I am very glad to see that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has revised their guidelines for women who have had a prior cesarean. There are several positive changes listed in this .pdf file that I know many women will be very happy to be aware of. One of them is that a woman who desires to have a VBAC should not be forced to have a cesarean or denied care. Read the rest of the report here.

Courtney’s due date was September 1, 1999. Overall I had had a good experience with my doctor and hospital with Matthew’s birth, so I didn’t really think about any other options for my birth this time around. My pregnancy went well, although it was a little harder being pregnant while taking care of a toddler! I had more morning sickness with Courtney too, so I remember lots of mornings of lying on the couch while playing videos for Matthew. His favorite one was Winnie the Pooh and he watched it every day!

I very much wanted to have Courtney before her due date, and I had convinced myself that she was going to come early. My goal was to have her on August 16th, which was my father-in-law’s birthday. I searched the internet and did all of the home induction methods I could think of, including eating pineapple every day and several other things. So on Friday, August 14th, when I started having regular Braxton Hicks contractions every 3-5 minutes, I got excited. I called the nurse helpline, and she told me I was probably in early labor, even though my contractions didn’t hurt, because they had been going on for over an hour. So I called my sister-in-law who lived next door, and she drove me to the doctor’s office. The doctor said I wasn’t making any progress yet, but she expected me to have the baby that weekend sometime. So I went home and got ready, and started waiting. And waiting…

Obviously Courtney wasn’t ready to come out yet, and I fought my discouragement and disappointment when August 16th came and went. I kept waiting, and not much happened until the morning of September 1st, my due date. I slept well all night (not counting the bathroom trips), and woke up to my water breaking at 7:30 AM. This was the same way that Matthew’s labor had started! I woke Nelson up, he was about ready to get up and go to work anyway. Then we called my sister-in-law to come over and babysit Matthew for us. I remember having my husband take a picture of my pregnant belly before we left for the hospital because we hadn’t taken one in awhile.

The doctor’s office wanted me to come and be checked to make sure I was in labor, so we drove there first. When we got to the office, I was already having contractions enough so that I wanted to stop and sit down during them. We sat down a couple of times between the car and the office, and then again sat down in the waiting room. I remember looking around at the other pregnant women thinking that they didn’t know that I was in labor right then. When I got back into the exam room, my doctor checked me and I was 4 cm dilated, and sure enough, my water had indeed broken. They said there was meconium in the fluid, but weren’t concerned about it at the time. She smiled and told me we would be having a baby soon, and that I needed to get dressed again and go over to the hospital. Then she left the room, and I just laid there for a little bit. The last thing I wanted to do at that moment was get up! I even asked my husband (half joking) if we could just stay there and have the baby right there. But eventually of course, I got up and got dressed, and we slowly made our way back out to the car for the very short trip to the hospital which was right next door to the office.

Once we got to the hospital, my husband dropped me off at the door and went to park the car. I walked in, and the lady at the desk immediately asked me if I wanted a wheelchair. I guess she could tell that I wasn’t feeling very well… I said yes, and they wheeled me over to the elevator and up to the Labor and Delivery area. They checked me into a room, and I laid down on the bed and looked at the clock. It was 10:00 AM. At that time I was 5 cm dilated.

The nurses left me alone for awhile, and I thought to myself that I wanted to rest for a bit before getting up and moving around some more. I was determined to be more active during this labor, unlike my first one where I spent several hours in bed throughout the night. But I laid on the hospital bed for awhile, with the monitors strapped to my belly. I breathed through the contractions and had my husband play some worship music that I had brought along.

At 11:00 AM the nurse shift changed, and the new nurse came in to introduce herself to me. Right at that moment, I felt an urge to push during a contraction. She said that she would check me, and found that I was 7 cm dilated. She said that it would not be too much longer, and left the room again. I continued to have the urge to push, and contractions right on top of each other. I started screaming, and then a lot of people started coming and going, trying to get the warmer and all of the birth supplies ready very quickly. I heard one nurse tell someone to go and call my doctor, but by that time I was really screaming and having an uncontrollable urge to push. Several nurses gathered around my face, talking to me and telling me not to push. I remember one nurse with her face right in my face, telling me not to push, and my response was (screaming) “But it hurts!”

All this time, no one was paying any attention to my lower half, they were too busy trying to get me not to push. Even my husband was caught up in their antics, and was trying to talk to me as well. But nothing was going to stop my body from pushing this baby out, and in one big push/scream, she was born right onto the bed  at 11:15 AM with no one catching her! It was a good thing that no one had dismantled the bed yet, or Courtney would have fallen onto the floor! The doctor wasn’t there yet, and later she said that she was asking the nurse if she could finish examining a woman, and then heard me screaming in the background and said “I guess I can’t wait!”

Once Courtney was born, they did not put her directly onto my belly like they had with Matthew, because they wanted a doctor to examine her for signs of distress due to the meconium in my amniotic fluid. They took her over to the warmer right away, and suctioned her very well and listened to her breathing. I could see her the whole time, but I wanted to hold my baby! Finally they brought her back to me, and I got to meet my 1st daughter. She was beautiful!

Courtney breastfed very well right away, and I got a couple of stitches for a minor tear. I spent one night in the hospital, my husband didn’t stay with me this time because he wanted to go home and get some sleep in a bed rather than in a chair. We went home the next day and were so happy to have our new baby girl!