Hi, Mumofsix, I've had an emegency caesar and an "elective" caesar and I was told by an ob (not the one who performed the second caesar) that four are perfectly safe but they start warning you against having anymore after that as it does weaken the uterus. If you have an obstetrician you know and trust I'd go straight to him/her for answers.

Emma, everyone experiences things differently and one person's experience is no guarantee that yours will be the same. With my first labour I went into labour naturally but things started to go wrong almost 12 hours after I made it into the hospital and I ended up with an emergency caesar. My next one was an "elective" and I put this in inverted commas because I really hadn't much of a choice. Despite what people say about feeling more in control during an elective the only thing you have control over is booking the date, everything else is completely out of your hands and you have to place tremendous faith in the health professionals performing the operation and looking after you that they will do their job to the best of their ability, to be fair that is what you get the vast majority of the time in any hospital in Australia. You also have to trust you won't fall prey to post-operative infections or have any other complication. I don't want to scare you but some people will act like having a caesar is so much easier and safer (and more controllable!) and that is really not the case. You need to do research, talk with people, and if necessary get counselling to get over the trauma of your previous birth experience before you can make a decision. In my own case, if I were to have another child, I'd also have an elective caesar and I trust my ob and the hospital where my last one was performed. But I still can't help feeling envious of my sister who just had a VBAC.