To begin my 5th child’s birth story, I have to relive the first 3. They were all cesareans. My first was frank breech, the second was twins, and the third was an elective repeat. I knew with my 4th child I wanted a vaginal birth, but who has a VBA2C, right?? So I surrendered to the knife again. This time it was different though. The anesthesiologist hit a nerve doing my spinal. It was the most horrific pain I had felt in my life. I never knew this was a possibility, so I was terrified. I didn’t know what had happened. I didn’t know if I was about to be put under, if I would be fully numb, or if my baby was ok. It was a terrible experience that I constantly re-lived.

Along with a week long spinal headache, for the first time, I experienced depression, PTSD or Something. I was never diagnosed, but I know I wasn’t right for what felt like an eternity. “Never again would I have another baby” I told myself. We were done. And then I missed my period. I was sick to my stomach. I didn’t want to be pregnant. I hated the fact that I was pregnant and I didn’t feel that ‘connection’ with the baby that I had with my previous pregnancies. I knew this time had to be different but I didn’t know how it was going to happen. NO WAY could I convince my husband or any care provider that a VBA3C was a good idea! The baby would die! I would die! And that’s exactly what My OB told us when we asked about it. I was shattered. I had absolutely NO support. Then after what seemed like a million e-mails, I found a midwife who was willing to see me! We drove the 2.5 hours to her office where she answered our questions and told me about previous VBACS she had attended. For the first time I was excited to be pregnant. I had hope! My husband still wasn’t convinced, but he was getting there. At our 36 week appointment when he learned he could ‘catch’ the baby, that’s when he really got excited! I wanted this for him, just as much as I needed it for me. He was never even allowed to cut the cords of our other children. He deserved to catch his baby!

The entire pregnancy I struggled with fear and doubt. I knew that God would see me through this, but I just couldn’t trust fully in Him. I was the epitome of ‘O ye of little faith’ . I cried, a lot. Every shower; in the middle of the night. I would stare at my other children while they were sleeping and wonder what they would do without me if my OB was right. I was so gripped by fear, that I actually took out a huge life insurance policy on myself. 

Forty weeks came and went. I was never going to have this baby was I? Tuesday, 3 days after my due date at 9 P.M., I thought for sure my water broke. It was just a little trickle, so I wasn’t convinced. Then came the contractions 4 minutes apart! This was it! We called the midwife, and she and her assistants headed down. It was almost midnight. We filled up the pool and I got in. My husband was right there. He was my constant. He warmed the pool. He held my hand. He played with my hair. He read me scripture. He told me I could do it. 

About 3 or 4 A.M. we were getting tired. I got out of the tub and tried to get some sleep between contractions. The kids would be up soon. They woke up and we sent them off to Grandma’s and told them we were going to have the baby! But my contractions had spaced out. So we walked, and walked. I bounced on my birthing ball. They still wouldn’t get closer together. Wednesday came and went. I tried to get some sleep that night. I would wake with every contraction, moan for a minute, then go back to sleep. The morning came, along with the midwife, who informed me that I wasn’t progressing and that they were going home. I was lost! I didn’t know what to do. My husband’s vacation time was running out, and if I needed another cesarean, I needed him. We talked and we cried and we prayed. I finally accepted that it wasn’t meant to be, and we were off to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital around 4:30 P.M. I told the nurses that I was a failed home birth, and they checked us into labor and delivery. My assigned nurse came in and checked me. I was 4 cm and my contractions were about 6 minutes apart. “What do you want to do?” She asked. I’m sure I gave her a funny look. “What do you mean, ‘what do I want to do?’”. “Well we can’t make you have a C-section.” she explained. “But since you’ve had so many previous surgeries, we can’t augment your labor at all either. We can call your old OB or you could talk to the Doctor on call. She’s really good with VBACs!” I told the nurse I would talk to the Doctor on call. I stared at my husband in disbelief. He stared back with a smile and said, “Well then!” 

Dr. Cobb came in. She shared with me the statistics, and coached me through the paper work to sign for a VBAC and a c-section but only in case of an emergency. She checked me and said my water was still intact and that the only thing she could do to speed things up was to break my water. I agreed. 

She was right! It sure sped things up. The first contraction I had after my water broke hurt; Bad! “They’re going to get a lot worse now!” The nurse assured me. They were close, about a minute apart. I wasn’t getting a break. I needed to get out of that bed. The nurse got me a ball to sit on and showed my husband how to put counter pressure on my back during contractions. Wow they hurt! I labored hard and strong for 2 hours basically screaming through every contraction only to find out I had only dilated two more centimeters! I asked the nurse what I could do for the pain. She gave me the option of an epidural or a shot of something, but the shot could effect the baby and I would need continuous monitoring. There was no way I could get the epidural, not after my last experience. And I wasn’t going to risk my baby’s heart rate for anything. I told her to forget it. I kept on laboring. I’m not exactly sure how long but with every contraction my mind was screaming “I can’t do this!” and my heart was telling it to shut up! I finally couldn’t take it any more. After a contraction, I looked into my husband’s eyes and said, “I can’t do this! I need the epidural!” and off he went to get the nurse. She informed me that the anesthesiologist was going to be busy for about an hour before she could get to me. It was the longest hour of my life! She finally showed up and I was again terrified but didn’t care. In between contractions I slowly got back on the bed and hugged a pillow for dear life. I think I would have rather been eaten by lions then to sit still through a contraction while getting an epidural. But I loved that epidural! After a few contractions, the medicine started to kick in and I could actually speak in sentences again. My husband was starving so I assured him that I was fine now and he could run to Wendy’s to get something to eat. 

He got back and the nurse informed me that I was 7 cm dilated. “That’s it!?” I said. “That’s great! You’re doing fine!” She said. I decided to try to sleep. She came in about an hour later and had me turn on my side and told me she’d be back in another hour to check my progress. Immediately after she left, I didn’t feel right. There was a lot of pressure and I asked for the nurse to see if I could move onto my back where I was more comfortable. She came in and checked me and said, “That’s because you’re ready to push!” No way! I really made it this far?! She left the room to gather supplies and I looked at my husband in disbelief once again. “There’s a little book in the top zipper of the suitcase,” I told him. “Will you get it and read it to me?” He grabbed my little notebook and started to read the scriptures that had kept me going through my pregnancy.

Psalm 27:14

Wait for the Lord;
Be strong and let your heart take courage;
Yes, wait for the Lord.

Psalm 46:10

Cease striving and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

1 Corinthians 2:5

so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.

Psalm 55:22

Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you;
He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.

Matthew 11:28-30

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Philippians 4:13

I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.

Proverbs 3:5-6

5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart
And do not lean on your own understanding.

6 In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He will make your paths straight.

Psalm 127:3

Behold, children are a gift of the Lord,
The fruit of the womb is a reward.

Hebrews 11:1

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

2 Corinthians 12:9

And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

Tears streamed down my face, and for the first time, I saw God’s plan for this pregnancy and birth.

The epidural had slowed my contractions from 1 minute to about 4 minutes so I had a lot of down time in between pushes. I pushed for an hour and a half but it all went by so fast. I kept asking if I was doing it right and she said I was doing great it was just taking longer because my contractions were so far apart. The epidural was perfect. I could still move and feel the urge to push, but the contractions weren’t terrible. The urge to push is a crazy thing! They were telling me to stop pushing because they were waiting on the doctor, and I just couldn’t stop! The nurse asked my husband,  “Do you want to deliver the baby Bryan? Dr. Cobb lets the Dads deliver the baby sometimes and we can ask her when she gets here if you want to.” I’m pretty sure he said ‘sure’! Things were starting to get fuzzy. Finally there she was. Bryan left my side to suit up and deliver his son. I think it took two pushes and he was out. I remember hearing my husband say something about him being ‘so slippery’ and in the next moment I feel exactly what he was talking about. There he was. Laying on my chest, covered in goo. I will never forget that feeling. WE DID IT!! On August 22 @ 2:22 in the morning, we finally did it!

I came out of the fog hearing a concerned “Oh, okay..” from the doctor as she delivered the placenta just a few minutes after my baby was born. “Is that normal?” I asked. “Well, it is for some people!” She assured me. I had a second degree tear so she started to stitch me up and WOW! I told her it hurt but when I saw the needle to the local she was going to use I said, “Never mind! I’m fine!” It only hurt for a second, and I’m glad that I didn’t have to feel her stitching me up. I just spent the whole time staring into the eyes of my new little bundle. You know, the one I just pushed out of my body!! She finished up and told me what a wonderful job I did and I gave her the most heartfelt ‘thank you’ I think I have ever given anyone in my life. I was so thankful for her believing in me and not fighting against me. I was thankful for her caring spirit and for giving my husband the privilege of delivering his own son and cutting the cord. I am eternally grateful for that woman.

After an hour or so, the nurse weighed and measured our son and he weighed in at half an ounce over 8 pounds and 21.5 inches long. She wrapped him up and I held him as we were wheeled to the Mother’s unit. I felt like a dream! I had just given birth and I was up moving and going to the restroom on my own!? It felt wonderful compared to how I felt in the drug filled daze of my previous deliveries. Can we go home now!? Thanks to a wonderful nurse working her tail off, we were able to be on our way out the door at the required ’36 hour stay’ mark. We were on our way home to see the rest of our babies, and I was so thankful! 

Thankful to God for his steadfastness, even though I fail so often. Thankful for and to my husband for being so caring and supportive, and for believing in me when nobody else did. He was strong when I wasn’t. I am thankful for the staff at the hospital for their kindness and support. And I am thankful for my Mother-in-love who watched my 4 other kids for 4 days while I was in labor.

Looking back and seeing how God’s plan worked out is truly amazing! He was there through it all, and even though I didn’t see it then, I see it now and I know I have been blessed far more than I ever deserve! His plan was perfect. My VBAC helped me process my 3 other ‘births’. It taught me that I have no control and that I should keep my trust in the One who does. Matthew 6:34 “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Psalm 139:14  “I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well.”

Keep reading for my husbands story :)

My husbands perspective of our vba3c

Great news, we’re pregnant again!!! Easy for me to say I guess considering that I’m not the one who will be uncomfortable for 9 months. But truthfully, I was thrilled. I must admit though, a bit humbled by the prospect of adding a 5th child to our already full quiver. But certainly excitement ruled the day. It was clear though that my wife didn’t seem to share my enthusiasm, at least not right away. I wasn’t really surprised though, considering that just months earlier my wife had experienced an unfortunate mishap during a spinal shot preceding her 3rd C-section. The anesthesiologist hit a nerve in her back causing her excruciating pain. In fact, for months after that cesarean delivery of our 4th child Alistair, she would often speak of that moment, describing the pain as severe as if someone had physically ripped her leg from her body! Wow! So I figured that she would certainly be thinking about this horrible experience now that we were just months away from baby number 5. 

The first time I heard the term VBAC I remember being a bit confused. What in the world is a VBA3C?  But then she explained. “Is that safe?” I asked. Heather spent hours and hours researching VBACs on websites, researching statistics, and had come to believe that compared to Cesarean deliveries, VBA3Cs were actually statistically safer. What an eye opening epiphany for me!! Because until that moment, I hadn’t really considered the prospect of losing my wife or unborn child (or both) during a delivery. I guess that I foolishly believed that casualties just didn’t really happen during deliveries in this day and age. But for the first time in all of our pregnancies, I began to worry, especially when she said that we would likely have to have a home birth. What? Where, on the sofa? 

A few days later, we visited our OB for our first appointment. We had been here before with our other children, but this time would certainly be unique. My heart was pounding waiting for him to enter our room. I so desperately wanted him to support the idea of a VBA3C, even though my wife had assured me that he wouldn’t. Regardless, I prayed. But his response to the VBA3C idea was a bit south of supportive. “Oh no, the baby will die, you will die, too dangerous!” he said in broken English. I was devastated! I knew at this point the only option was to either find a doctor that would deliver vaginally or go to a dreaded Midwife, what ever that was. 

The drive home from the OB was a quiet one. I was secretly hoping that my wife would change her mind about this whole VBA3C notion and agree to a C-section. Honestly, part of me was a bit frustrated. I know now looking back that I was fearful of losing her and or the baby, hearing “oh no, baby die, you die, too dangerous” reverberating in my brain. I assumed that her main motivation for the VBAC was to avoid another spinal. And selfishly part of me thought ‘toughen up’. Ridiculous I know, but the thought did cross my mind. Probably because I had bought into the doctors fear mongering. Bought into the notion that if you didn’t have a baby in a hospital you were taking an unnecessary risk. I don’t feel that way anymore. Regardless, it soon became clear that her motivation went much deeper than that. This was primarily a spiritual decision. She wanted to have this baby vaginally because that was the way the LORD had intended. 

Heather began searching the internet high and low for a Midwife that would assist us in our delivery. And as I would soon find out, there are even Midwives who won’t assist mothers who have had 3 previous Cesarean Deliveries for a VBA3C. Why? Because apparently they are too dangerous!! Great! Now I’m really starting to worry. In hind sight, I would give anything to have been supporting Heather at this point, but I wasn’t. I was too busy worrying, mostly secretly. 

So she finally finds a midwife, who by the way lives over 2 hours away. This just keeps getting better. She’s the only one who would assist us and was also available. She was nice, seemed very educated and confident. But honestly compared to our OB, she seemed like a witch doctor. Small dusty office, no fancy equipment, no blinking lights and beeping machines. (Boy was I ever indoctrinated. ) What I did see in that office though was something I hadn’t seen in a while. I saw my wife let her shoulders down. She seemed comforted and encouraged. So for that, if only for that moment, I was thankful. 

I guess it was during one of the first home visits with the Midwife when my emotions began to switch from fear, frustration, and worry to interest, optimism and intrigue. I think the tipping point was when I began to see how confident our midwife was in our inevitable birth plan success. She spoke as if there were no reasons to worry. No reasons to fear. She comforted me with her confidence. Plus, she mentioned that I would play a major role in delivering our son! That made me very happy. I had only been a passive observer in all of the other deliveries. So the idea of delivering my son was enticing!

“I think my water broke!” my wife exclaimed from the bathroom. Here we go!!! My wife was an amazing trooper! For two full days she struggled with strong debilitating contractions. Our home was suddenly filled to capacity with crunchy women rooting her on! Into the pool she’d go, then out again. We’d walk, we’d pray, we’d get back into the pool. This went on for two full days. My wife is an abnormally strong woman, so to see such exhaustion and doubt in her face was humbling. I could tell that the midwife was concerned, though still trying to be optimistic. But all that optimism came to an abrupt end around 8pm on the second night. The midwife comes into our bedroom where my wife is laying on the bed. She explained that our labor should be progressing a whole lot faster than it was. We had been laboring for two days and hadn’t dilated over 4cm. I was broken to hear her say “We may need to consider transferring you to a hospital”. I wasn’t broken so much because I necessarily wanted the home birth, but because I knew how much my wife wanted a VBAC home birth. I so desperately wished that for her, and me, but mainly her. 

The very next day, the midwife had gone home to get some rest,  yet my wife was still contracting heavily. All I’m thinking is “What do we do?”. My wife and I prayed, and cried, and spoke candidly over our options. I felt my wife looking to me to make the decision, but I was reluctant to do so realizing how much was on the line. For not only would we be giving up on the home delivery, but also the reality of another dangerous surgery almost certainly loomed over our heads. I just couldn’t continue to watch my wife suffer in agony any longer. We had to go in, come what may. So off we go. 

As the LORD would have it, we would get that VBA3C that we had so desired. Yet in His providence, it would take place not in our living room, but rather in a hospital bed. He blessed us with wonderfully caring nurses. He blessed us with an amazingly open minded and VBAC supportive doctor. And on Aug. 22 at 2:22 am He granted my wife the prayers that I knew that she had been praying from the beginning, a safe vaginal delivery of a beautiful healthy baby boy! And, as a little cherry on top, God ordained that I would still be able to deliver my son. :)

Hindsight being what it is, I see clearly now that God was always working for our good and His glory. I learned that my wife is an unbelievably strong woman. I learned that what most pregnant women really need is a warm voice in their ear saying “You can do this!”  whatever “this” may be. I learned that a vaginal birth is an amazingly beautiful experience to witness. I learned that midwives are not witch doctors, but are actually wonderful, educated, experienced people who will support your birth plan when nobody else will. I also learned that If I could give husbands out there a piece of advice when dealing with their pregnant wives it would be this: Support her decision, pray for and with her, rub her back and feet, and just be an optimistic voice of encouragement, trusting in our sovereign God to protect her and the baby. Husbands, love your wife as Christ loves His church. 

Trust in the LORD with all of your heart

Lean not on your own understanding. 

But in all of your ways acknowledge Him,

and He will direct your path. - Proverb 3:5-6