About this episode
Katherine’s unassisted VBA3C was truly redemptive in every way. After three unwanted Cesareans and a traumatic VBA3C, she decided that her fifth birth had to be different. When Katherine’s intuition told her that she was not getting the support she deserved, she knew that birthing unassisted was the path for her. Katherine worked hard to research, plan, and prepare as safely as possible. Her birth was intense, healing, and just what she needed. We talk about the risks and benefits of unassisted births and what things you can do to make sure you are making the best (and safest!) choice for your situation. While we will always advise birthing with a VBAC supportive provider over birthing unassisted, we also ALWAYS applaud women for following their intuition! Additional links The VBAC Link on Apple Podcasts 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: Good morning, Women of Strength. It is Women of Strength Wednesday and let me tell you, I couldn’t be happier to say that. I love that alliteration, Women of Strength Wednesday. I don’t know if that’s exactly an alliteration, but it feels really cool to me. Women of Strength Wednesday. No matter what day you are listening to this on, this podcast was released on Wednesday and so you can proudly be a part of Women of Strength Wednesday. We have a really, really, cool, cool, cool story to share with you today. We have Katherine with us. She has five kids. She had three Cesareans and then two VBACs. Her first VBAC was a traumatic and really hard experience for her and her second VBAC after three Cesareans was a planned, unassisted birth. And so, we are going to talk about all those things. We’re going to talk about when you might need to consider an unassisted birth and how to do that safely, although we always recommend first if you can possibly find a supportive provider to support you in your VBAC, we always are going to recommend that first. But we realize that that’s not possible in every area and so we want to talk about it instead of going into an unassisted birth irresponsibly, let’s talk about options. We’ll go over the risks. We will talk about how to do it responsibly if you find yourself in that position. Review of the Week Katherine’s going to share her story with us, but before we share her story and before we get to meet sweet Katherine, Meagan has a Review of the Week for us. Meagan: Yes I do. I was scrolling through reading and I was like, “Oh, I totally want to show this one, and then we like to show who it is from. I scrolled over and guess who it’s from? It’s from Paige. Julie: Our Paige? Meagan: Yeah. Julie: Aww. Meagan: Yeah. I’m excited to read this. So the subject is “Best birth podcast in all the land.” Julie: She’s so sweet. Meagan: And I love that. I was like, “That is the cutest.” It says, “The VBAC Link is THE most empowering space on the internet. The birth prep content combined with the safe, beautiful sisterhood and support is truly unmatched anywhere else. I have prepped twice for a VBAC-- once before The VBAC Link existed and the other having podcasts in my ear multiple times a day every day during my pregnancy. The transformation I was able to have physically from doing the bodywork they recommend and in my heart and soul has changed me forever. “Julie and Meagan become your virtual doulas. They hold space for YOUR story and stay with you every step of the way. I can’t express enough what a catalyst their podcast was for me to find my strength, find my voice, listen to my intuition, and have the confidence to completely throw myself into a journey without a guaranteed outcome. I didn’t get my VBAC or my VBA2C, but The VBAC Link gave me so much more than the natural birth I hoped for. Forever and ever grateful for these two women. For their hearts. For their mission. For this safe and uplifting community in a world that has never needed it more.” That gave me chills. Julie: Oh my gosh, Paige. You’re the best. Meagan: Seriously. Julie: She’s going to be transcribing this. Meagan: As you transcribe, can you say, “I am the best”? Julie : Give yourself a high-five from us because we love that review. I just wish I could be a fly on the wall when you are transcribing this episode so I can see your reaction to us reading your review on the podcast and how much we loved it. Meagan: I know. It’s beautiful. Yes and we love reviews so if you haven’t yet, please drop a review. We have tons of podcasts that we have to record and we love to read reviews of the podcast on each recording. So leave us a review. No matter where it is, just drop it even if it is just a message. Message us and say, “Put this on your review.” We would love it. Julie: We just read one of those the other day. Meagan: Yes we did. Julie: An email review. We never share email, instant messenger, or direct messages without asking permission first, but if you leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts or Google , just regular old Google, it’s free game. So you’re probably going to get your review read on the podcast one day. We are really excited about that. The warm and fuzzies really keep us going and we are grateful for our sweet Paige for giving us that wonderful review. Katherine’s story Julie : All right, all right. Now it is time for Katherine. We are really, really, really excited for her to share her experiences with us. She lives in Georgia. In Georgia and other states in the south like Florida, Louisiana, and Alabama, the Cesarean rates are really high. The VBAC rates are really, really low and it’s hard to find a truly supportive VBAC provider. There are a few gems here and there, but you’re a lot more limited in your options there than you would be in some other parts of the areas just because of legal guidelines, VBAC policies, and de facto VBAC bans where the hospital will allow VBAC, but no providers will support you through a VBAC or they are really barely tolerant best. And so, Katherine is going to share her journey with us navigating through all of that in the south and then she’s going to talk about her to VBAC after three Cesareans, one in hospital and one unassisted. Before I just start rambling on anymore, I’m going to turn it over to Katherine. Katherine: Okay. I do want to add something. So I am in Georgia currently, but I was born in Virginia where I had my first two kids and my husband is military, so we moved to California and we had our third, and then our last two were in Georgia. So it’s going to be kind of all over the place. Julie: You’ll fit right in. Katherine: Yeah. My first two, I was 17 turning 18 with my first and like a lot of people on The VBAC Link podcast talk about, at that age, you don’t know a lot. No one tells you anything. You just think about the movies and you think, “It’s just going to happen like this,” and you don’t realize that there is so much that goes into it. So where my story goes is, I didn’t actually see a provider until I was 19 weeks. I found out instantly we were having a girl and had my first obstetric abuse type thing where a doctor called me “stupid” because I didn’t want to get the genetic testing done. Julie: Oh my gosh. Katherine: Fast forward towards Christmastime when I was 36 weeks, I ended up moving back home because I was in college at the time. I moved back home and I switched to a practice that was well known around us and everyone heard good things. I was born at the hospital, all the classic stuff. I wanted to see as many providers as I could, but they kept scheduling me with the same lady. My daughter was breech all the time, essentially. Every appointment she was, but I kept telling them that she would flip at night. I felt it. I knew she was flipping every night and then for some reason in my morning appointment, she would be butt down again. And so, at my 38-week appointment, I remember talking with the doctor and I really didn’t like this lady, but that’s all put aside. She told me that I could have an ECV, but I asked her what was her honest opinion on it, and, of course, she gave me her honest opinion which is that it is really risky and it might end up in a C-section anyways. So with that being said, my mom had three C-sections, I am her VBAC baby, but because of her traumatic experience, she ended up having more C-sections. All I was told is, “Oh well, just have the C-section. It is okay.” I showed up at 39+4 to the hospital. You know, a scheduled Cesarean. They didn’t check her position. We had a C-section and one of the things I can clearly remember is the doctor saying, “This baby isn’t breech.” And so, there’s that. I had an unnecessary C-section. I didn’t know I could ask for an ultrasound. Didn’t know it was supposed to be done. I just thought, “They know what they’re doing.” Recovery for that was really easy, nothing traumatic. I didn’t even really think about the trauma of it until years later. My second C-section was when I was 20 right before I turned 21. It was with my son. Normal pregnancy, everything was great. I wanted a VBAC but didn’t know a lot. My mom was constantly in my ear about how traumatic her VBAC was. I still wanted it. I got to my 39-week appointment and I was still high and closed. I still didn’t know a lot about birth and I remember asking if I could go another weekend. They were perfectly fine with it and then for some reason, they ended up calling me that night with C-section dates for that week. My then-boyfriend, now-husband was going back to school and I didn’t want to do it by myself, so at 40 weeks exactly, we had another C-section. Probably the best C-section I’ve ever had. They made me feel like a person and not like someone just laying there on a table. The anesthesiologist got awesome pictures of my son. It was just a really good experience. Recovery was rough. But I feel like I guess, I don’t know. It just came and went. You know? It was normal, kind of rough. I remember getting shots that were in my shoulders, I don’t know how they did it. It just made my shoulders really stiff, so the first week of my son’s life was rough because I couldn’t really pick him up. But going past that, my next C-section was when I was 23. It was 2016. No, 22. I don’t know. But with him, I really wanted a VBAC after two Cesareans. I was dead set on it. It was going to happen. I traveled 45 minutes to a provider who backed me up, didn’t talk about C-sections until well, you know. She wasn’t supposed to talk about C-sections until 42 weeks, but we ended up hitting a speed bump at 40 weeks. But before that at 37 weeks, he flipped to breech. 38 he flipped back on his own and then at 40 weeks he had severe decreased fetal movement. Our appointment came and we tried to do a non-stress test and he was really non-reactive on it. We had a serious talk about what we should do and how we should proceed. I was really scared because even though he had a heartbeat and he was doing fine, he wasn’t moving like he was supposed to and I just decided that a C-section would probably be best. We had it the next day at 12. He was born perfectly fine. He had a double nuchal cord which sounds scary, but knowing that it happens in 30% of births, they said, makes it seem not as bad and that it is normal. So yeah, that happened. I had a really bad recovery, postpartum depression. I remember in my six-week check-up, my doctor who did my C-section was really supportive of me and she told me that the day before she had a VBAC after three Cesareans. She assisted one. I thought that was really cool because she was essentially telling me, “There is still hope.” Now, we were in California this time and where we’re about to move to Georgia. I met a lady who was a doula who had a home birth after three Cesareans. We had met out of coincidence and she told me in Georgia about a well-known doctor there. So I was really excited to find out we would only be two hours away from him. We move and unexpectedly get pregnant almost immediately as we move. So thus, the panic set in. I decided that I was tired of being ignorant to birth, and what can happen, and how it works, and things like that, so I took a birth class. It was a really good one. It was The Bradley Method birth class. That ended up being probably one of the best decisions I ever made. I learned a lot. I learned coping techniques and then I spent a lot of my time healing my past traumas. So, working on the fact that I have to forgive myself for things I didn’t know and for things that were always said to me and that I just kept believing. You know better, you do better. So I had my provider, had really good support. We were on top of things. I had a really healthy pregnancy until 35 weeks. At 35 weeks, I ended up having high blood pressure and my swelling was out of control. We had to have a serious talk about how we were going to proceed because he couldn’t induce me because the hospital, even though it was a medical thing. We decided on a 24-hour protein. We did that and it came back that it was just above the line for what is diagnosed as pre-e. From there, we chose to do weekly monitoring, so BPP, NST, and at 39 weeks, my son flipped to breech. That was the biggest shocker of my life. I cried, and cried, and cried and got through the weekend, and then just decided, “It’s going to happen as it’s going to,” because my provider wasn’t pushing me. He was breech supportive. It was like, everything was there and even when we were talking about our options, ECV was still an option, even though I was 39 weeks and I had semi-on the lower end of fluid. I declined that. I just knew he would flip back on his own. So I decided to wait and at 40 weeks he was back head down, to everyone’s amazement. And then after that essentially, 41 weeks came and went, 42 weeks came and we had to have another serious talk about, “How are we going to proceed? Did I want to just settle for a C-section?” Because nothing was happening. I didn’t do cervical checks at all for this pregnancy because, in past pregnancies, they just made me feel really defeated because nothing was happening. No effacement, nothing. He asked if I wanted one and I told him, “No.” He asked if I wanted the membrane sweep and I told him, “No,” because that goes with having a cervical check too. And so we decided no more appointments because at that point, it was sort of like I was meeting a goal each week. Every single week, I was just meeting a goal. So I said, “No more appointments.” On that day I had my NST, I swore I was having contractions, but none of them were picked up on the NST. I drove home. I woke up the next morning. I was 42+1 at that point, and I cried my eyes out because nothing was happening. I remember telling myself, “I should just do the C-section. On Monday, I’m just going to call. I am just going to get it over with. I can’t do this anymore.” I remember I ate a pint of ice cream. I folded some clothes. This is at four in the morning. And you know, me and my husband did our thing. I took a nap and I woke up in labor. So from there, I did 19 hours out of the hospital. We labored at home for 11 or 12 hours and then, we moved to Atlanta, so we had to drive for two hours. Made one pit stop because I had to go to the bathroom and then, we got to the hotel. Spent 5 to 7 hours there. That’s where our doula met us. I remember that deciding moment for us going to the hospital was my husband. I had just woken up from a nap. I guess I had passed out in the bathroom sitting on the toilet, best place to labor ever, and my husband and doula, I can hear them talking. He was like, “When do we go to the hospital?” She was like, “Oh, I guess it’s whenever she wants to.” I really didn’t want to. I honestly didn’t even want to go to Atlanta. I wanted to stay home. I really didn’t-- I don’t know. I guess I was afraid, or I was just comfortable, or something. We go to the hospital. When I get there, I was 7 centimeters, -2 station and my water was bulging. I remember being in so much shock because I didn’t think anything was going on. I was totally in denial that I was in labor even though it was really hard to get through. We ran into a couple of bad nurses. The first ones that we met were awesome, but the nurses that when shift change came were rough, but I’m not going to go into that too much. Yeah. Essentially from there, it took us five hours to go from 7 to 10 because I assume he was posterior. No one ever actually said that, but I was on my back a lot because I was really tired. This was going to 25 hours of labor. I remember the nurse looked at me and she asked if I wanted fentanyl. Mind you, I had no idea what that was. The way it was advertised to me was, “Oh, it will just take the edge off.” And you know, that could mean anything, but my tired self took it. From there, I remember passing out multiple times because I was so exhausted. That was part of where a lot of my trauma came from because I felt like I was really out of control. I could still feel all of the pain, but I couldn’t control or focus on anything anymore. It was like the room was spinning and I would pass out, wake up to pushing. It was bad. So I had a cervical lip. We pushed that over the baby’s head and then we did two more rounds of pushes. It was coached pushing. Not really my favorite thing, but I guess I needed it because I couldn’t really control anything anyways. I think by the third set-- it was like, the first push did nothing, the second push got his head out, and the third push got him out. I suffered a second-degree tear. Recovery wasn’t terrible. It was definitely way better than a C-section, but it took me a good eight weeks to feel anywhere close to back to normal. And then after that, I sat with myself and had to figure out how to process everything that had just happened. I noticed that the more I talked about it, the more I cried because it was just hard to deal with everything that happened. So we ended up getting pregnant again, Father’s Day of 2019. We ended up losing that baby and then we immediately got pregnant with our son Logan. That pregnancy, I tried to stay with people closer to the area because I didn’t want to travel again. I guess from my experience, I just couldn’t do it again. I didn’t want to go back there. It wasn’t even the provider. It was the hospital. And so I didn’t want to go back there, but I tried to look around. Essentially, I already knew most of the places around here were going to tell me, “No.” I knew that for a fact. I even looked into a midwife, but the backup that she wanted doesn’t support VBAC for herself. I just decided that wasn’t for me and I didn’t want to go with that midwife. So I ended up at a teaching hospital and they had midwives there. They were just starting it and I was really excited. I kept hitting dead ends with them because they follow ACOG guidelines and ACOG doesn’t have a stance on VBAC after three Cesareans So they kept saying, “No” even though I had already had one. Then from there, I decided reluctantly to go back to the old place. I was like, “Maybe it will be different this time.” So I went back and I met a new midwife who, in my first appointment with her, shamed me for everything that I had gone through with my son. Like the fact that we chose weekly monitoring instead of just getting a C-section and she was like, “Well, that’s really dangerous. You shouldn’t have done that because it could have changed any second,” to which we planned for that. I would’ve just gone to a hospital near me and just gotten a C-section. It wasn’t like I was all or nothing. I didn’t really feel comfortable anymore. When I finally got to see the doctor for the first time, the one that was so supportive, I didn’t really like the answer he gave me when I talked to him about how to help myself from the nurse side when going to the hospital because obviously you can fire and nurses, sure, but it doesn’t mean that your next nurse is going to be someone that supports your decision either. In that moment where I was so panicky and I needed someone to be calm, it was like I felt like they were yelling at me because I couldn’t-- I don’t know. I was really panicky and I just felt like they were yelling at me instead of going, “Hey, calm down,” and talking me through what was going on. So when he had said to me that, “Well, you just need to use your voice more,” I was like, “Oh. Well, that is not what I wanted from you.” I want you to tell me like, “Okay, we can try this this time,” or give me actual ways to try to work on what was going on. It sat with me for a while. I remember going to my ICAN meeting and talking to the leader there. She was really someone that helped me with my first VBAC after three. This time around, I just told her that I couldn’t do it and I was really leaning towards unassisted. It was calling to me. I felt in my heart that I had to do it. Everything with my first VBAC after three Cesarean and wanting to stay home was the right choice. I should have done it the first time around. So from there, I joined a Facebook group that was recommended to me. I looked around for a little bit and I thought stuff out, and then I started doing my research on unassisted birth stuff going beyond what you learn in a birth class. My husband was on board the whole time. He actually was telling me today that if I hadn’t known my stuff and made him feel comfortable, he wouldn’t have been comfortable. So he trusted me explicitly to make this decision and know how safe that was. And that’s okay. Because it really was my body, my birth, so I’m just happy that he was really supportive of me. And really, everything went great. I remember doing Brewer’s diet for my last birth also because I wanted to make sure that pre-e wouldn’t be a thing again and if it did, I would have gone to the nearest doctor and gotten stuff sorted out. But everything went well. No swelling, no BP issues. I just kind of sat through it and my doula was behind me also. So it was really nice to have all that support for something that is so, I guess, I don’t know the word to use for it. Like, man. I don’t know. I don’t want to say risky because it’s not risky. I mean, you determine your level of risk and for me, it didn’t-- Julie: It’s just not common. It’s just not common. Katherine: Yes, uncommon. I don’t know. So essentially going past that, like I said, everything was great. I was wondering how far I was going to go this time because the last time was 42 weeks and I was getting really antsy. I was so hoping I would go into labor sooner, which I did, but it wasn’t by much. It was only by like a week. So I went into labor at 41+1 weeks. This was after two days of spotting. Oh man, I feel like things went so differently because I chose to do the Miles Circuit and I chose to do Spinning Babies actively. I went into labor at nine at night and had him at 5:18 in the morning. It picked up so quickly and I think it was just because I tried to keep off my back and keep myself moving. I remember that I wanted to do a water birth and so we had our tub and everything set up. My husband was filling it and everything and I remember getting that feeling like something was between my legs, like that bowling ball feeling that I had never felt before, and I was like, “Oh, I have to get in the tub.” So I got in the tub and I think within 30 minutes, he was born. That was interesting to me because it’s so night-and-day to the experience I had the first time around. One of the things that I always found so interesting too is with my first one, I remember feeling nauseous, but I never puked and I feel like that’s something that’s hardly talked about in birth, but then with this one, even though I hadn’t eaten anything, I remember puking at least two or three times before he was actually born. And that was so uncomfortable, but you don’t even think about it once they are born. It’s just like, “Oh my God, you’re here.” He was perfect. Honestly. It was so nice to finally be able to have that time with my baby. No one is messing with you. No one is touching you. He was just so perfect. I can’t even tell you how beautiful that moment was for me because it’s hard to even explain. For such a night-and-day experience, it was just the best thing that has ever happened to me to be surrounded by love, and support, and people that aren’t doubting you or putting unnecessary pressure on you to stay in bed. No one is offering medicine to you. I actually just had my experience. It was me, the labor, and the baby. We were together and we were one. It was just so nice. But yeah. I have been doing, I guess, as much support as I can on the VBAC side for other moms since then because I feel like after my first VBAC I didn’t feel that, not responsibility, but I didn’t feel like I was ready to because I still had a lot to process and to deal with from my first VBAC. So the fact that my second VBAC went so well, it’s like, okay. There is a redeeming factor for some people. Just because you had one bad VBAC doesn’t mean that your next one has to be horrific also. So, yeah. I think that’s it. I am sorry if I rushed through anything. I just didn’t want to get into too much. Meagan: No, you didn’t rush. Preparing for an unassisted birth Julie: No, you did great. Yeah, I want you to talk a little bit more about things you did to really prepare for that unassisted birth and what you would recommend people do if that is an option that they are considering. Katherine: Okay. That’s a fun one. Okay. So first I would start with-- I think when you're first considering that, you should really sit with yourself and evaluate your own risks for your births. Like past births and even possibilities for a current birth. Once you sit with yourself and if you feel in your soul and in your heart, however, you want to explain it, your gut, if you feel like that’s a good feeling and that it’s possible, then from there, it’s finding the right outlet. So for me, it was asking people who have had an unassisted birth what groups they went to for support. There is one group on Facebook that I really loved. It’s not like something where they sit there and tell you how to do everything. It’s more of how you should look at this resource or if you really have a question that you can’t find the answer to, they point you in the direction of resources you can use. It was also really nice to see so many like-minded women talking about herbs and tinctures, delayed cord clamping, or even just going full-on lotus birth. It was so nice to see that and experience that environment. And then from there, you just do your own independent research on birth emergencies, and how often they happen, and how to handle them if you can handle them because sometimes you can’t and that’s just a fact of life. There are certain things that you can’t handle and you do need to get medical attention for. And then from there, so specific to me, one of things I really looked up was breech birth because I’ve had three breech babies. I have no idea if my fifth ever flipped to breech because I wasn’t seen by anyone. I did all of my own prenatal care. I didn’t really feel like he ever flipped, but it’s possible that he did. So I needed to look that up for myself and to say, “Okay. How is breech birth handled?” And you know, a lot of the time you’ll see it’s hands-off. And so doing that research about hands-off and what to look for in an emergency with a breech birth, I am very thankful I didn’t have to do that because I feel like my husband would have freaked. And then I think after you do your research, then comes making sure you know how to handle prenatal care and learning about how to take your blood pressure, what urine test strips you look for, and what everything on it means. And then from there, I took my weight religiously. I took my blood pressure religiously. I had my own Doppler. Lots of unassisted birthers use fetoscopes instead, but I had not even heard of that until after he was born. So I used a Doppler and we tracked his heart tones. During his birth, I wanted to check it more, but it ended up being something where we tracked it in the beginning and how I was feeling. If something felt wrong, I would have asked, but we only checked my blood pressure and his heart rate one time throughout the eight hours because I didn’t feel like anything was wrong. I feel like a lot of unassisted birth, that’s what it is. It’s going off your intuition and how you feel. You have to feel secure in yourself when you’re going for an unassisted birth because if you don’t feel secure, that’s where the problem lies. You can’t go into it not knowing what’s going on with yourself and your baby. I don’t know. I think that’s where I would cut that off because it goes, I feel, so much deeper than that too. Meagan: Yeah. It’s a big decision. It’s a very big decision and you have to be prepared. You have to be prepared on all aspects. You have to be prepared for a great outcome, a not-so-great outcome, and a bad outcome. And yeah, it’s hard for some. You know? But then there are some people that are like, “Nope. I’ve got it.” And then they do. They dive in and they do. They just sponge it all up and they are ready. Katherine: Yeah. I love those types. I love those women. I am so serious. I have met a few of them and they are just beautiful people. I love how they’re just so solid in themselves. And I understand. You can be a mom and not be solid in yourself and that is perfectly fine because I mean, it took me what? Four births to even feel that way about myself? So, you do. You have to understand, and really trust yourself, and trust your baby, and you have to trust that things are going to work out how you want them to and if they don’t, how to handle those outcomes. Meagan : Yeah, but it happens. There’s seriously some areas where there’s not even a provider if they wanted a provider. Katherine: Yep. Meagan: They can’t even get where-- like the times right now that we live in, it’s wild. It’s just wild. And it’s scary sometimes when you’re like, “I don’t know what to do.” So the only thing you can do is educate yourself and prepare yourself. Katherine: Speaking specifically towards a VBAC after three or more Cesareans, the ICAN leader I had hosted a really beautiful seminar on what to do when you are going for a VBAC after three Cesareans and you keep hitting dead ends. That largely lies in knowing your rights. So if you are in a place where they are telling you, “No, you can’t do this. Hospital policy won’t let you do this. Yada, yada, yada,” it’s then knowing your rights and that they can’t deny you care if you are in labor. They can’t force a Cesarean on you, but coercion is a thing. They will say and do very scary things to make you submit to what they want. It’s knowing that you have to fight for the right. That’s terrible to say, but you have to fight for that. You have to fight for the birth that you want. I think that’s interesting how unassisted birth and that ties together because it’s, I don’t know. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just interesting. If you’re not going unassisted, that’s what you’re doing essentially is, you’re telling doctors, “No. I am doing this,” and it’s being okay with that. That’s interesting to me. Megan: Oh, thank you so much. Julie, is there anything else that you want to say? I know you were wanting to close it up? Julie: No I just want to say, we always encourage you to do your best to find a provider that is going to support you and your VBAC journey, but here’s the thing. You need to be able to trust your provider, but if you can sense that your provider doesn’t trust you back, there is a big disconnect there and it’s going to cause a lot of problems. We know like I said earlier in the episode, that there are some states and some parts of the world where it’s not easy or even possible to find a VBAC supportive provider. Especially now, in the COVID area where hospitals are forcing parents to birth alone. Now, husbands are allowed at least, or birth partners, or baby’s fathers, or the other parent, whatever you want to call it, are allowed in the hospital now, but at the beginning of this coronavirus, women were birthing alone and providers were coming into the room in hazmat suits. Women were being forced to choose and not always making responsible decisions about their care. And so I think the thing that we really want to hit home here is, we don’t necessarily say, “Hey, if you can’t find a supportive provider, go have your baby by yourself,” but what we do want to encourage is finding that provider that you can trust. Interview as many providers as you need to, but if you feel like you are forced in this position between birthing in an environment that you feel is hostile, or that does not support you, or give you the autonomy over your own body and birthing unassisted, you need to get busy. Get educated and learn all of the things and then there’s going to be more and more to learn. The more you learn, the more there is to learn about all of these things. You have to be diligent. You have to know all about different types of emergencies and how to handle them, and how to react in different types of situations, and really trusting your intuition and your gut instincts about what’s right and what’s not right, and learning how to follow that really really well. And then, there you go. If it feels like that’s the right thing for you, then trust that. We always encourage people to trust their intuition. If your intuition is telling you to go down that route, do it, but do it in a very prepared, and educated, and smart way. All right. Well, Katherine. We are so grateful to you for sharing your story with us today and being an inspiration for people who might choose to birth a little bit outside of the box. We always want to make sure that we are covering all types of birth scenarios and all types of birth outcomes on our podcast. We are happy you shared your story with us here today and we hope that those listening learn something from you. I think that everybody should. Closing Would you like to be a guest on the podcast? Head over to thevbaclink.com/share and submit your story. For 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