn the time over to you. We don’t want to take any more of your time rambling because we tend to do that. We just have so much fun. Let’s hear your awesome story. 

 

Julie: Yeah, I’m excited for this one. 

 

Gretchen: Okay. Well first, thank you for having me. I’m really excited to be here. I drove 40 minutes to my chiropractor throughout my pregnancy and I listened to The VBAC Link every time I went every week. This was an instrumental part in my pregnancy. So I’m really excited to be here. 

 

I guess I’ll start with my C-section baby, my first baby, and that journey. My husband and I got married in 2013 and in 2015, we decided we wanted to start a family. I stopped the birth control pill and I didn’t get a period. We were kind of puzzled and scratching our heads as to what was going on. After a thorough workup by several doctors-- I was very into athletics at the time. I was running marathons and I was doing fitness competitions. It was concluded that I had something called hypothalamic amenorrhea, which is basically the absence of a menstrual cycle due to an energy imbalance. You know how you hear that gymnasts don’t have their menstrual cycles or things like that? 

 

Meagan: Runners, gymnasts, yep. 

 

Gretchen: Right, yep. So, to make a long story short, it was a two-year process to get me to respond to an ovulation induction medication. It also involved the opposite of what you hear from most modern medical advice, which is to lose weight and move more. My treatment was to move less and gain weight which was very interesting and kind of an odd place to be when you’re trying to conceive. You know, you always think, “The more active I am, the healthier I am.” In my case, that was not true. 

 

My hormones were absolutely a wreck. I had post-menopausal estrogen levels. It was really unhealthy, but I had no clue because I was on the pill for so long. 

 

We took a good two year period to get my body in a healthy place and responding to an ovulation induction medication. I should also mention, we had also tried an injectable cycle with a reproductive endocrinologist, but it became apparent that until I was really healthy, I wasn’t going to respond to medication and I really wanted to get well before I was pregnant anyway.

 

That was a really, really painful time. The biggest piece of that that I really want to touch on was, I’ve always battled anxiety and I was always on an SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) to manage that anxiety. I decided to stop that when I decided to get pregnant. That was a really challenging time because I didn’t have the therapeutic benefit of medication which had always helped me. Then I had the infertility. So it was a really challenging two years. 

 

This was kind of a “Hail Mary” pass to try this medicine. On the second cycle, I peed on that stick and there were two lines. We just couldn’t believe it. We were over the moon, thrilled. That was 2017 when we got pregnant. 

 

Everything was fine with that pregnancy. It was pretty uneventful up until our anatomy scan. At our anatomy scan, it was discovered that my son had a kidney abnormality. If you can imagine going from two years of infertility to everything being fine, to then this gut punch at your anatomy scan that something is wrong. It was really, really scary and really hard. 

 

We were referred to the high-risk doctor. And my son is fine. So, looking back now, I’m grateful for the care that I got, but it’s terrifying. You’re a first-time mom. Pregnancy is scary in and of itself. I’m anxious as all get-out and now I have this baby with a problem that I don’t know anything about. It was a really hard pregnancy. 

 

I think I had a total of about nine ultrasounds, which, that’s a lot of ultrasounds. It was, like, hyper-monitoring of this baby. So every time I would go to the doctor, my husband would come to the appointments. It was like, on pins and needles, “Is he okay?” And looking back, I probably was overly concerned, but I also had no basis of reference. It was just really scary. The whole pregnancy was very stressful. 

 

I got to 39 weeks on the button and my water broke at home. You always imagine your water breaking like the movies. For me, it was not like that. It was a little trickle. I called the OB and they said, “Well, go to the hospital.” I was having no contractions. I felt nothing. 

 

I should mention, I was supposed to be induced three days later. Due to his kidney, they wanted to induce me. Looking back now, I wish I wouldn’t have agreed to that, but it didn’t matter because my water broke at 39 anyway. I get into triage and they check me in. It was kind of like everything that could have gone wrong went wrong which led to the C-section. 

 

I had a hospitalist come in and check me. I think I was dilated to a 2. But you know the doctors that are just cold? I don’t even think the man introduced himself before he was giving me a cervical exam. 

 

Meagan: Just no bedside manner?

 

Gretchen: None. And I was so scared. I just was so scared anyway. I was so hyper-vigilant. I had no clue what was going on. It was really scary. 

 

So I get in there and I’m not dilated but they got me on the monitor. Next thing I know, I started to feel lightheaded. I told my husband, I said, “Go get the nurse.” And he said, “Well, I don’t know where she went.” I said, “Go find her.” I started seeing stars. My blood pressure tanked. I had a vasovagal syncope. I think it was a combination of the anxiety, the situation, the broken water because I knew enough to know you’re kind of on a clock when your water breaks. I felt like everyone was really just over-monitoring me anyway, which made me more stressed, which was the last thing I needed. 

 

My blood pressure got really low and so the monitors went off. Baby’s heart rate got down to 60 or 70, I can’t remember, but enough that the monitors were really going off. Next thing I know, there’s like, four nurses in the room and they’re rolling me to get blood flow back to the placenta. It was really alarming. 

 

It happened again. My OB was paged so she was able to come in. She said, “What do you want to do? Do you want to do a C-section or do you want to try and labor?” 

 

At that point, I wasn’t really thinking clearly because I had just had these two episodes of syncope. My dad’s a retired physician and I called him. I was in Florida at the time and he was in California so it was 4:00 a.m. for him. I called and said, “What do I do?” He said, “Get that baby out.” 

 

I don’t regret that decision because my son’s heart rate was very alarming. I think with everything that had gone on, it was the right decision to have the C-section. But when he was delivered, I couldn’t hold him. There was no skin-to-skin. He was taken right away. It was the most helpless feeling being on that table. It was nothing I had imagined. I was thrilled he was born but I felt really sad and detached in that moment. It was just not the birth I had always envisioned. 

 

He’s amazing. I have a wonderful, beautiful two-year-old little boy. But it was a really hard two years to get pregnant. It was a really hard nine months being pregnant and it was a really hard delivery. 

 

That being said, we knew we wanted to have kids kind of close together. The good news was, my menstrual cycle returned after I weaned him which was really cool because my body had finally healed. I had this baby and I was menstruating normally. It was a really great feeling. But my cycles were still irregular, so I used ovulation induction medicine to conceive my VBAC baby but for a different reason. Just because my husband travels and when you’re trying to get pregnant with a partner who’s not here, it’s hard to tag things. 

 

We had moved to Atlanta. We moved from Tampa, Florida to Atlanta when my son was right around a year. We decided to start trying when he was 13 or 14 months and it took us two cycles. It was pretty quick. Again, in my head, it would take longer because we had such trouble the first time. I’m like, “Oh, we’ll have a good three-year gap.” It wasn’t. It was like, right away. 

 

And so, we got pregnant. It was really exciting. It was, again, pretty uneventful. But I want to mention too, that I did a lot of work on my anxiety and my birth trauma prior to getting pregnant. I worked with a therapist weekly. Being a clinician myself, I recognize the importance of doing that. I was really diligent about trying to heal before getting pregnant again. I knew when I got pregnant again that I wanted to try to have a vaginal birth, but I was concerned my anxiety would hold me back from that just because it had been such a hindrance on things in the past. 

 

I got pregnant and I had found a good OB the summer before we conceived. I liked her a lot. I felt like she listened to me. I felt a lot more heard than I ever had at the Florida practice. She was young and I felt she was pretty up to date on things. She was very open to VBAC which surprised me, especially from hearing all of your podcasts about Georgia providers. She was very open to it. She’s like, “Of course,” which really shocked me. 

 

Julie: I wonder if you had the same one as Grace Allen. Because I’ve only ever heard of one VBAC supportive provider in Atlanta. 

 

Meagan: Me too. 

 

Gretchen: Not only was she supportive, but she was encouraging because there had been times I had come in and I’m like, “I don’t know if I want to do this.” And she goes, “No. You’re going to see what your body can do.” She was super encouraging. She was laid back, but in a good way if that makes sense. She was laid back to the point that it made me laid back which helped me not be so terrified all of the time. 

 

She even said she goes, “Gretchen, when I was in residency, we had women who had two C-sections VBACing. You’re fine.” She was really, so supportive. It was amazing. So, she had put that right away in my chart when I came in that I wanted to VBAC, which I felt really great about because I felt like I really had a good person supporting me.  

 

I had a pretty uneventful pregnancy up until the pandemic which hit. I’m like, “Really? The first baby, I had this kidney issue and now there’s a pandemic.” But I’m like, “I’ll have a story to tell these boys one day.”

 

Meagan: If you only knew the times, the things that were happening. 

 

Gretchen: Right. I remember I went to see my parents in California in February. I remember this coronavirus being all over China in February and thinking, “Oh, well it’s over in China. We’ll be okay.” Then I get home and it was everywhere. It was really alarming. 

 

I was working with my therapist and at that time, they didn’t have any data on COVID in pregnant women. The data that they did have was very limited. It was only that one China study. I don’t know if you remember back in the spring. It was on, I think, 19 women in China and they had all had C-sections. So it was a really limited amount of data. My therapist, I was still seeing via telehealth from Florida and he was really up to date. He was continuing to provide me research on the data and really trying to put my mind at ease. 

 

But when COVID hit, I increased my therapy to about twice a week which I think also really helped. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to talk about this was, pregnancy makes my anxiety heightened anyway and then you add a pandemic on top of it. It was a lot of work to manage it. And it is work. Because it is a condition I couldn’t use therapeutic medication for. So I had to do extra talk therapy to keep myself healthy. I did that to the best of my ability.

 

But it was really alarming and it was really scary because it was so unknown. So we did grocery pickup. We didn’t really go anywhere. My husband worked from home which was lucky we could do that but it was a challenging time because it was just so unknown. At that point, I don’t know if you remember too where I didn’t know if I would have to give birth alone, which, the thought of that was daunting because at that time they were pulling partners out of delivery rooms. Do you remember that back in, I think it was March when it started?

 

Meagan: Yep. April in New York and things like that. 

 

Gretchen: I told my husband, I said, “What do we do if I’m by myself?” And he just said, “One foot in front of the other. We’ll figure it out.” 

 

I did know from the beginning that I did not feel comfortable with a home birth. Not because I didn’t think I could do it but I had thought I was too anxious and for me, I wanted fetal monitoring. I know some women, the monitor makes them feel worse and for me, I said, “If I have any priority to VBAC, I want a monitor,” because it made me feel more secure. 

 

So I said that a hospital setting, for me, was going to be part of my birth plan. I said, “Well, we’ll just keep going and hope for the best.” I had had a friend that had delivered in April and she had a really good experience at the hospital I had delivered at. At that point, her husband was there and I don’t even think she had to wear a mask. So I was feeling positive about the experience that I could have there because I had heard nothing but good things about this hospital.

 

Everything was moving along smoothly. Then I talked to a friend of mine from Tampa who was a NICU nurse. I think I was maybe 35 weeks at this point. She had told me how she elected for-- her first baby was breech. She had elected for a repeat C-section and she told me some scary things about uterine rupture and I understand why. It’s her experience but it really scared me. I felt like I should just back out and I should have a C-section because there’s no way I could do this. Not because I didn’t think my body could do it, but because I thought my anxiety would hold me back.

 

I reached out to Julie and she really helped me through that. I realized it was really that mental hurdle of getting over that because I was just scouring the internet on uterine rupture. Then I listened to your podcast on statistics of uterine rupture which really helped putting it into perspective. I think it was you, Meagan, that gave all the statistics about it, right? And looking at how you’re more likely to date a millionaire than have a rupture. Is that what the statistic was?

 

Meagan: That’s totally Julie. I probably did read it but that was totally Julie who put that together. 

 

Gretchen: Okay. Julie, maybe you had read it. 

 

Meagan: She is the statistic guru. 

 

Gretchen: Yeah. So that really helped put in perspective what are my true risks. Then also looking at what are the risks of a Cesarean because no one had ever told me the risks of Cesarean. In fact, every doctor I had talked to prior to my current provider...

 

Meagan: ...only probably talked about the risk of VBAC. 

 

Gretchen: Well they made Cesarean seem really safe. No one had ever told me that it may not be. 

 

Julie: Yes. Oh my gosh, yes. They make Cesareans seem really safe. I don’t think I’ve ever heard it said that way before. But no, that’s what they do. They do. 

 

Gretchen: Yeah. It was baffling to me. Once I got closer to the time of my delivery, I felt this little tug-of-war in my head. Up until that third trimester I was like, “I’m going to VBAC. This is going to be great.” As soon as that third trimester hit, the anxiety really kicked in. Every other day I felt like I was going back and forth. 

 

My therapist was really advocating for me to VBAC. He put it in perspective. He knew how many children I wanted. He said, “This is your chance. If you want to do this, this is the time to do it,” and really put it in perspective for me which was so helpful. And then I talked to Julie which was so helpful. So it was like I continued to arm myself with people and information to help encourage me to keep going. 

 

I worked with my husband to come up with a plan of where our two-year-old was going to go when we delivered because our original plan was to have my parents come be with us but they could no longer come because my parents are high risk and couldn’t travel. My mother-in-law ended up getting COVID tested and driving from Pennsylvania to Georgia in one day to come take care of my two-year-old. 

 

Julie: Aw, bless her heart. 

 

Gretchen: Yeah, it was pretty wonderful because of everything going on. She was able to come. She kind of stayed the last half of July. I was due July 20th. She came the 15th through the 1st and figured I’d deliver at some point in that time frame. 

 

So, she came and I honestly thought that I would go into labor before 39 just because I did with my son and I had heard that second babies came sooner, which is not true by the way as I’m sure you guys know.

 

Julie: I feel you on that one.  

 

Gretchen: I think I was 39 and 5. My doctor had offered to strip my membranes early, I think at 38 and I said no. Then when I went in at 39 I was dilated to a 3. I think it was a 2 or 3. I can’t remember. At that point, I was okay with it. You know when you’re just so done being pregnant? I didn’t feel good. I was exhausted. It was so much harder than the first time because I was chasing my two-year-old around. I said that it was fine. I was okay with that. I know that’s a controversial intervention but I felt comfortable with her and I said, “That’s fine.”

 

So she stripped my membranes on Friday. I came back on Monday and on Monday I was dilated to a 4. And I think then she stripped me and I was a 5 when I left there. Or something like that, which was pretty good. I was walking around at a 3 or a 4 for a few weeks, which I was pretty happy with. 

 

On Wednesday morning, I woke up-- I never had true contractions with my son, so I asked my doctor, “Will I know what these feel like? Will I know it’s a contraction?” She said, “Don’t worry. You won’t miss it. You’ll know.” So I woke up and I knew I was having contractions. But they were very irregular. This was like at 5 in the morning. Then they would go away and come back. I thought I was having prodromal labor because they were so sporadic. 

 

My mother-in-law and I went for a two-mile walk in the morning. My husband had to go down to his office. So he wasn’t around and we walked. At that point, I started keeping track of them because they were becoming regular. I say regular and I mean every 15 minutes, but they were consistently every 15 minutes. Then I’d have one maybe 20 minutes and then it would bounce back to 15, but they were pretty even. I still thought, “Okay, well they’re even,” but they didn’t really hurt. I was fine and I didn’t think anything of it really.

 

But then very quickly, things changed. So by 3 or 4:00 p.m., they were about 8 minutes apart pretty consistently. By 5:00 p.m., we were eating dinner and they were 7 minutes apart. We have a 40-minute drive to the hospital. So, 7 minutes apart. I think as dinner was wrapping up, they were about 5 minutes apart. My mother-in-law said, “You should probably at least call your doctor.” I was like, “No, I’m fine. It’s fine,” because I wanted to stay at home as long as possible and I didn’t want intervention. I wanted to avoid it as long as I could.

 

Finally, she convinced me. So I called the on-call midwife for my doctor. She told me I was in early, active labor but she said to just come in because the hospital was very busy. I took a shower. My husband was a little more anxious than I was to get in, but I’m taking my sweet time and I’m really having to breathe through them. Now they’re getting a little more intense. I’m thinking that this was probably a good idea to head in. 

 

My mother-in-law was really cute. She put a towel down in the car thinking my water was going to break. I was not concerned about that at all but she was very thoughtful to put a towel down on my seat. 

 

We drove into the hospital. I delivered at the biggest hospital in the country for labor and delivery. They call it “The Baby Factory” because there’s a whole building dedicated to labor and delivery. 

 

Meagan: Wow. 

 

Julie: That’s intense. 

 

Gretchen: Yeah. It’s humongous. It was a lot. So I get in and I see, literally, nine other women in this waiting room in labor. And I’m like, “Okay,” and I’m a little overwhelmed with that. But I check in and I heard the triage woman make a comment about being out of beds. I thought she meant after me they would be out of beds. I didn’t think she meant they were currently out of beds. 

 

So I go back to the waiting room and everyone’s in masks. They’re disinfecting everything. I don’t even love being in hospitals, well really at all, but especially in the pandemic. It’s alarming because there’s germs and I didn’t want to be there, but this baby was coming. It was about 8:00 p.m. at that point. I’m thinking, “Oh, I’ll get into my room quickly.” 

 

Well, 9:00 rolls around, and now these contractions are-- I’m uncomfortable. I’m leaning against this pillar in this waiting room breathing through them and I told my husband, I go, “I’ve got to get in there. What’s going on?” The administration woman that was checking me in, I went up and asked her, “What’s going on?” She goes, “We just don’t have any beds.” And I said, “What do you mean you don’t have any beds? I have to have this baby.” 

 

I ended up calling this midwife back and she said, “Hang out. As soon as a bed opens, we’ll get you in a room.” A nurse came out and she said, “Are you the woman that had the previous C-section?” I said, “Yeah.” They were kind of jumping me to the front of the line because I think in their mind I took priority over previous vaginal births which I thought was nice. 

 

Meagan: That’s interesting. Probably because they wanted you on a monitor? 

 

Julie: Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking.  

 

Meagan: Were you not on a monitor in triage, though?

 

Gretchen: No, I was literally in a waiting room. So I get into a room and I get on a monitor. I remember feeling really panicky at this point and just scared. I could feel the anxiety creeping back in. This nurse was so wonderful. She came up to me and she put her hand on my wrist and she said, “You’re going to be okay. I’m watching your baby and you’ve got to let us take care of you.” And I just felt like, “Okay. I’m going to be okay. These nurses care.” It felt so different than the first time. I really felt like it was going to be okay. 

 

I knew I wanted an epidural because I was concerned about having the syncope again which I knew would lead me to C-section again. So for me, I figured if I got the epidural, I wouldn’t have the syncope. The midwife came in and asked me when I wanted it and she said, “If you wait too long, you might not get it.” So I said, “Okay.” 

 

I’m glad I agreed when I did because it took the anesthesiologist another hour or so to even get to me. I guess-- let me back up. I got into my room at 11:00 p.m. and I got my epidural around 2:00 a.m. At that point, I was really glad for it because I was in a lot of pain. I couldn’t really rest and they were pretty consistently 3 minutes apart-- contractions, at that point. 

 

The epidural was really nice. I didn’t want so much numbness that I couldn’t feel anything and the anesthesiologist was really receptive to that. I got just enough to not feel pain, but I could still feel pressure if that makes sense, which was nice that I wasn’t so numb. It wasn’t anything like a spinal which was great.  

 

I ended up taking a little bit of a rest. I couldn’t sleep, but I did rest. At that point, when I had checked in, I was dilated to a 6. They came back and checked me around 4:30 in the morning. The midwife on call checked me and she said I was at a 7. She said, “I have other news for you. This baby is sunny-side up.”

 

My heart just sank because I knew-- not that you can’t deliver sunny-side up-- but I knew it made things a little bit more challenging. But she told me, “Don’t be discouraged. Sometimes babies flip at the last minute. It’s okay.” But I was pretty discouraged at that point and I just felt like I was destined for C-section again. My husband said, “No, don’t think like that. Just relax and hope that he flips.”

 

They put me on a peanut ball and they switched me side to side-- it was between my legs-- every 30 to 40 minutes. But I was just laying there praying that he flipped. She had also offered to break my water at 7 centimeters and it didn’t feel right to me. You know that feeling where they’re trying to start pushing interventions? I started to get that vibe a little bit. 

 

I dug my heels in. I was nice but I kind of didn’t say anything. I just said, “I’m not really comfortable with that.” She goes, “Okay, that’s fine. We’ll wait.” I was glad I did that because I think what had happened was when they gave me the epidural, the monitor fell off my belly, so she thought contractions had stopped. In reality, it just didn’t pick them up. 

 

When they put the monitor back on, there they were again. I was glad I trusted myself because it was really cool to see my body do what it knew to do without needing to “speed up my labor” which is what she was trying to do.

 

Julie: That’s awesome. Good for you. 

 

Gretchen: So I said, “No.” I didn’t want to do that. She came back in, I think it was right before shift change, right before 7:00. She checked me again and I was at an 8 and at this point, she said-- at that point, I was okay. I don’t know why. I just went with my gut. She said, “Can I break your water?” And I said, “Yeah that’s fine.” She did and everything still kept moving along okay.

 

I continued to take a little bit of a rest. At 9:30, next thing I knew, I felt the urge to go to the bathroom. I felt the urge to poop. I told my husband, I said, “Something’s happening.” At this point, I went from feeling nothing to feeling everything very quickly. I did not expect this with an epidural. I went from feeling peaceful, bliss, resting to, “Something majorly is happening. This baby is coming.” 

 

I said, “You need to go get somebody,” because they had all left the room. I hadn’t had nurses in there really since that last 7:00 time. He goes, “Well, no one’s out there.” I go, “You’ve got to find somebody. This baby’s coming. Something’s happening.”

 

He went out and this new midwife had come in. She was really, really nice. I liked her a lot. She had great bedside manner. She checked me. This is probably 9:30-9:40 and she said, “You’re at a 9.5.” And I said, “Okay.” She said, “Let’s try some practice pushes. I want to see how your cervix moves around his head.” I said, “Okay.” She goes, “Oh, this is moving nicely and by the way, he flipped.” I was thrilled. I was so happy he had turned on his own. 

 

She said, “I’m going to get the room set up but I have to go deliver another baby. I’ll be right back.” I go, “What do you mean? You’re leaving? You can’t leave!” She goes, “Hang on. I’ll be right back.”

 

She literally left the room. I’m laying there feeling like this baby’s coming out. It was really stressful when she said, “Just hold on.” I go, “Well, how do you ‘hold on’?”  But she left and she popped back in, probably about 20 minutes later which was a very long 20 minutes when I was feeling everything at this point. 

 

Now I was almost overwhelmed with the pain. It wasn’t the pain itself, it was that it went from 0 to 100 so fast. 

 

Julie: Yes. 

 

Gretchen: Yes. It was so overwhelming. I asked for more epidural and they said, “We can get it but it’s probably too late,” because I was too far along and where it was in my back. They just said, “This is what this is.” You know when you get the wind knocked out of you? That was the kind of pain because it went from peaceful to excruciating. 

 

The midwife asked my husband, “How involved do you want to be? Do you want to be at her head or at her feet?” He said, “A little bit of both.” She said, “Well do you want to see your son’s head?” because he was descending. My husband said, “His head’s right there. I can see it.”

 

Every contraction I had a nurse up by my head. I had a nurse down by my feet and I had the midwife. They were coaching me through. They were so compassionate and they were so kind. I was in the most pain I’ve ever been in in my life and I didn’t think I could do it. It was so unbelievably painful. This nurse put her hand on me and she said, “I’ve done two of these without an epidural. You can do this. You can do this.” 

 

I was screaming. I don’t even know what came out of my mouth. It was probably a roar. It was so painful. The nurse got me a mirror and the next thing I knew, I saw his head. And so I just, you know, you just dig down deep and do what you have to do. 

 

Julie: Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. 

 

Gretchen: I pushed for 25 minutes and the next thing I knew, he was out. I was in disbelief that he came out that quickly. It actually seemed quicker than 25 minutes, but he was out and on my chest and it was this moment of bliss. Like, this happened. He was out and I was just sobbing. You know what every woman says when they VBAC, “I did it, I did it, I did it!” 

 

It was the best moment. Pushing was really hard because I had the mask on and you can’t breathe as well with a mask. My husband would put it down over my mouth to give me ice chips between each contraction because I was so thirsty, so exhausted, and sweating. It’s a lot harder when you can’t breathe freely. 

 

I had a 2nd-degree tear. Which, that was no walk in the park either. I knew that this would be an easier recovery than a C-section, or I had hoped it would be, but that was really painful. I think I tore as much as I did because I had the fetal ejection reflex. He didn’t come out head, then shoulders. He came out in one contraction. My husband said that the midwife wasn’t ready for him with how fast he flew out. He was 8lb, 3oz. You know, that’s not small. My first son was 7, 4. I asked her how many stitches I needed and she said, “I’m not counting,” which, that was enough said. I said, “Okay, great.”

 

But it was so worth it. It was a much better recovery than my C-section. I could lift my toddler right away and I could play with him and get down on the floor and do all the things that I probably would not have been able to do with a C-section.

 

I think the biggest part of all of this was I trusted my gut. I found a really supportive provider and I managed this anxiety condition that I’ve had forever with circumstances that were less than ideal. This isn’t something I want to toot my own horn about, but I was really proud of myself. It was a really challenging time. It was a challenging pregnancy. It was stressful. A VBAC is, in my opinion, a little bit more stressful route than if you haven’t had a previous C-section.

 

To feel accomplished-- I set my mind to do this and I was able to succeed was really rewarding and empowering. I had the skin-to-skin time with him. It was such a healing moment and I really feel so happy and empowered that it was able to work out the way that it did. 

 

Yeah, that’s pretty much it. I couldn’t have done it without this podcast, without the information that you guys provided because it was the best moment of my life. It was wonderful.

 

Julie: You deserve to toot your own horn, girl. Toot that horn! Everyone who has a baby no matter what way-- you deserve it. Because it is a piece of work getting a baby here. 

 

Gretchen: Yeah. It was hard. 

 

Meagan: Yeah, well I was just going to say, we’re so grateful that all of the stories have been helping you and that along the way you kept following what you needed to do and it led you to where you are today.

 

Julie: Yeah. I love that you talked about, “I don’t know why I decided to do this then, but I did and it worked.” That’s your intuition. I think that generally, us moms don’t give ourselves enough credit for the things that we do. Like, “I don’t know why I decided to do that,” but no, it’s because you’re a dang good mom. That’s why you decided to do it. 

Prenatal anxiety

Julie: It doesn’t matter how you birth. It doesn’t matter what you do. But if you’re worried about it, then that makes you a good mom. There’s enough pressure on us to do things a certain way, especially like, we’re going for a VBAC, rigm8 u;up
M ht? So we’re generally going against the grain. You’re right. There is way more anxiety and there’s so much pressure on us.

 

At least for me, I can totally relate because I have anxiety 100%. I put way more pressure on myself to do things than anybody ever expects of me. I’m like, “I have to do this.” Oh my gosh, I can’t even imagine. 

 

This is a really big tangent, but I have a friend, it was a guy friend. He met a girl who didn’t like that I was his best friend. He got engaged to her. That was the end of our relationship because she thought we hugged for too long or something. This happened, like, 10 years ago and I’m still not over it because I lost my friend.

 

Anyways, I was married. We were all over there for dinner one night and I was newly pregnant. She had just had a baby. I was talking about my birth plans because this was my first baby. I was still going to have a hypnobirth and go unmedicated. I had all these plans, right? She was like, “Good luck trying to go unmedicated because I tried with this guy and I just could not take it.” I was like if there’s anything that would have ever pushed me to make it unmedicated, it was that girl who stole my best friend from me telling me that I couldn’t do it. I was like, well, now I’m extra motivated to do it. But I had a C-section, so that gave me a nice slice of humble pie in that regard. 

 

As far as putting pressure and stuff on yourselves, it’s a big deal. Then you tell people your plans and then you don’t want to look like a turd if you don’t-- you know what I mean. I probably don’t even have to explain. If you have anxiety, you’re probably like, “Yep,” nodding your head. You feel like you have to meet this expectation you have set for yourself or else everybody else will think you’re awful.

 

Gretchen: Yep. But I think also, recognizing. One of the things that really helped was knowing that I have this anxiety disorder. I’ve had it forever and that’s okay. What tools do I need to help manage it throughout this pregnancy? And knowing that if I need therapy twice a week, that’s okay. If I need to talk to my OB and ask the same question three times, that’s okay too. It’s okay to reach out for help. 

 

A lot of people have the idea that if you’re in therapy or if you’re using extra help then it’s a weakness and it’s not. It’s a strength. It really is. It’s okay to need support and to need help. That’s what I wanted to really transmit through my story is that anxiety is like any other medical condition. It’s the way your brain’s wired and it’s okay.

 

Pregnancy is hard enough without that and it’s okay to need extra help. I think having the OB that I found, although she didn’t deliver me, the midwives that worked with her-- they were all so VBAC friendly. I could not have had the birth I had without that group of women because they were so supportive of my desires. 

 

It was funny because she called my cell phone on the morning I delivered him. I had an appointment in her office and she called me. I had called to cancel it when I was in labor. She called me and I go, “He’s here!” She goes, “Congratulations.” She was so happy for me. It was really neat to talk to her when he was a half an hour old, which was really cool. 

 

Julie: Aw, that’s awesome. I agree with everything you said there. I have Hashimoto’s. When my Hashimoto’s flares up, I just don’t feel good. My anxiety gets worse when I have a flare-up. But then pregnancy puts me into a remission of sorts because pregnancy suppresses your immune system. Autoimmune diseases are when your immune system is attacking your body and if your immune system is suppressed, it’s kind of like a win-win. You get a baby and you don’t have to have Hashimoto’s for nine months essentially unless you’re the unfortunate one where your entire pregnancy is a flare-up.

 

During my pregnancies, I would actually feel really good. I felt like I had less anxiety because I wasn’t having these Hashimoto’s attacks. Everything was golden except for my third pregnancy, which was a surprise, and I was really really just ticked off that I was pregnant. I was mad. And I know that some women try forever to get pregnant and it doesn’t work. How could I feel mad about being pregnant? But I was mad. 

 

I was in the middle of postpartum depression. I was struggling with two kids and why would this happen that I would be pregnant again? I struggled big-time during that pregnancy. One of the darkest moments of my life was during that pregnancy. It was in that moment, well it wasn’t in that moment but it was maybe a couple weeks after that, that I realized that this wasn’t normal, that I needed some help, and that if I didn’t, I was going to suffer greatly and so were my children. 

 

I went to my provider and I got on an antidepressant, sertraline. SSRIs are generally considered safe during pregnancy. I call it Vitamin Z because the brand name is Zoloft. Still on it four years later because hot chocolate and cocoa powder all over my freaking kitchen right now. 

 

But it is a normal thing. It’s okay to have that, especially right now. Oh my gosh, being pregnant during a pandemic. We want to end the stigma. A friend of mine that’s pretty dear to my heart just mentioned in passing that she had an appointment with a therapist. I was so excited inside because I have been hoping that she would go see somebody for a long time because she has a pretty complicated life. I was like, “Yes! I’m so excited that you’re finally doing this.” But I didn’t want to say it out loud because I didn’t want to make it weird or awkward. You know what I mean? Again, my anxiety-- overthinking it, right? 

 

When you realize that moment and the value that it’s going to bring into your life, it’s a really, really big deal. We actually had a sponsor on our podcast, let’s see, a few weeks ago, months ago, maybe? It’s on our resources page on thevbaclink.com/resources. You can find a link there to Better Help. It’s online counseling. You can get connected to a counselor in less than 24 hours. You fill out this questionnaire and they get to know everything about you and match you to a counselor that fits your needs and what’s going on in your life exactly. 

 

They’re amazing. If you use promo code VBAC, you get 10% off your first month. They’re really reasonably priced. They even have financial aid if you qualify for help paying for that therapy and counseling. Betterhelp.com, promo code VBAC. I think it just helps make it more comfortable. You can text them. You can email them anytime. It’s not like you have to go drive across town for an hour to see your therapist or whatever. So, plug-in for Better Help and all the good that they are doing for really anybody, not just pregnant people. 

 

A lot of times we think of anxiety and mood disorders and stuff like that for postpartum. It’s postpartum when you feel that, right? Postpartum depression. Postpartum OCD. Postpartum anxiety. We don’t talk enough about that, but we don’t talk near enough about what happens when you’re-- how about when you’re pregnant? I think there’s an even bigger stigma surrounding that. 

 

Meagan: I had a guest blogger for my doula page, not The VBAC Link, but Tiny Blessings and she wrote all about that. Actually, we should link in this as well. 

 

Julie: Yeah, link your blog. 

 

Meagan: She’s very vulnerable, like very vulnerable. 

 

Julie: I need to go read it. 

 

Meagan: But it’s amazing. It’s amazing what she talks about and what can happen like you said. It happens perinatal. It happens during the perinatal time as well. 

 

Julie: Yeah. Hormones are crazy.

 

Gretchen: For me, it’s kind of like the opposite of your Hashimoto’s. Mine gets very inflamed when I’m pregnant. It tends to come down postpartum, although I was very aware of postpartum potential to be more problematic, but I’ve done pretty well. Again, I still maintain the therapy and all the things I need to do to stay well. 

 

One thing I forgot to mention was I wanted to hire a doula and I met with a doula the week before COVID hit. Then COVID hit and I wasn’t allowed to have the doula in the hospital. The doula and I did stay in touch a little bit, but I wasn’t able to have her. It all worked out how it was supposed to, but I felt bad because I really would have loved to work with her. 

 

Julie: Ugh, we’ve been feeling it too over here. Man, that’s crazy. 

 

Yeah, so if you’re struggling right now, or ever, or have been, or know somebody who is, go check out thevbaclink.com/resources. Get connected to Better Help and go read Meagan’s blog on her doula business page, tinyblessingsdoulaservices.com. She has a blog section there. Because sometimes it just feels good to know that you’re not alone. 

Meagan, do you want to wrap it up with the questions?

Q&A

Meagan: Yeah. Sorry, can you hear my kids splashing in the bathtub? 

 

Julie: Oh my gosh, I thought it was mine. It’s bedtime right here and my husband’s like, “I’m sorry, but it’s going to be a little loud for a minute.”

 

Meagan: Yeah, sorry. Okay, so we have the questions at the end and question number one is: 

 

What is a secret lesson or something no one really talks about that you wish you would have known ahead of time when preparing for birth? 

 

Gretchen: Gosh, I don’t remember what I wrote. 

 

Meagan: Do you want me to read it?

 

Gretchen: Yes. Why don’t you read what I wrote and then I will expound on it. 

 

Meagan: You said, “Advocating for yourself is imperative.” Which is funny. We actually just did-- today actually. We just did a whole episode on advocating for yourself and for your clients. It says, “When it comes to birth, it’s important that a mother feels educated and empowered to make decisions that are going to impact her and her baby. My VBAC experience was so much better than my C-section because I felt so prepared for all the possible scenarios.”

 

Gretchen: Yeah, so I think that in my mind going in, I had a plan for a successful VBAC and I also had a plan for if that didn’t work out and if I had to have a C-section, that was okay too. But also, advocating for every decision along the way to make that VBAC happen. Like the example of wanting to break my water at 7 centimeters. It was okay that I said no. I’m allowed to say no. I don’t have to do that if I don’t want to.

 

We often think hospital policies are laws. I really did. I didn’t realize you could say no. And it was so nice to say, “I don’t want to do that.” I don’t want an epidural and feel nothing. I was allowed to ask for what I wanted. In my opinion, it’s so important to do that. Otherwise for me, with my C-section, I felt like a victim of the system. Not that anyone was malicious, but it wasn’t a good experience.

 

Meagan: Right. It is so important to know that you really do not have to just say yes and submit to everything that is being offered or suggested.

 

The next question was:

 

What is your best tip for someone preparing for a VBAC?

 

Gretchen: I think I said, and I hope this is correct what I wrote-- really it’s education. Knowing what’s safe and how to achieve that. And also, really, really great providers. A provider that is on your team, not just VBAC tolerant but VBAC supportive. And then support all around you because I think without the team that I had, I would not have been successful. My husband is such a non-anxious person. He really is able to just support me and push me in that direction without being overwhelming. But he told me, he’s like, “You can do this.”

 

Meagan: Yeah, that’s exactly what you said. “Educate yourself. Arm yourself with facts. Knowledge is power. And, most importantly, having supportive people around you-- family, friends, and providers.”

 

I love it. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. And yes. Your story is going to be as inspiring and amazing. I don’t know-- I was going to ask you if you felt comfortable dropping your provider’s name because there are a lot of people in your area that don’t know supportive providers. But if not, it’s okay.

 

Gretchen: It’s Dr. Rachel Paccione at Comprehensive Women’s OB/GYN. I saw her at the Dunwoody location but she also has an office in Duluth. She’s wonderful. I don’t know if I found a diamond in the rough because she was the only doctor I had when I moved here. I just found her online and then she was off the bat VBAC supportive, so I was under the impression that a lot of Georgia doctors were. Then I listened to your podcast and I’m like, “Oh. Maybe I got lucky.”

Closing

Would you like to be a guest on the podcast? Head over to thevbaclink.com/share and submit your story. For all things VBAC, including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Julie and Meagan’s bios, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.

150 Aubria's HBAC + Expert Providers

With her first baby, Aubria had gestational diabetes that wasn’t diagnosed until she was 37 weeks. She ended up having a Cesarean and birthing an 11 pound, 11 ounce perfectly healthy baby girl. Aubria was determined to have a different birth outcome the second time around. She was proactive with her diet, switched providers at 38 weeks, and stayed as patient as possible even when she was approaching 42 weeks.

 

After six long days of prodromal labor, Aubria had a beautiful, redemptive HBAC. Aubria talks about how she trusted instincts she didn’t know she had and found healing through postpartum pelvic floor therapy.

 

We also discuss how imperative it is to find a provider who is an expert in your type of birth. Our discussion is based on this quote by Lauralyn Curtis:

“If there is one thing you can do right now to ensure your best birth experience, it’s this: Choose a care provider who is an expert in the type of birth you are planning...When you find the right care provider, they will understand your birth plan before you even show it to them because it’s what they already do every day.”

 

Episode Sponsor: 

This episode is brought to you by Nourisher. Whether you are in the prenatal, postnatal, or nursing stage of motherhood, Nourisher bars have your nutrition covered without sacrificing flavor. Their delicious flavors include Blueberry Coconut, Chocolate Banana, Maple Walnut, Papaya Turmeric, Spirulina Ginger, and Strawberry Rosehip. Check them out at thevbaclink.com/go/nourisher.

 

VBAC Link Courses:

How to VBAC: The Parents’ Course

Advanced VBAC Doula Certification

Additional Links:

3 Things You NEED to Know About Your VBAC Provider

Full Transcript:

Julie: Good morning. This is The VBAC Link podcast. We have me, Julie Francom, and my co-host, Meagan Heaton-- owners of The VBAC Link podcast-- here with you today, and we are so excited because this is our 150th episode. I’m a little excited about that because I am a numbers girl. I just spent a long time updating all of our podcast episode numbers this past weekend so that they would match because we changed how we number episodes about 70 episodes in. I’ve been going through and making everything consistent. 

 

To have our 150th episode feels so surreal. It feels like yesterday that I was talking to Meagan, and I’m like, “Hey, we should start a podcast. It’s not going to be hard at all. I’m going to do a test recording to try it and see. It’s going to take no time, and it will be so easy.” 

She’s like, “Okay, but I think you’re crazy, and I think you’re underestimating how much time it’s going to take, but I’m totally in.” 

I’m like, “Let’s do this.”

 

We did a quick test run and uploaded it to a podcast hosting service, and I’m like, “See? That took me less than an hour.” 

 

Now that we’re doing full-blown episodes, it’s a lot more time-consuming than I had expected it to be, but what a journey. Meagan, what a journey. 150 episodes. Can you believe it?

 

Meagan: I know. It’s been super fun. I’m excited. 

 

Julie: I’m excited too. But do you know what I’m even more excited about? 

 

Meagan: My review of the week? Because it’s a good one.

 

Julie: No, but that too. I’m excited that we have Aubria with us. We met Aubria at The VBAC Link’s first birthday party over a year ago and her mother-in-law. Her mother-in-law is so awesome. She was there, and she has been doulaing Aubria, all of her children, and children-in-law. She’s just a really incredible person.

 

Meagan: She really is. 

 

Julie: Aubria and Lenna are really incredible people. I didn’t even realize that Aubria was going to be our 150th episode until this very moment. I’m really excited. We should do something to celebrate. I don’t know what we should do. I’m going to order cookies. 

 

Meagan: Okay, you can order cookies.

 

Julie: I’m going to order cookies to celebrate. 

Review of the Week

 

Julie: Anyways, the second thing I’m excited about is Meagan reading a super awesome review of the week for us.

 

Meagan: It’s really sweet. It’s a long one, so we’ll see if I can do it without stuttering. 

 

Julie: Oh, I have confidence. You can do it pretty well. 

 

Meagan: I am not that great at reading. It’s like my brain goes ahead of my mind or my eyes or something. This is from Apple Podcasts. If you have Apple Podcasts, please do us an awesome favor. Pause this episode right now. Head over there and leave us a review. We would love it. If you don’t have Apple Podcasts, that’s okay. You can find us on Facebook or Google. We would love to read your reviews on the next podcast.

 

This one is from erind39. Her topic is “Essential resource for any woman hoping for a VBAC!” She says, “I started listening to this podcast during my first trimester, in the very beginning phases of planning my VBAC. I was immediately hooked and binged all of the episodes. These amazing women gave me the confidence to find a supportive provider and reject my local hospital that has a VBAC ban. I felt so prepared for every barrier that I encountered because of Julie and Meagan. I felt empowered by the stories, facts, statistics, and mantras shared. Listening to these empowering stories made me confident in my ability to have the birth I hoped for. I am so happy to say that I was able to have my successful VBAC, and I feel that my ‘car doulas’ (where I always listened) were an integral part of my success. Thank you so much!!”

 

Meagan: We’re car doulas, Julie!

 

Julie: I really like that title. 

 

Meagan: I love that. Thank you so much, erind39.

 

Julie: Do you know what? Something else about reviews that people might not know is that when you leave us a review on Apple Podcasts-- or you can “like” and “favorite” us on Spotify. I think Google Podcasts is revamping its system now for reviews.  But when you do that, even if you drop a five-star review and don’t even make any comments on it, it lets Apple Podcasts know that what we’re doing is helpful for people. In turn, it makes it easier for people to find us and for us to help more people as they prepare for their births. 

 

So, if this has made a very big impact on you as you prepare for your own birth or if it’s helped educate you as a birth worker, then doing something so simple as going to Google, Facebook, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts and can leave a review-- dropping that review helps broaden our reach. As Meagan said, if you can pause the podcast right now, go drop us a quick review. We would appreciate you from the very bottom of our hearts. 

Episode Sponsor

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Not only are these bars delicious and tasty, but they have amazing benefits for both you and your baby in the pre and postnatal stages. They increase your energy. They support tissue repair and brain building. They improve gut health with fiber, probiotics, and healthy fats. They give you a nutritional lift from sprouted grains and seeds that provide essential nutrients. They are packed with superfoods like turmeric, spirulina, and rosehip to support a healthy immune system and reduce inflammation throughout the pregnancy and postpartum stages. Go ahead and give Nourisher a try. You can get right to them by clicking the link in our show notes or going to thevbaclink.com/go/nourisher. Give them a try. You will not regret it.  

Aubria’s story

 

Julie: Alright, Aubria. We absolutely love her story. We were both little teeny parts of it as her mother-in-law supporting her from far away and updating us. I’m not going to tell her whole story because there are a lot of really, really fun details. Aubria has two boys. She has grown up in Utah and Texas, but currently, she lives pretty close to us. She lives between us, actually. We’re really excited to hear your story. So Aubria, why don’t you go ahead and share your birth stories with us. 

 

Aubria: Okay, awesome. I’m super excited to be here. Thank you for letting me share my story. My little boy, Calvin, is now one year old, and he is my VBAC baby. I can’t believe it’s been a year already. He’s a year. A few weeks ago, he turned a year. It’s so crazy. 

 

With his pregnancy, because of the trauma that happened with my C-section, I decided to do a low-carb diet. With my first baby, my little Rory, we had gestational diabetes. It was not discovered until I was 37 weeks and super swollen and big. He was super swollen and big. We thought there was a problem, so that’s why I had my C-section. They thought it was an emergency-- that he had a condition called hydrops-- which could cause heart failure if he goes through the birth canal. He didn’t end up having that, but he did turn out to be really big. He was 11 pounds, 11 ounces when he was born.

 

Julie: Whoa. That’s a big baby. 

 

Aubria: Yeah. He was really big. I had gained about 80-90 pounds during his pregnancy. No one caught it. None of the medical professionals went, “Hey, you’re gaining weight.” I had no idea I had it; then, at 37 weeks, they were like, “Oh. We’ve got to check that baby out.” It was pretty traumatic and really last minute. 

 

I had already done so much work. I had gone to HypnoBirthing classes, talked to my mother-in-law, who is a doula, and my mom, who had seven kids. I was so ready to have a natural birth and have it all amazing. It all went out the window, out the door in five minutes. That was pretty crazy. It was so wild. With Calvin, I was really determined to keep my weight down, his weight down, keep my sugars good, and I was low carb. 

 

As I did that and was working with that, I heard about all of the negative things about what could happen with a VBAC. I was super getting nervous, and then my mother-in-law found The VBAC Link. I got to meet Julie and Meagan. It was so cool because their course was amazing. It taught her. It taught me. She bought the doula one. I bought the parents. It taught my husband. It helped us gain the confidence to talk to our provider and see if he was actually VBAC friendly and talk to our hospital. These guys really know their stuff. 

 

As I was asking my doctor these questions about, “Hey, are you VBAC friendly? Will you let me do a VBAC? What’s your VBAC rate?” He was like, “Yeah. I let VBACs happen and all these things.” Then as my pregnancy progressed farther and farther, he started saying, “Well, I don’t know about VBACs. I don’t know if I can support you in this. I really want to.” He’s a really friendly guy, and he’s a really good doctor. I got out of him eventually, with the questions I learned to ask from Julie and Meagan, that he cannot induce me because if something happens if he does that like if I was to have a uterine rupture, he would not be able to be covered by his insurance if something happened to me. 

 

Julie: What?! That exists still?

 

Aubria: Yeah. He’s a family doctor and an OBGYN.

 

Julie: Interesting. Offline I’m going to have to find out who this is. I think I might have an idea, but I just want to confirm. 

 

Aubria: That’s not exactly what he said. He kind of said that, but he was like, “I won’t be covered if something happened to you.” I was like, “Oh, wow.” So he was like, “I cannot induce you.” But he was willing to let me go to 42 weeks, which was amazing because a lot of doctors don’t do that. So he was willing to let me go to 42 weeks, but he wouldn’t induce me, and my mom takes three days to labor on her own without Pitocin. So I was like, “Well, if I take after her, then I’m doomed.”

 

It was really last minute. I was 38 weeks, and I called our family-friend midwife. I was like, “Hey, will you do my birth for me?” I would do it at my mother-in-law’s house because that’s where we were living. And she’s like, “Yes. I’d love to!” I was like, “Really?” Because she’s still certified, but she doesn’t practice with many people anymore. The fact that she was doing it for me was a really big deal. 

 

At 38 weeks, I switched providers. I didn’t tell my doctor because I really liked to keep my options open because I didn’t know what would happen. I didn’t tell him. I just got a midwife and went to both of them for check-ups until I went into labor. If something happened, I would have the hospital for an emergency, and if not, I was going to have my baby at home. 

 

Then I hit 40 weeks. I was having tightening and cramps. I was like, “Yeah! My body is working. It’s going to happen.” A few weeks later, nothing happened. My due date was August 9th. That came and went with nothing. Then on August 15th-- so I’m 41 weeks at this point-- I wake up at 1:00 a.m., and I actually have really hard, steady contractions that are a few minutes apart. I’m like, “I think this is it. This is awesome.”

 

I waited until 5:00 a.m., and they didn’t stop. I’m like, “I’ve got to get my whole team together.” My mother-in-law was out of town, and she’s my doula. She was out of town, helping my sister-in-law. So I call my mom because she’s also helped with birth, but she’s not certified. I call my midwife. My husband-- I wake him up. My father-in-law gets his room ready because that’s where I was going to have the baby. They set up the pool, and nothing happens. 

 

At 9:00 on the dot, my contractions stopped. I was so confused. I had my midwife check me. I was 90% effaced. I was dilated to a 6, but then it stayed there. We tried everything to naturally induce. We tried sex. We tried the membrane sweep. We tried walking, being in different positions, getting the baby into a different position. We tried a few different Spinning Babies moves because we figured he might be twisted a little. We tried blue and black cohosh, which is an herbal medicine, under my tongue. 

 

We tried mental and emotional fear releases. Julie can vouch for that because I was three days in, and I was like, “Julie, nothing’s happening.” She was like, “Make sure you do this emotional release and fear release. I’m sending good vibes out for you.”

 

I was living with in-laws at the time, and there felt like there was to be some tension, so we talked to everyone in the house and found out they were really supportive of me. That helped. We tried our birth prep supplement. We tried nipple stimulation. We tried pumping. This was for days. Nothing helped. But every day, at 1:00 a.m., I’d start my contractions, and then they’d stop at 9:00 a.m. every day. I’d have 18-hour rests. I’d be able to sleep in between, which was really nice. 

 

But other than that, nothing helped. I just had to wait. I was so determined to wait and let my body do what it needed to. It was really hard, but it was good, and most people came to me and were like, “You are the queen of patience. How do you do it?” I’m like, “I am determined to let my body do it. I am not going in for another C-section because I know my body can do it.”

 

By day three or day four, I was super discouraged. I’m texting Julie, and I’m like, “Hey. Do you know of any people in our area that will induce a mom at 42 weeks?” She actually connected me to a doctor. I got his number, and they gave me an appointment. I didn’t actually have to go in. My appointment was set for my 42-week mark, and the day before that, August 20th, I had my baby. 

 

It felt pretty much the same as any of the other days. This was my sixth day of prodromal labor. It did feel a little different. My contractions were a little stronger, but they were not much closer together. But my labor kept going after 9:00 a.m., and it was getting more intense. Then it was getting closer and closer together. I got to a 9, and I was so excited. I stayed at a 9 for a few hours. My midwife kept checking me. She realized I had this cervical flap, which is where the baby’s head is trying to open it up all the way, and it can’t quite get there. She had to reach in and help me dilate to a 10 so that the baby could come through. 

 

I loved being in the birthing tub. It was my favorite. I sat in the tub and breathed in my breathing, and was relaxing. Around 2:00, he was finally in a good position that I could start pushing. I thought because I had labored like my mom, I’d be like my mom. Once she was ready to push, the baby’s head was pretty much out. I was like, “That’s totally going to be me. I’m only going to do one push, and the baby’s going to come out.” That’s not what happened.

 

I was pretty tight, even though the baby’s head was through. The baby’s head was coming. It was going down and hitting the cervix. It was really hard for me to push. I am sitting in the tub, and my midwife’s trying to tell me to push. At this point, they have my mother-in-law, who is a doula, on a video call, and she’s telling me that I’m doing a good job. I’m breathing. I think I was pushing for about an hour or two, which I know is short for some women. But for me, it was long because there had been six days of labor before that. I was super worried because I was like, “What if he won’t fit? What if he’s big like his brother?” And I had this final panic attack thinking, “Oh no. What if it’s not going to work, and I’m going to have to go to the hospital?”

 

My midwife-- she instinctively said, “He is in the birth canal, and he can’t stay there for much longer. You need to push harder.” I was like, “I’m going to rip. I know I’m going to tear. I’m going to tear. I’m going to tear. It hurts.” Because I was feeling a pain every time, I would push. I was feeling pain on the sides. I’m like, “I’m going to tear if I push.” She was like, “I know. But you need to push.”

 

So I was like, “Okay. That’s it. I’m getting this baby out.” I’d push as hard as I can, and he came out. I was so floored that I had done it. 

 

Sorry. I’m really emotional. I was so floored that I had done it and that my body did it, and that he did it. We did it together. I was sitting there holding him in the tub, and my husband was behind me. He had helped me the whole way. It was so strange because I was holding him and he was covered in vernix. I was almost two weeks late, or two weeks past my due date. I was like, “Wow. Maybe he was early. What if my due date was totally off?” We’re rubbing him down. I’m holding him. Later, my placenta was delivered just fine. My husband kind of freaked out. After the placenta came, a ton of blood came, and he was like, “What?!” But I was fine. I probably lost quite a bit of blood, but it wasn’t very bad. 

 

I was holding him and rubbing him down. He was this perfect little ball of butter because that’s what the vernix looked like. As my midwife was checking my placenta and checking him, she was like, “No, he actually was late.” He was showing more mature signs of being able to bend in ways that early babies shouldn’t. He had lines on his wrists and hands that he shouldn’t have had if he was early. My placenta started looking pitted. So it was late. He was just covered in lots of protection. I thought that it was pretty cool that my body did that.

 

He turned out to be 8 pounds and 8 ounces. He was much smaller than my 11,11 baby. When I was born, I was 7,7. I guess I go for the double numbers. Isn’t that funny? After that, I was just holding my baby. I actually got to breastfeed him, which with my first one, I couldn’t. It was very healing for me, all the things that I got to do with my second that I didn’t get to do with my first. I did wind up tearing, but it was just a first-degree tear. 

 

Meagan: That’s not bad. 

 

Aubria: Yeah, it wasn’t bad at all. She didn’t have any numbing, though, and she had to stitch me up right then. I was just holding my baby like, “Any pain is fine!” I healed very well, and he grew very well. 

 

But then I guess I have time to tell this part. As I healed and got better, I learned that just because you had a VBAC doesn’t mean you don’t have healing to do. Even though I only had a first-degree tear, I healed so tightly that I felt I was in more pain than I was before marriage. I couldn’t have intercourse without pain. I was like, “Maybe it’s just too short to tell if I’m really healed or not.” Then six months later, I’m like, “I should be better by now.” I found out eight weeks later; I should have gone and gotten help. Don’t wait six months, like me. 

 

I contacted Julie and Meagan again, and I was like, “Who was that pelvic floor specialist you guys talked about? I really need to talk to her.” I went to a different OB that was more specialized, and he was like, “I don’t know what to say. Just do all these exercises, and we’ll see what happens.” I’m like, “That doesn’t sound right.” 

 

So I went to see Valerie Schwalbe. She’s amazing. She has a new physical therapist at her office named Katelyn, and they’re both awesome. They helped me relax and get stretched, and do proper exercises for my body. Now, I’m in no pain at all. So that’s what I did. 

 

Megan: Amazing. 

 

Julie: Plug-in for pelvic floor specialists! 

 

Aubria: It’s so true. They are amazing. She’s helping me figure out things that I’ve had for years, like back problems that I didn’t connect to the pelvic floor. It’s been so cool. She helped me heal and stretch out my scar. 

 

Overall, I was very empowered, and I learned a lot. I listened to my instincts that I didn’t know I had. My body was able to do it, and I got the VBAC that I wanted. 

 

Julie: I love it. I love that story so much. 

 

Meagan: I’m so proud of you. 

 

Julie: That’s hard to go through so much labor. Whenever someone asks how long my labors were, I’m like,” My first one was a day. My second was 23 hours, but maybe 12 hours. My third was 15 hours. Then my fourth was 24 days.” Because prodromal labor, right? Every night, just like you. 

 

Every night, after dinner, as the kids were getting settled into bed, I would start contractions. They would be regular. I would get in the tub. They would keep going. I would get out of the tub. I’d go to bed. Then around midnight or so, they would fizzle out. Every night for 24 days. And it wasn’t a positional issue. Usually, prodromal labor is positional, hydration, we’re thinking nutrition-- things like that typically help tone prodromal labor down. I was seeing a chiropractor. I was drinking plenty of water and taking regular magnesium Epsom salt baths. 

 

Aubria: Oh yeah, and I did chiropractic too. 

 

Julie: By the time I realized it was really labor, my labor was only four hours long. But if you count the prodromal labor leading up to that, it was maybe 11 hours long. But if you count all of the prodromal labor, then it was 24 days. I just don’t know. 

 

Aubria: I don’t know how to count it either. I thought it was real labor, but maybe it wasn’t. 

 

Julie: I don’t know. She’s here, and that’s what matters.

Expert Providers

Julie: I have been writing a very, very, very, very long blog. A very, very, very long blog. It’s actually published right now. It’s actually called VBAC Stories. It’s on our blog. It’s longer summaries of some of our favorite podcast episodes. It’s taken me quite some time to, first of all, choose the episodes and second of all, remember enough details to write them out, then align and link everything, getting all of the images ready-- it’s been very, very time-consuming. 

 

Along my way, I found this quote that popped into my head while you were telling your story. We’re going to talk about providers that are experts in the type of birth that you want. This quote is actually by Lauralyn Curtis, who is a local HypnoBirthing instructor. She created her own method of HypnoBirthing called The Curtis Method. She’s a pretty powerful force in our community here. I found this quote from her. One day I’m going to make it a social media post or maybe even write a blog about it. It’s very, very inspiring. It speaks exactly to what Meagan and I have said about finding a provider that is good at VBACs, that likes VBACs, and that does VBACs a lot. 

 

I’m going to go ahead and read the quote because she says it better than Meagan and I have ever said it. This is what the quote is. 

 

She says, “If there is one thing you can do right now to ensure your best birth experience, it’s this: Choose a care provider who is an expert in the type of birth you are planning. If you’re planning a safe, skilled Cesarean birth, you should hire someone who is an expert at Cesarean sections. You wouldn’t hire a doctor to perform that procedure who said, ‘Well, actually I’m not really comfortable with that type of birth, but I’ll let you do it if you want, I suppose.’ 

 

“But if you’re planning a safe, natural, unmedicated birth, you should hire someone who is an expert at supporting natural birth. A doctor with a 30% C-section rate is not a natural birth expert. Neither is a doctor who does routine episiotomies or doesn’t understand how to catch a baby unless mom is lying on her back. A doctor who says, ‘Well, most of my patients do end up getting an epidural. But if you want to go natural, you can do that,’ is not an expert in an unmedicated birth. When you find the right care provider, they will understand your birth plan before you even show it to them because it’s what they already do every day.”

 

Goosebumps, right? I have goosebumps. It’s impactful-- that statement by Lauralyn. This is going to be somewhere on our social media sometimes because of how powerful it is. You could replace the word unmedicated with VBAC or with out-of-hospital birth because, again, as I was writing this long, forever blog, I’ve stumbled across a lot of really cool things. 

 

One of them was about home birth. A lot of OBGYNs in hospitals don’t support home birth. They don’t know how to support home birth, so they think it’s bad. They think it’s dangerous, and they think it’s not safe. 

 

So if you want to find out about home birth, don’t talk to an OBGYN who isn’t skilled in home birth. You would talk to a home birth midwife who is trained, skilled, and prepared in home birth and to handle all of the unknowns that come up when you’re in a home birth location. Just like you wouldn’t ask a midwife about how to birth in a hospital or what hospital birth is like. 

 

It’s really interesting because, on our Instagram page a few days back, Meagan had written a blog about VBACing with an epidural. There was a person who said she was a midwife, still yet to be determined whether that’s accurate or not, but the midwife said that getting an epidural is a selfish decision, and if you cared about your baby, you wouldn’t get an epidural. 

 

First of all, that statement’s completely false because there are so many other things that go into deciding whether to get an epidural or not. There are risks and benefits to everything. It really made me sad because how would she know? She’s an out-of-hospital midwife. She’s not an expert in epidurals. She doesn’t see them or do them every day. So how can she make a blanket statement like that applying to every single person who has ever had an epidural?

 

It’s the same thing vice versa with in-hospital providers. What is that saying? “You don’t go to a brickmaker for advice about diamonds” because they don’t know about diamonds. They make bricks. They don’t make diamonds. Well, I guess that would make sense. I mean, I guess you can make diamonds. But, you don’t go to a brickmaker to ask for diamond advice. 

 

So don’t go to a hospital midwife to ask about home birth advice. Don’t go to a provider that has a high Cesarean rate and ask them about VBAC. You need to find a provider who is an expert in your type of birth. 

 

It’s the same thing with doulas. It’s really funny. I think Meagan and I may have talked about this at times. I’ve talked about it with a few other doulas. When I have a client that wants an unmedicated VBAC, I already know all of the things that they’re going to want. I already know all of the things that are going to be important to them because that’s the type of clientele that I always support. If you want a natural birth, if you want an unmedicated hospital birth, I know already exactly what your plans are. I know what you’re going to face based on what hospital you choose. If you want a home birth, we already know what your preferences are because they’re very, very similar for people wanting that particular type of birth. Right, Meagan? It’s all pretty much the same. 

 

Meagan: Yeah. 

 

Julie: Hire your provider that feels like that, that knows you are going to want that immediate skin-to-skin because it’s so important to you because you lost it last time when your baby was taken from you by Cesarean. We know that you want to breastfeed right away. We know that even if you want a Cesarean, you want things to be different. You want to feel like you’re in control, and you want to make choices. We already know that you want to go as long as possible without getting the epidural if you don’t want to go unmedicated. We already know all of those things because we do and support those things all of the time. 

 

That’s my tangent about expert providers. As you VBAC, hire a provider that is an expert in VBACs because they do them all of the time. Don’t go to a provider who’s known as “the quilter” because of his expert stitching skill in the operating room. I mean, hypothetically.

 

Meagan: Hire a provider that you trust wants the same thing that you want for your birth. They want what you want, and they want to help you in every way.

 

Julie: Agree, 100% obviously. Aubria, it was so fun to listen to you tell the story because while we were communicating in it, I don’t think I’ve ever heard the whole thing. It was really fun. We always love having people that we know on the podcast as well. Your picture is beautiful. 

 

If you guys want to know more about finding a VBAC supportive provider, head on over to our blog, thevbaclink.com/blog, and in the search bar, type 3 Things You NEED to Know About Your VBAC Provider, and the blog will pop right up for you. If not, you can find it in our show notes. We’ll have a link right there to it.

 

If you want to know exactly what Aubria is talking about in our parent and doula courses, we’re going to have links to those courses in the show notes as well. You can check them out. They’re also on our page at thevbaclink.com under the tab called “Courses.” Head on over to our Instagram page and our Facebook pages today. Find Aubria’s post and tell us what your favorite part about her story was, and look at this gorgeous picture of her holding her VBAC baby. It’s a really, really cool picture. 

Closing

Would you like to be a guest on the podcast? Head over to thevbaclink.com/share and submit your story. For all things VBAC, including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Julie and Meagan’s bios, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.

149 Jill's VBAC + Birth Support Coaching

Jill from Alberta, Canada. She is a homeschooling mother to 3 children, a birth doula, and a recently certified birth support coach through the Birth Coach Method. She is excited to use her newly learned coaching tools to help her clients achieve their desired birth experience even if they cannot have a doula attend their birth. Jill works with pregnant women in their last trimester to coach them around their desires for their birth, their current reality, and circumstances and closes every coaching session with an action assignment designed to reach their goals.

 

Aside from sharing her incredible VBAC story, we discuss:

-What birth coaching is and how it is different from childbirth education.

-How hiring a birth support coach can help you, even if you can't have a doula attend your birth.

-How birth support coaching places the pregnant parent as an expert on their body and their birth.

 

Find Jill and learn more about birth coaching on her Instagram page: @jillmcknight_birthdoula

 

Episode Sponsor:

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Meagan: Happy Wednesday, women of strength! It is Julie and Meagan. We have Jill with us today. She’s in Canada and we cannot wait to hear not only her stories, but we want to dive in a little bit more on birth coaching-- something that she has gone into during her journey. She actually has three kids. She had a C-section and then two VBACs. We can’t wait to hear that story. She is a certified birth coach and a birth doula. 

We’re really excited to hear more about the coaching, what that entails and how we all can learn more because I know as a doula, for me, I think that would be something really fun to add to my offerings and my skills. I can’t wait to hear that. Julie has a review of the week, so we’ll turn the time over to her. 

Review of the week

Julie: I’m Julie and I have a review of the week and I’m also interested in learning about birth coaching. I’m just really excited. I’m not going to start asking questions and things because it’s the very beginning of the episode. But at the end we might just pick your brain a little bit, Jill. 

This review is from Apple Podcasts and the reviewer name is Khuxx. The review’s name is “Success.” Khuxx says, “This podcast helped me in so many ways. I had my VBAC baby in the early morning on Thanksgiving four days past my due date. I was religiously listening to this podcast in those three days leading up to labor as I felt my chances of my perfect labor were being ripped away. Putting my headphones and pushing play on The VBAC Link when I would start to doubt my ability my whole pregnancy was honestly my lifesaver. I told my midwives that this was helping me stay positive and I recommend it to EVERYONE. Thank you SO MUCH for creating the perfect podcast for all pregnant moms, not just moms wanting to VBAC. If I would have known about this with my first, maybe the outcome would have been different.”

Thank you so much, Khuxx, for that review. We were just talking about that before we started recording. We wish this had been around when we were having babies. And Jill, same thing. It always makes me feel really good when we hear that we are helping people and that our stories that we share on the podcast are helping others as well. 

Thank you, Jill, for sharing your story today. And thank you to everybody who has ever shared their story on our podcast and in our Facebook community and in our Instagram stories. We wouldn’t be The VBAC Link without every single one of you. So, thank you. 

Episode sponsor

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Jill’s story

Meagan: Okay, you guys. It’s podcast Wednesday and Jill has an awesome episode for you. Jill, we’re going to turn the time over to you to share your amazing story and then let us pick your brain at the end. 

Jill: Great. Thank you so much, Julie and Meagan. Thanks for having me. I am a VBAC mom. I had my first child in 2009. I didn’t have a doula. I didn’t really have a birth team set up. I went into it to see how it goes, kind of thing. I felt like an absolute goddess being pregnant, I’ll tell you that. But I always felt really deflated every time I left my prenatal appointments with my obstetrician. I felt like it was so run of the mill, going through the motions. I always felt really sad afterwards. I felt like, “Hey, I feel really great. I feel like I’m glowing. I feel amazing.” If I had a doula or if I had someone to talk to and download about it afterwards, that would have felt really nurturing to me. 

So I went along and my pregnancy was actually really great. I was healthy. I was strong. I never considered that I would have a C-section. I remember going through the hospital for the tour and the last stop was the operating room to show us expectant moms where it is and things like that. I was like, “Yeah, sure. I’ll look at it. But there’s no way. I’m just not going to have one.” My mother didn’t have one. My grandmother had ten babies and I just thought, “It’s not happening,” so I didn’t have any information about how to prepare for a C-section.

Meagan: A lot of times in these prenatals, there isn’t really any education given on C-sections. First time moms go in to have this baby and they’ve heard about a C-section but they don’t really know what it entails. That’s something that could be added to prenatal care. 

Jill: Yes. I think so for sure. Based on conversations that I’ve had with women throughout the years, it’s the same thing. At least to have had it as part of the prenatal, that would have been helpful for sure. 

I guess I can just skip to the birth. Pretty uneventful pregnancy, it was fine. My baby was late. The first time around when you go over the 40 week mark, it’s like, “Oh my gosh. When is this going to happen, right?” I did end up going into spontaneous labor at 41 weeks. We just had my in-laws arrive from Scotland. They had planned their trip to come for when the baby was born. Since baby was late, they showed up on the day that I started going into labor. So I had a house full of visitors. 

I started in the middle of the night feeling the early signs of labor. I did some of the things that I learned in my prenatal classes-- moving around when I could, trying to lie down when it felt comfortable. I ran a bath. I sat in the bath for a little while and then the contractions started to get a little bit intense. My husband and I decided to go into the hospital, which was just around the corner, so really close. I got checked into triage.

The part that always sticks out in my head was that the nurse that was there didn’t look at me. She had her head down and asked, “Are you having an epidural?” I was like, “Uh, I don’t know.” She was like, “Well, you don’t need one. But if you don’t get one now then the anesthesiologist might be busy so I would suggest that you say yes.”

Julie: Oh my gosh, I hate when they do that.

Meagan: It’s added pressure in a vulnerable moment. Even if you didn’t plan on that, you feel vulnerable and think, “Well, what if I end up wanting one and they’re not here?” I don’t like that. 

Jill: There was another woman that was laboring in the room and it was quite intimidating. I could hear her. She was pretty close, I think, to giving birth. The nurse then said, “So that woman there, that’s not her first baby. You can hear she’s going through some painful contractions. So if she’s feeling pain, what do you think you’re going to feel?” So I was like, “Wow. Okay.” 

Julie: Labor and delivery nurses-- I don’t think they mean ill intent when they say these things. I think they’re really trying to be helpful. But there should be a class about tact in the birth room. Maybe not. But I’ve heard things like that in the birth room. What are you supposed to say as a parent and you’re a first time mom? It’s so frustrating. 

Jill: Yeah. That’s it. All of those things led to me getting an epidural, but I was only at 4 centimeters. Knowing what I know now, that was quite early. But for me, at that stage, it felt really painful. I had never felt anything like that before, so it felt like, “Oh yeah. I want this pain to go away. I want to be more comfortable.” I got that epidural administered and then was hooked up to the IV, the machines, and all the things. I was strapped in and lying down on my back. From there, I continually was progressing and I did dilate. 

I don’t have the notes with me right now, but long story short, eventually, I got to the point where baby was going into distress. They had to insert that fetal scalp electrode. I just felt like a rag doll. At the beginning, when the epidural was administered, it worked really well. For some women it doesn’t work really well and they still feel the contractions. But I felt nothing and I thought, “Oh, this is cool. I’m going to lie here and the baby is going to come. Wow!” 

I just had no idea. Then there were more interventions. There was the fetal monitor, then baby was in distress. They were giving me oxygen, then there were several doctors, students, nurses, and more students coming to observe me. That moment is so clear in my mind when I’m lying in the bed with the oxygen mask and I have what felt like eight people surrounding me. I’m freaking out and my husband’s like, “It’s okay,” but we’re like, “I don’t know what’s going on.” That was quite scary. 

But I did get to the point where I was 10 centimeters and was able to push with directed pushing. I didn’t feel anything, so I was going based on what the labor and delivery nurses were telling me to do as my feet were up in stirrups and still lying on my back. I spent hours doing that. Eventually they were able to lift me up and put me over one of those bars where I was sitting upright to try and get some gravity on my side. 

Then they started talking C-section at that point because I was pushing for about two hours and because he was in distress. I kept asking for more time. I asked for another hour and then after that third hour, they could see his head. I remember them bringing a mirror and you could see the head, but he wasn’t far enough down that they could use a vacuum or forceps. That led to that moment where I had to sign off for surgery. I still feel quite emotional just remembering.

Meagan: That was a hard moment. 

Jill: Yeah. Then wheeled into surgery. As C-section moms, we all know that feeling. It feels really cold when you go into that operating room and everything is very quiet, very eerie. Everybody’s in their full scrubs and it’s a scary place. I was shaking at that point. I think there was something about the drugs they administer to you and they have to strap your arms down. I remember shaking and I felt very nauseous. When they did the surgery, it was quite a weird feeling. Because my son was descending down the birth canal, they actually had to pull him out. So his head came out in that cone kind of way.

Julie: You kind of had to recover from a vaginal birth and a Cesarean at that point.

Jill: It was almost that way, right? He was very large. He was 9 pounds, 4 ounces. Knowing what I know now, birthing a 9 pound, 4 ounce baby on your back, for 18 hours…

Meagan: It doesn’t leave a lot of room for baby to get down in the right spot. 

Jill: I didn’t know much about birth until after that moment and I did my research. I was like, “What was that? Why did that happen?” I blamed myself a lot and I went through a lot of really negative emotions. I felt very disappointed. I felt ashamed. I felt really ashamed. I didn’t expect that I would have a C-section and I didn’t like that I felt ashamed to tell people that. It was really confusing. 

It was a crazy start to motherhood. I absolutely adored my son. Thankfully we bonded well with breastfeeding and skin to skin, but I remember those nights that I stayed in the hospital. It was really quite traumatic. There are lots of other details, but I think that’s mainly the gist of it. 

After that, it really drove me to research and find out why. I got a hold of my records of my birth to find out what actually happened, what led to it. 

Megan: Which is such a good idea to do. It’s really important to get those records. We encourage all of our personal clients to do that.

Jill: Yeah, I found it really helpful. Then you can research and you can find out what all these terms mean. In the moment, you’re not really absorbing all the terminology that they’re throwing at you. You’re just scared. There’s the shock that takes over and you can’t absorb anything. Even in a straightforward labor, you’re not taking in information. 

I did a lot of work with the resources that were available at the time. It was 2009. I ended up stumbling into home birth which wasn’t anything I would ever have thought I would get into. I didn’t know anybody who had home births. I was actually quite intimidated by the thought of a home birth. But my research led me there. I started to really get into that world, which is quite an interesting place to be and a lot to learn there. 

I guess that’s what led me to want to be a doula because I’m reading all of these amazing books written by midwives and I thought, “I would love to be able to support somebody in a way that…”

Meagan: The way you wish you had been able to be supported?

Jill: Exactly, because I know exactly what I would have done for myself back then. That was part of my healing too. Like I said earlier, I really beat myself up a lot. It’s so common for moms who have unplanned C-sections or planned C-sections as well. As I did my research and I learned more, I started to forgive myself. I thought, “I did the best I could with what I had.” I didn’t know anything about epidural other than that it takes the pain of labor so I’m like, “That can’t be bad.” 

After I learned what I did in my doula training, I’m like, “Oh, so maybe 4 centimeters was a bit early.” If I had somebody there to support me for a few more hours to get to seven or eight centimeters,  maybe the epidural would have been a great thing for me. So I was able to slowly heal from some of that negativity that I was holding onto and that shame and that disappointment. I could see my C-section as the catalyst for change in my life that helped to guide me towards birth work. I’m thankful for it in that way. 

Meagan: I feel you. It’s kind of the same. I had two C-sections before I landed into the birth world but even though they were not my desired birth or my desired choice, I would not have changed anything because it led me to where I am today. 

Julie: Me too.

Jill: Then for my first VBAC, I waited 18 months because that was the recommended time. I don’t know if there is one recommended time, but for me, it was the 18 month wait after my first C-section to then try and get pregnant with my second child. I did that and then thankfully we got pregnant easily. I set myself up right away with midwives. In Canada, we have a public healthcare system which is great, but also stressful because you have to get your care provider the day you pee on the stick. You cannot mess around. I got myself into a really great midwifery practice right from the beginning. 

I was planning a home birth. I felt that was the best place for me. The midwives at this practice were  supportive and actually really loved working with VBAC moms. I was in really, really good hands. Just the way life goes, my husband got transferred to Melbourne, Australia for work. So when I was six months pregnant with my second child, we moved to Australia. 

Julie: Oh my gosh! I love Australia, but what a horrible time to move to another country. 

Jill: I know. We had actually been there already temporarily before my pregnancy and then we came home for a bit. I knew it was coming so it wasn’t completely out of the blue at the point, but I did have to navigate a completely new healthcare system there in Australia. 

Julie: Australia is completely different for Cesarean, VBAC and birth in general. It’s a completely different mindset even from the United States. Different parts of Australia have different birth cultures as well. It’s something I’ve been interested in learning more about, actually. When Meagan and I upgrade our VBAC van to a VBAC jet-- we’re dreaming really big right now. We’re going to have a VBAC Link jet and then fly to Australia and figure out the Australia birth world, VBAC, Cesareans, all that. And maybe we’ll go doula some people in the Outback. That would be awesome. I’m dreaming big. This is like, 50 years down the road if we’re still kicking around. 

Jill: That’s great to dream big. 

Julie: I’m going to stop talking now. Go on with your story.

Jill: I’ve never lived in the States but I can imagine Australia’s system to be a mixture of the United States and Canada because they do have public healthcare and private. It’s a nice little hybrid which was good for us because we weren’t residents of Australia so public health care, we still had to pay for anyway. We actually went private and I actually hired private midwives because the midwives there at that point weren’t covered under public healthcare like they are in Canada. 

I found some great midwives supporting my VBAC home birth. Everything was great. Totally crazy that we now lived down under. We were in Melbourne. It was a great city and I was in good hands. My husband took a little bit more time to get adjusted to the home birth, but we managed to come to an agreement.

We planned the home birth and there was a concern that I had a front lying placenta early on in the pregnancy, so I just needed to get an ultrasound at about 36 weeks to check on that. I got some more interesting news at that ultrasound which was that my baby was breech. 

Meagan: Not always a fun thing to find out. 

Jill: No. And that’s the thing from my experience with my second child. I went to the ultrasound by myself and my husband was at the pool with my son. It was like, “Oh, you know. It’s all good. You go play with him. I’ll go to the ultrasound and meet you later.” Oh God, could I have used somebody there with me. I obviously did not expect that either. Breech? What? I was a complete hot mess after finding that out. But my midwives were totally cool and they were like, “That’s okay. You’re only 36 weeks. Lots of babies are breech. They do somersaults. They go all around. It’s no big deal.” 

They were able to help me calm down and explore options. Then I was into a whole other level of not just VBAC, I was then looking into breech which is a little bit more frightening when you look on the internet about breech birth. This was in 2011 when breech was considered very high risk and almost always a C-section. I was quite devastated because I was so scared of having another C-section.

So I did all of the things. Spinning Babies-- I was lying down every day with my ironing board propped up on my couch. You lie down on your back with your head down and your feet up. 

Julie: The Breech Tilt, yes! 

Jill: Yep. Lots of hands and knees, doing all of the cat-cow hands and knees positions. I did everything. I did handstands in the pool which got me some pretty weird looks at the public pool. I did chiropractic care specifically for breech. I did Moxibustion, an acupuncture procedure where they put these needles in your pinky toes and then they have this charcoal cigar-lit thing that lights up and heats up the needle in your toes. I did all the things. She was not having it. 

She remained in the breech position. 

Julie: That’s frustrating after you do all that work. 

Jill: I know. The private/public system actually worked in my favor because I ended up getting in with an obstetrician in Melbourne who specializes in high risk. He does breeches, twins, VBAC’s, so he took me on as one of his patients. He was really great. I still had my midwives too but they weren’t able to be my primary care providers in the hospital because of the breech. It was more like she was a doula to me which was really great too. 

With breeches, the rule for my obstetrician was an eight hour labor or less but if it goes over eight hours then there is probably something going on. 

Julie: Well, that’s not fair. Lots of labors are longer than eight hours.

Jill: Yeah. That was scary and no epidural. There were a bunch of other rules, but eight hours was the limit. She was late too. She was about six days overdue. I started to feel the discomfort in the evening. I went to bed. I woke up sometime in the middle of the night, sometime between midnight and 2:00 am. I thought, “I’m going to get up now. We’re going to move around.” My husband was making oatmeal. We called the midwife to let her know I was starting to feel the early stages of labor. 

By about 3:00 am, I said to my husband, “You have to call the midwife NOW.” She was asking him, “Ask Jill to rate between 1 and 10 the intensity of the contractions.” It was literally, “7. Okay, no 8. Okay, no 9. No, 10.” It came that quickly. I got into the shower. Then interestingly enough, there was meconium coming out of me because my baby was in the breech position so bum down. 

Julie: That way baby doesn’t get aspirated.

Jill: It’s crazy, right? That was freaky. We still had to get to the hospital because I still wasn’t having that home birth. It was very fast. That was 3:00 in the morning, then we had to rush off to the hospital. I was that woman. No seatbelt, I was holding myself up with my hands, my arms fully straight, like, “This baby’s coming!” She was coming. 

When we got into the maternity ward, the nurses welcomed me. I remember them talking to me so sweetly saying, “It’s okay, honey. You’re just having a contraction.” I’m like, “Ugh, yeah. Okay.” When they checked me, the bum and the legs were coming. They were coming. They had to get me to wait until the obstetrician came because she was breech. So they had to wait for him to come. He lived about a five minutes drive away. We had the breathing and the “look deep into my eyes”. I think everybody was a bit panicked. This was a two hour labor. It started at about 3:00, then about 5:15 in the morning, I was directed to push. I really wanted to stand up. That was my urge-- to stand up, but I did have to go on the bed. Everything was moving. Everything was coming anyways. It didn’t really make a difference. But I think for me, with my first birth, I just was like, “I don’t want to lie down.” 

She was born bum first, then legs popping out. Then you see that the body is there and the head is still the last to birth. When she was born and they placed her on my body, she was upside down. It was the feet up at my chest. So that’s the way she was born.

Meagan: That’s awesome. I didn’t realize that your first VBAC was breech.

Jill: Yeah. She was a breech baby. That was that birth. It was a healing birth for me. It was a stressful birth. The lead up to it, with it being a VBAC and with being breech-- but I could see what my body was capable of. That’s what really healed me. I was quite surprised with how quick the labor was, just the two hours, really. 

Julie: That’s super fast for a first time vaginal birth and for a breech baby. That’s super speedy, as my four year old would say. 

Jill: Yeah. But it’s funny because I think the personalities shine through. My daughter now is going to be nine and I’m like, “Of course you were born breech. Of course you were born the complete opposite way than most.” 

Julie: I agree 100 percent with that sentiment, I really do. 

Jill: She’s our cannonball. She bursts into the scene all the time. I’m like, “Well, that’s how you were born.” It makes sense. Then my son, who was the C-section, we have to drag him out everywhere. So I’m like, “Oh yeah, you wanted to stay. You were good. We had to pull you out.”

Meagan: That’s so funny how they all fit their births.

Jill: For sure. Then for my third birth, we stayed in Australia for a couple more years after that, almost three years after my daughter was born. We got transferred back to Canada, but to a completely different part of Canada. As you know, Canada is a huge country. I was then home kind of, but still a four hour plane right from my home. Still quite foreign, but the same healthcare system and things like that. I planned a home birth again for my third birth and had really amazing midwives again and very supportive and really, really loved working with VBAC moms. I think I always shock people when I tell them about my birth story of my second child. They’re like, “Hold on, what? A VBAC and a breech? Okay, wow.” Then they knew about me having a really quick labor for my second child. So they were expecting another quick labor. 

For my third birth, she completely surprised me and came ten days early. My first was seven days late. My second was six, so I thought she was going to be five days late. I don’t know, I just couldn’t think any other way, but she was ten days early. Completely different scenarios. We have two kids now, almost six and three, planning a home birth so we didn’t have anywhere to go. It was Easter Sunday. We did the Easter egg hunt in the morning. At about 10:00 in the morning I said, “I think, maybe, could you send the kids over to the neighbors to play?”

Because I thought I might like to have the kids there for the birth, but then when I got down to it, I said, “I think I need to just not have to think about that so let’s send them over to the neighbors to have some space.” 

Contractions got pretty intense at about 11:00 in the morning. I was pacing up and down in my bathroom. Again, similar to the first birth, I said, “Contractions are getting pretty intense.” I said to my husband, “You’d better call the midwife.” The midwife was like, “Well, what’s going on?” And literally, as she was on the phone, my body just couldn’t help itself and I went straight into pushing. My husband was there on the phone. 

Meagan: Wow. 

Jill: I know. He had had a shower earlier and left his towels on the floor. Which, we get so upset with our husbands for doing stuff like that, but I’m like, “Oh wow, so you left the towels on the floor,” and that was where our daughter was born, just right on those towels in the bathroom with the midwife on the phone. She was able to hear her first cry. She knew it was good. She didn’t have to call the ambulance or anything like that. She just said, “I’m going to come over as soon as I can.” She was coming from the hospital from another birth just ten minutes away. 

So she came and showed up. She was so cool. She was so calm. She was so like, “Everything is great. Everything’s fine.” She ran my bath for me. I had my daughter with me and my placenta was still attached. I still hadn’t birthed the placenta yet. She got me through that. It was just amazing. It was another very healing experience for me. Very shocking. 

Meagan: It sounds amazing though. Sounds like a lot, but amazing. 

Jill: Yeah. Unplanned, right? Not expecting that. That was a one hour labor from start to finish. 

Meagan: You have an amazing cervix. Your cervix is like, “Listen, I’m ready and when I’m ready, I mean I’m READY.” 

Jill: We’re done now. I said to my husband, “Listen, if we’re going to have another baby, it’s going to be a Walmart baby. Seriously, I won’t even make it home. I don’t want that. We’re good.”

Meagan: That is crazy. And then there’s a cervix like mine that takes days and days and days. I always told my husband that we should have another one because I want to know what my cervix would do now that it’s done it. 

Julie: We are still holding out hope that there will be another Heaton baby. 

Meagan: It’s not looking like it. 

Julie: I know, but I am still hoping. You know my plan for you. 

Meagan: Oh my gosh. So C-section, breech, VBAC, unassisted, unplanned home VBAC for your second VBAC. Holy smokes, what a ride. Well, thank you so much for sharing. 

I know we have a few more minutes. I would love to talk more about the coaching. Tell us more about what you’re learning, how people could find that or how you found that, how people can find you and all of the things. 

Julie: And how that’s different from doula support. 

Jill: I trained with the Birth Coach Method, it’s called. My teacher was called Mary Life Trauma. She was a doula for years and then trained to be a life coach. She’s merged birth support work with life coaching. It’s different from what a doula would provide because it’s not about giving information about birth, although you can if your client requests that, but it’s more about getting to her belief system about what she holds true about birth. 

You’re using coaching tools and asking really strong questions to get to planning your most optimal birth experience. Normally, a doula would offer maybe two or three prenatal visits and one or two postnatal. I’m not sure. There’s a range. 

For coaching, it would be six prenatal visits of one hour long and two postnatal. We’re really getting a full picture of where she is in her pregnancy. Things around relationships, with support systems, nutrition, health. Just getting a full picture of where she’s thriving and where there’s challenges-- ways that we can come up with establishing goals for how she can be at a 10 in a certain area as opposed to a 5. How can we get her feeling empowered? 

Also, there is a component of understanding her reality-- what sort of health conditions she has or if she has any personal issues or anything that’s getting in the way of her reaching her goals. Then you can work on finding different options to reach her goals and then, just like with life coaching, there’s always action steps. There’s always a way forward. The coach is helping the client to stay accountable to their goals. 

When you’re working with your client, most likely in the third trimester, you’re giving an action assignment and then you’re checking in with them saying, “How are you doing with XYZ?” It’s just really about empowering and inspiring the client as opposed to teaching or educating. It’s not about giving more information. It’s about pulling back the layers of yourself to see what you hold true within you.

Julie: That’s interesting. Do you attend the birth or not?

Jill: Either way. 

Meagan: Can you extend that option? Can they be like, “Okay, I really want to have you attend my birth?”

Julie: But it’s not necessarily a part of what a birth coach would do unless you’re specifically requested for that, right? Or is that what I’m understanding?

Jill: Yes. That’s it. I think it’s an interesting time right now because of COVID. Some hospitals can have doulas, some can’t. There’s so much confusion, right? So I think it’s a nice alternative at the moment to then get all the support that you need to feel ready even if the doula cannot be there to attend your birth. 

Julie: It sounds like a really valuable toolset to have even as a doula. I’ve heard it said by one of the midwives that have been on our podcast before that two prenatal visits as a doula is not enough. It’s just not enough. I usually end up spending a lot more time with my clients than the two one and a half hour prenatal visits because, especially with VBAC, there’s just so much to do. I’ve been trying really hard to know how to reconcile that. 

Anyways, I’m not going to brain dump right now on you, but it sounds like this could be a way to supplement that and help add value to what you’re bringing to the birth community and your individual clients. Maybe they don’t want a doula at their birth but they do want some help in figuring out what birth looks like and feels like to them and how to gain that confidence. It sounds really cool. 

Jill: Yeah, it is really cool. I think it’s like 20 years ago or whatever when people didn’t really know what a doula was and they’re like, “What’s a doula?” It seems like it’s that kind of way with birth support coaching. People are like, “What is that? I’ve never heard of that.” So we’re just working on trying to get the word out so people know that it’s available. It’s just in the early stages, but I’m really excited. 

Julie: That’s really cool because you could technically take clients all over the world. I just supported, informally, somebody in India last night to have her VBAC because she knew all of the doulas in her area and she didn’t feel comfortable having one of them be her doula. I was on Facebook Messenger helping her feel supported until her team got there. Maybe I’m saying too much information because it’s illegal to have a home birth in the country that she’s birthing in. I think I already said the name of the country. 

So it was a really cool experience to be able to be involved that way even though she is halfway around the world from me. It sounds like something that can be done virtually as well where you don’t necessarily even need to be in person. Is that right? I don’t know if that’s part of the program. I know there’s a specific training. 

Meagan: That’s really cool. Super, super cool. I’ll have to check that out. Awesome. 

Well, thank you so much for sharing all of your amazing stories. 

Q&A

Julie: Questions! 

Meagan: Oh yes! Guess what. I always forget. We have questions for you. We asked in your submission when you submitted. I don’t know if you remember answering them, but one of them is, what is a secret lesson or something no one really talks about that you wish you would have known ahead of time when preparing for birth?

Jill: For my first birth, it’s definitely the importance of a supportive birth team. Hands down. For sure, that would be my answer. 

Meagan: Awesome. Then the other one is, what is your best tip for someone preparing for a VBAC?

Jill: My best tip is really sitting with and naming your emotions that you have about any emotional scars that you have after your C-section because I think the emotional healing is unexpected. I think it takes time. It takes quite a lot of time. Really pointing out those negative emotions, naming them, really sitting with them and being able to really talk about your birth story-- and be held and validated in all of your feelings, not rushed off by the classic, “Healthy baby. That’s the best outcome.” You know?

Megan: Definitely. I think working through all of those things prior can really help the next birth just in general to go smoother. Because for me, there was actually a lot of stuff I didn’t realize I hadn’t worked through and then I had to work through it right then in labor. It was really hard to have to backpedal a little bit to work through all of that. 

Alright, well thank you, thank you. You are just darling and we are so glad that you were with us today. 

Jill: Thank you so much. It was nice talking with you. Thank you for having me, Julie and Meagan. 

Closing

Would you like to be a guest on the podcast? Head over to thevbaclink.com/share and submit your story. For all things VBAC, including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Julie and Meagan’s bios, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.

148 Julie and Meagan Chat About Life and Birth

We have both been so busy with moving, remodeling kitchens, parenting, soccer, gymnastics, being a good wife, (trying to do) self-care, record podcasts, keep up with business, and EVERYTHING that we haven't even been able to catch up with each other. So, we decided to have a fun episode about life and what's been going on with us and the different births we have attended. You will be sure to get to know us a little better and have fun while we shoot the breeze. 

 

Birth topics we discuss:

Our doula careers at @tinyblessingsdoulaservices and @juliefrancombirth

Overcoming emotions as birth approaches

How we feel as doulas when our clients don't get the birth they prepared for

Inappropriate things we have heard providers/staff say to parents in labor

Video content on our YouTube Channel

Clearing our minds as doulas and for parents as we enter the birth space

Releasing fears and emotions

Our signature course How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents

Episode Sponsor:

This episode is brought to you by our very own VBAC Doula Certification program! Find out more about how to support parents who have had a Cesarean in the most effective ways at thevbaclink.com.

Full Transcript

Julie: Good morning, women of strength. It is Julie and Meagan here today and we are just going to talk because we have both been so busy moving, remodeling kitchens, doulaing parenting, soccer, gymnastics, trying to be a good wife somewhere in there…

 

Meagan: And still trying to do self-care.

 

Julie: And podcasts. We really haven’t even had a chance to catch up with each other and find out what we’ve been doing birth-wise, doula-wise and things like that. So we wanted to have a fun episode where we talk about life, different things that are going on with us, some births we’ve attended and different things like that. Hang along the ride with us. You’ll get to know us a little bit better and brain dead Julie, man. That’s my life right now. But first, before we do that, Meagan has a review of the week.

Review of the week

Meagan: Yes I do. This is actually from Google, so I was excited to see this. We are on Apple Podcasts and that’s probably where we get the most reviews. But this one is from Google and it’s from Hannah Troyer, Doula. Her subject is “5 Million Stars”. She says, “If I could give the VBAC Link 5 million stars, I would. It’s just that good. I have been a doula for three and a half years now and have supported multiple VBAC mamas. The evidence-based information, positive attitude, professionalism, education, encouragement and JOY I have received from Julie and Meagan leave me at a loss for words. I have tried to listen and read other podcasts, blogs, and trainings done by other doulas and most of them have left me with a bad taste in my mouth. As soon as I stumbled into the VBAC Link podcast, I could hear the joy of the doulas who actually LOVE their jobs. This was the first step into grabbing my attention and eventually making me fall in love with you two. Your podcasts are so educational and it brings a smile to my face every time I hear your voices. I could listen to them over and over. I am grateful I found the incredible source of information on VBAC’s. I am sharing it with everyone I know. Thank you, thank you, thank you VBAC Link.”

 

Julie: Aw, that makes me so happy.

 

Meagan: Yes. We do love our jobs. We love our lives, even though they’re crazy. And we do love bringing this podcast to you guys. The stories, the people that we meet all over the world. It’s just been so much fun over the last couple of years.

 

Julie: Oh my gosh. It’s been two and a half years. I can’t even believe it.

 

Meagan: Crazy, right? We’ve come a long way. Thank you so much, Hannah. We’ll dive right into the episode.

Episode sponsor

Julie: Birth workers, listen up. Do you want to increase your knowledge of birth after a Cesarean? We created our advanced VBAC doula certification program just for you. It is the most comprehensive VBAC doula training in the world perfectly packaged in an online, self-paced video course. This course is designed for birth workers who want to take their VBAC education to the next level so you can support parents who have had a Cesarean in the most effective ways. We have created a complete system, a step-by-step road map, that shows exactly what you need to know in order to support parents birthing after a Cesarean. Head over to thevbaclink.com to find out more information and sign up today. That’s thevbaclink.com. See you there.

Doula careers

Julie: Alright. It’s been a little while since we’ve had chitter chatter.

 

Meagan: I know. This is going to be a really random episode for you guys, catching up with what we’re up to.

 

Julie: Why don’t you tell a little about yourself, Meagan? Then I will share a little about me and we’ll see where we go.

 

Meagan: A little bit about myself. Crazy, all the time. I for some reason, like to be an energizer bunny with a half-full battery. Even today, recording podcasts, I’ve had to bail four times because I’ve had the paint people here, the countertop people here and the appliance people coming. All the things. I’m always crazy and I love projects. I struggle when my life doesn’t have a project in it. 

 

I have three kids and they keep us pretty busy. They’re all in soccer right now, so Saturdays look like us being at the soccer field all day long, because they’re each an hour plus games and we’re going from back to back to back. Then my daughter’s in gymnastics, and my other daughter is in dance. It’s been so much fun. They’re all out of the house a couple days a week because they’re all in school. That’s been really different for me, but honestly really fun. I get to do self care, work, do podcasts, go do prenatal cares with my clients, things like that. It’s been super fun. That’s kind of what we’re up to. Always crazy and going. My husband has been quite the trooper for supporting me through all of it.

 

Julie: Don’t forget, Meagan the doula, supported her husband while he was in law school by being a doula. She’s awesome.

 

Meagan: Yes. Doula life was crazy there for a little bit. But it’s been awesome. It’s been nice to take a little step back. Last month, I only had one client due. It was really nice to be here and take care of the family.

 

Julie: I think taking breaks is so important as a doula.

 

Meagan: Yeah. It’s how you avoid burnout.

 

Julie: Totally. I’m Julie, mom of four. I had four kids in a little less than five years. Not on purpose. I mean, well, you kind of half to do certain things to get pregnant, obviously. But the timing of baby number three-- she wanted to come sooner than we were planning. So, we have them all squished, right together. Currently their ages are seven, five, four, and two and a half, which is much better than when they were four, two, one, and a newborn. That was nuts. That was really nuts. But it all works out. It’s fine. Sometimes you hear kids running around in the background when I’m recording podcasts. That’s just the way it has to be during the digital age of quarantine and coronavirus. 

 

I also have a dog and a husband. My kids do soccer, just my two boys. One of my daughters is enrolled in gymnastics. Then the two and a half year old destroys everything in the house. That’s her hobby. My kids are very creative and problem solvers. I get caught off guard a lot by them-- which is probably a good way to say it.

 

I am an Army veteran, computer geek, data junkie, very analytical, and I just moved. Same town, really exciting move. I am really excited, actually. We’re getting everything unpacked and unloaded still. I feel like lately my life copies Meagan’s. Whatever Meagan is doing, my life will naturally get there. She was remodeling her kitchen while I was looking at houses and then I kept coming back to this house with an ugly kitchen. An ugly, ugly kitchen. We even called it the “ugly kitchen house”. My seven year old was like, “We’re not moving to the ugly kitchen house, are we?” Then my four year old would say, “It’s a beautiful house!” Then Meagan got me in contact with her kitchen guy. Now we are moved in. We are remodeling the kitchen as well. Meagan’s my hero.

 

We each have our own doula businesses, too. Let’s do a plug-in. Tiny Blessings Doula Services is Meagan’s doula company and she has a partner that she runs her doula business with. My doula business is called Julie Francom Birth. You can find us both on Instagram and Facebook. We would love the “likes” if you want to “like” us.  

Overcoming emotions leading up to birth

Meagan: If you want to follow our personal doula careers, check us out. This month, I have a lot of VBAC’s coming up, actually. So it’s quite exciting. At Tiny Blessings, we do a lot of first time moms, fifth time moms, but it seems like we go in spurts where we’ll have no VBAC’s, then the whole month is VBAC. It’s so fun. But it also brings a busy month because, as a VBAC parent, there’s a lot of stress that comes in the very end. Do you find that, Julie, with your clients?

 

Julie: Yeah, a lot of emotion.

 

Meagan: It’s a lot of emotional stress at the end. It can be heavy, but it’s fun. It’s not fun to be stressed for them, but it’s fun to work through it with them because when it comes down to the birth, we’re that much closer with our clients because we’ve been able to work through the nitty-gritty with them.

 

Julie: I think that with VBAC parents, it’s definitely a little more natural to fall into that more intimate knowledge of them. But  I’ve had a really strong connection with a recent first time mom and I had a four-peat client, so a client that’s been with me four times. My last three births, which have actually been in the last four weeks, have been a four-peat client, so her fourth baby with me as her doula, a VBAC, then a VBAC attempt that ended in a repeat Cesarean. It’s really fun because I love connecting with these people. 

 

Even the repeat Cesarean mom, she entered into her Cesarean smiling. She was so happy, laughing and confident. We created a really great environment for her. Her midwife was very supportive. It was night and day difference, she had said, from her first Cesarean to her second-- how she felt more supported and she felt like she was the one making the decisions.

 

Meagan: Which is a powerful thing.

 

Julie: It really is. It’s really different to go from an experience where you feel completely out of control and that decisions are being made for you to being an active decision maker in your care and being the final one to say, “Okay, let’s do this.” Even if your provider is offering you all different types of suggestions and things like that, being able to be the one to say, “Okay, let’s do it,” instead of your doctor being the one to say, “Well, we need to do this now.” It’s great and I love it. 

 

That mama was wheeled into that Cesarean with a big smile on her face and wheeled out of it with a great, big smile on her face. It was a totally, completely different experience for her. That makes me happy. 

When clients don’t get the birth they prepared for

Julie: I’m always sad when somebody doesn’t get their VBAC. It always makes me sad, especially when I’m sitting alone in the empty birth room whenever I’m not allowed in the operating room. You sit there and reflect, “Did I do enough? What could I have done differently?” I put a lot of responsibility on myself. But I know that a lot of these things are not in my control and that I support the best that I can. I’m always sitting there questioning and trying to see what we could have done differently. It’s kind of a lonely time when you’re just waiting. But coming back and seeing them so happy-- baby was so happy, and dad was so happy. It makes my heart more full when I can see that.

 

Meagan: Any birth workers out there, you may be able to relate. If things don’t go exactly as planned or desired, we sit back there and we take it home. It’s hard not to take it home with us and question, “Could we have done something more?” It’s my absolute favorite when the client says, “Yeah, it didn’t turn out exactly how I wanted it to. However, that was the most healing experience for me and I wouldn’t have changed it.” You know? Because they were in control, or because they felt like they were advocated for, or they were given options and they were able to make the decisions. It’s a powerful thing to be as in control as you can in a birth situation.  

 

Julie: I agree with that. That’s actually a number one indicator about whether someone will have post-traumatic stress related to birth. It’s not necessarily the birth outcome as much as whether they felt like they were listened to, heard, and that they were a decision maker in their care. Even VBAC’s, you can have post-traumatic stress disorder if you feel like you weren’t in control of what was being done to you or what was happening to you, as much as you can be in control with birth. But I mean as far as the decisions go, your care team, and all of those things.

Inappropriate comments said during labor

Julie: I’m going off on a little bit of a tangent, but can we talk about inappropriate things that we have heard providers, nurses, or hospital staff say to parents while they are in labor? Do you want me to start?

 

Meagan: Yeah, go ahead.

 

Julie: I actually had a client tell me that somebody had said this to her before, two years ago or so. But this same birth that I was just talking about, the nurse was a little rough around the edges. I think she was just really nervous about VBAC. There were two things she said that didn’t really sit very well with me. I know that she had good intentions. I want to preface it with that. I don’t think that this nurse had any ill intent or anything at all. 

 

But when my client was in labor, before it had been decided that she was going to have a repeat Cesarean, the nurse came in and she was like, “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. I come in here every time the baby falls off the monitor. I just get so nervous with TOLAC moms because I had one TOLAC mom, when her baby fell off the monitor, I came in to check on them and baby was outside of the abdomen and her uterus had ruptured. It was really scary and we had to do a repeat crash Cesarean.”

 

She said this to my client while my client was laboring with a VBAC. So every time that baby dropped off the monitor, that nurse rushed in there as fast as she could. And now we knew why. I feel like part of that created a subconsciously stressful environment for my client. Every time the nurse would rush in, we would change positions, baby would fall off the monitor, nurse would rush in, and then there was all of a sudden that fear of uterine rupture again coming in with that nurse.

 

The other thing she said-- I really had to bite my tongue, hard, during this speech she was making. Before my client was wheeled back for her Cesarean, they were getting everything prepped. The anesthesiologist was in there and everything. You know how they do. The nurse put her hand on my client. I really do think she was trying to be nice, kind and supportive. She said, “You know, sometimes things just have to go like this and we don’t know why. But we’re so grateful that we have these life saving measures like Cesarean birth. Because if this would have been 200 years ago, you and your baby would have died. You and your baby would have died if it was a couple hundred years ago. So we’re grateful that we have these Cesareans so that we can save your life and we can save your baby’s life.”

 

Well, I’m not going to analyze that birth to death because I’ve been analyzing that birth to death in my head. 200 years ago, things would have been very different. I had a client who said a nurse had said that to her before, but hearing it directly come out of her mouth, I was like, “No. Not the right time. Very inappropriate.” Even if it WAS true. EVEN IF it was true. And who knows? Maybe it is true. I don’t know. But not the right time. Bad timing. That was hard.

 

Meagan: I had a client, it was really hard. She had a different ethnicity. She was a VBAC. She was doing really well, actually. She just needed some more time and more support. They kept telling her that due to her ethnicity, the likelihood of her getting her baby out vaginally was extremely low, but the likelihood of her having rectal incontinence for the rest of her life was extremely high. They encouraged her to really think about if she was willing to poop her pants for the rest of her life for a vaginal birth.

 

Julie: Oh my gosh!

 

Meagan: Yeah. I was dying. I was sitting there cringing inside. “Due to her ethnicity.”

 

Julie: Can we talk about ethnicity and inappropriate comments? I had a client who was a TOLAC and oh, this nurse. I love labor and delivery nurses. I think that they are undervalued. But I think that some of them don’t understand the impact that they have on the overall birth process. The vibe, the energy, and everything like that. 

 

I had a nurse once who still gives me the creepy crawlies every time that I talk about it. My client was Mexican and her husband was Mexican. They were born in Mexico and they were here working in the United States legally-- work visas, and everything. My client was a VBAC. But every time I would say the word “VBAC”, the nurse would look at me. I think she just had a problem with doulas. She must have had a bad run-in with a doula or something. I don’t know. But she would look at me and be like, “It’s a TOLAC.” And I was like, “Okay, TOLAC. I need to remember to call this a TOLAC.” So I would start trying to remember to say TOLAC instead of VBAC just so that we could get that negative tone out of the room. 

 

My client was very fluent in English and she understood English very well. But that nurse would speak to her like she was a kindergartener, with slow sentences. She said, “You have this. Do you know what that means? Do you understand what that means?” and my skin was crawling. This was probably one of my most educated clients that I have ever had. She was speaking to her like she was completely ignorant just because she had a really heavy Mexican, Hispanic accent. It was really frustrating.

 

She was an older nurse. She had been around the block a time or two. She wouldn’t use the machine to administer the IV fluids. She preferred to let them drip instead of go through the machine. She thought it went better that way. They didn’t have the Monica Novii monitor, but when the next nurse came in, she said, “Oh, let’s get the Novii monitor out for you to use.” You could tell she was set in her ways, from an older generation. Especially in Utah, where we have a very, very, very high population of white people and not very much diversity, it was really hard to see her treat my client like that. It was hard.

 

Meagan: It’s hard as a doula to see stuff like that and hear things. But as a doula, we have to stay professional and we have to respect the entire birth room. It can be hard and it can be super easy. It just depends on the staff and everything.

 

Julie: I think it goes without saying that different personalities don’t vibe well together perfectly. As a doula, it’s very hard to change your personality to match the vibe of the staff’s personality and learn how to interact with them. Sometimes, you just can’t match your personality. But I do a pretty good job. I think that’s one of the only times that I have really not been able to be happy with a nurse. And not only be happy with, but I mean, be fun, and part as friends. You know what I mean? Leave feeling that everybody in the room was supportive and enjoyed the experience together and things like that. That one nurse was particularly hard. 

Clearing minds for the birth space

Meagan: I wanted to touch really quickly on a couple of questions. This last week on Instagram, it was my weekend and I asked to have people ask me questions, and one of the really frequent questions that came through was how to prepare mentally and let go of past experiences. I wanted to talk on Julie’s Youtube video up on our channel on YouTube about releasing fear, tension and past experiences and things like that. Because I think it is so valuable and it’s something that you may have to do multiple times, but it’s something that can be very powerful during your preparation. 

 

I encourage you to not even wait until you are pregnant. Do it now and process what is going through your mind now. As more things come up, do those. Same thing with birth workers. We see a lot. We hear a lot. We go through a lot. I think it’s important to notice that for birth workers, there are a lot of things that we need to release because just like providers, we’ve talked about this before, providers see a lot of stuff. They see things that are amazing and things that are so scary. Sometimes they can let those experiences come into other people’s births.

 

Julie: Yeah, like that nurse who kept coming in when the baby would drop off the monitor.

 

Meagan: Exactly, and it’s hard. That’s life. It’s human. It’s normal. I have a very relative personality and so I tend to relate from my own experience to relate to people. So it’s so important for us in the birth space to keep other situations and other stories separate from what’s happening then. Now you can take those experiences as learning experiences and use them as a tool to certain points, but it’s so important to not bring either negative feelings or negative situations and things like that that you’ve seen into a new birth that is completely different.

 

After I saw my friend who did rupture, I was nervous to go to my next VBAC because I was nervous that I was going to overanalyze things. Does that make sense? I didn’t want to make anything that was happening from my friend’s birth go into my mind and think, “Oh my gosh, maybe this client is rupturing too.” I feel very proud of myself. I would give myself a cookie for not carrying that in, but I was nervous that I would. Of course, my education and things like that have helped me not have that situation. Anyway, I just think it’s so important to go and do these fear clearing releases and things like that. So Julie, do you want to tell them where we can find those?

 

Julie: The fear releasing activity video?

 

Meagan: Yeah, on YouTube. It’s your video. You did it really well.

YouTube video content

 

Julie: Thanks. I love it. It’s a really fun fear release activity that you can do. It’s on our YouTube channel. You can go and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Our podcasts are also published to YouTube automatically, so if you subscribe to our YouTube channel, you’ll automatically get notified when a new podcast episode comes out there if that’s easier to watch than listen wherever you are listening right now. We also have it on our IGTV, videos on Instagram and I think it’s on Facebook somewhere, but probably the best place to find it would be on YouTube. It’s under the education playlist.

 

Meagan: I’m going to look right now. I want to figure out exactly what you can type on YouTube. Painless fear release. Actually, you can just search the VBAC Link and it’s on there. It’s number four. VBAC Without Fear: 5 Minute Fear Release. So get on there, check it out. You’ll see cute Julie’s face, pretty much everywhere, because let’s be honest. I have been terrible at making videos and she has been amazing at making them.

Releasing fears

Julie: Do you know what else, Meagan, that I have figured out for getting emotions out? The nervous system, our brain and our body, the neurological system and the sympathetic nervous system, is that what it’s called? I don’t know, I’m not a brain junkie. But there are feelings and emotions stored in our body. Sometimes you don’t even know what those feelings and emotions are, but they need to get out. 

 

One of the ways for them to get out is by crying. Sometimes, if I don’t have time to do a full fear release with my client, or they don’t quite know what’s bothering them or what they would even write down, I just tell them, “Go do something that will make you cry.” Watch the Notebook. The Seven Minutes movie with Will Smith in it is the only time I have ever left a movie theater sobbing. Or, I don’t know, slow dance with your partner, or watch your wedding song or your birth video or whatever. Do something that makes you cry. Your body will do the rest. It will turn into this huge cry fest and emotional release for you. You don’t even have to write it down or burn it or do anything because your body will process it once that release starts. Pretty, pretty cool. Just cry. All you’ve got to do is cry about it and then it will be better. 

How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents

 

But yes. The smokeless fire fear release. We have a fear release activity in our course for parents at How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents and you can find that on our website thevbaclink.com. But this is in addition to that.

 

There is also a supplementary video in our course that you can find on our YouTube channel and it talks about a really cool, smokeless fire fear release. Basically you put Epsom salts and rubbing alcohol in a fire-proof bowl. I usually use a glass bowl. You light it on fire with a lighter. Obviously fire safety is encouraged. Then you shred up your paper that you have written down all of your thoughts on and burn it. It burns without smoke unless you have, like, eight people putting their papers in. Then there’s some smoke and you might set off a fire alarm when you’re doing an in-person class. Hypothetically. But it’s super fun and super easy. When you’re done you just flush it down the toilet. The Epsom salts dissolve in the water and it’s perfect.

 

Meagan: Awesome. Is there anything else that you want to add for this really quick, random, short episode?

 

Julie: This is something that is good for doulas and parents. Whenever you leave a birth, write it down on paper. Brain dump everything on your mind. It doesn’t have to be legible. Don’t go back and read it. Write it all out. Don’t proofread. Don’t worry about punctuation or capitalization or anything like that. Write it all down as fast as you can. Off load it from your brain and then destroy the paper. You can burn it using this five minute smokeless fire fear release. You can shred it up and throw it into the wind. You can flush it down the toilet, whatever you want. Just destroy it and then your brain creates this dopamine response. The brain dump, with the dopamine response by destroying it, actually causes your body and brain to process and heal the things that just happened. That would be my last tip.

 

Meagan: We are going to start doing more of these where we randomly chat with you. We want to answer questions or talk about topics. If you have a topic that you would like us to touch on, send us a message either on Instagram or Facebook. We’ve got some that have come in and we’re going to get them rolling out on episodes here soon, probably towards the end of the year or the beginning of 2021. Holy cow, hopefully by then it’ll be a lot better than 2020. We are excited to keep talking to you about things you want to hear about.

 

Julie: And as always, we love you and we believe in you. We are proud of you.

 

Meagan: Do you want to do me a really quick favor? We are needing more reviews to read on the podcast. If you could go over to Google, Facebook, or wherever, leave us a review and let us know what you think of The VBAC Link.

 

Julie: Do you know what else you could do? If you’ve taken our course, go to our course page on our website, thevbaclink.com and leave a review there. We should start reading some course reviews as a review of the week.

 

Meagan: Yeah, let’s do it.

Closing

Would you like to be a guest on the podcast? Head over to thevbaclink.com/share and submit your story. For all things VBAC, including online and in person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Julie and Meagan’s bios, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.

147 Jennifer's CBAC + Crash Cesarean

Jennifer says: "In 2015, after 41 hours of labor, I ended up having a C-section. I was sad that my birth plan hadn't ended the way I wanted it to but so happy to meet my baby boy finally! Fast forward 3.5 years, a miscarriage and secondary infertility- I was yet pregnant again! I found the most VBAC friendly doctor in town, went to a webster certified chiropractor every other week, hired a doula, listened to ALL the VBAC podcast, and I was ready! I had prepared myself and my body for birth. I was 100% confident that I would accomplish a VBAC- so was my entire birth team! Then I found out my doctor was going to be on vacation for 1.5 weeks- I was pretty sure he would not be attending my delivery, which made me so sad since he was so VBAC positive. Labor started just after midnight on my due date. I progressed slow and steady- at the 25 hrs mark, my water broke, I was 8 cm dilated. My husband and I were so excited; my body was doing what it was MADE to do!

"We were going to find out the gender of our baby soon!

"Within 10 minutes, everything changed. Nurses and doctors rushed in. The baby's heartbeat couldn't be detected. The fear was that my uterus had ruptured, which is a slight risk you take when attempting a VBAC. My team decided that a crash C-section was necessary; it wasn't going to be a "gentle" section. I was going to be put under general anesthesia. My husband would not be able to attend the birth. I was put under terrified thinking about how I would tell my four-year-old that his brother or sister wasn't going to be coming home. Bad things weren't supposed to happen to rainbow babies.

"My doctor acted swiftly, and he said he was able to remove my baby within 43 seconds of putting me under... 43 seconds! Thankfully, my uterus hadn't ruptured. The cord was wrapped twice around the baby's neck. When I saw my baby for the first time, I quickly noted the pink hat in her warmer and realized I was now a girl mom, which was so shocking because I thought it was another boy.

"Soon after, the tears of joy went back to tears of sadness. Thankfully I had a great support system and reached out to a counselor right away. I knew that I wanted to sort my feelings about my failed VBAC and traumatic birth before those thoughts consumed me. I saw a counselor who specializes in postpartum issues four days after delivering my baby girl. She has helped me work through the fears of almost losing our baby and has been a tremendous asset in keeping my mental health in the right place."

We go on to talk about the difference between a Crash Cesarean and an Emergency Cesarean, and why it is important to know the difference. 

You can find out more about How to Cope When You Don't Get Your VBAC on our blog. 

We want to thank this episode's sponsor, Betterhelp Counseling, whose mission is to make professional counseling accessible, affordable, convenient - so anyone who struggles with life’s challenges can get help, anytime, anywhere. Get 10% off your first month by going to betterhelp.com/vbac. 

Full transcript

Meagan: Hello, hello! You are with the VBAC Link with Meagan and Julie, and our friend Jennifer today. We’re excited to have her sharing her story. She is a CBAC. For anyone who doesn’t know what a CBAC is, it’s Cesarean birth after Cesarean. She was going for a VBAC, was getting so close, and had a turn in a completely different direction. We’re going to be talking with her today about her story and also splitting up the difference between an emergency C-section and a crash C-section. A lot of times, a non-emergent and emergent is jumbled into one. So we’re going to talk about the differences there. We’re really, really excited. Of course, Julie has our review of the week. I’m going to turn the time over to her to read that.

 

Julie: Yeah, I’m really excited about this story. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again. We are not here to share just the sunshine and butterfly VBAC stories. If that’s what you want, and that’s okay if you want that, then this is probably not going to be one that you would want to listen to. But we encourage you, if you can, to take a minute to ground yourself and try and listen to the harder stories because VBAC, TOLAC, trying a vaginal birth, whatever you want to call it, doesn’t always go as planned. 

 

Sometimes a repeat Cesarean is necessary, sometimes it’s wanted, and sometimes it’s an emergency, like a true emergency. Knowing the difference, like Meagan said, is really important between an emergency Cesarean and a crash Cesarean. This is sure to be a really vulnerable and raw story. I am so grateful to Jennifer for being willing to share that story today.

Review of the week

Before I do that, I’m going to share a review from hellomissbliss, on Apple Podcasts. Doesn’t that take you back to your high school days, Meagan? Miss Bliss? Saved by the bell? Totally there. So hellomissbliss, I’m going to read your review. The title is “Invaluable”. She says, “As soon as I had my C-section, I knew I wanted to VBAC for my future births. I searched other birth podcasts for VBAC stories specifically, and then one day I found The VBAC Link. The information, honesty, support, and evidence-based advice that Julie, Meagan, and their guests provide are invaluable. I make my husband listen and feel so much more empowered and secure in my decision to VBAC. I’m eight weeks pregnant now and I can’t wait to share my VBAC story next year. Thank you so much for this amazing resource.”

 

Now we’ve got to do what we do. We calculate the dates. She was eight weeks pregnant on November 1st, so that’s two months. She probably just had her baby! In June. Hellomissbliss. If you had your VBAC, let us know. We would love to hear your story.

 

Meagan: We are so excited to get started. I do want to give you a fair warning before we turn the time over to Jennifer. If you’ve been following our stories and my Friday updates, you know that I am completely under construction. My entire top floor, which is what’s above me, is under construction. We had to rip up all of our tile and they are prepping the floor to re-lay it right now. So you may hear hammering, you may hear sawing, you may even hear a dog bark, and I’m sorry. Just a fair warning.

 

Julie: There’s always the chance of crazy kids. Meagan has one home and I have three at home. My two-year-old is currently resisting naptime, which should be coming up in about 45 minutes. So it’s just, you get what you get. Sometimes we’re good and sometimes we are a hot mess!

Meagan: I just wanted to give that fair warning. If you hear the knocking, I am guilty. It’s me. But Jennifer, we’re so excited to have you here and we can’t wait to dive into your story. We’d love to turn the time over to you.

Jennifer’s story

Jennifer: Thank y’all so much. I guess I’ll start with my son, with my first C-section. I went into labor at 40 weeks, 5 days. I had a really great pregnancy, no real issues. I labored at home for 21 hours with a doula. We finally went to the hospital and I was only 1 centimeter. That was very discouraging, but I walked around and they ended up keeping me because I was able to get to 3. Long story short, it was about 35 hours that I had been in labor. 

I was about 8 centimeters and my doctor said my cervix was swollen. She said that we’ll try some Pitocin, but my baby didn’t handle the Pitocin well, so they stopped. I wasn’t really progressing after that. At about the 43-hour mark, she said I had to have a section. There was no talking to her, letting me have any more time or anything like that. She said it was just too swollen. It wouldn’t have happened.

We had a C-section and it went very smoothly. My doula was able to be in the room with us. She took some great pictures. After delivery, he was perfect and we had a really good hospital stay. I knew after having him, though, that my first question was, “Okay, can I have a VBAC?” And of course, the doctor at the time was like, “We don’t even need to be talking about this right now. You just had a baby.”

Life went on and it was okay. I wasn’t too sad. I knew I would have kind of like a redemption. I’d be able to try for a VBAC in a few years when we decided to have another child and we were hoping for that.

A few years later, we were ready to have another baby. I had a miscarriage and then we had about 13 months of infertility. We finally were able to start an oral medicine to help us get pregnant. I got pregnant the first month, and I knew that I needed a VBAC friendly doctor. In my town, we really only have two, and one is much more VBAC friendly than the other, so I chose him. He was great. He said I had a really high chance of delivering the way I wanted to and that he didn’t see anything stopping us at the time. So I hired a doula again. I saw a Webster-certified chiropractor a few times a month-- pretty much throughout my whole pregnancy. It was a very textbook pregnancy. There were no signs that would indicate anything would happen.

Then, I found out towards the end of my pregnancy that my doctor was going on vacation. He was going to be gone from when I was 39 weeks to 41 weeks. I knew at that point that my chances of a VBAC-- it was very discouraging knowing he wasn’t going to be there. But my doula calmed me down because the doctor who was going to be on call for him was the other VBAC friendly doctor in our town. That kind of helped me out a little bit. So I knew that I would be delivering with the other doctor. I had met him before, when I had my miscarriage, so I did vaguely know him. I was just going to wait and see what would happen. I knew going in that I wasn’t going to be induced. My doctor was giving me until 42 weeks. We were planning on riding it out until I went into labor naturally.

At 40 weeks exactly, at 12:00 am, I went into labor. I guess early labor is what you’d say. My contractions started, but they were coming on really, really strong. They had always said, if you’re getting them less than five minutes apart, come in, because you are a VBAC candidate so we want to monitor you a little bit more. We went into the hospital after only a few hours of contractions and I was only one centimeter. We walked around. We got to about two or three centimeters, and they were like, “We will keep you,” but at that time, it was overnight. 

At our hospital, we have a hospitalist who sees you until early morning hours when you would see your regular doctor, as long as everything’s going as planned and smoothly. The hospitalist kept us and I continued to progress pretty well. I mean, very slowly. By about the 12-hour mark I think I was 5 or 6 centimeters, but it was still so much faster than with my son in my previous pregnancy.

Everything was going well. The doctors I had were a little bit more VBAC tolerant versus okay with it, but they were letting me do what I wanted to do and labor on my own. They kind of just waited it out. I ended up getting an epidural and that helped progress me a little bit. They would turn me every two hours. They were doing minimal checks and everything was going smooth until about 2:00 am. 

I was about 8 centimeters, they had just checked me. The nurse had just come in to re-dose my epidural and my water broke. My husband and I just laughed. We were so excited because I finally felt like it was happening. I was getting my VBAC. My body was doing what it needed to do. I was on the right path. We knew that at 8 centimeters, if your water breaks, it’s going to progress pretty quickly, so we knew she was coming. 

About eight to ten minutes later, nurses swarmed into my room. I mean, we probably had about eight to ten in my room. They couldn’t find my baby’s heartbeat. They were trying to get me on all fours to try to figure out if it was just a positional thing or what. And that’s very hard when you’ve had an epidural and can’t move. I had people touching me in all kinds of places trying to turn me over. 

My doula had actually left. She had taken a little bit of a break because it was in the middle of the night. We had been progressing but it had been slow and she lived right by the hospital.

Meagan: Can I just say, that’s a really awesome thing for you to have done? A lot of doulas burn out and they get so exhausted. They’ll be there for a really long time, but when things are moving slow and they’re not as necessary, it’s a really good idea to send your doula home or send her somewhere to go rest. That’s really, really good.

Jennifer: For my first one, she was with us the whole time. She was a saint. I mean, she was literally with us for 40 something hours.

Meagan: Doulas will power through.

Jennifer: Yeah, so my doula this time had a few breaks. She was only a phone call away. I mean, she lived so close that it didn’t matter if she left for a little bit, because no one was expecting to have this baby super fast.

So the hospitalist comes in. It was like he had been sleeping all night. He was very slow with his speech. He was like, “There seems to be a problem. We’re not quite sure what.”

And I’m like, “Okay, you need to get my baby out if you can’t find the heartbeat.”

So, thank God, my stand-in doctor, the on call doctor, has monitors at his house and also lives right near the hospital. And for whatever reason, at 2:00 am on this Saturday morning, he was awake and looking at the monitors. So before the nurses even had a chance to call him and tell him that something was wrong, he was already in his car on the way to the hospital.

Meagan: That’s amazing.

Jennifer: He barged into my room and it was literally like something out of a movie. He and this other doctor, the hospitalist, were arguing over what to do. From what I remember, the hospitalist was saying, “We’re going to take the baby out right here in the room”, and the on-call doctor was like, “No you’re not, the OR is right down the hall.”

They’re arguing. The nurses are unplugging everything from the bed and trying to wheel me out of the room. They were able to find the heartbeat at one point, but it was only 30. So they were thinking that my uterus had ruptured and the doctors had agreed on that.

Julie: Yeah, that’s a scary heartbeat.

Jennifer: Yeah and then they couldn’t find it after that. They were basically screaming at me that it was a uterine rupture and I was thinking that it was all my fault, that I did this. I could have just had an easy C-section but I chose to do this. Because prior to this happening, earlier in the day, every time the doctors would come in, even the VBAC friendly one, they’d talk about it. “Well this is the risk. Are you sure you don’t want to just have a section? Are you sure you don’t want to have a little bit of Pitocin?”

And I’m like, “No.”

So I go in thinking that my baby has died. How am I supposed to tell my four year old that we don’t have a baby anymore? It was chaos. There was cursing, not by me, by the doctors and the staff, because I guess things just weren’t falling into place as quickly as they wanted it to. They were finally able to put me under and of course, I don’t know what happened after that. 

The doctor did tell me that from the time I was put out until my baby was here, it was only 43 seconds. They were able to get her out super quickly. And she was good. She was fine. Her APGARS were the highest they could be. She was okay. Now we know that the cord was wrapped around her neck twice, which was why her heartbeat was so low. Before my water had broken she had all that cushion to bounce off of, but once my water had broken, the cord was too tight. There was nothing for her to float around in, so that’s why it happened right after my water broke.

Meagan: That makes sense. I was going to say, it’s like there’s a floodgate opening. They’re in this nice little hot tub, this floodgate opens, and they move. Water comes out, and it could have just gotten too tight. Did they try to change your positions or anything or was it just kinda like, “We’re going”? 

Jennifer: They did. That’s when they tried to get me on all fours before the doctor had come in the room. But because I had an epidural, it was just too hard to move. They didn’t really get a good response from that. They couldn’t find the baby’s heartbeat. They tried checking me, just to make sure the cord hadn’t prolapsed too, because that could have been one of the issues, they said. But that didn’t happen. She was fine.

My doula wasn’t there. My husband, poor thing, he was by himself for that part. Thankfully, I told him as they were wheeling me into the OR, “Call her! Get her to come. You need someone here with you.” Because I didn’t know how he would be either, especially if my baby hadn’t made it. He did say though, that he was able to hear her cry, because he was standing outside the door. It seems like it took forever in the OR, but he said it didn’t because literally, once I was in there, it took five or so minutes for them to put me under and all of that, and he was able to hear her cry. He knew at that point that she was okay.

We didn’t know if she was a girl or a boy at that point. We didn’t get our moment of her coming out and being put on my chest and being able to look together, which we were so looking forward to, because that was the incentive for a VBAC too. You know, how exciting it is to have your baby and not even know if it was a girl or a boy, then being able to look. He found out via a picture. The nurse got his phone and took some pictures for him. I found out when I was wheeled into the room. There was a little pink hat on her head, so I knew it was a girl at that point.

Meagan: How long did it take for you to come back to and be present again?

Jennifer: Honestly, I think it was less than an hour. I was in the recovery room by 3:00. She was born at 2:00, and by 3:00, I was in the recovery room, which is basically the amount of time it took with my son as well. It was like a normal C-section. He was actually able to cut on my old C-section scar, so everything was pretty textbook. Instead, it was a lot faster than a regular C-section. As far as post C-section, everything was textbook. I was in the room about an hour after, nursing her, and she was feeling so good. That part was kind of normal, if you would call it that.

Emergency vs. Crash Cesareans

Meagan: Good. Yeah and I want to talk about, really, that difference. There are emergency C-sections, then there are true, true emergent, crash C-sections. You had a crash C-section. One of the first indicators of a crash C-section is if they have to knock you out and there’s no time to even talk and discuss or do anything like that. Baby was out in, what did you say, 43 seconds?

Jennifer: 43 seconds. 

Meagan: Yeah, that is a true, crash C-section. A lot of times with crash C-sections, partners are not allowed to be there either because there’s no time and there’s so much happening that they don’t even have time to allow that person in. Fetal heart tones are one of the biggest reasons for a crash C-section. Really low heart decels that cannot be recovered or found. Obviously, it’s a very scary situation and we want to get baby out. So that’s what they did. They rushed and it sounds like they did a very good job rushing. We are so glad that she was okay.

Jennifer: Thank you. It was very scary and still it’s very hard to even talk about. I was so grateful-- we have a great perinatal mental health specialist in town that, four days post-delivery, I saw her for the first time. I saw her every two weeks for the first month. I went every month and I still see her. Now we talk more about husband and children issues, but for a long time, we just talked about the birth. Trying to help me to just realize that it was okay to have those feelings. The sadness. Because even in the hospital, talking to my nurses, I was very tearful all the time. But they were just like, “She’s here, she’s okay.”

It was true. But I was also kind of mourning the birth that I didn’t get to experience. I am so happy that my little girl was okay, and I would do anything. I would go back and have another crash C-section just to have her healthy, but after preparing and feeling like I am a great candidate for a VBAC, I didn’t really set myself up for what if it doesn’t happen? You know?

Julie: Yes. Oh my gosh, yes.

Jennifer: I guess that’s one reason why I wanted to share my story too. Because for nine months, even longer than nine months, before I even got pregnant, VBAC was what was going to happen and I had no doubt about that. That was one of the things we’ve worked on a lot in counseling too. It was okay to have those feelings, but it’s okay too that it didn’t go the way I wanted it to or the way I expected it to.

Julie: Yeah, I agree. I think it’s so important. That’s one of the reasons why we like to share all of these different types of stories and different birth outcomes, because while uterine rupture is incredibly rare and a catastrophic rupture is even more rare than that, it still happens. When you’re the 1 in 100 or a 1000, it might as well be a 100% chance for you, because that’s what your story is and that’s what’s happened to you. We’re grateful that yours didn’t end up in a uterine rupture. But there’s still that trauma there. The minutes leading up to that 43 seconds probably felt like an eternity, and there’s a whole lot of stuff there to process.

Jennifer: It did. When they’re putting you in the OR, you’re having to switch over beds real quick and you can’t move, because they’re trying to get you all set up. You’re literally laying there naked because they’re in a rush. They’re throwing betadine on you and cleaning you up and getting you ready. All of those things, while you’re sitting there and you’re trying to think through it. You’re thinking the worst of what’s going to happen and how you’re going to tell people. How you’re going to tell your little ones at home-- just the worst thoughts. 

Then my doctor came in the next day and said, “Oh, well, you did have a uterine window.”
And I’m like, “Gosh. First of all, do we really need to talk about that? Because that had nothing to do with my delivery at all.”

Meagan: A lot of people have uterine windows.

Julie: Yeah, Meagan did.

Jennifer: I’ve heard you can even have one if you’ve never had a C-section.

Meagan: Absolutely. A lot of first time moms probably have them and they would never know if they didn’t have a C-section.

Jennifer: He’s basically telling me that, “Look, you’re never going to have a vaginal birth.” I don’t know if we’ll have another child. I think we’re good. But I just had a baby 12 hours ago. You don’t need to be telling me this.

Meagan: Right. My provider told me that on the table. During my C-section he told me he was so happy that I didn’t VBAC because I “for sure would have ruptured.” And that I have this window. But what he doesn’t understand is what that did to me for my next birth. It stuck with me. And you’re like, “I just had a baby. Can I just focus on this for this very moment?”

Jennifer: Exactly. Because even if we choose to have another one, or are blessed to have another one, I’d probably worry my whole pregnancy that, “Oh gosh, I have a uterine window.” Even if I wasn’t trying for a VBAC, I’d probably be thinking, “Okay, I can rupture any moment.”

Some things just don’t need to be said.

Julie: I think that providers sometimes don’t realize the impact that their words have on these pregnant people and I think sometimes it comes out of misinformation. They just don’t know. These guys, they’re surgeons. Most obstetricians have done hundreds, thousands of C-sections, perhaps, and have seen a lot of really abnormal things. I can’t imagine that it would be comfortable for someone doing a C-section to see a uterine window and see through the uterus. That probably would be really hard. They would probably be thinking, “Wow. It’s a good thing we’re doing this C-section because this uterus is really thin.”

I think it’s more of a defensive mechanism-- a subconscious, primal thing. Seeing that is scary and there’s not a lot of information. There’s no information. There’s no way to tell if a uterine rupture or a uterine window leads to a rupture. There’s just no way. You’d have to know if the uterine window was there before the rupture happened. You can’t do that unless you have a C-section. And so, there’s just no evidence. At all. You just have to assume. When you make assumptions, you get misinformation and misguided providers. It’s really frustrating.

I wanted to tell a quick story. I had a client who had a crash Cesarean. There’s so much stuff I want to talk about. It is all in our course. My mind is going on all these different tangents like epidural placement, crash Cesarean, emergency Cesarean, preparing mentally for a different outcome, all of these things. But I want to talk about my experience. 

I had a client and she had a two-vessel cord. Normally the umbilical cord has three vessels, two going in and one going out. Hers only had one going in and one going out of the cord which, usually, is not a problem. And, usually the cord around the neck is not a problem. Most of the time, you just slip the cord off the neck as the baby comes out and everything’s fine. But sometimes it is a problem, like in your case and, it turns out, in my client’s case. 

She was going along perfectly in her VBAC and everything was fine. She was pushing for two hours. She just could not get the baby past the pubic bone. She finally decided she wanted an epidural so that she could get some rest. Rest and descend to let the body do some work on its own while she could get some much needed rest. The anesthesiologist came in and she was pushing. She finally got the baby past the pubic bone. The anesthesiologist was there getting ready to do the epidural. 

By this time, the OBGYN had come in. She was with a midwife and the baby’s heart rate was super tachycardic. 60bpm, 240bpm, 180, 40bpm, 90. It was up, down, up, down, up, down. It was so crazy, all over the place. Baby was under a lot of stress. The OB said, “How long is it going to take you to get an epidural where we could do a forceps delivery?” He’s like, “Well, probably about 20 minutes.” She’s like, “I don’t have 20 minutes. I have 2 minutes.” 

Once she said that, everything changed. They dosed up her IV. They flattened the bed out. They wheeled her to the OR. It was like, this baby is not doing well. Now we need to get the baby out. There’s no time for an epidural. There’s no time for anything else. We need to get the baby out now.

And so, they rushed everybody. It was busy chaos, just like you said. Everybody flooded into the room. Me, the birth photographer, and the birth partner stepped back, got out of the way, and they rushed her away. The baby was born three minutes later, after the obstetrician had said, “I only have two minutes.” It ended up being three minutes, but I’m sure she was just throwing out a short amount of time. It was a good call because the baby was born with an APGAR of 0. Literally, they had to resuscitate him. His two minute APGAR was 5, he was in the NICU for six weeks. There was a lot of crazy stuff. 

It was not a uterine rupture. It was the two-vessel cord. The cord was wrapped around his neck twice, so once he got past that pubic bone, all of the pressure was super restrictive and he wasn’t getting oxygen. That’s a crash Cesarean. Baby needs to be out in minutes. Minutes, even seconds, matter. That’s why we kind of laugh at the “just in case” epidural, because even if an epidural is dosed and turned on, in order to get it up to a dose where you wouldn’t feel it during surgery would take 20-30 minutes, even if it is already turned on. If it’s not turned on, it could take 40 minutes. If you only have two or three minutes to get baby out, you’re going to be put under whether you have the epidural or not.

Jennifer: Exactly. See, I had asked my doctor that at one of my appointments because I was going to try to go without an epidural. I said, “If I go without, what happens if I end up needing a section?” He said, “If you need a section that quickly, it would be a crash section and you’re going to be put under regardless.” He said, “Do not make up your mind on whether or not you want an epidural on the basis of a section or not. If you want it, get it for pain management. Don’t get it because, you think, okay well, what if something happens and I need a section?”

Julie: This is where people can get confused. The medical definition of a crash Cesarean is baby has to get out now. We can’t wait. We can’t do anything. We need to knock mom out, cut baby out as soon as possible. That’s a crash Cesarean. 

Emergency Cesarean is, “Oh gosh, baby is not looking great. You’re only 4 centimeters. Let’s call the OR and get the anesthesiologist in here. Oh, he’s in another surgery, so you’re going to have to wait 30 minutes.” That’s an emergency Cesarean. But when people hear the word emergency, it’s not a good word. It’s not a good thing. Emergency is bad in our minds. An emergency Cesarean really just means, “We don’t think baby is going to come out vaginally and so we need to get it out through a Cesarean.” 

In that case, if there’s time to wait, then there’s time to get a spinal block, which takes five minutes to take effect. It’s much different than an epidural. It wears off a lot quicker too, which is why it’s not their first go-to, but a spinal block takes effect rather quickly and you can still have your Cesarean in 30-40 minutes with a spinal block. 

Then, of course, we have planned Cesareans which are scheduled. So you have your scheduled Cesarean, your emergency Cesarean, which is not an emergency. It just means, “Oh, well, we don’t think baby is going to come out vaginally”, or maybe there are problems, like mom has a fever, there’s pre-eclampsia, blood pressure, swollen cervix, etc. Crash Cesarean is, “Alright. This is an emergency. There is a risk to the life of mom or baby. Baby has to come out right now.” That’s where seconds matter.

Jennifer: I think it’s important for people to know the difference. Not that any one is worse than the other, but some nurses and doctors don’t even know the difference. Because my regular doctor was on vacation, I had a stand-in doctor every day. They would call it an emergency C-section, often. It was so close and so fresh in my mind that I would correct them every time. “No, it was a crash section.” There’s a difference. The fact that they call it an emergency section over and over, I was like, “Gosh y’all. It wasn’t just an emergency.” It didn’t feel like that, at least to me.

Julie: Yeah. Significant difference. Very big difference.

Thank you so much for sharing your story with us. Before we forget, we want to ask you our questions that we try to remember to ask people.

Meagan: I actually want to share just one more thing really, really fast. We have a blog post. I believe Julie wrote it. It’s about healing after a birth that didn’t go the way that you wanted it to.

Julie: It’s How to Cope When You Don’t Get Your VBAC. That’s what it’s called. I just barely linked to it in the blog I’m writing right now.

Meagan: It’s How to Cope When You Don’t Get Your VBAC and there’s Healing From Trauma After a Difficult Birth Experience. We have two different blogs that may benefit you if you are in this situation as well. So go check it out. It’s at thevbaclink.com/blog. We’ve got oodles and oodles of blogs in addition to that, but those are two specific ones that I thought related to this awesome story.

Julie: There’s a search bar on the blog. You can go in and search for whatever you want, really. Enter in the search term you are looking for. On mobile, I think it’s at the bottom sometimes. If you are on a desktop, it’s on the right side. Click on the blog page and it will pop up there for you.

Q&A

Meagan: Yes, yes, yes. And then we do. We ask questions. We always forget to ask, so I’m excited that Julie remembered. One of them is, what is a secret lesson or something no one really talks about that you wish you would have known ahead of time when preparing for birth?
Do you remember what you answered? Or do you want to answer something random, too? We have what you answered if you want us to read it.

Julie: I don’t remember. I wrote that so long ago because we had to reschedule a few times. I don’t even remember what I put.

Meagan: You said that you wish you had prepared yourself for the possibility that you would have had to have a C-section. You were so positive that you would have had a VBAC that you didn’t think of any other complications. I think that is such a big and powerful tip. Our secret lesson, as we are calling it, because there are a lot of times where people write their birth plans and they’re like, “This is how my birth is going to go,” and then birth doesn’t necessarily go that way. It’s actually a lot of trauma for them because they had only prepared for this one way. This is why we believe that hearing CBAC stories and uterine ruptures are really good to hear. They’re really scary to hear when you’re preparing, sometimes, but they’re so beneficial in so many ways.

What is your best tip for someone preparing for a VBAC?

Jennifer: I think it would be, like I said, to have an open mind. Labor never goes really how you plan, but definitely have a very pro-VBAC team. You know, a doula, your doctor. Go in knowing that it may not go the way you want it to, but it’s okay. There are so many resources after that can help you, like my counselor. My husband was a big support system. Just making sure you have a good support system, whether it’s family or otherwise.

Meagan: Definitely. I love it. Jennifer, thank you so much for sharing your story. We love it. We love you and thanks for being with us.

Closing

Would you like to be a guest on the podcast? Head over to thevbaclink.com/share and submit your story. For all things VBAC, including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Julie and Meagan’s bios, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.

146 VBAC Doulas Tell All

This episode is a must-listen! Ten of our VBAC doulas give their best tips and tricks for an empowered pregnancy and birth. There are so many sweet nuggets of information given by these wonderful people that you will be sure to re-listen again and again to soak it all in. To find a doula on this podcast or, in your own state or country, go to thevbaclink.com/findadoula. Guest Doulas:

1. Kimberly Culver Dulce Birth - Central Texas - Birth hormones and physiological birth
2. Terri Schelkoph Doula Mama - Lakeville, Minnesota - The people you have in your birth space
3. Tiffany Muniz  The Doula Tiffany - Breese, Illinois - Choosing a supportive provider
4. Emmy Howard Birth Wizard - Chandler, Arizona - Teamwork makes the dream work
5. Brittany LeBoeuf MotherBirth - Lafayette, Louisiana - Staying informed and always learning 
6. Nicole Ramsey Ada's Gift Doula Services - West Central Indiana - Birth planning and choices
7. Michelle Holmes Doulaed - Heber City, Utah - 3-minute childbirth education class for the partner
8. Brooke Volpe Solace Birth Services - Southeast Pennsylvania and New Jersey - Understanding the pelvis
9. Dominika Buck Alaska Above and Beyond Doula Care - Alaska - Coping with unsupportive family and friends
10. Sarah Bills - The VBAC Link Admin - Boise, Idaho - Asking questions and being an active participant

Want to become a VBAC Doula? Head over to thevbaclink.com/product/advanced-doula-certification and get started today!

 

145 Hermaris' VBAC + Prodromal Labor

Hermaris' first birth was straightforward and boring until the very end when they found out her baby was breech. She was unable to turn her baby and ended with a Cesarean. With Hermaris' second pregnancy, she was forced to switch providers at 30 weeks due to her insurance. After laboring at home for a long time, Hermaris and her husband headed to the hospital. She arrived at a 6 and quickly progressed. Hermaris' birth was full of lots of surprises, but she still got to have her VBAC. 

Meagan takes a moment to talk about prodromal labor. She tells you what it is and what to do when you experience it.

 

Main Episode Topics:

- Breech

- Switching providers

- Prodromal labor

 

This episode is brought to you by, How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents:

Our course is not a typical childbirth class. We focus exclusively on the extra information you need to prepare yourself for the best chance of a successful VBAC.

How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents

 

Additional Links:

The VBAC Link Blog

Hermaris' Website

Hermaris' Instagram

Hermaris' Photography Instagram

Hermaris' Shop

Hermaris' Facebook

Hermaris' Blog