The VBAC Blog

JM sent this in:

I foresee my husband being the problem on this. He’s a CPA and very calculating (not in a conniving way, just in a weighing all the possible outcomes sort of way) and I fear out of his own concern for me and any potential baby of ours he would convince me to go the traditional hospital route. There are so many stops on that route that I’m just not ready to accept like having to recline before your water breaks, not being allowed to eat or drink (even chicken broth) while you’re in labor, being limited on the number of guests you’re allowed to have in your room during delivery, epistiotomy, the removal of the child from the room right after delivery for
washing and immunizations, the application of the antibiotic ointment to their eyes before they even get to see you. It all adds up to outrage for me.

MY RESPONSE:

I’d love to share my story with you and perhaps you can tell your hubby when the time comes.

My hubby, Richard, used to work in an emergency room as an x-ray tech. He has always felt that you should have all medical procedures in a controlled environment…the hospital.

I really wanted to try to have Max at home but Richard was very nervous about that (he even looked nervous when I said I did NOT want to go to the hospital right when labor started). So, I said, sure, we’ll have Max at the hospital.

Now that Richard has seen what really happens in hospitals, he’s 100% supportive of a home birth.

Now, remember, I had 3 children before Max, all delivered successfully the old fashioned way. When I went into labor with Max, I was in labor and very comfy at home. When my contractions came faster, we drove to the children’s schools and picked them all up.

We came back home and called the doctor. He said to come into his office for a checkup (that was our biggest mistake). We went there and they put me flat on my back on a table and put a fetal monitor on me. I had no contractions at all for 45 minutes. The nurse came in and said, “I think you have a urinary tract infection. We’re going to give you antibiotics and send you home. You’re not in labor.”

I replied, “I’ve had 3 kids already and I AM in labor.” She disagreed.

The PA came in a few minutes later just to check me and said, “Oh my gosh. You’re dilated to 5 and your waters are bulging.”

“I told you so!” I replied with a smirk.

They told us to walk next door to the hospital. That was another mistake. Should have come home again (we’re just down the street from the hospital). Oh, and by the way, I never did see my doctor that day. These days, you get whomever is on call at the hospital. If your doc’s not on call, he won’t be the one delivering your baby!

I quickly went from 5 to 10 and was begging for pain relief. Max may have been coming out face-up, which is a painful way to give birth (Ali came out that way). But they never determined that. They gave me a narcotic, which made me completely stupid (I can’t remember several hours of that afternoon) and made my face itch so badly that my face peeled for several days thereafter. My head kept bobbing to the side and my actions really frightened our other children.

I pushed for hours (I don’t remember any part of that except for when I was vomiting – I’d never vomited in labor before!) and Max never moved. I now believe the narcotic they gave me inhibited my ability to push. Or perhaps his head turned the wrong way after they ruptured my bag of waters. Or maybe he was indeed too darned big. We’ll never know.

My neighbor says that, close to midnight, I sat up in my bed, clapped my hands over my head, and said, “I want a c-section.” I don’t remember doing that, but I believe her.

Max was born shortly thereafter via c-section, of course. He was 10 lbs., 4 oz. However, I’d had a 9 pounder and two 8 1/2 pounders. Had I been at home, squatting the way I like to labor, and undrugged, I’m sure I could have had him the right way…but, again, we’ll never know!

They took Max away from us for 2 hours for observation, gave him a bunch of shots, poked his heel with that horrible blade thing they twist around, put goop in his eyes, etc. Two hours of torture while I was stitched and put in the recovery room. Two hours of my baby being with strangers (Richard couldn’t go in there, either, because they sent him home – it was after visiting hours and I wasn’t in a private room!). By the way, the recovery room nurse said, “You poor thing. You pushed so hard you’re all bruised down there.” I went home the next day and there was no bruising “down there” at all. Hmm…

Anyway, it was a nightmare from start to finish and now they’re trying to tell me I have to do the same thing all over again or I can’t have my baby there?! Ludicrous.

We were told, during our second visit to the obstetrician for this pregnancy, that the doctor “never” allows VBACs. I asked why. The nurse stated, “It’s too dangerous.”

I went on to ask if there were other doctors in the area that allowed them. She said no, there aren’t. She said I could ask the doctor about it, but she knew he would say no.

We came home that day quite upset and Richard started researching the issue online. One email we received let us know that it’s not the doctors who are refusing to allow VBACs. It’s the local hospital’s policy. This email told us the hospital was involved in a lawsuit back in 2001 after a woman who was having a VBAC there died because there wasn’t an anesthesiologist there for emergency surgery.

I guess the hospitals must have an anesthesiologist on duty (not just on call) if a woman is attempting a VBAC. And, I would assume that, if that particular woman doesn’t need an anesthesiologist after all, the insurance company won’t pay for that anesthesiologist. (But, did this hospital consider the potential lost business due to their refusal to allow VBACs??)

During my next visit to the obstetrician, we got to meet with the doctor himself. This was the third time I’d been there for this pregnancy but only the first time we’d been seen by him. (I’ve since been back there again and got an entirely new person – so I’ve been for 4 visits and seen 4 entirely different people there!). He examined me, said the baby was “kinda biggish” (though he didn’t measure my uterus, he just felt it) and then sat down in his chair and reviewed my file. I assumed he saw a note from the nurse who had told us we couldn’t have a VBAC. He turned to us and asked if we wanted to labor with this one. I said, yes, it was very important to me. He said he didn’t see a problem with it, but added, “As long as nothing happens.”

I asked, “The hospital won’t mind?”

He replied, “No.”

Hmmm… While we were relieved to hear about this change, we were understandably extremely suspicious. Was he just saying this to get as much of the prenatal money out of us as he can? Was he afraid we were going shopping for a midwife? Was he going to suddenly diagnose some problem later in my pregnancy that would make a VBAC not possible? Why did the hospital have a sudden change in policy just since our previous visit even though they’ve had that policy in place since 2001? Why wasn’t he telling us the truth about what exactly was going on?

Since neither the nurse nor the doctor bothered to tell us it was a hospital policy, we decided we could no longer trust them. And, we certainly couldn’t trust this person with our baby’s life!

And then things got more interesting. We did some more investigating and discovered that a letter to the editor had appeared in our local newspaper toward the end of December. Seems a pregnant woman’s sister wrote in, telling the story of her sister’s beautiful home birth. She said her sister was forced to give birth at home because the local hospital wouldn’t allow a VBAC. Did that letter do something to change the hospital boards’ minds about VBAC. Perhaps…but I still could no longer trust my obstetrician.

On my next visit there (we hadn’t yet found a midwife), when I saw employee #4, that nurse felt my uterus (again, she didn’t measure anything) and made a huge deal about how big the baby already is. She said she was going to talk to the doctor about sending me to diet and nutrition. Excuse me? You’re going to put a 17-week-old fetus on a diet? What she didn’t know is that I am a veracious researcher and I knew there was no way she could determine the size of the baby by just putting her hands on my uterus! Even sonograms can’t predict the size of a baby! Also, how can a baby who doesn’t even have fat cells yet be too big? She made such a huge fuss about it that I then strongly suspected that her and the doctor’s comments about our huge baby just might be their ticket to my future c-section! I left there, determined never to return.

Two weeks ago, we found a local midwife that has lots of experience, and hired her to deliver our baby.

I admit I’m still nervous about the risks, but not as nervous as I’d be if I continued to allow someone who hasn’t been honest with me to care for me and our unborn child. I plan to ask our family doctor to take over as my obstetrician (he was my ob/gyn before I got pregnant) in case I need care from a “real doctor.” And, I do have two birth plans, in case I chicken out. We’ll either have the baby at home. Or, if I get cold feet, we’ll drive to another town and have the baby there (and hope I don’t have her on the side of the road between here and there!). And, if something goes awry, we’ll have to use the local hospital, which is only 2 minutes down the road. If I’m already in labor, they can’t refuse to care for us.

If I do give birth at home, I imagine that’s a pretty hefty chunk of money that the hospital didn’t earn because of their policy. And, yes, we have very good insurance.