About this episode
Lily’s VBAC birth story episode is finally here!!! You know and love her just like we do. She not only manages the social media content here at The VBAC Link but also spends so much time connecting with you personally. She has the biggest heart for VBAC and champions all types of empowered birth. Lily walks us through her experiences with ectopic pregnancy, loss, her traumatic Cesarean, and how she persisted through a 66-hour long labor without an epidural to achieve her hospital water birth VBAC. If you followed her pregnancy journey, you saw that Lily was incredibly proactive during her pregnancy. She built the strongest team of birth and body workers. She was specific in her desires, yet remained open-minded. This served her so well in labor and made all the difference during her birth! Needed Website How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents Full Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello, everybody. You guys, today is a very exciting day. We have recently had two of our VBAC Link team members have their babies. Paige was one with the first Maternal Assisted Cesarean in Korea, and today is the second with Lily. Oh my gosh. If you guys have been on our social media, you have seen our cute Lily. She is just so amazing. She's so fun. She's in the DMs on Instagram literally every day chatting with you. I just absolutely adore her. She's so incredible. Lily is a born and raised Colorado-- I don't even know how to actually say this. Lily is a born and raised Coloradoan. I think that is how you say it. She's from Colorado, living in northern Colorado with her husband, son, and daughter. She is a kinesiologist who works in community health and a dual-certified fitness instructor passionate about movement and wellness. After an unexpected Cesarean two and a half years ago, Lily found The VBAC Link and began planning her VBAC and is excited to share her story today. I cannot wait for you to hear it. This was actually the first time that I got to hear it in its entirety. It's just amazing, and I'm excited for you to hear it. Like I mentioned, Lily is also our social media assistant at The VBAC Link and is truly honored to empower and hold space for all the Women of Strength in our community. You guys, she is absolutely amazing. We love her so, so, so, so much. We do have a review that we're going to share, and then we are going to turn the time over to our sweet Lily to share her stories. This review is by Savannah, and it says, "Started listening to The VBAC Link Podcast around 16 weeks pregnant and continued throughout my pregnancy. It was so good and encouraging for me as a mama who was preparing for a VBAC. It helped me gain confidence, and helped me know what to look for and watch out for in my providers. Hearing other stories was so encouraging and helped me gain so much knowledge. I had my hospital VBAC unmedicated with an 8-pound, 15-ounce baby and I know the knowledge I gained from this podcast played a huge role in being able to advocate for myself and get a better birth outcome." Congratulations, Savannah. We're going to talk a little bit about this today as well with Lily on the podcast how sometimes the thought of going to the hospital is scary because of stories you've heard or things you've heard. But VBAC can happen in the hospital, and it can be beautiful, and it is beautiful. I think it always dials back to me to finding the best provider for you, finding the best location that feels right for you, building your team, and doing what is best for you in the end. So I really am so excited one minute after the intro to turn the time over to Lily. Okay, Ms. Lily, I really am so excited because I was even texting you the day you were in labor. I don't really know all the details, but I've seen your incredible pictures. Oh my goodness, your pictures are so incredible, and I've heard a little bit from you so I really can't wait. So let's talk. Let's talk about these births. Lily: Okay. Yeah. So every Cesarean story is what starts us off, so I will go with that. But I'm going to try to be fast because I feel like my birth was really long. I have a lot more to say about my VBAC, but I always try to really honor our story in that before we had our beautiful, amazing rainbow baby boy, we also experienced a miscarriage and an ectopic pregnancy prior to having our son. I lost my right fallopian tube. I always like to be the encourager that you can get pregnant naturally with one fallopian tube. It turns out fallopian tubes are not fixed body parts, so when we got pregnant with our son, I ovulated from the side I didn't have a fallopian tube on, and my other tube was able to come over and grab the egg and sense the ovulation which feels so miraculous. Meagan: So incredible, so incredible. I love that message that you're dropping for our community because I think if someone was in that situation as you know, it could feel very defeating and uncertain. Lily: Yeah, it feels really scary. I remember thinking, "I'm at less than 50% fertility if I've lost one tube," but that's not true. Statistically, it's really pretty equal to people with both fallopian tubes, which is kind of neat. Meagan: Yeah. Lily: After that, I started acupuncture. My sweet friend, Montana, we had been friends for years and she's always been like, "You should come see me." She specializes in women's health and fertility and loss and all the things. I started acupuncture then, and I say that now cause it has continued. I always say I'll never not be a patient of hers ever again because she's the best. I started to do that, and then we got pregnant. we found out we were pregnant on the last day of week of prayer at our church, which was really incredible and just felt like such a tangible miracle. We chose to go with a birth center for our care. We did that because I had a lot of hospital trauma. I just didn't think that a hospital was a safe place for me to have my baby. I'm a big believer that we should birth wherever feels the safest. We went for birth center care and had a great experience at our birth center. We loved our midwives and were really excited for birth. I think I hear so many times as women tell their VBAC stories that often we feel underprepared going into our first birth, and it leads to a cascade. I think I was the birthiest nerd of all. I felt like I was really prepared going into birth. I was excited for it. I had a lot of birth education. I had been a birth podcast listener forever and ever. I just felt really empowered in birth and all the things I was doing, chiropractic care and acupuncture and all the stuff. We did get to 41 weeks, and at my 41-week appointment, my midwives gave me a 3-page-long induction protocol because in our state, we have to transfer at 42 weeks. So it was their, "This is the last-ditch effort when you are 41--", and I can't remember how many days, "we want you to do this big thing." It was a daily schedule. "You're going to wake up and you're going to go for a drive on a bumpy road, and you're going to eat this, and you're going to do this." It was really overwhelming. Meagan: Yeah. Lily: Well, the night before we were supposed to do that protocol, the doula who was on-call at the center was texting me and was like, "Hey, how are you feeling?" I was like, "I don't know. I feel really nervous to do this big long thing." She suggested that I journal out all of my fears about birth and see if that did anything. I journaled all my fears, and I burned it in our kitchen sink. As I walked up the stairs, I had my first contraction. I'm also a huge believer that our emotions play such a huge role in our labors. So I was really stoked that my labor started and all the things. That's the same doula that we had for our next birth too, which is really cool. So yeah, I labored all of that night. It was Friday that I went into labor, that evening. Saturday, I labored. My midwives came and checked in eventually. My doula did come over, did some stuff with me, hung out and helped me labor, did some homeopathy, some emotional release work, and all the good stuff. But my labor was really, really long. So by Sunday, my midwives were like, "Hey, you are super exhausted. We want you to take a Benadryl and try to take a nap." I am a girly who does not take a lot of medicine. So this Benadryl knocked me on my booty. I had six really awful contractions trying to take a nap. After I got back up from the nap, I got back on the toilet which is where I was loving to labor. I stood up because I was like, "Okay, I think maybe things are starting. I'm finally getting a pattern. Maybe I can finally go to the birth center." I stood up, and I checked the pad I was wearing. There was a copious amount of meconium. Not water, but meconium which is scary, you know? I knew right then that I was going to have to transferred. It was thick. It was poop. Meagan: Yeah, yeah. Lily: There was no water stained. It was just meconium. And so I called my midwife, and in her sweet midwife voice, I said, "Do I have to transfer?" And she goes, "It's definitely a conversation we have to have." I was like, "Okay. So, yes." She explained that because of the way the meconium came out, she now thought my son was breech because his butt was right up against my cervix, and it just came right out. Soo she came over. Actually, she wasn't even on call. She happened to live in our neighborhood. She came over and checked me and all the things, and she's like, "Yep, this feels really different than a few hours ago. He's definitely breech. We do have to transfer." And so as we're transferring, in my mind, I know that we're probably going to have a Cesarean. My midwives were really great in that they called ahead and they were like, "Hey, we called ahead. No one's willing to do a vaginal breech delivery, or at least they're not trained in it." But my midwives were also really encouraging that, "If this is something you want to do, you have a right to deny a surgery. You have that right. We will be here in support of that." They don't have hospital privileges. They were out-of-hospital midwives, so they had to transfer me. They could go with me and essentially be that emotional support, but we were still kind of in COVID times, so I had to also choose who I wanted to be in there with me. It was 2022. I just felt so defeated. I was so mad that I wasn't going to get the birth that I wanted. I started screaming through contractions. I can confirm that does make it worse. I was just pissed. And so I opted for a Cesarean. It was really tough. I remember as we were leaving my house, asking my midwives, "I can have a VBAC at the birth center, right? Like, you can do VBACs?" They were like, "Yep, but let's get this baby out first." So I transferred. I had my Cesarean. I think it went as smoothly as it could go. I remember there was this a sweet tech who-- I was just in a lot of pain, and she gave me the biggest hug as they put my spinal in and was stroking my back saying, "This is the last one. This is the last one. You can do this." And it was like, "Okay." There was some tenderness there. But post that was a lot of grief, and I think we've all experienced that and a lot of hard. I never saw the surgeon who did my surgery ever again. None of my follow-ups were with her. It was just some random OB. I was so thankful that I had been at the birth center because I got all of their postpartum care, so I had a couple of home visits and a lot of really tender care from my midwives, which was exactly what I needed. And then I found The VBAC Link. I remember finding it on a walk because I had listened to birth podcasts for years, like I said, and suddenly it was grievous to listen to this thing that I loved hurt my feelings to listen to. It was like, "Oh gosh, I don't want to listen to the first-time mom who had an amazing waterbirth, and it was pain-free." It just was grief. Meagan: Right. Lily: So when I found The VBAC Link, I was like, "This is exactly what I needed. This is stories of women that give me hope and not just that trigger jealousy," which I think is a very real and valid emotion. Meagan: Very, very real. Very real and valid. Lily: It's okay to feel that way, but I remember going for all of my postpartum walks and listening to The VBAC Link and crying through every episode and all of the things. And then, just in that postpartum time, I got back into fitness. I have a background in kinesiology and teach a lot of fitness classes. So I got back to the community and finding that, and then I also got to work here which is so fun a year ago in November which is so cool. I think it's really a cute thing that my year anniversary was in November, and that's when I had her, so how cool that I spent a year empowering other women and also getting to plan my own which was really fun. So if you've ever DM'd us on Instagram, you're probably talking to me. Meagan: Yep, yep. She's in there every day a lot of the day because we get a lot of messages. We really do. Lily: And we want to answer all of them. I want you to feel seen and known and all the things. So if you're getting an answer, you're not getting a robot. Meagan: Yeah, you're absolutely not. Lily: You're getting me or Meagan or Olga or Ashley. You're getting one of us which is really neat. Meagan: Yep. Yeah. Lily: Okay. So then we got pregnant again, eventually. So we had planned to start trying when our son was two. We got pregnant a couple months before his second birthday. And again, it was such a redemptive moment of going from having a really hard trying to conceive to me, a girly with one fallopian tube getting pregnant on accident. Are you kidding me? It's crazy. But it was so great. It was really scary at first. We did have some early pregnancy bleeding. We thought we were having another miscarriage. And at the same time, my dad had his appendix rupture, so he was in the hospital septic while I'm early pregnant bleeding. It was just a hellstorm at first and felt really scary. But I knew that I was going for my VBAC, and that was really grounding. I won't share a ton of this journey. My midwife, Paige, and I were on the podcast earlier in 2024, so if you want to listen to that podcast about finding care, but I'll just quickly cover essentially the birth center that I was supposed to be at that I always dreamed would be my redemptive birth again was the same midwives. Oh, Matilda is grabbing my ears. Meagan: Also, the episode is 342 if you want to go back and listen. Lily: Yes. For midwife stuff. Meagan: Yes. Lily: So essentially, my midwives were amazing and I love them, but the birth center just wasn't in our financial capability. They don't take insurance. This time around, it was just not something that we were able to do. I started my care at the birth center and was really grateful to be there because they really knew my story, so they held me through the worry about miscarriage. And then we ended up having to navigate transferring care, so I interviewed another birth center that was in-network with our insurance that was about an hour away. I interviewed my midwife, Paige, and her practice partner, Jess. I told my husband when we went in to interview them, I was so terrified to like these hospital midwives and that I would have a hospital birth. And I did. I fell in love with them. I think that's so important. One thing I get really frustrated with, I think, especially in the more crunchy birth community is that we are often told that hospital birth can't be beautiful and that you can't have a physiological birth in a hospital. Meagan: Yep. Lily: I'm here to tell you that that's wrong. We have to stop telling women that the place that they feel safest is less than in any way. If a hospital is where you end up, then that is incredible and amazing and that's where you should birth if that's what feels right for you and your baby. Meagan: Yeah. It's the same thing with like epidural versus non-epidural. It doesn't matter. You're not any less powerful or strong or amazing if you birth without an epidural versus an epidural or out of the hospital versus the hospital or a planned Cesarean versus not going for a VBAC or if it goes to a Cesarean. We have to start having more love for one another in our community. Even though it might be something really great for one person, and they believe that, and that's okay that they believe that, that doesn't mean it's right for that next person. Meagan: Totally, totally. Lily: Yeah. So we navigated what hospital care was going to look like. At the time, our hospital was under construction, so they were "letting"-- I put that in quotes-- letting you labor in the tub, but you couldn't deliver in the tub at the time. The tubs were home birth tubs that they were blowing up in the rooms and all these things. But by the end of my pregnancy, the low-intervention rooms were open, and they were supporting waterbirths which I think is so neat to see from a hospital. So yeah, we were really excited. This time, I did more acupuncture. I continued to see my amazing acupuncturist. She's amazing. Montana Glenn if you ever need her in northern Colorado. I did switch chiropractors. Last time, I went to just the chiropractor that I'd always gone to. She wasn't Webster-certified. This time, I did go see a Webster-certified chiropractor. Laura is amazing. That really changed a lot of my pelvic pain and things like that. I was way more active in this pregnancy. With my son, I was working at a Barre studio, and the fitness studio closed about halfway through my pregnancy. I kind of just petered off the train of staying active. But with my daughter, we were able to, I say we because she was there. I worked out until the day before I was in labor. I teach spin, strength, and yoga. It's a combo. It's called Spenga. I was there all the time. I did stop on the spin bike at 34 weeks pregnant because I learned that that's not great for baby positioning, and it can shorten some of those ligaments. I stopped doing the spin bike at that point to be really cautious of position. Speaking of that, I had a standard kind of pregnancy. I would talk with my midwife forever and ever. I came in with questions about my birth probably on day one. She was like, "Girl, you're 16 weeks pregnant. Chill, no." But I had questions, and I would come in every time. I did feel like a first-time mom in that sense because the last time, I had a lot of expectations of I knew what the birth center was going to look like, and I had no idea what a hospital labor was going to look like. How many nurses are going to be in my room? Who's going to be up in my space? What does this look like? How do I do intermittent monitoring and all the things? Paige was great about, my midwife, saying, "Hey, this is what the hospital protocol is. Hospital protocol is not a law. You get to do what you want to do, and we support you in that." She was awesome. At 32 weeks, though, Matilda was breech which was really scary as a mama who had a surprise breech baby. I did all the things. If you want to know all of those things, we have an Instagram Live that is saved on our page of literally the kibosh of things that I did for flipping her. We did flip her. I also saw a bodyworker in town and a doula who's amazing. Her name is Heather Stanley, and she's the breech lady here in northern Colorado. I did some bodywork and stuff with her and worked through emotional stuff and birth stuff. It was, I think, really what I needed. Heather said that in our session, and I kind of rolled my eyes. She's like, "I think sometimes babies go breech because we've got some stuff to process." And I think that I did. I thought I processed. I went to therapy after my Cesarean. I did all the things, but I still had some stuff. I think she was teaching me, like, "Hey, let's work through this now." Meagan: Yeah, I mean, I had the same thing with Webster. He kept flipping breech. I had never had a breech baby before, but I was like, "If I have to have a C-section because you're breech, I've done all the things." I was really frustrated. We'd get him to flip, and then he'd go back. My midwife was like, "We need to stop." And I believe that it was the same thing. I needed to work through some things. He needed to be in those positions during that time for whatever reason. We had to gain more trust in our bodies and our abilities and processing. Right? Lily: Yeah, totally. So yeah, so then she flipped, and it was great. And then I just felt so seen by Paige in all of it, because she knew like, "Hey, when you get to the hospital, we'll check with an ultrasound and double-check that she's still head down because I know that's anxiety-inducing for you." I just felt so empowered with all of our decision-making. It felt like a big partnership. One thing that I struggled with with my son was I was at home laboring for 44 hours. I never got to go to the birth center. What I loved is this time, it was my call when I got to go to the hospital. It was my decision, all of it. Paige was so great about saying, "Hey, this is your labor, and we're here to make this happen." I just think she's such a unique human. I don't think care always looks like this in a hospital for sure, but it can. What if we advocated for what we deserve, you know? Meagan: Just talking to her, I love her. I love her so much, and I one day hope to meet her in person. Lily: She's the greatest human being. I tell her all the time, I'm like, "You're changing the world, and so many women need you." Actually, their practice was at one point so full of VBAC patients that they've had to unfortunately turn a couple of people away because their practice is getting full which is really amazing, though. Meagan: Yeah. Lily: And we need that. Meagan: It's a good thing. Yeah. Lily: Yeah. So super cool. All right, I think we've got labor coming. Here we go. I never felt pressure of when am I going to go into labor or any of that. Paige was super great about, like, "Hey, if you're dilated before labor, that's great. If not, whatever. Most people dilate while they're in labor," and it was just super helpful. I knew that there was no worry about when I would go into labor. There was no worry about just any of that stuff. So it was really nice to just be at peace. That's one of the reasons that I actually loved having a hospital provider because I had a lot of anxiety about transferring from a birth center again. Actually, as I tell my story, I think I would have been a transfer again. I remember them saying that in my initial consult appointment. Jess, who practices with Paige, said, "You know, what's beautiful about hospital care is that we can induce you if you need to be induced, and we have the hospital privileges, and you can have the interventions if you need them." And I did. Spoiler alert, and it was great. I got to 40 and 1. I started contractions around 11:00 PM on Tuesday night. I was already felt like it was such a blessing because I finally had contractions that were normal. I didn't have contractions like that with my son. They started out fast and furious and they were seven minutes apart or less my whole 44 hours. With this, I felt the wave of a contraction for the first time. And I remember texting my doula like, "This is already so redemptive just that I can like breathe through a contraction. This is nuts. This is so cool." There were a couple that I had to get on all fours in my bed and sway back and forth and eventually, my husband like leaned over and he was like, "You need to go to sleep. What are you doing?" I was like, "I'm having contractions." And he's like, "Oh." So it was fun. I texted my doula and just said, "Hey, I think I'm in labor," which was weird for me to say. And again, what's so great is Jessie, my doula, had been with us in our first birth and she's also a VBAC mom. It was just like God had His hands on exactly what we needed and the people that we needed even from our first birth to carry into our second. So on Wednesday, Jesse also lives in our neighborhood now, so that's fun. She came over, and we went for a walk. We did some homeopathy, and she gave me a great foot massage, and then she said, "Okay, hey. Let's try to pick things up a little bit. I want you to take a nap with your knees open." She's like, "We don't have a peanut ball," so I grabbed the triangle pillow from my kid's nugget couch. It works really well by the way. I napped with that between my legs and was able to get things to pick up a little bit. My contractions did get pretty intense, but they were still spread out. She went home for a little bit, and then I took a nap and labored. I went downstairs. We live multi-generationally, so my parents live in our basement in a basement apartment. My niece also lives with us. They have custody of her. My parents have a way cooler shower than I do because they got to customize their basement. I went down and took a shower in their shower which has three shower heads and all the stuff. I was like, "This is like a being at a birth center." So I hung out in their shower. I took a two-hour shower. My mom's like, "Our water bill is going to be insane." Meagan: How did you have hot water long enough? Lily: We have that-- I don't know what it's called. Meagan: Reverse osmosis thing? Lily: I don't know. Meagan: I don't even know. That's not the water heater. Lily: I don't know what we have. I don't know what it's called. Anyway, we did have hot water. Meagan: That's amazing, though. Lily: I was just in there chilling and music on and lights off. When I could get into the mental space of labor, my contractions would come way closer together, and things would intensify. But if I did the advice of living life, it was like they just stayed really far apart. So I was like, "I know that some of this is prodromal labor a little bit because I'm not getting into consistency unless I'm forcing myself to be there." So amongst all of this, my husband is not feeling well. I'm looking at him like, "You seem sick." My husband never gets sick. And he's like, "I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine." And I was like, "No, I think that you should go get tested for something." Something in my gut was like, "You need to go in." So he went and got swabbed for the flu and all the things, and he had strep. And so I was like, "See? Good thing that we got you tested." So he started antibiotics right away. And then that night, my sweet doula came and spent the night because Jared was just not up for being a labor support and yay for having a doula because I needed someone to be there physically with me, and I needed that support, but he couldn't be there in that moment. Meagan: Wow, what an incredible doula. I love hearing that. Yeah. Lily: So she came and spent the night, and we did some like side-lying releases, which from my first labor, I knew I was going to hate it. It's just the position that, to me, is just the absolute worst when I'm in labor. It's awful. My doula was like, "Hey, so we should do some of that." And I was like, "No, we're not. I don't want to." She was like, "I think we should then." So we did some of that, and then eventually, she drifted off to sleep. My contractions again, were still staying spread out. They would get close together and then they'd fizzle. But they were intense, and that's what's hard is you think prodromal labor, and at least in my brain, it's like, "Oh, contractions are mild and really far apart," but that's just not how they were for me. They were really intense. Meagan: They can be. Eventually, I went upstairs and took a bath because I was like, "Okay, I'm just going to force them to shut down then." I need some rest. So I went and took a bath upstairs, and got them to slow down enough that I could sleep for the rest of the night. Meagan: Good. Lily: That was Wednesday, and like I said, my labor was long. On Thursday, we woke up. My doula was here with me. We made breakfast, and she forced me to eat protein. Yay, doulas. I had already a scheduled appointment that day for my 41-week or whatever it was. 40 weeks, I guess. We went into the clinic and my contractions were, I mean, maybe 30 minutes apart at this point. I remember we drove all the way. My clinic is 20 minutes for my house. We drove all the way there, and I didn't have a contraction in the car. I was like, "Okay." So we went. I was 4 centimeters dilated and 90% effaced. I did ask for the membrane sweep, but I asked for the cervical check. Not one time ever did I get a check that was like, "Hey, we should check you now." It was like, "Hey, I want to be checked now." Meagan: Yeah. Lily: It was so empowering. So 4 centimeters. She was like, "You know what? You're doing it. Yes, prodromal labor, sure, but also, your body's making progress. You're doing something." Meagan: But also not prodromal. It was a prodromal pattern and acting that way, but progressing. So, it was on the cusp. Lily: Yeah. It was weird but encouraging to hear that, okay. I've done a day and a half work. Yeah. But at this point, I'm like, ticking in my brain, like, "Okay, how long has this been?" Because my first labor was 44 hours, and I was 10 centimeters when we transferred to the hospital. I had told myself my whole pregnancy, "I can do anything as long as it's less than 44 hours." It was not. It was not. Spoiler alert. So we went home, and then my sweet chiropractor actually lives in our neighborhood. I texted her and was like, "Hey, I don't know if this is a positional thing. She feels really low and engaged, but can you come adjust me?" So she came and brought her table to my house and adjusted me. She did this thing called adductor stripping. Meagan: Oh. Lily: And so I had done an actual membrane sweep with my midwife, and then my chiropractor took her knuckles and went on my inner thighs and pushed all down. It hurt so bad. Meagan: I'm doing it to myself barely, and I'm like, oh. Lily: It was awful. But she was like, "This is the big hip-opener thing." So we did that. She even taught my doula how to do it. I looked at my doula and I said, "You're not doing that to me. So glad you learned you can do it to another client, not me." My doula went home again. I got back in the shower and was moving around. And at 4:00, I decided like, "Okay, I'm exhausted. I am ready for a change." I am the type of person who likes to go somewhere and do something. It's part of why I didn't ever feel like a home birth was the right option for me because I know that I get stuck in a space. I like the idea of going somewhere to have my baby. It felt like a good change. So I was ready, but I wasn't having contractions that were there. And I was like, "I also don't want to go to the hospital and be stuck there for a million years." So I decided to go upstairs and put myself into labor. I'm like, "Okay, I'm doing this." I turned off all the lights, and started to labor, and my mom came up and gave me a back massage. It was also cool to see her shift because in my first labor, she was super anxious. And then in this labor, she was really trusting of my process and was more just like, "Hey, what do you need?" So she gave me a really big back massage, and I listened to music, and I finally got my contractions to six minutes apart. I texted my midwife and I said, "If these stay this way for an hour, I want to come because I am exhausted. I'm ready for a change. I need this." And she's like, "Great, awesome. Let me know. Keep me posted." So I did have some bloody show, and I thought maybe my water broke. It had been an hour, and I was like, "Hey, we're going." My mom had just made dinner, so I'm scarfing meatloaf on my way out the door. Great last meal. Meagan: I love it. Lily: And then we head to the hospital. I got to the hospital, and I was 4.5, maybe a 5. So again, earlier that day, I had been a 4. So I had made a little bit of progress, but not a ton. But Paige was great. She's like, "Great, you're here." What I love about their practice is their direct admittance, so you don't have to go through triage and have some sort of evaluation to decide if you're supposed to be there or not. She was the one who made that call, and we made it in partnership with each other. I was like, "I feel like I need to be here." She's like, "Great, you're here." Meagan: Yeah. Lily: And so I chose no IV and to do intermittent monitoring which will come up in my story in a little bit, but that's kind of where I was. We started to fill up the tub, and I was laboring in the tub, and then I started to get nauseous and throwing up and all the things. In my head, I'm like, "I'm in transition. This is very transitiony." I'm watching as the baby nurse comes into my room and starts to set up the bassinet. I'm starting in my head to tell myself, "I'm so close. I'm in transition. This is happening." And as I talked to my doula afterward, she was like, "Yeah, we all thought you were in transition, too, dude. You were in it." I started to get frustrated and say, "I want to push." Not that I felt pushy, but I was just like, "I want, again, a change. I want to have a baby." And so I asked for another check, and I was 6.5 centimeters. I cursed so much, and I was like, "I just want to have my effing baby." I screamed that so loud. My poor, sweet doula and midwife. They dealt with my sass, and it's like my body knew, "Okay, we're defeated now." Everything shut down. My contractions spread apart to 20 minutes apart again. They had been 5 minutes. My mental space was not ready, and my body was like, "Okay, we're going to rest." Meagan: Yeah. Lily: And so I get out of the tub and dry off, and we decide that I'll do a little bit of pumping. My midwife put some clary sage all over my belly, and she does try. I asked to rupture my membranes because we thought maybe they had not ruptured when I thought they did. She was like, "They're definitely intact." She goes, "Nice protein intake girly because these are hard, and I can't rupture them." She's like, "You have a really strong bag of water." And I said, "Thanks, Needed, for all of the amazing collagen that I took." Meagan: I was going to say, collagen protein right there. Lily: I'm terrible at protein intake, so really the collagen from Needed was one of the strongest ways I got protein in during my pregnancy. So pat on my back for my protein intake and things to need. Meagan: Very, very good job. Very impressive. Well, because really, a strong bag of water, it is hard to get that protein and that good calcium in. It really is. To the point where she can't even break it, that's pretty cool. Pretty cool. Good job. Lily: Yeah. So then at this point, it's later in the evening, like 9:00 or 10:00. And so I started to just be exhausted. I started falling asleep between contractions. My doula is like, "We're going to wind down. Let's turn the music just to instrumental. I'm going to go take a nap." Our birth photographer is napping on the floor. Paige goes and takes a nap, and they tell my husband to curl up next to me. That was such a sweet moment of disc connection that I needed of, "This is my person and we're here. We're doing this together." We snuggled up on the bed and got through contractions together all night long. I did at one point ask to try the nitrous oxide because, in my head, that was the only pain relief that I could think of that was available to me in this low intervention room because the way that the hospital works is if you're not going to have a waterbirth, if you decide to get an epidural, they will transfer you out of this room because there are two of them, and at that point, you can't use the tub. So I was like, "Okay, I think nitrous might be my only option." So I tried that. It sucked. Meagan: You didn't like it. Lily: She was like, "You know, it's really not helpful for people that are coping with contractions well." And she said the same thing when I started asking about an epidural later on. She was like, "You're coping well, and you're relaxing." These types of things can be really helpful for people that are in the fetal position in between their contractions, but you're not, so it's probably not actually going to help because you're already relaxed. All it did was make me feel a little dizzy, and then I was like, "Well, this is silly." I got in the shower again there. It was not as good as my parents' shower, so I did get right out of the shower. It was very cold. And so the next morning, now it's Friday. So reminder, labor started on Tuesday. Meagan: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Now we're here. Lily: Thursday morning. And so Paige comes in, and we had a really long talk about options. At this point, I am mad, and I'm just feeling like I can't do it. I keep having contractions and saying, "I can't do this anymore. I can't do this anymore. I can't do this anymore." In my head, I'm like, "Well, at least I'm going to get a VBAC. Hopefully, I can get an epidural," and then rest and those stories. I'm trying to be really open-handed because I think that's what you have to be in birth is really surrender to the process. Paige comes up with this idea to do some therapeutic rest to which I had never heard of before. I think I was texting you during this and I was like, "What is that?" She's like, "We can give you some morphine. You can either stay here at the hospital or you can go home, and hopefully, you'll nap for 4 or 5 hours. Typically, people wake up in active labor." I was like, "Sweet, sounds awesome. Give me that nap." My doula was like, "Why don't we go for a walk, first? Let's remind ourselves that it's daytime. Let's go on a walk. We'll talk about it together, and then we can come up and do our next steps." So we went out for a walk in the parking lot of the hospital. It was cold, and I threw up a couple of times. Yay. I was like, "I think I really need this. I can't continue to do this without any progress." She's like, "Great, I'm excited for you." So we went up, and they put an IV in cause I didn't have an IV. What was great was that the hospital staff was so accommodating. I was really nervous about nurses being like, "Hey, we don't like this," or whatever. Paige was also great about choosing my nurses to be the ones that are going to be more supportive. But they put an IV in. They gave me the morphine, and then they took it out. I didn't just then have an IV. We did that, and then we decided we would break my water and try to get things progressing. She did end up being able to break my water because I could sit still. I was way more relaxed with the morphine. It was supposed to be a 4-hour nap. I woke up 20 minutes later. We had sent my doula off to go run errands thinking that we had hours. I wake up 20 minutes later with really intense contractions that are peeking through the morphine, and they're super close together. I was like, "Well, crap. Let me call my doula back and get her to come back." And so that really picked things up again. It was kind of discouraging because I was expecting to get to rest, and then to have intense contractions again was like, "Oh gosh, okay. Here we go." But we did it. We labored the whole day doing that, but my contractions would never get closer than 5 minutes apart. They would stall out at that space. At 2:30ish, I asked about morphine again because I was like, "Can we do that again? If that was an option, can we try that again?" The nurses were like, "Hey, we actually think maybe you should just do some IV Fentanyl." My older brother is an addict, so I am someone who was super cautious. I had actually said it when I got there that my preference is no opioids. But this felt like, "Okay, maybe it's an option." When Paige came in and we talked a little bit, she was like, "Why don't we do that? And would you be open to doing a low dose of Pitocin?" And I was like, "Absolutely not," because in my brain, Pitocin means epidural. Pitocin is scary and hard. My contractions are already intense. I can't imagine Pitocin. Like, absolutely not. And so Paige said, "Hey, what's cool is you're already in active labor, so Pitocin is not likely going to make your contractions more intense. It will likely bring them closer together. Meagan: It's what you might need. Lily: "You might be able to wait it out, or this might be an option. Let's do the pain medicine so that you feel mentally like you can handle it." I was like, "Okay." So they placed another IV because I didn't have one in, and they gave me Pit. We started at 2 at 3:30, and then we upped it to a 4 at 4:00. Something that I will mention while I have the IV thought in my brain is I had said I was doing intermittent monitoring, and I ended up hating that. I was just irritated by people coming into my space. It felt like it interrupted my labor pattern. They had to reach down into the water if I was in the tub. I was moving, and I felt like I couldn't move or they wouldn't get it. They were just in my space a lot more. So when we started the Pitocin, the hospital policy was continuous monitoring, but they have the wireless monitors that are waterproof. They were like, "Do you feel okay with that?" I said, "Yeah, I think so, actually. I think I'm ready for people to stop touching me," because at one point, I looked at a nurse and I was like, "I understand why this is important and why you're here to check on my baby. Please go away." I hated it, but I also felt like I wanted some sort of monitoring. Meagan: I can see that though. Lily: Yeah, it was just disruptive. It's funny because in my brain, I thought that the continuous monitoring would feel disruptive, but it was great because they just put these two little dots on me. I had a belly band that went over. They were wireless. I could still move all around. It was great. Meagan: That's nice. Lily: Yeah. So at this point, I'm hooked up to Pit on the little IV pole, but I can still go wherever I want. I decided to go labor in the bathroom. This is the part of my labor that gets a little fuzzy. I was really thankful to have had a conversation with my acupuncturist prior to labor because she had a great labor experience, but she was actually a home birth hospital transfer too. She had talked about how I had said, "I don't want to do medication because I want to be really present. There's so much of my son's birth that I don't remember because of the medication." She had told me, "Hey, there is a place sometimes in labor land that your body just naturally goes fuzzy, so don't be taken aback if that's your experience." That was really helpful to know that in this transition time, things feel a little fuzzy, but I'm at peace with that versus my son's birth where it felt invasive to not have those memories. Meagan: Yeah. Lily: So we were laboring in the bathroom, and then I remember at one point yelling for Paige because my doula is in there with me. I was like, "I'm feeling pushy and ring of fiery." She's like, "Okay." We came out of the bathroom. They unhooked me from the Pitocin. They did keep the hep lock in. And again, they were really respectful and asked like, "Hey, since we've already been doing Pit, we've already put two in. Do you mind if we keep the hemlock? And we'll wrap you up. You can do whatever you want." And I was like, "That's fine. It's already there. Let's not bruise up my arm anymore." We came out, and I was laboring on all fours. I had gotten sick of the tub, and I had actually said, "I don't want to be in the tub anymore," at some point during the day, because this thing that was so great, and it is helpful, but every time I get in, I get discouraged because my contractions pick up. But then, it seems like I have to get out. My doula is looking at me, and she's like, "Hey, are you sure you don't want to get in the tub?" This was your goal. This was your goal. Are you sure?" I'm laboring on all fours, and I'm feeling pushy, and she's like, "We can fill up the tub so fast. Do you want us to just fill it up? This was your goal. Are you sure?" I was like, "Okay, yeah. Fill up the tub." The one other thing that I think was funny is that I was wearing a really ugly bra because I had had two black bras that I really wanted to wear, and they had gotten wet over two days of being at the hospital. I looked at her, and I was like, "I'm wearing my ugly bra." She was like, "Change." So my birth photographer ran over and grabbed my black bra that I wanted to have on, and I changed really fast which was really funny, and then hopped in the tub and started to just labor there. My doula and midwife coached me to wait for the fetal ejection reflex. So they were like, "If you can just breathe through these contractions, let's wait and see if your body just starts to push." I was like, "Okay, I guess we'll be here." I was in this really deep, low squat. I have 20 years of dance in my history. I teach Barre. I'm on one tippy toe. Paige told me after, "I have never almost broken a mirror trying to get so low to see what was going on because you were in such a low squat." I did deliver my daughter on my tippy toes. It was like, if I put my heel down, it hurt more. I don't know why, but my tippy toes felt great. Meagan: Interesting. Like pointe in ballet? Lily: Standing on my tippy toes. Meagan: Yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh Lily: Yeah. I was in a lunge with one leg up on a tippy toe. Meagan: With bent toes, yep. Lily: I was laboring there, and these contractions felt different, which again, is so cool to have gotten to experience. At this point, Fentanyl wears off after 30 minutes, and so I really feel like it was perfect because I got it for the hard Pitocin part, which actually wasn't bad at all, by the way. It was exactly what Paige said. It just got them closer together. They didn't hurt anymore. Meagan: Increase, yeah. Lily: Yeah, it was awesome. So I highly recommend if you need it at the end to know that it probably won't increase intensity. It just can help. I was fully unmedicated at this point. I would feel the beginning of my contraction. I could breathe through. And then when that fetal ejection reflex hits, man, it is crazy. I had heard someone describe it as the feeling of when you have to throw up and you just can't stop. That is exactly what it feels like. Now I'm pushing. My body just did it by itself, and I didn't have to worry about, "Okay, how do I breathe? How do I do?" There was no counting. I pushed for 52 minutes on my tippy toes. It was so cool. My husband really wanted to catch her, and so he was right there. He'll joke forever that I bruised his hand in labor because I was death-gripping it. I remember feeling the ring of fire and all of the things. And then she just came out and her whole body came out with her head, and it just felt like the biggest relief in the world of, whoo. And then I grabbed her. So Jared's like, "You kind of stole my thunder." I was just so excited, so both of us had our hands on her and got to bring her up to my chest. What we realized is I had a really short chord. The theory is that so much of my labor was probably held back because she didn't have a lot of bungee room to descend. It kind of explained a couple of things. Yeah. She was on my chest in the tub and hanging out. And then we got off and got to the bed, and she was hanging out on my chest. And then as the cord stopped pulsing, she forgot to breathe. Meagan: Oh. Lily: And so they had to cut the cord really quickly, take her off my chest, and take her over to the warmer, and she was fine. They called in the neonatalist and all of the things, and she did eventually just come back to me after I had delivered the placenta, but that was the only scary moment. The theory is that she was still relying on the cord, and then it stopped pulsing, and she was like, "Oh shoot, I need to breathe now. Got it. Okay." Meagan: Yeah. Lily: It was great. I got to see my placenta, and I did have a marginal cord which we knew, which is when your cord is kind of off to the side of your placenta. Again, we knew that my whole pregnancy, and it was never like, "This is going to prevent you from having a VBAC" conversation. But yeah, we got to do the thing and catch a baby, and it was just the coolest thing ever. I can look back and say gosh, yeah. I probably would've been a transfer because of how long my labor was. I'm so thankful that I took the interventions when I needed them and that I had a provider who I trusted was in my corner. Never once did I think, "Oh, she's recommending this so that it goes faster," or "Ohh, she's" bothered or anything. And Paige actually had specialed me in that she wasn't on call that night, but she came in for me which was really special. I don't know. I never expected that I would have a hospital birth. I never expected that I would have Pitocin or pain medication or any of the things and yet feel so at peace with how it played out. It was absolutely beautiful and absolutely physiological in all of the ways that it needed to be. So that was her birth. Oh my goodness. I'm so happy for you. I'm so happy. I can just close my eyes, and I can see your picture. So many feels and such a long journey. Such a long journey for you to keep shifting gears. But going back into your team and all the relationships that you established working up to these days and this moment, you had all of those people come into your labor too, at some point whether it was mentally thinking about something that they had said or they physically came down the street and we're able to serve you and touch you and adjust you and work with you that way. There were so many things along the way that it's like, wow. You should be so proud of yourself for building that team, for getting the education, for having this big different experience, and for trusting your instincts. I do think in the VBAC world, in all birth world, but for the VBAC world, we do sometimes get into this, "Oh, Pitocin can be bad. Epidurals can be bad. Hospitals can be bad. This can be bad," You know, all of these things, and a lot of the times it's based on negative experiences that one has had. Lily: Or stories that you hear. Meagan: Or stories that we hear, yes. Because, I mean, how many stories have we heard about the cascade? Lily: Absolutely. Meagan: We've heard so many. But like you said, these things needed to come into your labor at the points that they did, and they served you well. When you said that you didn't expect to have these experiences, and then find them healing and positive, but I truly believe when we are making the decisions in our birth experience, when we have our birth team that we trust and know are there for us, for us, and in our corner, like Paige is and was, it's very different. Lily: It makes a world of difference. Meagan: It's very different. I mean, I have had clients where I've had providers actually say with their words, "I like to manage my labors. I like to manage my labors." So if we hear that, and then we hear the experience, you guys don't do those things because they led down a negative path. But those are so different, and so we need to remind ourselves as we're listening to stories about Pitocin and epidurals or hospitals, have a soft part in your heart for them because you never know. They may be something that you need or want in your labor. Lily: Totally. Meagan: And if we can have the education about those things and then make the choice that feels right for us in our labor, I mean, here you are saying these things. You're saying these words. "I had these experiences. I experienced Pitocin. I experienced Fentanyl that I didn't know I wanted. I had all these things, and it was great." Lily: It was beautiful. Yeah. And Paige was like, "I've never seen someone dilate to a seven with such an irregular contraction pattern." Meagan: Yes. Yeah. Lily: What I love is that a couple of days before I went into labor, someone had posted this quote. We posted it just recently to our page, but it was from the Matrescense podcast. And it says, "For every birth video that you watch where a woman calmly breathes her baby into the world, make sure you watch one where she begs, pleads for, swears, doubts, and works incredibly hard to meet her baby." I know I cried. Meagan: That just gave me the chills. Lily: "So that if that is your experience, you are not caught off guard by the intensity of birth." I had seen that before I went into labor. Someone posted it in The VBAC Link Community on Facebook. And that is exactly my experience. I screamed and I begged and I roared. Oh my god. There was no quiet breathing during my pushing. My throat was sore the next day so much so that I had them swab me for strep because my husband had strep and I was like, "Did I get strep?" But my throat was just raw from screaming. Not screaming. I would call it roaring because I wasn't high-pitched screaming. It was just the natural, primal thing. Meagan: Guttural roar. Lily: It doesn't make it less than. It was pretty dang cool. So, yeah, so that was all the things. And then in this postpartum experience, it's been so great. Paige is awesome. We've been chatting over the phone, and we had a two-week postpartum visit. I just have the best community. I feel a deep sense of gratitude for the community that I have this time compared to my first and sweet friends who literally right before I came on were like, "Hey, update. How are you? What's going on? How's Tilly? What do you need?" That community has made a huge difference, too. And also, I feel like I could run a marathon because I didn't have a C-section, you know? Holy cow. Meagan: Yeah, your recovery is feeling a lot better. Lily: Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. And I was super active prior to having her, so I think that helps too, you know? Meagan: Yeah. Lily: Just feeling that strength is there and resilient. So, yeah. Meagan: Oh, my gosh. I love you. I'm so happy for you. Seriously, I can't wait to even go back and re-listen to this once it airs. You're just incredible. You're such a ray of sunshine. And truly, it is an honor to have you here on our VBAC Link team and then to be part of this story. You had said before that you haven't really even shared it in this entirety, and so I feel tickled that I get to be one of the first to hear it in its entirety. Lily: Well, thank you, friend. It's an honor to be on the team to get to hold space for everyone else's stories, and I have a squeaky baby, but it is just a joy and a dream to get to be here. So thanks for holding space for all of us who have needed it for years. We love you. Meagan: Oh, I love you back, and thank you. 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 . Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link. 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