Francesca's Birth Story - VBAC

Rather than high risk, I like to think of VBAC as high maintenance. The intimate relationship between a woman and midwife allows them to sort through the woman’s fears that are blocking her success.

 

I confronted my fears and overcame my inhibitions to  connect  to the power of birth and the essence of womanhood. I am a successful double VBAC because I healed my physical , emotional and spiritual  states. Through holistic and traditional means I released the pain and shame of my scars to give birth with complete faith. In a circle of women and with the touch of healing hands I opened my heart to the possibility that there was hope for me yet. More than anything in the world I wanted to give birth naturally. I first had to go back to the beginning, to my first birth to look at what happened with clear vision.

 

Then I had to do the same with my second birth. Looking back , I knew that I could birth . I knew that it was not my body but a system that had failed me. My midwife mirrored my strength and guided me through my healing steps. It was as if the incision from the cesarean had severed my connection with my body. I had to fall in love with my body and my baby with the intention of giving birth. My “core” was blocked off from childhood sexual abuse-literally shut down. In the hospital this condition was not even considered. Intervention medicine goes against the grain of natural birth.

 

The urge to treat symptoms destroys the whole. Facing my 3rd trimester with my third baby I had to become whole again. I knew that going back to the hospital meant another cesarean so I birthed at home at the recommendation of my Obstetrician who has total faith in natural birth.  Not one minute of my 20 hour labor suffered doubt of my ability. With the explosion of his head bursting from within, my body completely intact, for the first time I was the first person to hold my baby. No one even asked to hold him until the following day.  Francesca