I Did It!! Hospital VBAC Success!

I don't know if anyone is still reading this or not because I haven't been updating regularly, but I had my baby, and I did it vaginally!

My daughter was born on April 14th in a hospital. Some interventions were necessary and I opted for an epidural (God bless those of you who go natural; I could NOT handle it). :)

Here is her story:

C’s Birth Story

We spent the weekend before her due date walking around the mall. At my last doctor’s appointment I was not dilated at all. She was predicted to be a big baby and she was posterior or “sunny side up”. Neither factor would have ruled out a VBAC, but they could make it more difficult. So we walked, hoping to encourage her to make her grand entrance. I had visited the website www.spinningbabies.com and for weeks had been trying the exercises said to help babies change to a more favorable position, but nothing was working.

At the mall on Sunday I started to feel a lot of pain and pressure in my pelvis, and I thought it felt as though the baby was trying to change positions. We got home around 7 pm. I decided to go to the grocery store so my mom would have a stocked refrigerator while she stayed with our son L. just in case labor was near.

We all went to bed at about 10:30, but as usual, I couldn’t sleep. I went downstairs and began to feel contractions, but I didn’t get too excited because I had been having them for days. After about an hour though, I realized that these were different. They were getting stronger, more painful, and closer together.

I woke my husband W. up and we sat together and timed them for about an hour. I was torn because I wanted to call the doctor, but I was afraid to bother him with a false alarm. Finally I paged him and when he called back I told him what was going on. He said it was probably early labor, but that we should head to the hospital to get checked out.

We called my parents and my mom said she would be right over. By now it was around 1:00 am. We began getting all our stuff together and by the time my mom arrived my contractions were quite strong.

We got to the hospital at about 2:00 am and they put me in a triage room. I was hooked up to the monitors so they could track my contractions, and the nurse checked me to see if I was dilated. I wasn’t. I could not believe that the contractions, which were coming 4 minutes apart, had done nothing to change my cervix.

The nurse called the doctor and he told her to check me again in an hour to see if there was any change. If not, they were going to send me home with some sleeping pills. I was in so much pain I could not imagine going back home. I didn’t think I could walk to the car. I was also extremely discouraged to realize that I evidently had no tolerance for pain whatsoever. If I could barely tolerate these early labor contractions, how on earth would I make it through hours and hours of labor?

The nurse came back and checked me again. I was dilated to 1! Whoopee! W. and I were excited—but the doctor still felt it was too early for me to be admitted. And I knew it was too early, which is what made it even more frustrating. I wanted to cry. The nurse called him again and said something to change his mind—probably something like “this lady is such a wuss, if we send her home she will probably collapse in the parking lot”. So I was admitted!

They put in an IV and then gave me some Nubain at about 6:00 am which helped me relax until about 8 am. They gave me a second dose that did nothing to help me with the pain. I clung to the bedrail and couldn’t answer any questions or talk to anyone. I don’t remember discussing an epidural with anyone, but the next thing I knew a soft-spoken, very gentle and empathetic anesthesiologist was standing at the foot of my bed. It was at 9 am and I was still only dilated to about 3. He put in the epidural and it seemed to take forever, but when it kicked in I couldn’t feel a thing and I was completely relaxed.

For the next half hour or so, I dozed off—until a team of nurses came swarming in to slap an oxygen mask over my face and push me on my left side. The baby’s heart rate had decelerated, which is exactly what had happened after I got an epidural with L. This time, though, it wasn’t the epidural that had caused the decels. For some reason I was contracting extremely hard and fast, with no break in between contractions, and it was too stressful on the baby. I contracted with no break for 8 minutes straight! They gave me a shot of Terbutaline to stop my contractions and her heart rate quickly stabilized. But now they had to give me Pitocin to start the contractions again, since they had stopped the ones that my body was naturally producing.

A couple of hours later the doctor came in and broke my water. There was meconium in it, so they called the pediatric team to alert them that they should be there for the delivery.

I continued to doze on and off for a couple of hours until the team came rushing in again. The baby was experiencing more decels. The doctor came in and assured me that all was well and they were able to stabilize her heart rate quickly, but that if it happened again we would need to think about a c-section. Luckily, I was continuing to dilate, so I had that in my favor.

At about 2:15 pm they checked me again, and I was complete! I had gone from 5 to 10 cm in about two hours. They began to get the room ready for delivery and W. got out the video camera until I told him it was probably going to take a long time.

I began pushing--3 times per contraction, for ten seconds on each push. Between contractions, the doctor used baby shampoo (which he referred to as “WD-40 for babies”) to lubricate and help her rotate her head. She was still posterior and just did not want to turn.

After about two hours of pushing the doctor decided to use the vacuum to help me push her out. He said that I could probably do it on my own but that it might take another 2 hours and I did not have it in me. After one test push with the vacuum the doctor told us that she would be born with the next push. W got so excited he went for the camera again and in the process he dropped my right leg (which was a dead weight from the epi) and I kicked the doctor in the face.

When the next contraction came I pushed with all I had left, and our beautiful daughter came into the world face up at 4:41 pm on April 14th. She was 8 lbs, 4 oz and 20 inches long. The doctor quickly cut the cord and handed her over to the pediatric team, who quickly got her screaming! She scored 8/9 on her Apgars, and in only a few moments I was holding my daughter.

She had a major cone head and a very big contusion from the birthing process. That and the fact that she and I have incompatible blood types (called the Coombs factor) contributed to her jaundice and she spent a few days under the bili lights. 3 days later we got to come home, and I am amazed at how much easier my recovery has been so far compared to my c-section recovery.

She latched on right away and is a fantastic nurser, just like her brother. We are all in love!

I know my story is not the best VBAC story for many of you who believe the ideal birth experience is one that is intervention and drug free. But it was ideal for me, and I am thrilled to have experienced a vaginal delivery. Maybe my story will inspire those who want to VBAC but are afraid to leave a hospital setting.

Good luck to all the hopeful VBAC candidates out there!