Some people look at me confused when I say this baby is going to come mid-September and not on the 1st of October (the EDD). They are even more confused when I proudly state I will have a c-section again. My son was breech and at 38 weeks I found out I was to have him in 4 days. I had prepared myself for a vaginal birth, and was shocked by this change in plan. But him being born safely was more important than standing on my head to try and get him to flip. I didn't find the experience horrendous, and recovered really well (but yes recovery is hard).
What gets me now is this expectation that to really experience being a Mother I need to have a VBAC (vaginal birth after c-section). That somehow I am failing, or I am taking the easy way (yeah right, with a toddler at home to look after), or whatever other deluded notion is out there. I am sick of seeing this all the time. There are so many benefits to a VBAC - being able to drive, being able to pick up my 3 year old, being able to provide a microflora through the birthing process to my baby. However there are a number of risks involved in VBAC. And I have just had so many risks to date, that after I lost my last baby I knew I would do a c-section (and yes I was contemplating a VBAC with the last one).
So to give you some idea :
I lost a baby after 10 weeks seeing a heartbeat. I have seen stats that have said that seeing this reduces your chance of miscarriage to about 0.7% (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18310375_). Seriously, that is less than 1 miscarriage per 100 pregnancies.
I was told I had a small sac. Rates estimate a small sac at 80% loss. That is 8 out of every 10 pregnancies will miscarry with a small sac (now I feel these numbers are very skewed, but it is what is out there). (http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/755264_2 this article states and even higher rate of 94% so 9.4 pregnancies out of 10!) I defied the odds with that one.
VBAC uterine rupture rates are 0.2-1.5% (1 in 500 VBACS) and success rates of VBACS are about 60-80% (3-4 women out of 5) (http://americanpregnancy.org/labor-and-birth/vbac/).
Now this may seem like great odds, but they are not good enough for me. I had such a small chance of losing my last pregnancy and I did. I am not willing to fall into the 1 in 500, or even the 1-2 women who will fail at a VBAC. I have too much to lose.
To me this is a statistical game of minimising risk (something I do a lot of in my job in public health). When I said to my obstetrician that I wanted to minimise risk, he knew exactly what I was talking about. There are more numbers I can throw here (in regard to the IVF process), but suffice to say, things happen.
So I am putting my child first. I want a healthy uncomplicated birth - and to me that is a c-section (and I know there are those that will disagree, you have that right). However, if I had a vaginal birth with my first, that would be my choice now. If I had not lost the last baby, I would have considered a VBAC. But things change, and I should not be made felt less of a mother because I am choosing what I think is the harder option in the long term. I still have pain from my previous c-section and always will. I will struggle with a newborn and a toddler, but I don't care. So for all of you who try and make women feel less or inadequate because we choose to birth in a different way - think twice. you have no idea what that mum has been through.
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