A 42 Week, 10 lb VBAC Baby after a Previous Cesarean due to Breech

January 3, 2012

This was my second child, the first was born at 37 weeks via c-section for breech presentation. I knew immediately that if we had more children I wanted to have a VBAC.

My original OB was not a big fan of VBACs and after 30 weeks of hearing her horror stories, I switched to a VBAC and Natural birth friendly OB.

I was taken off work at 34 weeks due to pretty strong contractions, and expected this baby to come early as well. We went into labor the day before we hit 42 WEEKS.

Mild contractions started about 2:00 am and were inconsistent, but lasted all night and into the morning. They got to where they were nine minutes apart and lasting about 20 seconds. I took a nap and when I woke up around 11:00 am , they had stopped. The next night at 3:00 am, when our induction was scheduled for 7:30 am, we were at it again. I labored for about an hour before I had my husband start timing our contractions. They were four minutes apart lasting 35 seconds. Then at about 4:50 am they went to one minute apart lasting 30 seconds each.

I texted our doula at 5:00 am and told her I thought we were ready for her to come as the contractions were pretty strong. I couldn’t stay still during the contractions as they were very uncomfortable. I wanted to swing my hips or have counter pressure applied. Our doula arrived about 6:00 am and started timing our contractions. We went for a walk (all 3 of us). Parents were driving by and dropping their children off at the school across the street from my house and were probably wondering why there were three people walking the neighborhood stopping every few minutes to get through another contraction.

I changed positions many times because my contractions would space out and then get close together again. My labor pattern stayed inconsistent my entire labor.

Around 10:30 am I got sick and vomited. I felt like things were really moving along quickly. I got in the shower around 11:30 and just stood there and let the water relax me. I had a few contractions while in the shower,, but mostly just felt a lot of pressure like I needed to pee but just couldn’t.

When I got out of the shower I just leaned on my husband and kept saying, “I can’t do this, lets just go in and do what it takes to have this baby”. I was exhausted from being up for two straight days. Since the contractions were so intense, some peaking twice before subsiding, I decided to try laying down again. The next contraction peaked three times and my uterus began to spasm. At that point we decided to head for the hospital just to get checked and see where things were at.

Before I could get out of the bed I had another contraction and my water broke! At 12:20 pm we got in the car to make the 45 minute drive to our hospital. On the way I began feeling a very strong urge to push with each contraction. We made it into our Labor and Delivery room and began the check in process about 1:00 pm. The nurse checked me right away and I was dilated to an 8 with baby at 0 station! They were telling me not to push, which is hard to do when you body is basically pushing for you.

About 15 minutes later the nurse checked again and I was dilated to a 9. She was worried that they were going to have to get another doctor to deliver the baby, because my doctor was in OR. About 1:35 pm my doctor made it into our room and said, “Lets have a baby”.

We began pushing at 1:41 pm and my healthy 10 pound baby girl was born at 2:00 pm!!! No IV, no epidural, no induction!!!!! All I could say right after was, “I did it, we did it!!!”. I felt amazing!!! I am not sure there was a dry eye in the room!

Thank you Jaclyn for sharing your wonderful birth story and Mindful Mama Photography for capturing the once in a life time moments.

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