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We have received so many messages and emails from you requesting more VBAMC stories and today, we are giving you just that. Susana joins us from Mexico sharing her VBAC story after five Cesareans!Each of Susana’s Cesarean experiences was unique in their own way, but the dream of a vaginal birth never left her heart. When she found a supportive midwife and doctor during her VBA5C pregnancy, Susana knew this was her chance to finally achieve that goal. With her husband by her side encouraging and supporting her, Susana powerfully pushed her baby out. The hospital staff and community buzzed with shock and amazement over what she had achieved!“That moment was unlike any other moment in my life.”ACOG Article: Dr. Angelica GloverEvidence-Based Birth: The Evidence on VBACNeeded WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Women of Strength, this is the moment so many of you have been waiting for. We have a VBA5C so for anyone who doesn’t know what that means, it is a VBAC after 5 Cesarean story for you today. This has been requested so much. We received emails in our personal email. We have gotten it on social media saying, “Please, can we get some stories that have VBAC after more than 3 Cesareans?” We know so many people out there don’t know that this is an option or they know it’s an option but they don’t find the support or they can’t find the support. They are few and far between but we have our friend Susana today who is going to be sharing her VBA5C story. Welcome, Susana. How are you?Susana: Hi. Thank you so much for inviting me. I’m so excited. Meagan: Oh my gosh. I am so excited. Yes. I am so excited and you are in Mexico, correct? Is that where your VBAC was? Susana: I’m sorry? Meagan: Was your VBAC in Mexico?Susana: Yeah, but it was a very, very hard way. I’m going to share what I did. First of all, I can’t separate this way from my faith because I prayed so much for this and I trusted so much and also, I trusted so much in the process and in the body and those things But okay, I’m going to tell you what happened with me and why I had five C-sections. First of all, I got pregnant in 2009. My pregnancy went very healthily with no problems at all. I was 41+5 weeks and I had a doctor who was– well, he said he was for natural birth. I don’t know how to say it. He was pro-birth. Meagan: Yeah, that he’s pro. He’s supportive. Susana: Supportive. Yeah, that’s the word. But in reality, he was more C-section-supportive. While we were passing a very difficult part of our life because my father-in-law passed away exactly on my due date. We were very emotional and very sensitive. Labor wasn’t starting so the doctor said, “No, baby is not engaged. You are only 3 centimeters. I can say that baby is not going to birth naturally. I say that it is better for you to go directly to the C-section.” I was disappointed because I was walking so much every day, but for the situation for my husband and all of the family, I accepted. We went to the C-section. I got pregnant again in 2010 8 months later and I was very excited to now get a VBAC. The doctor said he wasn’t going to support me but in the end, I had a TOLAC, a trial. I was progressing well. I was 5 centimeters when I went to the hospital and the doctor was a little bit nervous because the C-section that I had before was one year and five months before so he was like, “You have to be fast because we have the risk of uterine rupture.” He started to make an impression on me and I was starting to be stressed. After 5 hours I think, he said, “Baby is not getting down. You are still at 5 and we are going to the C-section again.” I cried a lot and my husband said, “We tried and we can’t do this anymore. It can be dangerous. Go to the C-section.” It was very traumatic because they put in the epidural and it only worked in half of my body. I started to scream, “No, please. No. I can feel everything.” They put the epidural in again. It was difficult. Then I got pregnant again in 2012 but I didn’t fight anymore. I decided for a repeat C-section. The good part is that it was peaceful because I was accepting the situation. Everything went well. Then I got pregnant in 2013. Also, we were going to opt for a C-section because I didn’t have any other chance but the doctor started saying, “No more babies. Four C-sections is a thing,” and things like that but my husband and I were talking about it and we thought that it wasn’t an option for us to have– I don’t remember the word. Tying the tubes. Meagan: Oh yeah, a tubal. Susana: Yes. The sterilization. So we went to a repeat C-section. It wasn’t as smooth as the one before because my baby was 37.5 weeks so we had a little problem with maturity. Is that the word? She was very small. Meagan: She was technically preterm. Susana: Yeah. Preterm. She showed signs of preterm. She was whimpering and something like that. We had to go to the neurospecialist. Everything was going well and there was no problem at all, but we were careful for another pregnancy. We waited a lot and we got pregnant again in 2017. I spent the half of my pregnancy with the same doctor, but at half of the pregnancy when I was 20 weeks, some friend told me, “Oh, you know what? There is a mom in Brazil who had a VBAC after four C-sections.” I was like, “What?” I didn’t know that existed. I started to inform myself and I found a supportive midwife but she said, “We aren’t going to chance it to go to the hospital. We have to have the birth in your house.” We prepared everything for the home birth and the bad thing is that I was anxious at 39 weeks and had prodromal labor. I passed the due date. I was 41 and 42 and then 42.5 weeks so stress started to play a role here. I started labor but I passed three days in labor so that was really, really hard. I passed two days at 5 centimeters dilation. Then my midwife said, “I don’t know what has happened. I think we can’t wait anymore. You have to go to the hospital. Baby is good.” The heart rate was optimal but I didn’t know what to do anymore. We went to the hospital. It was the only public hospital. Oh, the doctors were freaking out like, “What are you doing? Come on. You have to get the C-section 2 weeks before.” I suffered very, very much obstetric violence. It was very traumatic. Baby was very low. I was at 8 centimeters when I got to the hospital. I was begging for them to let me try and let me push but they said, “No. You are crazy. We have to go to the C-section right, right now.” When they pulled baby out, they broke the uterine artery and I lost a lot of blood. I was very weak and it was very painful. That was a disaster. We were like, “No more babies I think”, but by the grace of God, I got pregnant again in 2021. Sadly, I had a miscarriage on Christmas actually. It was very sad. But I don’t know. That miscarriage let me know that my body works and that I would be able to have good contractions and my body was able to give birth. I prayed, “God, if you want, I want another baby.” In November of 2022, I got pregnant again and that time, I was totally strong to fight for another try to have a vaginal birth. My husband was totally against the trying. He was so scared. Also, I was a little bit scared, but I was trusting at that time. I was trusting so hard. I was praying so hard. I decided to not go to the doctor because I was so scared of the doctor. I was hesitant. I don’t know why I didn’t want to hear, “You are in danger. No. This is so dangerous. You can’t try. You have to go directly at 38 weeks to the C-section and you have to have a blood transfusion and you are of advanced maternal age,” because I am 41 years old, but I don’t know. I said, “I don’t want that in my pregnancy.” Actually, I had a friend who had seven C-sections and then had four home births. She was telling me, “No. Trust God. You have to know when they talk from fear and when they talk from the truth.” I could tell that a lot of people were speaking to me from the fear they felt, not from the truth. I stayed with that doctor until 28 weeks. I found a doctor who wasn’t judging me and who was open but he didn’t have experience with VBAC after multiple C-sections so he said, “I can check you and support you but not in the birth. I can’t do that. I have no experience.” Well, for me, it was like, “Oh, I’m at the beginning of the way.” Okay, so I kept praying and when I was 34 or 35 weeks in the pregnancy, I had a doula who gave me a contact of a midwife that she was supporting VBAC after three C-sections in a hospital with a doctor. I said, “Maybe there’s a chance for me.” I contacted her. I talked to her and she was very optimistic. She said, “Yeah. Of course. I can support you. We can prepare a home birth. I can support you. I can be your attendant.” I don’t know the word. Meagan: Maybe advocate? Susana: Not advocate. I mean, she was the one who received the baby. Meagan: Oh, like catching. Yeah, attending. Susana: Yeah, attending the birth. But my husband was like, “No, not a chance.” Because for my husband and also for me, it was very difficult and not secure. We were scared. We thought about what if something happened. That midwife told me, “I can speak with the doctor and maybe we can have a plan.” I said, “Okay.” I was 36 weeks so it could be difficult that he started to attend me in these late weeks. But I still had trust and confidence in God. I kept praying all of the time. One day, she called me and said, “Susana, good news. The doctor said yes. I told him all of the truths. I didn’t hide anything and he said, ‘Okay. If you are with me, I can attend this birth. But I need to watch her in the next days.’” So we went to the doctor. The doctor was in another city 40 minutes to an hour away from here. My husband couldn’t be with me so my parents went with me. My parents were so scared. Meagan: I bet. Meagan: They were very against trying. My husband wasn’t completely confident about it. All of my environment was against the VBAC. When we went to the doctor, the doctor was so supportive and so humane and so good and so kind. He said, “We are going to try. We are going to make our best. We are a good team. The midwife and I work together very good and very successfully but I’m going to keep all of the team here if we need the C-section in the last moment.” We agreed on that. My parents were so relieved. We talked with my husband and he was relieved also but he also had doubts. But in the environment of a hospital and– oh, I don’t know the word. The place where they make the C-section? Meagan: The operating room? Susana: Yeah, the operating room. In the side of the room, if everything was good, we trusted. He was supportive for the first time. He said, “Okay.” Two weeks passed after this visit and there was the moment when I started getting excited with things with labor. It was on the 11th of August last year in 2023 when I saw my mucus plug and the bloody show. I said, “Oh. I think things can be starting at any moment.” But in my last experience when I had the bloody show, it was two or three days before the labor really started. I patiently waited and the contractions started to be hardest but there was a half hour in between them. It was very manageable and still manageable. I passed the day with my normal activities. I had lunch with my parents and my five kids. I went to gymnastics class with my daughters and actually at night, we went to mass with friends and families that we know. A friend of ours invited us to dinner and I said, “No. I want to go home.” My husband was like, “What? You don’t want to go anywhere.” My husband started to sense that something was wrong. We returned to home and contractions started to be closer and intense. I wrote to my midwife and she said, “Okay. You have to count how many contractions happen in one hour,” so I started counting and from 10:00 PM to 11:00 PM, I had nine contractions. I wrote her and she said, “Okay, you are starting. I’m going to go to your home.” By the way, she lives 2 hours from my city so she came to my place at 2:30 AM and checked me. I was only 3 centimeters and 60% effaced. She went and she said, “Oh, congratulations. You are a 3. We only have to wait 7 more.” She was so positive and so kind and so lovely. But for me, it was like, What? 3 centimeters. There’s a long way to go. I was so disappointed and I started to have a crisis thinking, Okay. This is going to be three days of labor. It’s starting to be unbearable. I don’t know what I’m going to do. My husband told me, “You have to know that this is not going to be easy.” I was like, “Oh my god. What is going to happen?” I wrote a friend and she told me, “Maybe you were wrong. Maybe you are not in labor yet. Maybe it is prodromal labor so calm yourself and keep making your activities as normal.” I said, “Yeah, maybe that’s true. Maybe I’m not in labor yet.” One of the things is that my contractions don’t hurt in the uterus or in the belly. They hurt in the legs. Meagan: Oh. It radiates down. Susana: Exactly. I felt like it started in the hips and ran into the legs but I felt like– I don’t know how to say– but a burning. Yeah. It was burning pain. It was very, very intense. My friend told me, “Put one leg on the chair and one leg on the floor and balance side to side while a contraction comes.” I made that and that was really, really helpful. I could have a contraction very easily that way. I was telling myself, “My pelvis can open. My baby can know how to birth. Everything is okay. God is with me,” and things like that. That affirmation worked very, very good because it calmed myself and that’s how I passed the contractions all day long. Not the day, only the morning. My daughter, that morning, had a science fair so we decided it was at 8:00 AM so we went. It was the worst time for me having those contractions every seven minutes and very painful. All of the parents were like, “What is happening to her?” Meagan: That’s amazing that you went. Susana: It was because I thought, I’m going to have three days in labor. My midwife had told me that when there’s a labor after so many C-sections, there’s a lot of times that it lasts three, four, or even five days so in my mind, that was my expectation. While I was at the science fair, I said to my husband, “Please take me home. Let’s go home. I am in a lot of pain.” I called my midwife again and she came. She checked me and I was 6 centimeters so for me, I was like, “What? Whoa!” Yeah. She said, “We have to go to the hospital.” Oh, before that, we were planning to rent an AirBnB in the city which is Leon, Mexico to spend with all of the family those days that I was supposed to be in labor. So she said, “Forget about that plan. We will go directly to the hospital.” We called the doctor and the doctor said, “I need to check her with an ultrasound. You need to go to the office with me.” I thought it was useless, but we went to the office. It was the worst travel because I had contractions every 4 minutes and we were traveling in the van, but the good thing was that my midwife was making pressure on my hips and that released the pain. After 1 hour and 20 minutes, we arrived to the doctor. He checked me really fast and he said, “You are 6 centimeters.” Again, I was so disappointed because I thought, “Oh my god. One hour and I’m still a 6.” But my midwife told me, “No, I don’t think so. I think you are maybe a 7 or an 8.”She is very wise. She had a lot of intuition. So we went to the hospital and it was 20 minutes away from the office. We arrived at the hospital at 12:35 PM. When we arrived at the hospital, he wanted to put me in an emergency room, but the doctor arrived immediately and told them, “No. Put her directly in a room because it was going to be a room birth.” I gave birth in a room, not in an operating room, but in a labor and delivery room. Meagan: They had you labor the rest of the way and give birth in the operating room…
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