6 weeks to go and a possible VBAC
 

Wow!
I thought I had to have a caesarian again and was dreading the pain of it...the doctor just told me I can have a VBAC I just need to be monitored closely. I only have 6 weeks to go and am still showing 1-2 weeks ahead of dates and everyone thinks I will have the bub in a couple of weeks. Starting to feel SOO tired but doing well considering I weigh 123kg which is alot in pds believe me. Ia m pretty healthy though. I would absolutely love to hear VBAC success stories as I know there are still quite tangible risks to bub & I.
I have heard that 1 in 200 women have uterine rupture. Out of those 1 in 10 will have major haemorraging and death:(
I am still going ahead as the health risks of having a caesar are higher than going ahead with a VBAC.

I can't really help you here but I am just the opposite from you actually. I have had a vaginal with no pain meds at all and a c-section and I prefer the c/s. I have to have another c/s this time anyway because of the way my incision was when we delivered our twins. However with that said, I am 2 cm dilated and having back labor already. My dr. has me on some meds to stop that for another 1 1/2 weeks anyway. At any rate, 23 days or less this baby will be here but I"m so ready to get it over. :carrot:

I can't help you with the v-bac either. The hospital where I go has a NO-VBAC policy.
My 2nd c-section was a lot better than the first
1) because I didn't labor for a long time and then have surgery
2) I knew what to expect.

I recovered so much more quickly with the 2nd than with the first.

good luck Dana.

My c section was a breeze, but I did get the big pointers from my sister (a 3 time vet of the c/section due to extreme hbp). I did have labor from 7 am-3pm, but never got into the push stage. Anyway, my sister said (and I promise this worked for me) to go ahead and walk walk walk walk walk when you have those nice drugs pumping through your system. I made a decision to stop my demerol drip and just start taking ibuprofen (did have one tordol shot when I got really bad) because the demerol was causing headaches and keeping me from being more mobile. Anyway, I walked to get myself everything in hospital and honestly only took a couple doses of ibuprofen when I got home. The only negative of this is that DH didn't realize he needed to lay off me and would ask me to do stupid stuff like run up and down our 2 story house to get stuff like wipes or nail clippers just because he hadn't prepared.

The nurse said hot peppermint tea helps alleviate the gas pains associated with the c-section so I downed the stuff. The worst part was the COUGHING! Memory becoming clearer...must suppress if I want to have #2!

This site might help: http://www.vbac.com/

I just wanted to mention not to get too worked up about having the baby in a couple of weeks. I was absolutely POSTIVIE I would deliver early. So was everyone who saw me. Was so tired and had so many back & hip pains, that I took to the bed the last month. Felt like a bowling ball dropping out everytime I went to the bathroom...uhh...translation: every 15 minutes. I'd already dropped and looked like I'd go into labor any minute.

Nope. Was induced 10 days after the due date.

Thanks for all your wonderful advice. I am still preparing for the 6 week wait...I do not want him to come too early anyhow.
It seems ladies, you have recovered quite well from your caesars. I havent been so fortunate. I still have constant pain at the wound site and internally. Before falling pregnant with dd I suffered from severe endometriosis and I think this is what has caused the ongoing tenderness from the caesar. I will have a go.
Did anyone else find the epidural the most horrible experience? I felt so out of control. I hope your baby comes soon lakelog. The end is such a painful time especially when hubby still expects one to be running around as usual. Men huh?

Sorry to hear you still have pains. I have a numb belly around the incision but that's about it.
You might ask that if you do end up with another c-section to see if they can't take care of your endo. I know I had mine removed from a laproscopic procedure. this time they will tie my tubes right after I deliver while I'm open instead of having to wait or have a surgery like someone who has a vaginal delivery.

i would strongly suggest you look into ICAN (international cesarean awareness network) at ican-online.org... they are big vbac advocates :)

:hug

Oh girl, I'll keep my fingers crossed for a healthy VBAC for you! My third baby was a VBA2C. We're getting ready to go grab dinner right now, but when I get back I'll make another post about it. :D Of course no one gives you a medal for having a VBAC, but the sense of accomplishment...there's nothing like it.

And to make you feel better--uterine rupture actually usually happens in women who have not had a prior c-section (I mean, I know the risk for VBACs increases it, but that's compared to having an ERC). The paper they showed me at the hospital when I had to sign off for having my VBAC said that about 74% of VBAC attempts are successful. And when you consider that our c-section rate is 29%....

OK, here is what happened with my VBA2C. And I warn you this post is going to be a book, sorry. :) I had planned a home birth, but after 32 hours, I was exhausted and in too much pain (I had a posterior baby), so I went ahead on in to the hospital. With my first baby, I labored for eight hours with no progression. This was due to the baby's position--footling breech--but it had me nervous. So they checked me & I was 5cms.

There are certain standards every hospital has for VBAC'ers. Discuss it beforehand. For me, they wanted an IV in immediately and a pressure monitor in my uterus--this is the best way to monitor for uterine rupture. Pain isn't a good indication of rupture, but pressure is good, and fetal brachycardia (very low heartbeat) is another. So they'll probably also want continual fetal monitoring. What all of this means is that, realistically, you'll probably be bed-bound. So don't go to the hospital until you're well into active labor. It is a simple matter of physics that upright is the best position to labor in, because gravity keeps baby's head pressed against your cervix, and that helps your dialation.

Anyway, they monitored me for a while to make sure I was in active labor, checked my dialation like I said, and then took me back to a labor/delivery/recovery suite. They attached the external fetal monitor, put in the IV, and had someone come in to break my water, since it was necessary for the internal pressure monitor (I'm normally against AROM). I had told them in advance that I wouldn't have an epidural (as a sidenote, there's some concern that these can contribute to VBAC-failure, as can induction, but I'm not sure how true it is). I had quite enough of needles in my back when I had my c-sections!

Since my contractions weren't getting any closer together (I was having them about 5 minutes apart) & I'd already been in labor so long, I let them give me Pitocin. That carries its own dangers, but I felt the benefits outweighed the risks. Things moved along pretty quickly after that.

The only thing I did not like about it was the pushing stage. You've seen on A Baby Story where they're all clustered around the woman yelling at her to push & counting? That's called Valsalva pushing. I hated it. Hated it. It's not best for mother & baby either, and IME it was really freaking annoying. But I'd forgotten to tell them beforehand that I didn't want them to 'coach' me, and I was way too far gone in laborland by then to argue the point. So I had to settle for ignoring them as best I could and pushing when I felt the urge, not when I was told to. Your body will take over and start pushing. It's cool. Painful, but cool. If you can shut off your brain and let your body take over (One of my favorite sayings, by the way, is this one: Birth is not an emergency. It's an emergence, see?) things go pretty swimmingly.

(Oh, I did have some pain relief. A narcotic they injected into my IV. It was basically worthless, & out of my system by the time pushing started. They won't give you anything within what they judge to be 2 hours of the pushing stage because they don't want the baby coming out stoned. :lol: )

Anyway, the greatest part of it all was that, once she was born, they picked her up and just handed her to me. I know that for vaginal births that's a given these days, but for me, with two c-sections where they took the baby off & I didn't see her until she was weighed and checked and wrapped up, it was darn near miraculous. They just handed this naked slimy wonderful baby to me. :cloud9:

And, you know, I am huge on breastfeeding. I really am. It's super important to me that I nurse my daughters. Well, I'd always been told that anesthesia like an epidural or spinal affects your baby and makes the initial latch more difficult. I didn't believe it because I'd never had a lot of trouble. But Esther latched on within five minutes and set to it like she'd been born to it--which I guess she was. Still, the difference between her and my c-section babies was startling. (Please note I'm not trying to knock women who choose to have an epidural. I can appreciate doing it, believe me. My birth was *that* painful.) Except for handing her to Rob to hold while they stitched me up (I had two tears, one of which was bad enough to need repair), I got to hold her nonstop for nigh on an hour after she was born. This was before a bath, before weighing her, everything. I mean, they took her back from me and swaddled her, but to be able to hold her immediately and for so long was just great.

I am told that ICAN, which zebrabelly mentioned, is an excellent resource. I'm quite fond of Mothering magazine's online site (I'm into the whole natural thing to begin with, though I'm not as hard-core as a lot of the women there). Their fora--and especially their VBAC forum--were my chief source of support. The main site is a good source of information on VBAC and its risks & rewards. Here's a link to their list of articles: http://www.mothering.com/articles/pr...rean_vbac.html I recommend you check out their site and the information ICAN can give you when doing your research, as well as looking at research from more mainstream sources. The reason for this is that medical doctors are trained to be pathologists, which is to say they're trained to plan for and expect the worst-case scenario, no matter how small the chances of that actually happening.

In the long run, the VBAC decision is one you have to make for yourself after looking at the research. That I have chosen to have a vaginal birth after having two cesarian sections shows pretty clearly which side of the issue I come down on. However, I fully believe that this is not an issue for which there is *one* correct answer. As much as I believe, after researching it, that a VBAC is almost always the safest option for mother and baby, I realize that there are other women for which any risk is too great. And that's understandable.

Oh, before I forget! I have to talk about recovery! Like I said, I had two tears, one of them pretty serious. You shouldn't expect this. My daughter's head did not mold at all, something I gather is fairly common with postdates babies (she was 11 days past due). So I'm the one who gave. The experience of being stitched up was unpleasant in the extreme, since the numbing shots (yeah, plural, they kept trying to give me more) didn't work. Being repeatedly poked with a needle feels exactly like being poked repeatedly with a needle.:dizzy: So for a while, peeing stung. They gave me a nice spray, and when I was in the hospital I had these wonderful little chill packs built into my postpartum pads. The cold worked better than the medicine. I was walking a little funny for a while, because of the stitches and because my pelvis hadn't been through birth before. But I was up and moving around a lot sooner, and there wasn't any drama surrounding being allowed up out of the bed, as there had been after my c-sections (they didn't have to collect & measure my urine output either--no catheter, & no chance of my bladder getting nicked). Overall the recovery was a lot better. And the bleeding! I bled quite heavily after my c-sections, almost the whole 8 weeks that I bled. But with the vaginal birth, I bled heavily only for about a week or two (I don't recall exactly), and the rest of the time it was lighter even than a period for me usually is. So that was nice.

Over all, it was a very positive experience, and one that I'm incredibly glad I had.

Pushing doesn't always hurt. In my labor w/ my dd the pushing ctx were painless and, literally, I remember thinking how fun labor was LOL The "ring of fire" did burn, but the ctx were painless. My ds's birth, on the other hand... LOL Definitely painful!

Also I LOVE that saying!!!

You are right, of course, and I am probably not the best person to ask about birth pains. My one vaginally born baby was complete occuput posterior, and everything I've read & been told by other mamas in the same position indicates that babies positioned that way make everything more painful.

Well, I am in the situation of already having two babies vaginally-which should have been c-sections...and this time around facing the possibility of having the c-section instead of attempting a vaginal birth.

I have to say that I am pretty scared of having the c-section just because I don't know what to expect (I want to know every single detail from prep to what happens to you after the delivery!!) but I am also sort of glad that I won't have to go through such a hard labor and delivery and recovery this time around. I am fully aware of the fact that there is a huge recovery from a c-section, but my recovery after having my daughter and that labor and subsequent surgery was a nightmare...it really was.

As far as the contractions go, with my daughter they all hurt like *$#@, but that was because I was #1-terrified, and #2-induced via Pitocin. With my son, I was induced via the little substance they place inside of you, and I went all of the way to 8cm without too much pain-about like a mild backache and menstrual cramps would feel like together. The worst part for me was from 8cm until he was out. When my water broke at 8cm, the pain of the contractions quadrupled and sharpened immediately!

GBMM-I totally agree with you about the "coaching". :lol: I just wanted them all to shut the heck up-because I was already bearing down naturally on my own during contractions WITHOUT their "help", when they were readying everything for the doctor, etc. :lol: That is the same reason why I have never had anyone in the delivery room with me besides my husband-I don't want 5 relatives or friends in there snapping photos and coaching and what not. :lol: I am definitely a "leave me alone" type of labor-er. :rofl:

i wasn't trying to prove you wrong, btw, just sharing another pov ;)

Oh goodness, Aphil, my husband had the digital camera and decided to take pictures of everything as I was pushing. :faint: I coulda killed him!

I can tell you what happened with my c-section with Linda, since that was a fairly normal one. (The first wasn't an emergency either, but I labored unsuccessfully for 8 hours before they believed me that she was breech.) But it's gonna be another book.:cool:

I had a c-section with Linda because she was breech too. I was planning a VBAC, but with her positioning it wasn't possible. My water broke a month early, and when I went in I was having only very mild contractions. So they hooked me up to a monitor, took a sample to run a test on the fluid I was leaking to make sure it was amniotic fluid & there wasn't meconium in it or anything. They drew some blood & placed the IV and started a bag of penicillin since I hadn't had my group-B strep test yet (that was scheduled for the prenatal appointment I was due to have in less than 24 hours :lol: ). There was saline too, of course.

Waiting around for an operating room to open up--this won't be an issue with a scheduled section, one assumes, though you always run the risk of being bumped for an emergency--I went over post-birth stuff with the nurses. Yes, I would breastfeed, no I wouldn't be circumcizing if it was a boy, general stuff like that.

They went over the surgery & anesthesia with me. They have to warn you about all the possible complications, like death or a cut bladder (both are very rare of course, but I was told that a problem with my bladder would be the most likely complication). There are two meds you take about 30 minutes before getting the anesthesia; they're both anti-emetics so you hopefully don't throw up. One of them tastes very bitter and lemony; the anesthesiologist thought I was insane when I told him I actually liked the taste of it; apparently I'm the only one who does.

They took me on the bed I was in from the L&D triage room into the OR, cranked the bed up, and I got onto the operating table. That sucker is narrow, & I have never felt fatter than on it. (I think I was 212 at that point.) I did fit, but with almost no room for error.

Oh, I forgot: they put a headcovering over my hair before taking me back to the OR, & they also usually don't allow you to wear your rings back, or any jewelry, but I'd already left my rings with my husband. And there was a catheter insertion somewhere along the lines too, but I don't recall quite when.

There were a bunch of nurses bustling around getting the room ready, laying out all the implements necessary, and counting things twice. (They counted them again post-surgery.) The worst part, for me, was next. The preferred anesthesia for a c-section is a spinal block. If you've had an epidural, then you know the drill. Lean forward, curl your back, and get stabbed. (I've been told that your husband will NOT be allowed in the room for this, but Rob had to babysit our eldest so it wasn't an issue with us.) I'm one of those odd folks who finds needles incredibly painful to begin with. I also have scoliosis, and from what I gather in my case that translates out to a pretty pronounced curvature of the spine & a twist in my spinal column. For 99% of people, the anesthesia goes smoothly; for me it did not. The anesthesiologist had a hellacious time getting the needle in correctly; I had a hellacious time trying to stay still! They tell you to lean back, you know, but it's totally against instinct to not flinch away from pain. I quit counting after the fifth attempt to stick me; I was told later that it took longer to give me the anesthesia than to perform the surgery! They actually had to call in a different anesthesiologist and use the setup for an epidural in order to give me the spinal.

Like I said, though, for most people this goes swimmingly. (But if you feel any pain, sing out, because that most likely means the needle's placement is off & needs to be redone. I actually know someone who had a c-section with only half her body deadened; why she didn't holler about it to begin with is beyond me!) It certainly had for me the first time around! They got the spinal started & laid me down on the table & within maybe 90 seconds I was numb from the bottom of my ribcage down. It's kind of like when you sit on your foot for too long & cut off the circulation. It's not a total absence of feeling, but very close to it. The first time the anesthesiologist showed me a stiff-bristled brush and dragged it along my arm to show me how it felt, then dragged it along both sides down where the spinal should have taken hold, about from my leg on up, & told me to tell him when I felt it. The second time the guy pinched me; I guess he was upset about how long it'd taken to get it done. (Not that I'm to blame for his lack of skill...:p )

The anesthesia in place, they strapped my arms down--this doesn't happen for everyone, but it's common enough practice that if the idea bothers you, ask about it--and put in a nose piece with an oxygen supply & affixed a blood pressure cuff which would check me periodically. They also got the surgical drapes in place. There's a sort of curtain that separates you from seeing the surgery itself. A lot of women ask for this to be lowered when they take the baby out, but I had no interest in seeing my internal organs laying on my stomach! There was this huge light above the operating table with a concave metal thing behind it that acted very nicely as a mirror.

Anyway, the doctor came in & it was time to get the show on the road. They'd already explained to me what was going to happen. You can sort of feel it, but no pain. Just a sort of mad tugging. It's like, you know it's happening, & to you, but there's a disconnect there. It's quiet when this is happening, for the most part. The first time around, my nurse gave me a play-by-play of what was going on.

We never find out what sex my kid is before birth, so there's always an element of anticipation for that. With Linda being early, they also had 3 pediatricians standing by to evaluate her. So the doctor got my uterus open, and everyone in the room started laughing. My nurse said, "He's mooning everyone!" (As a sidenote, with my first daughter they had also said "he" to begin with! It's not nice to do stuff like that. "I can see him! It's a girl!" WTH?) There was more tugging as the doctor took her out of me, and there was about 20 or 30 seconds after they said she was a girl that I was terrified because she didn't cry immediately like Bobbie had. Logically I knew that not all babies cry immediately, of course, but that didn't make it any better.

She started hollering the second they suctioned her, though. The pedis checked her over and the nurses cleaned her and weighed her while the OB was replacing organs & sewing me back up. This hospital used staples to close the outer incision. Sutures are far more common, but I've talked to a handful of others who were stapled too. There is something very disconcerting about the sound of a staple gun in the OR!:dizzy: While I was still being worked on they called out her APGAR and weight and length. Then they brought her to me to show me just briefly before taking her off to the nursery. This happened with both my girls and is why I was so amazed and ecstatic to be handed Esther after she was born. Since my arms were still strapped down, I didn't even get to touch her like I wanted to, but they did bring her close enough for me to kiss before taking her away.

Baby gone, the doctors cleared out. I don't really like doctors, but I love nurses. They're the ones who do most of the patient care, of course. After the surgery, they cleaned me up. This was another part I hated, but only because I'm a control freak. They were very nice about it, of course, and explained everything, but having two nurses roll you to one side while they changed out the sheets on the table (&, I assume, took out the anesthesia; I'm not positive exactly when that happened, though) isn't exactly dignified. They lifted me bodily from the operating table onto a bed they'd wheeled in, & took me off to recovery.

The first time it had been in a ward, the second time I had a private room for recovery. They can bring the baby to you during recovery for you to nurse; I didn't know this though, so mine both stayed in the nursery. I honestly can't complain much. Usual time in recovery is about 2 hours, but I was in there a little longer. Their main criterion for taking me to a maternity room was that I be able to move myself from the gurney to the hospital bed, which meant that they had to wait for the spinal to wear off. I also had to have a certain number of "normal" blood pressure readings. So I got to lay in this room for a couple of hours with another automatic blood pressure cuff taking readings I think every 15 or 30 minutes, trying repeatedly to wiggle my toes (the spinal wearing off feels like the circulation returning after being cut off, the same pins-and-needles thing) and then move my legs, because I really wanted to get in the room and have my baby brought to me! The nurse was good and let Rob & Bobbie come back into the recovery room, though it was technically not allowed. Which was good, because Rob brought my book. I think I'd have gone insane if I'd had nothing to do but stare at the clock the whole time.

The first recovery period had been pretty uneventful. I'd chatted with the nurse (who'd previously been an EMT and then switched over to an OB nurse because he wanted to see births instead of deaths!) and had my uterus massaged occasionally. The second one wasn't pleasant. I got the shakes. From this and later on throwing up I am convinced they slipped me a bag of morphine, because those are classic side effects of that drug. The nurse brought me a couple of blankets, but I wasn't shivering because I was cold, just as a reaction to the medicine. She also had to re-do, manually, every single blood pressure reading, because the machine was reading them low.

Finally, though, they took me back to a maternity room, and introduced me to my nurse there, explained the bed's workings, that sort of thing. I "spider-walked" across to my hospital bed (scrabbled over sideways like a crab) and started asking when they were going to bring me Linda. :bb:

And that's pretty much the end of the story, except for actually having to use the basin they gave me to throw up in, and the song-and-dance surrounding being allowed to get up the first time. The nurse made me spend half an hour sitting up on the side of the bed before she let me get up and waddle to the bathroom. That first 'output' after they took out the catheter was collected and measured, but after that I was thankfully left pretty much alone. They came by every so often to give me ibuprofen and ask if I wanted some Vicodin. I'd taken it initially after having DD#1, but it didn't work too well, so I had one dose after having Linda & that was it. I got by on the ibuprofen the rest of the time. Of course, in the realm of pain relief I am also apparently an anomaly; what knocks the rest of the population for a loop seems to just take the edge off for me. The only drama I had was fighting to make them bring me a meal; they didn't want to feed me because I'd just thrown up. Twits.

Thanks so much for the play by play. :D My mom had 2 c-sections, but of course, that was 30 and 25 years ago...so I know a lot of procedures have changed. :)

I do have a strange question...when is the placenta delivered? Do the doctors physically remove it before they sew you up-or do they sew you up and let you deliver it naturally? I worry about this mainly, because I had sever postpartum hemhorrage after my first baby-the medications, uterus massaging, and so forth did not work-and they had to do the emergency surgery. (Mainly because I had a big baby, large placenta, large bag of waters-and my uterus was WAYYY too stretched out...and then they made me push for 3+ hours before even talking about doing an assisted delivery or c-section as options.)

With my second, induced a month early, he was a *tad* bit smaller and I pushed him out a lot faster (because no drugs tends to give you more ammunition to do so, I guess. :rofl: ) but they still had to do uterine massage to get it to start releasing and delivering quick enough to avoid that again.

aphil~they do take the placenta out right away. Right after the baby id delivered they girve you a shot of pitocin in the IV so the uterus starts contracting, and they can get the placenta out. My experience was pretty much the same as GBMM's.

THE only differences were, they prep your belly, so they shave it (I have very little hair anyway, so I was a little surprised) and wipe it down with Iodine. I also was put on a monitor for an hour before hand. I got to see the baby(s) as soon as they delivered them, but they took them and washed them and measured them, but brought the baby right back. I got to hold and nurse in the recovery room, the nurse sits with you and does her chart for about an hour. I have had staples, and steri strips with disolvable sutures I don't know which one I prefer...BUt my recovery from all three c-sections went really well, but we are hoping one day to do a VBAC, but it does not look good around here.

Quote GBMM
"They were very nice about it, of course, and explained everything, but having two nurses roll you to one side while they changed out the sheets on the table (&, I assume, took out the anesthesia; I'm not positive exactly when that happened, though) isn't exactly dignified."

The spinal is a shot, so there is not anestetic to come out, it just wears off on it's own. also make sure you stay laying down until it wears off, otherwise it can give you a nasty headache. and nothing about c-sectons is dignified, I have never been naked infront of so many people ever in my life!

Great play by plays of c/sections. I agree with every bit. And, yes, the placenta is manually removed before the uterus is closed.

I would encourage a VBAC. Sounds like you are a great candidate for it, and there are fewer complications than with a planned c/section. Good for you for gathering information, ad good for your doc for being supportive of this option. Best wishes for the birth, however the wee one makes his or her appearance. My practice has lots of successful VBACs.

Also, don't freak out if:
1)you feel slightly short of breath...this happened during my sister's c-sections...you really aren't short of breath but sometimes the numbing medicines make you feel that way because they are stronger than what you get for vaginal delivery
2)you feel cold (I was freezing, but they bring blankets from a dryer)
3)You shake (I shook like a leaf, I think from the meds.
4)You're nauseated (they gave me some finergan (sp?) and it knocked me out cold)
5)you notice your blood pressure drop...I was pretty sure the 40 on the bottom meant I was dying, but I'm still here.

I was REALLY out of it even though I was technically conscious. How out of it? Let's just say a male orderly (or nurse) said "she a big one...we gonna need help" and he is living to tell about it. DH was with DS because the neonatologist were making sure he hadn't gotten meconium into his lungs, so he was no help either.

Best advice I can give is DURING...DON'T LOOK UP! You may can handle seeing other people's guts, but yours are a different story entirely.

AFTER: Walk, walk, and walk some more.

The only meds I took at home were a few doses of equate ibuprofen. It really wasn't that bad, but I think a lot of that might depend on the skill of your doctor and how you deal with pain. I deal well with big pain, but a sore throat KILLS ME!

~Glad to know I am not the only one that happens to. :lol: They gave it to me a couple months ago, because my morning sickness was really severe and wasn't going away, so I took a dose and the next thing I knew-it was a few hours later and I was waking up on the couch. I could only take it if I had no plans of doing anything, or going anywhere all day long.

Does anyone know if they can "move the mirror" so you don't catch a glimpse? I agree...I can watch Discovery Health on tv...but the idea of looking up and seeing my insides really freaks me out.

:rofl: Yeah, I'd meant to add that in there and I forgot. Honestly, I wasn't even tempted to look for the most part, except when they were taking the baby out. That was kind of neat to see, if you don't count the whole "uterus on the stomach" thing, which is just...well, there are some parts of your own body you aren't meant to ever see!

And the dignity thing is true. I freaked out an orderly after having my first baby because he walked in to pick up my lunch tray when I was nursing my daughter...which equated to being half-exposed, because there's no discreet way to nurse in a hospital gown. He all but covered his eyes and ran away. :lol3: By that point of the experience I was just totally blasé about any sort of nudity and thought it was silly he reacted the way he did.

It's not a mirror so much as a GIGANTIC stainless steel light fixture with a big bulb in the middle, so I think if they moved it it would make it harder for them to operate on you and cut the right spot. You DEFINITELY don't want that :lol: The surface is very reflective, though...not like you see on a stainless steel fridge. I think all you can do is turn your head or have DH put a folded rag over your eyes until right before that baby comes out if you are tempted to look (you know, the train wreck phenomenon).

One more tip: My DH wanted to catch baby's first second in the world on film. As a result, pictures featuring my son hovering over my incision were sent to all our family, friends, and his coworkers. The problem: my incision was so low (where they had shaved) you can't tell I have an incision now. I only found out because one of my friends called and said "girl, did you know your husband has emailed everybody a shot of your hoo-ha?" So embarrassed :o

Oh man, thank goodness the photos from Esther's birth are all on my computer. :lol:

So much info!! Thanks for your support for a VBAC ladies. I just have to say Aphil: Do not have staples. Oh if I had my time over again that would be the one thing I would change. The nurses were a bit shocked at how painful i found them. The pain made it really hard for me to walk.
I still will not let my partner tell me what he saw in the operating theatre. It freaks me out. After they "yanked" dd out the obstetrician had a look for endo. He put his entire hand in my guts and wiggled it about and said to my partner " See, if there was an adhesion here I wouldn't be able to do this" I had to tell him to stop as I felt like a sideshow.
I was most embarrassed when they had to lift me onto the table for surgery. I felt like it would take alot of strength to move me.
The epidural being put in felt like they were injecting into muscle and it felt weird but not overly painful so Aphil, take heart, its over in seconds.
The recovery was the hardest thing ever. I just felt SO sore, this is the number one reason I am trying for a VBAC. After I went through 2 pethidine tube things they had to inject me every few hours as I just hurt so much I was crying. Need I mention the constant references to me being a "big girl" and that I had to walk around. I just couldnt, it killed me to.
I am beginnning to go "crazy" with 5 and a half weeks to go, forgetting everything and buying way too many baby clothes. All the best ;)

Thanks everyone for all of the descriptions and advice. :) I was actually taking mental notes as I have been reading, and I was actually going to ask my doctor if they would do the sutures, rather than the staples. Having them put in didn't seem to mentally bother me much, but having them taken out after the fact...well, that DID. :rofl:

GBMM-I had a similar "half exposed" experience with the nursing and hospital gown with my first baby. At the time, my SIL's were teenagers, and they just didn't "think", and they both brought their boyfriends to the hospital while I was in labor. One of them I had only met ONCE! Yeah, this is who I want sitting their staring at me while I am having contractions. Well, they came back the next day and came in unannounced while a nurse was showing me how to operate their huge electric breast pump. :rofl: Yeah, that'll teach 'em. :lol:
With my son though, the hospital I was at actually asked me if I planned to nurse, and they gave me a gown during the birth, and another after, that had a few snaps in the front of it around the armpit to neck area, so that I could actually nurse without taking the entire gown off. It was actually nice!


Ocean Girl-I hope that your VBAC is successful, and everything runs smoothly for you. I hope you come here afterwards and let us know how you are doing. :)

Staples...Oh my, definitely make it clear you don't want those. I don't know why they are in common use. Staples in your stomach, in my experience, feel exactly like, well, staples in your stomach!

OceanGirl, I hate doctors like that. The surgeon who did my first c-section was the third doctor I had seen over the course of that day. Fourth, if you count the gentleman who gave me my prenatal appointment earlier in the day. I have no idea who he was. One would think that someone about to see my uterus would have the manners to introduce himself! But he didn't say one single word to me. I wasn't a person to him, just a body, I guess.

I read something once about a new doctor coming in and starting to examine or do something to a female patient in a personal area (breast exam, etc.) and her response to him was "Hi, my name is ____, and these are my breasts. And you are???" :lol:

Maybe we should all keep that response in mind. :)

My DH loved the whole experience of seeing the surgery. He acted like he was in med school or something. I was having a hard time with the mirror-like light fixtures when I heard DH say "now what is that she's holding up" to the doctor to which she replied "oh, that's just her uterus." At that point I just had to tell everybody SHUT UP!

My Dh was the same way!!! On a different note, I could not see anything. The lkight they had was more opaque, and I could not see a thing! In fact when they brought the baby for me to see, she was hovering over my head.

Be very vocal about what you want, and if you don't understand open you mouth and ask. These docs can be a little impersonal, but most will explain what is going to happen.

I know when I had both of mine, there is a huge sheet put up around my breasts so I couldn't see anything even if I wanted to. I don't remember there being a mirror above me. At my 2nd one, I didn't realize they had already started cutting me open when they brought my mom in. (Jeff is too much of a wus to be in the OR). The staples didn't really bother me at all.
After my first, I was on a constant morphine drip for about 16 hours. After that I was given percossets every 4 hours so my pain wasn't too bad. With my 2nd, they were out of morphine drips and I was given a demoral drip. I hated. It wasn't as powerful and I was in a bit more pain. Every time I would hit the button to give me an extra dose I would have to mentally prepare myself or it would knock me out and I had to fight it.

As for the nursing, this hospital has the nursing gowns, so it has this little flap thing over the boobs. Of course with my extreme boobage, there is no pretty way to cover it up when you are still strapped to an IV, trying to manuveur the baby to the boob and get situated. :D

Oceangirl--I wish you the best with your VBAC and I hope it works great for you.

Those openings in the nursing hospital gowns don't work well for ANYONE! I wonder who the heck invented them anyway. The best advice I have is to use the ones with the shoulder snaps and unsnap them.

vba2c
 

Hi ladies,
I just had a failed vbac with my second child just this past Jan 2009. And I am still hurt by it that I cry and cry. So now with two c-sections I know that it will be hard for me to find a dr who will allow me to have a vba2c. It's true your second c-section is easier and you heal a little quicker, but there is still pain because it is a major surgery. I hated it due to the fact that I have a one year old (almost 2) wanting to play with her and I couldn't because I could barely move little alone bend down. It broke my heart because she would pull me down on the floor to play with her and I had to tell her no.

Does anyone know how to get in contact with "GreatBigMonsterMomma", I noticed that she is from San Antonio and had a vba2c and that is where I am from. And I would love to know what doctor she had that let her try for a vba2c. Please help! I tried to pm her but it tells me that I at least need to post 10 times before I could send a private message to anyone and I just registered a couple of days ago. If anyone could let her know that I am trying to reach her or if you are reading this GreatBigMonsterMomma please write to me. This really determines if I will have another child in the future because I can not have another c-section without a TOL again. Than you so much everyone.