My VBAC Journey: C-section

Over the next few weeks I would like to share my journey to a vaginal birth after a cesarean section (VBAC). This first post was written after the birth of my first son Seth in September 2010, I’ve edited some of it to make it easier to read, but otherwise it is in its original state. 🙂

As you know Ben is my husband. Levi and Brooke are my brother and sister-in-law, and Rachel and Anna are my sisters.

It all started very nicely…..:-) Ben and I were going on one last dinner/movie date before we had a baby. We went to Burlington picked out a car seat and then went to dinner. Movie was going to be The American. After stopping by the theater, checking the time and buying tickets we had one hour left before our showing. we decided to go walk around Target and some of the other stores in that same strip mall. While walking we talked about how nice it would be if baby would come sometime next week, so that Ben would be able to get some time off work. We also joked about how Brooke had requested that he would be born the next day so that she and Levi could visit while they were up for their wedding reception. We figured if anything was going to happen this weekend it would be Sunday after they left. We left Target walked through the rest of the mall, and then headed back to Target because Ben mentioned something about needing to find a pair of jeans. (Thank you so much for doing this Ben!!!!!!!)

Ben tried on a couple of pairs of jeans and we stopped to get a drink at the drinking fountain before heading back to the theater.(It was around 8) Bending over to get a drink I suddenly felt very wet, I know I have better bladder control than that, so I headed to the bathroom to see what exactly was going on. As I headed there, I leaked some more fluid, I knew what was going on now but wanted to get some what dry. Came back out grabbed Ben and told him we needed to go find some stuff….. I’m so glad we decided to walk around Target again!!!!!! 🙂 Ben had no idea what was going on so I explained to him as we were grabbing stuff and headed back to the bathroom.

We ended up going to the movie but only sat through about 10 minutes of it. I never really thought about how much fluid there would be….. and no one said anything about how fast it was going to come…. I really wanted to leave the theater with somewhat dry pants and figured that the next person to sit in my seat would like it dry. 🙂 We are going to finish the American sometime though, because those first minutes were pretty interesting. (We did finish the movie, complete waste of time! The first few minutes were the only good part about it.)

On the way home I called mom (my mom is a Certified Childbirth Educator at our local hospital) and she suggested that I call the hospital when we got back just to let them know what was going on and see what they thought. At this point I wasn’t feeling any contractions and mom thought they might be worried that the cord would slip between baby’s head and the canal and cut off his oxygen supply. (This is a cord prolapse and can be very dangerous for baby.)  Got home at 9:30, called the hospital, they suggested that we come in, so we grabbed everything, Ben took a quick shower and off we went. I text Levi, Brooke and Rachel on the way over to let them know what was happening, I knew Brooke would think it was great! 🙂

Heading to the hospital I told Ben that even though for the last couple of weeks I had been hoping baby was coming soon, now that it was all actually happening I wasn’t so sure I wanted him to come yet………. 🙂

Once we registered we headed for triage  around 10:45 and got all settled in with our nurse we got the contraction monitor and Baby monitor in place. I was dilated 2 centimeters which made me excited because I still wasn’t really feeling the contractions that I was having. Our nurse Heather came in to check on baby’s position and get some papers signed. She asked if I knew which position baby was in and I told her that as far as I knew he was head down. (I was told that he was head down at 29 weeks, my doctor wanted to know before Ben and I flew to SC for Levi and Brooke’s wedding.) She felt around and said she wasn’t sure if he was actually engaged but she was going to go get the doctor who was on call just so he could check and make sure. She also told us she didn’t want us to be worried but she thought that he might not be head down, but she wasn’t sure on that either. About 20 minutes later the doctor came in with an ultrasound machine and SURPRISE!!! Baby was not head down like we though but breech. We talked with the doctor about the c-section and how everything would have to be done.We asked about a version (a version is a procedure where the doctor will use external pressure to flip the baby from breech or transverse position to the best position for birth) but because my water had already broken and baby didn’t have much fluid left around him the risks were greater that they would get the cord tangled. Ben and I were both disappointed but we had to do what was best for baby. Our nurse was super nice, she had actually had the same thing happen to her a couple of months ago so she knew how we were feeling.

Got all our papers signed, and headed off to OR around 12:30. The OR was freezing!!!!!!!! Ben got in there just as they were getting ready to start, he looks pretty good in scrubs. 🙂 My spinal took really well and made the bottom half of me nice and warm, however the top of me was really cold so I get these really nice heated blankets that felt wonderful!!! Whoever invented the blanket warmer is a wonderful person!!!!! The operation took about 1 hour, at 1:25AM on the very day that Brooke had requested, baby was born!!!After they got baby out they held him up over the curtain so that I could see him and then he went with another doctor to get all checked out. As soon as he was out baby was crying, it was a really cute squeaky little cry. Ben went over and watched as they weighed and measured him. He was 5 lbs 13 oz and 15 1/2 inches long(we’re pretty sure that he wasn’t stretched out all the way, because at his first appointment at one week he measured in a 18 inches, I know for a fact he didn’t grow tat much during the first week. 🙂 ), I knew he was going to be little, but I didn’t know he was going to be that little!! Also during this time the doctor made a discovery about me uterus… I have a uterine septum, so it is divided in 2 parts, not completely, but there is a little piece of uterus or something that separates mine into 80/20. He said that because of this I’ll probably never go full term, there is a greater chance of miscarriage and my babies will always be little because they don’t have the whole uterus to grow in. This also explained why he was breech, because he got to big before he could flip around. So for any future babies this means a lot more monitoring and ultrasounds to make sure that they flip around before they get to big.

After baby was all cleaned Ben got to bring him over and I finally got to touch my little boy!!! Ben and I had two names picked out to choose from, but since everything was going so differently than we had planned we didn’t decide right away. Also at this point all the meds that they had been pumping into me and the change in hormone levels made me very, very shaky.Once they had everything sewn up we were off to our room. I still couldn’t feel the bottom half of myself which wasn’t bad, because I knew it was going to be painful, but I didn’t know how hard it would make it to try to nurse. We had a little bit of a hard time at first with latching on but he is now a pro at it. 🙂 Baby was very alert for about 2 hours afterward, that was very nice as we all were getting to know each other.

Mom and Anna had come over while I was on my way to the OR so they got to meet baby almost as soon as we had. Once all the excitement had calmed down and they left we tried to get some sleep as it was almost 5:00…..that didn’t work to well for me though. :-)We finally decided on baby’s name about 8:00 that morning and Seth Allen it is. 🙂

Seth is doing really well, he loves to eat (after he was weighed this morning he had only lost 3 ounces) and snuggle with daddy. Ben has been amazing!! He changed pretty much every diaper and gets everything for me, makes me feel so loved….. and a little spoiled. 🙂 I’m still pretty sore, but have been able to get up and move around a little.

{God’s plan was at work even when I didn’t think things were going right as I needed the c-section…to read the rest of the story of His faithfulness click here.}

Did you have an unexpected cesarean? Was it hard for you to deal with that?

Things didn’t go as expected for me but they sent me on an incredible journey to a VBAC {now 2!} and pointed me towards a job that I love as a birth doula.

Here are some other posts that you may like:

Part 1 of my first med free VBAC

Part 2 of my first med free VBAC

25+ Resources for VBAC success

Baby Andrew’s Birth Story ~ My Second VBAC {this story is extremely from my first VBAC, it includes pitocin and delivery at 35 weeks}

Preparing for a 2VBAC