Inspiring VBAC story

Written on 05/09/2013
Nadine Richardson

I just came back from a beautiful Vietnamese dinner in Glebe with my mum. As I walked home, I realised I was walking up the very same hill that I marched up before every single HSC exam right near my high school.
I remembered what got me through and allowed me to blitz the exams….It was repeating my affirmations louder and stronger with every step upwards….. and as my legs began to burn…I really didn’t know it would work but – by george it did!
So now, my whole life is based on this here motto – and I wanted to share it with you. It’s so beautiful to hear that other women live by it too – like all the mums and dads that come to She Births® and students to She Yoga® – we are all longing for something more beautiful and out of the ordinary – away from the mundane, the dramatic or the average experience of life – moving towards something more subtle and perhaps more intimate and mysterious.

I have to share with you some really awesome inspiration direct from the front line in the story below! But please in case you too have been misinformed…. VBAC mums who want to have a so called ‘trial of labour’ are fed an enormous amount of false statistics and are given very little support by our system. If anyone says to you that uterine rupture risk is higher with a VBAC please tell them they are wrong! The chances are 1 in 3000 – as per vaginal birth. The risks of a second c-s is much greater to mum and bubs morbidity and mortality than a vaginal delivery. There is much more than meets the eye in conversations we have with some of our caregivers these days unfortunately…Sometimes the people running the show can be the hospital bureaucrats or the insurance companies – god forbid! Who definitely do not have mum and bubs best interests at heart tragically. So at the end of the day information and education is your only power.
Here’s a couple of love birds that triumphed with their VBAC:
Archie’s birth was everything we had hoped for, everything we wanted happened and it was the most amazing and magical time for both Tim and I.  Using the skills and information from She Births® was invaluable and also having our doula meant we had so many resources and were both really well prepared for his birth.
Archie was 5 days late, I started pre labouring around Wednesday lunchtime, by 4pm I told Tim to come straight home from work, I made myself eat dinner with a few breaks to ride through the contractions.  We stayed at home until they were 3-4 min apart which was around 2am.  Once at the Birth Centre then gave me an internal and I was 3cm, the contractions continued increasing in intensity but also giving me a break in between.  At 7am I was given another internal as its hospital policy to ensure I was progressing well (being a VBAC) I was 6cm – everyone was pleased apart from me as I let the numbers get to me and thought I wouldn’t be able to do another 4 hours of intense contractions.  The midwife also felt that Archie’s head was slightly to one side which might prevent him coming down so they put me in a few different positions for a number of contractions – this meant I couldn’t move through the contraction which was incredibly painful.
But it worked as by 8.30am I went through transition – I don’t remember much about this time but Tim has filled me in, I was in the bath for Archie’s birth and he came out very fast in just a few contractions.  Attached is a photo of me just after – all I kept saying was ‘I did it, I did it’ I was shocked, stunned and in love with my little boy. He was born at 9.01am
I had to have a few stitches and we had him checked over and were able to leave and get home for 2pm, 12 hours after we left.
I am so pleased, amazed and thankful that I was able to experience a natural labour and give birth to a healthy baby boy, Tim constantly tells me how proud he is.  It still surprises me that people are so shocked when I say I had a natural birth after a c-section, there is so much mis-information out there.  Please feel free to pass on my details to people you come across that are thinking about a VBAC as I’m more than happy to talk about our experience.

So if you are feeling any doubts about your ability to give birth in the way you really hope for then come along and get the right kind of education – We will help you to Believe, Prepare and Just Do It!
Hope you have a beautiful weekend
Love, Nadine xxx
PS
Read even more inspiring She Births® stories right here