VBAC!

lob · May 2013

Between 2 and 4 am on May 3 (38 weeks, 4 days), I had some of contractions but they were not consistently spaced and after a while they went away completely. I went back to sleep. At 6:30am, they woke me up again and felt different. I felt constant crampiness and then sporadic bursts of pain that I did not recognize as contractions. To be honest, I was freaking that I had developed a UTI because they seemed to get worse when I walked. I had to call my husband who had felt for work about a half an hour earlier.

He was back home at 7:30am and I had been timing contractions?.at that point I did recognize they were contractions. They were still very inconsistently spaced: 15 minutes, 7 minutes, 3 minutes, etc. I decided to stay at home until my doctor?s appointment, which was at 9:45.

As time progressed, the contractions got closer and closer but they still were not consistently spaced. I got checked internally by my doctor and I was already 4 centimeters dilated! I was sent straight to the hospital and I was so happy that I had gone into labor on my own because the practice did not allow Pitocin for VBAC attempts. I already had scheduled by back-up C-Section for May 15.

When I got to the hospital (after dropping of DS#1 at a friend?s house and getting stuck in traffic) at 11:00am, I had stopped timing my contractions but they seemed to be coming so quick. I was checked at 6 centimeters!

I decided to get an epidural at that point, but that turned out not to be an easy proposition! My hands were very swollen and my veins uncooperative. They poked me multiple times trying to get a blood sample?.during my contractions?and that really sucked. I started getting super stressed because I didn?t understand what was going on. They finally gave in and gave me the epidural at 12:00 when I was already 9 centimeters!

By about 1:00pm, I was ready to push. My epidural was already wearing off a little and I did have the urge to push and felt him come out at 2:03pm. He came right onto my chest for skin-to-skin, which is something that I desperately wanted after my previous c-section. Nathan nursed like a champ and spent a good hour with me until the nurses did their thing. We?re so happy as a family of four.