A couple of posts ago I mentioned that a friend of mine was trying for a VBAC.  She was amazingly successful and I would like to share a few things I learned from her journey:

1. Her choice of careprovider made ALL the difference.

She was induced 9 days after her due date with her first baby which started her on the road to her first cesarean.  She also comes from a family whose babies like to come at or around 42 weeks.  So she had two questions when interviewing providers: Do you support VBACs? and Do you wait until 42 weeks with VBACs before encouraging induction?  If the answer to either of those was “No,” she went on to interview someone else.

This was an excellent decision because when she got to the hospital in labor 42 weeks to the day, the doctor on call from her practice clearly wasn’t as comfortable with her VBAC as her regular provider.  If she had been with another doctor,  she could have waited until she went into labor on her own, but she surely would have had much more pressure to induce or schedule another cesarean.

2.  She was  VERY informed.

She read and researched a LOT while pregnant and knew the risks of each of the procedures that were common in her situation (induction, augmentation of labor, etc) and had prepared alternative suggestions that she was more comfortable with.  Being informed was so helpful to her in labor when the doctor on call reminded her of the dangers of VBACs including a ruptured utuerus and dead baby.  She was able to remain calm, remind the doctor that the risk of surgical complication was statistically greater than the dangers posed by VBAC, ask for some juice and continue on with her labor.  She was amazing.

3. You have to deal with the birth you are given.

On her birth plan it was clearly written that she wanted as much freedom of movement as possible.  She knew that as a VBAC she would have continuous electronic fetal monitoring and she would be limited in movement by the length of the wires tethering he to the machine.  Not ideal, but not stuck in bed either.  Then her blood pressure remained high.  So she was instructed to lay down in bed on her left side to reduce her BP.  In that moment she had to choose:  be more comfortable by moving around and jeopardize her chance at VBAC completely,  or lay in bed, deal with the increased discomfort of her labor and stay on the path to a VBAC.   She valiantly chose the latter, watched her BP drop significantly  as she labored on one side or the other,  and stayed on that path to pushing out her baby on her own.

It was amazing.

“We have a secret in our culture, and it’s not that birth is painful. It’s that women are strong.” - Laure Stavoe Harm