VBAC attempt experience
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Anonymous
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I had a csection after 20 hours of labor with first. With the second i was determined to VBAC, since I felt like there was no good reason I should have had a Csection, other than stubborn baby position and laboring too long (water had broken, meconium leaking, minor distress). The C-section was very emotionally traumatic for me, a painful recovery, and also led to some secondary infertility issues. Did not want to go through that again. So I started prepping from the moment I became pregnant with second, including changing OB, finding a doula, reading all I could about birthing, going to a crunchy birth class, and visiting a prenatal chiropractor throughout pregnancy to help with baby position. Visited the hospital with the doula and interrogated all the nurses. Asked my provider tons and tons of questions. Got all my ducks in a row and made sure I had the right support team in place. It was a lot of work and time, but I'm thankful I did it. Had a successful VBAC in a hospital with no interventions (which was key for me - my goal was no help from the hospital other than catching the baby). It was hard, but wonderful, and I learned so much through the process. My recovery was great and it made life with a newborn so easy compared to my other experience.
With all that said, I have a family member have a successful VBAC at home with a midwife, but she basically became a midwife herself in the research process. She was fine. I personally would not be comfortable doing it outside of the hospital setting. As others have written, a lot could go wrong. |
Anonymous
You’re not great at basic counting, are you? |
Anonymous
Close enough though. |
Anonymous
Still waiting! |
Anonymous
PP here, that was basically my experience, the baby got into a weird position, I was in labor a long time, and my doctor ended up suggesting it (way too soon IMO, she only gave me 4 hours after being administered Pitocin). I look forward to my TOLAC this winter. |
Anonymous
I am not that poster, but what video are you talking about? I have had two sections at two different hospitals and never saw a video. I am so confused why you are demanding this poster respond to you? |
Anonymous
I'll take this one. The "feelings of loss" are CREATED by the unhealthy insistence that c-sections are somehow wrong/shameful/failures. If the VBAC community quit embracing this unhealthy dogma, then women would no longer feel such "feelings of loss" for having ... benefitted from modern medicine. |
Anonymous
Well, let's see, darling; I told her to screw herself, SHE ASKED WHY, I told her...and my answer seems to have shut her up. So there you go. I had two C-sections--1 emergency and 1 planned as I chose not to attempt VBAC--at Anne Arundel County Hospital in Maryland (Annapolis). Part of your check-out process it to watch a video and read literature about how to care for yourself/partner, what to watch out for (fever, tclots , these exact feelings of sadness and failure) so as to be prepared and on the lookout for problems and to know what to do if complications arise, etc. If you read ANY BOOK about childbirth that includes info about C-sections, there are whole segments about these exact feelings...what with them being totally normal and part of the process for many people, and all! |
Anonymous
Or maybe she was thinking “don’t engage crazy”. |
Anonymous
I'm surprised a legit midwife would be willing to do this at all. It seems very high risk for a home birth. Maybe if you had a section and this was VBAC 4, but as a second child after a c section? This is crazy to me. |
Anonymous
+ a million It’s not a surprise that the VBAC community includes many natural childbirth educators, midwives, and doulas who financially benefit when women choose VBAC and use their services. How about we let women birth without shame and let them feel pride for their accomplishment because all types of births are hard? |
Anonymous
Nope, but nice try! I experienced these feelings after an *emergency* C-section, not after attempted VBAC. I experienced nothing short of a trauma. To the point where at one point in my traumatic birth ordeal, I felt freezing cold and "far away," and I heard the doctor say "we're losing her." My feelings of loss and failing and betrayal from my body were caused by a traumatic birth experience, and from experiencing trauma rather than the vaginal birth experience that I and most women had been mostly prepared for and preparing for. VBAC had literally nothing to do with it. I chose a second, non-emergency C-section the second time around. But I certainly empathize with women who wanted VBAC, for any reason that makes sense to them. Try listening to those who have had different experiences than you. Try being supportive. It has nothing to do with thinking vaginal birth is somehow a perfect, magical cake walk. But do you get that vaginal birth is the "primary" birth experience that women in this country are taught about and prepared for, by medical professionals and in books and heck, even in movies and pop culture? And when other women talk about their births? It's just more common, and therefore more normalized. It is difficult to be an outsider to that experience. |
Anonymous
| PP you do realize that many women with vaginal deliveries (even normal uncomplicated ones) also experience birth trauma, right? You seem to assume that trauma can’t be experienced by women who deliver vaginally, and that is just not the case. |
Anonymous
Yes, of course I understand that. And they likely have their own, attendant demons to contend with. I'm not saying C-section trauma is any worse. What I AM saying is that no one should dismiss, discount or wave away the very real feelings of loss, missing out, failing, etc., that many women who have had C-section trauma experience. Do you see me discounting anyone's birth experience or trauma? No. But we absolutely have seen people dismissing, minimizing and waving away very real feelings of loss from those who have had C-sections. We've even seen people guilting and shaming women for having those very natural, normal feelings? How about listening? |
Anonymous
I am listening. And the PP is also pointing out that the natural birth and VBAC community contribute to those feelings and promote the idea that there is one best way to give birth, when very little people ultimately have that experience. |