Samuel John’s VBAC birth story
Some mention of P*** in this story. Kind of long so beware!
Tuesday the 20th of February I had a Dr’s appointment and I had not grown in 2
weeks, I was only measuring 36 weeks even though I was 39 so the Dr. was
concerned and did an ultrasound and a non-stress test to make sure everything
was ok with the baby. I had to have two of these that week and the Dr. wanted
me to deliver by the next week, and if I didn’t he wanted to induce. I did not
want to do that obviously so I looked for advice from everyone on how to help
my cervix dilate since it was only at about 1 cm at that point. Well obviously
the things I tried worked because Sunday morning, after a nice weekend of
getting lots of sleep, my son woke me up at 6:45 a.m. I started feeling a
little crampy and as I got up and begin moving around I realized that I was
having pressure waves. They were about 10-12 minutes apart so I decided to try
and not think about it and just go about my morning since I probably had a
long day ahead of me.
About 2 hours later, the waves begin getting more intense so I had my husband put the Birthing Day CD on and he went upstairs with my son to keep him out of my hair. My mom lives 2 hours away and she was going to come and watch my 2 year old but she needed to attend her church because she had to teach a class. She said she would have someone else do it if I needed her but I assured her she could come after church because it would probably be awhile. My first labor lasted 37 hours and then ended up in an emergency c-section so I was expecting this labor to last at least all day. I sat on my birthing ball most of the next couple of hours and just tried to stay relaxed and rest as much as possible. It was the only comfortable position I could find, thank goodness for the birthing ball! Earlier I had taken a nice long bath while listening to a Fear Release session and that was awesome, I felt so relaxed and barely even noticed my pressure waves.
I didn’t do a lot of timing of my pressure waves because they didn’t seem that close together, the few times I did they were about 6 minutes apart. Around 11 am the pressure became much more intense and I started feeling a lot of pressure down there. I sat on the toilet for a while and that helped. At one point while I was on the toilet I felt nauseous and got all sweaty. I immediately realized that I was in transition and started freaking out a bit! It was only a little over 3 hours after my first noticeable pressure wave and I thought there was no way I could have progressed that quickly! I stood up and realized that there was so much pressure down there I could barely stand. Also my pressure waves were one right after another! I swear they went from 6 minutes apart to one right after the other in a matter of minutes.
I hobbled to where my husband and son were watching a movie and told him we needed to go now! I told him to take our son to the neighbors because my mom wouldn’t make it in time. I went back and sat on the birthing ball and tried to relax while he finished getting us ready. The Birthing Day CD was still on and it kept saying OPEN, OPEN, and I kept thinking, “NO, not until we get to the hospital!” Unfortunately I didn’t want to get up and turn it off so I tried to ignore it. I heard my husband doing the dishes and I realized he didn’t quite understand the urgency of the situation, he was also expecting a long day of labor. I yelled, “MARK HURRY, we need to go NOW!” He kicked it into gear and got our son next door and then practically carried me to the car because I didn’t feel like I could walk because of the pressure.
Our hospital is about 15 minutes away but luckily it was a Sunday so there was no traffic and I think he made it there in a little over 5 minutes! It was probably because I was squeezing his hand so hard; actually he had broken his hand earlier that week and that was the one I was squeezing, poor guy! We got to the hospital and he wheeled me up to L&D, when I got there I said I felt like I had to push but maybe I needed to go to the bathroom. I tried to get up and go to the bathroom and almost collapsed on the floor so the nurse and my husband got me on the bed and undressed me and she checked me. She freaked out as she realized I was fully dilated and my baby was coming.
I was in my own little world at that point, I was in a lot of pain because once I realized I was in transition and I was still home, I freaked out and never really regained complete focus. However I was a lot calmer than I would have been had I not had the Hypnobabies training. Everyone around me was not calm though, nurses were running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to get me ready, page my doctor, get my heplock IV in, etc, etc.
They kept telling me not to push and I kept thinking, “You have got to be kidding me!” It was the craziest thing, something I have never felt before because I had an epidural last time, but every muscle in my body wanted to push that baby out and to try and stop it from happening was so hard. But I was also scared and wanted the Dr. there because I was doing a VBAC and wanted to make sure everything was all right with the baby.
Finally when my Dr. was a couple of minutes away they had me start pushing. They of course had me in the purple pushing position and were counting and telling me when to push, all the traditional stuff, things I did not originally want to do but again because of how quickly things had gone, I was still a little freaked out and did whatever they said. My Dr. got there and immediately began massaging my perineum and trying to get me stretched out, unfortunately the baby was right there and so there wasn’t a lot of time to stretch me out. I probably pushed for 20 minutes and out came Samuel John Weymouth, vaginally!!
It was the most incredible feeling ever, and although I did feel pain, it was manageable and immediately afterward I felt such a rush of adrenaline and so proud of myself, that the pain was a distant memory. I did have a 2nd degree tear and the dr. snipped me a little bit after I started tearing to try and control it, but I have barely noticed that. I think if we had more time to massage my perineum I probably wouldn’t have torn but everything happened SO quickly. Although I felt some pain, I was still very calm and was even laughing in between pushes with the nurses. I had painted my toenails the night before and my husband had teased me that I was concerned about my toenails. Well one of the nurses, who was amazing, commented on how cute my toenails were and I was so pleased and looked at my husband and said, “see they are cute!” It was nice to have such distractions.
Samuel was immediately put on my chest and started nursing10-15 minutes later like a champ and hasn’t stopped since! He is only 2 weeks old and went from a birth weight of 6 lbs 11 oz to now 8 lbs 6 oz! In 2 weeks!! They let me have him on my chest for at least an hour and a half before they took him across the room for some tests. They didn’t even take him away for a bath for 4 or 5 hours. Sam came 50 minutes after we got to the hospital, we were in our recovery room 2 hours later and we left the hospital just over 24 hours later. I totally credit Hypnobabies for the success of this labor. Not only did I have a much calmer pregnancy but also I cut my labor down from 37 hours to 6 hours and most importantly was able to have a successful VBAC.
I didn't fight the