PART 1 (of 4... lol)

My birthing journey started long before my labour. In fact, it started before my pregnancy. DD1 was born via emergency caesarean after a long labour and traumatic set of circumstance, and for over three years following I relived the labour and birth with fear, regret and disappointment, and work my way through motherhood clouded by birth trauma and post-natal depression. So much so that I thought I wouldn’t be able to face the idea of birthing again, and DP agreed to birth the next baby – we tried to conceive for a few months in 2011 but after a lot of heartache from both of us we knew it wasn’t what we wanted. She didn’t want to birth, and I desperately wanted to.

So we took a break, and started again in 2012. It was meant to be, and we were pregnant first go! WOW! And OMG! And ... what have I done? Now I’ll have to birth. What would I do? My options as I saw them were – scheduled caesarean or VBAC. Initially, I told DP I thought I wanted a repeat caesarean. I wanted some control, and I thought that a caesarean scheduled by me, planned and orchestrated exactly as I wanted it to be, would be my healing birth. Could I really face the prospect of the same labour as DD1 and then just have it end in another caesarean? Could I deal with that disappointment again?

I knew a VBAC was what I wanted though. But I was so fearful. I was so fearful that I would try, and fail, like the first time I tried so hard for the perfect natural birth I wanted to have for myself and DD1 and failed. I tried so hard to justify my choice of a scheduled caesarean to DP, who saw right through me and knew it was not what I wanted. It was not what she wanted either, since my recovery last time was long and my depression was deep. I have a lot of friends who have had a VBAC, and so did my mum, and with their support I began planning my VBAC...

A friend had done HypnoBirthing, and that’s where my VBAC journey really began. I rang the instructor, Leanne, often with my fears and she eventually (and probably with some frustration and concern that I could truly hold so many fears!) told me that I needed attend the first class NOW, at 20 weeks, because I would not be able to properly plan my calm birth experience until I let go of my first birth. We attended the class and came out of it energised. I felt an instant connection with Leanne and our beliefs aligned perfectly so she was able to talk me through my first birth and explain it in such a way that I felt infinitely better. We continued with the classes two months later, and DP and I worked together on the exercises and meditations. The classes were at Beachmere, right on the water, and it felt good and right, very peaceful, and like my fears could be washed away by the salty breeze and I would be left cleansed. I listened to the birth affirmations often. We were able to be open with each other about our fears and it brought us closer. My birth expectations moved from ‘VBAC’ to ‘calm birth’, and I released my fear of another caesarean, because holding that fear would be silly since it was always a possibility with any birth, although I unfortunately held my fear of not being able to birth. The affirmation I felt strongly drawn to was the one I struggled with the most – ‘I trust my body to know what to do’. How could I trust in this body, that couldn’t even dilate past 4cm without drugs last time...?

My pregnancy was not without a little bit of unwelcome excitement. I got to visit the birth suite multiple times through 2nd and 3rd trimester. I had a small leak of fluid at 24 weeks, which the Ob attributed to an infection, and was told all the worst case scenarios, like pPROM or a uterine infection. I had another fluid loss at 28 weeks. And a bleed at 34 weeks. I had the support of the hospital for my VBAC until 28 weeks, when I was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes and they decided that I probably had undiagnosed GD last time, and when they saw the weight of my first baby (8lb 6oz – 3790g) they started talking about probable macrosomia and that they would want me to birth by 38/39 weeks. When I went on insulin at 32 weeks, they sent me for a scan and mentioned “delivery around 37/38 weeks”. I worried about the scan, knowing how notoriously inaccurate they are in the third trimester. The whole saga of infection, fluid loss and diabetes made it really difficult for me to embrace my affirmations and trust that my body knew what to do... I mean, quite clearly my body was struggling with the pregnancy. Would it know how to birth when the time came...?

But my body was not defective – the 34 week scan worked in my favour, showing a perfectly healthy and average baby on the 63rd percentile. I had no infections at 34 weeks. After 4 weeks on insulin (and weekly acupuncture) my body got its act together and at 36 weeks I was able to come off the insulin, just in the nick of time too! The Obs were happy with it all after that and were generally easily placated at appointments, and I just kept travelling in the direction of my VBAC. I was also having some really good pre-labour that allowed me to practice my HypnoBirthing breathing and meditations.

At 37+5 the Obs at the hospital wanted to do vaginal exams and strip my membranes. I declined, but consented at 38+5, mostly because I was curious as to whether or not all my pre-labour had amounted to cervical changes. I still had not embraced the trust I needed to have. I was more than a little disappointed with my ‘Modified Bishop Score’ of 1... The strip did nothing, not even any cramping. Little Jellybean was very comfortable. I had another exam at 39+5, my score this time was 3 however my cervix was so high and posterior that this doctor couldn’t even do a stretch and sweep - she could barely do the exam. Ugh! I resigned myself to being pregnant forever, which was unnecessarily dramatic considering I wasn’t even ‘due’ yet... lol

My mum came up the next day – 39+6 – she had taken 5 days off work to come keep me sane. I had asked her, back in April, if she would be one of my support people. Not only because she was my mum, but because she had a successful VBAC in 2001 and having people around me who knew that VBAC was possible was important. She had taken on a lot of work in November and we all worried she wouldn’t be able to be up for the birth, the only time she could get off was these five days... not only that, but my other birth support, Cass (Ozziehoffy), was unavailable at 40+1-40+3... so I had the smallest and most unlikely window of opportunity to birth this baby with both of my support people around me...

My body had sent me lots of signals that I needed to trust that it knew what to do. It grew a perfectly healthy baby, kept the diabetes under control, my blood pressure and weight gain was perfect throughout the whole pregnancy... and at midnight right on 40 weeks my body went into spontaneous labour – only 12 hours after my mum arrived! It’s like my body was saying “HEY, TRUST ME, I KNOW WHAT I’M DOING!”