Abbey Lee's birth.

DS's birth, 4th October, 2005.
I had a visit at the hospital where I saw the ob on call, I was ten days over my edd. He did an internal and said I had not dilated at all, therefore would not go into natural labour and he recommended an induction the following day. Not knowing any better I agreed, and went off to hospital at 7am the following morning to have the prostin gel inserted. I was stuck on the bed all day being monitored causing horrid back pain. I had my second lot of gel at 3pm, mild contractions started at 6pm, waters broke at 8pm, then things were full on from then. At 10pm the doctors came in to check me, and I was 5cm, they put a scalp clip on ds and said he was in distress and they recommended a c/s. We said yes because we didn't know what was going on, at 11.28pm ds was born, and immediately taken away from me, I went off to recovery alone and babyless. I felt something wasn't quite right so requested my notes from the hospital, and found that they had over exaggerated the situation and the c/s really wasn't needed at that time.
I decided the next birth would be totally different, so when I found out I was pregnant I hired an independant midwife, and booked into the vbac hospital in melbourne. I met the ob there and wasn't 100% convinced hospital was the right place to be, so we decided we would be staying at home, until such time as was necessary to go to hospital.
I hired a trainee doula too which was probably the best decision I made!!

August 24th,2007, 6.30am, got up to go to the loo, got back into bed and had a strong braxton hicks with some period type pain at the same time, it was quite different to the other braxton hicks I had had during the pregnancy. Stayed in bed another 20 minutes and had another two in that time.
DS woke up early, so I got him up and had a coffee with DH and said I had some weird pains but to go to work anyway. I messaged my doula, and rang my midwife just to let her know things may be happening. As soon as DH left they got stronger and closer together, 40 minutes later I rang him and told him to turn around and come home.
He arrived home shortly after, at around 9am, at which time I was doing laps around the coffee table humming through contractions.
I rang me midwife back and asked her to come and check the baby was fine, she came shortly after, everything was good and I said I didn't need her to stay. My doula rang, we had a chat, I said I would call her when I needed her to come.
About an hour or so later I asked DH to call them back and tell them now would be a good time to head over. The contractions were probably about 3-5 minutes apart now, and needed alot of concentration. I can't remember when they arrived, the next 14 hours I was in active labour and had no perception of time.
Around midnight I was exhausted, I hadn't eaten hardly anything all day, and was nauseous. I decided to get an internal, and if I was less than about 8cm's I wanted to go to hospital and get pain relief.
My midwife checked, and I was 4-5 cm's,and the babies head was not well lined up with my cervix. I was dissapointed, but happy with my decision to go to hospital. We headed off, and I requested an epidural straight away which I got at around 3am. The next couple of hours were awesome, no pain, and even though I didn't sleep I rested to give me energy for the rest of my labour. At about 6am I had another internal and was still 5cm's, and bubs was definately posterior(spine to spine), so had my waters broken. By now the epi had worn off considerably. At 8.30am the ob had started for the day so came in to see me and I was 8cm's(woohoo!!!).
Two hours later she came in again and I was still 8cm's but had an anterior lip so she recommended some synto in the drip which I agreed to. I also asked to see the anaethitist(sp?) to get the epi topped up as it wasn't doing anything. He came in and I got another dose of pain relief that lasted around two hours again and then wore off!
Around 11.30pm the ob came in again and I was fully dilated but bubs was still posterior.
She had to go off and do a c/s, but recommended I start pushing to try and get the baby to turn. The first half hour or so of pushing the epi was still working so it was quite hard knowing what to do. After that it wore off though, the contractions were extremely painful but at least when pushing you know you are getting something out of it. Apparently I pushed for two and a half hours, but again I had no concept of time.
The ob came back and the baby had turned, she asked if I was interested in assisted delivery, I said no but then became aware that since pushing the babies heart rate had started to go up, and I thought that there is no way I have been through such a long labour for them to take my baby away when she is born due to distress, so I agreed to the ventouse. It felt like it was on the whole time, but according to my midwife she only assisted through a couple of contractions and I did the rest of the work.
When the babies head was crowning it actually didn't hurt like I expected, the contractions were still really painful and there was intense pressure, but no pain or burning on my perenium.
The proudest moment of my life was pushing my baby straight into her daddy's arms, after a 32 hour posterior labour (2.04pm on the 25th). He caught her and passed her straight onto my chest. We found out she was a girl (a suprise!!), me, my doula and midwife balled our eyes out for about five minutes, DH was holding back tears too. I held her for about half an hour, but within the first few minutes she opened her eyes and looked straight into mine, then DH had a cuddle, and then I held her again and she had her first breastfeed. She did and is still feeding like she has done it a million times before.
I had no stiches or tearing, and we came home that night, and went clothes shopping the next morning!!! I am already thinking about the birth of our next bub!!!

Congrats Becmc! What a great story - gives me alot of faith in the body of a woman and what it can achieve when "left alone". Well done for being brave and opting for a VBAC. I am so glad it worked out for you.

Congratulations Bec on the safe arrival of your little princess :D

Well done Becmc! I'm so glad you achieved the birth you really wanted :)

Well done!!! Congratulations on your VBAC, IKWYM about planning your next birth

Hi Bec,
Congratulations on the successful VBAC and arrival of Abbey. Gives me hope that I can do it when my time comes, if ever.
Thanks
TICKLISH