#HCTlife: An Empowering Birth Story; My Successful VBA2C Home Birth

I’ll give you a little background to understand my headspace and why I chose to have a homebirth. This was my third pregnancy and when I found out I was having my long awaited babygirl two things came to mind; 1. this is my last pregnancy and 2. I would love to experience a natural birth to be able to advise my daughter one day if she chooses to have children. With that being said, I knew I would run into issues as my 2 previous pregnancies ended in C-sections. I started to do as much research as possible to figure out how I could achieve the labor and delivery that I desired. Now achieving a vaginal birth after 1 c-section is frowned upon but allowed in some hospitals, but trying to have a vaginal birth after more than one c-section is nearly impossible to find a cooperative hospital. However, I managed to find a practice that was willing to assist in my desires for a VBA2C. At one appt. the nurse made an offhand comment, which honestly I don’t even think she intended to say, but it rubbed me the wrong way and made me believe that this birth too would end the same way the others had. It was after that appt. at 32 weeks that I began to search for alternative birth options. In my area we don’t have many birth center options, so the next best thing is to use a midwife and have a VBA2C Home Birth.

That weekend I emailed about 20 different independent midwife practices pleading for their help in my desire for a vaginal delivery after 2 c-sections, or VBA2C Home Birth. The responses came in one after another, ” I’d love to help you but I’m booked for the time you would need”. Of course they were, it was only 2 months away. I started to get discouraged and then about a week later, a yes came through =) I was scared, excited, anxious and happy all at the same time! I couldn’t believe I was gonna get the opportunity to have my dream birth. I’ll write another post about my experience with my wonderful midwives, so that if you are in or around the Boston, MA area you can consider them.

“I can’t believe I get to write this birth story,
it’s everything I wanted and then some.”

Fast forward to March 24th, 2 days after my due date. I slept fine and got out of bed around 10am, my cousin was visiting from Florida and would be arriving today. Also, I had a midwife appt. scheduled for this morning, unfortunately when I woke up I had messages from the midwives that they would not be able to make it today because they were assisting at a birth all night. I was slightly discouraged because the plan for the appt. that morning was to do a membrane sweep to help progress my natural labor. (membrane sweep : manually loosening the cervix to help start or move dilation further along) My cousin who I am super close with and serves as more of a parental /mentor wanted to meet the midwives and ask questions, so she was heading to my house right from the airport to be able to attend the scheduled appt. She got to my house around noon an I told her the appt was cancelled, but she said she would stay to make me some food to have in the house for a few days to help feed me and my boys. We decided to head to the food store to pick up the necessary items for the cooking. I got ready and we left around 1:00pm. We shopped and headed home, on the way back home around 1:45pm my water broke in the car. I was shocked !

Luckily my house is not even 5 mins from the grocery store. Once I got home, I decide to take a quick shower and change my clothes, by 2:20pm the contractions started, consistently 5 mins apart and lasting 1 min. I woke up my husband who works overnight and decided to nap when we learned that that the midwives were not coming to the appt. and good thing because little did we know we would be up all night. Once he was up and we realized that this VBA2C home birth was happening now, I texted the midwives to let them know that my water broke and the contractions had started. I sat on my birth ball and breathed through each wave as it came. At this time, the contractions were not bad at at all, I was doing it and I was so happy that I could manage it. After about an hour, my husband pointed out that the midwives had not responded to my text message, so he urged me to call them. Apparently they never received the text but were excited for me and just told me it was early and to keep working through the waves, my main midwife who cancelled my morning appointment was running errands, picking up her kids from school etc, but informed me the assisting midwife would check in. The assisting midwife called about 15mins later asked some questions about how I was feeling, gave me some encouraging words as well as listened to me work through a contraction. I kind of got the feeling that they didn’t believe it was happening. In my mind, Im thinking every resource will tell you to wait for 5-1-1 to get hype about where you are in labor (5-1-1- contractions are 5 min apart, lasting 1min or longer, for at least 1 hour ) which by the time I spoke with them this 5-1-1 rule was already true.

At this time it is about 4:30pm the contractions have picked up and I’m getting uncomfortable. I tried getting in the shower, walking around but ultimately ended up laying on the couch. The midwives had said to try to get some rest, again I don’t think they believed I was as far along as I felt like I was. So as I’m laying on the couch the waves got really bad. Still, every 5 mins but super powerful. These waves required my full mind and body to cope. My husband helped by rubbing my feet, which surprisingly was the biggest help with each contraction. Between his aggressive foot rubs and me grabbing onto the couch arm to pull as I braced myself through each contraction I was able to get through it. At one point It got really bad and I felt like I couldn’t make it through, this traditionally is when transition is happening. I do believe that this is actually what was going on because not long after these I “I can’t do it” waves, I started to feel like I needed to push. As soon as I said that my husband got super nervous, he started to set up the birth pool and gave a call to the midwives for an estimate of their arrival.

They were still about an hour away! I remember saying if they gt here and check me and I am only a few centimeters, I’m calling it.. I can’t bear this pain for much longer. Little did I know I was fully dilated. Now around 5:30pm with the pool filled I decided to get in and while it did offer some relief the pain was still super intense. I still felt like I needed to push u=but my husband and cousin both very nervous urged me not too because they didn’t know what to do. Around 6:15 the assistant midwife arrived, I was so relieved that she was here. I felt safe as soon as she walked in, that the rest of this process could continue on in good hands. We briefly talked about where I was in labor and she stated to trust my body and that just from my demeanor she believed I was accurately ready to be pushing. I think a part of me felt like the pushing stage wasn’t really here and maybe I wasn’t really as far along as I thought I was. About 20 mins later, my main midwife and doula arrived together. She checked me and reassured that I was 10cm dilated and accurately in the pushing phase. Now is when I started to really channel all of my energy into pushing with each wave that came through.

One hour later I was still pushing. The midwives encouraged me to feel her head each push to hopefully give me the a little more oomph to get over the hump, however still my pushes were only producing one thing and it wasn’t a baby. (It was poop, I kept pooping in the birth tub) At that point about 745pm the midwife said lets get you on the toilet. She claimed the position help engage the babys head for easier pushing but also that if anything other than any wants to come out at least it comes out in the toilet. Well apparently sitting on the toilet is called the dilation station, and now I know why. Within 20mins It was clear baby was coming out now, I couldn’t even believe it. They asked me if I wanted to get back in the pool, I said no because honestly this toilet squatting position was actually comfortable, and in the tub I couldn’t find a position that was comfortable and allowed me to ease baby out. It was determined we were having baby right now In this small bathroom over the toilet. One more push and her head was out at 8:06pm. However, with her head came an out pour of blood. My midwife later told me this is where she got concerned, because I am a VBAC patient she needed to be sure the blood wasn’t a result of a uterine rupture at my section scar. She let me push one more time then made a split decision to get me on my hands and knees to assist in pulling the baby out.

At 8:08pm, my beautiful babygirl was fully born. I did it, I actually freaking did it. I defied all odds and had my third baby at home after 2 previous c-sections. Even after so many people told me it was impossible, I freaking did it. However, there was still a lot of blood, my midwife gave me to shots of pitocin to control the blood and put her hand inside to pull out my placenta. Once the placenta was out she was able to determine that the bleeding was from premature detaching of the placenta and not a uterine rupture. All was well with both me and baby. I did have extensive 1st degree tears in two different places, honestly the stitching was more to bear than the actual delivery. This was truly the best experience of my life, my partner was so supportive and I am super proud of myself for putting in the work and believing I could do it, then seeing it to fruition. I can say I had the most successful VBA2C home birth I’ve ever heard of, a title I will cherish forever.