BORN TO BE LOVED
Natural Childbirth
ISAAC DEAN
Isaac's VBAC Waterbirth Story
When we found out we were pregnant with our first son (Caleb), we wanted to do things as natural as possible. We took a Bradley birth class and had carefully prepared our birth plan. When my water broke we were told by our OB/GYN to go to the hospital. I labored 25 hours and after failing to progress, we ended up having Caleb via c-section. Although the hospital care was good, our birth plan was pretty much nullified. While we were very happy and blessed with our new baby, we knew that if we got pregnant again we wanted to do things differently if possible.
When we found out we were pregnant with our second child (Isaac), we met with midwife Faith Morie and her student-midwife (at the time) Rebecca. After talking with them we felt confident in our decision to try a VBAC home birth.
At about 38-39 weeks I started having some contractions. I did not experience any contractions until after my water broke with my first, so my husband and I thought, “This is it, baby is coming.”
However, we soon discovered that these were not labor contractions yet, just fun bonus contractions until I actually went into labor :)
On December 28 (4 days past my due date), around 9pm, I was reading in bed when my water broke. I alerted my husband and texted Faith and Rebecca. They advised me to get some rest until my contractions started. I started getting regular contractions (5-7 minutes apart I think) a little before midnight.
I let the midwives know and they asked if I wanted them to come over. I asked my husband what he thought and he was eager to get them to come, as he was very opposed to delivering the baby himself!
Faith arrived around 12:30 and checked me. I was at 4cm (which was super exciting since I only made it to 5cm with my firstborn). I labored in bed and was still able to carry on conversation for a little while.
Rebecca and Annabelle (another student midwife) arrived. Then contractions intensified. I had envisioned my husband massaging me through the contractions, but that went out the window. I did not want anyone touching me, I was very focused on getting through each one.
The birth pool was amazing. It felt so good to be “weightless” in the water and made the contractions more manageable. The midwives encouraged me throughout the hard labor contractions, but allowed me to just “be” (which was not the case in the hospital).
A little before 6am Rebecca checked me and told me it was time to push. I was so excited, very ready for the painful contractions to be over!
And after about 20 or so minutes, my 2nd son was born in the water! Rebecca caught him and immediately placed him on my chest.
I moved to my bed where I was able to rest as the midwives cleaned me up.
Shortly after, I got to take an herbal bath with my son. After the bath, the midwives suggested I try to take a nap—this was such a welcome suggestion after laboring all night long!
They had cleaned everything up and made sure we were ok and left.
This was another bonus of having a home birth, being in my own bed and left alone to get some rest (in the hospital we maybe got a total of 2 hours of sleep over the course of 2.5 days).
It felt so good to have been able to have a home vaginal birth after the c-section. It was awesome to know there was nothing wrong with my body. I saw the chiropractor, Dr. Janelle Zimmerman, throughout my pregnancy and am convinced that the chiropractic care played a big part in having a successful VBAC.
My husband and I couldn’t be happier with our birth experience this time, from the prenatal care to the actual birth.
If we have any more children, we will definitely have another home birth.
