Happy Birthday Wyatt! Our "Homebirth in a Hospital" Story.

In honor of my baby boy's First Birthday, here is his birth story. My 2nd VBAC, but my first all natural birth.  It was also the first time that labor started BEFORE my membranes ruptured, but I still let them rupture on their own.

I started having signs of prelabor on Tuesday, the 13th.  Around 3am on the 15th, contractions became more regular but still 15-20 minutes apart. They stayed rather irregular all day, getting closer and closer together.  Occasionally, I would sit down at the computer and time them using www.ContractionMaster.com.  I wondered if this was it, but kept telling myself this was only pre-labor, and might go on for a week or more.

Just before Matthew got home, I decided Wyatt was going to arrive some time this weekend, maybe even tonight.  I called Tabetha to make sure she could watch the kids, but she was about to leave for a football game. No big deal, it wouldn't be tonight anyway. She would be free all weekend.

When Matthew got home from work I told him we had to get ready to go, just in case, I took another chance to time the contractions they were down to 5 minutes apart.   I hadn't told Matthew about the regular contractions and spacing yet. He just thought it was another day of me trying to get him to do stuff-like put the 3rd carseat in the car. Finally I told him that I thought I was at the point where normal people go to the hospital. 

We called the hospital to see what spacing they like people to come in at. They said 3-5 minutes apart.  Mine were 5 minutes apart then. Still thinking we had plenty of time, and that it might not even be real labor for sure, we slowly finished getting ready to go.  Luckily our other neighbors could keep the kids until Tabetha got home.When we got in the car, Matthew took over the timing of contractions, with me just saying "now" to start and stop.  I told him I didn't want to know what the timing was.  I hadn't wanted to start using labor props too early, but finally turned on the iPod to Bellaruth Naparstek's "Music for Childbirth" as we pulled out of the driveway. 

I could tell the contractions were getting more serious when I was squirming all over the backseat of the car, and "now" was the only thing I could say.  When we arrived at the hospital, Matthew helped me out of the car at the door before he went to park. I asked him how far apart the contractions were and he said 2-3 minutes, lasting 2 minutes.  I went inside to get checked out. I had told Matthew we were only staying if I was over 7cm dilated. 

As we walked down the hallway, I heard a nurse counting like a drill sergeant for someone else's pushes. No way that would be me. I went into kill the nurse mode, defensive of my right to labor as I wanted. 

When we got to the room, the nurse started handing me a gown, said they'd monitor me on my back in bed for an hour, and start an IV.  I gave Matthew a look and he took care of it. Matthew told her to go read my birth plan and not come back until she had!!  She never came back. She sent another nurse who turned out to be the best nurse I could have hoped for. Danielle honored my entire birthplan, with the help of Dr. McCarty. When Danielle checked my cervix, I was already 8 centimeters and fully effaced!  Thank you to Huggies.com's Birthplan creator for making it SO EASY to make a birth plan!  I tried other Birth Plan creator websites, but liked theirs the best. Getting it signed off on by my midwife, early in the third trimester, and put into my record was key!

With a saline lock in place of an IV, I was free to move around as needed. I squatted next to the bed, leaned over the bed and did everything I could to stay OUT of the bed.  I knew getting on my back would stall things and make labor harder. Ideally, I wanted to give birth squatting, since it opens the pelvis 4 cm more than the "lithotomy position" lying on your back.  It wasn't up to me though, and luckily Dr. McCarty didn't force me into any unnatural position. I let nature tell me how to move and just listened to my body - and my iPod.

Most of the time, Danielle and Dr. McCarty weren't even in the room. It was just Matthew and me.  Every now and then, they would come in and I'd hold still as long as I could for them to monitor the baby with the doppler. In the 3 hours of hospital labor, they only monitored a few times, totally honoring my birth plan!

Eventually, the contractions got worse. I told Matthew that I couldn't relax anymore, and he knew I needed him. We found a position that worked, with me on my hands and knees on the bed, him squatting at the foot of the bed, and me sort of hugging his arms and pushing my head into his armpit. It was the closest possible thing to a hug.

 On one contraction I pushed and my water broke all over the place. I knew he needed to go tell the doc, but I didn't want him to leave my hug. They knew things would move fast once my water broke. Around this time, my squirming ripped out my saline lock. I was now laboring in a swamp of blood and amniotic fluid.  

Since my head was at the foot of the bed, they needed me to turn so the doctor could actually catch the baby.  I managed to turn 90 degrees between contractions, so I could still hug Matthew on one side of the bed and Dr. McCarty could catch the baby on the other side.  After a few pushes, still on my elbows and knees, with Matthew encouraging me in a soft voice, Wyatt was born. The cord had been wrapped around his neck 2 times, but the doctor slipped them off as he came out, and everything was fine.

Had I been laboring on my back or if labor had stalled due to interventions, those wraps of the cord could have had lasting complications for Wyatt, and all of us. 

Oh, and by the way, when we left the hospital (another story in itself), I carried Wyatt from the room to the door in my sling, NOT in a car seat. The nurses went to the car with us to make sure he was buckled safely into a convertible car seat. So, for all of you babywearers wanting to avoid a bucket car seat, it IS possible to leave a hospital without one. 

How to achieve YOUR VBAC.

*as I write this, I'm going on the assumption that you have had transverse (horizontal) incisions, and that the reasons for the c/sections were not anything that means you really, truly, medically, need to have a c/s to get the baby out of your body*


My quick background: uncomplicated pregnancies, 1 c/s due to Frank breech, 1 VBAC (forced pitocin=epidural) and a civilian VBAC completely natural. 


Here's the deal with avoiding a c/s. (of course, my opinion, based on months of research and fighting for the right in two different systems)

1. You have to sign a consent form in order for them to do a c/s. If you don't sign the form, they can't cut into you, and well, there's only 1 other way for the baby to get out (vaginally).

2. They cannot refuse to care for you once you are in labor. It's a law called EMTALA. http://www.emtala.com/faq.htm

So, with those 2 things in mind, you stay home (or in the hospital parking lot) as LONG as possible. You don't want to get into one of their L&D rooms any earlier than absolutely necessary, because when you get into their room, a clock starts. The docs are busy, they have hockey games and kids' birthday parties and other stuff to do and they really don't feel like waiting around for you to labor naturally, so they will scare you into every intervention possible.

Refuse an IV. Have a birth plan. Refuse to get into the bed until YOU CAN'T stay on your feet any longer. Refuse constant external monitoring. Refuse internal monitoring at all costs. Have hubby and/or a doula more scared of YOU than of the doc's scare tactics, so that they will fight for your right to labor/deliver despite the docs scare tactics. Don't get on your back.

Labor in YOUR clothes, don't accept a hospital robe. It makes the docs/nurses remember you have your own brain, and not see you so much as a patient. A stretchy skirt and sports bra or tube top are perfect, or just go naked. You aren't the first naked laboring woman they've seen. Realize that those clothes are going to get covered in all kinds of labor goo and fluid and all that, so don't plan on wearing "good" stuff.

Do enough research to know when to say when and give in to the c/s.

I can email you my birth plan and 2nd birth story if you want. just send me your email addie.

I told hubby that I wasn't staying at the hospital unless i was at least 7 cm, and I was 7 when they checked me. I think that was key. Getting there too early in labor gives them too much time to start worrying about you!

ICAN and the unnecessarean blog are great resources for links to research and all that to back you up.

Learn about the drug they gave women in the 90's to speed up labor (a predecessor to Pitocin) which caused a TON of ruptured uteruses and is what has the world so scared of VBACs. That drug wasn't even approved for use on laboring women, but the docs liked it because it sped things up. Now they don't use it, but the fear is still there.

As you find research you like, print it, and put it in a binder for later. book marks and a favorites list on your computer are not any help when you go to fight with the docs.

Wait for labor to start on its own. Don't let them strip your membranes. Don't let them break your water even once you are in labor. It will either break or it won't. Either way, baby will come out. If you don't know what "in the caul" means, google it. Amniotic sac does not have to break, sometimes it doesn't!!

Convince yourself that they have your due date wrong, so that once your due date gets there, YOU aren't stressed.

If I do it again, I'll have some cookies in my labor bag, like a bag of Chips Ahoy or something that everyone likes, so that no matter when I go into labor, whether I have time to bake or not, I can give the nurse some cookies. She'll have to put them at the nurse's station and probably will want to go out there to snack on them (leaving you alone to labor in peace). My first VBAC, the nurse never left my side that I remember (annoying!!). The 2nd VBAC, it was only my hubby in the room 99.6% of the time and I was really able to relax!

I didn't let them "check" me internally in my final weeks of labor. It's just a curiousity thing and it plays games with your head. People can be 2cm or 4 cm for weeks, so who cares if you're 2cm or not? Who cares if you're 50% effaced or not? If you aren't having contractions that stop you from talking and make you lean against a wall, you don't need to worry about how far along you are. The first time I was "checked" after that first trimester "check" was when I was 7cm and in active labor. Again, you have a right to refuse anything!! Once you are in active labor they cannot kick you out of the hospital (as the resident Dr at tripler threatened me with if I didn't take pitocin). In those final weeks, when you go for your checkup and the nurse hands you a gown, just say "no thanks, I'm not curious" and when she looks at you like you have 2 heads, repeat "no thanks." She'll run to the doctor and the doc will come in and say "blah blah blah" and you just explain it's only a curiosity thing and you aren't curious. If you don't open your legs, they can't stick a finger in!!!

Don't give them any indication that you plan to defy them before you are there, in labor. They CAN get a court order to FORCE you to accept a c/s, but it takes time to do that, so just don't give them time to do it.

They will want to schedule your c/s in advance. Oops, keep getting distracted and fail to schedule it. oops. so distracted, pregnancy brain, blah blah blah.

If you've read this far, then you either think I'm crazy, or understand how determined I was to have a VBAC.

No matter how the baby comes out, you have a new baby to love. Good luck with your fight and your delivery. You can do it!!

I highly recommend reading Dr. Sears' Birth Book and the Bradley method book.