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VBAC
chiromommyMichelle
member
Had my VBAC...by the skin of my teeth!
chiromommyMichelle
member
in VBAC
Ok, don't read if you are the nervous type!
I started having contractions Thursday morning around 9:30....around 10 min apart, and stayed that way through the early afternoon. Picked up a bit throughout the afternoon to around 8 min apart, so I called my midwife to let her know, went to get adjusted, and pick up a few last minute groceries. She got to my house around 6:30 that night, checked me and my blood pressure (2/3 cm and about 50% and 140/90...bp had been high the day before at my regular checkup, but was staying steady.) She decided to head to her in laws' house to get some sleep and visit, and give us some space to do our thing. I puttered around the house for a few hours, then slept for a few hours, then get up for a few hours, and grabbed one last power nap around 6am. When I woke up around 7:30 it was from a contraction....i figured that was a good sign that they were getting stronger if they woke me up.
Lisa came back over late morning, and I was up to 5 cm and 80% effaced...a little disappointing, but hey....that's how it goes sometimes. Contractions kept up all day at about 5 min apart til about 4pm when things started to kick up a notch. I labored in and out of the tub, shower and on and off of my physio ball for the next few hours til I was fully dilated and effaced, about ten pm. This where things get a little nutty....we waited and waited for the urge to push to hit, but it never really did. When my water finally started to leak around 11:00, we decided I'd try pushing without the urge....see what happened. Not a whole lot. Baby was still doing great, Lisa checked her heart tones after every contraction and they were awesome.
Another half hour later we thought we'd try to push again...this is where things got a litttle hairy...
I started pushing, and still had a pretty good bulging bag that didn't rupture completely...small amounts of fluid were coming out with each contraction and appeared to have some meconium. Nothing too serious, baby still passed her heart tones with flying colors after each contraction. Then suddenly each time I push, heart tones go in the toilet and she's not really descending much. Just a lot of 'head bobbing' down then back up. Lisa gets very serious and says, "Ok...here's the deal. We need to get this baby out, Your bag finally ruptured and there's a lot of meconium. " So we decide to see how much progress we can make in 3-4 contractions. And the answer is....next to nothing.
And into the car we go! There are two large hospitals in my area, both about 20 minutes away. One has a flat 'no vbac' policy, the other has a fairly restrictive one. At this point I've been laboring for 40 hours, and am exhausted and concerned for the little one. Lisa asks me where I want to go...my intial thought is that either one is going to crash section me at this point, so I might as well go to the nicer facility. So we decide to head there. Then I have a realiation: they don't allow vbac because they don't have 24/7 anesthesiologists/OB coverage...that means when I get there, God only knows what's going to happen because they may not be staffed. I make the last minute decision to head to the other hospital. We go there, get met at the ambulance entrance and taken immediately upstairs...things go crazy. I'm trying to pant through contractions 1 to 1 1/2 min apart with an unbelievable urge to push now. They check me and get the on call OB in there, he says to prep for section. Now here's what you won't even believe: For some reason he decides to check me again...and in the 3-4 minutes since the nurse did, the baby has descended ridiculously low. And, I realize he's the same OB who attended my SIL's twin VBAC about 11 weeks ago and is actually somewhat VBAC friendly. He says, "Get a delivery cart i here...she can push this baby out!" They break the bed down, about a dozen people flood into the room, and in about 4 contractions, she was here! I still can't believe it...not exactly how I pictured it, but I'm so happy that it worked out!
Mackenzie Belle had to go to the NICU for observation after some pretty intense suctioning, some stress induced high blood sugar and low pulse ox readings, but was released to regular care 5 hours later and is doing amazingly well!
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Re: Had my VBAC...by the skin of my teeth!
: * )
thanks for sharing your story ... and congrats!!!
And just a smidgen of clarification, because I re-read and realized that I didn't really explain the decels: NOT rupture related at all. Mackenzie had a very short, very tight cord and was basically 'bobbing' down and back up again each time I pushed. I didn't want anybody nervous about vbac and rupture risk to think that was why we transferred!