176 Kalie's VBAC + Precipitous Labor

We are joined today by our friend, Kalie, from Illinois. You will be captivated listening to her two wildly different birth stories! Kalie’s first birth was a crash Cesarean after a brutal labor experience with a difficult recovery. Kalie’s VBAC was an unexpectedly fast and furious birth in an emergency room. While her VBAC was a whirlwind experience, she was still able to be a strong advocate for herself and her birth wishes. We also talk about precipitous labor and how to make empowered decisions instead of fear-based ones. Trust your body, listen to your intuition, and use your voice. You’ll know just what to do if your baby decides to come ASAP.Additional linksEpisode 18 Leslie’s HBAC + Special ScarsThe VBAC Link on Apple PodcastsHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull transcriptNote: All transcripts are edited to correct grammar, false starts, and filler words. Meagan: Happy Wednesday, everybody. This is The VBAC Link podcast. We are excited that you are here with us. We have an awesome story. I mean, seriously though, every story is awesome, right? This is our friend Kalie. She is actually from Illinois, so we are excited to hear her amazingly fast VBAC. We are also going to talk about precipitous birth and what that looks like, and how to know what to do, and all the fun things like that. Before we get going into that, we have Julie with us who is going to read a review.Review of the WeekJulie: Yeah, absolutely. Before I read a review, I want to tell you something funny. I have a friend, Leslie. She is on Episode 18 as a special scars episode, the very first one that we did on special scars. It was funny because we were preparing for our VBACs together. Our babies were born one month apart, so she was due a month before me. It was really funny because in both of our VBACs, the one thing we did not prepare for is the one thing that happened that was really big for us. For me, I was not prepared for my water breaking before labor or to actually go into labor before 40 weeks. I had my baby on my sister-in-law‘s wedding day. I woke up to my water breaking. I was not prepared for that. I was prepared for everything else, but not that. And then my friend Leslie, her thing was she was prepared for everything and she was expecting to have a super long labor because her first birth, it was a Cesarean. It was 40-something hours. It was so long and the one thing she was not prepared for was to have a baby in two hours and that’s what happened with her. She had her baby in two hours.And so I think it is so interesting because people think, “Oh my gosh, long labors are so hard,” but let me tell you, these fast labors come with their own set of challenges. So it has been a while since we have had super quick labor on the show and it’s going to be fun to talk about that today. But as Meagan said, I am supposed to be doing my job right now and reading a review of the week. You know me. I can’t help but talk.Okay, so this review is from Apple Podcasts. It is from ejennd. It’s like initials enough, but not quite to where we can go stalk her on Facebook and see if she has had her VBAC or not. Right? Like, don’t tease me ejennd. I need answers. Okay. Her review says, “I found this podcast while I was preparing for a VBAC after two Cesareans.”Her first was an inverted T. Holy cow. I did not even read that part of the review, which is really interesting because the friend that I was just talking about, Leslie, had an inverted T. Isn’t that something? Okay. I’m sorry. Let me start over.“I found this podcast while I was preparing for a VBAC after two C-sections, first one being an inverted T. I listened to the episodes while I went for my five-kilometer walk a few times a week. The encouragement and knowledge that I gained from listening was a huge factor in giving me confidence to go forward to have a VBAC. I’m happy to share that we welcomed a baby girl via an unmedicated vaginal birth last week. It was harder than I thought but more beautiful than I could have imagined. Thank you for your continued work in empowering and educating women to make informed decisions for their own bodies that are not shame or fear-based. I am eternally grateful for the network of support that was around me. Thank you for being a part of that. Much love from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.”Oh, Canada. I feel like we have so many people from Canada. Like Ontario, specifically.Meagan: Yeah, we do.Julie: We have a lot of VBAC doulas out in Ontario, our business manager website guy is in Ontario. My husband actually served a mission for our church to Ontario, Canada. So I wonder if that’s where we are getting the Canada vibes from.Meagan: I don’t know.Julie: I feel like we are getting pretty popular in Canada with these Canadians. Makes me happy. One thing on the review that I wanted to point out-- empowering and educating women to make informed decisions that are not fear-based. It just reminded me of what Mari Vega said. “Fear-based decisions do not belong in your birth.” Fear-based decisions do not belong in your birth. They don’t. It is educated and informed decisions. Those are the kinds that should be in your birth, and ones that are followed by your intuition, and ones that you feel comfortable with, not ones that are based on fear. And so I really like that she said that in that review. It made me happy. And, I have closure with that review because she told us already that she had her VBAC baby. So I don’t have to go try and stalk ejennd. Hey, it’s kind of like agenda. All right. I’m going to stop talking now.Kalie’s storyJulie: Go ahead, Meagan.Meagan: All right. All right. Let’s get into this amazing story. We will officially turn the time over to you, my love.Kalie: All right, cool. Well, thank you guys so much for having me. This is pretty cool. I listened to your podcast so much, so it’s cool to be on it. So I guess I will just get started. I wouldn’t have had a VBAC story if I didn’t have a C-section story, so I definitely just want to talk about that first because it is a big part of my VBAC. So for my first birth, when I got pregnant, I was so set on having an unmedicated birth. I feel like I prepared pretty well to do that, but maybe just not with picking my provider. I just went with the gynecologist that I was seeing. I was like, “Oh, she is nice. This will work.” But I did a lot of reading. I listened to a ton of podcasts. I was so excited to have an unmedicated hospital birth.So I had a good pregnancy and everything, and then when I went into labor. I was in denial that I was in labor. I stayed home all morning, all afternoon, tried to labor at home as much as I could. I think around 1:00, so this was back in December 2018 was when I had my first son. So when I actually got where I was like, “Okay. I think I actually am in labor,” my husband called our doctor or the OB, and she was like, “Yeah. You should probably go into the hospital.” So when I actually left and went to the hospital, I got checked when we got there and I was already at 6 centimeters. I was so convinced that they were going to be like, “You are not even dilated,” because that’s what I had heard in so many stories. Your first time, you get there, and then they’re like, “Oh, you have to go home. You are only at a centimeter.” So I got to the hospital, I was at 6 centimeters. I was so excited. I’m like, “Okay. This is going to happen.” We got admitted to a room and it was probably around 6:00 p.m. I just labored in the room with my husband. They had asked me in the beginning when I got there if I wanted to get an epidural. I said, “No.” They didn’t bug me about it at all. They just would check on us and everything was going really well with my laboring. I used the yoga ball a ton. I was so confident that it was going to end up how I wanted it to end up and what I had planned for. I think it was around, the timeframe of that birth is so blurry, but I think it was around 7:00 p.m. I want to say. So I got into the hospital around 4:00 p.m. and then around 7:00 is when I think I was around 8 centimeters. At one point, it was when I was at 9 centimeters actually, is when they said, “Maybe we should break your water. You don’t have to do it, but maybe it will help you progress,” or get ready to push. So I was like, “Okay, I agree to that,” and they broke my water. Up until that point, I totally had everything under control. I felt like I was doing such a good job coping with the contractions. I just felt good and then once they broke my water, I just went onto a whole other level. I was stuck in the bed at that point and I mean, it felt like it was insane, but I think it was an hour had passed and that’s when I started getting the urge to push.So I was screaming to my husband, “I need to push. I need to push.” He gets the nurses and then all of a sudden, the room is filled with people. It was just us and then all these nurses come in. They get the doctor. Whoever else was there. I mean, I couldn’t tell you. But they get everything ready for me to push, even though I was already pushing as it was because you can’t really control it once you get that feeling. It’s just happens. They brought in the doctor and I started doing the actual guided pushing and, I don’t know. It was just so hard. So much harder than I was thinking especially having the whole labor-- everything was going so well, I thought. I was like, “Man. This part is not what I was expecting.” So I keep pushing. They were doing the typical my legs back as far as they can go, telling me to hold my breath. You know, the “1, 2, 3”. I was basically half-there listening to them, but it was like the yelling-at-you type thing where they were like, “Push, push, push!” We were doing that for a couple of rounds, I guess. I am not really sure, exactly. But at one point, she was like, “Okay.” She either said, “This isn’t working” or “He’s not coming out” or something, so they suggested that we try the vacuum. My birth plan, my husband knew everything that I was like, “No” to and I did not want to have a C-section. That was my biggest thing. I did not want to have a C-section. I was so scared of it. That’s actually the main reason why I didn’t get an epidural because I thought that would cause me-- for some reason, I thought that would turn into me getting a C-section. So then when she said to try the vacuum I am like, “That’s fine” because I would rather try that than have to get a C-section. So they tried the vacuum which, in order to do the vacuum, they have to do an episiotomy. It’s hard for me to tell you how everything went down because this is mostly secondhand from my husband telling me what was happening. I don’t remember them cutting me or anything, but this whole time I do not have any pain meds or anything. So I get an episiotomy, which I don’t feel like I remember feeling, but I had a lot of pain going on already. And then, they attempted to use the vacuum and the same-- I really don’t remember the pain. It was more just like-- it was just a crazy experience.So they try that and it doesn’t work. So they were like, “Okay, let’s keep pushing.” I continue to try pushing and they were basically just saying, “He is not coming down and we need to get him out fast. We need to get him out fast. He’s not coming out.” At this point, the room is completely filled with even more people. They call in this other doctor who, I don’t know who he is, but he comes in the room and he is like, “What is her epidural level at?” My doctor was like, “She doesn’t have one. She is trying to do this unmedicated.” Because he was like, “We are going to try forceps.” They don’t usually do that when you don’t have an epidural. So I think, I don’t know what made them decide just to do it. I honestly don’t know. I know they were using shots of the Novocaine or whatever they put on just with a shot. So I think they tried that.He attempted to use forceps. That pain I do remember because it was a pain from my leg all the way up to my arm that I felt. It was a horrible, horrible feeling. That didn’t work. I think the whole time they were trying to get it around his head and it just wouldn’t get around his head, so it didn’t work and then they were like, “We are going to try one more time with the vacuum, but if it doesn’t work, we need to get him out. We need to have a C-section.” They tried again with the vacuum and it kept popping off. It didn’t work. So at that point, it was a mad rush to get me to the OR to get him out.Meagan: Was baby’s heart rate down this whole time? What was the reason why they needed to get baby out? Sorry to question, I’m just wondering.Kalie: I don’t remember them specifically saying anything about his heart rate. I just assume that’s what the case was, but he was so close. When I was pushing, they would see his head and then it would go back in, and see his head, and it would go back in. So it was like he was in the canal, but he just wouldn’t come out. Maybe, yeah. Like I said, I was half there because I was just out of it.Meagan: Oh yeah. I can imagine.Kalie: So I am sure that is part of why they needed him out so fast because when they did rush me to the OR, they threw a blanket on me and rushed me down the hallway. At one point, they literally ran into a wall and then got me into the OR. I had all my jewelry on still, so they were trying to get out my earrings, get out my jewelry, and then they put me on-- and at this whole point still, I am still having, he is still coming out. You can’t control that pushing. He was just pushing.Julie: Yeah, you are still pushing. Oh my goodness.Kalie: So I’m put on the operating table and I am like, “I don’t have an epidural. I don’t have an epidural,” because I thought they were just going to cut me open because it was just so urgent and rushed, and then they finally put a mask on me. That’s when I went to sleep and I don’t remember the rest. Yeah. It was just so frantic. So after that, my son was born at-- this was December 12th at 12:00 a.m., so at midnight. That’s when he was born. I woke up probably around, I want to say it was 4:00 a.m. or 3:00 a.m. and I was just completely confused. I had no idea where my baby was. I didn’t even, to be honest, know if he was even alive because everything was just so crazy. I woke up in a recovery room. My husband was there, but he also didn’t know anything that was going on with our son because he didn’t even get to go in the operating room because, I think it’s something when you are under general anesthesia, they don’t let other people in there. They just pushed him aside and were like, “Get out of the way. We have got to get this baby out.”So once we finally-- I woke up and had the shakes, all of the terrible aftermath of a C-section. The way I met my son was, it was probably not until 5:00 a.m. that they rolled me. I was on the bed thing and they rolled me into the NICU to meet him. The first time I meet him, he is strapped to all of these tubes and it was terrible. It was a terrible, terrible experience from the birth to meeting my son, and then he ended up having to stay in the NICU for, it was just a week. They basically were making sure he didn’t have brain damage or wanted to prevent him from having brain damage from the labor or from the birth because, like I said, how he was in the canal. I think it’s called something like HIE or HE, some condition that they were trying to make sure they prevented. So he was put on this cooling mat for 72 hours basically bringing his body temperature down so that he didn’t, to prevent swelling.Julie: Yeah, like brain swelling. HIE is correct. It’s swelling of the brain, brain damage increased that it sounds like with the cooling. It sounds like you had a crash Cesarean. Something was wrong and they had to get baby out right away. So yeah, that sounds a lot like what one of my clients had happen.Kalie: Yeah. It was so terrifying and then I mean, also just him being in the NICU and on the cooling mat. You can’t hold him. We didn’t get to hold him until, I think it was, three or four days after he was born. Luckily every day, he got better. He didn’t have any brain damage. He’s a completely perfectly healthy two-year-old, but just the worst experience ever. It sucked. So it was a hard recovery. I had an episiotomy with a third-degree tear, plus I had a C-section. So I had both fun things going on that I had to, like, I couldn’t, both. Yeah, it sucked.After that fun experience, I was like, “I probably am not going to want to have any more kids for a while.” So once I got pregnant again, which was when my son was 13 months, so at that point, I was recovered. I still had so much fear from that experience. Just fear of having-- I know I wanted to have more kids, but I was just like, “How are they going to come out?” Because I didn’t want to have a planned Cesarean for another child because still, even just the thought of a C-section freaked me out. I just didn’t want to have to do that. I figured since I had a C-section, that’s what was going to end up happening. I would just have to get a planned one for the next time, but I knew that there were VBACs. I knew that was a thing.Literally, the second that I got pregnant, or found out I was pregnant the second time, I started listening to your podcast. I just nonstop was listening to all the stories. It was one of the reasons why I was like, “Okay. I can totally do this.” I was still so scared to even try just because of that fear of that happening again. I was like, “Maybe,” because one of the things they mentioned was, “Oh, your pelvis is probably just too small to give birth, actually.” So I always had that in my head like, “Oh, I can’t do it. My body can’t do it.” It really made me doubt myself for the next time.So I was just like, “I am going to go for it, but I am just going to have to do things differently.” So when I got pregnant, it was the start of coronavirus stuff, so it was really weird in the beginning because I didn’t really have many doctor’s appointments. Everything was on the phone and then with restrictions at hospitals, they weren’t really sure they were going to be allowing doulas. I knew if I wanted to do a VBAC, I should hire a doula because that’s not something I did the first time, so I know it was something I wanted to try this time, but they were so unsure if it was even going to be possible to have that. When I got my provider, I obviously did not use the same provider as my first time because I wanted to find someone who was one, VBAC supportive, and I just wanted to go to a different hospital altogether. I wanted to try something completely different, so I found a midwife. She was out of a different hospital and she was not known for VBACs, but she was supportive. It was a VBAC-supportive hospital, so I was excited about that. I was confident in my provider. I was still doubting my body, basically. I was just scared. But around the time I was 36 weeks pregnant or so, everything was fine. My pregnancy was good. I want to say I was 36 weeks pregnant. I had a little spotting and I ended up going to labor and delivery because I had never had that before with my first son. I was like, “What does this mean?” Because they always put that fear of uterine rupture in your head. You have to be careful with anything like that just to make sure that’s not the case or that that’s what’s happening. So I went to labor and delivery around 36 weeks and had to get monitored for spotting. They checked me and I was a centimeter dilated, but I wasn’t in labor or anything. So other than that, my pregnancy was fine.Around the same time was when my midwife was saying it would be okay that I hired a doula, that I would be able to have them with me when I deliver. So I didn’t hire her until around 36 weeks. I only had, I think I met her-- my doula’s name is Georgina. She came over twice before I actually had the baby, but she was super awesome. She was excited for me to have a VBAC. She basically was, we had a plan for what would happen. I was still going to plan to stay at home as long as I could and everything.So onto my birth, because it all happened pretty quick. I was actually due October 1st and I had my son on September 28th. So it was a Sunday and in the morning, I, my husband, and my other son went to the park. My doula had told me something about curb walking which, I don’t know about if you guys have heard about that, but she was like, “Yeah. You can try that.”Meagan: I love curb walking. I have done curb walking to help my clients get into more of an active pattern.Kalie: Yeah. I am honestly convinced it’s one of the reasons why-- I don’t know. You can’t really-- you don’t know.Meagan: But you know it helped.Kalie: But I feel like it was definitely something, yeah. It did something for sure because we were at the park and I did some around the park because we were at the park. My son was at the slide and I was just walking around, walking around, and then we went home. It was a Sunday, pretty uneventful, but my doula was planning to come that day to have a meeting. She came around 12:30, noon and we talked for a little bit. She showed me some videos and then she was going to do this fear release with me, kind of like a meditation thing. She had me lay on the couch and relax and she read me this thing about letting go of your fear because she knew how I had so much trauma from my first birth and so much fear with this next one. She wanted me to be more confident that I could do it. So I basically laid on the couch and listened to her talk. It was funny because she was done, and I sit up and I am like, “Something feels a little weird,” because I had so, so, so many Braxton Hicks contractions my whole pregnancy from when I was 20 weeks pregnant on and at the end there they were just constant.So I am like, “Oh, you know,” it was just another Braxton Hicks, but it felt a little bit different. So she was like, “Oh, maybe you will call me tonight,” as a joke. Totally as a joke and she went home. So I think she left around 2:00 or so from my house and I was just hanging around. I think I don’t know. My husband and my son were outside playing. I was just doing stuff around the house and then I started getting that crampy feeling. Even with the first time around, I was in denial when I started getting contractions that they were contractions. I always was just like, “I have a stomachache.”So this same thing happened where it was around, I would say, 3:30. I started getting what I was calling stomach pains, but what were actually contractions. I told my husband, I am like, “I don’t know. I feel like-- I don’t know. I kind of feel crampy.” So I tried to time them and they were coming on super fast, only five minutes apart. And I was like, “It’s probably just a stomachache,” because then-- TMI, but then I went to the bathroom and I had to poop. I was like, “Oh, okay. Maybe I just had to poop.”Julie: That’s a sign.Kalie: Exactly. And then after I pooped, it continued, so I was like, “Okay. Maybe they are contractions.” I literally vacuumed upstairs. Anyone who knows me is like, “Wow. That is not surprising.” I was just in denial that they were contractions, but then I was like, “Okay.” These are really hurting me now. So I was like, “I’m going to take a shower and maybe that will help calm them down,” because my mom lives in Tennessee and the last birth, she had to leave in the middle of the night. It takes her nine hours to get to us and she had to leave and rush to get to our house when my first son was born. I didn’t want her to do that this time around because I felt so bad. She was like, “You have to let me know.” I am like, “Okay well, there’s only so much I can know for sure.” So I told her, “I am having cramps. I think they’re contractions.” I told her I was going to call my doula, and take a shower, and I will keep her posted. I had texted my doula and she wasn’t responding, so I took a shower. It felt good to have the hot water on my back, and then I got out and they were starting to get really intense.So I was laying in my bed. I called my mom and I was like, “Okay. She is not answering, but I really do think these are contractions.” She was like, “Okay. I am just going to wait until she responds to you,” like she would know for sure that’s what it was. I was like, “Okay well, I’m just telling you.” So I went downstairs and I got the yoga ball because I used that so much the first time and I was thinking it was going to help this time. I sat on it and I was trying to balance. I was in the living room and I remember I called my husband because they were outside. My husband was with my son outside. I called them and I was like, “You need to come in the house because these are starting to really hurt.”So he came in. He was trying to rub my back and do counterpressure and stuff and my son was trying to help too which was really cute. It started getting really intense where I was really vocal and it was freaking out my son because I wasn’t crying, but I was on the verge of that. I was like, “Okay. I am going to try to take another shower because I don’t want to freak him out.” So I went back and I tried to take another shower. While I’m in the shower, I am really, really in pain and my husband was trying to make my son dinner. Yeah, I think it was dinner at that point. He is in the kitchen and I am screaming from the shower, “You need to call my mom and tell her to leave. I think we need to go to the hospital.” And so he is like, “Okay, okay, okay.” Luckily, my aunt lives five minutes away. She was our plan to watch my son. So he had called her too and let her know to come over. So luckily, she got there really fast. But I was in the shower and I had that urge again where I was like, “I think I have to poop again, but I am not going to try.” I was too scared that something was going to happen because it was so, so intense. So I was just trying to stay in there as much as I could because the heat was helping, but it was way, way, way too hard. I couldn’t even really control myself at this point. I was just in so much pain. My husband was trying to get the bag and trying to get my son his dinner. I am screaming. I get out of the shower and I’m trying to get dressed. I can’t even get dressed. I’m trying to sit in the bed. Being on my hands and knees helped a little. I was doing that on the bed trying to get dressed. I’m like, “We need our toothbrush.” I’m like, “We need that. We need that.” I had our hospital bag packed, but not everything, so I’m just half there trying to tell him what to do and get stuff. We finally are almost ready to get going, but I am in so much pain at this point. I make my way down to the living room. Our garage door is right there to get out to the car. I am on the ball again just like, “Get my shoes. Let’s go.” My husband is like, “Okay. Let’s get in the car.” I am like, “I can’t get in the car right now. I literally cannot get in the car. If I get in the car, we are going to have a baby in the car.” That’s how I felt because I just felt that I wasn’t getting the urge to push yet but it was just, it was so close to that feeling. So because the hospital that we were going to is about a 25-minute drive from our house, I just knew I would not be able to stand the pain in the car. Plus, we had just bought a new car. I’m like, “I am not having a baby in our new car.” But I just was in so much pain. I’m like, “I can’t even get in the car. It’s just going to hurt too bad.”So he was like, “We can call 911.” I was like, “No we can’t. We can’t call 911 for this.” For some reason, I’m like, “You don’t do that to have a baby.” So he is like, “Yes. We have to call 911 because you won’t get in the car.” And I was like, “Okay. If you think that, then we can do that.” So he called 911 and at this point is when my doula finally decides to call back. So she’s calling my phone. He is on the phone with 911 and she was like, “Kalie, what’s wrong? What’s going on? What’s going on?” because I had texted her and then Kevin-- my husband’s name is Kevin. He had called her too to be like, “Hello. This is what’s happening.” She calls and I am yelling in the phone because I am in my contractions still and I am like, “I need to go to the hospital. I am about to have this baby,” and she is like, “What? What? What? What is going on? Put Kevin on the phone. Put Kevin on the phone.” I am like, “Kevin is on the phone with 911,” or whatever.So finally it felt like, I don’t know. It probably wasn’t even that long, but all of a sudden, the 911 people get there-- the paramedics and the fire department. You can hear them pulling up and they walk through our garage into our living room. All of these men. I actually sent you guys a picture. I don’t know if you got it of this. It is kind of hilarious because it is me in our garage with eight firemen and paramedics. They were like, “Okay, what’s going on? What is going on?” I am like, “I need to get to the hospital.”Julie: You’re like, “I can’t get in the car!”Meagan: Yeah.Kalie: Yeah. I was like, “You guys are doing way too much talking and not enough driving. We need to get to the hospital.” We have three hospitals nearby us and the one I was going to was not the closest one. They were asking me what was going on. They checked my vitals and everything was fine, but they were like, “Okay. We are going to get you to Palos,” which is the hospital that is right by our house. I was like, “No. We’re not going to the hospital. We are going to (this little company). This is the hospital that my midwife is out of.”And at this point, my midwife probably isn’t even working. I don’t know why I thought she would-- I don’t know. It was happening so fast. So they were telling me they can’t take me to this hospital that I need to go to and I’m like, “Okay well, I’m not going with you then because I am not going to this hospital. I am going to the other hospital.” So we did a little talking back-and-forth and then basically we were going to get back in our car and my husband was going to drive because they weren’t going to take me to the hospital I wanted to go to.And then, another guy comes in and he is like, “Oh, the chief said it is okay. We will take you to the other hospital.” So whatever. After all this, finally, we got into the thing and I’m like, “Okay. You guys need to go fast.” So I am in the ambulance and I am still having the intense contractions. I am squeezing this paramedic’s hand. He had said he just had a baby too, so he was like, “Oh. I know if I were to tell my wife this at this point, she would kill me, but if you get the urge to push, don’t push.” I am like, “Dude. Can you just let me hold your hand and scream?” Because that’s how it was at that point.So they were driving in the ambulance and they were calling into the hospital to say, “Hey, we have this person. She is coming. She’s in labor.” Oh, and my water didn’t break or anything at this point either. And then, the hospital told them that they couldn’t go there for some reason because they were going to be bypassing these other hospitals and it was apparently against the law, or against the rules, to pass.Julie: Oh my gosh. What is going on?Kalie: I know. I am like, just get me somewhere at this point because I did not want to be on a stretcher. They just weren’t moving fast enough for me. But they ended up taking me to a different hospital which is actually the hospital that I gave birth at the first time around, which is a really good hospital. I just didn’t want to go to that hospital. But as they’re taking me out of the ambulance on the stretcher and rolling me Into the ER, is when I am getting the urge to push. So I am like, “Okay. This is happening now.” The whole time I kept telling them, “I need to get to the hospital so I can get an epidural,” because I had this thing in my head that if I didn’t get an epidural that I would have a C-section, and basically that everything would happen again. So I was like, “I need to get my epidural. I need to get my epidural.” They roll me into the ER and they basically put you in the ER. I had never been to the ER and it’s a stall.There were just a million people. There were sick people on stretchers and I am like, “Oh. I don’t think I should be in this place right now, especially when the coronavirus is going on too.” You know? But obviously, I just needed to get this baby out. So they put me in a stall and there are a million people asking me questions like, “How old are you? How many weeks pregnant?” I was 38+3 weeks pregnant and I am repeating myself over and over. I am answering the same questions over and over and then I am like, “Give me my epidural. I need my epidural because I don’t want a C-section.” I didn’t say that part but I am like, “I need an epidural.” And this doctor comes and he was like, “I’m going to check you,” and he was like, “Okay. We can’t give you an epidural. You need to push this baby out right now.” I am like, “Okay, whatever.” And so they get me ready to push. They basically take my clothes off and pull my legs back, and he started doing a thing where he pulls down on your perineum before I was doing the actual pushing and it was hurting me so bad. I was like, “Stop it! What are you doing?” Because it was hurting me and I was just like, “Whatever you are doing, you need to stop.” He was like, “I need to do this.”Julie: That’s my biggest pet peeve.Kalie: Oh my god. It was more painful than actual pushing, so I kept screaming at him. I am like, “Stop doing that. Stop doing that. You are hurting me.”Meagan: That’s why we created the shirt. “Get up out of my perineum.”Julie: Yeah. We have a shirt that says, “Don’t be all up in my perineum.”Meagan: Because it’s not comfortable and it’s not needed. It’s really not.Julie: Not evidence-based.Kalie: It hurts. Actually, yeah. I talked about it to my midwife after the fact and she was like, “I know. I need to tell people to stop doing that.” But yeah. I kept yelling at this man. I was like, “You’re hurting me.” And he actually stopped doing it. He did it when I pushed, but not in between pushes because that was when it really hurt. So I start pushing and I am just in my head having flashbacks of, “Oh my god. He is not coming. He is not coming.” I was just a little freaked out, but I pushed with all my might and after I think it was two or three pushes, he came out. I just turned from pain to so happy. I was on cloud nine. I was like, “Oh my god. Oh my god. He is out.” I am like, “Give him to me. Give him to me.” I wanted him to be on my chest. Since we were in the ER, they don’t deliver babies every day so they were like, “No, we need to take him. We need to make sure he is okay.” And he was fine. He was crying. He wasn’t under any stress or anything, but they were like, “Okay, fine. You can have him.” They put him on my chest for a second and I was like, “Aww.” I was so happy, and then they took him. As the guy was going to cut the cord, I am like, “No, don’t cut it,” because I wanted to have-- everything that I wanted, I wanted still, like the delayed cord clamping. I wanted to have him on my chest. I wanted to have all that experience that I missed out on the first time too, but they didn’t listen to me. They just cut it and they took him. They checked everything and he was fine. He was healthy. So eventually, at that point this whole time, which I totally forgot to mention, my husband is driving to the hospital because they didn’t let him go on the ambulance with me, so I didn’t even know where my husband was. The nurse called him on my phone and she was like, “Yes. We have your wife. She is fine. The baby is healthy,” and he was like, “What? The baby is here already?” I think he was in the waiting room waiting to get into the ER.Julie: Oh my gosh.Kalie: I know. He missed both births of our children. I know. But honestly, I didn’t care because I was so happy I had my VBAC. I was so happy.Julie: You’re like, “I’ll catch him up later.”Kalie: Yeah. I mean, obviously, he missed out on seeing it too which sucks. So eventually, we got reunited. They took me up to a labor room or whatever and that’s where I had to push out the placenta which, I was actually really excited for some reason to see the placenta because I didn’t get to see that too before. Then, that’s when my husband was with me, so he got to see that part. And then I got the baby on me and it was just crazy because my son was born at 6:47. My labor started around 3:30, so all of that happened in that amount of time and it was insane. I just remember sitting in the room and I was just like, “How do we have a baby right now? How did this happen?” I mean, I was so happy. I also felt so good. I didn’t have a tear or anything, so I just felt good. I was on a whole other level, but it happened so quickly that it was also just like, “Is this real? I can’t believe that we have a baby.” But after everything, I was up and peeing an hour later. And yeah. Everything was good. It was awesome. My doula also missed the birth because after she called, she drove up to the hospital, but she was also stuck in the waiting room and they didn’t let her in. But she would have missed it anyway, so it was just me. But I did it, and I was super proud of myself, and I felt awesome.Meagan: As you should be. You should be very proud of yourself. That’s awesome. You have been on two really wild journeys.Kalie: Seriously. Complete opposites.Meagan: Yeah, and both very wild.Kalie: Very wild.Meagan: You know, just wow. So crazy.Kalie: Yeah.Precipitous LaborMeagan: It’s interesting. As a birth worker, sometimes people will be like, “Oh, this is what I am feeling. This is what I’m thinking.” And sometimes with birth workers, we are like, “Maybe.” You know? But this is something that I have learned. Julie, I am sure you would agree. Don’t ever discredit a mama saying, “This is labor.” Do you know what I mean? Because sometimes it is so hard, and you go so fast, and you can’t get in the car. Do you know what I mean? It’s just so hard.Kalie: It’s so funny because I remember hearing similar stories. I think there was one recently where a woman gave birth in a parking lot and I was like, “That would be awesome to have an experience like that,” and I never honestly ever thought I would ever have. I didn’t even think I was going to be able to have a vaginal birth, let alone something like that, so it was crazy. That’s for sure.Julie: Yeah. Well, and then another thing too is on the flipside, Meagan, having clients be like, “Well, I really don’t think this is it,” because that’s totally me with my first VBAC.Meagan: Oh, I know.Julie: I was like, “Wow. That was a really weird Braxton Hicks from an irregular pattern to ten minutes apart, but I’m not having a baby.” Granted, mine was not that fast, but my midwife and doula were teasing me. They were like, “Just rest and put your feet up,” because I was 38.5 weeks. Nobody was expecting me to have baby that early, right? And so sometimes as doulas, it is not our job to give medical advice, but we just stand at the ready. We are like, “Okay.” And so if you would’ve told me or texted me-- I tell my clients, I am like, “If you ever just have really loose stools or are pooping all day, I want to know about that. Tell me because that is a sign that your relaxin hormones are really amping up for labor and it’s a sign that it’s pretty close.” And so as soon as you told me that, I’m like, “Yep. Baby’s coming.” That was interesting.Meagan: But yeah. That’s so true. It’s like, “Oh, I don’t think this is labor,” but they are 9 centimeters. It’s just crazy. Oh, what a fun journey for you. That’s crazy, but fun. We are very proud of you and you should be shouting to the rooftops, “I did it and I feel good about this.”Kalie: Yeah, it definitely felt really good. I just don’t know if we were to have another kid how fast it would come, so I don’t even know, I kind of just want to end on a good note. It works out.Julie: Or have a home birth with a home birth midwife.Kalie: I almost did I feel like, but at least I didn’t have an ambulance birth because that would have been--Julie: Oh my goodness.Meagan: Yeah that would have been-- yeah.Julie: Nope, you’re fine.Meagan: I was just talking about precipitous labor. I know we talk too about it a lot, “Follow your intuition,” but truly follow your intuition. If something is telling you, “This is it. This is time,” Speak loud and share it. If you’re not at the place you are needing and planning to birth, definitely tell people. It’s really hard like she said, you don’t feel like you can move. You don’t. I had one client that had precipitous labor. Things were going slow at first. Like, “I think this is maybe contractions,” and then it was like, boom. Bang. Like, wow.Julie: Boom. Bang.Meagan: Baby out really fast, right?Julie: I remember that birth.Meagan: We almost had to literally, her husband and I, pick her up and literally put her shoulders, or her arms, over our shoulders and picked her up and walked out. I jumped in the backseat of their car and we were rushing and I’m calling labor and delivery. Meet us on the corner. We are going to have a baby. Like, I mean, it it just was crazy. It can happen. Our bodies are incredible. So, yeah. It’s hard. It’s hard to know what’s going to happen.Kalie: For sure.Julie: Expect the unexpected. What was it? I think Sarah made a post the other day. “The only predictable thing about birth is that it’s unpredictable.”Meagan: Yeah, so true.ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Head over to thevbaclink.com/share and submit your story. For all things VBAC, including online and in-person VBAC classes, The VBAC Link blog, and Julie and Meagan’s bios, head over to thevbaclink.com. 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