Hello again! I am determined not to let the same thing happen this time with my blog that happened after JD was born - which was nothing. I had been blogging semi regularly ever since getting married and then JD was born and NOTHING. No picture. No announcement. No birth story. Nothing. I mean, we took tons of pictures and Facebook was full of him, but that's just not the same. I have since recommitted to blogging and blog I shall! So, let me begin by (officially) announcing...
Emily Claire Patton
Wednesday May 30, 2012
12:47 pm
6 lbs 8 oz
18 1/2 in
Newborn cuteness...
A first peek
Up close and personal
We came home on Friday and a proud big brother woke up Saturday morning and wanted to hold "Emmy" first thing!
On her way to her 2 week check up... She went from being born at 6 lbs 8 oz down to 5 lbs 15 oz in the hospital and back to 8 lbs 1 oz in two weeks! No trouble in the eating department!
Taken today, JD picked out this headband for her to wear and proceeded to wear several more himself...
But what I really wanted to blog about was the whole birth experience... the labor and delivery. So if you are into that kind of thing, read on! If you would rather pass on all the details, feel free.
Several people have asked me in person and online about my VBAC and so I thought I'd share it on my blog. I highly reccommend going "back to the V" (as Jonathan was fond of calling it) if your circumstances permit. That being said, to each his own (or her own in this case). I am not one to say there is a right way or a wrong way to have a baby. It's a personal decision. This is just how things happened for me.
So, obviously for there to be a VBAC there had to be a C-section in the first place. With JD I went into labor naturally. One Friday evening (10 days before my due date!) after a long walk with Jonathan, I started feeling "period-like cramps.". Nothing really painful but noticable. I didn't mention it to Jonathan and just went to bed as usual around midnight. I figured that if this was the real thing 1.) I would wake up and 2.) I should get some rest. Sure enough, around 1:30am I woke up and could definitely feel the contractions getting stronger and coming and going every so often. I couldn't go back to sleep at that point so I just lay in bed until about 5am when I woke Jonathan up and we started timing the contractions. Still not very painful. I took a shower, packed my bag. Jonathan went out and picked up breakfast for us. I ate my blueberry pancakes around 8am. Finally, it seemed like the contractions were averaging 5 minutes apart for an hour (anywhere from 8 mins to 2 and a half mins apart). We called the doctor's office. They told us to come on in, so we got to the hospital around 9am. My biggest fear on the way there was that they would send me back home. At this point, I wanted to have the baby! When they checked me I was 4, almost 5 cm dilated. I got admitted and still was not really feeling too terrible. Each time I had a contraction, I remember just kind of pausing and breathing through it and then being fine. I had planned to get an epidural and decided that if I was getting one anyway, I might as well go ahead and get one sooner rather than later and get my money's worth! No use waiting til I was in a ton of pain. So, anesthesia came and gave me my epidural and I sat back to await the birth of my son in comfort. Or so I thought. Immediately after the epidural kicked in, the doctor (since it was Saturday, my beloved doctor was not there but the doctor on call was great too) broke my water and I was given Pitocin to speed things along. Around that time, JD's heart rate started to drop down into the 70s and 50s with each contraction that I had. After the contraction passed, his heart rate would come back up. The nurses assured us that this was fine and fairly normal as long as it came back up each time. They had me lay on one side, which seemed to help. Still, our eyes were pretty much glued to the monitor, willing his little heart beat to come back up after each contraction. A few times it didn't. About 5 nurses would rush in, clamp the oxygen mask over my nose and mouth, turn me from one side to the other (with the epidural it felt almost impossible to move), inject my IV with an antidote for the Pitocin, etc. During those times, it felt like there was all this flurry of activity and urgency and they would all be talking excitedly over me instead of calmly to me like they did during more routine procedures. One time I heard the phrases, "Page NICU!" and "Call Anesthesia!" and the doctor came rushing in. Then his heart rate finally came up and everything calmed back down again for a little while. This all went on for many hours. Also, I was not dilating very fast at all. After being at the hospital about 12 hours, I was at 7 cm and holding steady. Apparently, the position I needed to lay in to keep JD's heart rate happy, was not a good position to force him to move down further and cause me to dialate more. Around 8:30 or 9pm, we were still watching his heart rate rise and fall, getting tired (remember, I'd only slept an hour and a half the night before) and more and more stressed. We opted for a C-section. We were not coerced or pressured. We were just offered that option. So, it was not an emergency, but within probably 30 minutes or less of saying "Yes, we'd like to go ahead and do the C-section" JD was born. I remember as they were wheeling me to the OR, thinking, "Wait, I don't really want to do this either..." The anesthesiologist had said, "You won't feel any pain. You'll just feel a tugging and pulling sensation." Yuck. But I closed my eyes and kind of just went to another place. And then I heard the doctor say, "How's Mom?" The anesthesiologist beside me said, "Fine!" and the doctor held up my healthy, wailing son. There was certainly nothing wrong with his lungs! Instantly, relief and joy and love all flooded over me and I got this big rush of energy. The rest of the night I was asking all kinds of silly questions and talking up a storm which is totally not like me, but that's another story. One that Jonathan greatly enjoys telling.
So, the healing process after the C-section went just fine. Leaving the hospital, I felt like I had no ab muscles whatsoever. I couldn't imagine ever doing another sit-up in my life. I stayed on my pain meds for about a week and a half probably and things just gradually improved. I had nothing to compare it to, so the recovery didn't seem too bad. (Of course, all I had to do at the time was take care of my newborn. No two year old!) By the time JD was 6 weeks old, I felt back to normal and Jonathan and I started P90X together.
This time around, I had another very uneventful and healthy pregnancy. My doctor told me at my first visit that 92% of women who've had C-sections opt for a second one. Of the 8% who attempt a "trial of labor" 70% are successful and 30% end up having another C-section. One percent experience a "uterine rupture." Which Jonathan kept referring to as a "uterus explosion." Of course, it's nothing quite that dramatic. The doctor was very matter of fact about it all. I did not feel like he was pressuring me one way or the other - merely giving me "the facts." I did get the feeling though that a VBAC was out of the ordinary and was a little intimidated by the waiver with the list of horrible things that could happen they gave me to sign off on in the event that I decided to do a VBAC. I took it home and decided to think about it.
I knew that part of me wanted to experience having a baby the "old-fashioned way." Not neccessarily all natural, just the whole progressing through all the stages of labor, getting to 10cm, pushing the baby out and being able to hold her right away. It probably sounds weird, but the idea of just scheduling a C-section, going in and then having a baby 30 minutes later seemed somewhat anti-climactic or something. Not that I am a big spontaneous thrill seeker or anything. So another part of me liked the idea of being able to plan out what day I wanted the baby to be born, control it all and be totally prepared - especially since we were planning on having Jonathan's mom fly into town to take care of JD while we were in the hospital. Not to mention, my C-section recovery had been smooth while the idea of a sore bottom and tearing was still unknown and scary!
Ultimately, Jonathan and I agreed to pray for peace about doing the VBAC if that is what I was supposed to do. So, I started praying. During that time, I read the chapter on VBAC in A Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth by Henci Goer. This was very encouraging towards doing a VBAC based on solid research. I also came across http://www.vbac.com/ which was also very helpful. In addition, I randomly met a doula while at a park with JD. She said that in my case a VBAC should be completely safe and told me that the hospital I would be delivering at was positive towards women having VBACs. Also, during one of my routine check-ups the head nurse was the one seeing me and told me that my doctor had offered for her to do a VBAC with her second child and encouraged me to give it a try as well. All of these contributed to me gaining a real sense of peace about going ahead with the VBAC...so God answered that prayer.
As the time got closer to delivery, I still had plenty of peace about doing the VBAC. I was not worried about the uterine rupture, but now that I had my heart set on VBAC I was getting worried that it would somehow end in C-section again. Even though my C-section had been a good experience overall, I just really wanted to do the vaginal delivery. So, the last couple months my prayers turned to asking God to make it successful.
The afternoon of Tuesday May 29th (13 days before my due date!), I went on a long walk with JD in the stroller and we stopped at a park for awhile. That night, I couldn't sleep. I got up and read on the couch for awhile - feeling slightly uncomfortable and "different" but not sure if I was having contractions or not. Finally, I got into bed and went to sleep around 1:30am. About 3am I woke up and could definitely feel contractions coming and going fairly close together although I was not timing them. I had a checkup scheduled for 7:45am that morning and figured I would just go in then and see what was up. Around 4am I got up and went to the bathroom. Right after that, the contractions started getting alot stronger and I started timing them. They were about 2 1/2 or 3 minutes apart for the next hour and getting pretty painful - much more so than the ones I remember having when I went into labor with JD. I woke Jonathan up and we decided we better find someone to come stay with JD, this definitely seemed like the real deal. I hastily threw together some stuff to take to the hospital, feeling increasingly uncomfortable. We started texting and calling friends and got a hold of a our sweet friend, Ashly, who lives less than 5 minutes away. She came right over to stay with JD while we headed to the hospital around 5:30am. The nurse checked me and said I was 3 cm dialated. This was rather discouraging bc I was really feeling the contractions - much more so than I had at 5 cm with JD's labor! I was also feeling really intense nausea with each contraction. Felt all clammy and like I was going to black out. I had wanted to hold out and see if I could go for awhile without an epidural but at this rate, I was starting to think about one already! I was admitted and moved to a labor and delivery room and they told me to just let them know when I was ready for an epidural. By the time I got to 5cm, I was in the middle of a contraction and told Jonathan, "Call them and tell them I"m ready for the epidural!" Which he promptly did! The anesthesiologist got there pretty quickly and got set up. Unfortunately, she was putting the epidural in right as I was having an intense contraction. That was not cool. Then she said she didn't think it had gone in quite right. Also not cool. This was somehow due to the fact that I was "really fit" and had strong ligaments in my back. Well, at least the reason was a good one. =) She said that if I a didn't get relief soon, to call her back and she would put another one in. Ugh. Pretty soon, I could no longer feel the contractions. At least not in the front. In the back, now that was a different matter. Every contraction caused what I would call excruciating pain in my lower back! To the point where I was clinging to the bed rail or crushing Jonathan's hand bones and groaning. About this time I actually did throw up which the nurses took to mean I may be "transitioning" and checked me. I was at 7 cm. The anesthesiologist came back and decided to give me another epidural bc she wanted to make sure I had a good one since I was a VBAC and at higher risk for emergency C-section. This time she got it in right and I couldn't feel the back labor anymore. In fact, I couldn't feel anything anymore from my shoulders down. I even felt short of breath... I mentioned this and everyone said it was ok, I just had about a dose and a half of the epidural medicine! Also about this time, Emily's heart rate dropped down as did mine. Unfamiliar nurses rushed in (mine had gone on lunch break so they would be back before the baby came bc I was still progressing pretty quickly) and put the oxygen mask on me, turned me over, gave me a shot to stabilize my heart rate. This was certainly disconcerting as it obviously brought back memories of what happened with JD... Both our heart rates quickly stabilized, however, and before I knew it the nurses were calling the doctor and getting everything ready for me to push! At one point, my nurse said something like, "We are going to give this (pushing) a try, but I don't think her (Emily's) heart is going to be too happy about it." This was not what I wanted to hear at this point!! Started getting nervous that her heart rate would somehow worsen during pushing and I would be rushed to a C-section. Also, I was worried that I would not be able to push bc my entire body was totally and completely numb and I couldn't have moved my legs (not so much as a toe twitch) to save my life. Anyway, the doctor came right in and checked me and said that we were "Going to do this!" and the nurses helped me get into position. They all said "123 PUSH!" and counted to ten while I pushed. I did that three times, took about a 30 second break and did it again. I heard the doctor say, "The head is out!" and I couldn't believe it. A couple seconds later, the rest of her body was out and they put her right up on my chest and Jonathan was right there and of course we were laughing and crying and so thrilled! The doctor helped Emily out a bit with the forceps (or "salad spoons" as he called them) due to the fact that her heart rate had been acting up and there was a little unexplained bleeding (which turned out to just be a little tear in the placenta). He didn't want things to drag out. The whole pushing experience lasted less than ten minutes (I had thought it would be like an hour or more!) and I felt absolutely nothing. No pressure, no tearing (had a small 2nd degree tear) no stitching up. Oh, and the doctor was able to feel my old C-section scar afterwards and said that it was all intact. Before he left, he told me that everything went perfectly and that I could expect "all the rest of my children" to be born vaginally as well! Not sure how many that will be, but good news none the less. =)
My most overwhelming feeling after it was all said and done was, "I did it!" and more importantly the definite sense of just being very blessed and knowing that God had heard me and specifically answered my prayers. First, to have peace about attempting the VBAC in the first place and then by allowing it all to go (relatively) smoothly and successfully! So, if you were looking for all of the carefully researched facts about VBAC vs. elective repeat c-section, sorry. You will probably have to do your own research. I did do a little research which God used to give me the peace I had prayed for. But my story isn't really about all the facts and the research and whether or not it's best to do VBAC or C-section. It's more about God blessing me with a specific answer to my prayer.
My recovery this time has also been smooth, but much different than the C-section! Pros and cons to both I would say. =) I've got about 10 more pounds to lose and I may just start blogging about how I shed the weight. I do need some motivation to stop eating so much ice cream, that's for sure! And now my sweet girl is demanding an evening snack!
But what I really wanted to blog about was the whole birth experience... the labor and delivery. So if you are into that kind of thing, read on! If you would rather pass on all the details, feel free.
Several people have asked me in person and online about my VBAC and so I thought I'd share it on my blog. I highly reccommend going "back to the V" (as Jonathan was fond of calling it) if your circumstances permit. That being said, to each his own (or her own in this case). I am not one to say there is a right way or a wrong way to have a baby. It's a personal decision. This is just how things happened for me.
So, obviously for there to be a VBAC there had to be a C-section in the first place. With JD I went into labor naturally. One Friday evening (10 days before my due date!) after a long walk with Jonathan, I started feeling "period-like cramps.". Nothing really painful but noticable. I didn't mention it to Jonathan and just went to bed as usual around midnight. I figured that if this was the real thing 1.) I would wake up and 2.) I should get some rest. Sure enough, around 1:30am I woke up and could definitely feel the contractions getting stronger and coming and going every so often. I couldn't go back to sleep at that point so I just lay in bed until about 5am when I woke Jonathan up and we started timing the contractions. Still not very painful. I took a shower, packed my bag. Jonathan went out and picked up breakfast for us. I ate my blueberry pancakes around 8am. Finally, it seemed like the contractions were averaging 5 minutes apart for an hour (anywhere from 8 mins to 2 and a half mins apart). We called the doctor's office. They told us to come on in, so we got to the hospital around 9am. My biggest fear on the way there was that they would send me back home. At this point, I wanted to have the baby! When they checked me I was 4, almost 5 cm dilated. I got admitted and still was not really feeling too terrible. Each time I had a contraction, I remember just kind of pausing and breathing through it and then being fine. I had planned to get an epidural and decided that if I was getting one anyway, I might as well go ahead and get one sooner rather than later and get my money's worth! No use waiting til I was in a ton of pain. So, anesthesia came and gave me my epidural and I sat back to await the birth of my son in comfort. Or so I thought. Immediately after the epidural kicked in, the doctor (since it was Saturday, my beloved doctor was not there but the doctor on call was great too) broke my water and I was given Pitocin to speed things along. Around that time, JD's heart rate started to drop down into the 70s and 50s with each contraction that I had. After the contraction passed, his heart rate would come back up. The nurses assured us that this was fine and fairly normal as long as it came back up each time. They had me lay on one side, which seemed to help. Still, our eyes were pretty much glued to the monitor, willing his little heart beat to come back up after each contraction. A few times it didn't. About 5 nurses would rush in, clamp the oxygen mask over my nose and mouth, turn me from one side to the other (with the epidural it felt almost impossible to move), inject my IV with an antidote for the Pitocin, etc. During those times, it felt like there was all this flurry of activity and urgency and they would all be talking excitedly over me instead of calmly to me like they did during more routine procedures. One time I heard the phrases, "Page NICU!" and "Call Anesthesia!" and the doctor came rushing in. Then his heart rate finally came up and everything calmed back down again for a little while. This all went on for many hours. Also, I was not dilating very fast at all. After being at the hospital about 12 hours, I was at 7 cm and holding steady. Apparently, the position I needed to lay in to keep JD's heart rate happy, was not a good position to force him to move down further and cause me to dialate more. Around 8:30 or 9pm, we were still watching his heart rate rise and fall, getting tired (remember, I'd only slept an hour and a half the night before) and more and more stressed. We opted for a C-section. We were not coerced or pressured. We were just offered that option. So, it was not an emergency, but within probably 30 minutes or less of saying "Yes, we'd like to go ahead and do the C-section" JD was born. I remember as they were wheeling me to the OR, thinking, "Wait, I don't really want to do this either..." The anesthesiologist had said, "You won't feel any pain. You'll just feel a tugging and pulling sensation." Yuck. But I closed my eyes and kind of just went to another place. And then I heard the doctor say, "How's Mom?" The anesthesiologist beside me said, "Fine!" and the doctor held up my healthy, wailing son. There was certainly nothing wrong with his lungs! Instantly, relief and joy and love all flooded over me and I got this big rush of energy. The rest of the night I was asking all kinds of silly questions and talking up a storm which is totally not like me, but that's another story. One that Jonathan greatly enjoys telling.
So, the healing process after the C-section went just fine. Leaving the hospital, I felt like I had no ab muscles whatsoever. I couldn't imagine ever doing another sit-up in my life. I stayed on my pain meds for about a week and a half probably and things just gradually improved. I had nothing to compare it to, so the recovery didn't seem too bad. (Of course, all I had to do at the time was take care of my newborn. No two year old!) By the time JD was 6 weeks old, I felt back to normal and Jonathan and I started P90X together.
This time around, I had another very uneventful and healthy pregnancy. My doctor told me at my first visit that 92% of women who've had C-sections opt for a second one. Of the 8% who attempt a "trial of labor" 70% are successful and 30% end up having another C-section. One percent experience a "uterine rupture." Which Jonathan kept referring to as a "uterus explosion." Of course, it's nothing quite that dramatic. The doctor was very matter of fact about it all. I did not feel like he was pressuring me one way or the other - merely giving me "the facts." I did get the feeling though that a VBAC was out of the ordinary and was a little intimidated by the waiver with the list of horrible things that could happen they gave me to sign off on in the event that I decided to do a VBAC. I took it home and decided to think about it.
I knew that part of me wanted to experience having a baby the "old-fashioned way." Not neccessarily all natural, just the whole progressing through all the stages of labor, getting to 10cm, pushing the baby out and being able to hold her right away. It probably sounds weird, but the idea of just scheduling a C-section, going in and then having a baby 30 minutes later seemed somewhat anti-climactic or something. Not that I am a big spontaneous thrill seeker or anything. So another part of me liked the idea of being able to plan out what day I wanted the baby to be born, control it all and be totally prepared - especially since we were planning on having Jonathan's mom fly into town to take care of JD while we were in the hospital. Not to mention, my C-section recovery had been smooth while the idea of a sore bottom and tearing was still unknown and scary!
Ultimately, Jonathan and I agreed to pray for peace about doing the VBAC if that is what I was supposed to do. So, I started praying. During that time, I read the chapter on VBAC in A Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth by Henci Goer. This was very encouraging towards doing a VBAC based on solid research. I also came across http://www.vbac.com/ which was also very helpful. In addition, I randomly met a doula while at a park with JD. She said that in my case a VBAC should be completely safe and told me that the hospital I would be delivering at was positive towards women having VBACs. Also, during one of my routine check-ups the head nurse was the one seeing me and told me that my doctor had offered for her to do a VBAC with her second child and encouraged me to give it a try as well. All of these contributed to me gaining a real sense of peace about going ahead with the VBAC...so God answered that prayer.
As the time got closer to delivery, I still had plenty of peace about doing the VBAC. I was not worried about the uterine rupture, but now that I had my heart set on VBAC I was getting worried that it would somehow end in C-section again. Even though my C-section had been a good experience overall, I just really wanted to do the vaginal delivery. So, the last couple months my prayers turned to asking God to make it successful.
The afternoon of Tuesday May 29th (13 days before my due date!), I went on a long walk with JD in the stroller and we stopped at a park for awhile. That night, I couldn't sleep. I got up and read on the couch for awhile - feeling slightly uncomfortable and "different" but not sure if I was having contractions or not. Finally, I got into bed and went to sleep around 1:30am. About 3am I woke up and could definitely feel contractions coming and going fairly close together although I was not timing them. I had a checkup scheduled for 7:45am that morning and figured I would just go in then and see what was up. Around 4am I got up and went to the bathroom. Right after that, the contractions started getting alot stronger and I started timing them. They were about 2 1/2 or 3 minutes apart for the next hour and getting pretty painful - much more so than the ones I remember having when I went into labor with JD. I woke Jonathan up and we decided we better find someone to come stay with JD, this definitely seemed like the real deal. I hastily threw together some stuff to take to the hospital, feeling increasingly uncomfortable. We started texting and calling friends and got a hold of a our sweet friend, Ashly, who lives less than 5 minutes away. She came right over to stay with JD while we headed to the hospital around 5:30am. The nurse checked me and said I was 3 cm dialated. This was rather discouraging bc I was really feeling the contractions - much more so than I had at 5 cm with JD's labor! I was also feeling really intense nausea with each contraction. Felt all clammy and like I was going to black out. I had wanted to hold out and see if I could go for awhile without an epidural but at this rate, I was starting to think about one already! I was admitted and moved to a labor and delivery room and they told me to just let them know when I was ready for an epidural. By the time I got to 5cm, I was in the middle of a contraction and told Jonathan, "Call them and tell them I"m ready for the epidural!" Which he promptly did! The anesthesiologist got there pretty quickly and got set up. Unfortunately, she was putting the epidural in right as I was having an intense contraction. That was not cool. Then she said she didn't think it had gone in quite right. Also not cool. This was somehow due to the fact that I was "really fit" and had strong ligaments in my back. Well, at least the reason was a good one. =) She said that if I a didn't get relief soon, to call her back and she would put another one in. Ugh. Pretty soon, I could no longer feel the contractions. At least not in the front. In the back, now that was a different matter. Every contraction caused what I would call excruciating pain in my lower back! To the point where I was clinging to the bed rail or crushing Jonathan's hand bones and groaning. About this time I actually did throw up which the nurses took to mean I may be "transitioning" and checked me. I was at 7 cm. The anesthesiologist came back and decided to give me another epidural bc she wanted to make sure I had a good one since I was a VBAC and at higher risk for emergency C-section. This time she got it in right and I couldn't feel the back labor anymore. In fact, I couldn't feel anything anymore from my shoulders down. I even felt short of breath... I mentioned this and everyone said it was ok, I just had about a dose and a half of the epidural medicine! Also about this time, Emily's heart rate dropped down as did mine. Unfamiliar nurses rushed in (mine had gone on lunch break so they would be back before the baby came bc I was still progressing pretty quickly) and put the oxygen mask on me, turned me over, gave me a shot to stabilize my heart rate. This was certainly disconcerting as it obviously brought back memories of what happened with JD... Both our heart rates quickly stabilized, however, and before I knew it the nurses were calling the doctor and getting everything ready for me to push! At one point, my nurse said something like, "We are going to give this (pushing) a try, but I don't think her (Emily's) heart is going to be too happy about it." This was not what I wanted to hear at this point!! Started getting nervous that her heart rate would somehow worsen during pushing and I would be rushed to a C-section. Also, I was worried that I would not be able to push bc my entire body was totally and completely numb and I couldn't have moved my legs (not so much as a toe twitch) to save my life. Anyway, the doctor came right in and checked me and said that we were "Going to do this!" and the nurses helped me get into position. They all said "123 PUSH!" and counted to ten while I pushed. I did that three times, took about a 30 second break and did it again. I heard the doctor say, "The head is out!" and I couldn't believe it. A couple seconds later, the rest of her body was out and they put her right up on my chest and Jonathan was right there and of course we were laughing and crying and so thrilled! The doctor helped Emily out a bit with the forceps (or "salad spoons" as he called them) due to the fact that her heart rate had been acting up and there was a little unexplained bleeding (which turned out to just be a little tear in the placenta). He didn't want things to drag out. The whole pushing experience lasted less than ten minutes (I had thought it would be like an hour or more!) and I felt absolutely nothing. No pressure, no tearing (had a small 2nd degree tear) no stitching up. Oh, and the doctor was able to feel my old C-section scar afterwards and said that it was all intact. Before he left, he told me that everything went perfectly and that I could expect "all the rest of my children" to be born vaginally as well! Not sure how many that will be, but good news none the less. =)
My most overwhelming feeling after it was all said and done was, "I did it!" and more importantly the definite sense of just being very blessed and knowing that God had heard me and specifically answered my prayers. First, to have peace about attempting the VBAC in the first place and then by allowing it all to go (relatively) smoothly and successfully! So, if you were looking for all of the carefully researched facts about VBAC vs. elective repeat c-section, sorry. You will probably have to do your own research. I did do a little research which God used to give me the peace I had prayed for. But my story isn't really about all the facts and the research and whether or not it's best to do VBAC or C-section. It's more about God blessing me with a specific answer to my prayer.
My recovery this time has also been smooth, but much different than the C-section! Pros and cons to both I would say. =) I've got about 10 more pounds to lose and I may just start blogging about how I shed the weight. I do need some motivation to stop eating so much ice cream, that's for sure! And now my sweet girl is demanding an evening snack!