Samantha's Birth Story

I became pregnant with my third child last year. My first two children (ages 8 and 10) are from a prior marriage, but this baby would be my husband's first child. I had my first child, a daughter, vaginally and she weighed 8 pounds, 14 ounces. I had a c-section with my second child, a son, because of placenta previa. Since he weighed 9 pounds, 12 ounces at birth, I was not too upset that I had had a c-section, even though the recovery was much more difficult than my recovery from my daughter's birth.

This pregnancy was fairly uneventful, which made me very happy, because I was going to be 42 when this baby was born, and I was nervous about having a child at my age. I had an amnio at around 17 weeks, which told us that the baby was fine, but we decided not to find out the sex.

I had decided early on that I wanted to try a VBAC this time around, and my doctor agreed that I was a good candidate. My husband and I went to childbirth classes, since it was his first and since it had been such a long time since I had been pregnant myself.

At around 36 weeks, my doctor told me that the baby was in a transverse (i.e., lying sideways) position. At 37 weeks, the baby was fully breech. My doctor told me that if the baby didn't turn by 39 weeks, we would need to schedule a c-section. My daughter was breech up until 38 weeks, so I was confident that this baby would turn late in the game too; however, by 39 weeks, the baby had not turned and my doctor didn't want to wait any longer, so she scheduled me for a c-section a little less than a week before my due date. I was disappointed, but came to the conclusion that it didn't really matter how the baby was born, as long as the baby and I were both okay.

My husband and I went into the hospital at 6 a.m. on the morning of the c-section. There, I was nearly fully prepped for my c-section (IV and catheter inserted, pubic hair shaved), but before they did the spinal, the doctor decided to do an ultrasound "just to be sure." Well, to the surprise of everyone in the room, the baby had turned, and was now head down! So, they took out the IV and catheter and sent me on my way.

The next week, my due date came and went, and an internal exam showed that I was only a fingertip dilated. Then three days after my due date, my water broke right after I went to bed. My husband and I went to the hospital at about midnight, but I only had weak/infrequent contractions for the next 7 hours.

The next morning at about 8 o'clock the doctor gave me Pitocin, which quickly resulted in strong, regular contractions. After two hours of contractions, I was still only dilated about 1.5 cm, but after another 2 hours, I had progressed to 8 cm. I wanted an epidural, but before they could give me one (i.e., in the next half hour), I was fully dilated and ready to push.

I pushed for about 20 minutes, and out came a baby girl. The umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck and she had a lot of mucous in her mouth/airway, so it took the nurses several minutes of massaging/suctioning/giving her oxygen before I could hold her. But at last, I met my beautiful, healthy 8-pound 9-ounce baby girl, Samantha Pauline.

It turned out that I did, indeed, get to have a VBAC, but if it hadn't been for that last minute ultrasound, that wouldn't have been the case!