About this episode
Jackie’s first birth was a beautiful, well-informed, planned gentle Cesarean due to breech presentation. After putting everything in place for a VBAC, Jackie was ready for it all. However, after pushing for hours on end with limited support due to the newness of COVID, Jackie consented to another C-section. Surgery didn’t go as smoothly this time around, and Jackie did NOT want to be in that situation ever again. With her third, Jackie found incredible, VBA2C-supportive midwives who validated every birth desire she had. Since her first TOLAC was 48 hours, she knew a 2-hour drive to the hospital was no big deal. Until…labor came fast and furious. Did she make it to the hospital? Additional links Bebo Mia’s Webinar Tara’s Website The VBAC Link Facebook Community How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents Full transcript Note: All transcripts are edited to correct grammar, false starts, and filler words. Meagan : Turn your love of babies and bellies into cash. If you love babies and bellies and want to provide care and support to families, then Bebo Mia’s webinar is the right place for you. Get answers to those burning questions like how to be the voice you wish you had at your birth and how babies and families can be supported by doulas. Learn all about the different kinds of doulas. You can work in fertility, pregnancy, birth, postpartum, or just enjoy working with those squishy babies. Supporting families by becoming a birth worker, aka doula, is perhaps an option that hasn’t even crossed your mind. That’s why we want you to join this webinar. You can have great earning potential while doing something you love. Bebo Mia is the one-stop shop for education, community, and mentorship. Reserve your spot today at bebomia.com/freewebinar . Welcome, welcome. This is Meagan Heaton with The VBAC Link and we have a cohost today. I am so excited to start welcoming in some cohosts. These are actually our VBAC doulas and birth workers. Welcome, Tara. Thank you so much for being with us. Tara: Thank you. It’s awesome to be here. Meagan : It’s super fun. It’s been something I’ve wanted to do for a long time and I thought it would be fun. It just adds some different vibes to the podcast. You guys are all over the world too so it’s fun to hear your stories and your tidbits and what you see. At the end, we are going to let her share some information as well. Review of the Week Without further ado, we always have a review and just a reminder, if you guys have not left a review, we always love them and welcome them. You can leave them on Apple Podcasts. You can shoot us an email. You can go to Facebook and write one there. You can even Google The VBAC Link and leave us a review there. Wherever it may be, where you are comfortable, drop us a review. It may be read next on the podcast. Okay Tara, if you wouldn’t mind reading someone’s amazing review. Tara : Yeah, I got it. This is from Paige who reviewed The VBAC Course. Meagan: Oh yes. So not the podcast but the course. Tara : She says, “This course is as comprehensive and user-friendly as it gets. The workbook is so beautiful and the information is so easy to find. I used the data pages more than once when interviewing providers and discussing hospital policies in preparing for my VBAC after two Cesareans. I felt so empowered and confident in setting myself up for a positive birth experience with these tools in hand.” So that’s from Paige. Meagan: I love it. Thank you, Paige. Seriously, we have done a lot on this VBAC course. It’s going to be continuing to update because birth updates all of the time. It is always updating. It is always changing, but for our VBAC students, I don’t know if anybody is out there and has taken our course, I want you to know that as information comes in and as the course updates, you’re always getting access to these updates. So excited, Paige. Thank you so much. Yeah, if you’re interested in learning more and upping your VBAC game, then we have courses for both parents and birth workers who are wanting to find more information about VBAC and how to support VBAC. Tara, she’s one of them. She’s one of our VBAC doulas. We love to spotlight them and we are going to have them on the podcasts. We love our birth workers. We talk about how VBAC is something that is all over the world. I personally, as Meagan Heaton, cannot change the VBAC world alone. It’s physically impossible, right? So between all of us birth workers out there and all of us parents out there learning about our options and advocating for ourselves and advocating for clients, it’s going to help change the VBAC world immensely. So definitely check out the course if you are interested at thevbaclink.com. Jackie’s Story Meagan: Okay, Ms. Jackie. You are holding a brand-new baby. Tara: So cute. Meagan : Tara and I got to see this little squish when we started. Oh, I love it. It is perfect. You are fresh out of your VBAC after two C-sections. So excited. We know, we talked about it a little bit before we started. We know so many people are wanting stories about VBAC after multiple Cesareans and specifically two. So, Jackie, we would love to turn the time over to you to share this beautiful baby’s story. Jackie: So I guess where you always want to start is why you had your first C-section. Meagan : Yep. Jackie: With my first baby, we lived in a rural area. Walmart in Canada was closer than Walmart in the States for us. Very rural. The closest hospital was about an hour and fifteen minutes away from us. There were three hospitals I could choose from. One was an hour fifteen, one was an hour thirty, and one was an hour twenty or something like that. So I did my research on all of the hospitals. I found the hospital with the lowest C-section rate because I was not going to have a C-section. I did all of my research, found myself awesome midwives who were going to work with me, and then I went in for a scan around 34 weeks to find out that my daughter was breech. Nobody in the rural community that we lived in or any of those hospitals would deliver a breech baby. I could travel three hours and deliver a breech baby vaginally, but I opted for the C-section. I figured it was the safest bet for where we were at. I cried a lot about that. My midwife was amazing. She comforted me because all I had heard was from my friends who had C-sections recently and how terrible their C-setions were. One of them got knocked out with general anesthesia and couldn’t see her baby for six hours. Another one told me at the hospital she went to, she didn’t get knocked out, but they told her she couldn’t go see her baby in recovery until after she could move her legs after the C-section. Meagan: Whoa. Jackie: Yeah. I was crying my eyes out because I was like, “I’m not going to be able to see my baby at all.” I’m telling the midwife this and she goes, “No. That will not happen to you at this hospital at all. Those other two hospitals, I don’t know what they are doing, but we will not allow that. Your baby will be checked over for four seconds right next to your head by the pediatrician and then she’ll be with you. I will be in the operating room with you even though I don’t need to be there.” I loved this midwife. She is an amazing woman. I absolutely loved her. I tried giving this third baby her name as a middle name and my husband was kind of against that. Meagan: Oh, that is so sweet of you. She must have impacted you a lot then. Jackie: She was amazing. I remember coming into the OR. They were getting me all prepped and laying me on the table. She comes in. She pulls down her mask and goes, “You can’t tell who I am underneath the mask right now, but I’m here with you. I will stay with you the whole time.” I absolutely loved her. Tara: That’s the best thing anyone can do is just be present like that. How many weeks were you, Jackie, when you had your C-section? Jackie: I had a scheduled C-section at 39 weeks. They wanted to make it a little bit later than that, but I wanted my child to be born on the 22nd, so I chose the 22nd. I said if I had to have a C-section, I wanted my baby born on the 22nd. My birthday is the 22nd. My husband and I got married on the 22nd and then his birthday is 2/11 which multiplies to 22. Tara: That was special. Jackie: I was going to have my baby on the 22nd. They were like, “All right. Well, we would like it to be closer to 40 weeks.” I go, “It’s 39 weeks. It will be fine.” Tara : The silver lining of choosing the date is at least you can have a little bit of control over that, right? Jackie: Yes. Having a planned C-section I guess, made it easy. We were able to drive down the night before the C-section. Again, we were driving an hour and a half for this and they wanted us there at 6:00 a.m. So we drove down the night before. It went so smoothly. Everything that I wanted, I researched everything I could for a gentle Cesarean. I had a gentle Cesarean and they had the leads for the monitors on my back. They put the IV where I wanted it. They helped me take off my gown and put the baby right onto my chest as soon as the pediatrician was done after two minutes with her. It was a perfectly done C-section. Everything I wanted went well. Baby didn’t leave my chest until my husband, I think, probably a couple of hours after I had her goes, “Do you think I could hold her now?” I was like, “I guess so.” They were great. They postponed any weights. They postponed wiping her down. She still had blood all over her. It was the perfect C-section if you had to have a C-section. With my second, it was the time of COVID. She was born in May of 2020, so a beautiful COVID baby. Her due date was the day after my first daughter’s due date, so they are exactly two years apart. We planned it out perfectly with the dates so I had the two years that my midwives told me I had to have to be able to have my VBAC. Because of COVID, they started doing only phone appointments and if I went in, I always made sure to schedule my favorite midwife because I absolutely loved her. She’d be measuring me. She’d be like, “You’re measuring a week ahead. You’re measuring a week and a half ahead, no big deal.” She didn’t have any concerns with that. At my 39-week appointment, I had it with the head midwife of the department and she got very concerned that I was going to be having a VBAC and my fundal height was measuring larger, like a week and a half, two weeks ahead at that point. She sent me for a growth scan that I had to have immediately. So I scheduled it. I think it was three days after that appointment. I scheduled it with the ultrasound people. I think I was 40 weeks exactly that day. I went in to the scan and I said, “Don’t tell me it’s breech,” because I had already been fearful that this would be a breech baby again. He said, “Nope, you are not breech, but you are measuring about 10 pounds for this baby.” I was like, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” I was freaking out because I knew they’d probably say that I couldn’t have my VBAC because I was having this big baby and as a tiny, rural hospital without anesthesia on staff, they can’t handle that sort of thing. He tried comforting me, telling me, “Don’t worry. These scans can be two pounds over or under. You’re probably having an 8-pound baby. Don’t worry about it.” I was like, “Okay.” When my midwife got the results, the next day I was 40+1 and she said, “Nope. Your baby is measuring 10 pounds. We can’t have you do that here. If you want, you can come in for a C-section today.” I said, “Well, I don’t want to have a C-section.” I already had talked to the larger hospital that I would have to go to if I were to go. At the rural hospital, they were going to allow me to go 10 days past my due date and if I was going to be pregnant for more than 10 days past my due date, I had to go to this larger hospital. Meagan: Oh man. Jackie: So I had already had my phone interview with the MFM at the larger hospital. We discussed if I needed to have an induction because I was past the date by more than 10 days and they were all on board with that. They understood that it was going to be a VBAC. They were fine with everything. Actually, the night before, I started having contractions that I told the person in the interview about. I said, “Well, last night, I had contractions. This morning, they’ve gone away, but hopefully, I have this baby and I don’t need to come to see you guys.” Tara: Jackie, can I ask you, what was the birth weight of your first baby? Jackie: 7 pounds, 2 ounces. Tara : Okay, so that would be a big difference. Jackie : I did have gestational diabetes with the first one. Meagan: That’s still a small baby. Jackie: Yes, but I monitored my sugars religiously with her because if I did not have good sugar numbers, I would risk out of the midwives and have to be with the OBs, so I made sure that every little thing that went inside of me was the right amount of sugar and the right amount of everything, so I maintained my gestational diabetes with her amazingly. The second one, I did not get classified with gestational diabetes, but again, it was COVID and I was baking every single day with my two-year-old to keep her busy and eating every single new cookie we discovered and new bread and everything we were making because that’s what you have to do when you’re stuck in quarantine, I guess. Tara : Yeah, COVID brought on the baking for a lot of us. Jackie: Yeah, and most likely with gestational diabetes, it probably wasn’t the best idea. Even though I had tested negative for it, I should have maintained those sugars better, I guess. The midwife called back and told me, “It is a 10-pound baby. It’s not going to happen. You’re going to have to go to this other hospital or have a C-section with us.” They contacted the other hospital. The other hospital called me back and said, “Hey, you can come in for an induction tonight. When can you be here?” I said, “Well, we’ve got to pack up, and then we can drive down there.” This hospital is about 3 hours away from us. I said, “Oh, it’s going to take me 3 hours.” “Yeah, we will definitely have a bed for you in 3 hours. Come on down now.” So my husband and I drove down as I’m having contractions again all the way down there as he was hitting every single railroad track there was because that’s what you do in a rural community. There are lots of railroad tracks. We get down there and they were going to check me, but then there was somebody actually having a baby, so the OB that was there stepped out and went and delivered that baby then came back in. They checked me and I think I was at 5 centimeters or something like that. I told them that I didn’t sleep the night before because I was having little contractions and I was too excited to sleep. I asked for something just basically to let me get some rest. They gave me something in an IV. I can’t remember exactly what it was, but it was a lovely concoction of something and I went into their birth pool/tub thing and just floated around all night long with whatever they gave me. My husband kept telling me that I kept falling asleep and snoring in the pool while he was there. He kept having to be like, “All right, let’s make sure she doesn’t drown now.” Tara: Yeah. I’m glad he was with you. Jackie : But I got some rest and that was nice. In the morning, they had me come out because they needed to do rounds or whatever and the new OB was going to check me. They checked me and I was at 8 centimeters. Tara: Wow. Jackie : I was basically told– also, they had been giving me Pitocin– I think it was at 2 is what they had told me– the whole night to get contractions going even though I already had contractions going. It was at 8:00 in the morning and they told me basically, “This baby is going to be a 10-pound baby. We are going to need to use forceps to get this baby out. You should probably think about getting an epidural now.” I thought, “Well, I’m at an 8 already and they always say to wait until you get to 6 centimeters. 8 sounds good. I’ll get the epidural,” because the idea of giant forceps did not impress me very much. It sounded very painful, so I said, “Sure. We’ll take the epidural.” I got some sleep from the epidural too which was nice, but then they checked me a few hours later and I think I was at a 9. A few hours later, still at a 9. At one point, the doctor– it must have been close to 6:00– came in and said, “Hey. You’re still at a 9. We’re going to do a C-section.” My husband is not very good physically with labor and birth and all of that stuff, but he is amazing at advocating for me and he knew what I wanted. He knew I wanted this VBAC. He talked to the doctor and pulled him aside and said, “No. She wants this VBAC. You obviously want to go home. You go home. We will wait three or four hours and we will reassess the new doctor coming in.” He has listened to The VBAC Link with me. He has listened to other podcasts with me and he knows. Meagan: Oh, I love that. That’s amazing. Tara : That is amazing. Jackie: But he was like, “We’ll see who else comes in. We will reassess then. She really wants this, so you can leave. Nothing is wrong with the baby. Nothing is wrong with her.” They were like, “No. Nothing’s wrong.” So that doctor went home for the night. A new doctor came in. Three hours later when we gave him a timeline, he said, “Hey. You’re still at a 9. We’re going to do a C-section now.” My husband turned to me and said, “We took the time and we were still there.” In the meantime, between that three hours, I was looking up all of the different things that I could do. The flying cowgirl– Meagan: I was going to say, was there anybody offering any suggestions or saying, “Okay. This is why we think you are at a 9,” or “Okay, the front of your cervix is thicker than the back.” Was there any of that communication or was it just like, “Oh, you’re still there?” Jackie: I’m blaming COVID still because nobody was coming into the room at all. Nobody would come into the room because it was the beginning of COVID, nobody knows with COVID what was going on. I had no nurses coming in. A nurse would come in every once in a while to make sure the monitor was on my stomach correctly if it lost, but other than that, nope. Nobody was coming in. It was basically me on Google figuring out what I could do. I asked for a peanut ball. I had the peanut ball, going back and forth on the peanut ball. I moved the bed around at one point. I called her in. I said, “I can feel my legs. Can I just get up and walk?” She was like, “No. You can’t. You have an epidural.” Tara: Jackie, do you know how high the baby was when you were at 9 for a while? Jackie : Zero. Tara: Oh, so it was pretty well engaged. Jackie: Yeah. So again, I blame everything on COVID. That’s what I’m going to keep telling myself not that it was the hospital or anything. I’m just going to say that it was COVID. I told the MFM I had this time about that and he goes, “Yeah. I think they just didn’t wait. I blame COVID too.” I was like, “Thanks, dude.” Meagan: Yeah. You’re like, “Thanks for validating me.” Jackie: Yes. Thank you for that one. So I ended up having a C-section with that one which, an unplanned C-section was not the best. The epidural I had was causing problems. At one point, it pulled out while I was in labor still. I didn’t realize and I thought I was just being a wimp and being like, “Oh, I could feel this through my epidural.” They’re like, “Oh, no. You pulled it out.” When I went into the OR, I told the guy, I was like, “I can feel my legs. I can feel everything. I could stand up right now if you want.” He was like, “No, you’re fine. I’ll just put more into this epidural. You’ll be fine.” I was like, “I can feel everything.” I was arguing with him that my epidural wasn’t working. He told me, “Fine. I’ll put you under general anesthesia then.” I said, “No.” I was like, “No. You will not. I am fine. My baby is fine. I don’t want to do this. Get me out of this OR. Get my husband. Get me out of here. I am not having a C-section if this is the way it’s going to be.” I started yelling at him and he told me that I needed to calm down, that it was not a big deal, and just was the absolute opposite of the anesthesiologist that I had in my first birth who was doing everything she could do to make me feel great. This one was just arguing with me. So he told me if I keep up whatever I was doing and don’t calm down, then he was just going to put me under general anesthesia. So I just yelled at him I said, “Fine. Cut me open now then. I really don’t care. You’re not putting me under. Just cut me open. I don’t care if I can feel it.” So they tested it out and I couldn’t feel it as much as I thought I was going to be able to feel it, but I could still feel it much more than I did in my spinal for my first one. They did the C-section. My husband was there and I got pain between my shoulder blades from the epidural and I couldn’t lie down. He was telling me that he was going to have to strap me down because I was going to grab at my belly and I have to be strapped down for this. I was like, “My first C-section, I was not strapped down. They didn’t even argue with me that it was fine.” He goes, “No. C-sections you have to be strapped down for.” So then when I started complaining about my back hurting and I couldn’t lay down, he unstrapped my arms, that way he could turn me to my side and make it so my back wouldn’t hurt. They took the baby out and instead of the baby coming straight to me, they took the baby and wiped her all down. They measured her. They did all of that stuff. I had my husband go over onto that side, which, he is really squeamish so he was not happy about being on the other side of the curtain. Tara: I’m waiting for the drumroll of the birth weight. Jackie : She was 9 pounds, 15 ounces. Tara : Oh, so they were pretty close. Jackie : Yeah, yeah. They were an ounce off. She was a giant baby. She was in the 99th percentile in head, height, and weight, and she has maintained that 99th percentile in the two years of her life. She got down to the 95th percentile at her 2-year appointment, but yeah. She’s just a big kid. Meagan: Hey, though. We had Katrina, one of our doulas, talk about a VBAC client. It was 11 pounds, something. Jackie: Wow. Meagan : So 9 pounds is pretty small compared to that. Tara : It’s not all about the size. Meagan: It’s not all about the size, yeah. Jackie: Yep. 9 pounds, 15 ounces, and I still think that I would have been able to have the baby just fine. Tara: Yeah, you got most of the way there. I mean, you’re kind of one of those people that did both. Meagan: Yeah. You did both. Yeah. That’s hard. Jackie: At my six-week appointment with my midwives, I came in and talked to them. I said, “So, when can I have a VBAC after two Cesareans?” Six weeks later, I’m already asking them. I asked the OB while I was at the large hospital if they did VBAC after two Cesareans and they said, “Yep. You can come down for that if you have another kid.” When I was back at my little rural hospital, the OB there– there was a new OB and she said, “Oh yeah. I don’t see why you couldn’t have one. That would be fine. Just don’t have a big baby this time.” My midwife looked it up and she found online that they don’t have a policy against a VBAC after two Cesareans either, so she said, “Oh yeah. You can definitely do this.” Tara: Wow. Meagan: That’s so hard. That’s a lot of pressure. “Don’t have a big baby this time.” Jackie: Yep. Just don’t have a big baby this time. Meagan: Yeah, kind of hard to totally control. I mean, you can obviously do your best. Jackie: So when we got pregnant with our third, I went and met with them, and we discussed VBAC after two Cesareans. They told me two years ago that it was still in the plan. My midwife says, “Well, let me talk to the head OB person at this small hospital.” There are three midwives. I believe there are two or three OBs. She talked to the OB and the OB said, “No. You had a 10-pound baby last time. We will not allow you to have a VBAC after two Cesareans.” I said, “Okay. Well, when do I transfer over to the big hospital then? It’s a longer drive. I don’t really want to make that drive for my appointments. Can I do my appointments with you guys and then I’ll transfer over later?” They said, “That’s fine. Stay with us as long as you need to and then we’ll figure this out.” I said, “Okay.” In the meantime, they checked to see if I had gestational diabetes because after having gestational diabetes and then having a large baby, they assumed that I’m going to have it again. I failed the one-hour and then passed the three-hour. I passed the one-hour at 18 weeks at this one, and then I did it again at 28 weeks and I failed the one-hour, and then I had to do it again for the three-hour. According to the numbers in Vermont, I would have failed by one point and been diagnosed with gestational diabetes. I might add at the time, we also moved states. At 28 weeks, we moved from New Hampshire to New York. Again, a nice rural community in the middle of nowhere. So at 28 weeks, I had them do the test, but I also had them prescribe the stuff for gestational diabetes so that way I could monitor my sugars and make sure that I don’t have a giant baby. While we were in New Hampshire, I started researching and asking on The VBAC Link Community Facebook group, asking mom groups in the area where we are in New York where I could have a VBAC after two Cesareans. I did all of my research on the different cities that were close to us. I say close because both of them were about two hours away from us to find out where I could have this. Somebody recommended that I have a home birth. I was like, “Sure. I would love that idea because I wouldn’t have to go anywhere. It sounds like a great idea,” but in New York state, if you are having a VBAC after two Cesareans, you have to have it in a hospital. You can’t have it in a birth center. You can’t have it at home. That was kind of a bummer because I found a midwife local to us who does them in Pennsylvania because Pennsylvania would allow it, but New York doesn’t. I found a hospital with midwives in Rochester, New York and I talked to them. They had a Facebook Live Meet Your Midwife one day. I talked to them and I asked them some questions. I said, “Could I have a VBAC after two Cesareans?” They said, “Well, why do you need to specify that it’s after two Cesareans?” I said, “A lot of places won’t allow you to do it after two Cesareans.” They were like, “No. It’s just a VBAC.” They didn’t seem to have a problem with that. I said, “Well, what if I have a large baby because my last one was 10 pounds? Could I still have my VBAC?” They were like, “10 pounds really isn’t that big.” I was like, “Okay. I’m liking these answers.” Tara: That’s incredible. Jackie: I’m liking these answers so far. Meagan : You’re like, “I’m not going to disagree with you.” Jackie: Yep, and then I asked, “What if I have gestational diabetes because I know some places when you have gestational diabetes, you risk out of being able to have the midwives. You end up with OBs.” They said, “Why would you have to have midwives if you have gestational diabetes?” Everything that I was told before, they were just like, that doesn’t make any sense. Tara: Wow. Meagan : They were pushing back on you. They were like, “Hey, listen.” Tara: They were like, “We don’t think that this is a problem.” Meagan: We have VBAC statistics for you. Jackie: Yeah, so after that Facebook Live event or something, after that, I was like, “All right. I think I have found where I want to go.” Then we went to see my mother-in-law and we get a text from our friend saying, “Hey, you guys were at our party this past weekend and somebody at the party just tested positive for COVID.” So we took our tests right there at our mother-in-law’s house and we tested positive for COVID. Tara: Oh no. Jackie: So my first appointment got to be a virtual appointment because of COVID. We all tested positive. Meagan: Bummer. Jackie: It was a bummer having to quarantine and do all of that fun stuff. So a couple of weeks later, after I’m out of the COVID quarantine, I got to actually go up and meet my midwives. A large midwife place with a waiting room that actually people are in, it was a lot different than my tiny little hospital in the middle of nowhere in Vermont. I met with the midwives there. I explained to them that according to the numbers that my midwives pulled for the gestational diabetes screen that I have gestational diabetes. I read them the numbers that I had from my chart. They looked at me and said, “No. That’s not gestational diabetes. Our cutoff is 185, not 180 here in New York.” So now I don’t have gestational diabetes anymore and I told them that I would like to keep my monitor going, just to continue monitoring because I didn’t want to have a giant baby again. They were okay with that and they just took it off of my chart. I drove two hours every two weeks, then every one week to all of those appointments all the way up to Rochester to meet with these midwives. Anytime I went in with a concern, they basically told me, “Nope, that’s fine. You can have your VBAC.” I also hired a doula in the area too because it was recommended by my favorite midwife up in Vermont that if I’m going to be somewhere new with people I don’t know, I should have a doula who could help support me. I agreed with that, so we got ourselves a doula. Now we are talking about the lovely birth story. My doula kept contacting me and I kept telling her, “Nope, I’m going to go late. I’m not going to go to 40 weeks. It will be more than 40 weeks. I will have this baby inside of me forever. This pregnancy is so easy compared to my other two. I’m not in pain. I could be pregnant for 42 weeks and not even care, but I definitely can’t have my baby this week.” She’s like, “Why?” I said, “Well, my husband is a teacher. It’s the first day of school.” It was Labor Day weekend, so his first day of school was the day after Labor Day and my oldest is starting preschool at a new preschool. I don’t want to ruin this week for them. It’s their first week back to school and I can’t have my baby this week. Maybe next weekend I’ll have the baby. It’ll work out then.” My doula was like, “Okay, whatever you say. This baby can come whenever they want, but sure. You can go late. Whatever.” My kid and my husband have their first day of school. Everything goes great. That night, I put my kids to bed and I started having little contractions like I did with my second. I was like, “Well, it’s probably just going to keep me awake all night.” I had heard many a birth story on here that said to take some Benadryl, take some Tylenol and try to sleep through it. That’s what I did. I took some Benadryl. I took some Tylenol and I slept through it. I’d wake up every once in a while. Around midnight, I was like, “Maybe I should start timing these and figure out what’s going on.” They were coming 5-10 minutes apart or something like that. They weren’t consistent. I could sleep through a lot of it, so I just said, “All right. I’ll take some more Benadryl and Tylenol and just keep sleeping.” My two-year-old crawled into bed with me and while having contractions, trying to sleep with contractions and a two-year-old was not very fun. I snuck out of the room and slept on the couch. I was timing the contractions there. My two-year-old started crying, looking for me and asking where I was, so I went back upstairs and snuggled her in her bed. The contractions were still happening. I was like, “This is strange. Last time, basically when I woke up, they went away.” But whatever. They weren’t very painful and I could sleep through them so I didn’t think anything was happening. My husband gets up for his second day of school. He’s in the shower and I said, “Hey, don’t get too excited to be at school. Don’t get too excited about this.” I go, “I’ve been having contractions. They’re probably going to fizzle out when the sun comes up. Don’t worry about it, but maybe have some plans together for the afternoon because I’ll probably call you and say ‘Hey, we need to go to the hospital.’” He said, “Oh, you think you’re going to have the baby?” I said, “I don’t know, but just have some plans just in case.” I get my four-year-old dressed and send my husband and her to school. I bring my two-year-old out to our makeshift living area in the barn. I climbed the stairs to the barn. I’m making us breakfast and all of a sudden, my contractions went from, “Oh, this is nothing. I can sleep through it,” to “Maybe I should have not sent them to school. This is not feeling right.” I’m having contractions now a lot closer together. They are a lot more painful, and I’m trying to breathe through them, and my two-year-old is copying me and making fun of me. Tara: Does your doula know yet? Jackie: I sent her a text at this point. I said, “Hey, just letting you know.” She’s like, “All right.” I go, “It’s probably nothing.” Again, I don’t think anything is going to happen. I was in labor for 48 hours with the other one. Nothing is going to happen anytime soon. I didn’t want to worry her. I did send a text to my mother-in-law too because she lives about 45 minutes away. I said, “Hey, if you get dressed and ready for the day, do you think you could come on over to the house instead of going to work today? Would that be okay?” She was like, “Yeah. That would be fine. I’ll be over after my shower.” I said, “Okay.” They picked up a lot more. My doula texted me and she said, “Maybe you should hop in the shower until your husband gets back,” because I hadn’t been able to get a hold of him. His school had been in the news because they said, “No cell phones at all for kids,” so he was making sure that his cell phone was not even seen in the school building, so I can’t get a hold of him even though I told him to keep an eye out for me. I’m trying to text him. My doula says to hop in the shower. I was like, “Yeah, you’re right. I’ll probably hop in the shower and this will all go away.” So I bring my two-year-old inside. On the way inside, we have our crew who is working on the house is all there and they volunteered the day before to take me to the hospital if I needed it, so I’m trying to not show them that I’m in labor at all. I’m hiding my facial expressions like, “This is no big deal. Construction crew, you’re fine to stay here.” I bring my two-year-old and set her in front of the TV and hop into the shower. I tried calling my husband’s school and I realized that I can’t get through the automated messaging system to find out how to get ahold of my husband at his new school before another contraction comes. So I texted my mother–in–law and I said, “You need to call him. I can’t do this and he’s not answering.” She asked what the telephone number is and I’m like, “I don’t know. Google it.” I could not even think through these contractions. All of a sudden— Tara: It was getting serious. Meagan : Stop talking to me. Jackie: They were awful. I did not have contractions like this with my second and again, I dilated to 8 centimeters. I was just like, “I’ve got to get in the shower.” I get in the shower and I’m sitting there. I sat there until the water ran out of hot water and I plugged the tub before that because I was like, “Well, maybe sitting in a tub would be nice too.” So when the water ran out of hot water, I am now laying in the tub and I am screaming at the top of my lungs. I’m just thinking about the work crew who was on the other side of this wall in our kitchen working on making our kitchen and I’m just screaming at the top of my lungs. My two-year-old keeps walking in asking for something and I’m just yelling at her to get out. She’s like, “Mom, mom, mom, mom I hurt my nose,” and I’m like, “I don’t care. Get out of here,” just screaming. It was just so painful. All of a sudden, my husband walks in and he goes, “Uh-oh, what’s going on?” And I’m like, “I’m having a baby.” Obviously, you can hear me screaming. He was like, “Well, the entire crew was standing outside in a huddle like, ‘What should we do?’” I’m yelling orders at him now and I’m like, “You need to get the bag.” He’s like, “Okay. I’ve got the bag.” I was like, “You need to get my dress.” He comes down with– I don’t remember what dress he came down with. I was like, “No. There is a black dress in the closet. Go get me my black dress. I’m not going to be able to put clothes on. Go get that.” He goes up and gets me the dress. He comes in and he goes, “My mom’s here, so we don’t need to take the girls with us.” I was like, “Thank god,” because I was going to leave the girls with the workers. I wasn’t going to care right then. The workers can watch our children. I was done. Slowly, I get out. I tell him, “Yes. Put the dress on me,” because there was no way I was going to be able to dress myself. I tell him to grab my shoes because, for my first two children, I went home barefoot because I did not have my shoes. This one, I wanted to make sure I had my shoes so I had him grab my shoes. Tara: Good tip to put out there. Jackie: Yeah, I went home barefoot for a third time too, so I’ll explain that afterward. I get into his truck and I can’t sit down. I said, “Get a towel to put under me just in case my water breaks.” I’m just screaming and obscenities are coming out of my mouth. I feel terrible because my kids are looking at me like, “What the heck is going on?” They only know about Cesareans because that’s all I’ve had. Those are the pictures that I have shown them. So I was basically standing up in the front seat of his truck just standing there screaming, “Drive!” We live on dirt roads, so the entire time, I’m cursing the dirt roads because it’s all bumpy. Tara: And you had a two-hour drive to the hospital, is that right? Jackie: Yes. We had a two-hour drive to the hospital, but I am certain that I’m going to make it because my last labor was so long. There was no way that we were not going to make it. We were driving two hours. So we’re driving and our little town is having its bridge work done, so we have one red light now. And of course, we hit that one red light. Tara: Figures. Jackie : I’m now cursing at the red light and my husband is like, “Really?” He’s just laughing inside himself because it’s like, this is what’s happening. Exactly. We have one red light and this is what we’re doing. We’re hitting the red light. I keep screaming obscenities at it. Tara: This is your moment to blow that red light, right? Jackie: Yeah. If you could see the other side of the bridge and didn’t know if people were coming across, or knew people were coming, I probably would have told him to do so. Tara: You probably don’t need a head-on collision at that point. Jackie: In our mommy group that I am in on Facebook or the due date group or whatever, the day before I think it was, there was some girl who was like, “I almost had a car birth,” and I was like, “Well, I’d take a car birth over a Cesarean any day.” And I’m thinking to myself, “Did I just wish this upon myself? Am I going to have this baby in this car?” We’ve got two hours to drive. All of the little hospitals around us don’t do VBACs, not even VBACs after Cesareans. They don’t do VBACs at all, so any chance in my head that I’m going to get a VBAC is, “I have to drive two hours. I have to get to this hospital.” My husband’s driving. We make it about two exits down the highway and I’m telling him, “You need to call the midwife group.” The midwife group has two different locations and he’s calling the one on speakerphone that is the second location. I’m like, “No. That’s not the right one. You need to call this one.” So he calls that one. He tells him that we are on our way and they ask, “How often are her contractions coming?” I just yell, “Too close together! We’re coming. We’re not going to stop this.” I had him call my doula. He was talking to my doula and she says, “Is that her in the background?” He goes, “Yeah, that’s her.” She goes, “Stop the car right now. Call 911. Get an ambulance.” I’m like, “No. We don’t need an ambulance. Just keep driving. You’re going to slow us down. Just get there.” I’ll add that he was using Google to get there because he hadn’t been to any of my appointments and he’s never been to this city really at all. Meagan: Oh gosh. Jackie: So he’s following Google and the way Google takes you is back roads through Amish country because we live in an Amish country. I’m like, “No. Get back on the highway. I don’t care if it’s two minutes longer. You’re driving on the highway. I am not going through Amish country and getting stopped by a buggy or getting stopped by a train. Stay on the highway.” We’re two exits down and he’s like, “Okay, well the doula said to call an ambulance. I’m calling an ambulance.” I’m like, “Okay. Call the ambulance. You’re overreacting, but whatever,” as I’m screaming. Tara: You are a multi-tasking queen, Jackie. Meagan: Uh-huh. Jackie: Behind us, a trooper pulls up and my husband tells me, “Oh look, the ambulance is coming.” I’m like, “That’s not the ambulance. That’s a trooper. He’s not going to be able to help us with anything.” The trooper comes over– Meagan: Escort you. Jackie : He goes, “The ambulance will be here in a second. They’re right behind me.” The ambulance pulls up and I’m still standing in the front of the truck. No seatbelt, nothing. I can’t even kneel down or sit down in this truck. I’m just standing and screaming. The guy from the ambulance comes in and says, “Okay, I’m going to need you to get on the stretcher.” I said, “I can’t move.” I’m yelling at him. He goes, “Childbirth isn’t that bad.” Meagan : Ohh. Jackie : I looked at him and I just screamed again more obscenities. I have my four-year-old and two-year-old watching TV in front of me, so I will not be screaming those obscenities. But I was like, “You’re a man. You have no say in this. You have no idea what this is like. You cannot tell me it is not that bad.” He was like, “I’ve delivered many babies. I’ve delivered five of my own from my wife.” I am just like, “Yeah. You did not have a baby.” I am yelling at him. He’s like, “Well, I need you to get on the stretcher.” Somehow, I managed to get on the stretcher, but I am on the stretcher on my hands and knees again, holding onto the top of it. He tells me, “No. You have to roll over. You have to lay on your back.” I told him, “There’s no way I’m going to roll over. There’s no way I’m going to lay on my back. I’m good like this.” After arguing with me for a few minutes that it’s not safe and that I can’t go like that, he finally decides to put this seatbelt or whatever the stretcher has around the back of my legs and wheels me into the ambulance. With him, he’s got another guy with him I believe and there’s this young girl. The young girl is obviously very new to being an EMT. At one point, I hear him thank her for coming because they needed a female to come I guess, but she had no idea about anything with birth or anything. Tara: Her eyes are wide. Jackie: Yep, yep. I’m yelling at her to squeeze my hips because I’m in so much pain. My husband was squeezing my hips in the truck for me for each contraction. After everything was said and done, my husband told me that if we have a fourth, which before, he told me absolutely not we were never having another kid after three. If we have a fourth, he needs to go to the gym and work on whatever muscles he needs to be able to squeeze hips because he has no muscle there. Tara: That’s right. It’s hard work, isn’t it, Meagan? Meagan: Mhmm. Jackie: I yelled, “This is why I needed a doula. She knows what to do.” Meagan : Yeah. Well, and that’s another pro of a doula too is that they can switch off. Jackie : Yes. That’s what I was looking forward to. I was going to have this really long labor and they were going to switch off when his arms got tired, her arms would pop in and it would be wonderful. But I’m in the ambulance and I’m yelling at this poor, young girl that she needs to squeeze my hips. The guy is trying to tell her, “You’ve got to squeeze her hips. That’s what she wants.” Then my body decides that it is going to start pushing on its own, but not push out a baby, but push out poop which– Meagan: Mhmm, that comes first sometimes. Jackie: I read that all the things said, “Yeah, if it happens, people will just wipe it up and you’ll never even know.” I’m yelling at the girl like, “I apologize that this is happening.” She’s looking at the guy like, “What do I do?” He’s like, “Just don’t worry about it. Just don’t worry about it.” With every contraction now, I am now pooping and extremely embarrassed by this and screaming because I am in so much pain. The guy who has delivered so many babies and said childbirth isn’t that bad tells me that I need to relax so that he can put an IV in my hand. Meagan : Oh boy. Jackie: I tell him that if he wants me to relax, then he needs to give me some drugs. He tells me that he can’t give me any drugs because I’m having a baby and there are no drugs that are safe for a baby. Tara: Oh dear. Jackie: He goes, “Well, if I get this IV in you, at the hospital, they’ll be able to give you some drugs.” I said, “Okay.” So I managed to somehow stop squeezing my hand and let him have it. He got the IV in. We pull up to the hospital and they rolled me into the hospital. There were probably about, my husband said he counted 25 people in the room. One of the nurses I talked to later said he counted at least 30 people in the room. It’s an ER room because this hospital does not have a maternity ward at all, so they don’t deliver babies at all which was a surprise to me especially when I asked for drugs and they told me that they couldn’t give me anything. The EMT guy promised me that they would be able to give me drugs. Tara: So that’s a good point, Jackie, because if you call an ambulance, they have to take you to the nearest hospital, right? Meagan : Mhmm. Jackie : Yes. Tara : Yeah. So he wasn’t able to take you to the one that you had intended to give birth at. Jackie: Right. But I still thought that they would take me to one where I would give birth at. 30 minutes north of this hospital, there was a hospital that I ended up being transferred to after I gave birth that does have a maternity ward. But yep, they brought me to the closest one possible. They had again, no maternity ward. Nobody has delivered babies. Tara: But the entire staff standing by. Jackie : Oh yeah. The entire staff, I’m pretty sure, of this hospital, standing in the room with me. My husband was like, “I had nothing to do during your labor. I walked in.” First of all, he followed Google again and did not end up at the right hospital and then was like, “Oh, wait a second. I know what hospital this is. I’m pretty sure we’ve passed it before.” He said that he walked in and he had my bag and my birth plan. He hands my birth plan to the nurse and the nurse goes, “We don’t have time for that.” He was like, “Okay. I remembered the one thing that I had to remember and they don’t even want it.” He goes, “I got in there. They put me behind you,” or at my head, because I’m still on my hands and knees on top of the stretcher right now. He goes, “There were so many people around, I had nothing to do.” He goes, “You had two people who were wiping your forehead for you. You had three people who were holding your hand for you. You had someone who was wiping your butt.” He goes, “Every single person had something to do and I was just standing there looking like an idiot. There were so many people in that room.” I was like, “Yeah, it was a lot different than our second labor where we were the only two people in the room.” So we’re in there with all of the people staring at me. There was a sweet woman up by my head who kept telling me wonderfully nice things and if I wasn’t in labor, I would probably hug her and tell her that she was a wonderful person, but I was in so much panic yelling at her to just shut her mouth and be quiet and all of these terrible things that I feel so bad about now. At one point, she advises whoever is on the other side of me, I don’t know, to maybe shut the blinds to the ER room because it’s all glass. So you walk into the ER and what you see was my behind as I’m trying to give birth on the stretcher with 25 people around me. I was very thankful she said they should probably shut all of these blinds so people weren’t watching. They have someone come in and they tell me that this is a pediatrician. She has delivered babies before, so it’s going to be okay. That’s my first hint that they don’t have anybody to deliver babies at this hospital, that there is a pediatrician here now and she has delivered babies. It’s okay. The pediatrician decides that she needs to check me and in the middle of a contraction, shoves her hand up and I’m just screaming. I’m like, “Get your hand out of me.” I started kicking her which, again, I feel terrible about. I apologized for it after the fact, but I definitely kicked her a couple of times telling her to get away from me. They kept telling me that I had to be on my back to be checked and I told them, “No,” that you can have babies on your knees. “I’m not laying on my back. I can’t do that. I can’t roll over.” I again involuntarily am pushing so much poop out of myself which, again, no one prepares you for that. Everyone tells you, “Oh no. Don’t worry about it. No one is even going to notice.” Everybody knew it was happening. My husband knew it was happening. There was poop in front of me on the stretcher. There was just poop everywhere and I was so embarrassed. I was like, “Nobody told you that this much would happen.” At some point, they told me that I am pushing out this baby. I think it was at 9:30 a.m. when my husband called the ambulance and we were at the hospital by probably 9:50, maybe 10:00. We were there and the pediatrician starts telling me, “You’ve just got to start pushing. Just keep pushing. Keep pushing.” I’m like, “There’s no way I’m having this baby.” I went 48 hours with the last one. I was barely having contractions an hour ago. There is no way this baby is coming out of me. She was like, “You’ve got to push. You’ve got to push. You’ve got to push.” I start pushing and then they finally convince me to roll over that I might be able to push better in that position, so I roll over to that position. I think it was three or four more pushes, and out popped a baby. At some point, I thought that she again was trying to find out where my cervix was and had her hand up inside of me and I am yelling at her to stop that. She’s like, “It’s not me. Your baby is coming out.” Again, I did not believe that there was a baby going to be born. I could not believe it at all. When she came out, I was again shocked like, “I just had a baby and it wasn’t a C-section.” This didn’t make any sense to me whatsoever. I’m just sitting there in complete shock. I couldn’t believe it. I felt like, “You have a —-” because we have surprises for each of our kids. They go, “What do you have?” I told them it was a surprise. They were like, “You have another girl.” My husband was like, “Oh, three girls. Just what I always wanted.” I had my VBAC after two Cesareans and again, like you said, you’re just on this birth high of, “I actually did this.” I had a second-degree tear and the pediatrician person is trying to stitch me up. Again, I’m on a stretcher. I’m also covered in poop because I was kneeling in it, so there are four nurses wiping me down and giving me a sponge bath to get all of the poop off of me. My husband and I are joking that the room smells terrible and why would 25 people want to stand around and watch this because it smells so bad in that room? So that was a lot of fun. We still joke about that now even though I tell him that he can’t talk about it with anybody else. They stitched me up. The pediatrician was complaining because they don’t have any beds with stirrups and they don’t have any beds with the broken down parts that you give birth in, so I was on an ER stretcher and she could barely get in there to do my stitches comfortably. While we’re doing this, some other lady walks in and says, “Hey, just to let you know, we don’t have a mother/baby wing, so you guys are going to be transferred. Do you mind going to this hospital” that was a half hour away and I was like, “Sure. I already had the baby. I guess it doesn’t matter which hospital I go to now.” They get another ambulance and they put me in an ambulance and they take me to this other hospital where I saw the OB that walked in, I think, as I was pushing from that hospital, they followed that OB down about a half hour away to come. I guess I must have been pushing there for at least a half hour because the OB walked in. He comes up and said, “Is your husband coming?” “Yep. My husband will be up.” He was at the hospital. He was like, “Oh, he was the one–” my husband has got a really big, orange beard. He’s like, “Oh, he’s the one with the big beard.” I was like, “Yeah.” He was telling the nurse, “This guy’s got a great beard.” He goes, “I thought he was a–” the way he was dressed too, he came from school, so he was in a shirt and a tie and khakis. He goes, “I thought he was the other OB that they called and he got there first and he was just watching.” He goes, “Yeah, when I got to the hospital, she was in active labor about to have this baby, one of the nurses turned to me. She goes, ‘So, are we going up to the OR now? Are we going to do the section now?’” He was like, “I turned to her. ‘She’s pushing out the baby. Why would we need to go into the OR for a C-section? Just let her have the baby. She knows what she is doing.’” It just made me laugh that again, I had a VBAC after two Cesareans in a hospital that was absolutely not prepared to even deliver a baby. Tara: Wow. Jackie: I delivered the placenta. They had to look for a hemorrhage kit because they couldn’t find Pitocin to give me Pitocin. My husband was like, “Hold on. Are they dusting off that box over there? Have they never seen this before?” One of the nurses who we asked how many people had come in and had babies, she goes, “Well, I’ve been here for a year and nobody has had a baby here yet this year.” Tara: Wow. Jackie: She goes, “That’s probably why everybody was in here. They wanted to see somebody have a baby.” Tara: Yeah. You gave them a story that they will be telling for a long time. Meagan: Yeah. Jackie: It definitely was crazy. I never thought that it could happen as fast as it did. I never thought that yeah. I never thought I would have a VBAC after two Cesareans for starters, and never thought I would have one in a hospital that doesn’t deliver babies. Meagan: Mhmm, yeah that doesn’t even do babies. Tara: You sent your husband to work and had the baby before lunchtime. Jackie: Well, that’s what I said when I had the baby. It was 10:42 when I had the baby, so again, I was texting him at 8:00 that maybe he should come home. I think we were in the car around 9:00. 10:42 is when the baby was born. I said, “Hey, you have lunch duty soon. Do you want to go back for that?” He laughed. He goes, “I think I’ll take the rest of the day off.” Meagan: I think I’ll stay. Tara: His adrenaline was sky-high. Jackie: He went back to school the following day. His principal was like, “Uh, you had a baby yesterday. Why are you here?” He said, “Why shouldn’t I be here? She’s got nurses looking after her. She’s fine. My mother’s with the other two kids. We’re good. I can be at school.” Tara: That’s the parent of a third child right there. Jackie: Very much parents of a third child. Meagan: I love it though. I love it all. It’s so awesome. Such an adrenaline rush. I mean, one that so many people are never going to forget. Seriously, you did something Jackie: I feel like I need to send them something though, like a card saying, “I’m sorry for all the obscenities. I’m sorry I was so rude to you.” Meagan: No, no. You know, we don’t take anything personally as birth workers. I mean, I know they weren’t birth workers, but they can’t take it personally, right? Tara : That’s right. Doulas always say that everything is forgiven in labor. We know that things happen. Drama happens. Words said. People get kicked. Meagan: Words get said. Things get done. I had a mom bite me one time, my hand. Jackie: Yeah. Meagan: Yeah, she just grabbed my hand and bit it. After, she was just like, “Oh, did I just bite you?” I was like, “Yep, but that’s what you needed to do, so you’re good. You’re good.” Oh, I love it. Well, congratulations. I know you’re still fresh off of this and I can just feel the energy. It’s so amazing. It’s so amazing. Tara: It’s incredible. How are you feeling about your healing so far? It’s been a short time. How’s it feeling in comparison? Jackie: I was a little shocked at the fact that there was more pain than I thought there was going to be having a second-degree tear and lots of lovely hemorrhoids, so sitting was not something fun. Meagan: Mhmm, yeah. Tara: Yeah. Jackie: So a little shocked by that, but compared to a C-section, it’s so much better. I was thinking about how our bedrooms are on the second floor. The barn rec room that we’re in is on the second floor, where we hang out right now doesn’t have a bathroom, so I have to go up and down stairs. How was I going to do that after having a C-section? Meagan : Mhmm. Tara: Yeah. Still try not to do it too much after this birth. Meagan : Still take it easy. Still take it easy. Sometimes, we just want to get back into it. We just want to get back into it and we have to remember that we still just did a very big thing. We pushed a baby out of us and we still have to recover and give our body time. Tara : Yeah, and that’s a big mistake. I definitely made it too, but when you feel so much better than the other time, you think, “Oh, I’m good to go. I can climb stairs. I can make my family dinner. I can do things that I did before I had the baby,” and it catches up with you and your healing takes a lot longer. Meagan: Yeah, don’t rush it. Awesome. Tara: Give yourself some grace. Meagan: Yes, give yourself some grace. I always tell people that when you are feeling really good, that means that you need more time. Tara: That’s a good one. Meagan: Just keep giving yourself time. It’s okay to take it. I love it. What an amazing story though. One you will never forget. Thank you again, so much for sharing it with us. Seriously. Tara : It’s an exciting one. Jackie: Thank you. One of the things my husband said to me after I had the VBAC, he goes, “Hey, now you can be on that podcast you listen to all of the time.” Meagan: Oh! Jackie: He’s like, “You can call them up.” Meagan: Did you tell him when you got the email? Jackie: I haven’t yet because I was like, “What happens if something goes wrong and we don’t actually get to record and it gets canceled or whatever?” But I’ll tell him when he gets home. My four-year-old actually woke up throwing up this morning and I was like, “Oh, I’m not going to be able to do this because she’s going to be throwing up all day,” but she’s held it down for the whole hour. Tara : You’ve got a lot going on. Meagan: Yes, you do. Oh my gosh. Well, thank you for taking all of the time today to share this beautiful story, and congratulations once again. Jackie: Thank you so much for inviting me on. Tara: Congratulations, Jackie. Enjoy those baby cuddles. Meagan : I know, those little coos are so sweet. 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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