Lessons from a VBAC

It took me a year and a bit of a meltdown before I wrote about my c-section. For a year it felt too raw to really be able to address. When I finally was able to write about it, that post got passed around a bunch and I realized maybe I wasn’t alone in my feelings of inadequacy and frustration. Because that pregnancy was such a miraculous event, I never anticipated getting a do-over on the birth experience, but when we found out we were pregnant in January, my anxiety about having another c-section started right away. I wrote about dealing with those emotions and then a week later Teddy was born. I wasn’t necessarily planning on writing about his birth so soon, but because I had opened the door to our story, lots of people were curious about how this birth went.

I have mixed emotions about sharing birth stories. My birth story is kind of awesome— it took four hours, was unmedicated, and afterwards there was a rush of joy and adrenaline. That’s the story my mom tells about my birth and she adds the part where she was so wide awake afterwards that she was writing thank you notes, but I won’t tell you that part because it just makes the rest of us look bad in comparison. In the same way I feel a sense of protection about my children’s adoption stories (I share some things here, but there are many many details we keep private), I feel a desire to let the births of my sons be their stories to tell, too. So I’m happy to share some of the lessons I’ve learned from this most recent birth experiment, but if you’re the type who likes reading the descriptive detailed accounts, you won’t find that here.

The short version of the story is that Teddy was born. The end. He was born healthy and crying and I was healthy and crying (with joy and relief) and those are probably the most important details. Everything else is superfluous, but I’ll share some of it with you in the hopes that it will be a help to anyone else on this journey.

Photo by Rebecca Tredway Photography

I did end up having a successful VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean). In all the important ways, there isn’t much of a difference when it comes to becoming a mother via adoption or birth (vaginal or c-section). Motherhood is motherhood and when somebody places a child in your arms and says “Congratulations, Mommy” those overwhelming feelings are the same no matter where that child came from (don’t get me started about my feelings on using the word “natural” to describe one of these methods as though all other ways of becoming a mother are “unnatural” and somehow inferior). With that in mind, here is what I learned from my VBAC experience:

-I did not feel more empowered or womanly. Through my c-section experience I felt like I had failed in my womanly duty to birth a child. I know this was compounded by the years of infertility and ectopic pregnancies prior to that birth experience that had set me up to feel like my body was a failure. I heard women talk about feeling empowered by birth and thought I’d been robbed of that moment. After experiencing a vaginal delivery I realized I just may not be one of those women who has those kinds of feelings. My emotional reaction to the birth of my son was just relief— relief that labor was over, relief that I didn’t have to have another emergency c-section, and relief that this pregnancy was done and there was a healthy baby. When my c-section baby was born, I felt a very similar relief, but it was followed by the harsh realities of recovery from major surgery.

-The recovery was much easier. When I had my first prenatal appointment with my midwife, I came in expecting to have to convince her to let me try a VBAC. Instead, she pushed me towards it before I even had the chance to bring it up. I told her my ego wasn’t in having a “natural” childbirth and I was open to whatever was safest and she said, “This has nothing to do with ego. I’m purely looking at what kind of recovery I want for you. You’re adding a sixth young child to your family and I want you up and around with as little pain as soon as possible. That means having a vaginal birth.” And she was totally right. I almost cried when they wheeled me back to the postpartum room and told me to get in the bed. I couldn’t believe I could just stand up out of that chair and get myself into a bed. Whoever says that having a c-section is the “easy way out” is out of their mind.

-I didn’t feel differently about my baby. In spite of their different entrances into the world, the love I felt for my sons was exactly the same. It has been a mix of feeling like this child is a total stranger I am learning to love and feeling like he is a familiar soul I have been reunited with after knowing him in my womb for nine months. I didn’t feel any stronger connection with my VBAC baby or feel like we bonded differently because of the manner of his birth. While there were aspects of childcare that were easier because I wasn’t recovering from surgery, loving these boys came entirely naturally to me regardless of how they were born.

-My emotional state was determined before I reached the delivery room or the operating room. It was really hard for me to turn off the guilt inducing thoughts as I was in labor. There were interventions needed and with each one I had these thoughts that I was now making the decision to cause myself to have a c-section. I had to actively fight those emotions. At one point in my labor I asked my husband and labor support friend to leave the room so I could just be alone. I needed to collect my thoughts and emotions. I needed a minute to remind myself that at the end of this journey there was going to be a baby and a recovery. The kind of emotional recovery I had was going to be determined by the emotional choices I made right now. If I choose to believe I could control birth or that I was failing because I allowed interventions, I was going to have a tough recovery process. If instead I was okay with listening to the coaching of my midwife and if I trusted that God was ultimately there with me in those decisions, then I wouldn’t have to relive this experience and try to fix it in my mind even if it did end in a c-section. I kept repeating to myself, “My expectations will hurt me more than the c-section.” It was a helpful perspective adjustment for me.

-The birth process was healing. I had a friend praying for me that whatever happened in this process, it would be healing. It was a prayer I prayed for myself, too. Having a successful VBAC was healing, but not in the ways I anticipated. Instead of it being “healing” because I finally got to have the birth experience I wanted, it was healing because it made me more appreciative of how necessary the c-section was. Having peace about whatever was going to happen before it even happened made the birth process feel more like riding a train and less like driving a car. I was able to sit back and enjoy the ride instead of feeling like I was responsible for every bump in the road. That was healing and even if the outcome had been different, I think the healing aspect would have been the same.

-My VBAC made me more content with my c-section. This was honestly the biggest take-away from my VBAC experience. I had read a VBAC story where a woman had pushed her baby into the world and then yelled, “Screw Dr. (whatever his name was)” because she was still so mad about her previous c-section and proud of herself for doing what that doctor said she couldn’t. That was not AT ALL the feeling I had when my baby was born. There were some similarities between the two labor processes and the fact that one of my boys was able to be born vaginally and one wasn’t just reaffirmed to me how unique each birth is and that certain interventions don’t necessarily mean you’re going to need a c-section. I had spent two years telling myself if we had done X differently or Y differently, maybe he would have been able to be born without a c-section, but watching this second birth happen in almost an identical way with a different outcome was incredibly helpful in letting go of that guilt.

-I am still not in control. This second birth did not go the way I would have planned it. I filled out a birth plan for my midwife and after watching my birth plan fall apart last time, I didn’t have much to write down this go around. Pretty much the only thing I wrote was that I didn’t want a vacuum used. In our last experience that was the last-ditch effort and it was totally unsuccessful. In my mind, vacuum equalled unnecessary trauma. I told everyone (doctor, midwife, nurses) that if they thought it was time for a vacuum, just take me in for the c-section instead. So there was a moment during labor when my midwife said, “It’s time for a hard conversation. I think this baby can be born without a c-section, but he’s going to need the vacuum.” Of course. So we tried it. And it worked. And I was humbled again. Birth is not a predictable thing and the tools that have been developed exist for a reason.

-The worst part about having a baby via c-section is the c-section. I think this is the bottom-line reality. Surgery is hard on a body and it should be avoided when possible. Nobody would think it was reasonable to take out your appendix and then hand you a newborn to care for. It seems nearly impossible to me (without hiring in-home help) to take good care of yourself and also be responsible for a baby, not to mention any additional children. In my opinion, that is the real downside of a c-section. It isn’t that bonding is harder or that these kids are going to be damaged or that we don’t feel as empowered or that we’re wimps and easily manipulated by pushy doctors. When we believe all that other stuff we are complicating our own recoveries even more.

I know some women are totally at peace with their c-section experiences and have no desire for a VBAC. I know some women are grieved that they never got the VBAC experience they desired. My experiences are only mine and maybe none of this is applicable to anyone else and that’s okay. And ultimately there are ways this whole conversation seems silly since for years I begged God for a biological child and how that child would enter the world wasn’t even a blip on my radar. I am so thankful for the gift of these children and the stories they have brought into my life. That moment of birth is fleeting, but being their mom is forever.