VBAC birth - Brea Morton

I woke up on a Sunday with very minor contractions. After weeks of prodromal labour I dismissed it and didn’t want to get my hopes up yet again. I did however text my team just in case it was happening so they could all have a heads up.

I threw my tens on as this is what got me through the past few weeks of pains. 6pm come round and I was on my ball breathing through the mild contractions when I felt a dripping sensation in my pants. I stood up to go to the toilet and I had one of those movie moment explosions. From this moment my contractions come on hard and fast. The boost button on my TENS was lifesaving at this point.

My partner texted my birth team to come and we set up our birth space. I laboured in and out of the water, utilising the TENS when I was out for some extra help. The next morning come around and through the night I had no sleep and had only progressed to 4cm. It was at 8am that we all decided it’s time to head into the hospital for the epidural as I couldn’t continue as I was. I got to the hospital by 8:30 and found out I was 8cm!!!

The epidural went straight in and while it didn’t help down one side, it did provide some relief for me to be able to rest. I was checked again 4 hours later and I was 9.5cm and I was told to start practicing my pushing.

I decided before I did this, I needed the anaesthetist to come back and try fix the epidural as the one sided thing wasn’t going well for me anymore. He was able to get it working properly and I started to push at 2:25pm. 2:50pm come around and baby was born!

While this wasn’t the healing homebirth I envisioned, I still loved every second of my VBAC birth and I wouldn’t change anything!