My birth story!! A VBAC success!!

CalMum_Momma · January 2012

We welcomed Samantha Jean into the world on January 15th! Everything went better than we ever could have hoped for! My water broke at 10:30pm on Saturday. I was sitting on the couch and heard a crack, and felt a little something odd down below. I went to the bathroom and sure enough, I was getting little gushes of water. I started having contractions almost as soon as my water broke. I did take time to take a quick shower, like someone suggested, but in retrospect I wish I hadn't. By the time we left the house at 11:30pm my contractions were between 2 and 3 minutes apart and lasting 35 sec to 2 minutes, and were getting extremely painful! We drove the normally 40 minute ride to the hospital very quickly. They got me right into triage, made sure she was still head down, found that I was 4cm and moved me to a delivery room. A little before 2am I got an epidural, which was awesome! After that we were told to get some rest and wait for it to be time. DH slept for several hours. I tried to settle down enough, and did get a little rest, but not much. I spent some time playing mah jong on my phone to kill the time. I was feeling contractions, but only as pressure. I was feeling it more and more.

Around 4:45am the nurse came and checked on me. She told me I was fully dialated and she thought I would be pushing within the hour. The doctor confirmed and they said to let them know when i got the urge to push. I never did get the urge to push. The nurse came back around 5:45am and told us she thought we should give pushing a try. She gave us about 15 minutes (to wake H up) and get prepared. She came back just after 6am and explained what we were going to do. It was just she and DH and I in the room. She said to try to get 3 pushes in with the next contraction and we would see how things went. Well, I gave one big push. H said he saw Sam move a good 2" and that she crowned. The nurse was telling me to STOP pushing!! This was not going to take long!

She got the attending and resident docs in the room. Everyone got ready and we started the pushing again. After the first, they told me to take it easy and push lighter. I got in two additional more controlled pushes. She had made it pretty far. Next contraction I pushed (easy) a couple of times again, and out came my little girl's head. After that the rest of her just followed. I got to see them pull her out. They put her right on my belly. It was such a magical moment! I didn't have to wait two hours to hold her like I had with Austin. There she was and I was holding her tiny purple hand

Samantha Jean was born at 6:23am and weighed 7lbs 6.4oz and was 20in long. She was beautiful!! Within 20 minutes of the time she was born I was nursing her, and she did great! She nursed again an hour later and then slept for 6 hours, nursed again, and slept for 6 hours more...She was a tired baby! She passed her hearing test and jaundice screening Monday morning. I did get a second degree tear, but was feeling well enough to be home, so we asked them to send us home. We got home before 3pm Monday afternoon!

I am moving around fine, but a little sore! I am so thrilled that the VBAC was successful, and that it went so well! The hospital staff said I was the poster person for VBAC. It was such a great delivery we have even been asked by several people already if she was a c/s baby, because her head is just as perfect as can be! I am sure I am missing some details of something. Of course I cannot not show you pictures of my beautiful girl! Enjoy!!