Matilda's Birth Story

What you see here is the look of pure joy because I just achieved my goal of having a VBAC. While I am so grateful for the safe delivery of my twins via C-Section almost 4 years ago, the recovery was brutal. I’m allergic to NSAIDs so pain management was tricky, and my insides felt all over the place as my uterus was so large because of the twins! I ended up with terrible back pain and diastasis recti that took years to fix. So when I found out I was pregnant again I was terrified. Terrified to have another C-Section. Terrified of uterine rupture and the risks of having a VBAC. Terrified that I had already gotten lucky with 4 healthy babies so what would baby 5 bring? But I knew VBAC was the goal, and since I had already delivered naturally twice before my Cesarean, the odds of success were in my favor.

I went into labor in the middle of the night, early Tuesday morning , exactly one month ago! What that meant was that my own OB (who I have been seeing for 15 years) was going to deliver this baby! 5th time was the charm to get this timing right! What this also meant was that I trusted her judgment. So when it was time to get an epidural - even though I REALLY didn’t want one - I still did it in the event that I may have to be rushed into surgery for uterine rupture. And when my labor stalled, I let them break my water (even though that wasn’t in the plan also) because I was on board to do whatever I needed to do to have this baby as a VBAC.

So this ended up being my longest labor out of all of the bunch! Matilda was born in a pretty intimate setting - just my doctor, the nurse, Michael, and I were in the room. I had my favorite classical music playlist playing in the background. I pushed for about 10 minutes, and when Matilda was almost here, my doctor really encouraged me to pull her out myself and told Michael where to stand so he could get some incredible photos! But I don’t think I’ll be sharing those here just yet!

I don’t know what it is about this photo - this unfiltered and unretouched photo - but it makes me feel like a brand new mom again. Almost like I just gave birth for the first time ever!