Vaginal Birth After Caesarean

I'm now 29 weeks into my pregnancy and for a few months, I've been having this nagging thought and desire to have a vaginal birth. Did lots of reading on the internet and spoke to people who have gone through vaginal birth after caesarean, or VBAC in short.

The consensus is that, it's a much safer option than another round of caesarean and really, God did make us to give birth vaginally too. But I'm sure times have changed over the years, with diet, lifestyle and medical technology - more and more women are going through caesarean, rather than vaginal birth.

I wanted to make a last proposal to my OB/GYN for a VBAC and hear what my risks and chances are. He said that in most cases, it is possible to do a VBAC if the first caesarean was a distressed baby. i.e., if the child was breeched, or low placenta, or premmie. But, in my case, I had the full labour but bub was stuck and did not progress as my cervix did not widen, so a VBAC could result in the same situation and needing emergency caesarean. Hearing that, my heart sank somewhat.

I can give birth safely, but the chances of my baby born safely and smoothly would be a 50-50 chance. At this, I only had half my hopes left.

The clincher came when he said that I have a low placenta. Sigh. What hopes have I left? Caesarean it is then.

It was a rather painful decision to do a caesarean, even though I know that it is all for the good of the baby and myself. Definitely not looking forward to 6-weeks of painkillers and not able to drive on my own. But, thankful that God has given mankind the intelligence to advance medical technology to protect mothers and babies.

Commented to husband a couple of nights back that I will probably be one of those women who will die at childbirth if I was born in the olden days where birthing were done by midwives.

And now, on to the next step of pregnancy - packing the hospital bag and coming up with baby names.

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