I always had felt that something was missing from the birth of my first child. After a failed induction at 36.6 weeks, which I did not knew at the time was been performed, my son was born. I could not hold him until 16 hours later.
After 12 years, I was pregnant again and thinking that it should be no problem for me to, this time, have a natural birth. I was wrong, or at least that was what my OB thought.
When I asked him, his answer was “no”, he “did not do that”. He was refering to what later I discovered was a VBAC or a vaginal birth after cesarean. He talked about uterine rupture, malpractice insurance and hospital policy and how I did not want to put me and my baby at risk. He said “If you want to have a vaginal birth, you need to find another doctor”.
As soon as I left the office, I started research. I found that, in my case, the odds of suffering a uterine rupture were .05%. Those odds were not bad compared to all the not-so-good odds of a second c-section. After weeks of research and negative resulted calls to all the OB’s under my insurance, I did not only found another OB, but he came with a midwife and a Doula.
On the 15th day of June, Isaías Mateo, was born at home, after 8 1/2 hours of active labor and just 20 min of pushing, all 7.5 and 20″ of him. He was received by his father and his umbilical cord was cut, after 2 hours, by his brother.
I gave birth to my second son, my body is designed to give birth, my son was born in peace and surounded by love.
by Noelia Perez
