Episode 227 Brenda's VBAC + Heart-Shaped Uterus

Due to a velamentous cord insertion and breech presentation, Brenda decided to schedule a Cesarean for her first birth. It was a peaceful, calm, and beautiful experience. When she became pregnant with her second baby soon after the first, Brenda knew she would be okay with another Cesarean if necessary, but also intuitively felt that this birth experience would be very different. Though she didn’t know exactly what to expect from labor, her body took over and knew exactly what to do…even in the car!Additional LinksBrenda’s WebsiteBrenda’s InstagramBrenda’s FacebookHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsThe VBAC Link Facebook CommunityFull Transcript under Episode DetailsMeagan: Happy Wednesday, everybody. You’re listening to The VBAC Link. This is your host, Meagan, and you guys, we have a great story for you. A really, really great, exciting story. One of those stories that you see go viral. Brenda, you might have gone viral. They go viral, a lot of these stories, and they’re really fun to listen to. I always remember imagining and being like, “That would be cool if that happened to me,” then I’d be like, “What would I do?” I don’t know what I would do. Our friend, Brenda, is here to share her story with you. You guys, trust me. It’s going to be an amazing one. I’m going to read a review and then we are going to jump right into it. Review of the WeekToday’s review is by jess63636 and it says, “Fantastic resource for mamas looking to VBAC.” It says, “I listened to the VBAC podcast in the days leading up to my delivery. I wish I had discovered it sooner. The VBAC Link resource helped me through a successful VBAC induction.” Love it, congratulations. “It was an empowering experience facilitated by the support of The VBAC Link.” Oh, that makes me so happy. It makes me so happy. We have a lot of people that will find us toward the end and they’re like, “Oh, we wish that we knew about you.” I’m like, “I love that you love the podcast in the time that you did have us.” Don’t stop listening because guess what? All of these stories are going to continue and they’re all amazing and have their own special twists. So if you would also like to leave a review if you feel like jess63636 and would like to leave us a review, we would love it. So check it out. You can go on Google or on Apple Podcasts. You can shoot us a message at The VBAC Link on Instagram, Facebook, or wherever and you might be the next review read on the podcast. Brenda’s StoriesMeagan: Okay, Brenda. I’m excited to hear it. I was reading it, but I’m excited to hear from your words. I just think it’s great. We kind of talked about this right before we started recording, but I want to also tell listeners that you have something that a lot of our followers will write in and say, “My provider is telling me that I can’t have a vaginal birth because…” What do you have?  Brenda: A partial bicornuate uterus. Meagan: Yes. Brenda: Also known as the heart. Meagan: Heart-shaped, exactly. So a heart-shaped uterus. Is it different? Yes. But you are living proof, right? You are living proof that it can be done. So yeah, if you have a heart-shaped uterus then listen up. This is quite the story. Brenda: All right. I’m just going to start with my daughter’s quick story/birth and everything and also just mention her C-section. There was nothing traumatic about it for me. Everything went really smoothly and it was a really good C-section. I almost fell asleep during it was how calm and peaceful it was. Meagan: That’s so beautiful though. That’s so beautiful. Brenda: Yeah, it really was. I love listening to redemption stories, but personally, it wasn’t a redemption for me. It was just another experience that I wanted to experience. Meagan: Which I think is important to note by the way. Just saying that right there because we do hear a lot of hype, and mine was hyped I believe, and a traumatic experience. I don’t mean hyped like we are hyping it up. It’s a very intense lead-up and sometimes you can look back and are really struggling. It doesn’t always have to be that way and it isn’t always that way so we also need to be mindful of our listeners that didn’t have a traumatic Cesarean because sometimes we carry our feelings outwardly so it’s okay that someone had a beautiful experience. Brenda: Yes. Yes. It was really beautiful and leading up to it when I found out I was going to need the C-section with her, I was really disappointed. Ultimately, I wanted to have an unmedicated, vaginal birth with her and then we ran into, they weren’t really complications, but we didn’t know about my uterus. I had a very healthy pregnancy. She never moved much. She was breech pretty much the entire time. From my 20-week scan on, she never moved or flipped or anything but she was fine. A bunch of sono techs kept asking me, “Do you know what the shape of your uterus is?” By the time they had started asking me, my uterus was too expanded from being pregnant. I never had a reason to go find out what shape my uterus was. We had switched our OBs multiple times throughout my first pregnancy. We went from a friend’s OB, who had two Cesareans with him which were great. He was a great doctor. I just didn’t want to be in the hospital really, so we switched to a birthing center and then we were kicked out of the birthing center because she was breech and I also had a velamentous cord with her. Meagan: Which I feel like is also more common than we know. Brenda: Yeah. Yes, it definitely is. But I know too, our OB from my second pregnancy said that he usually doesn’t find out until birth about it, but with my first pregnancy, everyone was scaring me about it because it can be scary. Meagan: Yeah. It can result in IUGR and complications during birth. Brenda: Yes, but I just feel like they really hyped it up for me like, “You need to get a C-section.” I did feel like I needed to because she was breech on top of the cord insertion. So we ended up switching to a midwife after we got turned down. It was a midwife that one of our friends who was also pregnant was using and I was just like, “You know what? Let’s just do it. I don’t really want to be with an OB. It’s a pretty good hospital here,” so we switched and she basically explained the velamentous cord because I feel like it was really hard to find information on it when you Google it. There’s no clear information on it. She had drawn out a picture for us to understand it and then she explained, “And the baby’s breech and we don’t know what—” They thought that my uterus was a notch. I don’t know if I’m staying that right, but they thought that there was something stopping her from moving and then it ended up being that my uterus wasn’t what they expected it to be. So then once she drew the picture, it was just clear and I felt like, “Okay. This just needs to happen. I can’t even attempt it.” I even went through trying to find doctors who would deliver breech babies and there were not really many around here. Meagan: There’s not really many around anywhere. Brenda: Yes. So I did go down that route for a little bit and then I was just like, “Okay. I think I can’t do this. I’m stressing myself out too much and I don’t want the baby to be stressed,” so we had scheduled a C-section for May 17, 2021, and no. She was due on the 17th. The section was scheduled for the 13th and then my water ended up breaking at midnight on the 8th, the day before Mother’s Day. But I did also do all of the squats and I tried to induce labor because just personally, I wanted her to pick her own birthdate. I’m one of the oddballs when it comes to C-sections. I don’t like to plan the date. I would prefer to go into labor and let the baby choose so I was so excited when my water broke in my sleep. My husband was freaking out because he was like, “Oh good. We have the C-section date,” not freaking out, but he was at ease. Meagan: He was planning that day, yeah. Brenda: Yeah, and then the next day was Mother’s Day. We got to the hospital. We had a doula and she ended up meeting us at the hospital. Because of COVID and everything, she wasn’t allowed to come into—I think in the OR they’re usually not allowed to come in at this hospital, but she couldn’t even come in after to see us, but she was with us before. It was nice because even though I was excited, both of us were really nervous. Meagan: Yes. Well, talking about that. We get a lot of emails about, “What if it goes to a Cesarean, or what if I need a Cesarean? Is a doula worth it? Would you say yes?” Brenda: 1000% yes. Yeah, I would say because we had hired her before I needed a Cesarean and then that happened. She was with us after and just comforting me. I really, really wanted to do an unmedicated birth. It was definitely worth it because she also came over to the house after. We didn’t know what we were doing. We were first-time parents also and then I’m recovering from a major surgery. It’s not just a birth. It’s a surgery too and I had never had any surgeries in my lifetime, so that was the first one. But yeah, it’s definitely worth it if you can afford it or if you find somebody. I know around here, they have a lot of communities where they have affordable doulas which are really nice. Yeah, it was worth it and she was there, thankfully. My husband and I were both freaking out inside of our heads at the same time. I don’t think we both realized it and when we talked about it after, we had to wait for five hours for my C-section in the hospital. Meagan: Wow. Brenda: Yeah, because I had to get the COVID test and then I wasn’t really progressing or anything. Meagan: Oh, wow. I was going to say that normally with that type of situation, they would get you right in so that’s interesting. Brenda: Yeah, they were very busy that night. Meagan: They’re like, “You’re okay. You’re not having a baby right now.” Gotcha. Brenda: Yeah. Right before I went in, I started to get some mild contractions, but I didn’t know what contractions were until the second pregnancy. It was like, “Oh, I think I was getting a contraction. I don’t know.” But she kept us calm waiting to go in because five hours was a long time to wait. Meagan: That’s a long time to wait. Brenda: Yeah, so that was good and like I said, I almost fell asleep on the table and my husband was rubbing my head. He doesn’t do good with blood and stuff so he was trying to keep his eyes on me and rubbing my head to focus on something and not knowing it was really keeping me calm. But yeah, then she was born and it was Mother’s Day the next day. It was one of the hospital’s busiest weekends in years they said. Meagan: Wow. Brenda: Yeah, so that’s why we had to wait five hours. Meagan: Makes sense, makes sense. Brenda: Yeah, and then the next day, the OB—he was an on-call OB. I actually don’t even remember his name but I really, really liked him just because when he came in to check on us the next day, he had drawn out my uterus. He said, “So we have figured out your uterus. It is the partial bicornuate heart-shaped uterus” and explained, “This is where your daughter was in the womb,” and all of that. I don’t remember if I asked him but he basically just said to me, “You can totally have a vaginal birth going forward now that we know,” because this is the part I forgot. They didn’t want to manually flip her because they were sure and then with the cord insertion and everything, it was too much. It could have been a big storm. Meagan: Yeah, totally. That’s cool that he came and spent that time and was like, “This is where we’re going,” and that he even did say, “You can have a vaginal birth in the future, assuming we’ve got all of these other things.” But that’s really cool that he took that time, especially during one of the busiest weekends of the year. Brenda: Yeah, yeah. Actually, thinking back now after my second pregnancy, the midwife, I wouldn’t go back to her even though she was great for that, but thinking back, I’m like, “She didn’t check on us.” There are a lot of things now looking back I’m like— Meagan: Yes, and all of those things matter. They matter. They really do. Brenda: Yeah, but then that was my daughter, Harper. I’ll just go right into Hudson. Meagan: All right. Brenda: So Hudson is five months today by the way. I was very excited to record this for his five-month birthday. My husband and I had my daughter. We decided that we wanted to have another child and we just tried and two months later I became pregnant with him. I had reached out to the doula that we worked with for the first pregnancy. So I’m in Queens but I’m in the furthest part of Queens-- not the furthest part. I’m by the beach in Queens and she’s in Brooklyn and just where we are, it’s long to get to places in Brooklyn or in Manhattan and stuff. We’re just really far and it’s a long commute everywhere. So she had recommended this other doula who was closer to us from her doula community and we ended up clicking really well. I know when I first met her— Meagan: That’s awesome. Brenda: Yeah, it was nice. When I first met her on the Zoom call, she had just said—I just assumed I was going to need a scheduled Cesarean for the second time because this is now, they’re 15 months apart. It’s pretty close. Meagan: It’s close, yeah. Yeah. Brenda: Yeah, but she had said, “No, if you want a vaginal birth, you should totally do your research,” and she recommended The VBAC Link. So then we ended up looking into it and my husband was freaking out a little bit because he also just had in his head, “Oh, two years. Two years.” That’s what everybody is told. So once she recommended that I started listening to you guys and the more stories I heard, I was like, “Whoa. Okay.” I started researching, “How about babies who are born 15 months apart?” Just the shorter age gaps and stuff and I just kept hearing more and more and more, so then I decided, “All right. We’re going to try for a VBAC.” We ended up calling the midwife back again— Meagan: The out-of-hospital midwife? Brenda: Yes. She was in the hospital with us. She was with me through the C-section. Meagan: Okay, so not the birth center one. Brenda: No, so the birth center wouldn’t allow me back in either because of the Cesarean. Even if it was five years later, they wouldn’t take me on. Meagan: It was the fact that you were a previous Cesarean. Brenda: Yeah. We did meet with her the first two appointments and I did find out from a Long Island VBAC Facebook group because the hospital that we went to was in Long Island and I had seen a post that our midwife, someone else who was seeing our midwife, wasn’t delivering anymore. My husband is a New York City firefighter and another couple in his firehouse was going to the same midwife. They were also pregnant and didn’t know either, so I guess she didn’t tell anybody. It was really odd. Meagan: You were planning on giving birth with her. Brenda: Yeah and she did say too at our first appointment, “Yeah, if you go into labor by 39 weeks, you can totally try for a VBAC. If you don’t we have to schedule you by 39.” It was that same thing and then I found out she wasn’t delivering, and then I went to hop around to the other OBs in the office just to see if I clicked with anybody and every appointment for me just felt like another doctor’s appointment. They all said the same thing. In the VBAC group, somebody had mentioned a doctor from the practice and she had to fight with him to let her go to 41 weeks. I’m not a confrontational person. Meagan: Well and it’s hard because you’re already so vulnerable to have to walk in with your boxing gloves up, it’s not a great start. It’s not a great start. Brenda: Yeah, so I was just like, “I’m not fighting to want to go to 41 or 42 weeks. If I need to, the baby wants to.” So our doula and her doula community recommended the OB that we had switched to. My in-laws live next door and when I was talking to my mother-in-law, she was like, “Oh. That’s the practice that I went to when Sean was born,” but it was a different doctor. He had passed away and it was just a different doctor at the same practice. I was like, “Wow.” I felt like it was kind of meant to be.” While I was on the way to, I think I had already been switched to him, an old friend had randomly reached out to me. I hadn’t talked to her since before COVID. We were talking on the phone. I’m driving to the OB and she’s like, “How are you?” She wanted to ask me something and I was just telling her, “I’m pregnant again and I had to switch OBs because I want a VBAC.” She had her VBAC with the same doctor. Meagan: That’s awesome. Brenda: Yeah, and she’s a little bit older than me. Her kids are my age. I’m 31. Her kids are my age. I was like, “Oh wow, so you had a VBAC with them?” Yeah, so it was just another sign like, “All right. This is meant to be. This is who we’re going to go see for this pregnancy.” When we met him, he said to me, “I don’t see why you can’t go to 41 weeks and then once you get to 41 weeks, we discuss other options or routes like induction or whatnot.” That just made me feel really good the way he said that. He said, “You can totally. You had a healthy pregnancy. This pregnancy is healthy.” So we ended up switching to him and that was the second half of my pregnancy. Actually, I think I switched to him closer to the third trimester again. So then fast forward to 39 weeks. I went for my 39-week checkup and everything was good. I think I was 2 centimeters dilated. I ended up getting my cervix checked and everything which was fine. I was asked if I wanted to just see where I was because, with Harper, my water broke at 38.5 so now I’m past the date that she was. I think I was 39+2 for my checkup or 39 and one day and everything looked good. No real signs of labor. I go about my day and I was eating carbs all day. There was nothing around. I was too tired to do anything and then after my appointment, I went to a bagel store. It was in a very big Jewish community and they didn’t have meat or pork or anything so I had to get a grilled cheese but on a bagel, because they didn’t have regular bread either. It was a really thick sandwich but I was so hungry so I was like, “Whatever. I’m just going to eat this.” Meagan: I bet it tasted really good. Brenda: Yeah. I also had cookies. It was just all carbs all day. I remember thinking, “Man. I just need to eat protein tomorrow. This is too much. I feel carb overloaded.” Meagan: Yeah, and then sometimes you just crash. Brenda: Yeah, and that night we went out for a walk with my husband, my daughter, and my mother-in-law. We took my daughter to a playground and there was a little food truck by us. We got burgers after and I was just like, “More bread, but can I just have the patty?” but it was a little food truck, so I ate it. We came home. I put my daughter down. I went to the bathroom and I lost my mucus plug. I had read about mucus plugs, but if it never happened, then I never knew. It didn’t happen with my daughter. I had no idea and then I was like, “Oh. This is the mucus plug that I’ve read about and that people talk about all the time.” It was a lot and it just didn’t stop coming out, so I just texted our doula. Also this week, the doula that we hired was on vacation which we knew going into the pregnancy and I met the backup doula. In my head, I also knew. I’m like, “This is what’s going to happen. He’s just going to come the week that she’s on vacation,” kind of thing. I just had a gut feeling the whole pregnancy. I called our backup doula, Makee, just to let her know. I was like, “Hey, I lost my mucus plug. I know it doesn’t mean anything or it could mean something. Just to let you know.” I was a little crampy but not enough to be like, “I’m in labor.” I went down to my husband and I just said to him, “We need to go to bed tonight. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I might go into labor tonight. We should just get sleep while we can.” Meagan: Prepare. Way to prepare. Brenda: Yes. So we got ready to go to bed and I went to go take a bath really quickly because I had really bad restless leg syndrome. They were really bad in both pregnancies for me so I would take a bath before bed and it helped a lot. So I took a bath. I went to bed or tried to go to bed. My husband passed out with no problem. He’s like, “Okay, let’s go to sleep.” I tried to go to bed but Hudson was moving all around. He moved a lot but I was not used to the movement because Harper didn’t move at all that whole pregnancy and then this pregnancy, he was moving a lot but then that night was a lot more than ever. He was full-on partying in there. Finally, when I was able to fall asleep, it had to be five or ten minutes before my water broke. My husband and I, because he knew I was trying for a VBAC, and our OB, Dr. Bachman, said to me when I met him that in order for a successful unmedicated VBAC, he told me to labor at home as long as possible. Meagan: Yeah, wow. Brenda: Which was the plan, yeah. That was one of the first things that he said to me. My husband would agree to a home birth if we lived in an area that had a better hospital nearby. The closest hospital is just not somewhere you want to be for emergency labor or whatever. So yeah. Our doctor had said to labor at home as long as possible, so my husband and I agreed that if my water breaks again, I’m going to let him sleep until I feel it necessary to wake him up because I wanted him to get sleep. Meagan: Yeah. He needs to rest too. Brenda: Yes. So he agreed and I went downstairs. I was like, “All right. Let me call our doula just to let her know that my water broke and things are moving along.” She had asked me, “All right, when you want me to come over, let me know.” I had to think about it because I don’t know how far along I am and I didn’t really go through full labor or even half of labor. So I was just like, “All right.” One of my friends was up. This was 1:00 AM and she was up so I was like, “Okay. I’m going to call her.” So I called her and I was on the phone with her for almost two hours just to keep calm because I was getting contractions, but they were 6-7 minutes apart. I don’t know if that’s too close to being calm, but I felt fine and I was able to talk and stuff. I just couldn’t relax and go to sleep. But Malky, our doula, also was telling me to eat whatever. I was trying to eat, but I ate so many carbs that day that it actually was great for me going into labor. Meagan: You carb-loaded literally. Brenda: So I was on the phone with my friend for two hours. I threw up in the middle of our conversation which I didn’t know was a thing while you are in labor, but it was just a one-and-done, so it was good. Then I was like, “All right. Let me just go wake Sean up because we have to get the car seat in the car still.” I don’t plan ahead. I had everything out for my hospital bag and I knew where I put everything, so I was like, “All right. When I go into labor, I’ll just pack it. I’ll have time,” which I did pack it, but we needed the car seat still in the car and stuff so I was like, “All right. Let me just go wake him up and just let him know.” I called our doula. I was like, “You can come over now.” She was getting over something. She had been sick, so there was another backup doula for her, but she was over the hump. She had let me know on the phone. She was like, “Do you want me to connect you because she knows that you are in labor too?” I just said to her, “Nope. I need you here. I met you.” I’m sure the other doula was also great. I trust who they work with, but I just needed somebody that I had known and met already in person here. I was like, “I don’t care. Just come over. You won’t touch the baby and if I need you to hold the baby, you’ll just have a mask on,” kind of thing. I said, “Otherwise, you said that you’re over the hump. I trust you. Come over please.” She came over and I took another bath while I was in labor. My husband lit some sage in a candle for me and made my bath water. He was just getting everything together. We have two dogs. Our daughter was sleeping throughout this whole time. She sleeps 12, 13, and 14 hours so she was out cold. I kept saying, “Oh, I can’t wait until she wakes up. She can hang out with us for a little bit.” I was still moving and talking and whatnot. I was able to fall asleep in the bath for five or ten minutes and then my contractions were still five minutes apart. Our doula had explained, “Once your contractions start increasing to one minute long, a minute and a half long, we’ll start to decide if you are ready to go to the hospital or whatnot.” The entire time, they were 30-45 seconds. They never reached a minute. My daughter woke up probably at 8:00 in the morning, a little after 8:00 and my husband went to go get her dressed and brought her into our bedroom. I had gone through the biggest transition during labor. It was just immediately like, “Okay. I feel like I have to poop. I know I have heard this in stories.” I looked at my doula and I was like, “Malky, we have to go to the hospital.” My husband was still with our daughter. She was just like, “Are you sure?” because she was timing the contractions for us and making sure we have time to get there. She was just like, “Are you sure?” and then I had to think about it and I know in my head too, I couldn’t picture having the baby in the hospital. I’m very intuitive and it was just one of those things where in my head, I was like, “I don’t think we’re going to make it, but we can’t do this here because Sean is going to freak out.” When she said that, I was like, “Yeah. We do have to go. I can’t have the baby here because this is what we had agreed on.” I was just like, “I didn’t plan to have the baby at home kind of thing,” so I was just like, “Yeah. We have to go.” Sean brought Harper into our room and the plan was for her to hang out with us in bed and have her morning milk with us. Meagan: But it was past that at that point. Brenda: I looked at him and I was like, “You need to bring her next door to your parents. We have to go now.” He had told his parents that I was in labor, so they knew, “All right. We’re going to be taking Harper soon,” so he brought her to his mom’s and then we were trying to go downstairs. At one point, I did have to poop so then Makee was like, “Can you feel for a head or something?” Sean was right outside our bedroom so I was like, “Oh no. He heard that. I hope he doesn’t freak out.” But he was really good. He was really calm hearing all of that. So then I tried to feel, but I was too afraid to know if there was a head there kind of thing. My dream birth was if the baby was coming, just come out. I don’t want to have to push. So I just didn’t want to know. I just wanted the baby to come out if he was coming. I was like, “I don’t know. We have to go to the hospital.” I was too afraid to know. Meagan: Yeah. You’re like, “Let’s just go.” Brenda: We make our way down to the car. That was like I said, a little after 8:00, so finally, we’re all in the car at 8:45. I also looked at Malky and I was like, “You’re coming in the car with us, right?” She’s like, “No, that was the plan. That was the plan.” I was like, “Okay good because Sean is driving. I need you in the back with me. I can’t do these contractions by myself.” She was with me the whole time at the house and I couldn’t imagine doing them by myself in the car while Sean was driving. So we all got in the car and we were driving. The tension in my body went away completely. I was still contracting but it wasn’t as bad as that last transition. I just felt a little more at ease and my contractions were still there, maybe four minutes apart, but less than a minute long. I’m talking to my husband and Malky in the car breathing. I was fine. The hospital was 28 minutes on the GPS to get there. It was morning traffic, but it wasn’t terrible. It wasn’t terrible. It was actually a good time when we left, but my husband didn’t think we were as far as I felt at first before leaving the house. Then I did start to feel a little pressure moving downward and Malky was like, “Can you feel for the head?” I was too afraid to know still in the car. I was like, “I don’t know. I don’t know.” I don’t know what happened that made her ask me. She asked me. She was like, “Pull your pants down!” We were a couple of blocks away from the hospital. Meagan: She wanted to look for the head. Brenda: I was like, “You just need to look. I can’t do this.” I forget what exactly happened at that moment when she told me to pull my pants down to check. She was like, “I see a head.” Meagan: Out or she’s seeing crowning?Brenda: I think she’s seeing crowning. On top of this throughout my entire labor, I had asked her, “Take all of the pictures and videos you can.” So on top of doing all of that and calling the doctor in the car to update them, she’s recording everything for me. Meagan: That’s amazing. That’s amazing. Brenda: Yeah. So she said, “I see a head,” and I think she meant that the baby was crowning. He ended up flying out a few seconds later in the car and we were a block away from the hospital. Meagan: I can’t. What did Sean do? Brenda: He kept driving. He had to run a couple of red lights. Yeah, because he was taking his time at first and then once she said she saw the head, he had to skip through some red lights and go around because we were so close. He just went right to the front of the hospital. Malky kept calling the hospital and was just saying, “Okay, we’re coming. She’s literally about to have the baby.” I don’t remember if she called when the baby was there, but when we got there, the nurses were waiting for us in the lobby. Sean parked right in front of the entrance and ran in. They were like, “Oh, where’s your wife?” She was like, “She’s in the car with the baby.” They all came running out of the hospital. They all came running out of the hospital and then the nurses came in to check on us. While we were driving that last block, I was trying to get Hudson skin-to-skin because I had a t-shirt on. I’m like, “Wait, how do I rip this off? I can’t.” At the same time, I’m like, “Is Sean okay? Is he going to pass out?” because he gets really woozy. And then I was like, “Wait, but I also just had a VBAC.” I was so excited. Meagan: All of these things are going through your mind. Brenda: Yeah, yeah. I didn’t know what to do at first. I’m trying to get him on my skin, but it was really cool. They came out and they let me cut the cord in my car. Meagan: That is awesome. Brenda: Yeah, that was one of the things I really wanted to do was cut the cord myself. Sean wasn’t able to cut Harper’s cord because like I said, he gets woozy but after that car ride, he was able to cut the rest of the cord for Hudson in the hospital which I was shocked that he was just like, “Yeah. I’ll do it.” Meagan: He was probably in the fight or flight like, “Sure, yeah,” not able to really think about what he was doing. Brenda: Yes. Yeah. So he was able to do that and he made it without passing out. One of the first things when we parked and as soon as he got out of the car, I was like, “Is he okay? Is he going to pass out?” Meagan: Yeah. I love that you just had this baby in the back of a car and you’re so worried about someone else’s feelings. I love it. Brenda: I just wanted everybody to be happy and safe. I didn’t want my husband to pass out and he didn’t, thankfully. But he was in for it. Meagan: I love it. Brenda: And then the placenta was delivered in the hospital. They had given me a little Pitocin to get it out. Our OB was in the middle of another labor when we got there and then actually, I think he just got out when they got me in the bed to get into the hospital and the first thing he said was, “Well, you didn’t need me for your VBAC.” Meagan: He’s like, “You did that on your own.” You did that all on your own. That’s crazy to think about. Brenda: Yeah, it really is. I didn’t push. I felt the pressure, but I didn’t know what I was doing. Even after all of the stories that I’ve listened to, I was just like, “I think the baby’s coming but I don’t know,” and I think that maybe part of me was trying to hold it in until we got to the hospital so my husband wouldn’t pass out. But Hudson was just like, “Nope. I’m coming right now.” Meagan: I’m coming. And there he was in the back of the truck. Brenda: Yes. Yes. Meagan: That’s amazing. Huge congrats. I’ve always wondered what it would be like. You see those videos and the videos go crazy because I remember I was like, “This is amazing!” But really if you think about your story as one of those that everybody thinks about or that they are like, “I don’t want to do this,” but then it sometimes happens. Brenda: Yep, yep. Yeah. It was quite the experience. I know I’ve heard even on your podcast stores, there are people who are like, “I almost had the baby in the car,” and that wasn’t really my intention, but it happened. Whenever I heard them in stories and stuff, I was like, “Wow. Could that be me? No. I might just be a C-section mom for the rest.” That was just in my head, but yeah. Like I said before we left, when I said to Malky when she asked me if I’d be more comfortable, no. I wouldn’t be more comfortable in the hospital, but in my head, I couldn’t picture having a baby in the hospital which was crazy. It was like I kind of knew we weren’t going to make it but I wasn’t trying to not make it. Meagan: Yeah. Right, right, right. Yeah. That intuition was speaking to you. Brenda: Yeah. I was like, “Oh man. We might have stayed home a little bit too long.” Meagan: I love it so much. It’s so awesome. It’s so, so awesome. You’ve had this journey of finding providers, a little bit closer timeline of pregnancy and birth, and a heart-shaped uterus. You’ve got all of these things and then you just had this beautiful accidental car birth, but a beautiful VBAC. I’m so happy for you and huge congrats. Brenda: Thank you. There was just one more thing I wanted to mention. When we did switch to our OB, they are a very old-school practice so they don’t do the measurements. They don’t measure anything but he had sent me to their high-risk tech just to check everything out toward the end. I only had one appointment with them and I remember being in there. After the tech measured everything and everything looked good, the doctor came in to talk to us and she made me feel like I was crazy for wanting a VBAC so close. I know towards the end of the appointment, she was like, “Do you want to know your success percentage?” Meagan: The VBAC calculator? Brenda: Yes, which I didn’t even know was a thing until she asked me. Meagan: Totally a thing. Brenda; I don’t really get intimidated. I’m just the type of person that I need to know every little thing that could go wrong and it doesn’t stress me out, but I have friends who it does stress out and family who stresses out over that stuff and they would rather not know which I respect. I’m just the opposite of that. So I was like, “Yeah. Go ahead. Do it. I’m curious.” I think I was something like 75% or something. It was in the seventies and I’m like, “Oh, great. That’s a good number.” I think she was trying to scare me. It was really weird and uncomfortable. They had mentioned too that I had a velamentous cord insertion the second pregnancy too and I said, “No, I don’t think so. It’s been pretty strong from the beginning.” When we were still at the other office, I know it can change, but nobody ever said anything. They had told our OB this time that “Oh, she has a velamentous cord insertion,” kind of thing. I know she didn’t make a big deal of it but I just knew it wasn’t a velamentous cord insertion. At the hospital, when the placenta was delivered, our OB was like, “Nope. You were right.” They were reading the paperwork from my first pregnancy. I kept saying that to her. I was like, “Are you sure you’re reading the right notes? Everything you’re saying is from Harper’s pregnancy, not this pregnancy.” She was just like, “No, no, no. I’m right and you’re wrong.” I was like, “Okay, whatever you say. I know what I’m feeling.” Meagan: You’re like, “But okay.” Brenda: Yeah. Yeah. Meagan: Yeah. It sounds like you’re really intuitive. Brenda: Yes. I was just happy to be right after the VBAC and then when the doctor told me because I was just like, “Can you just make sure? I’m curious. I know the placenta is here. Everything went well. I just needed to know. Did they really mess up?” Meagan: Yeah. Interesting. Brenda: But yeah. That was Hudson’s story and I can’t believe that he entered the world like that. Meagan: Me neither but it’s amazing. Such a fun story to share forever. He’ll be like, “Yeah. I was born in a car.” That is so awesome. Well, thank you so much, so so much for being here with us today and sharing your story. Really quickly before we go, I feel like you’re an entrepreneur and I just wanted to share your stuff. We’ll make sure to tag all of your stuff on Instagram today and have it in the show notes but do you want to tell everybody? To me, it looks like custom designs and t-shirts and hoodies and hats and beanies and all of these things, and then are you a yoga instructor? Brenda: Yes. Meagan: Okay, that’s what I thought. Brenda: Yes. Yes, so I teach yoga. I actually recently went back to a spa where I was teaching at. I guess I’ve been there for over a month now. I’ve been back for over a month because COVID happened then I was pregnant for two years and then recently, I was like, “Okay. I need to go back and teach.” I don’t want to work full-time. I love being home with the kids so yoga is nice because it’s just one hour out here and there. Like I said, we live next door to my in-laws who are amazing help and I’m able to go teach because of them. If we didn’t have the help, my husband works too and his schedule is all over the place, so we have that. Meagan: Where can people find you? Brenda: My Instagram is @YogiBrendaLee and then I also make t-shirts and sweatshirts and stuff at home. We do local designs and are starting to branch out to do not some local designs so that people elsewhere can find them. My husband’s been helping me with our website and that’s called Channel Creations. I think the website is channelcreationsbc.com. Meagan: Yep. That’s what I have. Brenda: Okay, yes. I had to go double-check. Meagan: Super cute stuff. I should have you do a custom VBAC sweatshirt. Brenda: Oh, yeah definitely. Meagan: I’ll have to write you. That would be awesome. Brenda: We’re here. We make stuff for some local companies here and a bunch of our friends usually hook us up with people that they know for their businesses. But yeah, so that’s that. Yeah, we have—I’ll show you, but it’s this mama shirt that we just recently came up with and it has the hearts with everybody’s name on it. Meagan: So cute. Brenda: The dogs’ names are on here too. Meagan: I love that. So cute. So cute. Brenda: Thank you, yeah.ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on all things VBAC including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Meagan’s bio, head over to thevbaclink.com. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands