Pregnant??!! If we were going to have another baby, there was no way I wanted another repeat c-section. I had no idea if VBA2Cs were more risky than VBACs, but that was what I wanted and I was going to find a care provider who wanted it, too. We had only moved to Arizona seven months prior, and our insurance had just kicked in. My husband and I hadn't picked a primary care doctor yet, so we were starting from ground zero. I googled around about midwives and homebirths (midwife-attended VBAC homebirths are illegal in Arizona, fyi; and so finding a provider is tricky), VBAC-friendly hospitals and OBs and called a few in the area on the list. I only found one practice, consisting of a midwife and 2 obs, willing to take me on as a VBA2C with no previous trial of labor. I was not impressed with the appointment scheduling process or the cramped, cold office, but I did like the demeanor of both midwife and OB, especially the doctor. He was very down-to-earth, an East-Coaster like us, smart but sensible, and very easy to talk to. Most importantly, the practice was evidence-based. During the first visit I asked for transvaginal ultrasound to establish dates and check for a heartbeat, even though I was only 6 weeks LMP. I had had a miscarriage between my two boys and didn't feel like waiting around to see if this pregnancy was going to "take." He cautioned me about what we might see or not see; about the rates of loss that early on, etc., etc...and then, low and behold, there was a perfect little yolk and sac and a teensy little heart fluttering away. This one looked to be hanging in.
I went in again at 12 weeks and this time we really discussed the potential and possibility of VBAC. I explained the rational for my previous surgeries and how, in retrospect, I didn't feel like the recommendation for c-sections was warranted or even valid.The doctor agreed, but was also very straightforward about the reality of the local hospital policies and protocols. Basically he told me that if I really wanted this, he was all for it, and would do everything in his power to help it happen, but that the best case scenerio was to waltz into triage already dilated to 7-8, because no one else on staff was going to be comfortable with a VBA2C labor that wasn't progressing strictly by the book, especially since my last two babies had been so large. His recommendation stuck in my head throughout the pregnancy, and the irony of what happened in labor is not lost on me.
If we were going to do this - have 3 kids, then I wanted to at least go into labor. This was my only real goal the entire pregnancy. Many people looked at me like I was nuts, but it felt really weird to be a mom two times over with no labor stories to share. I wanted to feel my body working in cooperation with the baby, and I wanted to know once and for all that my body was not broken - that though I may grow big babies, that doesn't mean I can't get them out.
I focused on growing a healthy baby in a healthy body. I had "morning sickness" the entire pregnancy and craved macintosh apples and Coke (I don't normally drink soda), but I tried to focus on protein and veggies and WATER. Growing a baby during the summer in the desert is no joke. I did a lot of yoga to try to get the baby into a good position, and she was head-down from 19 weeks on, though always settling back into a ROT position (looking sideways.)
I did have a complete placenta previa early on, something my OB wasn't the least bit concerned about, but it had me researching accreta and hysterectomy statistics, and freaking out, convinced that the scar tissue from my 2 previous surgeries were going to head me right into an early c-section and the loss of my uterus. We went to Pennsylvania at the end of the summer, in between ultrasounds, and I spent that whole trip sweating on my "c-sections suck" soap box trying to explain scar tissue, placentas and adhesions to my perplexed in-laws; having nightmares about emergency surgeries. But by 26 weeks the previa had resolved and I needed to find something else to worry about...luckily worrying has never been tough for me!
I decided I needed to feel more prepared, and more supported. Somehow, at 32 weeks, I ran across a referral for ICAN (International Cesearean Awareness Network) and joined the local Facebook group and sat in on a couple meetings. Here were plenty of women who felt just like me about their c-section births, and many of them had successfully VBACed HBACed VVBA2,3,4Ced...their stories and support were inspiring, and made me cautiously optimistic. They clued me into some of the specifics of local practices and offered a lot of advice and support. There was a lot of discussion of informed consent, of trusting intuition and tuning out everything else. I realized how important it was to be making my own decisions, whatever the outcome, and to feel like I was in control of my body and the process. I only wished I'd found them four years prior!
Nat and I discussed hiring a doula again - we had done it twice already and never used their services. Somehow I had the idea that if we didn't hire one this time it would make the labor more probable. But my good friend, who happens to be a doula, pointed out that logical fallacy. Plus, with two other kids to think about, it was going to be a given that practicing for labor was going to be tough, nevermind the triage of handling the kids when I was in labor. We were going to need help, and we found it in Anne. Thank God.
I re-ordered and re-read all the books I'd loved so much in my other pregnancies (and had passed along because we weren't haveing more children, hah!): Ina May, Birthing from Within, The Thinking Women's Guide to a Better Book, Giving Birth. I watched the Business of Being Born and More Business of Being Born over and over on Netflix, and read every birth story and birth study I could get my hands on. Every discussion Nat and I had was about birth and birthing rights. My husband is an amazing father, and a very patient partner.
My only loose end, mentally and physically, was what to do with the kids. In a new place without much of a support system, the prospect of laboring at home for (potentially) days with a 2 year-old and 5 year-old in the wings was not ideal. My mom had decided to come at (what we thought would be) the last minute, at 42 weeks in order to focus her energy on helping while the baby was here, so I created an on-call network of neighbors and school friends and packed backpacks for the boys. But I was still worried about leaving them with people they didn't know very well, worried because we were starting to go through the usual winter cold and flu season and didn't want to leave them when they were feeling crappy, worried because suddenly this whole labor thing seemed dark and long and, well, hard.
I kept joking that I needed to just find a homebirth midwife (at 38 weeks) so I could feel more comfortable that the kids were being cared for. "You'd never be able to labor with them around!" said my husband, and apparently he was right.
But I also couldn't apparently labor worried about them, because I didn't go into labor. Not for a very long time. At 39 weeks I felt close; baby had dropped lower, Braxton-Hicks were picking up, my midwife got the sense that things were going to start soon and so my husband spent 24 straight hours hammering out his research and setting up his class for another professor to take over so he would be available for me. But then the kids got a nasty virus and my body shut down for a bit. It didn't start up again for three weeks!
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| watching the legs in action at 41 weeks |
I cannot begin to describe how clean my house was for that last month - how many "labor projects" got started and completed, how sick my husband and I got of each other. Pedicures, massages, visits to the chiropractor to help turn the baby from her ROT position. Countless hardboiled eggs and cups of raspberry leaf tea consumed.
I hadn't shared the official due date (November 17th 2012) with anyone except our parents. When anyone would ask, I'd say something like "around Thanksgiving" or "by the beginning of December". My due date came with the arrival of a close friend's 3rd child (at home, 2 weeks early), but no signs that our little one was any closer. I'd fudged my LMP date a bit to us a few days, and I reiterated with the midwife and OB that I didn't want any discussion of induction until after 42 weeks, though their practice was usually to start getting nervous around 41 and 3. I had my membranes stripped at 39 weeks and again at 41. I was a fingertip dilated, the baby was lower than I'd ever felt either of the other two, but not very low in the grand scheme. My midwife mentioned that the baby felt big. She mentioned elective ceserean. I burst into tears and blubbered my goals, she backed off right away. I wondered again if it might be possible to arrange for a HBA2C (homebirth) at 41 weeks...
And then my Mom finally came, and I finally went into labor.
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| putting up the tree, 42 weeks |
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