Had my successful VBAC! Birth story inside (take 2)

rowanthefrog · May 2011

Sry, had to delete the first one, it C&Ped with weird formatting. Hopefully this is better.

I went to my OB appointment and had my membranes stripped,for the third time, around 2pm on Friday. However, this time I was dilated enough that they were able to fully strip the membranes around his head. They said I was 1cm dilated.

As we were driving to hang out at my friend?s house to get ready for my 15 yr high school reunion, I had a fairly painful contraction inthe car. DH and I decided to still goto the reunion and see how things went.

We went to my 15 yr high school reunion and had a nice timecatching up with everyone. I was having consistent but mild contractions throughout the evening, but we stayed until the end. Much to everyone?s dismay, my water did NOT break at the reunion. Personally I was fine with that.

We headed home and went to sleep. About 2:30am I woke up, having more painful contractions than I had been experiencing. I let DH sleep and I went and walked around the house, took a bath and read a book. I tried to go back to sleep but wasn?t able to.

Morning came and I finished packing my hospital bag, packed a bag for Ethan (who was already at the grandparents) and straightened the house. The contractions were starting to get a little more intense but I could still walk and talk through them. I called my doula to tell her what was going on and woke up DH around 10am.

By 11am, the contractions were getting difficult to walk and talk through and I was leaning against walls to get through them. I put on a Thermacare back heating pad and also used my Passion Parties hot massager to provide some relief on my lower back.

Unfortunately, my doula was already helping another woman through labor, so her backup came to help us labor at home. When she arrived she gave us some suggestionsto help me get through the contractions. I would walk slowly up and down the stairs to help open up my pelvis and I would have a contraction at the bottom of the stairs. Putting one leg up on a stair as I breathed through them really helped.

We did the rainbow relaxation CD a couple of times but it was not as helpful as walking and moving through the contractions. We timed them and they were coming pretty fast, about 2 minutes apart.

Finally, around 3pm, we decided to head to the hospital because the contractions were so close together. That was NOT a fun car ride. Having to sit through the contractions was terrible. We arrived at the hospital and checked in, answering questions between contractions and walking around. We finally got into our room and they checked me, and much to my dismay after 12 hours of labor, I was still only 1cm, the same that I had been the day before at my appointment. I was very disappointed, as I had thought that after all that labor I would have made some progress. I was also completely exhausted since I had barely slept the night before and had been in labor all day.

Our doula suggested that we head back home and continue to labor at home, however I knew that I could not stand to make that car ride 2 more times. I also knew that I NEEDED to sleep, somehow. We talked to the nurse and she said they could give me a ?therapeutic rest,? aka a shot of morphine and an ambien to help me sleep. The morphine would not take away the pain of the contractions completely, but should provide a little relief, so I decided that that would give me at least a little rest and then hopefully I would be able to better cope with the rest of labor. Around 7pm I got that shot and went to sleep for a few hours.

When I woke up around 1am, the contractions had nearly stopped completely, which was concerning. I was checked and was 1.5cm, but still no real progress. The midwife told us at that point that a C-section was looking very likely in the morning, but we would see what happened in the night. Very discouraged, I resigned myself to having the surgery in the morning and went back to sleep.

Around 3am I woke up and the contractions were getting very painful again. My mom and DH were in the room, and eventually I had to get up and start walking around the room toget through them, leaning on DH and my mom as they came. They were back to 2 minutes apart. I was so exhausted I was apparently falling asleep, standing up, between each contraction. The nurse came and checked me and FINALLY I started to make progress, I was 3-4cm. I asked for the epidural and they gave me one fairly quickly and I passed out and slept for several hours.

I woke up, they checked me at 9am and I was 7-8cm and my water had broken on its own. There was some meconium though. I was progressing very quickly at that point and the midwife said she would be back in an hour and a half to check me again. When she came back, she checked and said, ?his head is RIGHT there! Let?s push with the next contraction and see what happens.? I did one push and she told me to stop because we had to get the delivery team in the room.

Everyone assembled and the midwife asked if I wanted a mirror to watch what was going on, I figured, sure, why not? They told me to push again and his head was almost completely out, the next push I saw him come right out of my body and he was delivered in just 3 pushes! Elliott was born! Since there was meconium they took him and checked him out before they would let me have him, but he didn?t aspirate any of it, so within a few minutes he was on my chest skin to skin. He latched onto my breast almost immediately and nursed for nearly an hour! It was truly amazing.

We only stayed in the hospital for a day after he was born because I was feeling so much better than I did after my C-section with Ethan. It really is night and day, feeling immediately BETTER than I did at the end of my pregnancy instead of worse. I wouldn?t say that I am any more bonded to Elliott over Ethan, but I have been able to participate so much more in his early days, without the haze of pain and pain meds, which is nice.

Elliott is a sweet little baby. He?s been amazing at breastfeeding since the moment he was born. We didn?t have to supplement with formula at all this time, he nursed solely on colostrum and my milk came in at 3 days and he?s done great with that. He loves to nurse, does it quite constantly J But when he?s not nursing he will spend several hours each day just looking around at DH, Ethan and I, taking it all in. He responds very well to DH? voice already, and he loves to snuggle on my chest. We are both completely in love with our new little boy. Ethan is handling the change pretty well. So far he hasn?t shown any anger/jealous feelings. He has definitely been even more snuggly than usual with me and likes to help with diaper changes and give Elliott kisses. We?ll see how things go once DH heads back to work, but for now its been pretty smooth sailing!