About this episode
Have YOU heard of little c antibodies? Sarah gives us information and inspiration as she shares her story with this rare condition. She fought for the redemptive home birth of her dreams while caring for herself and taking the highest precautions for her baby. Sarah built the supportive birth team she didn’t have the first time around and made birthing choices that helped her feel the most in control. Her HBAC with a nuchal hand was a whirlwind and a story we know you’ll love! Additional links The VBAC Link on Instagram How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents MamasteFit Childbirth Education Full transcript Note: All transcripts are edited to correct grammar, false starts, and filler words. Julie: Welcome to The VBAC Link podcast. This is Julie and Meagan here with you today and we are really excited about our guest today. I was just reading her bio, and then I was reading a little bit about her and her births, and then I had this “Aha!” moment. I am like, “Wait a minute. Are you the one that we were talking to before you had your baby?” And she was like, “Yes, I was.” And so, we have this really fun story, kind of a little established relationship I guess, before the birth and after the birth. It is always fun to be able to talk to people that have reached out to us before they have their baby and then hear from them after they have their baby. I am so excited to hear the full story. But before I tell you what made her story stand out to me, I’m going to read a little bit of her bio that I thought was really cute. If you can hear my three-year-old in the background, she escaped from quarantine upstairs. My husband will come down soon and rescue me from her. But Sarah‘s bio is really, really cute. She said she is a working mom of two tiny humans and two not-so-tiny cats. She has a quirky sense of humor and an affinity for superhero movies. That’s where I was like, “Okay.” We have got to talk about this because superhero movies-- I really love superhero movies now, but before I got married, I didn’t even know the difference between Batman and Superman. Now I know and I have a very strong opinion about Batman. We won’t go into that though. But I married a geek and he is all about the superheroes, and the comic books, and everything. And so, I’ve come to really love the superhero movies and all of those things. It’s a sentimental part of my life. So that made me really happy. She’s part of the American Sign Language community. Her oldest is hard of hearing, so everybody in her family is learning American Sign Language. That is really neat. When I was younger, I was obsessed with sign language. I went to a class and I had a book I was learning and teaching my brother and sister how to do all the signs and stuff like that, but I haven’t done any of that for-- oh my gosh, it has been way more than 20 years which really makes me feel old to say that. But anyway, the part of her story that-- actually, before we do that, should we do a Review of the Week, Meagan? Review of the Week Meagan: Sure. Sure. Julie: Yeah. Let’s do a Review of the Week and then we will talk about the part of her story that made me excited. Yeah, go ahead. Meagan: OK. This is from Jacqueline Lee and she was on Instagram . She said, “Just found you and will be keeping you. Hoping to VBAC with our second babe whenever they come along. I would love to share my stories when that time comes. I have been listening to your podcast and love how informative and diverse they are. Our first was born in Paraguay when we were teaching. She was breech and so I had a C-section. Hoping for a vertex baby to be able to have a VBAC, but I did labor with our first until an 8. It was a wild story full of funny cultural differences and language barriers.” I love that. I remember when she wrote us that we were like, “Oh, you’re so sweet. Can we put you on our review?” And she was like, “Yes, please do.” We are so excited that she was able to share her review and we hope that when the time comes, she will be able to rock her VBAC and have an amazing story and then hopefully, one day, be on the podcast as well. Julie: That’s awesome. I am excited. It just makes me happy when people come full circle and share they were listening to the podcast and then share their stories on the podcast. That is fun because we have been doing this VBAC Link thing for-- oh my gosh, it will be three years in May. It’s really fun because when we first started out, I was literally stalking hashtags on Instagram to find people who had a VBAC to share their stories on the podcast. Now we have way more submissions than we can even record. And to have people who started out with us before they even got pregnant and listening to the podcast, and taking our courses, and sharing their story, it all is just really exciting to me. Sarah’s story Julie: All right. Let me tell you. This is the thing that you have all been waiting for. I know you have been holding your breath for the last few minutes just waiting to see what could possibly get me so excited about her story. And it’s little c antibodies. If you don’t know what that means, you are not the only one because Sarah reached out to us on Instagram Messenger, I think it was, asking if we had heard of any VBAC stories or VBAC information about how to VBAC with little c antibodies and Maegan and I were like, “What are little c antibodies?” Meagan : Yeah. I remember because I thought, “Isn’t there a big C?” Julie : Yeah. Big C and little c. Meagan: But I’ve only heard of big. Julie: And we are like, “Is that a capital? Is that like a capitalized? What is a big C? What is a little c?” So we dug in and we found some research on it. It’s really an interesting thing because it’s not something that you hear about very often, but we are going to learn a lot about it in this episode. And before I go any more into telling how excited I am to hear the story, we should probably actually hear the story. So Sarah, why don’t you go ahead and share your stories with us? Sarah: Hello. Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. So obviously, being a VBAC mom, I had a first child that was born via Cesarean. She was supposed to be a birth center baby and I was just having all kinds of trouble with back labor and not being able to cope with everything. I don’t think I did as well preparing for her birth and it was a lot. I felt very overwhelmed and I think my husband was doing the best he could, but looking back, I keep saying, I really wish I would’ve had some doula support there. I think that’s one of my biggest regrets. I actually ended up transferring to the birth center about halfway through my pregnancy because I knew I wanted something that was a little bit less hospital-y. Hospitals make me nervous and it’s just kind of how I am. Unfortunately, I did make that call. I think it was one of those 2:00 a.m., overwhelmed, not dilating any, and then going to the hospital. It was a lot. So I labored pretty much all day. I got an epidural and then I didn’t have a very great supportive doctor. He just came in and he was like, “Oh, this is what we are going to do” and “Oh, I broke your water by the way. It already happened.” So just not a lot of consent. Things like that that I know now that I want and need as a mom, and as a mom in labor for sure. Once it came down to it, I think I pushed for about three hours and the doctor was like, “Well, baby is stuck. We are going to do a C-section now.” I didn’t get a whole lot of information about what that meant or what that would mean for me moving forward. It was just kind of happening in that moment. I even remember the anesthesiologist. God bless her. She was amazing. She was the only person that was walking me through what was going on, helping me stay calm, and she goes, “Well, the doc is going to put some pressure to make sure you are numb.” And the doc goes, “Oh, I’ve already started cutting.” So like I said, I just didn’t have a really great experience with my first being born. And then on top of that coming home, I didn’t know how to care for myself postpartum. We had a lot of family stuff going on so I didn’t have any family support, and then I ended up developing both postpartum anxiety and postpartum depression that went undiagnosed for probably about three months before I realized that I needed to start reaching out and getting help. As a result of that, I started looking around-- so that was about five years ago. I started looking around to the birth community as a whole to see what information was out there. I found out what a VBAC was and that’s how I found you guys. It was just in the process of finding out what my resources were. Moving forward to the start of the pandemic last year. I found out I was pregnant and then a few days after that, my work went to remote, so I was working from home in my first trimester with a four-year-old. It was nonsense. It was about as fun as it sounds. I always say, “I love my kid and I love my job, but I do not like it when they go together.” So I knew I wanted to find a different kind of provider. I started looking around in my area and I found a midwife that would support a home birth. One of my first questions to her was, “Do you support VBACs?” She said, “Absolutely.” And she said it just like that. “Absolutely.” We had a wonderful conversation just talking me through how many VBACs she has been a part of through the years. A lot of my first visits were on the phone and everything was weird and everybody was working remote. I told her I was concerned because I had a couple of miscarriages and she was like, “No problem. We can be proactive and let’s monitor your blood levels.” During one of those first rounds of bloodwork, we found out about the little c antibodies. I almost immediately called her and I am like, “What is this? Does this mean I can’t have my home birth? Am I going to have to go back to the hospital?” Honestly, I was kind of freaking out and she said, “Listen. Let me do some homework and we are going to see what that means.” She decided that we wanted to make sure we were checking on this very well. So I drove-- I am down in Fort Myers. I drove up to Tampa General and that is about a 3-3.5 hour drive and I talked to a specialist. So she is a geneticist. I don’t know. She does stuff with blood work. So I sat down with this lady and she is going through it. The best way that I can describe what she was trying to tell me is, “Your blood cells have different facets on them kind of like a diamond. It’s similar to the Rh. Normally when we hear about blood stuff and a pregnant mama, it is that Rh factor. So that, we have heard of. That is fine, but this is a different part of that same cell, but a different facet.” It was very confusing to be quite honest. But she explained that when they test my blood, they are looking for those antibodies because my husband has an antigen. So he has got something on one of his blood cells that my blood cells don’t like and as a result, my body creates these antibodies to try to attack it and the really crazy thing is it’s almost exclusive to VBAC moms or second-time moms, but more commonly VBAC moms because when they were doing the incision, some of baby’s blood, some of my blood may have crossed over and that would cause my body to start reacting even way back five years ago when my first daughter was born. It was crazy. Just the thought that that’s been in my body this whole time and I didn’t know about it. So that was kind of cool but kind of scary. She said that the levels that they found were very low. And it’s just-- you know, “you have got a very low level of this kind of antibody that is freaking out on your baby, so we are going to keep an eye on it and as your pregnancy progresses, if it starts to rise, if that level starts to get more concentrated in your blood, then we are going to have to have a deeper discussion about getting baby out sooner and maybe not going to full-term. Are we going to have to have baby before 40 weeks? I don’t know. We will keep an eye on it.” That sort of thing. So every time I went to a visit with my midwife, we had to do a blood draw. It was annoying, but ultimately, throughout my entire pregnancy, that level never changed for me. So thankfully it wasn’t anything that I had to really do anything about, but it was always that little worry in the back of my mind. It was just frustrating because I had such an uneventful pregnancy before and I just wanted that again especially in the middle of a pandemic. Everything is freaking out in the world, why can’t I just have an easy pregnancy? Then, we go in for the midway through ultrasound. I went back up to Tampa General. My wife here recommended it because she always says, “If there’s anything to find, they’re really good. They are going to be the ones to catch it.” Tampa General is one of the best hospitals in the state and their maternal-fetal medicine is top-notch, so I felt good about going up there. I’ve got family up there anyway, so we just made a visit out of it. While we were there for the ultrasound, obviously, I have to go in by myself because COVID. And so, my poor husband is out in the parking lot with the one bar of Wi-Fi signal trying to do a Zoom meeting with me to be able to see or hear anything. He’s got a few minutes to see or talk to me and then they had a rule about how we can’t record and we can’t have the phone or a video through the whole visit. It was kind of crazy. So for the most part, I am in there by myself. I am trying to communicate with my husband on a weird connection and it was frustrating. But anyway, so during the first 20-week ultrasound, they go, “Well, we are looking and we are not seeing that other kidney on baby,” and I go, “Okay.” The doctor was very reassuring and he said, “Well, it could be in a weird spot. It could be that we are just not seeing it because baby is in a weird position, so we are going to have you come back in a month.” I was, again, just frustrated because we are in this crazy thing and just-- really? Why me? Why my baby? Why all the stuff? So we made plans to come back in a month. But I definitely know at that point I needed two things. Number one, I needed to check in with my mental health counselor. She specializes in mom stuff, birth-related things, mom-related things. She is awesome. And so, I was able to talk to her and talk through some of the things that were going on. And then number two, I knew that I needed a doula. Why on earth I waited so long, I have no idea, but I did find my doula around the 20-week mark. She was able to start checking in with me every week because I knew that if I was going into a birth that potentially had any kind of complications, I needed all the support that I could get. I followed up with them as much as I could as much as I needed to and tried to identify in myself if I felt like I was stressing out too much or if I was letting things overtake my mind too much just to know to check in with my doula, check in with my counselor, and I think that made a big difference trying to manage things throughout pregnancy. We even got a plan in place so if we did have to transfer to a hospital, having a backpack that I could keep in my closet. We talked about, “If it is in your closet, you don’t even have to look at it, but that piece in the back of your mind that knows it is there will feel good about that and you won’t be so stressed.” I am very glad that I did that. It really helped and I was able to have that calm reassurance. So as I am going through, I get to the end of pregnancy. We are still monitoring this little c blood thing, and we still can’t find a kidney on baby, and on top of that, now I am measuring ahead. At 36 weeks, I was measuring around 42 or 43 weeks, so I went on a low-carb, low-sugar diet. It may have been before 36 weeks. It felt like a lifetime of no sugar and no carbs. When you’re pregnant, all you want is pizza and you can’t have it and props to all the mamas that do have gestational diabetes because that is so hard and thankfully, I didn’t have gestational diabetes. I just had to eat like I did. Baby kept growing and growing and growing, and we were worried that if baby was going to be too big if there was going to be a sugar thing on top of everything else, that could be a problem. We wanted to make sure that the fluid levels in my uterus were good because that could mean that the kidney is working or not working depending upon what’s going on there. So my midwife and I really started having some conversations about, “Do we want to go past that due date?” Legally, it’s maybe measuring a certain size, like in the state of Florida if the baby is too big, she is not able to do a home birth for me. So I was freaking out, calling my therapist, doing all of the things. I spent the week of Thanksgiving in acupuncture, pumping, doing my Spinning Babies®, walking the curb, doing the whole list of things. I must have spent at least a good hour of my pregnancy upside down on my couch, I think. Meagan: Oh my gosh. How much did the baby have to measure up before they disqualified you? Do you remember? Sarah : I don’t remember. I want to say it was 10 pounds. Meagan: Wow. Sarah: But I think that’s if they measured on an ultrasound and she tries to do as few ultrasounds as she can because she very firmly believes your body is not going to make a baby that is too big for you, you know? Meagan: Yeah, Mhmm. Sarah : She supported me as much as she could, but because we had to monitor all of these other things, it was like, “Oh great. Now, we are finding out too much.” Meagan: I know, yeah. Sarah: Yeah. So Thanksgiving, we are doing all the things. That put me at 39 weeks. We had talked about doing the famous midwives brew. I took that on, I think it was Monday night of that first week after Thanksgiving and I started having contractions, getting all excited, and then everything completely fizzled out. I was like, “No!” But at least my body was doing something which felt good because before, with my older daughter, we went two weeks beyond. Nothing was happening. I thought I was going to be pregnant forever. You know, all that stuff. So I was like, “All right. Well, at least my body is gearing up for something.” Later that week, I started noticing I was leaking a little bit and I wasn’t, you know, is it pee? Is it amniotic fluid? The world may never know, but thankfully, my midwife has a way to find out with that little stick thing. And so, she was like, “Check the stick. See if it is amniotic fluid. We talked about doing a lift and tuck. Apparently, in addition to everything else, I have a weird-shaped uterus that has a forward tilt which is probably why my first daughter was in such a terrible position, and I had back labor because she wasn’t able to move into a good position. But I know that now. So one more chiropractor visit, one more visit to the acupuncturist, and the midwife said, “Let’s see what is going on, but if you have more leaking, let me know.” That was Thursday. Yeah. So Thursday, I had my visit with my midwife. We talked about all of that and then that night, I had a little bit more leaking and she said, “Okay. Is it a little? Is it a lot?” I was like, “It is just a little.” And she goes, “Okay. We are going to have you try the brew one more time. Definitely call me because now that we have confirmed that your waters have started rupturing, we are on a time clock in terms of having the best chance for a VBAC. We don’t want to have a long leak and drain out all the fluid, and then get you into a bad spot where baby can’t maneuver.” So we did our last-minute chores, made sure my daughter had a bag packed. I went to bed as soon as I could. That night, around 11:30 or so, I woke up with contractions. I’m excited, trying to stay calm, use the bathroom, got my heating pad out. I was trying really hard to hold off on all of my pain management stuff just because before, I didn’t have anything and now I didn’t want to waste it all at the very beginning because I had a 30-hour labor the first time around and that’s what I was gearing up for. My brain was telling me, “You are going to have a 30-hour labor. It’s going to be long. Hold off as long as you can.” So I went back to sleep and I woke up a few hours later, around 2:00, and I felt a pop and a gush. My water definitely had broken. That was weird because I didn’t have that the first time. Like I said, the doctor broke my water the first time around. So I was like, “All right. I’ve got to clean this up.” I’m trying to let my husband sleep and be quiet, but I am stumbling around because I’m having contractions and it is dark. I’m tripping on things. And so, I get to the bathroom and I’m trying to get settled, and then I’m like, “Oh yeah, the lift and tuck.” So I am having to lift on my belly and tuck my pelvis through every contraction. Normally, I think they recommend that you have someone else do that. It is very uncomfortable. It hurts, but I knew after those conversations with my midwife after talking to my chiropractor, they were like, “This is going to be what you need to do to help.” So I had that in mind and I felt the minute she shifted, the second that she shifted into position. It was crazy. I am like, “Okay. Now we are going.” It was around that time that things really picked up and I yelled out to my husband, I am like, “Get up.” And so, he wakes up and he was fumbling around in the dark. I think he knocked something over. But he calls the doula and she was like, “All right. I am on my way.” And then, he called the midwife. Because my contractions were not, I think-- what is the formula? It is 4-1-1. So four minutes apart, one minute long, one minute-- I don’t remember. Whatever her thing was. It wasn’t quite to that point. She said, “Keep me posted, but we are going to observe her for a little longer and keep me posted. I’ve got my stuff ready. I can be on my way.” She’s on standby. So he is coming over and he’s like, “All right. You have to get out of the bathroom,” because our bathroom is this narrow tunnel. There is a wall on one side and I think I’m stuck on the other side. It’s just long, so no one could have gone behind me really well or anything. He was like, “You have got to get out of here,” and I was like, “I don’t want to.” So he is trying to push me out of the bathroom a little bit and I was able to crawl out in between contractions. I made it to the foot of our bed and I just camped out there. I was like, “This is as far as I can make it.” He was like, “You’re fine.” So then, my doula arrived. At this point, I have no clue what the actual timeline is, but I know she got there pretty quickly, my doula did. She starts helping put up the birth pool and get the hose set up. She’s checking on me and he’s checking on me. I remember she came in and she’s doing hip compressions and I’m trying to move around a little bit. I think mostly I was on all fours and I was just swaying my hips. I tried getting up where my forearms were resting on the bed and I am like, “Nope. I can’t do that.” I just was doing my best to keep on keeping on and using that low breath, or the low “ahhhh”-- the voice thing that they tell you to do. That was super helpful because just doing that, I knew-- and after taking, because I took three classes all in all. I did The VBAC Link course , I did another one with Mamastefi t. She was on here at some point, I think, last year and she was talking about the physiology of birth. Her class is really good. Meagan: Mhmm. We love Gina. We love her. Julie: Yes. We love her. Sarah: Gina, her stuff is really good. Anybody who wants to know the physiology of what your body is doing, her course really nails that. And then, I did another course in-person with my doula service. Theirs was Birthing From Within based. She talked about the vocalizations, and movements, and things like that, but one of the things that really stuck with me was contractions are going to be a minute. It’s not going to be five minutes. It’s not going to be ten minutes. You can get through a minute. You can do that. We practiced holding the ice in your hand for a minute. Being able to practice that and having it in my head was so realistic. I think it really helped me mentally as I’m in the moment trying to go through. I remember I was trying so hard to talk to my doula because I don’t think I wanted her-- she was rubbing my back or something and I don’t even think I could tell her, “I don’t like that.” I was so in the zone. At one point, I did manage to tell her, “I feel like pushing.” I was so scared because, with my daughter, my oldest, I felt like pushing, but I was not anywhere near ready to push which apparently, again, was a sign of being in the wrong position. I was scared that that was happening again. She said, “Okay. Well, where is the midwife? Hubby was like, “She told me to follow up and that was an hour ago.” So we call the midwife, she’s on the phone, and then in the middle of that phone call, I go, “I think there is something in between my legs.” Tara, my doula, Tara comes over and she goes, “Yep. There is baby’s head.” Julie: Oh my gosh! Meagan: Oh my heck! Sarah: Yeah. Julie: What?! Sarah: And so, I am like, “Okay.” She puts the midwife on speakerphone. My midwife is literally in her van coming my way and she goes, “Okay, so what is Sarah doing? What position is she in? What do you see?” And so, my doula takes over as the unofficial person in charge. I remember my husband telling me later, he was like, “I wanted to catch the baby, but Tara said ‘No.’” Meagan: Oh really? Sarah: Because she has been to several births. She ended up-- I think two weeks before that, one of the other moms that she supported, the same thing happened where the baby was born before the same midwife got there, so she caught that baby too. Meagan: Oh my gosh. Julie: Oh my gosh. Sarah: She is amazing. I love her. She’s just an amazing person and she took over so well. But she comes over and my husband at least thought to turn on his camera on his phone so we have this very dark video, but she coached me through it. I hear my midwife on the phone going, “All right. She can push.” And so then, Tara’s like, “Well, push, push, push, push and my baby shot out like a little torpedo. She was so fast. Her hand was up by her face, so I had an unassisted VBAC, HBAC because I was at home, with a nuchal hand. I just roared her out like a fierce lion mama. It was great. I remember the first thing I said was, “I eff-ing did it.” Julie : That is awesome. Sarah: The feeling of such relief after so much worry, and so much planning, and so much, just all of it coming to fruition in this weird moment at 5:30 in the morning and my poor midwife wasn’t even there. There she was. I turned around and I started to look at her and I go, “Wait. What is it? It’s a girl!” And so, I got to be the one this time to say that she was a girl and that was so important to me, but I didn’t know it was until that moment. You know? Julie: Yeah. Aww. Meagan: I love it. Sarah: Yeah. After that, they tried to get me up on the bed and we are trying to get my placenta out. It kind of got stuck. So my midwife is trying to tell my doula, “All right. Give her some traction. Let’s try nipple stimulation. What’s going on here?” I was losing a lot of blood. It was probably 45 minutes later, so I had lost a significant amount of blood. I have a couple of pictures of me and baby and I am looking pasty in those pictures. When my midwife got there, she started going to work really quickly and she had her team. It was like a whirlwind of people doing stuff. It was awesome. I know at one point they were trying to figure out where they could hang an IV bag and I’m like, “There is a hanger right there and there’s a flashlight behind the TV.” Like, I am directing things that are happening in my house. How I was so with it, I have no idea. They quickly decided that I needed some more support than they could give just because of how much time had passed, so they did end up calling an ambulance which, prior to all of the prep work that I had done with my therapist, I will tell you that that very well would have given me some major anxiety attack before. But I was able to roll with it. EMS got me up, got me downstairs, got me outside. They asked me questions. I somehow remembered my husband‘s telephone number at some point during all of that which I don’t think I know that right now. So the fact that I knew that after I had lost half my blood volume was kind of a miracle. The hospital did have to go in and manually remove my placenta which was awful. I think that was worse than giving birth. I remember in all of that, I looked over at a nurse and I said, “I need you to tell me what’s going on because that’s going to keep me calm.” The fact that I was with it enough to be able to ask for that was pretty cool, but the fact that I knew that I needed that, again, because of all the prep work that I had done with my therapist mentally and emotionally. Knowing that I had somebody that could walk me through what was going on just helped so incredibly much. They got me patched up. They got some blood in me and I was able to tell them, “Hey, I have this little c thing. You might want to know about that when you are matching my blood type.” The doctor was able to verify all of that with my medical records and make sure that I got the most specified blood for my needs to help me get back up to speed. So that was really cool because I knew that having that information and being able to provide that to the doctor on a whim, I know that made a difference in me being able to recover quickly because it was just going to help. You know? Whether it made a huge difference physically to me, I don’t know, but I think mentally it was like, “I am empowered and I have information about my body and about myself.” That was cool. So, second-degree tear. Three units of blood. I stayed at the hospital for a few days. But she came like a little whirlwind and she is the coolest kid let me tell ya. Homebirth midwives Julie: I love that so much. There are so many things I want to highlight in your story besides the cool little c antibody educational piece. But I want to speak a little bit about home birth because people are afraid of home birth. It’s definitely not for everybody, but there’s a misunderstanding that midwives don’t have as much medical knowledge and there’s a higher chance that your baby will die, or you will die, or hemorrhage like in your case, right? You were hemorrhaging and I just want you to know that as a doula, and it sounds like your midwife and doula did the same thing, but as a doula, I have seen home birth transfers. These midwives that have attended hundreds and hundreds, and sometimes thousands of home births, are very in tune, and very on point, and very, very particular about all of the details around birth. It was really funny because when you were telling your story with the nuchal hand and then after birth, you were losing a lot of blood and they called the ambulance and everything, I attended a birth just like that, except the midwife got there before the baby was born, a couple of years ago. It wasn’t even two or three minutes after the baby was born, the midwife was like, “Let’s get EMS on the phone.” She was putting pressure inside and outside of the mom’s uterus to stop the bleeding and then the ambulance got there. I was arranging for her son to go another way and then her husband was arranging things. It was just so seamless, and the midwife was so calm, and we transferred care. It was the same thing. The doctor had to go inside and manually remove the placenta, and then she had to have two D&Cs, actually two more in the coming weeks to get the rest of her placenta out. I guess the best way to describe it from my point of view is beautiful chaos. It was an emergency, but man, this midwife was just so skilled and trained. They don’t take chances. They are highly educated. They have, depending on if they are a CPM, a Certified Professional Midwife, or a licensed midwife, and you can be both in some states, they carry the same drugs like Methergine and Pitocin to stop bleeding. They carry antibiotics to administer if you are GBS positive. They have IV fluids that they can do. They are so trained and skilled that if an emergency happens, they are going to be able to transfer your care to the hospital. They’re going to know the things that they need to do to help you before you get to the hospital. Guess what else? There’s this really cool system, I forget what the acronym is, but as a student midwife, I am familiar with all these things. But there’s this information database where midwives can share their information with the hospital they are transferring to while they are en route to the hospital. They’re on the phone with the hospital so that when you get there, the hospital is ready to receive you and they don’t have to ask any questions. They just pick up where the homebirth midwife left off. I think that’s just something that people don’t really realize happens. They think, “Oh my gosh. If there is an emergency, we are going to die when we’re at home.” Granted, in extremely rare cases, things like that do happen just like they happen in the hospital, but at no higher rate as far as maternal and infant death goes. So I think that’s really important to note. I wanted to spotlight that because, well, nobody wants a home birth transfer whether before or after the baby is born. When there are emergencies these homebirth midwives are amazing. They are amazing. Sarah: Yes. That was something that I had talked to her in-depth about before because I had such anxiety with the hospital. I remember at one point, I think it was when she came for my home check-up visit at however far along in the pregnancy and I said, “Hey. I am really nervous about if we have to transfer to the hospital, but I know that if I need to, I trust you on that. I am not going to ask to go to the hospital,” because I had asked when I was at the birth center with my oldest daughter. I transferred because I wanted to because I was having trouble and I wanted an epidural. So I wanted to make it clear to her to say, “If I’m going to transfer it is because I know that you need me to transfer.” I am putting that trust in her and she said all the same things that you just said. She was like, “Well, we have this and we have that, but if we need to transfer, I have that on speed dial,” kind of thing. I am sure no matter what state you’re in, there are all kinds of rules and regulations and whatnot, but just being able to trust your provider whether it is a home birth midwife or a doctor in a hospital. If you can trust the person that you are literally placing your life in their hands to have them make sure that you are okay, I think that’s key too. Julie: Yeah. I agree. I think most importantly is birthing with a provider In a location where you feel comfortable with and having the trust in them and having conversations like that with your midwife or your doctor whether you are in or out of the hospital. I think that those are all important conversations. Meagan, you have just been letting me ramble on over here. Do you want to jump in? Meagan: No. I am in agreeance with everything. Something for me is like, I really wanted a home birth, but my husband didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of home birth. I think that can be a hard thing too. The mom feels comfortable birthing at one place, but the partner doesn’t feel comfortable with them birthing at the other place. I think, sometimes, that can make it a hard situation, right? And so, I just loved so much that you didn’t-- one, that you didn’t have to feel that way, but even with my situation, in the end, we really just came down to it. I gave him all the education and facts on it and he was like, “Oh okay. Yeah. I think that would be fine.” And then after we had a VBAC, I had a similar situation. We didn’t find my blood. Sarah: Hmm. Meagan: Yeah. Neither externally nor internally, weirdly enough. But I lost half of my body’s blood after my birth. I passed out a couple of times. It was really interesting. Sarah: It’s a weird feeling. Meagan: It is a really strange feeling. I remember waking up, I am like, “Why am I on the floor again?” And everyone is like, “Well, it’s because you passed out again.” But even after all of that is said and done, my husband was like, “You know, if we are having another one,” which we are not, “I wouldn’t do it any other way and we would totally do it at home.” And so, it is just so interesting to see how that experience changed his perspective on where we birth, you know? So, I don’t know. I just love that you had an educated doula and that you had the midwife on the phone. I loved all of it. And you know what? I actually don’t think I knew that Cesarean moms were at higher risk for the c. Sarah: I think it’s just because there’s a higher chance of the blood passing through into-- cross-contamination they said. Meagan: Yeah, which totally makes sense. Sarah: Yeah. It can totally happen with a vaginal delivery as well if there is a tear or something like that, but it’s a lot more common for a— Meagan: -- a Cesarean. Sarah: Not that it is common, to begin with, let’s be real. I have a weird blood thing to go with my weird unicorn kid that only has one kidney, and my other weird unicorn kid that can’t hear well, and my husband who has weird blood. So, yeah. We’re a family of unicorns. Julie: Unique. You’re not weird. You’re unique. I like it. Sarah: Unicorns. I have two girls. There are unicorns everywhere. Julie : Oh yes. Yes, yes, yes. Sarah : Everywhere. Meagan: I love it. Julie: That is amazing. Well, wow. We are so grateful that you shared your story with us today. It was so fun to come full circle from our admin texting us. She was like, “Have you heard of little c?” I was like, “A little c? Is that like Big C?” But like, being kind of sarcastic because sometimes we hear some crazy things and she was like, “No, really. Little C antibodies?” And Meagan was like, “I’ve heard of Big C.” I was major impressed with Meagan because I hadn’t even heard of that. And so, it was just so fun to have that conversation in our memory and then have you come on the podcast and share. Yeah. It was just really neat to have you. Thank you so much. Meagan: Yes. Sarah: Definitely. Hopefully, if there’s another mom out there that has something like that, she’ll feel less alone. Julie: Yes. We are putting it in our title so that if anyone searches for it, they will find it. Sarah: There we go. Perfect. Closing Would you like to be a guest on the podcast? Head over to thevbaclink.com/share and submit your story. For all things VBAC, including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Julie and Meagan’s bios, head over to thevbaclink.com . Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands