Hi everyone. I knew I wouldn't last until my August due date. Just want to share my birth story.. So, I didn't get my vba2c :/ but not for lack of trying. Early labor started on 7/8 while I was getting my car worked on. I became extremely nervous thinking I was going to be stuck over an hour away from home. Fortunately, the intense back & rear end pain/pressure subsided enough for me to drive back home and tapered off completely by that night. On 7/9, I did my usual Sunday routine and sure enough the pain and pressure returned intermittently throughout the day. By that evening, the kids and I went to a BBQ dinner with friends and as time went on, the pressure and pain intensified. My friend/doula Ru was keeping a close eye on me. We chatted about what was going on and agreed that if I was still this uncomfortable, we were heading to L&D when she came back from grabbing our teens from youth group. Needless to say, I wasn't any better, so she said we'd meet at my house so I could gather my things after dropping off her kids. Once we made it to the hospital, we let them know that labor was suspected, how far along I was and just hoped to get checked. Ru contacted my midwife doula Rach to inform her of what was going on and she arrived a half hour later. In the end, it appeared to be active labor and I was 4cm dilated, the second check an hour later 5.5cm. I was admitted. The staff, save my nurses, was not great to say the least. The on call OB tried in vain to persuade me into a repeat c-section to no avail which pretty much pissed her off. The charge nurse got particularly snippy with Rach while she was supporting my efforts to keep myself vertical, instead of being in bed the whole time. The charge nurse sent in the nurse manager for 'non compliance' to see what the issue was. I informed her that the charge nurse had a serious attitude problem, was being beyond unprofessional and disrespectful and was not welcome in my room at all anymore. The nurse manager apologized, promised she would personally take care of it and be the one to come back in her place if she was needed. All that over constant fetal monitoring which wasn't working properly anyway until they fixed the cords a few hours later.

Throughout the rest of the night, contractions started to wan a bit. By morning, my OB was on call (yay!) and when he checked I was 7cm and stayed that way for the rest of the day. 😕 Contractions were quite sporadic by then and I cried multiple times in frustration. My doulas were right there encouraging me and reminding me of what a great job I'd been and was still doing. After no change into the evening, we discussed a little bit of pit to get things going and after mulling over, with even more tears, I decided to go for it. It was started on the lowest dose but unfortunately, baby became unhappy and had quite a bit of decels. I had dozed off so I woke up to a code alert with nurses buzzing around frantically, one rushed a mask on my face, everyone talking at once. My OB made sure to get to my level for face time and explained what was happening, he feared based on the decels I was rupturing and I needed to get in the OR promptly. He said if the heart tones went back up, I wouldn't be put under and because it was time for him to go home, he promised to stay and do the surgery himself because he knew I would prefer for him to be there. Baby's heart did come back up and stayed great so it wasn't a true emergency after all, and my OB stated to his staff it was now just a repeat c-section. Once I was prepped, my doula Ru was brought in and she sat beside me. At first the anesthesia team were setting up blue drapes, I asked my OB if that meant they were out of clear, he requested one of the nurses locate it and told the anesthesiologist that I had clear last time and it was important to me, and to take off the blue one. He did as he was instructed and in it's place was the clear one. Surgery went fine, I had quite a bit of scar tissue to work through but my uterus was perfectly fine, still thick and healthy looking. Baby boy was brought out a few minutes later, all 5lbs 15oz of him, 18 inches long and 36 weeks of pure sweetness. He did well breathing wise and was brought over for skin to skin, even nursed for a full 10 minutes before he dozed off.

So yeah.. not the birth (or labor) I hoped for. We tried everything and my body just wouldn't budge. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the stalling of my labor/cervix, a first for me and I had truly wanted to end my baby making years with a second vbac... It will take some time to deal with that part and I will. I'm just glad my little guy is here, healthy & happy, and with that..... Our sweet little guy Zane Immanuel born on July 10th at 9:09pm. 😊😊💚💙💚💙