Hi ladies, I'm 29+2 now and getting to the point where I need to make some decisions really. Last time round I had a horrific birth experience. I planned a home water birth and went into labour (ish) at 40+3. All well and good. I had sporadic contractions, always fairly regular and never a break of more than 15 min and strong for 22 hours (no pain relief) before my mw accepted I was in established labour. I then laboured at home for another 12 hours with gas and air. I went through it pretty quickly and the mw had to send to the hospital for more. After 12 hours I was still only at 4 cm and the gas and air wasn't dealing with the pain so I was transfered into the hospital. My waters went as I arrived, I couldn't pee so had to have a catheter fitted. After another 4 hours of labouring with g&a the anthatist turned up (had been in theatre). It took them 2 hours to get an epidural in, in the end they had to give me a spinal block to get it in as I was black and blue. They had to get the consultant anthatist out of bed to come in and do it. They couldn't find a top up button thing for the epidural so the anthatist had to keep coming back to put in her code to the machine thing, except she was in theatre a lot so it was often delayed. This went on for another 16 hours, by which time I was still only 7cm. They decided it was time for cs, no options of use of drip or anything, waited another 2 hours with the epidural completely worn off for the new shift to start before finally getting the cs. I was the first on the list for the day, so it must have been bad. Cs was quick and painless and it was finally over. It turned out ds was back to back and presented his forehead and not his crown. I ended up in hospital for 4 days as ds had to have antibiotics in case there was an infection as my waters went more that 24 hours before he was born. I didn't sleep much as ds decided to cluster feed to pull my milk through, the ward was constantly lit and loud and hot. By the time I went home I was a zombie. Zombie turned into pnd as I couldn't get breast feeding established and felt like a complete failure. It took me a long time to recover.
Fast-forward 5 years and I'm going to have another baby. It took over 2 years to conceive and I can't wait to meet her. But I've got to get her out first. I've seen my useless mw who doesn't seem to have any advice for me. I've seen the consultant at the hospital who was more helpful. She said that given my history she would estimate I've got a 60-65% chance of successfully having a vbac. She also said that given my history I wouldn't be allowed to labour for so long and they would skip straight to a cs. She also said they wouldn't want to induce me. I would need continual monitoring, so probably would end up bed bound, although they do have some cordless monitors now. There is practically no chance of a water birth or even using the pool for pain relief.
So the question is should I try a vbac or just ask for a cs? I am feeling pressure from my mw to try, but I almost feel like I'm being set up to fail. I think if I make up my mind that I do want an elcs then it will happen, but part of me feels like I ought to try because everyone says it's better for the baby. But I would rather not start off as a zombie again. I'm planning on getting some private help with bf this time and feel like that is more important. Argh I just don't know! What do you think?
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Childbirth
Advice about VBAC needed
PickleBot · 16/05/2016 17:11
I've had a lovely relaxing week, well as relaxing as it can be at 30 weeks with a 5 yo desperate to play every second 
. Before we came away I had a meeting with a private lactation consultant and health visitor (also a qualified mw but doesn't practice) I explained about what happened last time and that abiryh that went wildly off plan followed by a failure to get bf established left me feeling awful. She said bf issues were probably due to a huge lack of sleep and exhaustion from such a long and traumatic birth (her words, I wouldn't have put it that strongly, but apparently mine qualified as traumatic!). We talked about it for a good hour and came to the decision it was the bf that I felt most let down about last time and that in order to concentrate on that it would be best for me to have an elective section. That way I won't end up so tired or (potentially) have to stay in hospital so long afterwards. She advised me to look into skin to skin sections, where baby is placed on your chest unwrapped and not taken away for immediate weighing and measuring. She made the point that with vbac births (which are often more traumatic for babies) that isn't routine so really there is no reason for it to be done with a planned section routinely. I guess will have to speak to the consultant and see what they say about it. But I'm happy to have made a decision.
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