After the birth of my son in June of 1989 I was scared to have another baby. After 36 hours of hard labor, I ended up with a csection under general anesthesia. Derrek and I did not get to "meet" each other until he was 8 hours old and I came away from the experience happy that I was a mother, but depressed that at 21 yrs old I couldn't even have a baby right.

In January of 1996 I found out I was pregnant. I went to the doctor and told him that I wanted a repeat csection. Because of my diabetes and chronic pancreatitis...he agreed to it right away.

Well, throughout my pregnancy I did some reading and changed my mind. The doctor agreed that we could try a VBAC if the baby was not too big. Well, at 35 weeks he decided that baby must be around 9 lbs already. He said ABSOLUTELY NOT to the VBAC. I was crushed. At this same appointment he started hounding me about my weight and told me I would also not be allowed to breastfeed because he was putting me on REDUX before I left the hospital. At this point I did something I NEVER thought I would do to a doctor...I told him to get the HELL away from me. I then talked to the clinic manager and told her to find another doctor for me because I will NOT let that doc near me again. She did...here are the results.

The new doctor agreed to let me at least try a VBAC regardless of the birth weight of my baby. She also said that breastfeeding was first and foremost, losing weight could come later. I liked her. She decided to have me induced at 37 weeks. That way baby would be considered "term" and the birth weight would likely not be as high. (By the way, I had EXCELLENT blood glucose control during my pregnancy so the baby really should not have been expected to be any larger than my last 8 lb baby).

That day she had me get my first "prostaglandin gell". I had contractions throughout the night, but nothing to call the hospital about. This was on a Friday. I was scheduled for another gell on Monday and another on Wednesday. Monday's gell gave me VERY hard contractions that sent me to the hospital. Unfortunately...after fourteen hours, the contractions just stopped...so we had the Wednesday gell and waited for Friday, our scheduled induction date.

On Aug 16, 1996, my fiance and I went to the hospital at 7:00 am. Unfortunately, it took seven tries to get the IV started so the pitosin didn't get started until 11:30 am. By 1:00 pm I was dialated to 2-3 and the doctor decided to break my waters. At that point contractions got VERY stron and it didn't take me long to get to the 4 cm mark. At this point they told me I could have my epidural. I wasn't really begging for it... but since there was still the possibility of having to have a csection, I decided to go with it.

The anesthesiologist had no trouble inserting the epidural...however, he did not believe that I had a high tolerance for pain medications and walked out of the room...about 1/2 hour to 45 minutes later....I was dilated to six and felt I had to push...they called the anesthesiologist in and he upped the epidural dosage...twice. He said "you really meant it when you said you had a high tolerance didn't you?" (I was thinking DUH, why do you think I TOLD you that?)

The next few hours were uneventful...I slept through contractions and my fiance slept in the chair next to me. At 7:00 pm they checked me because I was feeling the contractions through the epidural. I was dilated to 9 and they upped the epidural just a little. They told my fiance he could go smoke a cigarette outside because even if I started to push soon, I would probably push for several hours. He went downstairs, and before he even got out the front door of the hospital they were calling him back to my room.

(At this point I was really scared because they were saying that the baby's heartbeat was going down with each contraction. This was the wording they used when I had my son 7 yrs earlier so I was scared of another section). Fortunately, the doctors let me start pushing and my baby's heart rate went back to normal. My fiance was GREAT throughout this pushing stage (the whole pregnancy/delivery actually) and after an hour (several hours? were they NUTS) of pushing, our beautiful 8lb 2 oz baby girl was born. (gee, what happened to the baby that weighed 9 lbs 2 weeks earlier? Did she go on a diet?) The first words out of my mouth were "Tell Dr. (Idiot) that I GOT my VBAC and I did it right. They let me nurse her for fifteen minutes right there even though she had to go to special care for a few hours because of my diabetes. (Oh, and I never did go on REDUX, they recalled it shortly after my daughter was born. I nursed her until 9 weeks ago when she was 30 months old)

I did not have an episiotomy. I did end up with a hefty tear...ended up with "43 stitches and not counting any more" but I still healed faster than I did for the csection.

I am currently at 29 weeks with my third child. My plan is another VBAC. I felt such a feeling of redemption. I CAN have a baby the "right" way!!!!

Andrea

Read My Brother Derrek's Birth Story