With my second birth, I desperately wanted a VBAC. I did all my homework: I switched to a midwife, I took the natural childbirth classes, read all the research, and more.
I turned in to a real hippidity dippidty because I wanted a VBAC that badly.
So, to earn a VBAC, your chances are higher (says the research) if you do NOT get an epidural. Once I read that, I was determined. I would not, in no freaking way, get an epidural.
Or so I thought.
My due date came and went. I tried everything to get it started naturally (I was a full-blown hippy, remember?).
But nothing worked. Finally, in the middle of the night I dropped my mucus plug. Then shit got real. My contractions started slow but steady. I did everything that I read I should do to make my labor progress quicker. I sat on the stupid ball, I walked, and I sat in the tub.
That’s what finally worked—after 18 hours of laboring at home.
So, my husband drove me to the hospital which was an hour away—during rush hour. Not fun. When we got there, the nurse checked me in triage.
Guess what? I wasn’t dilated—not one freaking bit. They sent me to a local hotel to “sleep.” The pain got worse. I started groaning and wanting to die. After two hours I screamed at my husband to take me back to the hospital. But nope, I still wasn’t dilated. “I’m not going anywhere,” I told the nurses. “Put me in a room!”
They did. From there, I became an absolute lunatic.
The labor pain in my hips and thighs was unbearable. I was writhing backwards on the toilet. Then it turned into a full-blown scene from The Exorcist. I moaned. I screamed. I swore—a lot, and at everyone. Finally, after 38 of the most painful, tiring hours of my freaking life, I gave in.
“Give me an epidural!” I shouted. I grabbed the call remote hanging on my bed and chucked it against the wall. I grabbed it again. I pressed the red button and screamed into it, “Someone get in here and give me an epidural!”
Not so Namaste anymore, huh? Yup, my hippie phase was over.
I needed the pain to end and I didn’t care what they put into my body to get it to.
The midwife tried talking me out of getting the epidural because of “the research,” but I pretty much told her to F off.
She was not a fan of me after that—and I don’t blame her. But once that man came in with the heavenly needle that was going to plunge into my back, I fell in love.
The second that needle submerged, I was the happiest non-hippie mama ever. I drifted off to sleep and when I woke up, I was dilated to a freaking 9.
Thank you, epidural! After that, I still had to push for 3 god-for-saking hours.
But thanks to that epidural (the true love of my life), I got my VBAC.
Birth plans don’t always go as planned, and often go very awry.
But if you want something badly enough, you’ll get it—it just may not look like the perfect plan you envisioned in your head. Sure, I didn’t have the unmedicated natural birth I dreamt about, but in the long run, it’s the epidural that got me to my end goal. And I have no regrets.