Episode 262 Becky's HBAC + Changing Providers Late-term + Asynclitic/Posterior Positioning

“It’s very fitting that this is going to come out just before Thanksgiving because I feel very, very fortunate.” Becky’s two babies were both posterior and asynclitic. They weighed exactly the same at birth, but their deliveries were very different. Becky shares her sweet experience going from skepticism around home birth to fully embracing all that it has to offer. Her first birth included residual trauma which made for a very difficult postpartum period. Her second birth was full of safety, peace, and healing which left Becky feeling so joyful, so strong, and so thankful. Happy Thanksgiving week to all of our listeners. We are thankful for your stories. We are thankful for your love for us and for each other within our VBAC Link community. Your commitment to healing, education, and better birth experiences lifts us all and makes the birth world a better place. We are thankful for YOU, Women of Strength! With love, The VBAC Link Team Additional Links The Lactation Network How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents Full Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello, hello. Welcome to The VBAC Link. You guys, this is my first episode back from taking a really big break through the summer. You guys have still had episodes, but I recorded up through May right before my kids went to school and then took the summer off so I could have fun and spend time with them. I’ve got a middle schooler who went back to school today for the first time in middle school. It was bittersweet then I’ve got a fourth grader and a second grader. So they are back to school today and I figured, “All right, let’s get back to school today.” We’ve got Rebecca with us. Welcome, Rebecca. Becky: Hi. Meagan: Hi. Thank you so much for being here with us today. Rebecca is from Seattle, correct? The suburbs of Seattle? Becky: East side, yeah. Meagan: She is going to be sharing her VBAC story with us today. Her VBAC– we were just talking about this before we pressed record. It has a lot of things. We’ve got– okay. Do you want me to name it or do you want to go through it? Becky: I can name it. There was a late-term transfer to home birth with a sort of faux dual care that ended up not being dual care just before I went into labor and pushed on my back and a posterior and asynclitic baby. Meagan: Yes. Right there, posterior and asynclitic– those two together are like, whoa. It’s awesome because a lot of the time, that is a reason for a C-section. Asynclitic or posterior, but when we have an asynclitic and posterior baby, that definitely adds some things so I’m excited for you to be sharing your story with us today. Okay, so her name is Rebecca but do you like to go by Becky? Becky: Yeah, actually you can call me Becky. That’s fine. Meagan: Okay, yeah. Becky. I was going to say as I was reading through your form, I remembered seeing Becky. Yeah. Becky is a music teacher from little babies all the way to my oldest, middle schooler age. Let’s see. You do voice and Music Together and composing and all of the things. So music is definitely really, really close to your heart. I love that in your bio thing that you gave me, you talked about singing in your C-section, right? Becky: Yeah, yeah. Meagan: And how healing that was. Becky: Yeah, I think it is really important just as an idea for someone to have if it works for you because it definitely was very helpful for me. Meagan: Yeah. I love that. Well, I can’t wait to hear your story and more of the things that help. I think sometimes too when we have unplanned C-sections, or even if we are preparing for VBAC but go in for a C-section, it’s always nice to have some of those tips to say, “Okay, I can try this to see if it helps me stay calm or brings me peace.” Review of the Week Awesome, well we have a Review of the Week as always and then we will get into Becky’s story. This is from postpartummama on Apple Podcasts and it says, “A surprisingly and valuable postpartum resource.” I love that because we are not a postpartum podcast, right? But there is a lot. We were just talking about it two seconds ago about things we can do during our birth to help it be a better experience. When it’s a better experience, it helps with our postpartum experience. She says, “Once again, I found myself listening to episode after episode of this podcast. It is truly an invaluable resource for anyone preparing for birth or healing from a traumatic birth. Julie and Meagan approach topics that are often hard to discuss and they do so without judgment creating a community of acceptance during a season of life that can often feel alienating and overwhelming.” That just gave me the chills. She is not wrong. This journey can sometimes feel so lonely. I know I felt lonely during my experience prepping for my VBAC. It says, “I listened to this podcast while preparing for my VBAC and although my VBAC was successful, it was also traumatic. Now six months postpartum, I’m listening to each and every episode again and in doing so, I’m processing my second traumatic birth experience at my speed. It’s helping me mentally and emotionally heal from everything that happened and lessening my fear of childbirth. Thank you, Julie and Meagan, for–” Oh, I just lost it. Hold on. I moved it. “Thank you, Julie and Meagan, for dedicating your time to educating women in such an approachable way. I can’t recommend your podcast enough.” Wow, postpartummama , this was back in 2021 so a couple of years ago and that just makes me feel so happy. I don’t think we’ve ever had a review that has talked about how it’s truly helped them in the postpartum stage so I love hearing that. I love that she also talked about that she had her VBAC but it wasn’t necessarily all sunshine and butterflies. It had some trauma involved. I think it’s important to talk about that and realize that all C-sections aren’t traumatic and all VBACs aren’t sunshine and butterflies. Julie and I, in the past, have talked about that. We recognize that and I hope, postpartummama , that you have found your recovery and that maybe you are still with us today and listening to your review. But I hope that you have found that peace and recovery through your postpartum journey. As always, if you want to leave us a review, we never reject a review. You can leave it on any podcast platform so thank you so much. Becky’s Stories Meagan: Okay, Becky. Again, thank you so much for being here with us today. Becky: Thank you. Meagan: Yes. Becky: So I’ll just jump in, I guess. Yeah? Meagan: Just jump in wherever you feel that you want to start. Becky: Okay, so I’ll start with the C-section. I was in New York at the time and I felt very committed to having a vaginal, unmedicated birth. I was with a midwife practice. It was three midwives who had birthing privileges, I guess is the term, at a hospital in midtown. Everything was really normal and healthy with my pregnancy. I got to 41 weeks and they asked if I wanted a membrane sweep. I said, “Yeah. Let’s go for it.” So two days after the membrane sweep, I think I lost my mucus plug or something and then two days after that, we went to a restaurant in the evening. We were walking back to our apartment and I started to feel low cramping which I now know is contractions. At the time I didn’t know. I feel like nobody tells you that it feels like cramps. It does. Meagan: Yeah. And it can. It can start just like little period cramps or maybe you even feel like you have to go to the bathroom like bowel cramps. Becky: Yeah. Uh-huh. The bowel cramps come later. Meagan: Right? Posterior babies. Becky: Exactly. We got back and I was keeping an eye out for the timing. I saw that they were very irregular. I knew enough that it kind of hinted towards a posterior baby but I was like, “Whatever, we’re good.” The midwives said to try to get some sleep. It’s not that it was so uncomfortable at that point I couldn’t sleep, but it’s happening. It’s exciting. So I really didn’t sleep. My husband didn’t really sleep much either. We called the doula. She came around at 5:00 AM or something like that and I started to feel pushy. I knew that that is also a symptom of a posterior baby but also, my mom had quick labors so I was like, “Mmm, I don’t know.” It was also a Monday morning, so we decided, “Let’s drive to the hospital,” because it was in Midtown. When we got there, I was only 3 centimeters. We went to a hotel nearby. We got a hotel room for one night and I labored there. Things started to get intense there. I mostly liked the shower. Actually, my midwife because she came to the hospital but since I wasn’t admitted, she was just kind of waiting for me because she didn’t have other patients at the hospital. She actually came to the hotel room and did a check there. Meagan: Really? Becky: Yeah, to see so that I could skip triage. Meagan: Wow. Becky: I hear that is very unusual. She went above and beyond and I was a 7 at that point or something. Meagan: Oh, wow. Becky: I skipped that when we went to triage originally, the midwife had me lay on my back with my legs hanging down. I have learned that is Walcher’s. Meagan: Walcher’s, yeah. At 3 centimeters, she did that? Becky: Yes. Meagan: Okay. Becky: After that, the contractions stopped. It was easy. I could walk again and everything felt fine. I was like, “This is 3 centimeters with a not-posterior baby versus a posterior baby. It makes quite a big difference.” But she went right back. Anyways, when we went back to the hospital, it was supposed to be intermittent monitoring. I was moving a lot and with the movements I was doing, they couldn’t get a clean, 20-minute read. The nurse was very nice. She kept trying to get it, but it kept getting interrupted so it was really continuous monitoring. At a certain point, I started to feel like, “This is not happening.” I started to feel like I couldn’t do this. They were like, “You’re doing it. You’re doing it.” I was on my back and the midwife said, “Why don’t I try to direct pushing for you?” She said that she could see the hair. The energy in the room was like, “You’re doing it.” I felt like, “I am not.” Then, the energy in the room shifted because the midwife felt the ear. She felt the baby’s ear and she said the baby was asynclitic. From then on, the contractions were so close together. I couldn’t get rest in between. I had done some pushing that seemed to be doing something, but I was getting tired because we hadn’t slept. I also hadn’t eaten because I had thrown up what I tried to eat. Meagan: Oh, yeah. Becky: It was everything. Eventually, it was back-to-back contractions. Somebody suggested, “Would you like to try an epidural?” Although I was wanting an unmedicated birth, I was like, “Yeah. I think I need to rest. I can’t.” I could feel like I wasn’t able to push anymore. Meagan: Well, and if you have an asynclitic baby too, a lot of the time we have to get baby up and reset. Sometimes it can be really hard unmedicated when you are so tired and when time has been going. It’s nice to maybe get an epidural and let your positions and rest to really allow that baby to try and reset. Becky: Yeah. Yeah. So I slept after I got the epidural and then when I woke up– my husband later told me that I was only asleep for an hour but I woke up and it was dark already. We had gotten there in the morning. It was late October, so it wasn’t that late, but it was probably 5:30 or something. So they were like, “Okay, let’s try pushing now.” I was like, “Um, what? What do I push and how and also, why?” I didn’t have any connection. I didn’t understand how I could possibly push. I was like, “Is this it?” It was clear from their faces that no, it wasn’t it. It was not it. I don’t know. We tried other things, but eventually, because of the continuous monitoring, they were getting the heart rate and it was starting to look not as good. It was the situation where it was like, “It’s okay, but the OB/GYN on call might not be okay with this.” We could try Pitocin, but the midwife was like, “I don’t know what Pitocin is going to do for you because your contractions are already really close. It could likely make the heart decelerations worse.” It was like we could continue going as we were going or we could start to talk about C-sections. At that point, I was just like, “Yeah.” We didn’t see any other option. We didn’t see any other solution. Meagan: Baby wasn’t turning. Becky: No, baby wasn’t turning. I mean, yeah. So we got ready for the C-section. They gave me some anti-nausea medication. I was like, “I already feel like I’m going to throw up.” They were like, “It’s okay. This will help,” but they gave me the medication and I immediately threw it up. They gave it intravenously. We went into the operating room and I asked them if I could sing during the surgery. The reason for this was that I had another weird medical situation where my husband actually suggested singing because I was breathing so shallowly and I was so anxious about it. It really slowed down my breathing and just made me feel so much calmer. I guess, I don’t think I had thought about it in advance, but once C-section became a reality, I was like, “I’m going to sing.” Meagan: Do it, yeah. Becky: They were like, “Yes, absolutely.” The energy in the room felt like it was a party. Everybody knew each other. They liked working together and they were like, “Now our patient is singing for us? This is great.” The C-section was really quick. I did not feel that way. I did not feel like it was a party, but I was like, “This is calming myself, so I’m going to keep going.” She came out pretty quickly and she cried quickly, but I guess after the fact, it was not a gentle Cesarean because of all of the things. She was off in the corner for a long time and her APGAR scores were good. She was healthy and I was very thankful that I was singing so she could hear my voice, but it felt like a long, long time before she came onto my chest. Even when she did come onto my chest, the feeling was sort of fear and like, “Um, hi. How are you? Who are you?” Meagan: A bit of a disconnect. Becky: Yes. Part of the reason why I had wanted an unmedicated birth was that I was interested and excited about the hormone cocktail that they talked about. This was certainly not that. But we went into the recovery room and the midwife and the doula were with us. They were like, “Do you want to try breastfeeding?” I was like, “Oh.” I had prepared for the breast crawl. I had prepared for the natural things so I did not know how to do it. I didn’t know how to do it. So I was like, “Okay. Go, baby.” She did not know how to do it. So she did not latch. The midwife helped me, but she didn’t latch and then she was getting sleepy so it was like, “Okay, we’ll try it later.” A nurse or something said, “Oh, we’ve got to take the baby for some regular checks of some kind.” So they took the baby. My doula left. My husband and I were left in this room and there were other people in this recovery room. It started to be again, a long time without my baby who had just exited my body. I was like, “What’s going on?” I really felt like screaming. I felt like screaming like a crazy person, “Where’s my baby? Where’s my baby?” Meagan: Getting anxious, yeah. Becky: What stopped me was that there were other people in the room and I was afraid of scaring them. That also feels not good that I was not free but also good that I wasn’t screaming like a crazy person. I had my husband go find her and she was just chilling out with a nurse. They were just waiting for my room to be ready so it was just sort of a logistical thing that they were like, “Oh, her room’s not ready. They’re going to wheel her in. We’ll just wheel the baby straight to the room with her.” Meagan: Why not just keep her with her? Becky: There was no reason for the separation other than that was the reason. Breastfeeding was very difficult. She did not latch. I did not have good lactation support at the hospital and all of the people that came around were like, “No tongue tie, no lip tie.” Spoiler alert, she had a tongue and a lip tie. Breastfeeding has a happy ending. We got the tongue tie and lip tie revision and she latched by two weeks. We had to do triple feeding. That was rough, but she was breastfeeding by the time she was two weeks and I breastfed her until she was two. By then, she was only doing it at night, but that had a happy ending. I did have a posttraumatic stress disorder really not even from the C-section, I think, but from that postpartum period and specifically from the separation. I struggled, actually, with saying that it was traumatic because it’s like, “Well, everybody was healthy and everything was fine.” I was treated with respect. There were no stories of doctors or nurses being snarky to me or whatever but it was just the idea of being separated is still really sad at this point. Now, I can think of it, but for a long time– at first, I would ruminate on it, and then after a while, if my brain started to wander towards the topic, it would be like, “No, no, no, no, no. Let’s go over here and think of something different.” My brain wouldn’t let me think about the postpartum time. Meagan: Yeah. Becky: But therapy is good. I highly recommend it. I went to the Motherhood Center. They specialize in pregnancy and postpartum things. Meagan: Awesome. Becky: Anyways, I had a lot of trouble listening to people’s birth stories. Even with friends, if they shared their birth stories, they were like, “Oh, and then I was pushing.” I was like, “You didn’t even do any of the things that I did. I felt like I had prepared so much for this and some people had done no prep or were just doing it. It was very difficult for me to hear birth stories. So what made me know that I felt ready for another baby was that I was interested in listening to The VBAC Link. I wanted to test out the waters and see if listening to a birth story felt acceptable because before, it was like, “No. I can’t do this.” And it did. But I was like, “I’m just going to stick to The VBAC Link. That’s safe.” I wanted to listen to repeat C-sections to successful VBACs to HBACs and all of that, but it felt comfortable to listen to them so I knew I was ready. Meagan: Oh, that warms my heart. Becky: Yeah. Meagan: That warms my heart to know that The VBAC Link could be a safe space for you. It’s not even something that you’re going to do, but you’re listening. You’re willing to go in and you’re listening and you’re like, “Okay. I can do this.” All of these people and all of these Women of Strength who are telling these stories put power in your pocket. Becky: Yes. It felt good to listen to it and yeah. Meagan: And now you’re one of them. Becky: Now, I’m one of them. It’s so surreal to be telling this story and also to be hearing your voice and seeing you because I’m so accustomed to hearing your voice and I’m like, “Oh, that’s what she looks like.” Meagan: Oh, that’s what she looks like. I’m a hot mess all of the time. Becky: Not at all. Not at all. So we moved to the Seattle area during the pandemic. I felt strongly that I wanted a birth center birth because I was at a hospital. First of all, I didn’t get the lactation support that I wanted and then you were there and kind of trapped, I felt. I said, “Let’s do the birth center because it will be a little bit higher chances of VBAC, but you still have more medical support of some kind.” I quickly learned after reaching out to the birth centers that in Washington state, birth centers cannot do VBACs unless they are birth centers attached to a hospital. So I was like, “All right. Do I want to look into home birth?” It felt like that was two notches of crunchy granola beyond where I was. I’m fairly crunchy granola but I felt like that was just a little bit beyond there. I actually interviewed a home birth midwife and the way she put it was like, “If this happens, you go to the hospital. If this happens, you go to the hospital. If this happens, you go to the hospital.” I sort of felt like there was an additional set of policies that you had to meet. The reason I was interested in out-of-hospital is that I was not interested in being tied down by all of the policies, right? Meagan: Right, right. Becky: So I was like, “No, no, no.” There was one birth center attached to a hospital 20 minutes away. I was like, “All right. The decision is made. I’ll go there.” I went there and it is really a hospital. You go to a hospital and it is in a hospital. Yes, there are midwives. Meagan: It’s similar to what you had the first time. Becky: Yes. It’s similar to what I had the first time. It was just in a hospital. I was like, “All right, I guess.” The midwives were nice. The nurses were nice. I was like, “All right. This is my only option.” So I was going and I got a really, really great doula who they recommended. Part of the reason the doula was so great– I mean, I guess all doulas do this maybe, but she encourages you to do video chats or calls in addition to the regular meet-ups. That was really good because it helped me to feel really close to her. Meagan: Yeah, really personal. Becky: Yeah, emotionally connected. So anyway, things were going fine again. It was a perfectly normal pregnancy except that I got COVID during it. The hospital was a little bit conservative about wanting more checks. I was like, “All right. That’s not great, but okay.” Then at one appointment, they were like, “Okay, now you’ve got to set up your appointment with the OB/GYN just as a VBAC consult. It looks like the doctor you’re seeing is going to recommend not a VBAC. You can just ignore that, but she’s going to recommend not a VBAC because your VBAC score is 69.5 and I know that doctor only recommends that if your VBAC score is 70 or higher.” I was like, “What? The VBAC Calculator? Are they still using the VBAC Calculator?” I was saying, “Please tell me that at least you are using the version that does not use race.” Meagan: The updated version. Becky: They were like, “Well, no. This one is the older version.” I was like, “This hospital is so behind that they are even using the non-updated version which is racist.” It just sort of was a wake-up call like, “What policies am I going to be privy to that I’m not asked about?” because I was just like, “This is my choice and they are midwives so they’re going to be good.” But this is a hospital and there are policies and you have to abide by them or you have to put up a fight. My husband and I are both not prepared for that kind of thing. We just want to go with the flow. Meagan: Well, and what makes me laugh is– okay. Okay, this might sound really rude. I’m not trying to shame anybody who uses The VBAC Calculator. If that’s your thing, that’s your thing. But who in the hell pulls up a random number like that and is like, “No.” Like, what? And it’s 1%? Anyway, I don’t like The VBAC Calculator. Again, not shaming anyone who uses it or chooses to. I personally don’t like it and I just don’t love when they are telling people, “No” based on something that they personally came up with themselves, not something the evidence shows. Becky: Exactly, exactly. I didn’t even want to go to this appointment because I didn’t want somebody telling me, “I don’t think you should get a VBAC.” I just didn’t want that in the air. I had done the research. I know that it’s safe. You know? Let’s not do this. Meagan: You’ve done the research and you are there making the choice to do that. You are looking for support. It’s not that they can’t educate you along the way. They should be on both ends. Becky: Yes, exactly. Meagan: But they shouldn’t be deterring you based on a made-up number. Becky: Yes. Yes. I talked to my doula at length about it. She really recommended taking this because I was like, “Should I be considering a home birth again? This doesn’t feel good. This doesn’t feel good anymore.” She was like, “Why don’t you take this?” There is a VBAC class with Sharon Musa that everybody has been recommending across the board. She’s local to the Seattle area. So I was like, “Okay.” I kept hearing people recommending it so I was like, “Let’s just do it.” I took this class and it was very helpful going into all of the specifics about the risks and the benefits of everything and what is the risk. Not like, “You should do this or you should do that,” but “This is the actual level of risk. It is comparable to x, y, z. What are you comfortable with?” Meagan: What risk are you comfortable with taking? Becky: Yeah. I really appreciated that because it was put in such plain terms. But I was also like, “I know that even though this is clear to me now, but also, what is the risk with home birth VBAC versus hospital VBAC?” The truth is there just isn’t data for that because not enough people have home births and not enough people have home birth VBACs. I was like, “All right. This isn’t helping my decision really.” But she did recommend looking into the hospital VBAC statistics. I was like, “How do you do that?” I tried to talk to the midwife about it. You can’t really get hard numbers. You can just put it in Google. I forget what it was, but there was some outside source from Washington State or something. It’s probably the same in every state that gives a percentage of people who do VBACs in the hospital versus C-sections. I looked at the hospital where I was planning to go. The percentage, I kid you not, was below 20% for VBAC. It was below 20%. I was like, “This number has to be including people who are choosing to do a repeat C-section. It can’t be that low.” The national average is supposed to be 60-70% or even higher than that, right? I asked my doula about it. She looked at the statistics and where I had gotten it. She said, “No. The way they phrased it is for people who go for a TOLAC and get their VBAC.” I was like, “That is an insane statistic. I don’t want to be a part of that.” She recommended two other hospitals that had better statistics, but the better statistics, one was 28% and that was closer, and one was in Seattle which was 54%. That was the highest it gets. I called that hospital up. You couldn’t get a midwife because, at that point, I was 32 weeks or something. I could go and just have an OB/GYN and you’re still probably in a better spot because you’re probably going to a place that has better policies, but it still felt like I liked the midwife care. Also, 54% still does not feel pretty good. Meagan: I know. I know. When the overall success rate is between 60-80% and upwards, when you’re getting these lower numbers, you’re like, “Ah, I don’t love that. 50% is half a chance.” Becky: Yeah. Yeah. So I was like, “You know what?” I originally reached out to home birth midwives. There was one that looked really good, but she said that I was outside of their range. Meagan: Zone? Becky: Yeah, their zone. I learned that my doula had worked with them in the past. I said, “Why don’t I reach out to them again?” My doula has an in with them. I felt like my doula was the key. She knew everybody. Maybe things are different. Maybe they don’t have enough people around that due date. Sure enough, I don’t know if it was the fact that they just didn’t have anybody for that time or if they knew my doula and felt good about it, but they said, “Yes.” I interviewed them and I felt much better about home birth with them. It didn’t feel like now there were more policies, it felt like she knew what she was talking about. She talked about dehiscences which I hadn’t even known about before somehow. I felt really emotionally safe with her. I think that’s something that people don’t talk about, but one of the reasons I chose my doula was that I felt very comfortable crying with her. I’m a crier. I cry a lot and there are times when I’m around people and I cry and it feels blocked and shameful almost. It just feels bad and there are people when I cry around them that it feels cathartic. So I felt like, “Yeah. Let’s do it.” My husband was not on board with home birth at first, but he was like, “You know, your emotional health is really important too.” Meagan: I love that he recognized that. Becky: Yeah. Yeah. I mean he had been there during postpartum for the first one and witnessed first hand so he really knew. But no, actually I skipped the dual care part. I liked her but I still felt really like, “Home birth, this is not me.” I was looking around on your website at the blogs and whatever and I came across the term “dual care”. I had never heard about it before and I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is it.” Suddenly, home birth felt comfortable to me with the idea of dual care that if something happens, you just transfer to your regular doctor. The home birth midwife was on board. I went to what turned out to be my last appointment with the midwives at the hospital. It sounded like they were giving tacit acceptance. They were like, “We can’t do that because health insurance is not going to cover two appointments. We can’t turn anybody away and technically, if you don’t tell us that you’re transferring care, you’re still our patient.” It sounded like this was faux dual care that I would just go to my home birth appointments. I was already 34 weeks at that point. It sounded like I was just going to be able to do it. What I did was I would call them after hours to reschedule my appointment with the hospital midwives, but then when they called me back to reschedule, I would not pick up so then it just would never get rescheduled. Okay. It went like that. The appointments were great. When I missed my 39-week with the hospital midwives, I had three messages from them. This time, two of them were from one of the midwives. It wasn’t just the receptionist, okay? I started to feel really– it was like, “We know what’s going on.” They were like, “The jig is up.” I started to feel really guilty about it and just uncomfortable with lying. I was essentially lying. I talked to my doula about it. I had a really long nap and I was supposed to call her during then, but I called her after the nap. We decided that I was just going to fully transfer care. It felt better than lying. I would call the next day which was Monday but oops, no. The next day is Labor Day so we won’t call then. We’ll call on Tuesday. But I did not get a chance because, at 3:15 AM, I woke up with a little wetness. I was like, “That is not my water breaking,” because, with my first, it was a very dramatic, movie-like gush. I went to the bathroom and I smelled it and it was not pee, but I was like, “Nope. It was probably really diluted pee. This is not my water breaking. This is not it. Nope, nope, nope.” Then I lost some mucus plug and I was like, “Okay, yes. That was mucus plug.” With my first, it was two days later that I went into labor so that was a more comfortable timeline for me. My daughter was starting her new class at school the next day on Tuesday. I was like, “Nope, it’s not happening now.” I just kept saying, “No, I just have to poop. This cramping is because I have to poop. I haven’t pooped in two days. That’s all it is.” My husband was like, “Maybe I should call the doula.” I was like, “No, it’s the middle of the night. You can text her, but this is not it.” Meagan: You don’t need to call. Becky: It was a good thing I was in such denial because had I not been, I would have suspected a posterior baby. But because I was in serious denial, I was like, “No, no, just no.” Things started to pick up. Eventually, we did call the doula. I did the Miles Circuit and it was too intense already. When the doula came, it was like, you know when a horse is whinnying and they are really anxious about something or panicked and whoever is helping the horse is like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa” and calms the horse down? That is what my doula did. Everything took it down a notch. Everything was much calmer. We started filling up the birthtub. Things were getting really intense really quickly. The midwife arrived and she asked if I wanted to be checked. I said, “Yes.” I was already at 8 centimeters. I was very glad that felt good. Meagan: I bet, yeah. Becky: I got in the tub, but in the tub, it felt like I couldn’t hang onto anything. It was hard to get a hold on anything. I learned after the fact that I started pushing there. They kept saying I was roaring, but they kept saying, “You’re wasting that energy up and you need to send that energy down.” Meagan: So you’re bringing it up but not sinking into it. Becky: Yes. Yes. I was sort of like, “What does that mean?” I was told that roaring is good, but I learned that they were right. It’s not so much that I was sending it up, it’s that I was shying away from down there. I was like, “No, everything is crazy down there.” They said, “Why don’t you come? We’ll do some directed pushing.” At that point, I was like, “No!” because that’s what happened in the first one. My doula was like, “No, no, no. Don’t worry. You are already much farther than the first one. This is a different birth.” I had affirmations up on the walls everywhere. She reminded me of one of them. So anyway, we started to do and it was clear that on my back, I was able to push better. Now, this goes against everything I had been taught about pushing and that people talk about pelvic dynamics and everything. I had been getting pelvic floor therapy and my thing with that was releasing. I needed to release. Whenever she did the internal release, I was on my back with my knees out. That was the position where I was doing my most effective pushing because I had inadvertently trained my body that this is the position in which you release. That’s what you need to do to push. So just for any of you who are getting pelvic floor therapy and getting internal releases, try to do it maybe in a position where you want to push. After a while, the assistant midwife was like, “Do you want to try knees together?” I was like, “Knees together? I know what that means! That means it’s late.” But still, even knees together just weren’t as good as knees apart. Something about it with my knees apart on my back was where I had the power to push. I felt the baby’s head at one point. I was pushing and it was getting there. It was taking a long time, but it was getting there. The assistant midwife started taking the heart rate of the baby. Meagan: With the Doppler? Becky: Doppler, yes. I sort of clocked that it was varying widely. She told me after the fact that it was totally normal. She was not worried but I was clocking that and I was like, “This should be over soon.” I asked my midwife, I was like, “Can this be the last one?” as if she had the power to grant that to me. She was sort of like, “Maybe.” I was thinking to myself, “Yes. It has to be.” So I did it. This has to be the last one. I pushed and the head came out. I felt either the ring of fire or tearing. He came out and they said, “Now, wait before the rest.” She told me to breathe or exhale or something. Meagan: Like a little blow? Becky: I pushed for 3 hours when the hospital had a limit at 2. She was worried that there would be shoulder dystocia, but there wasn’t. He came out very easily after the head. He was just immediately on my chest. He was just immediately on my chest. I kept saying, “You’re here.” I had the hormone cocktail that I wanted. It was so serene and beautiful. It was everything I had hoped for. We had that totally uninterrupted golden hour. Totally uninterrupted. It was 10:20 in the morning. It was the day before school started so you could hear kids playing outside. It was really golden. The sun was coming through the window. It was so beautiful. Then I was like, “Huh. Your head is very oddly shaped.” They were like, “Yeah. He was posterior and asynclitic,” exactly like my first but totally because of a different location and a different support team, it’s like they always say, “Location and your team are so important,” but they are really, really so important. Meagan: Crucial. Becky: Not only that, but he weighed the exact same amount. They were both 8 pounds, 4 ounces. Meagan: So on your op reports if you have seen them, what was your exact diagnosis on why you had a C-section? Was it failure to progress? Becky: It was failure to progress, yeah. Meagan: Okay, that’s what I was figuring. Becky: But it was really failure to descend because she was never down far enough. Meagan: Yeah, and you made it to 10 centimeters. Becky: Oh yeah, I was at 10 centimeters for a long time. Meagan: Failure to progress, yeah. So failure to descend due to a less-ideal position. It may be the way your babies need to come through your pelvis. Becky: Maybe. Meagan: Sometimes baby need to come through in a wonky, less-typical position to get out. I truly believe after knowing what I know now that all of my babies had to come through my pelvis posterior. Every single one. I thought I was going to have a baby the other direction because of all of the contraction pain. Becky: It’s like, I would just love to feel an anterior baby and compare. It seems like it must be so much easier. Meagan: Me too. I am with you. I am with you. I am with you. Yeah. Posterior, yeah. It is definitely a little bit different, but you had a C-section for positioning, but then you turned around and had the same position, same pounds and everything, and did it vaginally. Becky: Not only that, he also had a lip tie, but he did latch after that first latch. I also just want to give another shoutout to home birth because my assistant midwife was six months postpartum and she knew about previous difficulty with breastfeeding. She had her pump in her car and she said, “Would you like me to pump a few ounces for you?” I was like, “Yeah.” She found a clean, glass jar and pumped 2 ounces in there and left it in our fridge for us. Meagan: Oh my gosh. Becky: That just can’t happen at a hospital birth. Kindness like that– obviously, kindness means a lot to you, but in those first postpartum times, it’s just amplified. I’ll always remember that. Yeah. I had all of the support I needed and more. I really hope everybody who wants this has it like me. It’s very fitting that this is going to come out just before Thanksgiving because I feel very, very fortunate. Meagan: Thankful. Becky: Yeah. Meagan: Oh, I’m all teary, my eyes and nose and I have the chills. I’m so happy for you. I’m so happy for you. Becky: Thank you. Yes. Meagan: Huge congrats. Becky: Thank you. Meagan: Thank you so much for sharing this story with us today. Becky: Thank you for giving me the opportunity. I hope somebody has something that they take from it. I feel like there are so many random bits and bobs that could be helpful. Meagan: Absolutely. Closing Would you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan’s bio, head over to thevbaclink.com . 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