Surprise Home VBAC, with Erin Davis

What do you do when you send your husband out to car-nap your older daughter as you finish getting ready to go to the hospital, and labor goes from 0 to 60, while you’re still at home? Do you panic? Do you call 911? Do you call your doula? Do you breathe and center yourself so you are present for your baby? Erin Davis is here to tell us more. Check it out!

What we talked about:

• Her first birth: trying all the things to flip a breech – to no avail
• Wanting to wait for labor to start on its own
• Getting things started with a membrane sweep
• When what they tell you over the phone doesn’t sit right… you go in.
• Being so chill in labor that you fool everyone, and them make them run
• Advocating from your intuition to go for a VBAC
• Taking early labor in stride… and brunch
• Getting uncomfortable and not so happy
• Realizing that things are super intense when you aren’t able to text anymore (and you’re home alone)
• Calling everyone: baby on the way and no way of stopping it!
• Calming down and doing what needs to be done to be present for your baby
• “Whenever you can, let me in”
• First baby, then doula, then paramedics, then husband, then cousin
• Baby delivered at home, placenta in the hospital
• Why she wasn’t afraid
• Mourning your vision, even if it’s a great birth
• Embracing the story that happened – whatever that is
• The gift of having waited for labor for her first (Cesarean) birth

Resources mentioned by Erin*:

• VBAC facts
• Birth by the Numbers: Myth and Reality Concerning US Cesareans, by Dr. Gene Declercq
• Evidence Based Birth
• Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care, by Jennifer Block
• Business of Being Born
• And lots of You-Tube videos of women birthing (which tend to be of home or birth-center births)

Related Birthful episodes:

• Protecting Your Perineum, with Rachel Reed

Photos by Under My Heart Photography. Used with permission, courtesy of Erin Davis

Title music: “Vibe Ace” by Kevin MacLeod, from the Free Music Archive / CC BY (edited for length).

Sponsorship music: “Air Hockey Saloon” by Chris Zabriskie, from the Free Music Archive / CC BY (edited for length).