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VBAC
Week by Week

Jake Bryan

My due date was July 26 with the ultrasound technician's guess at July 24. 5:00 am July 24, I woke up with contractions. I did the bath thing (averting false labor if it was so), ate a light meal and crawled back into bed. Still contractions - 5 minutes apart, 30 seconds long. Told my husband. "Good" and he rolled over. By 1 pm, we had walked around the block a couple of times, gone to the store to pick up last minute items and packed my bag. The contractions were 1-2 minutes apart, lasting 60 seconds. Things looked good. I had to stop talking during contractions but they weren't that painful, I thought it was kind of fun.

When 3 hit one right after another, we headed for the hospital. I checked in and they told me I was at only 1 cm! I thought they must be crazy (by then things were picking up in intensity). Although they had a 3 cm. admitting policy, for some reason they put me in anyway (I think because it was dead). The rest of the afternoon and evening was a blur. I spent a good deal of time in the shower. My water broke around 3 pm, there was meconium staining. My nurse was lousy and didn't offer any assistance - my husband was choking on his role. I was in PAIN. I got a shot of Demerol (~2 cm), thought I was on another planet - felt like I was hallucinating, miserable. They gave me Fentanyl through IV (~ 3 cm), a little better. Had the urge to push. The nurse said, "Don't", I said, "No kidding!" Epidural came at about 4 cm. (~7-8 pm) with a pitocin drip. Great! Slept while mom and husband watched the Olympics! The contractions weren't changing and were ineffective - I was lying down a lot!

At 10 pm, was still only 5 cm (arrested for 2 hours only). The doctor said c-section and we didn't argue. Jake was born at 10:57 pm. He didn't try to breathe when born and was resuscitated. His apgars were 5 and 9. He didn't inhale meconium so he was good in that respect. He was taken to NICU for 4 hours observation. I was miserable.

I found out later, having gotten copies of my hospital records, that I had a c-section for FTP (failure to progress), secondary was medium meconium staining. I know that FTP isn't always necessary and I realized that there were so many things that could've been done to possibly change the outcome.

Suggestions: MOVE AROUND A LOT!!! Get a good support system (an aggressive partner, a helpful nurse). Have a BIRTH PLAN - copies for everyone. Avoid medication as long as possible - reduces chances of c-sections. Also, it reduces the chance that your baby will have to be resuscitated and given Narcan (reverses the effects of drug overdoses) causing it to be taken away from you as Jake was. If you and the baby are not in distress, and they say c-section for failure to progress, wait as long as humanly possible - trying every imaginable alternative. The c-section wasn't bad, the recovery routine, but to know that I could've possible prevented it and prevented any harm that was done to my son...it's worth passing on the story to others. By the way - major surgery sucks! You can't drink right away and you're usually really thirsty. You can't eat ice because it increases the chance of retaining gas (not good until your bowels function again) and you can't eat for almost 24 hours. After 17 hours of labor and not eating anyway, that's a long time!!!

PS: Jake is 15 mo. old now and were trying to get pregnant again. Working on a wonderful VBAC plan! Jeannie Bryan