VBAmC

I remember the first time I learned the phrase VBA2C. I thought it was a beautiful acryonym, because it represented hope. I love reading about VBAmC stories (VBAC after multiple cesareans).
Here is a link that has links to many VBAmC stories.

Here is a medical review titled Vaginal Birth a Safe Option After Multiple C-sections

ICAN is an amazing group. Joining it and getting involved with the "other side" of birth has changed my life!

As I learned about VBA2C the past year I shared my feelings on my blog. I have been so grateful to friends who have made encouraging comments. Here's what one friend said :

"I was just thinking about telling you that twice a C-section does not a third c-section make. I watched a video my sister sent recently...after 3 c-sections this woman had her 4th naturally. I think that it is the most soul satisfying, empowering experience to give birth naturally...it is really a hallmark of my life.I know you can do it and I'm so impressed with your desire! Desire is the key!"

Another said:
"I am so glad you have found a positive way to move forward with your grief. Becoming more educated, and helping to educate others are good ways to move on. Doesn't learning more make you want to have another baby right away, just to prove you can do it? "

Support from like minded friends and blogging friends is so helpful!

Here's the link to my original post when I learned about VBA2C. Also here's a cool video from ICAN!



I have watched that probably about 15 times but I still get teary eyed. I am so thankful that there are many strong women who have paved the way.

Another Birth

Sunday night I got called by my client in labor. I left my house at midnight and got home at noon the next day. Needless to say after doing an all-nighter Thursday night I am quite tired. But it's worth it! The couple did fantastic together and the mom had an all natural, wonderful birth. Her doctor really respected her birth plan. Mom was patient, strong, and super sweet during her birth. She labored in a lot of different positions, including sitting on a birth ball, leaning over the birth ball, walking the halls, resting in bed on her side, standing and hugging her husband, standing in the shower, using a squat bar, and even sitting on the toilet. With education, desire, and a supportive birth team, childbirth without drugs is very achievable! It is a privilege to be at births as a doula, and I am very excited that I've found this path.

First Home birth!

I went to my first home birth the past week. I went with the doula who trained me. It was really neat!
In the past year I have become a big advocate for homebirth. I am not saying I want to have one, because homebirth is especially safe for low risk women, and because I've had two cesarean, I am not "low risk". The problem is, many women are being denied the care they deserve in a hospital (like banning VBACs or insisting on c-sections for breech babies) so some women have to seek home birth even if they are what would be considered "high risk".
I was speaking to the doctor that was attending the home birth and he said they used to do twins, VBACs, and breech births, but in the past few years they stopped doing those. He said it's all politics, and that they would like to do those types of births, but they have to do what they can to keep home birth a viable option at least for the low risk women.

Being Born is Important

By Carl Sandburg

Being born is important
You who have stood at the bedposts
and seen a mother on her high harvest day,
the day of the most golden of harvest moons for her.

You who have seen the new wet child
dried behind the ears,
swaddled in soft fresh garments,
pursing its lips and sending a groping mouth
toward nipples where white milk is ready.

You who have seen this love's payday
of wild toiling and sweet agonizing.

You know being born is important.
You know that nothing else was ever so important to you.
You understand that the payday of love is so old,
So involved, so traced with circles of the moon,
So cunning with the secrets of the salts of the blood.
It must be older than the moon, older than salt.


**I saw this poem on a midwife's homepage, then googled it and found it on several other birth blogs. That led me to finding this beautiful artwork on birth.

Update Central DuPage

Central DuPage Hospital, or CDH, has a 46% c-section rate and a 99% epidural rate. Correlation? Or just a reflection of the birthing culture in our area at this time? I think it's probably both.

*I found this out through my doula trainer, who is seeing one of the doctors' groups that delivers there. She asked him what the hospital c-section and epidural rate is, and that is what he told her. I'm guessing the 46% is an exact status and the 99% is his way of saying "almost everyone" gets an epidural. (She is having her third home birth by the way, and is just seeing them for the first part of her pregnancy--they do know this).