VBAC After Breech C-section: Eli’s Birth Story

I never used to understand when I’d hear other moms say that they were obsessed with hearing birth stories.

My first pregnancy ended up in a c-section because of breech presentation.My water ended up breaking with her at 37 weeks + 6 days, a couple weeks before my planned c-section.

Everything went super smooth – the c-section was successful, Aria was healthy, and I even got to do skin to skin afterward. There was no trauma, really. However, I was drugged up and immobile basically the entire time I was in the hospital. Then when we got home, I couldn’t move much because of the surgery, and couldn’t sleep much because of the lack of range of motion. The recovery was fairly long, and I had to take in and get more drugs than I would have preferred.

Then when I became pregnant with Eli, I knew immediately I wanted to try for a VBAC. The biggest reason was because of the recovery with a toddler at home. Two weeks not picking up and chasing my toddler sounded much better than 8 weeks. But also for the maternal and baby benefits, and for the experience. I also wanted to try for unmedicated, but left the option of an epidural totally on the table.

With Eli, I was sure he would be breech, too. He was up until about 35 weeks. It was during the pandemic, so I couldn’t make it to any chiro or acupuncture appointments, but I was doing spinning babies daily and doing moxibustion. At my 36 week appointment, I learned he was head down! Hooray! My chance of VBAC-ing was back.

After that, I began listening to all the podcasts I could on birth experiences, in order to get an idea of what I might be able to expect. Because I was truly clueless. I now understood other mamas’ fascination with birth stories.

Anyway, throughout my entire pregnancy, I had tons of Braxton Hicks contractions – just like with Aria. As the weeks went on, they got more and more intense and more frequent – up to 80 per day some days.

When I reached 39 weeks, my peloton rides and lifting workouts became much more uncomfortable and brought on more braxton hicks. So I turned to morning walks every morning in an effort to help baby get into birthing position.

I was 39 weeks, 3 days – a whole 11 days further into this pregnancy than when my water broke with my first. I’d been eating dates, walking a lot, and doing other, ahem, natural things, to get this labor going. We were ready to meet Eli!

That night, I’d been feeling pretty intense and frequent Braxton Hicks contractions – maybe 6-10 an hour. This wasn’t entirely unusual. After a very active day, or one where I hadn’t had enough water this happened. But around 8p, I noticed the contractions were going all the way into my back and a little more painful – this was unusual. I thought maybe labor would be happening soon. I went to sleep at 10 like usual, and thought if I were having contractions, I’d try to sleep through them.

Well, I did, waking up often to toss and turn when a contraction would wake me up. Then around 1:30a, they started getting very painful. Painful enough where I knew I couldn’t sleep through them, and that I was in (what I thought was) early labor. Spoiler alert: I was already in active labor!

I started timing the contractions and they were between 4-10 minutes apart. I woke Shane up at 3a to tell him I was in labor, and he might want to shower and wake up soon. Then 15 minutes later I was telling him to get up now, and calling our friend to come over who was going to watch Aria.

At 3:30, things started getting very very painful, intense, with contractions only a few minutes apart. They would drop me and make me moan each time. We were able to leave for the hospital  shortly after, and arrived to the hospital shortly after 4.

I got checked in, and then a nurse checked me, and to my shock, told me I was already dilated to a 9 (!!!) Another nurse did another check (who had long nails – ouch) and confirmed I was at an 8 or 9.

Thanks for reading! XO