About this episode
During her first labor, Emily experienced a hyperactive uterus where she had constant squeezing with no breaks and minimal dilation. She was at a birth center but after exhausting all coping options decided to transfer to the hospital. After receiving an epidural and Pitocin, then detecting meconium, Emily was ready to consent to a Cesarean. Emily’s second birth was a planned Cesarean, then her third and fourth births were both VBACs. Emily describes how even though her provider was the same for both vaginal deliveries, her experiences were so different. With her third, Emily had a beautiful pushing stage and easy recovery. However, pushing with her fourth felt rushed and she experienced a fourth-degree tear. Meagan and Emily share the importance of making your preferences known in every aspect of labor and delivery so your support team can speak up when you are not able to. Needed Website How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents Full Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello, Women of Strength. We have a 2VBA2C story for you today. We were just talking about it before we started recording all of the acronyms. I was like, “Oh, you’re a VBAC after two C-sections story.” And your baby is 8– wait, did I see that right? 8 months? Emily: He’s 9 months now. Meagan: 9 months. Emily: He’s almost a year. 8 months, 9 months, 10 months, somewhere around there. Meagan: Still very little, still very fresh so I’m excited for you to share his story and your other babies’ stories. We have Emily by the way. This is Emily. Hello, Emily. Emily: Hi. Meagan: Remind me. Where are you located? Emily: I’m in Texas. Meagan: Okay, you’re in Texas. Awesome. Okay you guys, we’re going to share her stories. We do have a Review of the Week so I want to hurry and get into that and then we’ll jump into Emily’s stories. This Review is from Rachel and it says, “Thanks for giving me the confidence to have a VBAC. I am glad I found this amazing podcast when I was newly pregnant with baby number two. After a long, traumatic experience that ended in a C-section, I was cautiously hopeful that I would have a VBAC. Using information that I learned from hearing other people’s stories on The VBAC Link, I felt confident and prepared for the birth of my son. On October 9, 2020” so that was four years ago, “I had a beautifully redemptive VBAC and welcomed our boy into the world. Thank you so much for helping me achieve my dream.” Women of Strength, that review is for you. You and your stories and your participation in the community and on Instagram and all the places is seriously what builds this community up and helps these other Women of Strength find the courage just like she said and find the education. I’m so excited for you, Rachel. Congrats and as always, if you have time to leave a review, please do so. It helps other Women of Strength find stories. Meagan: Okay, Ms. Emily. Let’s get into this. So you have four babies now. Emily: Yes. My oldest is about to be 7 and my youngest is 8 months or so. Meagan: Okay, so you were having your first C-section as I was pregnant with my VBA2C baby. Emily: Yeah, it was 2017. Meagan: When you had him? Emily: When I had her. I had three girls and then my youngest is a boy. Meagan: Yes. My VBA2C was in 2016 so just right before, yeah. Awesome. Okay, well I’m going to turn the time over to you. Emily: Sure. So my first pregnancy, I actually found out I was pregnant on my honeymoon when we were in Mexico. Meagan: Oh my gosh. Emily: Yeah. I was stressed out and working out a bunch and all of this planning the wedding. I expected my period to come while we were there so I’m like, “Oh, it’s going to be the worst. I have all of these white clothes and I’m going to be on the beach and I’m going to have my period.” It just didn’t come so it was right at the start of our honeymoon. I was like, “Let’s take a test. I don’t want to be drinking margaritas for the rest of the week,” then of course, I was. We came back from the honeymoon with another big announcement. I feel like a lot of people’s stories is that you didn’t know any better and you just showed up at the hospital and you did what the doctor said. I was the exact opposite at that point. I was reading all of the things. I read the Ina May book. I had a midwife at a birth center and I was going to the chiropractor constantly. I was doing all of the things to be ready to give birth at the birth center without medication and all of that. That’s just not how it ended up. I think I was around 36 weeks and she was breech. I was going to the chiropractor all of the time trying to get her to turn. I was doing Spinning Babies. I was doing acupuncture. I was going upside down all of the time. I was finding swimming pools to do handstands and all of the things. I did moxibustion where you smoke– Meagan: Uh-huh, on your Bladder 6. Emily: She was still breech so my midwife set me up with the breech guy. People come to him from all over to do breech vaginal deliveries so I started seeing him. This was when we were living in Houston so I started seeing him and we did all of the things to try and get her to turn and ended up having a version. I went in. I had an epidural. They manually turned her and then afterward, they were monitoring me in the room and the nurses were like, “Okay, well do you want to be induced now?” I was like, “Nope. I’ve got a plan. I’m going home.” So I left the hospital after that. She stayed head down and then I went to 42 weeks and at about 42 weeks, I went into labor but my labor was weird. I was getting contractions but there was no break between them. It was just constant, squeezing pressure. I was texting my midwife asking, “I don’t know what to do. I can’t time them. There is no in-between.” It was mostly my back and after, I think it was 3 hours and I was like, “I can’t do this. This is too weird.” I didn’t have any guidance for what to do if you’re not able to– they weren’t broken up at all. Meagan: Were you dehydrated at all? Emily: No, I don’t think so. I’m not sure. We finally went into the birthing center and it stayed that way for a really long time. We were there throughout the night. I was on a birthing ball and my husband was just elbow into my back for hours. I couldn’t sleep because it was just constant pain. I tried the Rebozo scarf. We did all kinds of things while I was there. I will say though, I should have had a doula because my midwife kind of just left the room and was gone. She was somewhere in the center probably sleeping. I don’t know. She would come in every once in a while and we were really just left to our own devices in there. We had done I think it was a six-week class. We went in every week trying to prepare. Yeah, we were just in this room together in the middle of the night really tired and in a lot of pain not knowing what to do to get this going. At one point, I was on an IV. She had given me all of the pain stuff that they can give you. At one point, she was like, “I’ve done all of my–” I wish I could remember. Meagan: I’ve exhausted all my tools type thing. Emily: Yeah, I’ve given you as many doses as I can in a time period. We did the catheter. That came out at some point. I think it was Monday when I went in there and then Wednesday when I ended up leaving there. At one point, she was checking to see. She was looking at my cervix and my water broke. There was a bunch of meconium and it was green crazy. She just looked at me and was like, “I think it’s probably time for you to go.” I got back in the car in rush-hour traffic in Houston and headed to the hospital. There was a nurse in the back seat with me holding my IV bag. My husband drove us there. She had called the doctor who did my version so I had already met him and known him and known that he was pretty progressive as well doing breech vaginal deliveries and I know he did breech twin deliveries. He was a very cool guy so I felt good about that. We went. He was like, “All right. Let’s do an epidural. You can sleep. You can relax and all these things.” That’s what we did. I think I had the epidural for 8 hours and I was at 6 centimeters. They were like, “Okay, what about Pitocin?” I feel like they did give me a lot of time and I hate the saying “give me” but they gave me a lot of time and by the end of it, I was exhausted. I was done and ready to get her out. I only made it to 6 centimeters after all of that. It was 3 days of labor. By that time, just get her out of there. She was almost 10 pounds. She was big. Yeah. The C-section, that all went fine. I found recovery to be especially hard. My body was already so tired. Meagan: Exhausted. Emily: Exhausted. I wasn’t prepared for it. I didn’t expect it to be as painful as it was, but yeah. I know some people kind of just pop right up after and are moving around. That was not my experience. That was my first. I feel like I had 10 experiences in one. I did the midwife birth center thing. They tried to get my labor going with an epidural. I had already been there for an epidural once so by the time I was getting the second one, it was whatever, and then the C-section also all in that one pregnancy. Yeah. I feel like it was three births in one. But yeah, then we got pregnant with my second. I talked to my midwife again. She was like, “I don’t do VBACs,” so the first person I called was the guy who did my C-section and my version. I said, “I want to do a VBAC.” He was like, “All right.” He was very cool about it and awesome. It was another really easy pregnancy. I got to the end. I was 41 weeks. Meagan: So you carry longer. Emily: Yes. I was 41 weeks with her and I went in for an appointment and they did a sonogram and I was like, “Please can you check my cervix? I just have to know where I’m at.” Yeah, I hadn’t dilated at all and he was like, “Well, your sonogram’s estimating that she’s going to be 10 pounds also.” My mom had been in town at that point. They were trying to be there for the birth and helping me with my toddler and she had to leave the next day because my sister was being induced in Dallas. She had been staying with me for that whole last two weeks and it was like a now or never she’s going to be gone. I’m already 41 weeks. I was also teaching and so every day, I was walking into work so pregnant. 1000 comments like, “You’re still here? You’re still pregnant?” It just felt like I was sick of it. Then hearing the 10 pounds, I was like, “All right. Let’s just have a C-section I guess.” He left that up to me. I feel like he would have if I said. He wasn’t even doing cervical checks at that point. It was me who asked for it. He left it up to me and he agreed when I said, “Okay. I guess we’ll just do a C-section.” That one was different because it was scheduled. We went in the next morning. It was easy, breezy, and a little bit better of a recovery since I wasn’t already so exhausted at that point. But yeah. I had a newborn and a toddler and a C-section again. It was rough. It kept opening because I was picking up my toddler. I went back to work I think when my second was six weeks old. Yeah. It was a lot. Those were my first two C-sections. Very different experiences for both of them with the same doctor. Then COVID happened and I finished the school year teaching online when COVID happened and my husband was working in oil and gas. We decided we were going to move to my parents’ ranch. I finished the school year online from there and he was working with my dad. My dad does custom home building so that was something he wanted to get into. It was kind of the perfect segue out of there. Meagan: Mhmm. So where were your first two babies born? Emily: Houston. Meagan: In Houston. For people who are interested in breech, are you willing to share that provider’s name? Emily: Yes. His name is Dr. Alfredo Gei. Meagan: Okay. Emily: Yeah. I mean, he was great. I don’t know if he’s still working or not down there, but he was awesome. He was a very, very cool guy. He was very calm, very respectful, friendly, and all of the things. Meagan: Yeah. Yes, good. Emily: Yeah. We moved up to my parents’ ranch in Glen Rose, Texas. I finished the school year online. I decided I would stay home with my two kids. I think by the end of that summer, we were ready to have our third. It was perfect timing. I was staying home. We had my parents there. My husband had an easier work obligation working with my dad and all of that so I got pregnant with my third. That pregnancy was wild. We had a lot going on. I guess it was my first experience having a pregnancy that didn’t go super smoothly and whatever test and all of the normal things you do like blood testing if you choose to do that. Everything came back weird so I’d have to go in and retest. I think at one point in the beginning, they thought she might have Down Syndrome so it was like, “Well, you can do the amnio to find out or you can wait until that anatomy scan.” I spent that time just waiting until 20 weeks to find out if she had Down Syndrome or not. I tried to do the gender test, one of those home ones. My first two were a surprise and with her, I just wanted to know. I needed something. I wanted to know what was going on in there. We did one of those gender tests and it came back inconclusive. Whatever could go wrong was going wrong with the pregnancy. I had found an OB/GYN who was VBAC-friendly who worked with a group of midwives so it was him and a bunch of midwives. I started seeing him and them because I thought– oh, I didn’t even mention. When I had my second baby, they predicted her to be 10 pounds. She was 7 pounds. It made me so mad. It made me so mad. Meagan: Okay, so now I have a question for you because we talk about third-trimester ultrasounds. At 41 weeks, that is normal because they do non-stress tests and all of those things. Would you have chosen a different situation or would the scenario be the same because of your mom and convenience and all of that? Emily: That’s a good question. I would like to say that I would have at least given myself a couple more days at that point, just a couple more days to see maybe. I always think, What if I had gone into labor in that next couple of days instead of the C-section? Would she have come out easier being 7 pounds and not 10 pounds? Of course, I thought, Maybe it’s my pelvis. Big baby, small pelvis, and all of these things. I don’t know. It’s hard to say. I was really ready to have her. Meagan: Absolutely and you were given an opportunity. That goes to speak where you are in your pregnancy. That’s a vulnerable state. That’s a very vulnerable state. But you had her and it was an okay C-section and your mom was there and all sorts of things. Emily: Yeah. She came out and then they brought me back to the room and my mom was there. She got to meet the baby then drove all the way back up to Dallas and my sister had hers. They are a day apart. Meagan: Aww, that is so fun. Emily: Anyway, with my third, I was seeing him and I had some weird blood testing results and weird stuff happening at the beginning. It was the end of COVID sort of so COVID started around spring break. I got pregnant around that summer and by the next spring, it had been quite a while but hospitals and stuff still had all of those weird rules in place about people being in the room and all of the things. It was the tail end of that. My husband got to come in for the anatomy scan. He was there with me in the room when she did all of the scanning and everything and then he had to leave when the doctor came in. He went and waited outside in the car and the doctor came in and my first question obviously was, “Did you see any Down Syndrome markers?” They said, “No.” They didn’t see that, but her head circumference and her cerebellum were measuring in the first percentile. The normal range is 1-100 and she was right there on the cusp of being abnormally small. He dropped that bomb on me while I was in there by myself. He waited until my husband had left. He told me that I was going to need to go and see a maternal-fetal medicine specialist and then I could come back after that. I left that appointment just in shambles not knowing what was going on or what to expect or what that meant and then I had to wait for an appointment to see a maternal-fetal medicine specialist. At that point, I just threw the whole VBAC idea out the window. It was all about what was going on with the baby and keeping the baby healthy and all of those things. My mom is a NICU nurse so I was like, “Well, I’m going to give birth at the hospital that she works with because if my baby goes into the NICU, I want her to be there, and all of these women that I had known her working with for 30 years.” I went to see a maternal-fetal medicine specialist. I switched providers and hospitals and I went to where my mom was working. I went in and they measured her cerebellum for the rest of my pregnancy. It was every other week or so I would go in and they measured. She stayed on that very tail end the entire time. I want to say that she might have reached the 6th percentile by the end in growth so it was still pretty precarious not really knowing what the deal was there. But by all accounts, she was healthy. They weren’t giving me any kind of diagnosis or suspicions about anything. She kept falling in the normal range which meant they weren’t going to do any further testing. They could have done an MRI or something on my stomach at one point but they didn’t do any of that. I think around 34 weeks, I had an appointment and I was just like, “You know, if we’re good to have a VBAC, I still want to do that.” I just looked at my provider and was like, “This was my plan. I don’t see why it still can’t be my plan. I’ve got two toddlers at home. I really can’t have another surgery. I don’t want to do that.” She was like, “Okay. Awesome.” I was expecting a fight. Meagan: You’re like, you do. You really, really do. You expect this, “No” or “But, well–”. Those are the things that you automatically assume so when you have a provider who’s like, “Okay, cool,” you’re like, wait what? It throws you off. Emily: Yeah. I left there with a skip in my step. Meagan: I bet you did. Emily: Right after that, I contacted a friend of mine who is a doula and I started working with her. She shared your podcast with me so I was listening, listening, listening to as many episodes as I could in those couple of weeks and it was very helpful. I’m not a confrontational person or even a person who previously was good at advocating so I was mostly listening. I already knew what the hospital situation looked like. I already knew what a C-section looked like so I was really listening for how do these conversations happen with doctors and what does that look like when you’re advocating for yourself? What are the words that I need to use? I listened for a lot of those kinds of examples of this is what I can say if she says this. This is what I can come back with or suggest if this happens. So that was very helpful for me to just go in and can we do a Foley? Can we do a Cook’s? Meagan: To feel prepared to have that conversation. Emily: Yeah. I know at one point, they wanted to schedule an induction and I said, “Well, what if I just don’t come?” She was like, “Well, we can’t drive to your house and bring you,” kind of response. “What if I don’t want to do Pitocin and all of this? Can you do a Foley or a Cook’s?” I really came into those appointments with more of a two-sided conversation and not just “We’re going to do this. We’re going to do this. We’re going to do this.” I remember I got there at my 36-week appointment and my nurse was like, “Okay, go get undressed.” I didn’t get undressed. I just sat there with all my clothes. She came back in and I was like, “I don’t want that. I don’t want my cervix checked.” Meagan: Good job. Emily: Yeah, she didn’t know what to do with that. She was like, “I think she’s going to want to look.” I was like, “Well, why?” Meagan: I don’t want it. Emily: “I don’t want to know. It’s going to get me in my head. What’s going to change if I’m 36 weeks?” Obviously, that was the norm there to start doing that at that point. What happens if I’m 1 centimeter? What happens if I’m 3? I’m still going to go home. I remember that was the first time I did something out of the norm there. I didn’t even say the whole doula thing since it was the end of COVID. They were still working out who was allowed in so I asked for a doula and they didn’t know if they could even have them so we were asking the hospital for hospital policies and calling up there asking all kinds of questions. By the time we did show up, everybody there was like, “She’s here. She’s here.” My mom worked there too so it felt a little bit like maybe everyone else was walking on eggshells with me because– Meagan: Because of your mom too. Emily: Well, my mom too. She was working that day so I probably couldn’t have had her if she had come in as an extra person with us, but she was working and so she just showed up in our room in her scrubs and everything. I went into labor. Meagan: What gestation on this one? Emily: I was 37 weeks. Meagan: Whoa! So way earlier. Emily: Yes, way earlier. It was Easter. I started having contractions during the whole Easter thing. I’m hiding eggs struggling around the yard and I went to bed that night thinking, This feels like it’s it. They were not painful but they were stronger than the regular Braxton Hicks so I went to bed and I think at 3:00 or so in the morning, they started waking me up. I tried to keep sleeping until 6:00 in the morning. I woke my husband up and was like, “You’ve got to figure out getting the kids to school and stuff. We’re going to be going into the hospital.” It was about an hour drive. So I got in the bath. My doula told me to get in the bath and she gave me some different positions and stuff to do so I did all of that and that sped things along a whole lot. I did some curb walking and then yeah, I showed up at the hospital ready to have her and I want to say I was in labor there for three or four hours. I asked to speak to the– is it the anesthesiologist who does the epidurals and stuff? Meagan: Yep. Emily: I told her that I wanted a walking epidural. A lot of people don’t know that there is a range. You can have it on full blast or you can have just a little bit. She gave me a very light epidural. I was able to still move in the bed and get in different positions. They had the bar over the bed at one point. They wanted to do an internal monitor at some point because my heartbeat and the baby’s heartbeat, they could not figure out where to put the strap. I declined that. The nurse really just had to stay in there with it pressed to my stomach for hours. Yeah, that’s what we did. I moved around. There was a peanut ball at some point and then yeah. They checked my cervix and my water broke. I don’t know if that was on purpose or not, but I then had another water break at a cervical check and things went pretty quickly after that. I think I pushed through three contractions. Right before I started pushing, my OB came in and said she was leaving and that another doctor would be coming in. I was like, “Does he know? Is he cool?” I was so confused. But yeah, he came in and he was great. He asked if I wanted a mirror. I know that he was using oil and he had a hot compress and whatever. Meagan: That’s awesome. Emily: He let me pull her out so I reached down and I grabbed her. It was all very cool. We were blasting Enya’s Sail Away. It was a whole vibe. Meagan: I love that. Oh my gosh, I can just picture it all. Emily: It was very easy. Hardest pregnancy, easiest labor and birth. Yeah, she came out. I would say she slid out, but pushing wasn’t hard. I could see what was happening. I don’t know. I felt very comfortable. Meagan: Good. Emily: I felt ready. Meagan: Good. At the end, was anything going on with her? Emily: Yes. That’s another whole long story. She didn’t pass her newborn hearing screening so when they do the hearing test, it’s a couple of days after you have the baby. She didn’t pass and they thought, Oh, she might have fluid in her ears and this and that. You’ll have to go back and do it again in a week or so. We went back and did it again and she didn’t pass again. We had to go to the Children’s Hospital and they did another type of hearing test and we found out that she was deaf. Yeah, we went down the whole hearing aid route and that. Healthwise besides her hearing, she was having a really hard time holding her head up. I think we started having a PT come when she was 4 weeks because her head was just flopping all over. I guess she was diagnosed with a gross motor delay and so we did PT until she started walking at 2.5. We had the option of doing genetic testing and all of that to find out the reason for the hearing loss and we just kind of thought, What’s it going to change? She’s still not going to be hearing after all of these tests so whatever. We will just deal with what we’ve got going on right now. She got hearing aids at 4 months. We were going in and they would do all kinds of tests and stuff. She still wasn’t responding to any sound so they wanted to do cochlear implants and in order to do that, you have to have an MRI. They look at everything structurally to make sure you are a good candidate for cochlear implants. They look at the nerve and the ear canal and all of those things. They came back and they said, “She can get them. She’s a good candidate for that, but here’s what we saw with her brain on the MRI.” She had white matter abnormalities which are just when they go in and they look, if you have all of these white spots, they indicate inactivity so she had a bunch of that that they couldn’t explain and she had a cyst somewhere in there on some groove. I have forgotten all of the lingo at this point. They wanted to find out what the cause of all of those things were. They also didn’t want to give her cochlear implants if they thought that these areas were going to grow so then we started doing all of the genetic and DNA testing. They wanted us to wait a year to do her next MRI and the cochlear implants to make sure in that year time period they didn’t grow at all. We were just like, “We can’t do that. One, we can’t wait a year to find out if our child has this thing that’s taking over her brain and two, it’s a critical time for learning language and speech and all of those things.” We settled with 6 months so we waited another 6 months. We did another MRI. They checked. Nothing grew. She was still making growths and learned to crawl and all of those things. She just did everything about a year behind. Yeah, we did cochlear implants and we all learned sign language and that’s how we communicate. Yeah, it’s been 3 years now. She just started the deaf preschool last week. Meagan: Awesome. Emily: And now bringing it home with baby number four. Meagan: Baby number four who is 9 months old? Emily: Yes. He was a surprise. We had a lot going on with my third daughter. I’ve got Eloise who is 7, Violet who is 5, and Matilda who just turned 3. We thought, Maybe we’ll have another. Let’s see what’s going on with her. Let’s get her into kindergarten. Let’s get her speaking and signing and all of these things. Then we had surprise baby number four. He ended up being a boy so that was fun. He was born in July of last year. Meagan: Okay. Emily: During all of that, our insurance had changed so I couldn’t go back to the same OB/GYN and I went to another one at that same hospital. After I had my third, my hormones were just so wild and crazy and I had a lot of anxiety and obviously stress from all that was going on with her. I went in and I was like, “I just want to figure out what’s going on with my hormones.” I remember the doctor asked me about my previous pregnancies and births and stuff. I told her, “I actually had a VBAC with Dr. So and so at this hospital.” She said, “Oh, if you want to do that again, you’ve got to go somewhere else because we don’t do that here.” Meagan: But you’re like, “But I did do it here.” Emily: I was like, “Don’t worry about it because I don’t want to have another one.” Of course, a few months after that, I ended up getting pregnant again so our insurance had changed yet again. If you have a baby who has special needs, you’ve got to get the insurance thing figured out all the time. We changed again. I was able to go back to the same doctor so when I was pregnant with him, I saw her and she was like, “I’m guessing you’re going to want another VBAC.” I said, “You’re right.” Same thing. I didn’t let them check my cervix. I didn’t have a late-term sonogram. I went into labor with him. I got induced. That’s right. I got induced with him. Yeah, yeah. I was 41 weeks again. Meagan: Okay. Emily: I was so expecting another early one and then I got to 41 weeks and we started talking about inductions and stuff. I said, “If I come in and do this, I’m going to want to do Foley or something again.” So that’s what we did. That put me into labor right away. I think I was 1 centimeter so they were able to put that in and it just went from there. I will say this about the fourth with the same provider. I specifically in my birth plan said, “No students.” I feel like I had already done all of that. I had already allowed all of them. I had paid my dues to society by letting them in. I had a student who did my epidural with my second. I was done. I was done with that. I didn’t want a bunch of people in the room. When it was time to put in the Foley, she wasn’t available so they were like, “Do you mind if a resident does it?” I’m like, “That’s fine.” The question was raised about breaking my water. I think I was over 6 centimeters at that point when they were asking about breaking my water and I was like, “Eh.” I talked to my doula. She was there again. I talked to my doula about it and we decided that was okay to get things moving along. They said, “Oh, well she’s not available still. Can a resident come in and do that?” I was like, “Okay.” Then it was time to push and deliver and a whole team of people came in. I was in the thick of it. I had another really low-dose epidural so I was still feeling a lot. I also thing one thing about the low-dose epidural managing pain and staying on top of pain is a real thing and you can reach a certain point where there’s not much you can do about it where you are too far. That’s where I got with that. Even though I had the epidural, I was too far along at that point for it to do much. I was like, “Turn it up. Turn it up.” It wasn’t making any difference so just know that’s something that does happen. When it was time to push, my doctor on her wheelie stool just scooted out of the way and someone else showed up. Meagan: What? Again? Emily: From the background and it was like, “Push, push, push!” The vibes were very different. I’m not sure why that happened because as far as I’m concerned, nothing was happening with me medically and nothing was happening with him medically to necessitate me to push vigorously. I had not been pushing for hours. I got him out in under 30 minutes. It felt like there was this need for me to get him out of there and get him out quickly. I’m not sure why that happened. So I guess it was a resident who was down there. There was no oil this time. There was no hot compress this time. There was more pulling during the pushing part and I ended up tearing fourth degree all the way. It was awful. Same provider, different experience. She’s retired now. I wouldn’t go as far to say that I’d recommend her to other people having a VBAC. I think she was more– what’s the word? Not VBAC-friendly. Meagan: Tolerant. Emily: Tolerant. I think she didn’t think I was going to get there so she said yes thinking that’s not how it was going to go and we’d never get to that point where I was in labor there ready to push. That’s what happened both times so it was thrust upon her also. She’s not a bad doctor or anything. That’s my one takeaway from that one. You’re pushing and there’s a lot of people in the room and there’s a lot going on and you’re very much focused. I wish that I or someone else in the room had said, “Oh wait, what’s happening down there? Why is this person coming in? Why are we doing this so quickly? What’s this need to rush?” Yeah. That’s my takeaway from that one. At the end of the day, I had an easy pregnancy and an easy delivery. I did have another vaginal, but it also came with some bad as well. It was a bad recovery for me for sure. Meagan: You know, I think that’s something to note. Like you said, you got your vaginal birth and everything, but not every vaginal birth always ends with an easy recovery or an easy experience or even a positive experience so it does help to have that support team but here you go. Still even then at the last second, you got switched out on like you did last time too. That’s weird. I’m like, was she not confident in delivering babies or what? That’s interesting. Emily: I don’t know. I’m not sure. Of course, afterward, I’m like, If she had stayed sitting there, would I have torn as much? Meagan: Exactly, yeah. Emily: If I was pressured to go so quickly, would I have torn as much? I left that one feeling, What just happened? I talked to my doula afterward about it and she was like, “You know, I wish I had said something,” but unless we had talked about it before, for her to stop a doctor in the middle of what they are doing without me having already told her, “Hey, I don’t want this,” it’s weird. Meagan: It’s a really tricky situation. As a doula, I will say it’s very tricky when you’re like, I don’t like what I’m seeing, but she’s not saying anything and didn’t say anything to me before this. I would assume she doesn’t like this, but at the same time, yeah. Like you said, it’s tricky. You don’t want to step on people’s toes. You don’t want to change the atmosphere. It doesn’t sound like the atmosphere was exactly peaceful either, but yeah. Gosh. That’s hard. Emily: Yeah. It was another unexpected thing. I hadn’t prepared for that scenario. I had it in my birth plan that I didn’t want students, but then I had said yes to them for these things, so I can see how we got there, but yeah. For those wondering, I pushed him out to Shania Twain’s Man I Feel Like a Woman. There were some good vibes in there. Meagan: I’m loving all of your music choices. That is amazing. Oh my gosh. Well, I’m sorry that it was that type of an ending. I am happy for you that you were able to have both of your vaginal births. But it’s such a good takeaway and a great note. Women of Strength, think about those things too even with pushing, what you are wanting. Talk about this to your team. “If nothing’s wrong, if nothing is emergent, I need it to be this way,” because that is for sure tricky. I wanted to talk about way into the first birth. I wanted to give a couple of suggestions for people who are having a hyperactive uterus where the uterus is just too active. It’s not releasing. Sometimes that can be a baby’s position working through and trying to get into the right position and the uterus is trying to help but a lot of the time it can be due to things like dehydration or I know that sometimes if there’s a UTI or an infection or something like that, that can cause a hyperactive uterus. Sometimes people just have hyperactive uteruses but with a uterus that is just not letting go like yours, something that a midwife a long time ago within my doula career suggested to a client of mine was called cramp bark. Cramp bark, yeah. It’s a tincture and you can take it. It can try to help relax the uterus so if you are having really long prodromal labor or like Emily where her uterus just wouldn’t give up and it was just constant– and you said it was in your back. Emily: I had that wrap-around experience. It was like, I’m in a whole lot of pain but it’s right here in my back. It never eased up. No, and then I wasn’t dilating at the same time after all of this time of being like that. I think it was definitely her positioning. She was sunny-side up by the time the C-section did happen. Meagan: That’s what I was thinking. Were you dehydrated or was it a positional thing? A positional factor can do that. Sometimes the uterus needs to relax so we can work with position. I know you were working with position but your uterus wasn’t giving up. Sometimes you can increase your hydration, but cramp bark and always, always, always ask your provider about it, but it was actually something that a midwife and I think Julie took it with one of her babies with her prodromal labor too and it helped her as well. I just wanted to bring back that note of if you’re having that hyperactive uterus, there could be a few things like hydration, position, maybe it’s an infection that is undetected or maybe you’ve just got a great uterus that likes to keep squeezing. Thank you so much for sharing all of your beautiful stories. I’m so happy for you and congratulations. Emily: Thank you for having me. 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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