VBAC & Epidurals

With my VBAC I had to be at the hospital pretty much straight away as I had some complications 10 days earlier that nearly resulted in another cs then. So my whole labour was on the bed with up in stirrups. Labour started at 1am, was at hospital by 2.30am.  Within 2 hours of starting my contractions were 2 mins apart and nearly a minute long and very painful as I was not able to move so I gas. Found it didn't seem to do a lot until the contraction had nearly finished (but thats probably cos I kept taking it away from my face to have fresh air). Ended up having an epi at 7am and was fully dialated by 8am but Joel was too high and wasn't coming down at all (10 days early). Pushed for 2.5hrs then he started to get distressed (and I wasn't lol) so it was either another cs or forceps. Chose forceps, had an episiotomy and 2nd degree internal tear but I was up and about 6 hours later and home within 24 hours so much better than the 6 days with no1.

My midwife knew I really didn't want a cs and while not a lovely easy birth was still for me a better birth than with no1. (there ended up being 10 people in the room as all the drs had students and so did the midwife, and they all asked if it was ok for the students. I figured they had to learn about a forceps birth anyway so they might as well be there! The student OB was the one who delived Joel and he didn't have a mark on him.)

I had CS with DD1. Had epi on Dr advice cos I was getting soo tired in labour as it was long and drawn out. Had ARM and water was green as she had pooed sign of distress. Epi wore off and I tried to push but DD was stuck and ended with Emer cs under GA.

DD2 I decided early on that I wanted Vbac. My CS experience was tramatic and the thought of it scared the shyt out of me even 5 years down the track with DD2. Had long dicussions with OB about this. He was great,put me in touch with a MW who had alot of experience with helping mums have a successful VBAC.

Part of the planning included lots of walking during preg to help strengthen muscles, walking while in labour and being upright if able to to help with gravity and all lol and last was no epi as this had slowed my previous labour not that, that  contributed to CS.

SO here I was walking 2.5km from one end of Petone beach to the other in labour, got stuck on wharf and DH had to retrieve car while I tried hard not to have this baby on the wharf as contractions were over a minute long lol. Got to the hosp and DD2 was born 20mins later standing up, had ARM with her.