170 Jess's HBAC + VBAC Prep and Planning

The VBAC Link

“It’s not that birth is painful. It’s that women are strong.”

Due to her bicornuate uterus, Jess was told that she could only ever have Cesarean births. When her first birth experience involved a rough surgery and brutal recovery, Jess was tempted to wonder if she even wanted to get pregnant again in the future.

Then, she made a choice. Jess decided to trust in her intuition, in a supportive birth team, and in the natural process of birth. She chose to believe in her body and chose to take a risk. Jess’ VBAC story is fast, furious, and magical. She found the mental strength to fully commit and the physical strength to achieve the unmedicated VBAC she was told she’d never have.

Jess is truly a woman of strength and so are you.

Additional links

The VBAC Link Facebook Community

How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents

JessandBabe YouTube Channel

Full transcript

Note: All transcripts are edited to correct grammar and to eliminate false starts and filler words.

Julie: Welcome, welcome. This is The VBAC Link podcast and we are really excited to be here with you today. I feel like it’s been a while since we have been recording. I guess it hasn’t really been that long, but it just feels like a long time since we have been talking to people. We have a really fun guest with us today. Her name is Jess. She is a full-time mom. She has two girls and she has a bicornuate-- however you say it-- uterus where it’s a heart-shape, right?

Jess: Mhmm, yep.

Julie: That can sometimes cause problems conceiving. It can cause problems with baby’s positioning. She has a really, really cool story about her VBAC with a heart-shaped uterus. I am just not going to try and pronounce it anymore.

But I am really excited to talk with Jess today because we actually had her scheduled to record a couple of weeks ago, but they had an ice storm. She lives in Oregon and they had an ice storm in Oregon that shut down power and internet for days. At that time, we hadn’t had any more recording sessions planned, but then all of a sudden we decided to open this huge day. We are recording a ton of podcasts today and Jess, you are our very first one. We are so excited that you are not iced in anymore--

Jess: Me too.

Julie: -- and that your power is back on and you can share your story with us. But before we do that, as always, we have a Review of the Week and Meagan is going to read that for us.

Review of the Week

Meagan: Thank you. Okay. So this is a review that is actually from a listener from Ireland which is super awesome. The title is, “So informative.” It says, “Hoping to have a VBAC in July. Listening to all the podcast episodes in preparation for my VBAC. Really positive and informative. I feel the more stories I hear, the more prepared I am for every eventuality. Fingers crossed. Thank you, Julie and Meagan.”

And that was in May of last year, so I am assuming she has had her baby by now. So, “duffipe”

Julie: Duffy-pee, duffy-pay, duh-fee-pay?

Meagan: I don’t know, yeah.

Jess: I like duh-fee-pay.

Meagan: Yes. If you are still listening, we would love you to message us and let us know how things are going and how things went.

Julie: I feel like if people tell us in their review that they are pregnant, they need to put their name so we can go and stalk them in our Facebook community because I just don’t like not having closure for these types of things. I can’t handle it.

Meagan: Yeah. I know, right? I know. Okay well, I’m going to turn the time back over to you, Julie, so we can hear this awesome story from Jess.

Jess’s story

Julie: Awesome story. Okay. Jess, Jess, Jess. I am so excited. Let me just tell you guys a little bit about Jess. She came on here and she was so happy and so smiley, and her voice is just-- as soon as she started talking, I started smiling. I don’t think I’m going to stop smiling this whole entire episode. I think my cheeks will hurt by the end. She just is so fun and so cute. She is going to tell her stories about her Cesarean and then her magical, unmedicated VBAC. So Jess, without further ado, I’m just going to go ahead and turn it over to you.

Jess: Okay. So my first pregnancy, I actually had a really smooth pregnancy. Very uneventful. The only thing was that after one of my earlier ultrasounds, we had found out that I had a bicornuate uterus. The midwife that I was seeing at the time, her main concern was me either not being able to carry to term and that there was always a chance that I could miscarry. Obviously, it freaked me out the beginning, but honestly, after taking some time to think about it, I just knew deep down that I was meant to have a baby and that everything was going to be okay.

The midwife that I started off with only saw women up until we were about 20 weeks and then we automatically got transferred over to a different practice that was with a group of midwives. I think there were probably about five or six midwives that were working there at the time and whenever I transferred over there, they didn’t really seem that concerned about me having a bicornuate uterus. They said that there wasn’t any reason why I shouldn’t be able to deliver vaginally. We will just keep an eye on it and everything should be okay.

So I took their word for it and I didn’t think anything of it. Throughout my entire pregnancy, I had this really hard bulge up on the right-hand side of my ribcage. Every time that I went in, we would see a different midwife. It was very rare that we would see the same one back-to-back, so every midwife that we saw would check the baby’s position manually. Every single one told me that baby felt head down and that everything was great, and I had nothing to worry about. Again, I didn’t have any reason to disagree with them. You know, first-time mom, I didn’t know. I didn’t know what it felt like at all.

So we got up to our 38-week appointment and my husband had come with me that day. We were curious about belly mapping. We were chatting with the midwife about belly mapping and wanted to know how to do it and all that stuff because we were super interested in it. And so, the midwife checked my belly again. She feels that hard spot that has been there the entire time and she goes, “You know, I’m pretty sure that that is the baby’s bum, but it’s a really slow day today in the office. We have a portable ultrasound machine. Let me go and grab that real quick. We will take a look and see where baby is hanging out.”

Gabe and I were obviously super excited because we hadn’t been able to see her since our anatomy scan. And so, she came in, and as soon as she put that doppler on the hard spot on my stomach, you could see on the screen the outline of a perfectly round head. Right whenever she saw that, the mood in the room definitely took a shift. Things got very serious very quickly and she was like, “Oh, okay. So that is definitely the baby’s head.” Immediately she was like, “Okay. We are going to send you in for an official ultrasound tomorrow to get it confirmed. If it is, then you’re going to have a scheduled C-section next week.”

Honestly, as a first-time mom hearing that I was going to be having a C-section, I do have to say that in a way I did feel a little bit of relief at the time because I, you know, first-time mom, I didn’t know how to deliver vaginally. You can take all the birthing classes you want and I personally still didn’t feel prepared. And so, just knowing that a C-section I would know exactly the time, day, when, and how-- all of that stuff was going to be covered. That, in a way, brought a sense of relief.

But anyway, we went in. We got the ultrasound. I don’t know if there is a specific name, but she was definitely breech. She was on the right-hand side of my uterus since I have the septum going down the middle. Her feet-- she was completely bent in half, basically. Her feet were all the way up to her back behind her head. So she had no room at all. There always was the option of having an inversion, but because I had a bicornuate uterus, they weren’t willing to even attempt it because they said that it would put too much stress on me and the baby. Obviously, I didn’t want to do anything that would put either of us at risk, so we ended up having a C-section the following week.

The C-section itself was not the smoothest. It was actually a very rough procedure. I got a spinal block and I had to end up getting two because the first one didn’t work. The babe was actually stuck up at my ribcage, so my incision ended up having to be twice as long, so that way the surgeon could reach his hand up there to wiggle his finger into baby’s mouth to pull her head down a certain way in order to get her to be delivered.

So because of that, she came out with a bruised tongue, really tight TMJ muscles and she was not breathing whenever she came out. Immediately, she was taken over to the warming cart. Nobody was talking. It was pure silence. There were probably about five or six nurses that were over there trying to get her going and at that point, I didn’t feel very good. I was, obviously, still laying flat on my back and I just wasn’t feeling very well. I didn’t trust myself to have her on my chest and to do the immediate skin-to-skin because I didn’t want to drop her, so she actually got to have the first skin-to-skin moment with Gabe.

I am very grateful and very glad that they were able to have that special moment, but I do think that looking back, that is one of my biggest regrets is not doing the immediate skin-to-skin because the connection just wasn’t there. The connection wasn’t as immediate as I thought it would be. I wasn’t able to hold her until we got back into our room, which, I don’t know how long it was-- maybe a half an hour or so after she was born. It just lead to a whole bunch of other tough stuff. I had a really tough recovery. We had a horrible time breastfeeding. I had a really hard time with the connection and a couple of times in specific while we were there.

This all happened while I was still numb from the surgery. I hadn’t even gotten up and taken my first steps yet, but I had the surgeon and a couple of other doctors come in and tell me that I am always going to be a C-section mom. There is no other way around it. One of the baby’s pediatricians came in and told me that if I ever wanted to have kids again, I would have to have surgery to have the septum removed from my bicornuate uterus, or else I would miscarry.

Meagan: Whoa. That’s heavy.

Jess: Yeah. So, yeah. That definitely left a sour taste in my mouth. In the end, I ended up struggling really hard with some pretty severe postpartum anxiety, and depression, and mom rage, and all that stuff. But, yeah. That’s basically how the first baby got here.

So then moving onto my second one, by the time that I had gotten done with my recovery with the first baby, I still had the thoughts in the back of my head of always being a C-section mom and remembering how hard both mentally and physically the recovery was. There honestly was a really short time where I didn’t know if I wanted to have more kids because I just didn’t think that I could go through that recovery again.

And so, I ended up getting pregnant with my second shortly after my first’s first birthday. I didn’t decide that I wanted to shoot for a VBAC until I was about 20-some weeks of my pregnancy. The practice that I delivered with, the midwife clinic, they were all very VBAC-friendly. They were the ones that kept bringing it up and saying, “Hey, do you want to try and have a VBAC? You’re a really good candidate. I think you would have a success,” and all of that. I was the one that was on the fence because I had it in the back of my mind that I couldn’t deliver vaginally because of my uterus, and just that my body was broken and that I wasn’t able to do this vaginally.

So one of the main driving factors for me wanting to try and have a VBAC was because I remembered how difficult the recovery was and I just kept thinking to myself, if I had that hard of a recovery with just a baby, I couldn’t even imagine having to do it again with a newborn and a not even two-year-old at home. That was the main reason why I wanted to try and have a VBAC. Once I made the decision to have the VBAC, I dove in headfirst and did absolutely everything under the sun that I could to prepare. First and foremost, I found this amazing podcast, The VBAC Link, and I took your Parent’s Prep VBAC Course which I cannot recommend enough.

Julie: Holla. Shoutout to the course.

Jess: Yeah. If I had to recommend anything to anyone that wanted to try and have a VBAC, it would definitely be to listen to this podcast and take the class because like I said, I am the type of person where the more prepared and everything that I can be, the better for me. Literally, everything that I needed to know about how to have a VBAC, and all the medical terminology, and the statistics, and all that stuff was literally in that book. All the questions that I ever had were answered.

So I did that. I started doing the Spinning Babies® daily essential stretches video every day. I was going on walks. I decided to do HypnoBirthing as my form of, I don’t know what you call it, but the way to cope through the contractions I guess I should say. Because one of the things that I had learned in your class was to go as long as I could without having any sort of medical intervention, that being an epidural.

So those are all of the things that I did. There actually was one short moment whenever I thought that the baby was going to be head up again. I went in and I requested a couple of ultrasounds because I had to actually tell them, “This is what happened to me last time. I do not want it to happen again and I need to have some ultrasounds so that where we can clearly confirm that baby is in the right position.”

Baby thankfully was in the right position. There was one midwife there that I really enjoyed. And she-- I don’t even know what it was called, but if I had to describe it, it was the perfect line between chiropractic care and prenatal massage where she would go through from head to toe and she would feel all up and down my body, baby included, to feel any points of tension in my body, and then she would hold just the slightest bit of pressure until the tension naturally released. I just knew that was another thing that was going to help my VBAC success because my body was in alignment, which meant that the baby was going to have an easier time getting into the proper position.

As I got further along in my pregnancy, at the time were they start doing the checks to see how far you are dilated, I chose not to get checked very often. I think I only ended up getting checked twice throughout my entire pregnancy and it wasn’t because they wanted me to get checked, it was just out of pure curiosity. I wanted to see what was going on and if my body was doing anything yet. The first time that I got checked, I can’t even remember how far along I was in my pregnancy at this point, but I was already dilated to a 1. Now, I was super excited to be dilated to a 1 because with my first baby, I remember as part of the pre-op stuff, I had to get checked. I was 38.5 weeks and I was all zeros across-the-board. So the fact that I was already at 1, I thought that was a huge accomplishment for me because I knew that my body was actually doing what it was literally made to do.

The midwife that I was seeing that day in particular, I didn’t exactly vibe with that much. She was nice, but she wasn’t my favorite and she didn’t seem to think that being dilated to a 1 was good enough. She thought that at this point, that my body should have been progressed more and that’s when she had started pushing more of doing all the things like the evening primrose oil, eating the dates, doing all the things to your body to get it ready for birth before your body is actually ready.

And then, she just really got into my head. She started saying how if I didn’t do this stuff that they don’t do the Foley bulb, so that’s not an option. If I wanted a Foley bulb, I would have to transfer to a completely different hospital an hour away. She jumped off the deep end a little bit and I’ve got to say, she really got into my head. After I went home, cried to Gabe a little bit, I pulled myself together and I advocated for myself. I called the midwife clinic and I said, “I need to schedule out the rest of my appointments and I cannot see that midwife,” because I just knew that mentally, I didn’t need to have that negative energy in my space as I was preparing for birth.

I did not do any of the induction techniques. I didn’t eat the dates. I didn’t take the evening primrose oil. I didn’t get membrane sweeps. I didn’t do any of that. I just completely and fully sat back, relaxed, trusted in my body, and knew that whenever it was ready to deliver this baby, that it would do what it was meant to do. That’s what actually happened.

So the day that I actually went into labor, it was July 29th at 5:00 in the morning. My husband had just gotten home from work. He got stuck at work late, so he had only been asleep-- it was maybe only half an hour. I remember I was sleeping and I got woken up by some really light, deep cramps. My eyes shot open and I remember thinking, “My midwife said that this would happen whenever I was going into labor,” but it wasn’t super intense. I brushed it off and I went back to sleep because I was like, “Oh, it is probably just round ligament pain. I’m only 39 and 1 day. This isn’t happening.

Not even five minutes later, I felt this really faint pop. It’s so hard to describe, but it’s almost like a water balloon inside of you is popping. I was like, “Wow, okay. That’s weird. I’ve never felt anything like that before.” I was like, “Oh my gosh. My midwife said that if my water broke, that this is what it could feel like. So I woke Gabe up, who had just fallen asleep, and I was like, “I don’t know for certain, but I am pretty sure that something might be happening.” I walked to the bathroom to go and scope things out. As I am pulling down my pants to sit on the toilet, my waters fall out. I just stopped completely in my tracks and I am like, “Oh my gosh. My water just broke on its own. We are doing this thing.”

I am texting Gabe back-and-forth from the bathroom being like, “Oh my gosh. My water broke. We need to call the midwife. We need to call my mom to come and stay with Audrey.” I was just going down all of the lists of things that I had to do because I just knew it was go time.

So we called the midwife. She had wanted me to go ahead and get ready to come into the hospital because I had tested positive for-- I think, is it Group B? Something like that. She wanted to get medication started.

Meagan: Yeah. Group B Strep.

Jess: Yes. So I had tested positive for that and she wanted me to come in so that way we could get the medication started. But we ended up calling her back because I really wanted to labor at home for as long as I could so that way the chances of intervention were smaller. Thinking back, I don’t know why I thought I had more time than I actually did. But right off the bat, my contractions were probably 2 to 3 minutes apart, 30 seconds long and it was just back-to-back-to-back. I guess I thought that I had more time than I actually did because they weren’t as intense as I thought they would be yet. I was still able to shower and all of that stuff, and get my stuff ready, and talk, and breathe through them, and all that. I guess I thought that I had more time than I did. I definitely did not. It was a very close call.

The contractions immediately got really intense and at this point, we are just waiting for my mom to come. She lives about half an hour away from us, so we are waiting for her to get to the house so she could stay with Audrey. By the time my mom had gotten-- I mean, she said that she could hear me. She was standing outside and she could hear me laboring in the bathroom. It was super intense and I don’t even remember looking at her or talking to her. I just passed by her to get into the car.

I told Gabe, I was like, “We have got to get to the hospital. I don’t think we are going to make it.” So, I had a couple more contractions before I was able to get myself into the car. I was afraid to get into the car because I didn’t want to sit. Sitting was extremely, extremely uncomfortable for me. When I tell you that that was the longest car ride of my entire life, I cannot even tell you how hard of a car ride that was.

Meagan: It’s hard to sit there.

Jess: Oh my gosh. It was so hard. The hospital we were delivering at was half an hour away, so Gabe was booking it. I was contracting so, so hard, but thankfully we made it. The hospital that we delivered at is actually pretty small, so there are only two entrances. There is the maternity entrance and then there is an emergency room entrance, and it’s just on either side of the parking lot.

So obviously, we had pulled into the maternity entrance. After we got out of the car and walked up to the door, we see that because of COVID, everyone has to check-in through the emergency room entrance. I was like, “Oh my gosh. This literally cannot be happening to me right now. Gabe was like, “Okay well, do you want to walk over there or do you want to get in the car and do you want to drive over there?”

You can see the other entrance, like I said, from the door where we were standing and I was like, “I am not sitting down again. Let’s just walk.” Thinking of that, it would have been much faster if we just zoomed right over there really quick, but for whatever reason, I wanted to walk. I was laboring so, so hard throughout the entire parking lot. Whenever people say that whenever you are in the middle of delivering your baby that you go into a completely different world, that is 100% true.

At that point, I didn’t care who saw me. I don’t care what I was doing. I didn’t care how loud I was. There were people walking out to their cars. There were nurses and doctors everywhere and I was just in the zone trying to breathe through these tough contractions. So of course with COVID, before we were actually able to go to the maternity entrance, we had to go through this checkpoint and questionnaire for all of this COVID screening. I had to get my temperature taken. I had to get a badge. I had to answer all of these questions. Again, while not even really being able to talk. The nurse was very persistent. I know everyone has got their job to do, but I was like, “Come on, lady. I’m about to pop this baby out right now. I can’t.”

Anyway, after we got done with all of the questions she was like, “Okay. Do you want to walk or do you want to go in a wheelchair?” I was like, “I do not care. Just whatever gets me there faster.” I ended up sitting in the wheelchair. Gabe pushed me and we sprinted down the really long hallway before we had to go through another checkpoint. They were like, “Are you the VBAC patient? Everyone is waiting for you.” At that point, after I heard that, I just felt a sense of relief like, “Okay. We are going to be okay. We are going to do this.” Because they were prepared for me and as soon as the big doors opened, my entire birth team was there. My midwife was there. The nurses, there were other doctors. Everybody was just there and they were waiting for me.

Julie: Aw. That probably feels really good.

Jess: Yeah. Yeah. I just-- I was like, “Okay. I’m not going to do this by myself. I am in good hands here.” As soon as I lay eyes on my midwife, the first words out of my mouth were, “I need an epidural.” She goes, “Okay,” super calm and collected. “Okay well, let’s go and get you back to your room. We will check and see how far along you are. Now, if you are pretty progressed, do you still want to have an epidural?”

I was like, “I don’t know, but I have got to have something.” Giving birth is such an athletic event. It is so athletic. So at this point, I am so tired and I am sweating to death. I am like, “Holy crap. This is so much.” And so, we got into the room and there were so many people in that room. It was me, Gabe, the midwife, and there were honestly probably three other nurses and then eventually, I call him the epidural guy, the anesthesiologist. I don’t know. He was in there at one point. And so, I’m at the foot of my bed. I ripped off my pants. The midwife was already down behind me and she was checking and she goes, “Okay well, you are 8 centimeters dilated.” And I was like, “Okay.”

So she is down behind me the entire time. I have another nurse who is in front of me who has a doppler on the tummy to keep an eye on baby. Gabe is sitting down in a chair being a great support for me, and then I am gripping onto the foot of the bed railing going through the contractions, and up in front of me are all of the nurses, plus the anesthesiologist, who are trying to get an IV in me and all that stuff in case I needed it.

I was extremely dehydrated come to find out, so they had a very difficult time getting an IV started. I think I ended up getting poked probably, I don’t know, maybe eight times honestly. Every time they are like, “I am so sorry we have to do this. I am so sorry we have to do this.” In between contractions, I looked at them and I was like, “Literally, I do not care what you are doing to me right now because I don’t feel it.”

Eventually, they got one started, but it took forever. The biggest thing that I was saying throughout the contractions was, “I feel like I am going to poop my pants. I feel like I’m going to poop,” and my midwife kept telling me, she’s like, “That’s good. That’s good. That means your baby is coming.” I was like, “Oh my gosh. I am literally about to poop myself right now. I can feel it.”

She brought over a chair and I was still standing in front of the bed. She had me put one foot up on a chair. She checked again and she goes, “Okay. You are now a full 10, so baby is going to be here in just a second.” This was probably in the span of maybe half an hour.

One of the things I remember is that I had a heart monitor, the finger heart monitor thing, on and I kept flicking it off my finger during contractions because I couldn’t fully grip onto the bed railings, so the nurse had to stick one on my pinky toe so that way she could keep an eye on me. After one of my last contractions, my midwife was telling me that she felt like I was clenching like I was holding my baby in a little bit.

I was like, “Okay.” She was like, “How about next contraction, after that one is over, we have you crawl up on the bed on all fours and we will see if that helps?” I was like, “I don’t think I can crawl up on that bed right now. I don’t.” She is like, “It’s okay. We will bring the bed down. It will be easy peasy. You can just crawl right up.” So I crawled up on all fours.

She was definitely coaching me. She was telling me how to breathe because obviously, I had to get very vocal throughout the contractions. She was telling me to really breathe and dig deep with the contractions and use the contractions as a way to push the baby out. I did that. I pushed one more time and out came the baby.

It was the most magical, healing experience for me of my entire life. I was able to do the immediate skin-to-skin. We were able to do that delayed cord clamping. I actually cut the cord myself. I was able to see my placenta. It was just the most magical experience that I have ever had because I completely, 100% trusted my body to do what I knew it could do and it worked.

So, yeah. Those are my stories.

VBAC prep and planning

Meagan: I love that. I love that you say, “I 100% trusted in my body and knew that I was able to do it,” because this is something that I even found so hard.

Jess: Yeah.

Meagan: Because I’d be like, “Okay. I know I can do it, but can I?”

Jess: Exactly.

Meagan: “Okay, no. I can. But really, can I?” You know? Even during the birth, I am like, “Wait. Okay. I can do this. I can keep going.”

Jess: “Can I do this?” Yeah.

Meagan: Unfortunately, I did not have a fast, intense experience. I had a slow, turtle-paced labor. There were times where I am like, “No. No,” and then my husband would look at me and be like, “Remember, this is what you wanted. You can do this.” I am like, “Oh yeah. Okay, okay, okay. I can do it.” You know? We have to believe in ourselves and even in the moments that we doubt, we have our teams. That’s why I think having a team is so important and I loved that when the big doors opened, your team was there and waiting for you because I truly can only imagine how that felt for you.

Jess: Oh yeah. It was such a huge sigh of relief because like I said, I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t have a choice except to just work through it and I was like, “I need a professional here that actually knows what’s going on to help me.” So, yeah. It was great seeing them there.

Meagan: I love that.

Julie: How comforting. That part of your story warmed my heart so much. You get there. You’re in active labor. You are really excited. Your whole entire team welcomes you and then you’re 8 centimeters dilated. What a high to keep going on.

Meagan: I know.

Jess: I know. Gabe and I would go, “Oh my gosh. What if there was a car accident or r road work?” Or it was during the summer, so we’d always have a bunch of farming equipment on the road. We were like, “Oh my gosh. I would have had my baby in the car if we showed up a minute later.” It was just crazy.

Meagan: Yup. Oh my gosh. I love it. Something I love too is how you said in the beginning, “My provider is like, ‘Yeah, you are a great candidate for a VBAC,’” and you were like, “No.” You weren’t super on board and you weren’t for it at that time. We find that that is the case sometimes. It’s okay when those cases stay the same or they’re like, “Yeah, no. VBAC just really isn’t for me.”

But I think something that Julie and I like to encourage people to do is, educate yourself on both sides so you truly know what the best route is for you. If it is the VBAC, awesome. And if it’s not a VBAC and if it’s a CBAC, yes. Great. Do what’s best for you. So, I love that you found out your options, and then eventually you were like, “Oh, this is totally what I want to do,” and you went with it. Because it is. There is something to say when you feel empowered for making the choice for you. When you are being told, “Okay so, you always have to have a C-section and you’re going to have to have surgery,” that’s daunting and scary. You’re like, “Whoa. That’s overwhelming.”

Jess: Yeah. For sure. For sure. Yeah. I think something that’s really important is just because you can have a VBAC doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the best option for you. And same goals with a C-section. I think that every woman is different and it’s just important for you to take a step back, go through all of your options, like you said, and pick what’s best for you. That’s why I honestly, truly cannot thank your VBAC prep course enough because it laid out all of the options for me. I knew how to have a C-section for my first time and I felt way prepared and more after going through your VBAC prep course.

Meagan: Yeah. I love it.

Julie: Well, thank you so much. Yeah. That’s one of the things we go over in the course is-- I don’t know. I am going to mush our course and what I go over with my clients in our prenatal visits for my doula work. Have a plan A, a plan B, and a plan C. Plan A is your perfect plan. If everything goes the way you want, what does that look like? Plan B is your backup plan. So if you’re planning to go unmedicated, what if you need an epidural? What if you need to be induced? Things like that, your backup plan. And plan C is your Cesarean plan.

So it’s really funny-- funny is probably not the right word, but it is interesting as I talk to people because I don’t make them create a Cesarean plan. We always have a backup plan, but I ask them, “If you need a Cesarean--” whether it’s first-time moms or birth after a Cesarean or whatever. “If you need a Cesarean, do you want to know what options are available for you, and do you want to have information about that?” Some people are like, “Oh no, no, no, no, no. I don’t want to say the C-word. I only want good vibes. We are only projecting vaginal birth. I feel like if I talk about it and create that, it’s setting myself up for a Cesarean.”

For some people, I think that maybe they just don’t have the mental space to go there, but it’s probably a sign that you need to do some kind of processing work in order to get your mind in a better spot because when you fear something and then it happens to you, it makes a possibility of trauma way more likely. But having a backup Cesarean plan, like you said, if your birth ends up that way, you can enter into all the different changes of labor and birth with confidence because you already know about them.

You don’t have to tell your doctor to explain the risks and benefits of things to you, which you should still do because maybe there is something you don’t know about. But learning about all of the different options can help you be more confident. As Meagan and I work with our doula clients and every one of you at The VBAC Link, that is the number one thing that people say they wish they had more of going into their VBAC. It’s confidence. Confidence in themselves, confidence in their provider, and confidence that they will know how to make the right decisions if something doesn’t go as expected.

Jess: Yeah.

Meagan: Mhmm.

Jess: I think that’s why it shows that it takes just as much physical prep as it does mental prep because you can do everything that you can under the sun to prep your body physically for birth, but birth is such a mental game. If you don’t have the preparation that you need and you haven’t processed the things that you need, it can be difficult.

Julie: Absolutely. That’s why we go over all of that in our course, too. In fact, we start out with the mental prep just because it’s probably the most important part. Entering the rest of the course with a free mind can really open you up to more learning.

Now, Meagan and I were texting while you were talking and we are like, “Wait. Her voice sounds so familiar.”

Meagan: Yeah. I was like, “I know her.”

Julie: We know you.

Meagan: Well, I was like, “I know her.” When you popped up, I was like, “I know her face.” And I am like, “Wait.” So then 10 minutes in, I am like, “Julie. This is the YouTube girl that shared about our course on YouTube.” She is like, “Oh my gosh.” So we are like, “Oh my heavens.” I just love you. I am like, “I know I know her face and her voice.” Julie is like, “Yeah, I know. I remember.”

Julie: I am like, “I think it’s that girl that made the cute YouTube video.” But Jess, why don’t you tell people where to find your YouTube channel because I am pretty sure everyone should watch it because she talks all about all of the things that she did to prepare for her VBAC both mentally and emotionally and on the educational side. So, yeah. Share it with everybody because everyone needs to go and watch this video. It is so fun.

Jess: Yeah so, my YouTube channel is called JessandBabe. It is all one word. I actually started it whenever I was postpartum with my first baby. Like I said, I got diagnosed with pretty bad mom rage and postpartum anxiety. I just found that creating videos that I wished I would have seen whenever I was postpartum would have helped me if that makes sense. I wanted to make the videos that I wish I would’ve seen. It was just a really great form of therapy I have to say, knowing that I am helping people.

It’s not a huge YouTube channel yet by any means. It’s very small, but I know that the videos that I make are helping people. I talk about all things. The VBAC video is the one that I just recently had posted, but I’ve talked about sleep training, breastfeeding, we have got some vlogs if you want to see my adorable babies and all of that stuff.

Julie: Yeah. It’s so much fun. So much fun. Oh my gosh. I am so glad that we have come full circle. But you talked about coming full circle before we started recording about how you were listening to the podcast and you were like, “Oh my gosh. What if I could be on the podcast one day?” You are full circle here and I feel like we are full circle now because we saw your YouTube video, and now we get to hear your story again on The VBAC Link podcast, and everyone else is going to hear your story, and you are just so uplifting. You are a great light and you’re going to inspire so many women. It makes my heart so happy.

Jess: Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Before I say goodbye, I have something to share that I think would actually fit your whole vision for The VBAC Link and everything. It’s actually a quote that I saw yesterday and it says, “It’s not that birth is painful. It’s that women are strong.”

Julie: Yes.

Meagan: Oh, I love that.

Jess: I saw that and I was like, “I have got to share that tomorrow on The VBAC Link,” because that is exactly what you guys are sharing. I even had your “We are Women of Strength” card that came in your class. I had that set as my screensaver throughout my entire pregnancy.

Julie: Awesome. Oh, I love it.

Jess: I just thought it was fitting.

Julie: That is really neat.

Meagan: That makes me so happy.

Jess: Yeah.

Meagan: I just love you. We need to be friends when I come to Oregon someday.

Jess: I would love to be your friend!

Julie: Yes. Let’s be friends.

Meagan: Oh my gosh. I know. I am like, “Can we go to Oregon just to come see you?” Oh my gosh. That would be so awesome.

Julie: Oh my gosh. I just was really bummed because 2020 ruined plans for everybody, but we had these big plans. We were scheduled to go to three or four different cities in the country to teach in-person classes for parents and doulas.

Jess: That would have been amazing.

Julie: All of that got canceled because of COVID.

Jess: Thanks COVID.

Julie: I know. As soon as travel restrictions are more clear and we can have more people in a course at a time, then we are going to start traveling again. And Meagan, gosh. There are so many places that we need to go. How are we going to choose? There are so many amazing people, but I definitely think Oregon should be on our destination list.

Meagan: Totally. I would love it. I have never been. I would love to go.

Jess: You totally should. It’s great.

Julie: Well, I hear it’s very beautiful. I got jealous from one of my friends posting pictures of going up there to the Pacific Northwest and I am thinking we need to make a little road trip up there. Or fly.

Meagan: Back in the day when I did Worker’s Comp., I serviced Washington and Oregon. It was always so fun to talk to them about the weather and everything that was going on, so one day. One day I am going to make it back up there.

Julie: One day. All right. Well, Jess. Thank you so much for sharing your story with everybody. We truly just absolutely adore you and are so grateful for you for sharing your story.

Jess: Thank you.

Julie: That YouTube video is so much fun and anyone that wants more information about our VBAC parents prep course, you can just go to thevbaclink.com/shop and it will have the course right there for you so you can take it. Get enrolled. Get educated so that you can safely and confidently navigate all the twists and turns birth might take.

Closing

Would 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. Congratulations on starting your journey of learning and discovery with The VBAC Link.

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