Episode 330 Grace's VBAC With the Odds Stacked Against Her

Grace found The VBAC Link Podcast while still in the hospital after her first unexpected C-section. Her recovery was brutal and she knew she never wanted to experience that again. Grace is a labor and delivery nurse located on the Wisconsin/Illinois border. She shares what it was like preparing for her VBAC while working at a hospital that didn’t support VBAC. Though she found a supportive practice, Grace faced unexpected pressure for interventions at the end of her pregnancy. Ultimately, she advocated her VBAC wishes and they continued to support her.When she contracted a fever and her baby had prolonged heart decels at 10 centimeters, Grace was prepped and wheeled to the OR. She mentally surrendered to the idea of another C-section. But when baby’s heart recovered, she was encouraged to keep pushing! Her baby boy came out in just four pushes and Grace was able to achieve the VBAC she so deeply desired. The VBAC Link Blog: Finding a VBAC-supportive ProviderThe VBAC Link Blog: 10 Signs to Switch Your ProviderThe VBAC Link Blog: VBAC vs Repeat C-sectionHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Women of Strength, we’ve got a VBAC story coming your way today. We’ve got our friend, Grace. Where are you? Illinois? Grace: Yep. I’m right in between Milwaukee and Chicago right on the Wisconsin/Illinois border. Meagan: Okay, awesome. Well welcome to the show and she does have a little babe right now with her. How old is your baby?Grace: He just turned a month old yesterday. Meagan: A month old and this is your VBAC baby. Grace: Yep. There he is. The man himself. Meagan: This is so fresh. Oh my gosh. I love when we get fresh stories. I feel like you’re probably still even processing as you tell your story. Grace: Yep. I am. I practiced a couple times to make sure I didn’t leave out important details. Meagan: Well, we are so excited to have you on the show. We do have a Review of the Week and then we’re going to get into your stories and then we’re going to talk a little bit about when the odds are stacked against you at the end and then spoiler alert, Grace is a labor and delivery nurse so I’m going to ask her some questions about how it is to be a labor and delivery nurse and supporting VBAC in her community. Okay, so we have this review. Its title is, “Tears plus stories plus hope plus joy equals education.” It says, “I discovered these ladies when I was 9 months postpartum from a very traumatic section and was eagerly beginning to research how to heal and build a new birth team for when my second baby came along. Now just a few months later, I’ve listened to almost all of the episodes and I hear the joy and the redemption these mamas have when they are in control of their births. It spurs me on towards my goal of one day having a successful VBAC. I cry when they cry. I feel joy when they feel joy. I feel sadness when they feel sadness and encouragement and elation when they succeed. It’s been quite the therapeutic discovery and I’m so glad Julie and Meagan created this resource. Each time Meagan or Julie directly addresses the audience as Women of Strength, I get goosebumps and I know in my heart I AM and WILL BE that woman of strength. I hope to one day share my version of success within this community.” That just gave me the chills so I’m just going to add tears plus stories plus hope plus joy plus chills equals education to that one. Thank you so much for your review. If you have not done so, as always, we would love them and you never know, you may just be read on the next podcast. Meagan: Okay, cute Grace. Grace: Hello. Meagan: Welcome, welcome. Let’s get going into your stories. Grace: Okay, so first of all, thank you for having me. This is amazing. I’m glad I had a VBAC but it’s even cooler that I get to be on the podcast. For my first pregnancy, I had just missed my first period so I took the test and was positive. I called my doctor and scheduled an appointment. I was about 6 weeks. At this appointment,  my doctor started calculating my due date with his little due date calculator and said, “Okay, it’s about May 26th. I’m going to induce you May 24th,” right off the bat. He decided we were going to be an induction. He said, “Since you are a first-time mom, it will reduce your risk of having to have a C-section if we schedule an induction.” I later found out he was actually just going to be out of town on Memorial Day weekend so he was pre-planning that for himself. But I didn’t know any better. I was like, “Okay, cool. I’ll know when I’m having the baby. I won’t have to worry about going into labor or anything.” Pregnancy went by with no complications. It was nice and smooth. At 39 weeks, he addressed again that we would be going in for an induction but he would just do the Cervadil. I went in that morning and they placed the Cervadil and told me, “Don’t move. Lay as flat as you can. You can only get up to go to the bathroom,” which is not true.Meagan: Hashtag false. Grace: I lay there all day. They take the Cervadil out and it didn’t do much for me. I wasn’t favorable in the first place. I was closed, thick, high, and then he checked me after the Cervadil and said the same thing. Actually, he told me that he’s never done this before but he’s just going to discharge me. He didn’t want to start anything else or doing anything. I appreciate him not just pushing Pitocin when he didn’t think it was going to be a good idea. We left feeling super discouraged because we told everyone we were going to have a baby and then we were going home. He said, “Come in a week later if I don’t go into labor naturally. Just come in and we’ll try again.” So I didn’t. We went in the following week. They put in the Cervadil again. They actually did two rounds of it this time and this time we didn’t tell anybody we were going to the hospital. We just didn’t want the, “Is the baby here yet?” and all of those questions adding to the anxiety of being in labor. So they took the second round of Cervadil out and still didn’t really have any change. I wasn’t contracting or cramping or anything but they just let me stay there. I ended up going into labor naturally which I don’t have the statistic verified but he told me that only 20% of people will go into labor with Cervadil alone. Most people need Pitocin or something else and some other intervention to actually cause labor. But my labor started. Again, he didn’t give me Pitocin which again, I’m grateful for. I was contracting all day. I have a pretty low pain tolerance so I had requested something for pain. They gave me an IV pain medication that I didn’t really like. It worked for a little bit but also made me feel a little strange.The nurses were like, “Okay, instead of getting more of the pain medicine, we recommend that you get the epidural.” This was about 12 hours after the contractions started.” I did get the epidural. I was still only a 1 at this point. They checked me after the epidural and he broke my water without really telling me that that’s what was happening. It just kind of happened. He broke my water and then I pretty much immediately went to 5 centimeters after he did that within the hour. I was like, “Okay, cool. It’s finally happening. I’m at 5 centimeters. I don’t feel any pain from the contractions. I have this epidural that’s working maybe even too good,” because I couldn’t even wiggle my toes but baby’s heart rate started dropping. This was a back and forth, “Are we going to have a C-section? No. Just kidding. You’re fine. You can push later on. You’ll dilate about a centimeter an hour,” is what they told me. But then they also had me come in and sign a consent form for a C-section. They put oxygen on me and repositioned me a little bit then they just called the C-section. We went to the OR that I had not even toured during our hospital tour because I was like, “I don’t need to see that. I won’t need a C-section so I don’t need to see what the OR looks like,” but then I ended up in there. My husband was in the hallway waiting to come in and the anesthesiologist was super supportive. She could tell I was losing it. They brought him in and the procedure itself went fine. There were no complications. Baby came out healthy. She had a cord wrapped around her foot twice which the doctor said he thinks maybe was why she didn’t come down, but I’m not sure. They took her over to the warmer and did all of her checks and everything. It felt like she was over there forever. Then they brought her swaddled over to me. We did the little cheek-to-cheek skin-to-skin. We got our classic C-section family photo on the OR table with our scrub hats on and then my husband and daughter left the room and they finished putting me back together. Then they took me to recovery which I was in there by myself. I had really bad shakes from the hormones or epidural. I’m not sure but I was shaking like crazy. That felt like I was in there forever by myself and then they finally brought her to me. She latched right away so at least I got to breastfeed her but we completely missed our golden hour. Meagan: Yeah, and you were let alone. Grace: Yeah, I was alone. Meagan: In a very scary time. Grace: Yes. The nurse wasn’t really talking to me. She was charting and stuff which I get that you’ve got to chart but I felt very alone in this recovery room. All that being said, everything did go okay. It still did not feel great that I had to have a C-section instead of my planned birth. I had my birth plan and everything. The next morning, the doctor did come in and he told me that for my next baby, I would have to have a C-section. He was like, “You can do all of the research that you want and the statistics are small, but I still would not let you have a trial of labor. You would be an automatic C-section.” Meagan: Did he actually say, “The statistics say this but for you, no.” Grace: No, it wasn’t just me. That’s how he practiced. Meagan: He just doesn’t support VBAC. Grace: Yes and he told me that a friend’s wife tried to VBAC and had some kind of complications. I don’t know how it ended so it also sounded like it was a personal thing. He didn’t do them for personal beliefs. Meagan: Yes. Grace: He left the room and that’s when I found your page. I started searching VBACs and how I could have one. I was so discouraged not being able to deliver vaginally. I was like, I’ve got to at least inform myself and see if I can find a way to do it and how to go about it. Knowledge is power so I wanted to know as much as I could going into it. I had my daughter. You’re busy with a baby so I didn’t do too much research in between. I just saw that it is ideal to wait 9 months before you get pregnant. I did find out I was pregnant at about 13 months postpartum and this was actually two days after I got offered a job as a labor and delivery nurse so I had a little bit of excitement all at once. 13 months postpartum, and the whole time my husband after he saw my recovery was like, “Okay. I will do whatever I can to help you have a VBAC,” because he knew it was very hard on me. I found a doctor. I just was like, I’ll just see doctors and feel them out. My first doctor I saw was super VBAC-supportive. He said that they do them all the time. I’m a great candidate so I was like, Okay. I’ll stick with these guys.My husband did a bunch of research too. He was looking up why people get induced and why you may or may not want to get induced to avoid a C-section and all of these things. He was my biggest cheerleader and came to appointments with me and was making sure our provider was as supportive as we needed him to be to try and make this happen. I also became obsessive. I was listening to the podcast all of the time on my way to work. If work was slow, I’d throw in an AirPod and do laps around the unit to be moving and hear the podcast. I was listening to it in the shower all the time and I found it really helpful just hearing other women’s stories. This pregnancy went by pretty complication-free. I did have some bleeding in the beginning which was just a subchorionic hematoma and they weren’t concerned about it. I actually didn’t tell people at work that I was going to VBAC because our hospital doesn’t allow for VBACs because we don’t have in-house anesthesia or OBs. I didn’t tell them and I didn’t want them to know I was trying. They would even ask me, “Oh, are you scheduling your C-section?” I’m just like, “Oh, I haven’t scheduled it yet.” I just kept working. At 37 weeks, I started anything I read online that could make labor happen. I was doing it. I was having the raspberry leaf tea, pineapples, the dates, walking, evening primrose oil. I was doing everything you could do to get my cervix ready to have a baby. At 39 weeks, we went to an appointment. I did start losing my mucus plug which made me very excited that something was happening on its own. At this appointment, I had a different provider. This practice had multiple doctors that could potentially be on when you deliver so you are supposed to see them all. I saw a different provider this time. He checked me. I was just a fingertip. They were going to maybe do a membrane sweep at this appointment, but he was unable to and then he mentioned, “Okay, if you get to 41 weeks, we’ll talk about scheduling your induction.” I was like, “Whoa. I thought we weren’t doing all that.” They seemed VBAC-supportive during the whole pregnancy and at the end flipped the switch and I felt like I was like, Oh no, I’m stuck. I’ve been seeing them the whole time. Now he’s going to try and push an induction on me. I left that appointment feeling worried. After that, my husband was like, “You should just chill out. Stop obsessing over all the things.” I had a checklist that said, “Eat your dates. Eat your pineapple. Go for a walk.” It was all of the things and it was causing me more stress than actually letting my body do anything on its own. I stopped. I even stopped listening to the podcast. I was just like, Okay. Whatever happens happens. I went on maternity leave too so that no one on work would ask me. I just took my leave early. Then on my due date, I went in. I was dilated to a 1 which was incredible news for me and 50% effaced. I was like, Wow. After all that Cervadil, nothing happened and this time, something is actually happening. He was able to do a sweep at this appointment. We did an NST too. He just said, “It’s protocol. Once you hit your due date, they do NSTs.” I felt great. I contracted and cramped all night. I was like, Maybe it’s happening, but this was just the start of some prodromal labor that went on and off for a while. I went into an appointment on Monday after that Friday and he said, As long as I agree to just keep coming in for NSTs, he said that he would let me go as long as I need to. They weren’t worried about induction. It was a healthy pregnancy. They weren’t worried about his size or anything like that. He did another sweep that Monday. That also caused me to cramp and contract. I was hand expressing as well to try and get my milk supply to come in. I was regularly contracting. I shouldn’t say regularly but it was happening and so I thought that at my next appointment, I’m going to be really dilated because this is all happening. Everything is really happening now. I went into my next appointment. This was a different provider again, a woman. She checked me and I was a 2 which was exciting as well. She said that she wasn’t able to do a sweep because the other doctor already did it and her fingers weren’t long enough so it wouldn’t be effective. Meagan: What? Grace: I was like, “Okay, whatever you say.” Then she sat down and asked, “If you do have to have a C-section, what is your mental state going to be because it is a possibility?” I knew it was but at this point in my pregnancy, I just didn’t want to hear the words “C-section”. I told her I would probably be okay. My eyes are wide open. I know it’s a possibility but I would feel pretty discouraged that I wasn’t able to have a VBAC. She told me if I did have a VBAC, I wouldn’t be able to pick up my daughter for at least two weeks so that really also freaked me out. Meagan: If you did have a VBAC? Grace: Oh no, I’m sorry. If I had the C-section, I would have to wait at least two weeks to pick her up. Meagan: Okay. Like a weight restriction. Grace: I’m sorry, yeah. She was like, “You don’t want to pop your incision,” which makes sense but I’m like, “I’m already bringing a new brother into her life and now I’m not going to pick her up.” That really scared me so I wanted to have my VBAC. So after this appointment, I was 41 weeks when I went to this appointment. That night, I had been contracting starting around 8:00 PM pretty regularly but they were spaced apart 5-7 minutes and then around midnight, the contractions became 3-4 minutes apart. They told me I could go to the hospital when they were 5, but I was worried that it would slow down my labor so I waited a little bit longer. I went in and out of the shower. I took a moment to hold my daughter and lay with her for a little bit thinking, Okay, we’re going to bring a baby home soon. It’s happening.We called my in-laws around 4:00 in the morning to come over because they were regularly 3-4 minutes apart for quite a few hours. They came over at 5:00. We got to the hospital at about 6:00 and it did happen. My labor slowed down. The contractions went to 6 minutes apart. When I got there, I was only 2 centimeters which I was in the office in the morning so I was like, How is this possible? I just contracted for all these hours and nothing happened? I did efface a little bit more. I was 70%. They said, “We’re just going to watch you for a little bit. We’re not going to send you home.” Of course, it started snowing when it had been 70 degrees all week. That’s the midwest. They said, “We’ll just wait. We’ll watch you. Hang out here. It’s snowing. We’ll see what happens.” I was just sitting on the yoga ball already pretty exhausted because I had been up all night. Then at 9:00 AM, the doctor came in and she was like, “Okay, I’m going to break your water.” The nurse was like, “Hold on, we don’t have an IV. We were just watching her. Let’s get some other things in place before you break the water.” Before she did break the water, I was very hesitant about them doing that because I wanted it to happen naturally. I didn’t want them to force anything and then be put on a timer because at our hospital, if your water is broken for x amount of hours, then it becomes, “Okay, we’ve got to get this baby out.” I didn’t want that. She said, “No.” They wouldn’t be worried. They might start worrying if I developed symptoms of infection but that still wouldn’t necessarily mean I would have to have a C-section. They would just treat the infection. I did let her break the water and they checked me six hours later. Again, I didn’t make any change but the contractions had been more intense for me so I ended up getting the epidural about a half hour after that at 3:30. Once I got the epidural, I was feeling good. They told me they wanted to start Pitocin. I was hesitant about that as well because it does increase your risk of uterine rupture not that the percent is that high, but I wanted to avoid it if I could but they told me I would be on a different protocol because I’m a TOLAC patient so they would go low and slow. They would start at a 1 and keep it slow. Anytime they did go over 2 though, baby didn’t like it. His heart rate would drop a little bit so they did end up turning it on and off all day but the contractions still stayed pretty spaced apart. Around 10:00, they did check me and I was a 4. His head was low. I was having some bloody show. They shut off the Pitocin because the contractions were every minute apart. Meagan: Oh, that’s a little close. Grace: Yeah. I don’t know. I couldn’t tell because I had an epidural but they also placed the IUPC and they did an amnioinfusion which we don’t really do much at our hospital so I was pretty unfamiliar with it and she explained that they wanted to just replace my fluid because I had been ruptured for a while and baby needs some fluid to come down and help me dilate so they did that. I feel like I had all of these wires going everywhere. After a little bit, I did end up getting a fever. They gave me some IV antibiotics so with all of these things happening at my hospital, I would have been a C-section for sure. I could tell they were very VBAC-supportive. They came in and repositioned me so frequently because his heart rate would drop. The nurse was in there all night. I was like, This poor nurse is in here every 5 minutes repositioning me or doing something for me. Around 1:00 in the morning, I felt such intense pressure. My epidural had worked really well, but I was feel all that pressure of his head. She didn’t want to check me because she said, “We don’t want to be in there too much because,” Meagan: You already had a fever, yeah. Grace: They waited, but this pain and pressure was pretty intense for me. I was crying through the contractions. It felt like my body was pushing for me. I was like, “Can you please check me? I know that you don’t want to but I’m feeling like something is happening.” I ended up throwing up which could also be baby is getting ready to come out. They did check me at 6:00 in the morning. I was 10 centimeters. She called the doctor to let her know and said– this was also the doctor who I had my last appointment with who didn’t sound super on board with me having a VBAC. Meagan: The short-finger one? Grace: Yeah, little fingers. Meagan: Little fingers. Grace: I was like, I really hope she’s not on. They were like, “She’s on for 24 hours.” I was like, “Okay.” She was the one. She was like, “Let her do a practice push then I’ll be in there soon.At this point, I had been in so much pain from the pressure all night that I was like, “I don’t even think I can push him out.” I’m a first-time mom basically because it’s my first vaginal birth and I could be pushing for 2-3 hours. I was like, “I don’t know if I have it in me.” I said that to my husband. I was like, “I don’t know if I can push.” He was like, “Don’t be discouraged. If you have to have a C-section, you have to have a C-section.” That lit a fire in me. I was like, “No. I did not just go through 31 hours of labor to call it quits. I’m going to at least try to push and see what happens.” I do one practice push and the little guy’s heart rate drops and doesn’t recover for 6 minutes. Everyone is rushing in– the doctor, the hospitalist doctor, all of the nurses. They were like, “Don’t be discouraged. You did everything you could but we’re probably going to have to have a C-section.” The doctor goes, “I think your uterus is rupturing.” I’m like, “Okay, that’s scary. Don’t tell me that.” I’m like, “What is even making you think that?” She’s making a little note in the computer. They are putting in all the orders for me to go into the OR. She said, “But if baby’s heart rate recovers in the OR, we’ll let you push in the OR but we want everyone around to make sure if we do need to have a C-section, we have the whole staff ready to go.” They wheeled me in, were giving me meds in the hallway while I’m on the way in there. The nurses were super comforting though. One of the nurses told me that she tried to TOLAC with her second and ended up having a C-section and that it’s nothing to be ashamed of which it’s not. I just really wanted to do it. I felt like up until that point, I did everything I could. They wheeled me into the OR and the anesthesiologist said he partially blocked me. He gave me ⅓ of the dose that they would give for a C-section but I felt very numb. I could not feel the contractions. I couldn’t feel my legs, nothing. They hooked me up to the monitor and his heart rate recovered miraculously. He was in the 150’s. They said they wanted me to push. I also had already thrown in the white flag mentally and said, “I don’t know if I can push. I’m scared now.” I froze up. I was like, “I don’t want to have a C-section. I don’t want to push. I’m just in this limbo right now of I don’t know how we’re going to get this baby out.” They told me that they wanted to use a vacuum. Initially, I was like, “I don’t really want you to use a vacuum,” but the hospitalist said that it would  help us get baby out faster when I’m pushing. I did finally consent to them using the vacuum. So we’re in there. They nurses had to tell me when I was contracting because I couldn’t tell. They had this audio of my monitor on but they couldn’t see the strip for some reason so they were just palpating my belly to tell when I was contracting. They would say, “Okay, push now.” With four contractions and the help of the vacuum, I did push and got baby out successfully. Meagan: Just four? Grace: Just four. I know I kind of cheated with the vacuum. Meagan: That’s pretty dang fast though. Grace: 10 minutes of pushing and he came out with copious amounts of the fluid that they had replaced. I had said I wanted him to be skin-to-skin if I could. He came out good so they put him on my chest. They actually let me reach down and feel his head while I was pushing and that really motivated me to get him out. The nurses were so helpful and so was the doctor. I don’t think I could have pushed him out as good as I did if they weren’t literally rallying around me like, “You’ve got this. You’re doing great pushes. He’s almost there.” I got him out and I got to hold him then they said, “Let’s just take him to the warmer for a little bit. He swallowed some fluid.” They were reassuring me the whole time then they ended up letting him come back to me. I got to wheel back to the room with him with me which was so exciting for me. I got to breastfeed right away and we went to our postpartum room as a family. I just remember that it was such an emotional rollercoaster at the end. I prepped so much for a VBAC. Okay, just accept the fact that you’re having a C-section. Just kidding, you’re getting your VBAC. I felt like there were so many junctions where it could have been like, “Okay, we’re just giving you a C-section.” We ended up getting lucky and having the baby. I feel like I could not have done it without the nurses and the doctor and all of the information I learned from this podcast so seriously, thank you guys so much for what you do because you make such a big difference in people’s lives. That night, I got to pick up my daughter and lift her up and show her her new brother in the hospital. I was so happy. A month out, I’m able to move. I don’t feel like myself again, but closer than I did when I had my C-section. This all went so great and I’m so glad I got to do it. Meagan: I am so glad too. I am so grateful to you for being here and sharing your story with us. It’s always fun to hear that we were in people’s ears along the way. Man, it’s what we were talking about in the beginning with the odds stacked against you with this happening and it could also go to this or the baby’s heart rate drops and then they do this and then this happens. There are all of the things that could go wrong, but a lot of the way, it seemed like you were making the choices that felt best for you even when it might have been, “Hey, we’re going to come break your water,” and it might not have been exactly what you want but you ultimately felt good about it. So let’s talk about that. When someone comes in or if VBAC isn’t supported in this hospital and maybe that’s your only hospital, that’s a really hard one. In your hospital you work in now, you said, “If that were my hospital, I would have gone in for a C-section and they don’t support it,” so what do people do in your area when your hospital doesn’t support it?Grace: They definitely don’t support it. They would just automatically schedule you for a repeat Cesarean and if we did get a patient in who was in labor, we would probably transfer them or we would have to make sure that the OB who was on is close enough to get there. In my short amount of time that I’ve been there so far, I did see one VBAC. They made an exception for her. The OB stayed overnight. Meagan: Wow. Grace: So did the anesthesiologist. She ended up VBACing and having a big baby and everything. I feel like the odds were kind of stacked against her too but other than that, they don’t try to do it and since they don’t do it, because we don’t have the resources, a lot of the staff there just doesn’t believe in VBACs and they have a lot of– like I said, I didn’t tell anybody I was VBACing but I would hear them talk about VBACs and I’m like, I can’t tell you guys that I’m doing this until I succeed at it then I can be like it is possible. Meagan: What did they say?Grace: They were really glad that I got it how I wanted it. They did know that it was a rough recovery for me and I told them the C-section was really hard on me and our family so they were like, “I’m glad you got to do what you wanted.” Meagan: Yeah. Well, when the odds are stacked against you, and the odds are looking different for everybody. Sometimes it’s advanced maternal age, big baby measuring, over our due date, special scar, VBAC after multiple Cesareans– I mean, there are all of the things that can be stacked against us, but when you are in an area that isn’t supportive, that’s good to know that they would even transfer them and be like, “Actually, we’re going to transfer you to this hospital.” You can transfer hospitals. Of course, you can decide to explore home birth. You can try to find a different provider within that hospital because if that hospital is supportive but that provider isn’t supportive, there are things you can do. I’m going to have a link for a whole bunch of different blogs on ways to find supportive providers, what to do, and also how to decide if a VBAC or a C-section is right for you because I think that can be hard when you find a location that is not supportive. It sometimes is easier to just make the other decision and go along with it. Okay, so labor and delivery nurse. You are relatively new. Grace: Yes. Meagan: But how has it been? How do you feel like birth is in your location?Grace: I feel like it’s good. They do a lot of inductions there. A lot of the patients, they’ll say, “Let’s induce you around 39 weeks.” Initially, my first over a month of orientation, I didn’t see a vaginal birth. I only saw C-sections. It was very common. I don’t know if I was unlucky. I don’t know. Maybe it was the shift I worked because I worked 3:00 in the morning to 3:00 PM. I’m not sure. I was like, “I’d really like to see a vaginal birth because I–”Meagan: Am hoping for one. Grace: Exactly. I was pregnant then and I didn’t tell anybody but it was nice working while I was pregnant and being able to actually learn a lot more while I’m working about labor. I could watch my contraction strip and know what it means. It helped me have more knowledge going into my own situation and then I felt like I was pregnant forever so at the end of my pregnancy, I’m like, They were due after me and they had their baby. Everyone was over there having their babies and I was still pregnant. I was like, I’m just going to grow him as long as I can and when he’s ready, he will come out. Meagan: Yeah. I love that. I love that you’ve been able to learn. I think that’s one of my favorite things too just being a doula. Obviously, I’m not there actually charting those strips or anything like that but it’s been really fun to learn that strip better because we can tell baby’s position sometimes based on those charts. We’ve got coupling contractions sometimes and we know that baby is in a wonky position. Huge congrats to you. Grace: Thank you. Meagan: If you decide to go back to the labor and delivery route, I wish you all of the luck and I’m sure that you’ll be cheering people on and supporting and helping them along the way. Grace: Yes and now I can help them better because I went through a C-section and a vaginal and now I can kind of relate to all of the patients in what they might need. Meagan: Absolutely. Absolutely. 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