Lindsay's VBAC + Preparing for VBAC

Lindsay’s first birth was a planned home birth which ultimately resulted in a hospital transfer and emergency C-section. She was left feeling unprepared, unheard, and committed to fighting for a VBAC next time. Lindsay worked for months preparing for a VBAC both physically and emotionally. Once labor started, she was coping extremely well with her intense contractions. She arrived at the hospital at 10 centimeters, ready to have her baby! Until…her contractions completely stopped. Lindsay shares with us how she overcame ultimate doubt when pushing continued for over four hours. Doubt can creep in at any time on your VBAC journey. Trust yourself and your preparation. Lean into your supportive birth team. We know you can do this! Additional links The VBAC Link Community How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents Full transcript Note: All transcripts are edited to correct grammar, false starts, and filler words. Julie: Welcome, welcome. This is Women of Strength Wednesday and you are tuned in to The VBAC Link podcast with Julie and Meagan and our special guest, Lindsay, today. We were actually just chitchatting a little bit before we pressed record about different providers and how they influence birth outcomes. Sometimes you will have a provider who is surprisingly more supportive than you would expect them to be and vice versa, right? So we are going to talk about that and all the different parts of Lindsay’s story in a little bit. Before we do that though, Meagan has a Review of the Week for us. Review of the Week Meagan: Yes I do. This is from RokFray and it says “Getting VBAC Ready. This podcast has been inspiring and motivational to me as I prepare for a VBAC with my fourth baby. Listening to each of these stories and realizing that through listening I have learned how to advocate for myself and my family has been a true blessing. Thank you!” And I just want to say thank you to RokFray for sharing your review. Julie and I say it all the time. We love your reviews. We truly mean it. And honestly, we are running out of some reviews because we haven’t been recording for so long. We haven’t had a ton of reviews here coming in and so we would love some new, fresh reviews so we can read them on future podcasts. Julie : You never know. Maybe next week, we will read yours. Meagan : Yep. Julie: I love it. I always remember that time when somebody was Review of the Week and they posted on their Instagram. Well, I guess it has happened a couple of times, but it just makes me happy. Getting reviews, reading them, and everyone letting us know how we have been helping you so thank you, thank you. It means a lot to us. Lindsay’s Story Julie: All right. Let’s get to it. We have Lindsay with us today. Lindsay is an Advertising Account Director and a mom of two. She loves being a mom and thinks bringing babies earthside is one of the most surreal experiences that we have as mothers. “Childbirth is the best lesson a mother can experience,” she says. “A lot is out of our control, so plan for the worst and hope for the best.” Do you know what that reminds me of? That reminds me of when I was in the military. Plan for the worst and hope for the best because I don’t know if anybody out there listening is in the military, or a military spouse, or has ever been in the military, but you know that whenever things can go wrong if there is a possibility, then it probably will go wrong. So you have got to just kind of expect not very much, but hope for great things. That just reminded me of that when I was just reading your bio. Lindsay. But I like that sentiment because you can prepare for all of the things, right? You can prepare for all of the outcomes, but always hope for and even expect the best outcomes as well. So I love that. But Lindsay, why don’t you go ahead and tell us a little bit more and share your story with us? Lindsay: awesome. Thanks so much, Julie. So I will start with my pregnancy and the birth of my son which was my first C-section. It took us a while to get pregnant with my son. We thought that it was going to be quite simple and it turns out it wasn’t. So with a little bit of help from a fertility specialist, we successfully got pregnant. We were so excited and he recommended that we be handed over to the care of midwives. I had a low-risk pregnancy. I was in great shape, healthy, and a strong BMI, so he felt like this would be the best care provider for what I needed. And then also with my style, he loved that and recommended that we have someone who would be really guiding throughout. He also recommended that I ask them about homebirth, which was probably unexpected for most coming from more of the traditional Western medicine perspective. So we started on with the midwives. We loved them instantly and homebirth was brought up pretty early on. And so we had planned for a homebirth and in this, my biggest learning was that we really focused on the homebirth and the realities of a homebirth. We didn’t necessarily talk about labor preparation. So I had read Ina May Gaskin’s Guide to Childbirth and I had chatted with friends who had gone through labor, especially in natural labor and delivery, and so I felt like I was prepared enough until I was 40 weeks pregnant– 40 weeks, 4 days exactly– and my water broke. It was the slow leak. We confirmed that the amniotic sac ruptured. I was slowly leaking fluid, but I wasn’t under stress and baby’s heart rate was fine, so we made a little bit of a plan. If I hadn’t gone into labor in 24 hours, then I would go in to the hospital and we would do an induction. If I did go into labor naturally, then I would continue on with a planned homebirth. So we went home with the instruction to just enjoy each other‘s company and try to wind down. It was really hitting home that this was our last moment where we would have just the two of us and our dog in this house. And so we were anxious, excited, nervous and that was when I started feeling the, “Oh my god. I wonder what labor feels like.” At 9:30 p.m., I had my first contraction. It was a very traditional wave. I felt the build. I felt the release. I went through the motions of like, “Okay. I can handle this,” and then quickly let my husband know that, “Okay, so labor is starting.” My mom was coming over and we were prepared for what was about to come. I gave both of them the call sheet for the midwives and we went over the birth plan and were feeling good. Within an hour, I had all back labor, no break between contractions, was really nauseous, and something just didn’t feel right. I kept saying to my husband and my mom like, “We need to call the midwife. We need to call the midwife,” and they were just calm and steady like, “Lindsay, you are doing great. It’s okay.” And at that point, my mom said, “I think you are having back labor–” Meagan : Mhmm Lindsay: “–based on the fact that you don’t have any breaks and it’s just back-to-back.” I had been given the instructions to not go in the water, and so for me, that meant I shouldn’t even be standing in the shower. I was a very cautious first-time laborer and after some pretty frantic, “Call the midwife! Call the midwives!”, my mom and husband in fact called the midwives and we agreed to do a home visit. They were going to come and check on me and likely transfer me to the hospital just because I was having a hard time managing the pain. And so my midwives came over and checked me. I was only about 5 centimeters dilated. I was having a really hard time managing the pain. It just goes back to total unpreparedness. I had read one book and had some conversations, but I don’t think I necessarily understood the different ways that labor can feel. The thought of it being exclusively in my back was such a foreign concept to me and really unbearable. We drove to the hospital which was less than five minutes away. My husband was asking me on the way there like, “You are going to do up your seatbelt right?” I could barely sit down. I am not concerned about my seatbelt. And so we get to the hospital in the wee hours of the morning. It’s about 3:00 a.m. and we were waiting now for an epidural. I am laboring, very vocal, have a lot of discomfort, and am still a little bit unsure if this is normal, where I am feeling it, and not being provided with a lot of reassurance that I am doing great and that this is normal. And so now at this point, I am like a little bit panicked like, “This is a foreign feeling. I don’t know what’s going on. I feel totally unheard and I also feel voiceless. I’m asking questions and I just feel like I am not really being given reassurance and direction.” Of course, my husband being a first-time dad and first time witnessing labor is also a little bit of a deer in the headlights like, “What is happening? Is my wife okay and is this normal?” And so an hour in, we start asking, “Where is the epidural? Where is the anesthesiologist? We need some sort of pain meds.” My approach was an epidural or bust. I didn’t want to take fentanyl or laughing gas unnecessarily. I would rather just go for the good stuff and get the epidural. I don’t tolerate pain medication well, and so I was apprehensive about the effects that it would have on me but also recognized that I was feeling like it was an out-of-body experience and like I just couldn’t handle this. I did not have confidence in myself. So around 4:30, it was like one of those lightbulb moments where I was like, “My massage therapist said if I feel back labor, ask for the bee stings,” which is sterile water injections in my low back. Meagan: Oh yes. Lindsay : It was the first time I was able to really advocate for myself in labor. I was like, “Can I get a sterile water injection? I will take the bee stings,” which are definitely a little bit more aggressive than a bee sting. I must have just been stung by really a really lightweight bee in the past. But I got the sterile water injection and instantly felt relief. At that moment, I was like, “Man, I can handle this. I feel really good about now.” I started to feel proper contractions and a proper wave inching closer to 5:00 and so at that point, I am like, “Okay. I am handling this well.” I suddenly felt the urge to bear down. And so I went to the washroom and as I am sitting I am like, “It feels like I have to poop.” And so my midwife– I am vocalizing this and she is like, “Okay. Let’s give you a quick check,” and so at that point, she was like, “Listen. The anesthesiologist is about to walk in.” She gave me a check and I was 8 centimeters. Meagan: Wow. Lindsay: And so she said, “You are at the cusp and so you either get the epidural now or you don’t get it at all.” I was just blindly looking at her for advice and guidance and I was like, “I guess I think I should get it,” and she was like, “I think that is a good decision.” I got the epidural and I felt relief. But going back to preparedness and not feeling heard, at that point, being prepared– I was not prepared for an epidural. And so as I am leaning over my husband, he, in turn, was also not prepared. He was like, “I may pass out. That is a very large needle.” I was just like, “Just stick it in me. I need to feel some sort of relief.” As soon as the effects of the epidural kicked in, suddenly I felt like, “There is no turning back. I have just made a horrible decision.” Maybe I was handling labor okay and I was starting to feel some relief. I was just on the cusp of transition because as soon as I had the epidural, I had the hormone shakes and the sweats, and so I was transitioning naturally anyways. The feeling of defeat was really stinking in. At 5:30 and the direction was, “Rest. You need to sleep and we are just going to flip you on a peanut ball side to side.” So every 30 minutes, my husband and my midwife would wake me up and flip me. It was just side to side with the peanut ball until about 7:00 a.m. At that point, I was 10 centimeters dilated and they decided to just let me continue resting. I felt nothing, so I didn’t feel the urge to push. They said, “Around 10:00-11:00, we will check in and you can start pushing at that point.” So at that point, they come in and say, “Okay. You need to start pushing.” The piece I missed in this was that my mom and dad had come to the hospital to give my husband some relief so that he could go and have a coffee and a bite to eat because keep in mind, we weren’t planning for a hospital birth, so we were really not prepared. We had a small hospital bag packed and that was about it. My dad is asking my midwife, “What if she can’t push this baby out?” and he is kind of leading the horse like, “What is going on? Is there something happening with her or with the baby? What’s the next step?” They were like, “No, no. She has had an epidural. Even if this baby is in a bad position, she can push it out.” And this was the first moment where I heard the baby was in a bad position. Meagan : Yeah. No one said anything. Lindsay: No one said anything and I didn’t realize that my water breaking early was likely due to an OP baby. And again, it was just a lack of communication or something that I wasn’t aware of. My dad keeps asking, “What if the baby is turned a little bit?” or “What if the baby is OP?” Like, “Nope. Nope. She’s had an epidural. She can push this baby out okay.” So we have now gone from homebirth to hospital to feeling really in the dark and really unclear about what’s happening. I had this epidural that I am deeply regretting at this point, but there’s no turning back and it’s time to start pushing and I feel absolutely nothing. And so I push for a couple of hours. No headway is being made. At this point, there is a change in the midwife team so I am with a different midwife and she said, “I’m just going to step out of the room,” looking to my husband and I. “When you see a contraction on the monitor, continue to push. Continue to breathe through it and I will be back.” About 15-20 minutes later, which felt like a lot longer, she came back with the OBGYN on call. He, in a very flat and direct way, said, “You are spiking a fever. The baby’s heart rate is dipping and your heart rate is dropping.” I have incredibly low blood pressure to begin with. So he said, “These three factors, coupled with the likelihood that your baby is OP– we are bringing you in for a C-section.” I was absolutely gutted. Meagan: Was it like, “Hey, this is why I think a C-section is needed” or it was it like, “This is what we are doing.” Did you feel like you had an option? Do you know what I mean Lindsay: Yeah. So like, yeah. Totally, totally. So I’m sure you can see two first-time parents who have from a homebirth to now being a hospital to suddenly being told they are having a C-section, which we know absolutely nothing about other than it was a major abdominal surgery. Meagan: Yeah. Lindsay: And so I’m sobbing saying, “Can we turn off the epidural? Can we bring down the epidural even a little bit? Rip it out of my vein,” beause I have no concept of how it works, right? My husband is saying, “Can she just push for another 30 minutes?” And very flat , he was just like, “No. The difference in time is five minutes to talk about it now and to open you up in here versus bringing you into the OR.” Meagan : Whoa. Lindsay: And so again, my husband and I were just looking at him. There was really no other option that was presented to us at least. We were grasping at straws. He just again reiterated very calmly, “I understand that this is not what you wanted, but we need to get this baby out now.” And so they bring us to the OR. My husband is a wreck. We haven’t been prepped for this procedure, so he is waiting as I am signing forms. This amazing nurse is wiping my tears so that I can somewhat sign blindly. It’s about 2:00ish in the afternoon. We get into the OR. We had gone from a dark room with no windows and little candles everywhere to this stark, sterile, bright light environment. A different anesthesiologist came in. The energy was so nonchalant in comparison to the fear and grief that my husband and I were feeling. The anesthesiologist was phenomenal. He spoke to us throughout the entire C-section at every stage. He reassured us off the top by saying, “My wife has had two C-sections beyond seeing this through my job on a day-to-day basis. I know exactly what’s going to happen. I will talk to you through this.” And so he talked us through it. He held my shoulder. My husband held my hand. By this point, I am maxed out on my epidural. I can feel my left side. It was really traumatic beyond just the flow of how the birth went, but also being in this very sterile environment and feeling a lot of what was happening. But again, the anesthesiologist just was so wonderful, coaching us through it and really, I’m sure he could sense our fear. My sweet little boy came out and was put to my face. I turned and I was like, “I think I’m going to throw up. I am super nauseous.” I am out of it at this point. I wanted to name my son Benjamin, which was not a name that my husband and I had discussed. The anesthesiologist said, “This is no longer something that you have to feel.” He gave me a good shot of fentanyl to really knock me out. And so, three hours later, I woke up to my husband doing skin-to-skin with my son Miles, not Benjamin and from there, I was confused, disoriented and in a lot of pain and discomfort, wanting to nurse. Breastfeeding was really important to me, really wanting to bring him in for our first latch and even from there, trying to latch my son but not being able to sit up and bring him to my chest, and just having a midwife take my breast and shove it in my baby’s face. I felt like I didn’t matter which, I think, was the furthest thing from the intention. It was rather, “We need to get this done.” Meagan : Yeah. Yeah, but still. I feel like there was such a lack of including you in everything. It was just like things were being done to you versus with you, and so I could see how you were feeling that. Lindsay: Thank you. Yeah, exactly. So we ended up having two days in the hospital and really focused on nursing and controlling what I could control. So making sure that I was walking as quickly as I possibly could. We were really focused on breastfeeding and getting my son on an every two hours nursing schedule on top of on-demand while focusing on letting him get that long stretch of sleep at night. So that’s why I started to excel as a mom and really stepped into my own, but I carried a lot of trauma and grief from that birth. I remember the first night being at home laying in bed, my son was fussing and my husband was walking at the end of the bed back-and-forth with him on his chest. I was just sobbing saying, “You don’t realize how lucky you are. All I want to do is get up and walk my son back-and-forth. This is what I’ve dreamed of and I can’t.” And so the first few weeks, also feeling like I was pretty helpless in terms of my lack of mobility and how sore I was, and it was just a much longer recovery then I had anticipated and was prepared for. And so at my last discharge appointment, my question was, “Can I do a VBAC? Can I deliver vaginally after a Cesarean?” It was a very clear, “Absolutely. Your baby was OP.” So my son Miles was full OP and he also was 9 pounds, 2 ounces. Meagan: Hmm, a bigger baby. Lindsay: So he was pretty big. A bigger baby and at the point of the C-section, he had descended so far down the birth canal that he was just stuck. And so the message was, “You can absolutely do a VBAC. In your next pregnancy, we will focus on a lot of bodywork, chiropractic care, and massage,” so some of the things that I was doing before. The big one was diet. I had gained a lot of weight in my pregnancy with my son. I definitely was carrying a bigger baby and that showed, but I was an all belly pregnancy and very active. We are talking hiked 15 kilometers at 38 weeks active. I felt, at that point, pretty defeated. Like, “Okay. I must carry big babies, but for my next pregnancy and birth, I am going to do everything within my control to have a VBAC and whatever else is passed over to the higher powers.” And so I continued on raising my little boy, really loved being a first-time mom. We were keen to expand our family, and so we ended up getting pregnant a lot sooner than expected. We got pregnant when my son was about nine months and we just made it in on the cusp of when they would endorse and support a VBAC versus mandate or strongly recommend a C-section. Where I am, 18 months is the standard and my babies were exactly 18 months apart. So I really, really just snuck in there. Julie: Nice, nice. Lindsay : So I’m pregnant with my second and I just started to consume a ton of literature and content all around VBACs. If something was recommended to me, I did it without hesitation. I went for chiropractic care and massage very early on. I saw an acupuncturist. I did Spinning Babies religiously. I hired a doula and I followed her lead and guidance. I used her as a sounding board and I focused on what I could control which was finding my voice and using it, and learning about birth and labor so that I could be undeniably prepared for what was about to happen. I also was really keen to have a homebirth just knowing statistically that homebirths for VBACs statistically are more successful in terms of a vaginal delivery. Unfortunately, my midwife team couldn’t endorse that. It was just out of their scope of practice, and so I did have to deliver in hospital. I just focused on really getting over those mental hurdles so that when it came time to being in labor, all I would focus on was just my labor and what was happening within my body. So at about 37 weeks, I started to actively try to induce labor. I wouldn’t say I was doing anything like drinking a midwives’ cocktail, for example. It was more so just focusing on ensuring that my body was prepared for labor and when my body was ready to go into labor, I was ready right there with it. I started doing acupuncture weekly. I was drinking my red raspberry leaf tea. I was doing my Spinning Babies, really focusing on inversions and bodywork for strong baby positioning. My baby was head down but not engaged in my pelvis yet, and so I was like, “I just want to make sure that this baby stays where he or she is supposed to be.” At 40 weeks exactly– she is a due date baby– I went into labor. The piece before this is, I had started pre-labor at about 38 weeks. So for two weeks I was in prodromal labor. Am I saying that correctly? Meagan : Prodromal labor, mhmm. Lindsay: Thank you. And so I was consistently feeling strong Braxton Hicks and it was manageable, something that I wasn’t even really noticing because I was so busy with a 17-18 month old, but it was something I was noticing– the feeling and shift in my body. For the four nights leading up to my birth, every night from 11:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m., I would have consistent contractions. It was this feeling of the wave, the build, and the release, but by 5:00 a.m., they would just go away. So on a Monday night, we had called our doula thinking, “I am for sure in labor.” My contractions were getting closer together. They were getting stronger and they were definitely more consistent than the pr evious waves. As soon as she entered our house, they stopped. And so I am like, “Yeah. We have just been up for hours tracking this.” Now it was to the point where I was uncomfortable and couldn’t stay in bed. And so we started talking about what I was feeling and I was like, “It just feels like something is tickling my bladder.” She was like, “That, my friend, is a hand. I think your baby has his or her hand in front of her face, so often you will see that start-stop labor pattern because the baby isn’t in a position where you can actively go into labor.” This was really the start of feeling so heard, being able to talk through what was happening and have a solution provided and also the validation of, “You’re not going crazy. You are feeling something real within your body and it is going to be okay.” And so she gave me some exercises and very strict direction like, “Do these exercises. Rest today and let’s see what happens that night. Let’s touch base before you go to bed and let see what happens.” So we get my son in bed. We call my doula and she said, “Okay. Here is the plan. You are going to go in the bath. You are going to do this exercise–” where I lay on the pillow and kind of let my leg hang and float. Meagan: Side-lying. Mhmm. Side-lying probably. Lindsay : No like, laying face first in the bath. Meagan: Oh, in the bath. Wow! Lindsay: In the bath. Yeah. Meagan: Okay, cool. Lindsay: Yeah. “You get in the bath. You are going to relax. You are going to lay on your belly and you are going to let it just hang.” My tub was just big enough to do this comfortably. And she was like, “And then from there, you are going to go to bed and you are going to try to get as much sleep as possible. If at 5:00 a.m., your contractions are still strong and consistent, I am coming over and we are going to kickstart this labor.” Let’s do it. I felt like we had a plan in place. And so I am laying in the tub and I am just going over my mental mantras like, “You are strong. You are healthy.” I definitely watched my diet in this pregnancy. Not that I was unhealthy with my son, but I was really strict with the sugar that I consumed and what I put inside my body. I was like, “Your body was made to birth this baby. You can do this.” And so I just had my mantras that I said over and over. I got ready for bed. I tucked in. My husband and I were lying there. At 9:30, I have my first contraction and it feels just like my son. Meagan : In the back? Lindsay: All in my back and I am instantly like, “This is–” Meagan : Triggering, probably. Lindsay: Triggering, yeah. It’s happening again. And so I’m turning to my husband and I am like, “You need to call the midwives. You need to call the doula. I need to go to the hospital now.” My husband was just such a calm, strong voice of reason. He was like, “Okay Linds. We are going to crank up the bath. We’re going to crank up the bath to a hot, hot heat and get you in it for some comfort and relief and I am going to call the doula.” And so I get in the bath and I am sitting facing the long side of the bathtub wall, kind of pressing against it with my knees up, and we are running the water hot. He is pressing on my pressure points and my low back. He calls the doula and he is like. “This is it. She is in labor. This is happening.” And she was like, “Okay. Well, talk to me. What is happening?” And he is now kind of frantic like, “No, no. There is no time for me to tell you what is happening. She is in labor.” And so he quickly says, “She is in the bath. It is as hot as we can get it. I am pressing on her back and if you don’t come here, we are going to the hospital.” Keep in mind, I was pregnant during COVID, so our doula couldn’t come with us to the hospital. She could only be with us at home. Julie: Oh man. Meagan: Yeah, aww. Oh no. Lindsay: So she gets to the house and it’s now like 10:00ish. She takes over for my husband, pressing on my low back and she is like, “Okay. You’ve got this.” She is like, “You are doing so great, Linds.” She’s asking me how I am feeling. She’s asking me about the sensation and I am like, “It is in my back, but I do get relief when you are pressing on the pressure points. It is just that it’s now in my back and my hips.” I could just feel everything moving down. And so at 11:00, and an hour where I am in this bathwater, she’s like, “Okay. Let’s get you out and let’s make a plan on what we are going to do.” We knew I had to transfer to hospital because I didn’t feel comfortable birthing a baby without medical support in my home. And so we are standing in my living room, slowly getting me dressed. She transitions to doing these exercises where every contraction, I press up against the wall with loose knees and she lifts my belly up as I lean over her. The whole intention was just ensuring that we were working with my body and baby to get my baby in the best position. Meagan : Yeah, like an abdominal lift. Lindsay: I think that’s what it’s called. Don’t quote me on that, but I am going to guess. Meagan: Yeah, that’s awesome. It’s intense too, for you. Lindsay: Super intense, but we are in such a good rhythm. We are like, “Now we have a plan for every contraction.” I have the rhythm. I’m feeling really good. She calls the midwives and she’s like, “Okay. Lindsay’s contractions are two minutes apart and consistently a minute long,” and the midwife was like, “Meet me at the hospital now.” I had been in labor for an hour and a half and I knew things were moving quickly. And so we hang up in my doula was like, “Listen. You are in charge here. We will go to the hospital when you want to go to the hospital. 30 minutes, an hour, we get there when we get there. So what feels good for you?” Again, it was just that validation of feeling a part of what was happening and feeling like I was steering the ship. We decided that my husband was going to pack the car and in the next 30-ish minutes to an hour, I would be at the hospital. She was like, “Let’s just continue to focus on this really good rhythm.” So at 11:15, I looked to her and I was like, “I am in transition.” She’s like, “Okay. Tell me what you are feeling. I was like, “I am shaking. My contractions are back-to-back. I am cold and hot at the exact same time. I’m sweating from pores I didn’t even know existed.” She was like, “Yep. You’re definitely in transition,” and very, very calm. Meagan: Positive things, positive things. Lindsay: Positive things, yeah. She was like, “We should probably get you into the car.” Just as we were getting downstairs, I had that little pause in contractions and she was like, “Okay. So when you get to the hospital–” reminding me of all of the things to ask for like how many centimeters dilated I am, what station I am at, so on and so forth. And so I am feeling good about going and we are kind of waiting. I was still like, “Let’s have one more contraction, and then get me in the car and we will go straight to the hospital. So that’s the plan.” There was like a little break. I am enjoying the relief and all of a sudden, there was a contraction. I get on the wall and she lifts my belly. I am leaning over her and my husband, and just as she lifts my belly, baby drops and I used some very foul language directing everybody to get their hands off of me. My doula drops to the floor. She just looks up and she is like, “Are you okay?” “I think so.” She was like, “Okay. Are we doing this here or are you going to the hospital? We need to go to hospital now.” So she helps me out to the car, which, I am sure at 11:30p.m. was quite the sight for any of my neighbors because she is behind me but also cautiously ready to drop to the ground at any second. My husband is now panicked in the car honking the horn like, “We need to go!” So I get in the car– quickest ride I have ever had to our hospital. We pull into the labor and delivery ward, do the COVID screen and get in. I go in first, but my husband hast to stay back and wait. And so I go into the first section of the labor and delivery ward and my midwife does my check. She is kind of scolding me like, “You said you would be here in 30 minutes to under an hour and it has been an hour.” I am just calm, cool and collected like, “How many centimeters am I dilated?” I am prepped for an 8. She was like, “All right. So you’re 10 centimeters dilated. The next step is to break your water and push the baby out.” So she tells me to go to the end of the hall to labor and delivery room and she was like, “I’m going to go get your husband because it is go time.” We get into the room and everything stopped. My contractions were nonexistent. My energy was different. I no longer felt in the zone. I felt edgy and amped up a little bit. I was totally experiencing fight or flight. And so they were like, “Okay.” We get my doula on the iPad. She is FaceTimed in now. I am excited and nervous, but my body has now totally stopped. That’s where the doubt starts to creep and like, “I don’t know if I can do this.” All of the literature about feeling not comfortable in your space and all of that, I am like, “I just don’t know. I am out of my labor zone.” So they break my water and I feel the pressure of the baby bearing down. I just keep asking, “So when do I start pushing?” I am like, “There are not really any contractions.” This is a very different feeling now. They were like, “Oh, you will feel it. On your next contraction, if you feel the urge to push, you can absolutely bear down.” And so about an hour and a half into being at the hospital, I finally start having consistent contractions again. Because I am a VBAC, I have consistent fetal monitoring. The baby is not in distress and my heart rate is great, so we just carry on. My contractions now are existent but just noneffective. And so between every fourth contraction, my midwives and my doula were getting me into a different position to try to get this baby out. Within the first push they were like, “The baby is right there,” and I just wasn’t able to push. I am pushing and my midwife is directing me, so now she is inside me pressing down like, “Push here.” She is like, “You are pushing really effectively,” and so it becomes a little bit of this puzzle. I am fully dilated. My waters are broken. I do have contractions and we are trying different positions, but this baby is just not coming. And so it’s about two hours in. I am getting pretty tired because it’s the middle of the night and feeling super defeated. The same narrative of, “You can’t do this,” is echoed by a member of the care team. At this point, I am like, “Get this baby out of me.” Like, “We are going to need some medical intervention for this baby to arrive Earthside. I cannot do this anymore.” Meagan: Aww yeah. Just total doubt. Lindsay: Total doubt despite being very prepared and having such a strong voice. My husband was like, “Linds, you can do this. You have worked so hard for this.” He was like, “I can literally see the baby. You’ve got this. It’s okay. You can do this.” And then there was a student midwife and a very new midwife– I think she had graduated a year or six months prior– and they were incredibly encouraging. They were like, “Lindsay, we are working with you. You’ve got this, girl. You’ve got this.” Every contraction cheering me on, so the energy was so positive, but it was just like, the combination of myself and another provider that lacked confidence that really took the scheme out of the labor. And so now it’s 4:00 in the morning, four hours into pushing and they say, “We are going to bring an OB consult.” I am pretty distraught at this point. I have no medication. I am really leaned in to like, “I am going to do this naturally one way or another.” My husband is advocating for me and such a big support system. I have two relatively junior midwives who are like, “You are doing this.” We decide despite all that that we are going to call in an OB consult. By chance, it was one of my most favorite OBGYNs on call that night. She was there to do another emergency C-section. And so she walked in and we went over the chart. She was like, “Man.” She had done my consult for if I was a VBAC candidate, and so she was like, “Linds, you can do this.” She was like, “You are so close.” She said, “Here’s the thing. I have another emergency C-section. You are not in distress. Your baby is not in distress. You’re both doing well, so while I do this other C-section, your job is to lay on your side with the peanut ball, knees together for the 30-45 minutes it takes me to do my other C-section. I will come back and if you are not progressing and you are still struggling to push out this baby, then we will do a C-section.” And so I felt at that point, “If it goes to a C-section, I am okay with that. I feel like I have really done everything in my power.” Pushing for that long was physically exhausting and not rewarding. So I’m like, “That’s cool. I’ll lay on my side on the peanut ball as uncomfortable as it is. I will bear down and it’s going to be what it’s going to be.” And so she leaves the room. I am on my side and because my midwife had kept checking they were like, “The baby is not OP. It just keeps rotating from left to right.” It was my body. I just wasn’t working in the right position to have the baby tuck under my pubic bone and out. When the OBGYN checked me she was like, “Absolutely. This baby just keeps rotating right to left, and so we just need to get it in the best birthing position. Let’s have you lay on this side as a last ditch effort.” She walks out and comes back in 45 minutes later and she is like, “Oh my god. We’re about to have this baby. Like right now, we are about to have this baby.” She is in full scrubs and walks back out of the delivery room. At this point, I am like, “Where is she going? I need her in here.” Meagan : You’re like, “Wait, I thought you said we were going to have this baby.” Lindsay: Yeah. Yeah. Meagan: “ And you leave?!” Lindsay: Yeah. I’m like, “Am I doing this solo? What’s happening here?” My midwives laugh and they’re like, “No, no. She just has to release the OR team because everyone is on standby to see if they are doing a section on me.” And so she walks in 30 seconds later and after about four pushes, my sweet little baby girl was born. Meagan: Aww. That is quite, I mean, gosh. That is quite the journey during the pushing stage. A lot of people would have totally been told like, “You have no option. You are going to a C-section,” after it had been just a couple of hours of pushing. They kept giving you more time and I just think it is awesome. I mean, it is really awesome that you guys had those providers in there to advocate for you. Overcoming Doubt But I wanted to talk a little bit about that doubt that you talked about was creeping in. It doesn’t always just creep in at the end. It can creep in during all periods of labor and even before labor begins. I think it’s awesome that you had your team there. I mean, your husband obviously is amazing and was like, “You have worked so hard for this. You can do this.” He built you up, but what’s a little piece of advice that you would give to our listeners? Because I think that is something that happens all the time. It happened for me. I mean, I think everyone who has heard my story– I think I shared it. I was throwing a fit in the driveway because my water broke and it triggered me. It was like, “No, it’s not going to happen.” I just had this total doubt. What would you say really, really helped you? Do you think it was your team? What did you do physically and mentally to just be like, “Okay, yes,” and snap back into it, water splashed back into your face? Lindsay: It was a combination of having the toolbox and building my own toolbox. So doing the reading, and The VBAC Link was on every morning and every night. I consumed podcasts and good news stories like they were liquid gold. I read the books. If someone made a suggestion, I did it blindly, and so I felt like the toolbox of confidence and support was built and that was me. That wasn’t anyone else. That was me wanting to know, wanting to be educated, and wanting to feel empowered and confident going into labor. And then that married with building the team that I knew would support me so that when I had a question and labor, when something came up, I was able to not only go into my toolbox, but also to my support team and know that they had my back. To your point, when that doubt creeped in it didn’t creep in on its own. There was an external voice in the room that supported that. It was the moment of my husband saying, “You can do this.” But I was like, “Yeah. He is right. I can do this.” And also, “I don’t have to listen to her.” I can listen to everyone else in the room that is validating me, supporting me, and believes in me. And so hat was my two-prong approach to building up my confidence and empowerment. If something doesn’t feel right, just continue to ask and lean into that until it feels like you’ve been heard and it feels like you understand what’s happening. Meagan : Yes. I love that. Such great tips because it does. It really does happen and yeah. Like you said, it didn’t just happen. It was placed there, and then it got worse. So I love that so, so much. Thank you so much for sharing your story. I loved it. I am so proud of you and I’m so happy that you were able to have your doula there for a little while and all of that. These COVID births, man. They are all so interesting to hear how they went down. But we are so grateful that you had your team. Julie, is there anything you want to add or anything? Julie: Nope. I think that sounds great. It’s a great story. I love all of the preparation that you did. I was kind of like that too with my first VBAC. I just did everything. Somebody told me about a resource, I sucked it all up. I went to all of the birthing groups. I soaked in of all of the stories, just all of it. I absolutely love that. I think it’s so important. Meagan : Mhmm. Lindsay: My close network of moms that had C-sections either hadn’t had a VBAC yet, weren’t interested in doing a VBAC, or had just gone straight to a repeat section. So I felt like my personal network was really limited in terms of the resources and questions that I could ask and lean on. And so I just turned on to an online community. So The VBAC Link Community being such a good example. If I don’t have someone to ask, where can I find that information from other real-life humans, not necessarily just a book right? So yeah. So that’s kind of where I landed and it’s so funny because I left the hospital fairly quickly. So I gave birth at 6:13 and I was home by two. And so it was partially due to Covid and partially due to the natural delivery, like let’s get her back home and comfortable and that night, my Julie came over to check in and see how we were doing and meet our little baby and the first thing I said was, I can’t wait to do it again. Do you know? Our family isn’t complete yet and yeah, I can’t wait to do it again. And so July 31, we are doing it again. Meagan: No! This year? Lindsay: Yeah. This year. Meagan : Oh my gosh. That’s so awesome. Julie : Yay. Meagan : Oh, congratulations. That is so awesome. So, so awesome. Julie: Yeah. Lindsay: Yeah. It’s a very similar approach, you know? I went in and went with the midwife team that supports me that I felt heard by and that I feel like the most comfortable with in our monthly appointments. I reached out to my doula right away and she typically doesn’t take summer clients, but I snuck in there which was awesome. And yeah. We are just doing everything again that we can. We have the confidence of success, of course, in our back pocket, but it is the same approach. Control what you can control. Meagan: Mhmm. Yeah. Julie: Yeah. Meagan: Oh, I love it. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story and we really, really do appreciate you. Lindsay: Thank you. Closing Interested in sharing your VBAC story on the podcast? Submit your story at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Julie and Meagan’s bios, head over to thevbaclink.com . Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands