I Had THREE VBACS After Two Cesarean Births – My Experience

My first birth didn’t go as planned. I was due April 30th but my water broke two weeks early. I rushed to the hospital around 6 am and they did several tests to make sure my amniotic bag had ruptured since it had stopped leaking. After a few hours they admitted me. My contractions weren’t really coming at all and they kept talking about how they wanted me to start contracting soon. Immediately I thought “what’s wrong with my body?” “why isn’t my body doing what it’s supposed to do?”

They started me on Pitocin and that’s when my contractions came in full force, I couldn’t beat the pain. I asked for an epidural. Unfortunately my epidural failed and it was only working on one side. The entire labor time I had to roll on either side of my body every 30 or so minutes. Because of that they didn’t want me to walk around so they had me on IV drip and I was tied to my bed.

Around 10 pm that day I just felt this urge to push, and I kept telling my nurses “I think I’m ready” they dismissed me because they looked at the monitor and said I wasn’t contracting and maybe I just needed to go to the bathroom and do number 2. I was trying so hard to be a good patient, to be ‘obedient’ and not troublesome. But at one point I just couldn’t sit and I started to push. I saw my baby’s head crowning and the nurses started to freak out and kept telling me to wait because my doctor wasn’t there yet. One of the nurses left the room, the other one stayed and counted with me and told me to push only on her count. It was super stressful!

The doctor finally came in, she measured me and said to me “there’s no way this baby is going to come out from here, her head is too big and you are so small. With all the trying and pushing your baby’s heart rate is going up so we will have to prep you for a cesarean.” I cried, I looked at my husband and we both asked the doctor if there was anything else we could do to, she said I’d be putting my life and my baby’s life in danger so the best thing was to do a cesarean birth. And so we did.

They took me to the operation room and gave me meds. My arms were shaking so much and I couldn’t control them, so they tied my arms down. I kept looking up at all the lights, feeling the tugging and filling of my organs, my hands being tied down and still shaking, I felt like a rag. This wasn’t how I pictured my first child being born. This wasn’t at all what I expected my body to go through. But here I was. My daughter was born via cesarean on April 17th, 2011 at 11:45 pm. She was born with a fever and spent two days in the NICU.

Deep inside of me I always felt like it was all my fault. Somewhere along the lines I missed something. I blamed myself.

When she was six months we got pregnant with my second daughter. I was seeing the same practitioner for my prenatal care and he told me I had to have a cesarean because my first one was a cesarean. Blindly trusting in his advice I scheduled a cesarean birth at 38 weeks.

This cesarean was less traumatic because I knew what to expect. It was quick, and I was able to be with my daughter right away. She was born on August 1st, 2012.

When I got pregnant with my third, and I found out it was a boy, my husband and I thought this might be our last baby. And something about having them all cesareans made me feel empty inside. And this is when my curiosity started “could I maybe have a vaginal birth?” “I wonder if there are women out there who’ve done this before” and so I started my research. I’d stay up late and read all kinds of birth stories. I found hope. I felt inspired and motivated to try!

I talked with my doctor about it and he told me there was no way he would allow me to put my life and that of my baby’s in danger and that if I were his daughter he wouldn’t allow me to go through it.

I was devastated by his answer but in the back of my head I had all the stories I had read, all the information I had printed and studied. Unsatisfied with his answer, I went on a Facebook VBAC group and asked for advice on how I could find a VBAC friendly doctor. They gave me the number of a doctor and I was able to transfer to their office for my prenatal care, I was about 32 weeks when this happened.

The new doctor asked me a set of questions to determine if I was a good candidate for a VBAC and he accepted my transfer and I left that day feeling so accomplished and proud that I had done the research and found someone who supported my choice.

I was 40 weeks and I went in for my non-stress check-up and when they checked my cervix I was already at a 6cm. I was told to go straight to the hospital. I hadn’t had any strong contractions at this point so it was quite a surprise!

When I got to the hospital, the midwife asked me if I wanted a birth pool, I felt like I was in birthing heaven! I labored on that pool for a few hours, the nurses where so calm and kept giving me water to drink, they’d place a cold wet towel on my forehead, the entire atmosphere was peaceful, reassuring, and I felt so safe.

I started to feel a bit light-headed so I transferred to the bed and that’s when I started to push. I pushed for about 10 minutes and I pulled my baby out and placed him on my chest. This was the first time I was able to be the first one to touch and see my baby. It was so beautiful. I had chosen not to have any medication because for me it was about feeling each contraction and letting that heal me from all my past birth trauma. I was so emotionally involved with every wave of contractions and I let go of every hurt, every time I blamed myself for how the other births happened, I finally forgave myself. And it was so healing. My son was born via VBAC on the 7th of January, 2014.

For my last two babies I was under the care of the same team of midwives and delivered them both via unmedicated VBAC. My daughter was born on November 13th, 2015, and my last son was born on June 15th, 2018.

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