I had 2 C-sections and then had 2 vbacs.

Linda - posted on 10/14/2010 ( 1 mom has responded )

My first two children were delivered by C-section because they were both breech presentations. When I was pregnant w/ my third, I really still wanted to have a natural birth. My doctor told me that I could do that. I read an article about vbacs & became worried that I could rupture. He told me my chances were less than 1%. He told me the most important factor was the type of cut done on my uterus during my c-sections. If they had been vertical, I would not have been allowed to have a v-bac, because the vertical incision doesn't heal as strongly as the horizontal incision. Luckily, that was the type of incision for both of my c-sections. There had been 3 years from the time of the second c-section. The other worry was that I may have another breech, so an x-ray was done at 35 weeks to make sure the baby was head-down. She was! When my water broke, it was miconium stain, so I wasn't allowed to have the long labor that I probably would have had. We needed to move my labor along to make sure the baby didn't ingest the miconium, so I ended up having a small amount of pitocin to move things along. Other than that, the birth was great. No complications. Four years later, I had another baby who was also a natural birth. This time, there was no meds whatsoever! Not even an episiotomy! It was the best birth experience of all 4 of my children!! Within 8 hours of giving birth to my youngest through completely natural childbirth, I was ready to go home from the hospital!! I felt great! (of course, I did have to spend the night). No drugs to have to wear off & make me sleepy or feel weird. If I had ever had another baby, I would have definitely wanted to go the same route! I think the decision to have a v-bac is totally between the mother & her doctor, but I don't have any problem getting 2 or 3 opinions. I also had had 3 miscarriages between my 3rd & 4th child & was told by the OBGYN that there was nothing I could do about it, it would just basically be trial & error each time I got pregnant as to whether I would keep having miscarriages or not. I went to another doctor who gave me progesterone shots as soon as I got pregnant w/ my 4th child. I carried her full-term! Whether or not, the progesterone shots were the absolute reason I was able to keep that pregnancy, I'll never be 100% sure, but it was better than "try again & we'll see! Of course that was 14 years ago, and many doctors are now using progesterone w/ women who have had repeated miscarriages.