I did a lot of shopping around for a VBAC friendly doctor after Thomas was born, and hadn’t found a doc I liked when I learned I was pregnant with Nell, so I called up the office of a doctor a former co-worker had used and liked (knowing nothing about her stance on VBACs) and just went with it. And it turned out that she was awesome. I was concerned toward the end – especially when at 32 weeks my doctor recommended scheduling a c-section for my due date if the baby hadn’t arrived by then. I was in a tizzy – and made B come to every single appointment from there out to be an “advocate for me”. But after talking to a few friends who had successful VBACs, I learned that this was pretty standard procedure for our town: I wasn’t a candidate for induction because the level of Pitocin generally needed to induce labor and the strength of contractions resulting from that apparently increase the chances of uterine rupture after a c-section, and that wasn’t a risk my doctor was willing to take, so I needed to go into active labor on my own (always my plan, but as I learned with Thomas, things don’t always go according to plan). I also wasn’t allowed to go much more than 41 weeks – my pregnancies themselves are uncomplicated, but Thomas’s theatrical arrival at 40 weeks made my doctor hesitant to let me go anymore than a week past my due date – and if I did go past my due date we’d be dealing with lots of Non Stress Tests, which I figured would lead me down the swift road to a repeat c-section, so I was feeling a bit like I was up against the clock as my due date approached.
For a week before Nell arrived, I started having regular, mild contractions every afternoon at about 4 – like 3 minutes apart lasting 60 seconds contractions that just didn’t increase in intensity. I’d go to bed at 10 thinking I’d be waking B up at some point saying the contractions were getting worse and closer together, and every morning I woke up not in labor. I’m generally a keep the baby in there as long as possible pregnant person, but with a c-section scheduled for June 19th if McKiddle didn’t arrive on their own, I started to get a little grumpy as week 39 rolled by. I could tell that even my doc wasn’t very optimistic that I’d make progress on my own, so apologies to all people who encountered me between June 4th and June 9th.
On Sunday the 10th I woke up and felt different. I didn’t feel great and figured kneeling, sitting and standing 3,000 times in an hour wouldn’t help, so decided to skip church that morning. We went for a walk mid-morning and I would double over with painful contractions – though at the time I was just putting it off as round ligament pain – every few blocks. When we got home I went on a cleaning frenzy – not because I had a nesting instinct, but because our house was a pit and I figured that if I cleaned like crazy maybe the baby would think I was nesting and start getting a move on. The occasional pains continued throughout the day until we went to a birthday party at our neighborhood pool that afternoon. Contractions were coming, but mild, so it was nothing different than my previous week of afternoon false labor. Here’s a snippet of my tweets that morning and afternoon, obviously not thinking anything imminent was happening:
We got home from the neighbor birthday party and gave Thomas a bath and put him to bed, then Mr. B left to play in his soccer league at 7. My contractions were getting much stronger, and as always were 2 – 3 minutes apart lasting about a minute to a minute and a half (which means that I had a maximum of 2 minutes between contractions – you measure them from the start of the first to the start of the second). They were survivable, so when B got home from playing soccer he watched Mad Men and I got in the tub to see if they subsided. They didn’t, but I didn’t tell B because I knew he wouldn’t sleep. We went to bed, B slept, I Pinterested and Facebook stalked from my phone. Then the real painful contractions came around 11. By 12 the contractions were 2 minutes apart, lasting 90 seconds, I couldn’t do anything through them but breathe. I went downstairs and ate, hung out on the exercise ball, and watched infomercials. I went upstairs and got in the bath again. At 2, I had a ridiculous contraction that I thought I was going to die from. So I yelled for B, eventually got him awake, and had him call my doctor – who said to come on in – and my mom to come stay with Thomas. So we got dressed, I hung out while I sent B to the only 24 hour option – Walmart – for milk for Thomas since we hadn’t been to the grocery store yet for the week. And then the contractions subsided. My mom was already on the road. My doctor had alerted labor and delivery we were coming in for a “Trial of Labor after Caesarean”. I felt like an idiot.
So we went to the hospital at 3:30 am on the 11th. I hadn’t progressed since my appointment a week earlier. Lame. We walked for one hour and I’d progressed enough to admit me. Not exactly the laboring at home I’d planned – I’m either a huge wuss or have really painful contractions that aren’t exactly productive. We walked all morning after being admitted, I was progressing but not super quickly. At 10 my doc broke my water to get things moving – for some reason this didn’t outrage me like it did two years ago. The contractions became a lot stronger and I couldn’t walk through them, so I rested for a bit. And stopped progressing. We walked again but I couldn’t walk very far or very long without an excruciating contraction. At 2 my doctor decided that the lack of progression meant we should augment with a very low dose of Pitocin to give me a real trial of labor – I was thrilled to hear that she was allowing me to try a low dose of Pitocin and knew at that moment she was giving me every chance I could ask for at delivering this baby vaginally. I asked for the epidural at this point remembering what Pitocin contractions were like with Thomas, and it didn’t work, so that was awesome. At 3 they came in and assessed my epidural, changed my position and gave me an extra dose and I fell asleep until transition hit. At 6, our awesome nurse came in – I was definitely in or at the end of transition, checked me and said, “You’re a 10. Wow”. I think everyone was surprised – Mr. B asked her to clarify he was so shocked. So we felt pretty good about things at that point, but I needed to let the epidural wear down before I could do anything about it.
At 7 it was shift change, so my doctor came in and just casually sat on the end of my hospital bed while the nurses were giving orders and retaught me how to push (since I’d never used our birth class knowledge with Thomas’s delivery and forgot to register for a refresher…whoops). By the time our night nurse came in (the same nurse who’d admitted us that morning), they decided I could start pushing. 27 minutes later, 7 pounds, 1 ounce and 21 inches of Nell Caroline were on my chest.
Our experience at this new hospital was amazingly different from our experience at the hospital where Thomas was born. Mr. B went to high school with one of the nurses, so she hand picked our caregivers for our entire stay. Can’t beat that. The nurses were cheerleaders, so kind, and so much fun. The nurses made the experience, I felt like I was losing friends when we left the hospital two days later.
My doctor gave me every single chance she felt comfortable with at a VBAC, and I told B when I stopped progressing and was waiting for Pitocin to get started that I was kind of expecting to end up in the operating room for a c-section, and this time I at least knew I’d been given single chance to do this and I would be totally okay with it if that’s what needed to happen. But we didn’t need it. And it was awesome.
I loved having my little girl in my arms immediately after she was born. I loved being able to nurse her immediately. And I was shocked to learn that we had a daughter – I had absolutely no feeling one way or the other, but almost everyone told me all along they thought I was having another boy, my doc would refer to her as a “he” in appointments (we had ultrasounds at a separate practice, so our doc didn’t know if we were having a boy or a girl either), and I guess in my deep subconscious I just assumed that was the case, too. But we have a daughter and we think she’s perfect.
My mom and dad brought Thomas over to meet Nell about 30 minutes after she was born. It was way past his bedtime and he was overstimulated, but I wanted him to be the first person in the family to meet his sister.
LOVE the last picture of you two! so sweet! what a great story! i’ll say it again, you are amazing!
Oh Emily!! That last picture got me all teared up! I’m so so so happy for you! I’m so glad that the VBAC was successful, and your doc sounds amazing. It really makes all the difference in the world to feel like your doctor has your best interests in mind. Congratulations!!!
She’s BEAUTIFUL!!!
Oh, and for the record, I totally thought it was a girl.
Congrats!
What a great story – yeah! What a beautiful baby. Enjoy this newborn time.
You pushed for only 27 minutes?! You’re a rockstar!
Emily, she is just so precious and even though I already knew the gist of this story, I’m a little teary reading the details. What a great birth story! And what a great family picture! Also, somehow I missed the fact that she was 21 inches. What a long one!
Congratulations! She is beautiful!
Yay for daughters! Everyone thought we were having a boy (and due to that I guess I just didn’t allow myself to think one way or the other). Now I’m getting used to all the PINK invading our house
Congratulations! I am so happy to hear you were able to have a successful VBAC….I am really hoping this will be the case for our second mcnugget!
Such a great story. I love the pictures, you look amazing! Nell is absolutely precious.
You are beautiful, seriously! and your little girl? She gets that beauty from her momma. I’m sure she’ll have your beauty inside AND outside. I am so very happy that her birth went so well. I had been thinking about you and was so happy to hear you delivered that healthy baby girl. Congrats to your family!
Such a great birth story and I’m SO glad everything worked out with your doctor. I’m so happy for you, Emily, and Nell is gorgeous.
Tears of joy! What a great and happy birth experience for you Emily.
What a great story. So glad to hear that things went your way this time. You have a beautiful family!
the last photo is making me tear up!!I just found your blog! your birth story and children are beautiful! I have a little boy that is turning two on Wednesday and had a sweet little girl on may 17th I love stumbling on blogs that I have so much in common with!
i love all of these pictures, and so glad the story worked out so well
i hope you are enjoying every moment with both of your little ones!
Congratulations Emily!! Nell is absolutely beautiful! I love the last picture of the two of you, my heart just burst looking at it!
Welcome Nell! So glad that everything worked out according to your plan with the delivery. Also, the fact that you wanted Thomas to be the first family member to meet her is so touching. Hope that all is going well for your new family of 4!
What a great story. Welcome Nell! I love love love that last picture of you two. By the way, you look AMAZING in all of these pictures!
OH MY GOSH. Give a girl a tissue! I LOVE reading birth stories. I love reading succesful VBAC’s and I LOVE LOVE LOVE that Thomas was able to meet Nell first and that final picture has me all shook up. Beautiful.
This is such a beautiful birth story! I love reading happy endings about giving birth, especially since so many doctors seriously mess with the natural process that is childbirth. Thanks for sharing your story. It gives me hope for the future!