I wanted to write up my VBAC birth story. In the months leading up to my due date, I read every vbac story I could get my hands on, (ICAN blog has a lot of these) and I think it really helped me feel empowered for my own birth. Every story is different and I liked reading about the range of possibilities of what could happen.

Background: when I was pregnant with Ezra, I never considered that I would have a csection. I was healthy and young and figured csections only happened in big emergencies or when it was scheduled. I figured big emergencies were rare and I wasn't going to schedule one so... that was that.

My labor was fairly standard. I went into labor at night, labored at home for a few hours, then went to the hospital when contractions were 5min apart for an hour. I labored some more at the hospital, got an epidural, kept going. Baby was sunny side up and stalled out at 9cm for 7 hours. His heart rate was dropping fast so into the surgery I went. Official reason: failure to progress. (So much more detail I could go into but tried to keep that one short)

Birth Story:
On Monday night I started to have contractions that were more painful than BH. we were skyping with friends and I had to keep walking out of the video frame to breath through them. We ended the call at 10pm and I promptly went to bed. At 1am I finally got out of bed because the contractions were too intense to lay down through them. I went to the living room and timed them at 10min apart. For the rest of the night my contractions ranged from 5min apart to sometimes as long as 12min but never went away. I wasn't able to sleep at all and by the morning was so frustrated and tired. The contractions were as painful as when I went into labor with LO1 but they werent getting closer together. I didn't know if this was the real thing or not but DH stayed home Tuesday to help with LO1 because I literally couldn't do anything. They were still coming every 5-10 min and I struggled through each one.

By the end of the day I was so exhausted, discouraged and scared of heading into another sleepless night. DH took LO1 to dinner so I could focus on getting through every contraction. I was in tears not just because of the pain but because I was emotionally and mentally tired. I had been in this limbo labor for 16 hours straight already and it didn't seem like things were going to speed up. It's funny to look back at it but I remember thinking that I was going to be in labor forever. The end seemed so far away.

FINALLY my contractions started to get consistently 5min apart. DH returned from dinner and put LO1 to bed, a friend came over to babysit, and we headed to the hospital at 7pm.

I was checked in and dialed to a 5 (at least those 18 hours of laboring at home did something!)

I labored for a few more hours then got an epidural. I was really hesitant about getting one since I was trying for vbac and didn't want to slow down labor at all. But my OB kept stressing that I get one in case of emergency c section and I had already been awake/laboring for such a long time.

I labored throughout the night, crunching on ice chips and trying to stay positive while getting NO SLEEP because nurses insisted on bursting into the room and checking to make sure I wasn't dying from uterine rupture (the biggest and scariest complication from a vbac) DH was able to fall asleep, though and every few weeks when I think about those hours I have to forgive him again.

at 5am doc checked me and said I was fully dialated. I abruptly burst into happy tears. My biggest worry was another failure to progress situation. The room suddenly filled with people. I didn't know it was a little odd to have such an audience till I told my story to a friend and she mentioned how there were only like 5 people in her room. DH counted 17 people during my pushing. A whole group in the back were interns learning about VBACs. After I gave birth they all lined up to say congratulations. I felt like I was in a receiving line at a wedding where I don't know half the people. Someone would and tell me "oh she's beautiful! Congrats!" with such enthusiasm and I'm just looking at their face like "am I suppose to know who you are?"

Pushing was such a surreal experience. It was my favorite part of labor. Contractions felt so passive- just dealing through pain- but pushing felt active. I could help get this baby out of here. DH took a very big role in the process and did a great job coaching me up. I only yelled at him once because they had him count to 10 for every push. After awhile I turned and screamed "YOURE COUNTING TOO SLOW! I CAN'T PUSH THAT LONG!" He responded by turning up Jay Z from his iPhone and got the majority of the crowded room to sing along. Bless him.

At 5:55 Wednesday morning (April 19th), Eden was born via vbac after 29 hours of active labor! (I might throat punch anyone who says second labors are shorter)