Episode 208 Camden's VBAC + EMDR Therapy

“Trauma is anything that overwhelms your nervous system’s ability to cope.” On paper, Camden’s first birth went really well. It was an elective, scheduled C-section. There was no emergency. Her physical recovery was smooth. Yet Camden was later able to realize and admit that she was actually carrying significant emotional trauma from her birth. She often felt powerless, helpless, overwhelmed, and robbed of the birth experience her heart truly wanted. EMDR therapy not only helped Camden heal from her first birth, but also gave her the tools to cope during her second delivery through over four hours of pushing, severe postpartum hemorrhaging, and a tough recovery. Though her VBAC was much more dramatic on paper than her C-section, Camden hasn’t felt any emotional trauma this time! Her hard work was all worth it.   Additional linksThe VBAC Link Blog: All About Third Trimester UltrasoundsFind an EMDR TherapistThe VBAC Link Facebook CommunityHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull transcriptNote: All transcripts are edited to correct grammar, false starts, and filler words. Meagan: Hello Women of Strength Wednesday. It is Meagan with The VBAC Link and we have our friend, Camden, here with you today. She is from Tennessee. Camden is amazing. She is a wife and a mother of two. She had a C-section with her first one and then had a VBAC. We’re going to have her story shared today. I’m so excited to have her share her story. She’s got a couple of things that really happen often. One with her first is the third-trimester ultrasound. If you have ever been told, “Hey, we’re going to do a third-trimester ultrasound and see how big your baby is or see what’s going on,” stick with us because that is common and at the end, we are going to go over some information on that. She also has an awesome thing that I think is added to her story. She went through EMDR therapy. I am very fascinated with this, so I cannot wait for her to share more. She’s actually a licensed clinical psychologist. Is that correct Camden?Camden: That’s right. Meagan: Perfect, yes. She has a private practice and is a coach, a writer, and a speaker. She specializes in women’s issues and relationships and faith. She is just a wealth of knowledge. I am so honored to have her here today and to be sharing her story. Review of the WeekMeagan: Of course, we have a Review of the Week. I’m going to dive into that and then we will get into the nitty-gritty of these beautiful stories. Today’s review is from Katelyn and I’m hoping that we did not read this review already. It was given just two weeks ago on Google. If you didn’t know, you can Google The VBAC Link and leave us a review there. We love your reviews. We know we say it all the time. I know I say it all the time. I don’t know when “I” is ever going to come naturally. It’s always “we”. I just miss my Julie. But we love reviews and we need your reviews to read on the podcast. So if you wouldn’t mind, drop us a review on Google, Apple Podcasts, social media, or anywhere and we would love to read your review on the podcast. Katelyn says, “I honestly can’t recommend The VBAC Link enough. I had my son via C-section in 2021 and even though I’m not pregnant with number two yet, I feel so ready and even excited for when that time comes because of all of the stories and education from The VBAC Link. I have been binging the podcast for the past couple of weeks and I have a note on my phone that is specifically for VBAC resources and education that has been mentioned on this podcast. “I am looking into providers and planning on starting interviewing some soon. I can’t tell y’all enough. Thank you for all that you do and I hope one day I can share my VBAC story.”I love that Katelyn. I love that you’re starting your journey even before you’re pregnant. I also did that. For me, it felt right and everyone has a different time that it feels right to start their journey and start their prep and interview providers. But for me, unfortunately, it took a while. I’m glad that I started that journey before I fell pregnant because I was able to really decipher who and what I wanted as well as what answers were truly something that I believed to be supportive. So congratulations on starting your journey and I too hope that you are with us one day to share your VBAC story. Camden’s StoryMeagan: Okay, Camden. Are you ready to share your stories? Camden: Yes, I’m ready. Meagan: Well, I’m ready to hear them and share them with the world. Go ahead. Camden: Okay, well thank you for having me on here, Meagan. I do a lot of podcast interviews for my work as a therapist and a coach but not a lot about me personally, so this is a little bit different for me. Meagan: Yeah, that’s awesome. Camden: Yeah. I am a licensed clinical psychologist but I’m really going to talk about my own personal experience here as a mom. As you said, I had my first child which is my daughter from a C-section in 2018, and then I had my son this February 2022 as a successful VBAC which was so exciting and felt so empowering. It just was a great experience. I knew as soon as I had my daughter from a C-section that I wanted to try for a VBAC, so I did a lot of preparation to get me there. Mostly just educating myself about how her birth as a C-section was unnecessary. As you said, I went into that third-trimester growth ultrasound. I was 36 weeks. That’s where they estimated her size. The ultrasound estimated that she already was 8 pounds at 36 weeks and that she was going to be about 10.5 pounds by the time I had her. They said at over 10 pounds, they recommend a C-section. Meagan: Yeah, and that number alone just saying, “Your baby could be 10-10.5 pounds.” You’re like, “What?” You know, that’s overwhelming too to hear as a mom. Camden: Yeah and I didn’t realize how off those estimates could be at the time. They did tell me, “Oh, it could be off about a pound either way. She actually could be a pound bigger.”Meagan: Uh-huh. Camden: Yeah, and as a first-time mom, my husband and I were just freaked out. They told me, “You could get 3rd or 4th-degree tears. You could have shoulder dystocia. She could get stuck and not have oxygen to the brain.” Just all kinds of problems that they said could happen if I tried to have a vaginal birth with her. So from 36 weeks on, I was a basket case. I had a lot of anxiety. I went in at 39 weeks to have another ultrasound and that was when they said she was estimated to be about 10.5 pounds, so we went ahead and scheduled a C-section, but very begrudgingly. I don’t feel like they forced me to, but yet they had some really strong words to say. We spoke with several different doctors at our practice and one of them said, “At this point, the risks of having a vaginal birth are higher than the risk of a C-section with her.” One said, “If this were my wife, I would recommend that she would have a C-section.”Meagan: Ugh, I hate those comments. Camden: Yeah. One doctor said, “Maybe you could try for a vaginal birth and maybe she won’t be as big and it will be fine, but if something bad happens, you never forgive yourself.”Meagan: Mmm. Mmm. Camden: I was just thinking, “Yeah, I couldn’t live with myself if something bad did happen to her because I was stubborn and tried to have her vaginally.” And so we went ahead and scheduled the C-section on her due date. I did not go into labor at all. I didn’t have contractions or anything like that. The C-section went fine. She was healthy. She was 9 pounds, 2 ounces, so she was over a pound less than what they estimated, although still on the bigger side of things. She was healthy. I was healthy. They had thought I had gestational diabetes and I had been tested so many times. I did not have it, so there was really no explanation for why she was a little bit on the bigger side. Not a family history of it, nothing I did because I kept feeling like I did something wrong. I have PCOS, so that does make you a little bit more at risk for developing gestational diabetes, but they tested me many times and I did not have it. I was relieved when she was born healthy and everything went fine, but then I had breastfeeding difficulties. I had a low milk supply and they encouraged me to supplement in the hospital because she had lost weight. It was like, first the problem was that she was too big and now she is losing too much weight. It all really psychologically affected me. Even though everything was healthy and safe and there were no complications, and my recovery was also pretty good, I still felt psychologically traumatized from the experience. Meagan: Mhmm. Well, and then you felt as though, and this is what my perception of it is, you felt as though you must place blame on yourself for that. You were searching for this reason when like you said, it just happens. Sometimes babies grow bigger. It just happens. Camden: Yeah, and I also had this sense, “This is so unfair because I’ve done everything right.” I stayed active during my pregnancy. I watched what I ate in moderation. I took my medication for PCOS. I managed everything and stayed healthy and tried to do everything right, and still just didn’t get the birth experience I wanted. And then with the breastfeeding difficulties and low supply persisted, so we supplemented her with formula throughout her life. To keep breastfeeding and pumping with me going back to work and everything I managed to do for 8 or 9 months makes me proud that I kept up with it for that long with her, but all of that contributed to developing postpartum depression/anxiety. Like I said, I am a psychologist and therapist. I do therapy in private practice, so I was familiar with those signs and that that is a common occurrence, but as a first-time mom, I didn’t realize that it was more than the baby blues. I was crying every day for several weeks after her birth. I felt like a failure. I felt not good enough. I just really grieved my birth experience and also grieved my life before becoming a mom. Even though I loved her, it was just so much responsibility, such a huge life change, and an identity change. It was just a really tough transition. Meagan: You know, I feel like I can relate to that so much. It’s not that I didn’t love being a mom and having that role, but the identity change was weird. I was like, “Who am I? Am I mom? Am I Meagan? Am I the return-to-work coordinator at my work? Who am I?” It can really throw you. Camden: Yeah, my career had always been so important to me and that had always been where a lot of my identity and value came from, so being on maternity leave was really weird. I went back to work after 8 weeks which now, I wish I had taken more time, but I was almost relieved to go back to work and feel like, “I know what I’m doing here. I’m valuable here and I don’t feel like a failure all of the time,” like I did at home breastfeeding and being a new mom. So that was my first birth experience. Yeah. I struggled with postpartum depression and anxiety for quite a while. It took me almost a year before I started seeing a therapist myself who specialized in postpartum mental health. I also took antidepressant medication to help with my mood too. That helped a lot, but really just giving myself time to adjust to being a new mom too. Meagan: Good for you. Camden: Like I said, I knew I wanted to have a VBAC, so we waited quite a while to try getting pregnant with our second. Of course, the pandemic happened during all of that. I got laid off from the job I was at. I was a college professor when I had my daughter and I got laid off from that, then transitioned to private practice. So starting a new job, all of that led to us waiting a little bit longer than we had planned. But as soon as I got pregnant, we interviewed doulas and I switched practices to stay with the gynecologist who had been treating my PCOS for a long time, but who had left the practice I had been at for my first birth. I switched to that practice and I just did a lot of research. I’m somebody who likes to be really prepared. I listened to your podcast a lot which was really helpful. I read a lot of books and had my doula as support. Yeah, I listened to your podcast. I started seeing a Webster chiropractor and just really advocated for the birth experience I wanted. I was very clear with my OB that I wanted to try for a VBAC. That was my intention. Setting that goal for myself and putting in as much preparation as I could really helped me feel more empowered. I started going to EMDR therapy. I was still seeing my therapist who specializes in postpartum and maternal mental health, but she did not provide EMDR therapy and I actually do not either. It’s something that requires specialized training and certification. It stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing or EMDR. It’s really the most effective treatment for trauma and one of the most popular ones right now, one of the most requested ones. It’s in high demand. My regular therapist referred me to someone for EMDR and I started doing that, but I’m not knowing what to expect. It ended up being, I think, the number one key to my healing from my first birth experience and setting me up for success with my VBAC. Even more than having a doula, as wonderful as she was, and even more than– I took a HypnoBirthing class. Those things were all great, but I really attribute my mindset success to the EMDR. Meagan: What do you feel like a part of this program and this therapy, what do you feel impacted you the most? Was it processing? Accepting? Camden: Yeah, so EMDR is a unique treatment in that you really don’t verbally process your trauma experience a lot. You don’t have to talk about it a lot which is good for people who feel uncomfortable talking about it. It’s really working with brain science to help your brain process the trauma. When it feels stuck in a certain spot, it involves bilateral brain stimulation meaning both hemispheres of the brain, and so I wore these headphones that played sounds in each of my ears going back and forth while the therapist would prompt me to think about times during my birth or to think about statements I believed about myself like, “I am a failure,” and then replacing them with statements like, “I did everything the best that I could. I am the best mother for my baby.” Things like that. Yeah, so it’s really working the sides of your brain without a lot of verbal processing, but a big healing part of it for me was actually admitting that my birth was traumatic. I had a hard time just even admitting that because nobody was hurt. Nobody came close to death. She was fine. It wasn’t an emergency C-section. It was scheduled, so I thought, “There are people that have such worse experiences than me. I can’t call this a traumatic birth experience.”But for me, it was because it overwhelmed my ability to cope. That’s really what we now understand as trauma is anything that overwhelms your nervous system’s ability to cope. It left me with these feelings of powerlessness and helplessness and fear which is what trauma does. You have this sense of, “I’m helpless. I’m not in control.” I felt powerless and just a lot of fear. Owning that it was a traumatic experience for me helped put words to it, processing it in EMDR, and then coming up with new ways of how I wanted to cope in my VBAC was a key part of the therapy too. Meagan: I just love that. I actually don’t think I realized that it’s not talking it out. I thought it was finding the trigger and then working through that verbally, so I am learning. I’m learning. This is awesome. Camden: Yeah. Most therapy is talk therapy and that’s what I do myself as a therapist. It’s processing your memories, talking about them with a therapist, and looking at stuck points or thoughts that are keeping you stuck and replacing those with healthier thoughts. So EMDR does a little bit of that, but it’s really not as verbal. It’s really not telling all of the details of your trauma to the therapist, but thinking about them while you allow your brain to process them. Meagan: Yeah, I was going to say that I’m learning it’s a tool. Learning how to by yourself, solo, work through those, and then learning how to even find out what is triggering or what is affecting you. That’s awesome. Cool. Camden: Yeah. Toward the end of my treatment, before I was due, we worked on setting a future template. That’s what she called it. “How do I want to cope and what do I want to think and believe about myself in my future births?” The one that hadn’t happened yet. We did some, “What if I do need a C-section? How am I going to cope with that? What if there is an emergency situation and I’m separated from my husband and my doula? What do I want to believe in how I cope?” That ended up being really helpful in my birth experience. Meagan: Yeah, I think that’s good. I think sometimes we shy away from the what if’s or other scenarios because we don’t want to think of those. We don’t want to bring those into the atmosphere. We don’t want to bring those into our space, but sometimes it’s really good to plan for X, Y, and Z scenarios. Camden: Yeah, for me, I’m already a worst-case scenario type of thinker, so we didn’t go worst, worst case. We didn’t go death, but we did process like I said, if something does go off plan or if I’m separated from my husband, and yeah. That ended up helping because that did happen at my birth. Meagan: Mhmm, yeah. Camden: So bringing me up to my VBAC now. I went into it with three words of how I wanted to feel. I wanted to feel calm, empowered, and prepared. The preparation was all of the reading, courses, and therapy I did. The empowered– I wanted to speak up and advocate for myself and I wanted to feel calm. I did HypnoBirthing. I had tracks playing during it and I just wanted to really be focused and calm about everything. Meagan: I love that. Camden: I think I was able to. Meagan: I absolutely love that. So you just picked those three words and defined them. Camden: Yeah. Those were the three words for me. I was a few days overdue and I had listened to all of your episodes about due dates, so I was getting a little anxious about, “Oh no. If I’m induced, that’s going to lower my chances of success.” I was getting a little anxious and nervous about it, but I did agree to a membrane sweep when I was 40+3 days. That ended up, I think, doing the trick because the next day, I went into labor. I saw the doctor on a Wednesday and did the membrane sweep. On Thursday, I was in early labor all day at home. You know, it was every 30 minutes or so, and I was tracking and telling my doula what was going on, but I was still walking around the house and doing stuff. We decided to call my parents to come to spend the night with us in case something happened during the night and then the contractions definitely intensified Thursday night and all through the night. I did my HypnoBirthing breathing during the night during my contractions at home. And then Friday morning, I was in my bathtub at home and my water broke. Yeah. I was going through contractions at home. My water broke, and so at that point, we did go to the hospital. Of course, I wanted to wait as long as possible, but when that happened, we felt like it was time. We called my doula. We called my OB, so we went in then which was a Friday morning. Meagan: Were things picking up more actively or just went in because of that? Camden: Yeah, I would definitely say it was more active. I was having to concentrate and breathe more through them. They were a little bit closer together. They still weren’t probably as close as we had planned, but it seemed to progress fairly fast at that point. Yeah. We went to the doctor. I declined the cervical check because I did not want to know how many centimeters I was dilated. I knew that was just either going to frustrate me and discourage me later on or give me false hope. I don’t know. I just didn’t want to know. Meagan: Well, and it doesn’t really matter. It really doesn’t. You’re in labor. You’re going to have a baby. Your body will tell you when it’s time to have a baby. Camden: Yeah and I was not in a hurry. I just wanted to stay calm and let things come as they came, but the funny thing was when we checked in to the hospital, we had called ahead of time of course, so when we checked in, they said, “Oh, you’re here for the TOLAC” and I said, “No. We are here for a VBAC. We are VBACing.” Meagan: I know, right? We talk about this. We actually talk about this in our birth course about TOLAC versus VBAC and just the terminology. You’re like, “No. I’m here to VBAC.” Sometimes, that can really actually throw someone off. It can really throw them off because they are like, “Well, no,” because trying, right? I love that you were like, “No. I’m here to VBAC.” You pushed it aside. Push it aside and be like, “Okay, I get that that’s what you guys call it from a medical standpoint. A TOLAC, a trial of labor after a Cesarean, but I’m here to VBAC, so I’m just going to keep saying that.” Camden: Right, yeah. I was very determined and yeah. I labored with my husband, my doula, and a really supportive nurse by my side. She was assigned to us, the nurse, and it ended up being the same nurse who was there when I had my C-section with my daughter in 2018. That felt really redemptive to me because she had actually been really supportive during my C-section, and so kind, so being able to see her and be there with her and her being a part of that experience. She didn’t even remember us but my husband and I remembered her. That was just really cool being able to come–Meagan: Some familiarity too and it was a positive part of your last birth. Camden: It was, yeah. The hospital I was at had one room with a tub, so I requested that room. I got it which was so exciting, but then they saw meconium, is that what it’s called? Meagan: Yeah, in the water. Meconium is baby poop. It’s actually a very common thing. We actually had a mom the other day write us and say, “Hey, I had a C-section because when my water broke, there was light meconium.” I was like, “Oh, that’s actually pretty common.”Camden: Yeah, yeah. They saw that, so they would not let me get in the tub because of that. I guess because of the increased risk of infection. Meagan: Yeah. Every hospital has its different policies. Yeah. Camden: That was a bummer because I was really looking forward to that. I had used the tub weekly if not more than that at my home during the late weeks of my pregnancy when my back was really killing me and stuff, so that had been very common for me. I did use the shower a little bit. I tried laughing gas, the nitrous oxide. I tried that and I could just not get the hang of it really. The timing of when to breathe it in and the contractions and everything, I just didn’t quite get the hang of that. Meagan: Yeah. I used that for my VBAC as well and everyone was like, “Oh, it was working.” I just remember feeling sleepy in between the contractions, but now that I look back I’m like, “Oh yeah, I guess.” I think I should have started when I started feeling them versus when it started hurting. Camden: Right, yeah. I just couldn’t get the timing right and of course, at that point, you’re just frustrated in many ways and not thinking clearly, so I kind of gave up on that. I did get checked and I was 6.5 I think at that point, maybe 7 centimeters. Meagan: That’s great. Camden: Yeah. At that point, I did get an epidural. I had been open to it either way. I didn’t go in dead set on an unmedicated birth, but I didn’t go in dead set on one either. I was just kind of, “We’ll see.” I ended up getting one. I don’t regret it. With the epidural I got, I still had some feeling. I could still move around and get on all fours and move side to side, so I wasn’t just flat on my back. I was using the birthing bar on the bed and I could feel when a contraction was coming on, so I asked for uncoached pushing, so I pushed on my own. Yeah. I didn’t regret getting it. I think it ended up working out getting the epidural. Meagan: Yeah, a lot of people say, “I don’t feel like I can VBAC if I don’t get an epidural,” which, it’s just simply not true. People have VBACs with epidurals all the time. You just have to do what’s best for you. It’s a great tool if that’s a tool that you are needing or desiring. Just know it’s there and if you use it, great. If you don’t, great. It is what it is. Use it if you need to. There’s no judgment. There’s no failing. But with epidurals, we have this weird stigma of failing if we get an epidural. I’m like, “Can we please stop? Can we stop?” because it was a great decision it sounds like. Camden: Yeah, I think sometimes there is a badge of honor if you had a “natural” birth. I call it unmedicated, not natural. Meagan: Yeah, yeah. Camden: I didn’t feel that way. I was open either way. Yeah. At that point, I had been pushing for a really long time. The doctor who was on call– that was the bad thing about the OB practice was that whoever delivered you was whoever was on call. It wasn’t my regular OB that I knew and trusted. The one who was on-call said, “You’ve been pushing for a really long time. Your contractions have really slowed down, so we want to give you some Pitocin to pick them back up.”They did that and they did pick back up a little bit. I mean, I was really chill. I was doing my HypnoBirthing, my breathing baby down birthing, and uncoached pushing, and the doctor was like, “No. You need to let your nurse coach you. You need to hold your breath and push,” because, in HypnoBirthing, you don’t hold your breath, you breathe down. Meagan: Yeah. J breathing.Camden: Yes. Yes. Yeah, so they wanted me to switch it up and I was okay, but they were like, “You’ve been at this for a really long time.” It had been four hours at that point. I tried it just to see, doing a little bit of a more hold your breath pushing and then went back to my breathing pushing, so I just mixed it up. But yeah. So after four hours of pushing, he finally came out. It was so empowering to feel him come out. Even with the epidural, I could feel the head come out, and then I felt the rest of the body. They immediately put him on my chest and it was just the wonderful moment that I had been waiting for. That was the moment I felt like I had been robbed of my daughter with the C-section, just being able to hold him right away, and yeah. It just felt so gratifying to be able to do that, to have him on my chest right away, and to know he was safe and to know that I did it. Meagan: Absolutely. I can hear the emotion in your voice just right now. It really is. It’s an amazing moment and like you were saying too with an epidural, you can still feel things. There are still pressures. There are still sensations, so it’s really awesome that you got to feel that and redeem that moment that you didn’t get to have last time and have that redemption birth. Camden: Yes. Yeah. My husband and I had already decided that this was our last baby too. It was my first and my last vaginal birth experience, so I really wanted that moment. He was fine. After that, I started hemorrhaging. Meagan: Yes, from pushing for a while? Camden: They thought it could have been from pushing for a long time. I also had second-degree tears so they were stitching that up, but then, of course, the doctor was also concerned about uterine rupture because of all of the bleeding and couldn’t get it under control, so they said, “We’re going to move you to another room where they have better lighting and your husband and doula can’t come with you.” That’s why I said I’m glad I prepared for that moment with EMDR because I was able to try to stay calm and remind myself of the words and phrases we had practiced. “I’m safe. I am cared for. These people are all here to take care of me. I’m not alone.” I just kept repeating those to myself as I was not without my support team. Meagan: Did they take you to the OR?Camden: Yeah, I think so. They were stitching and trying to control the bleeding, so at that point, I would have had an epidural even if I hadn’t already had one, so that’s why I said that I didn’t regret it. That was one of the other reasons. I was back there, it felt like a long time to me, but my husband said maybe 30 minutes or so. They kept saying, “I don’t know. We might have to open her up. It might be a uterine rupture.” I literally said, “You guys aren’t going to tell me. I just had a healthy baby and you’re still going to open me up?” The whole goal of this was to not have surgery. Meagan: Yeah. Camden: I said, “Can’t you do an ultrasound? Can you look at it?” So they did. They did do an ultrasound. They did not have to open me up thankfully, but they did this thing where they put a balloon up inside. To control the bleeding, they had to put a balloon and I had to keep that in until the next day. Yeah, so that was really unpleasant. Meagan: Yeah. That is a hard way to end. Being taken away and having that issue. I also had some weird things. I had some weird bleeding after and it was frustrating to feel like, “I just had this amazing birth.” Camden: I know. Meagan: And then you had this weird ending that was maybe less than ideal, but I mean, look at all that you did before and what it did for you. It prepared you for that very moment and you were probably meant to go through that for some reason so you could help your patients down the road, connect with someone, or share here on this story so someone is like, “Oh, I had that moment too.” It’s okay to be bummed that that happened and to be happy for your VBAC. Sometimes things like that happen. Just like every C-section is not butterflies, sometimes every VBAC doesn’t have all of the warm, fuzzy butterflies, right? There are little things here and there that happened. I’m so sorry that you did have that happen, but I’m proud of you for staying strong and still carrying on your words. You advocated for yourself. “Can we just do an ultrasound instead?” You carried on those three words the whole time. Camden: Yeah. Meagan: That’s something hard to do when you’re alone, so you can be proud of yourself for sure for that. Camden: Yeah. I did. I stayed calm and I had prepared for that moment. You’re right. I did feel empowered still that I could speak up and advocate for myself and ask questions. Yeah. I don’t carry the same trauma over that moment even though maybe on paper it seems scarier than my C-section. Meagan: Yeah, I was going to say that. If you look at it then you’re like, “Okay, scheduled C-section, healthy baby, everything’s good,” but then with this one, “pulled away from her support team, by herself, had this procedure done,” it sounds bigger and scarier. Camden: Yeah, I think because my baby was right there and he was fine, that gave me a lot of reassurance and I think yeah. The preparation and those phrases of, “I am cared for. I’m not alone. All of these people here are taking care of me.” Just reminding myself of that as there are a dozen people all looking at your vagina. Meagan: I know, right? Camden: It just helps to remind yourself that they are all here to take care of me. Yeah, so the bleeding, they eventually got it under control. I was able to recover and didn’t have to have a blood transfusion or anything like that, but it did make my recovery more challenging. I think that was my biggest surprise with the VBAC. I had expected the recovery to be so much easier than a C-section recovery. That’s what I had always heard. For me, it wasn’t. It was probably smaller amounts of pain drawn out for a longer amount of time if that makes sense. Meagan: Yeah, totally. Camden: Yeah, my C-section was more intense pain but a shorter amount of time. The VBAC was, it was hard to sit. It was hard to stand because of the tearing and the swelling. I had a ton of swelling from pushing for four hours, and then I was just weak and low energy because of losing so much blood, so I had to take iron and rebuild that backup. It took a lot longer, I think, to physically heal myself again. But emotionally, I was so much better. I was not crying every day. I was not feeling like I don’t know who I am. The transition emotionally for me was so much easier even though I did have some breastfeeding challenges again. It was a low milk supply and I just did all of the things to try to help that. With my first baby, I did them all again with my second and then some. Nothing really seemed to make a difference, so I just had to come to peace with it and accept that, and grieve that my breastfeeding journey was not as I would have liked. But yeah. All in all, I would definitely not trade my VBAC for it. It was so worth it and so empowering. Yeah. Just how I was doing emotionally afterward was a world of difference from my first birth experience. Meagan: Yeah. Well, congratulations. So happy for you. So so happy for you. It’s crazy. It’s crazy how everything can just unfold and like you said, you would expect to bounce back with a VBAC and sometimes you don’t. Camden: Yeah, I think that’s helpful to know. I mentioned that in The VBAC Link Community Facebook group. I shared my story there and I’ve mentioned that to people. Don’t think that something is wrong with you if your recovery is harder or in a different way than your first birth. It’s okay. I’m doing pelvic floor PT again, so that’s definitely helped from some of the pain from the tears. I definitely recommend that. But yeah. It’s been such an empowering experience overall. Good. Well, I’m so happy for you. I want to talk a little bit about our blog that talks about the third trimester, all about baby weight prediction and third-trimester ultrasounds because you did have that. Like you said, it wasn’t like they said, “Baby is 8 pounds right now,” and then your baby came out 6 pounds. You know, baby was growing and it was somewhat accurate. That’s the hardest thing with these ultrasounds. They can be somewhat accurate, but they can also be really far off. I was just going to list a couple of reasons why a care provider may suggest a third-trimester ultrasound. One, because during the 20-week ultrasound which is the big anatomy one where a lot of people find out the gender although people are finding out the gender at 8, 9, and 10 weeks now, but at that one, sometimes the placenta is positioned low and covering the cervix, or called placenta previa. They are going to want to make sure that the placenta did in fact make its way up and get away from the opening of the cervix. That is a valid reason for an ultrasound. That’s a really good reason because if the placenta for some reason did stay and cover the cervix, it needs to be a C-section. We can’t have a baby vaginally for that reason. Confirming position. Maybe if we are unable to tell or we are suspecting baby is breech or transverse, that may be something to do. Or if maybe baby was breech and then they did a version and wanted to confirm that baby was head down, that would be a reason. Failed a non-stress test. If there was for some reason there was a non-stress test, which, I’m also learning that some people are getting a million non-stress tests during pregnancy for no real crazy reasons, but if your provider ordered a non-stress test for a medical reason and it was nonreassuring, sometimes they may do an ultrasound to check everything and check fluid and things like that. But yeah. They can be effective for monitoring baby’s weight and some medical concerns, but they can be super inaccurate and like you were saying, it can be up to 1-2 pounds plus or minus. So when we hear, “You’re baby is probably going to be 10 pounds,” and you’re like, “Wait, larger?” Because there was one time I went to an ultrasound with a client and they did say that her baby was 10 pounds. She was like, “Wait. My baby could be bigger than 10 pounds?” It’s very scary and very daunting. So yeah. If your provider is suggesting a third-trimester ultrasound, it’s okay to question. It’s okay to say, “Hey, I don’t want to,” or “Why are we doing this?” and then for them to just schedule a C-section even just without really inducing too, those are not great things. Those are not great reasons. You never even got to labor. Did they even say, “Hey, let’s try?” They didn’t say anything like that? Or was it that you opted for it because you were nervous about that?Camden: No, they really presented it as the best option because I asked, “Is an induction an option?” They said, “No. We wouldn’t induce a big baby.” Meagan: Mmm. Camden: I said, “Well, what if I just wait?” But at this point, it was a couple of days before my due date and they checked my cervix. I wasn’t dilated and of course, now I know that doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but at the time, I was thinking, “Oh my gosh. I could be a week away and she’s just going to get bigger.” Meagan: Right. Camden: Yeah, so it really was presented as the best option, but if I knew then what I know now, I think I would have just waited. Meagan: Yeah. Waiting it out or maybe opting for a slow gentle induction and just because the cervix isn’t dilated doesn’t mean they can’t do anything to help get baby here. Oh, man. Yeah. It’s a hard one. It’s a hard one, but like you said and the same thing for me, I wish I knew then what I know now, but I don’t and now I’ve grown and now I’ve got these journeys that I can share. I mean, that’s why I’m here. Right? That’s why I’m doing what I’m doing because I’ve been through that and I want to help people know so they don’t necessarily always say, “I wish I knew then what I know now.” Right? Camden: Right. Meagan: Let’s just know now. Let’s learn now. Yeah, well thank you so much for sharing your stories, and congratulations again. You got me all tingly in the eyes hearing your emotion. You are just amazing and I am so grateful for you being with us today. Camden: Thank you. I wanted to just share a resource if anyone wants to look for an EMDR therapist, you can go to emdria.org. It stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing International Association. Meagan: Whoa! Camden: They have a Find an EMDR Therapist link there. Meagan: That was a tongue twister. That’s amazing. I don’t even know how you just said that all. I mean, I can barely read a review on a podcast like that. That was amazing. Okay. Would you mind emailing us that and we will make sure that we will include that in the show notes? Camden: Sure. Meagan: That would be awesome. Well, thank you again, and have a wonderful day. Camden: Thank you, Meagan. Bye. Meagan: Bye. ClosingWould you like to be a guest on the podcast? Tell us about your experience at thevbaclink.com/share. For more information on 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. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-vbac-link/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands