My VBAC birth story!

LiluBee · May 2011

Hi Ladies!

Charlie was born 5/11 at 10:12pm after about a 3 hour labor. 8lbs 1oz and 20.5 inches long. Here is the story.

Tuesday night around 10:30 I felt a small gush of water in my undies. It didn't trickle, it just soaked my underwear so I put on a different pair and I felt it soak it again. It didn't run down my legs or anything so I called the doula and she said it sounded like a slow leak and the best thing to do would be to go to bed and call the doc in the morning.

So in the morning I called her and she said I should stay home and go about the day as normal as possible and the contractions SHOULD start on their own and then to go in when they are patterned and close together. And it never happened. So in the afternoon I was told I'd have to go in the hospital and get induced. I was in triage for a few hours while they tried to confirm I ruptured. I had felt a few gushes throughout the day so I knew for sure it had. However, the swab and speculum pooling showed nothing so they finally had to observe something under a microscope to confirm. They left me alone for awhile and I had one contraction is 30 mins so I was definitely headed for a "whif" of pit which really irritated me! I really wanted no pit!

I get in the room and the nurse is super annoying and rude and couldn't get any telemetry units to work for me so in the bed I went just waiting for it all to go downhill. My mom showed up for a visit and the photographer and doula come. I decided I wanted my own labor, not the hospitals, so I started stimulating my nips, right there in front of everyone. And it worked. I started having very extremely manageable and painless contractions 2-4 mins apart starting around 6:30. At 7pm I get up to pee and I have two painful contractions in the bathroom on top of each other. As soon as I get back to the room another one hits and it was sooo intense. I started shaking and thinking I was going to throw up. My family doc walks in and starts to talk to me and I can't even pay attention to her. My doula and my mom notice the change in me and start to guide me into vocalization. I realized right away I was in transition and knew I had to be checked. I was 8cm! Things went so fast then. People started coming in and setting things up. I got to the bed and felt the need to bear down...I could feel him coming down and it was killing me! She checked me again when I said I wanted to push and I was 9.5 so no pushing yet. THAT killed me. I wanted so bad to push and started yelling things like HELP ME! and I WANT DRUGS!

Finally it was time to push and I've never felt anything so primal. It really was like having huge BM the way my body pushed for me and the harder I pushed the more I could drive the pain away. It took about an hour or more of pushing. His head was quite large (35 cm) and I got a third degree tear. He was brought to my chest right away and stayed skin to skin until they were really trying hard to massage the uterus and poking me with numbing stuff for the stitches. They placenta wasn't coming out and it was determined I would need a surgery for the tear because it tore into the sphincter. So after my med-free VBAC I then got pitocin and would later need a spinal for the surgery! I was so pissed. The pit didn't get the placenta so they were going to manually extract it during surgery but before they could put their hands in there it plopped right out.

We are home now and I'm recovering ok. I have to sit on a rubber donut until my pelvic floor and is recovered. The worst part has been that and the hemmroids but recovery is a lot better than with my c-section. I can lift things and bend over and did some light cleaning and playing with my 4 year old.

I can't believe I had the experience I did. I have to say, it was even more painful than I ever anticipated and don't desire natural birth again...at least not that I can think of now. I would prefer an epi to those contractions but overall I'm very proud that I "beat the odds" of whether or not I could have my VBAC.

Thanks for reading and good luck with any VBACs coming up!!

mrsbookworm · May 2011

Congratulations on your VBAC and your little one!

nosoup4u · May 2011

Yay! Congrats! And holy crap, that's a fast labor...I agree that med-free is incredibly intense. Hope you recover fast!

Brownie_222 · May 2011

Congrats! So glad you got your VBAC. Hope recovery gets easier day by day. Enjoy your new baby boy!

sleepingbeauty825 · May 2011

Congrats!!!

Treasa · May 2011

Great VBAC story! Wow it sounds intense & I am sorry you had to go through all the stuff with the placenta! You could have done without that!

Congrats on your new baby!

lynzee64 · May 2011

Congrats on your VBAC!!!!! Very inspiring! I am 34 weeks as of tomorrow and planning a VBAC as well. This is my first time on this board. If you don't mind my asking...why did you have to have a c-section for your first? Mine was failure to progress or cpd. Again congrats on your VBAC and little one:)