Why I chose to be a crazy person and go for a med-free VBAC

Childbirth is an incredibly intimate experience and no labor will ever be the same. Thank God.

After Gabriel's birth experience, I felt an enormous load of guilt around the choices I made. Sure, I had a baby, of course he was amazing, and thank goodness, he was healthy. But throughout my first pregnancy, I set certain expectations for myself, expected a certain amount of...willpower? I didn't follow my plan and I felt that deviating played a large role in why it ended as it did.

There's no question that I had no idea what to expect, but I am also very competitive. I'm the girl who used to pester her coach after basketball games on the rides home and ask him to go over everything she did wrong so she could improve. 

I felt like this - my child's birth - demanded the utmost dedication. And I knew my body could handle it. So when I went into labor and handled the contractions on my own at home for 12 hours, I thought, oookay, this is nothing. 

But then they kicked into high gear and fear started to creep in. Fear of failure. Fear of pain. Fear that I had no idea what the hell I was getting myself into and so I cried for an epidural. Sat for a gut-wrenching 2 hours with contractions ripping through my body while the needle guy took his sweet ass time to get to my room. (Which, by the way, they checked my dilation as soon as he was done and I was at a NINE)

I had done extensive research as far as pain intervention and the possibilities that these interventions could yield. There's this thing called the cascade of interventions, which basically states that by choosing one "intervention," let's say an induction by pitocin, you are more likely to have other interventions such as pain medication, forceps, or a c-section. Did you know that c-sections have risen from 4.5% of births in 1965 to 32% in 2010? Uhhhbuuuh?

Basically you could consider me another one of those statistics. I won't share the details here because I've vaguely done that already but just know it took a long time for me to come to terms with some of the guilt and negative feelings I had towards the actual birthing experience with Gabriel.

So, at my first appointment with my midwife with my second pregnancy, I explained that I intended to have a natural VBAC. She doubted my abilities, attempted to bring up rupture stats and pain thresholds and myriad reasons why there was a chance this wouldn't work out. I had done my homework, I had answers too. 

I was and still am convinced that had I not already had an epidural with Gabriel, I would not have been giving a c-section. I truly believe that they would have tried other methods of getting the cord unwrapped. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm not, we'll never know, but I knew when I found out I was pregnant for a second time that I would never go through surgery like that again.

I also believe that probably had the first experience not ended in surgery, the chance of me wanting an epidural with my second may have been higher.

When my midwife continued to doubt me, I stopped seeing her at the urging of my doula and found someone who would be supportive of my choice to birth my baby without any pain medication. Surprisingly, it was an MD at Kaiser who really showed belief in me.

You see, I wanted to make my experience the best and safest for ME and for my BABY. Everyone has their own idea of what they are comfortable with and for me, I was not going to give anyone any excuse to cut me open. If it was to happen, I wanted it to be extremely inconvenient. 

Luckily, after about 8 hours of labor and a lot of willpower, I did it. It was empowering.

There are many people who have safely and easily had an epidural and then go on to have a safe and easy delivery. That's awesome. More power to you and I wish my first would have ended that way so my second could have been blissfully pain-less (less pain, not the absence of [=). I don't feel like I'm any better or any worse for having done it without meds. Although I'm not going to lie, I swear I could have moved mountains or cured world hunger or whatever that day. I felt pretty freaking awesome. I felt vindicated.

What was your labor experience like? Was it everything you thought and hoped it would be?