My son was born a month ago with a planned c-section and i wanted to share the positive experience for anyone who is nervous about going through one. It was healing and empowering to plan it! This was after having had a tough and pretty traumatic experience with my first baby. I'll tell the story of baby #1 for context on why I chose to plan a c-section for #2 instead of trying for a VBAC. 

For baby #1, I was very focused on having an unmedicated birth. I took Bradley classes, refused all unnecessary tests and interventions and wrote up a detailed birth plan spelling out how I wanted to labor naturally. Well, one day after my due date, my water broke about 8 pm, and after monitoring me for a bit at the hospital they let me go home. I came back to the hospital the next morning with everything going pretty well... about 6 cm dilated and still set on no interventions. In the next 2 hours or so I progressed to 8 cm. That's when everything started to go wrong. Labor became much harder, so much so that I was screaming as well as dry heaving and peeing/etc. with every contraction. I was also having an irresistible urge to push, which only made me more miserable and swollen because I wasn't dilated enough for the pushing to do any good. The baby was facing up (occiput posterior), so I'm guessing that there was something about his position that was making progress hard. Basically I stayed in that condition... 8 cm, horrible pain and useless pushing, for around 5 hours. I was also terribly dehydrated because I had refused an IV (pro tip: if you can't keep fluids down for hours, get the IV!!). They finally told me that they were giving me pitocin, birth plan or no. Because I had heard that pitocin without an epidural is a nightmare and I was already beyond miserable, I got the epidural at that point. It was such a relief! Unfortunately it didn't help with the labor. Over the next 4 hours or so I barely dilated any more... but at least I got to rest. Then the baby's heart rate shot up. Very quickly the doctor declared that I needed to get a C-Section ASAP. They wheeled me in and strapped me down; couldn't move my arms or any part of my body except my head. They pumped me full of drugs that made me feel really out of it. When my son was born he was luckily fine, but they wanted to keep him under observation just in case, since his heart rate had been so high. Unfortunately that meant they didn't show him to me except from a few feet away as they drove him by me in a cart to the NICU. I didn't get to touch him. Very luckily, he was all right and they brought him to me later that night. The next few days my recovery was really rough... partly because I was getting over not just the surgery, but also a long and painful labor and what felt like huge emotional trauma of how the c-section went down. I wasn't prepared to be so incapacitated, unable to pick up the baby in my own, or even hold him without pain. I was crying constantly and the nursing staff was very concerned. We were very lucky that the baby turned out to be completely healthy, and I felt much better physically within about a week. But it took months before I really felt like myself again and the emotions -- particularly for how scary and out of control the emergency c-section felt -- they did not go away. 

I got pregnant with baby #2 ten years later. I was excited but also felt worried about a repeat of what happened with my first. I read up on VBAC's and checked out the VBAC calculator online, which is supposed to help estimate your chances of a successful one. Though I was a good candidate for trying for a VBAC based on risk factors, it looked to me like based on my age, my BMI, etc., that I'd have something like a 60% chance of ending up with a c-section again even if I tried. With #1 I had already done everything I could as far as avoiding interventions that could lead to a c-section, and that hadn't worked. I didn't think I could face another long labor ending in an emergency section. So I decided I would just go ahead and schedule the c-section voluntarily. And I am glad I did. I applaud anyone who wants to do the VBAC, but if you do end up needing a c-section, it can actually be a good experience! Here were some of the positives:

1. Knowing the date in advance. I live hours away from most family, so knowing the date let me have my parents and in-laws in town and supporting me right after the birth. With #1, I had no one except my husband until a week afterward. Being alone in the hospital while recovering was depressing.
2. Meeting the surgeon and sharing concerns about the surgery with her in advance. This was huge. I got to write down my concerns and talk about them in a calm environment before we were in the operating room.
3. Making a birth plan specific to a c-section. Our doctors allowed us to specify that my arms would not be strapped down, that I'd be kept alert, that my husband could stay with me the entire time, that he could assist with the cord and watch the procedure, that the baby would be brought up to chest for skin-to-skin ASAP after the birth, and so on. They even invited us to bring music to play during the operation. A lot of these points are part of a "gentle" or "family-centered" cesarean process.
4. Having a very nice operation! I felt informed, taken care of and respected throughout the prep and actual operation. I didn't feel like I was being rushed or forced or ignored ... all the feelings that came up during my first. 
5. Getting to touch and hold my baby right after birth this time. This was so important to me and the doctors helped make it happen! Holding him in the operating room right after he was born was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life.
6. Being prepared and calm, instead of disappointed and terrified of the pain, while I went through recovery. This time I wasn't emotionally traumatized and I felt ready and willing to work on standing up, walking and doing everything I could with the baby right away. The recovery was at least 10x easier! I also got a lot of positive support from the family members who could visit me this time. Having them to cheer me on was great.

The whole experience with #2 was so much better and has made me feel like I've finally gotten some real peace and healing from the scariness of my first time. For anyone who does need a C-Section: look into the "gentle" or "family-centered" cesarean process. When you're in recovery, try to stand as early as they let you, and feel your own strength in having given birth while getting through a major surgery!