Another empowered parent shares their VBAC experience.

This is the VBAC birth story of my second son, born in March 2021.

This pregnancy and birth was a very healing journey for us, after being through a tough time with our first little boy when he was born. In terms of preparation I had received acupuncture from around 32 weeks, once every two weeks until 37 weeks when we started doing weekly sessions. I ate dates, pineapple and, towards the end, rhubarb and drank a cup or two of raspberry leaf tea every day from around 36/37 weeks.

I also listened to hypnobirthing tracks on the GentleBirth app most days during my pregnancy from around 12 weeks. My husband and I attended a VBAC workshop with Mary Tighe of DoulaCare Ireland and also attended the Holles Street VBAC workshop too.

I did prenatal yoga and tried to stay as active as I could and chasing a little toddler around certainly helped with that. I had also done some healing work with my therapist to process our first sons birth, which looking back on it was an important part in preparing for this journey.

I was a private patient at NMH. For the first 32 or so weeks of my pregnancy we were under the care of one consultant privately. After much consideration I decided to switch to another consultant (Dr Keane) at 32 weeks because I did not feel supported in my preference to try for a vaginal birth after caesarean.

This was difficult for me at the time, as I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t being listened to but rather was being managed.

This change in care provider and advocating for myself would turn out to be the most important step I took in preparing for the birth of our little boy. My waters broke on the Wednesday night in my sleep which was a bit of a surprise. After a few hours check over in the hospital that night we were allowed to go home to labour on the Thursday morning. We met an amazing midwife who filled us full of confidence and positivity. She said she had the best feeling we would get our VBAC. They tested for Covid and GBS (both came back negative).

Before being allowed to go home by our consultant that morning, and after a vaginal exam which showed I was not effaced or dilated, a midwife was trying to convince me to move to the antenatal ward which would have meant leaving my husband. Having been through a lot of trauma with the birth of our first little boy, I was scared to be alone. We stood our ground and thankfully when our consultant came to see us early on the Thursday morning he agreed that labouring at home would give us a great chance at achieving a VBAC. So off home we went listening to Bruce Springsteen “waiting on a sunny day”.

We spent some of the day with our little boy who is 2, had lunch in the sunshine in the back garden and just generally enjoyed being at home knowing we would meet our little man soon! I had a few baths, spent time on the ball and worked through contractions. I also curb walked in the back garden.

Our little boy gave me cuddles through some of the contractions which was very healing, given the journey we had for his birth which was traumatic especially with us being separated due to him being unwell when he was born. The contractions were varying in intensity, about 6 minutes apart lasting for around 45 seconds or shorter so we knew we were in the early stages. They gradually increased throughout the day. I went to acupuncture that afternoon after a few hours of my contractions increasing in intensity. Funnily enough instead of the acupuncture kicking things into gear like we thought it would I think the change in scenery and leaving the house turned things off for a while. It wasn’t helped by a bit of stress with logistics leaving the house and arranging a babysitter but these things happen.

My acupuncturist was very supportive and positive, another person we had in our corner! I felt excited leaving the appointment and I knew through our sessions we had done as much as we could to bring things along and prepare me as best we could. A while later that evening it took me a while to come to terms with the fact that things didn’t speed up but instead went backwards so to speak but after speaking with my best friend who is a midwife I convinced myself not to stay up all night trying to get the baby to come but instead to get into bed, try to sleep between contractions and rest for the day ahead on the Friday.

The contractions continued through the night but were manageable and well spaced out, although I did have to breathe through them. Somehow I managed to get a decent bit of sleep, which would stand to me the following day. We went back to Holles Street on Friday morning to discuss an oxytocin drip with our consultant, due to the risk of infection from my waters breaking as their policy is to not let it go beyond 36 hrs or something similar from the time the waters break.

What I liked when our consultant explained this is that he said “the evidence shows...”. He was speaking my language!

No fear based persuasion, just stating what the research indicates and I trusted him. I knew he wanted me to get a VBAC almost as much as I did. He was so supportive in every way he could be, and had clearly indicated this at all of my appointments, provided that me and the baby were both well and safe. The other option at this stage on the Friday morning was to move to the antenatal ward on my own (from where we were in delivery) and see how things went naturally. Based on the fact that I hadn’t gone into established labour in the comfort of our own home, this was not an option for me as I knew it would not be an environment I would relax in, especially being separated from my husband. Our consultant agreed. I was nervous about the oxytocin drip because I had been scared off by another midwife when I had our first son that the “pain would be unbearable and I’d need an epidural right away”. This simply was not the case.

We spoke to our main midwife and another midwife (from the Wednesday night, who when she heard we were back came to say hi and check on us which was lovely). Both women gave me what was basically a pep talk telling me I could absolutely do this. They filled me full of confidence and there was always the possibility of turning off the drip if we wanted to.

We had to tune out another nurse manager who bombarded into the room at one point with a very different attitude and told me I would be “managed differently” to other women because of my previous c-section, to which we responded that we would like to speak to our consultant because her energy was completely throwing me off and my husband said I almost curled up into a ball when she came into the room!

I’m glad when I look back that I told her she was making me feel anxious by telling me I was under pressure to dilate a certain amount within a certain timeframe. I had had enough of being spoken to in an unkind way, given the conversations with my previous consultant before switching.

After a while she settled down and told me her one piece of advice was to not lose control of my breath. She was right about that one. It proved to be my greatest tool. She also popped her head in when our son was born to say congratulations and that I did a great job which was nice of her.

After weighing up our options we decided to try the drip for 4 hours and see how I progressed as my cervix was favourable at this point. It was very much a case of let’s wait and see. I didn’t feel under pressure because our midwife reassured me that she would do everything to help us through the process and kept telling me she believed I could do this. I really felt we had struck gold with her! I was continuously monitored on the drip because of the previous c-section.

They had the telemetry CTG which was great so it meant I could move around as much as I wanted and wasn’t stopped from going to bathroom etc. I think I must have done 500 squats during the two days. The ball was very useful too and I used lavender and neroli essential oils to help with distraction. We had calming music playing in the background. The winner flow was useful at home I thought. I don’t know why but I stopped using it and preferred to just go with my own breathing in the end. I’m glad I had the option of having it though because it definitely helped at home in the early stages.

Pressing the comb into my hand was very helpful too. I also had acupressure pads on certain labour specific points, which my acupuncturist had placed on me and I asked Alex to press these from time to time. Ultimately the one thing that I found the most useful to deal with the surges was the sound of my breath, and movement, mostly squatting or moving on the ball, and sometimes making “aaaaah” sounds.

Having all the different tools was brilliant. I didn’t even use the TENS once which I thought I would but good to have it anyway. At one point we were asked could a student come in to observe and although I wanted to be able to say yes at the time I’m glad my husband said no because it could have thrown me off etc, and we had come so far to get to where we were. If we were to have another baby, I would say yes next time I think, just this time we didn’t want anything that could possibly throw things off.

After 4 hours my cervix was completely thinned out, dilated by 1cm and had moved from a posterior position to being forward facing. Our midwife was AMAZING at this point. She was so excited and built us full of confidence because initially when I heard 1cm after 4 hrs of intense contractions lasting a minute only 3 mins apart, I was disappointed. She kept reassuring me, “Your body is doing exactly what it is meant to do. Your cervix has done the three things it needs to do to allow this baby to come, you are in labour and now we just have to get to 10cm! You’re going to meet your baby today, this is so exciting!”.

I decided at this stage to get the epidural so that I could hopefully relax a bit more and dilate quicker. I was a bit unsure about the epidural but our midwife reassured me that it might help me relax and save my energy for the pushing stage. Turns out she was right! I’m not 100% sure why I was so reluctant to get the epidural but on balance I had already done so much since Wednesday night, it was now around 2pm on the Friday and I really needed some rest. Once I got the epidural I went into a kind of deep meditation, conserving my energy and used visualisations and essential oils.

Within 2 hours, I went from 1cm to 3cm, and after another 2 hours I was 8cm dilated. So 8cm in 8 hours total! Of course that’s not counting any of the hours of contractions from the Wednesday through to the Friday morning! At this point the drip was turned off and it seemed my body was kicking in and we didn’t need it anymore. We needed a little bit of help after 30 mins of pushing as our son was at a funny angle and had to turn in a certain way so our consultant used a kiwi to assist with this. It was very gentle and I still felt the pressure of our son’s head and body coming.

Our son decided to make things interesting towards the end and every time I lay on my left side (which was his favourite all through pregnancy) his heart rate dipped so we had a clip on the top of his head once I had the epidural. Then he kept moving around and the clip kept falling off so that caused a bit of drama! I did find it hard after the birth to see the marks on his head from the clip and the swelling from the kiwi but I know that this was to make sure he was safe and well.

After our experience with our first little boy, I would rather we had this reassurance that he was ok and so ultimately I was ok with it. This meant I couldn’t use the peanut ball as I had hoped to but we did lots of sitting up straight in the bed and it didn’t take long for him to get moving. We did ask for time to allow for passive descent but this didn’t happen and I think it was due to our sons heart rate dipping when he was going through the birth canal. I trusted them that this was the best thing, as did my husband. A little while later our son was born at 18:43 that day and we were overcome with joy not only to have our little man here safe and sound first and foremost but also to have achieved our VBAC.

He weighed 7lbs 12oz. I’ll never forget looking down and seeing his head appear or the moment they held him up to me. We had delayed cord clamping- I can’t remember how long it was for but it seemed like a really decent amount of time. It took a while for our son to realize he had been born, but he gave a cry after a little while. In a way I like to think that this was because it was a peaceful arrival for him. The moment our son was handed to me was just incredible, especially since I didn’t get to hold our first when he was born or until the following day. We had skin to skin and our golden hour/90mins of feeding before we had to move for someone else to take the room, none of which we had with our first son.

These were big moments of healing for me.

I had one stitch for a small tear which has healed so well. The recovery so far compared to my c-section with our first son is so much better we can’t believe it. Being able to play with him and give him cuddles without fear of hurting myself is just amazing and I’m so grateful for this. Not to mention being in awe at what our bodies are capable of! I am so glad I trusted myself and my body. I think on this occasion, modern medicine worked in our favor too. I guess I just needed a bit of help getting to established labour and then my body kicked in! Our consultant was incredibly calm, an amazing presence in the room. I felt completely safe under his care. He showed me the placenta and the sack, and explained everything to me about my small tear, reassuring me that it would heal very quickly.

Our midwife was amazing throughout. She supported us every step of the way, she did everything she could including giving me back massages and calling me “super woman” and kept telling me how strong I was throughout it all. I’ll never forget how empowered she helped me feel! One thing I would change maybe if I could go back would be to not get a top up on the epidural.

Before I got the top up I had what they were calling the “sweet spot” where I could feel the pressure of the contractions but not the pain. Luckily some of it wore off by the end so I could still feel the pressure as our son was born. I would have liked to have felt the pressure during the pushing stage, as instead they were telling me when a contraction was coming and then I would push, not ideal really but I’m ok with it given how everything else went so well.

My experience this time around has been so healing, incredibly positive and I know it is the same for my husband too. To have been surrounded by compassionate, supportive and encouraging people made this one of the best experiences of my life.

I said before I went into labour that even if I didn’t get the VBAC that as long as we were both healthy, it would still have been a positive experience because of how I advocated for myself in switching consultants. I made sure I was informed and educated myself. I’ve never felt so strong or empowered before and really feel this has made me stronger as a woman and as a mother which I am very grateful for.

What a beautiful journey we have been on, and most of all we are so grateful for our healthy little boy.