Episode 359 Flannery's VBAC with a Bicornuate Uterus + Types of Uterine Abnormalities

The VBAC Link

Flannery joins us today from Connecticut sharing her story of an unexpected C-section at 35 weeks due to oligohydramnios, breech presentation, and concerns with her baby’s kidney functions. She was also transferred to an unfamiliar hospital for its surgical capabilities. Though she was terrified, her anesthesiologist was calm and reassuring.

The toughest memory of Flannery’s birth was not being able to kiss her baby before he was swept away to the NICU. She was determined to do everything in her power not to have that happen again the second time.

Knowing she had a bicornuate uterus, she worked hard to keep her baby’s head down from the very beginning of her second pregnancy. She switched to a midwife practice, carried her baby past her due date, went into spontaneous labor, and had an intensely beautiful unmedicated hospital VBAC!

NICU Free Parking

Types of Uterine Shapes

AFI Article

Needed Website

How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents

Full Transcript under Episode Details

Meagan: Hello, everybody. We have our friend from Connecticut. And you know what? I didn’t ask. How do you say your name?

Flannery: It’s Flannery.

Meagan: That’s how I was going to say it.

Flannery: Yes, good job.

Meagan: We have our friend, Flannery, here from Connecticut and she has a bicornuate uterus. This week’s focus is on different shaped uteruses or uterine abnormalities as I’m air quoting. We know that people have them. People have different-shaped uteruses.

Sometimes that can impact things like breech babies or even a provider’s ability to support– I don’t want to say ability. It’s their willingness to support, especially in VBAC. We’re going to be diving into that. She’s also a NICU mama so for other NICU mamas, she might have some tips for you along the way.

She just told me before this that she was a labor and delivery nurse before she had her first.

Flannery: Yep, and then I switched over.

Meagan: Now she switched over to postpartum. She knows the field, so we might talk a little bit about labor and delivery nursing and the postpartum world.

Flannery: Yeah, definitely.

Meagan: Awesome.

Okay, well let’s get into your stories.

Flannery: Okay, thank you. I’m so excited. I would listen to this podcast all the time when I was pregnant. At the end, when they say, “If you’d like to share your VBAC story–” and I would say, “I will be sharing my VBAC stories someday.”

Meagan: I love that. “I will be sharing my story”, and here you are sharing with all of the other Women of Strength coming to learn and grow and feel empowered.

Flannery: Yeah, I loved it.

My first pregnancy was actually an unplanned pregnancy. I had just gotten married. I just started a labor and delivery nurse job. I was noticing that I wasn’t feeling great, that I had some bleeding which I thought was my period, so I just was like, “You know what? Let me take a pregnancy test just to reassure myself because there is no way that it will be positive.”

It was, and I was so shocked. I remember taking the tests, seeing the two lines, and my heart dropping. I thought to myself, “I am not ready to be a mom. I can’t believe that I am having an unplanned pregnancy. This is so crazy.”

I was only 25 which I know is not that young, but up here in Connecticut, it’s pretty young.

Meagan: Is it really? What’s the average for first-time moms? Can I ask?

Flannery: I’m guessing 30-32.

Meagan: Okay.

Flannery: None of my friends had babies yet or anything, so I felt very alone and obviously very shocked. Yeah. I had no idea how far along I was. I went to the dating ultrasound with my husband at the hospital where I worked, and they put the wand on my belly. There was a full baby in there.

It wasn’t a bean. It wasn’t a little heartbeat, but it was a baby. They said, “You’re 11.5 weeks along.”

Meagan: Oh my gosh. Really?

Flannery: Yeah. I was beyond shocked. Meagan, I had no idea that I was pregnant. I didn’t have any symptoms. I was having some bleeding, so I thought that had been my period, but nope.

Meagan: Oh my goodness. Was it implantation bleeding? But then that would be too late.

Flannery: I don’t know. I think maybe just how some people get first-trimester spotting or bleeding after sex or exercise or something. I’m thinking that’s what it was.

Meagan: Crazy.

Flannery: I know. I had skipped the first trimester, and that terrified me because I wasn’t on a prenatal. I was having some wine. I was just like, “How could I have missed this? This is embarrassing. I’m a nurse.”

Meagan: “I’m a nurse.” Hey, listen. It happens. People talk about it. I’m sure that was such a shock not only to see those two pink lines and that you were not having babies with any of your friends, but then you skipped the whole first trimester.

Flannery: Crazy. It was crazy. It took a while to wrap our heads around it. Then during the ultrasound, hearing the ultrasound tech saying, “Have you ever had an ultrasound of your uterus before?” I was like, “No,” not thinking anything of it, just focusing on the baby, and then I got a call from my doctor a few days later, and she was like, “So, it looks like you have a bicornuate uterus. Have you ever heard of that?” I was like, “No. I’ve never heard of that before.”

She said, “Basically, your uterus is shaped like a heart, and it should be shaped like a balloon.” I was like, “Okay. That doesn’t sound too bad.” We hung up. I went on Google and Googled “bicornuate uterus”, and let’s just say the stuff that comes up is not reassuring at all. It’s so scary.

It says things like, “Risk of preterm delivery. Risk of stillbirth. Risk of infertility. Risk of malpresentation.” It just went on and on. Postpartum hemorrhage, and all of this stuff, so I really broke down. I remember just crying and crying to my husband, “I’ve had this crazy birth defect my whole life, and I’ve never known it.” I didn’t know how it was going to impact my birth or anything. That was definitely scary.

Meagan: Did they tell you anything about how it could impact your pregnancy or your birth?

Flannery: Not really. This was a general GP doctor that I was seeing, so she didn’t really go into it with me, but I definitely spoke about it to the midwives that I was seeing once I established care with them. They were just like, “Yeah, it can cause baby to be breech.” That was all they told me about it.

Meagan: Okay.

Flannery: Yeah. I was doing a lot of research looking for podcasts and everything about bicornuate uterus and all of the things that go along with it, but I couldn’t really find much. This was a few years ago, so maybe three or four podcast episodes about bicornuate uterus, breech, and malformation. I think now there are more, but at the time, it was really hard to find information.

Meagan: Yeah. I still feel like it’s 2024. What year are we in? We are almost in 2025. We are in 2024, and it still is. There is still not a ton. It’s not a beefy topic.

Flannery: No, it’s really not. I think that some people don’t know they have it until they get pregnant which was in my case, and they have an ultrasound. It’s hard to tell later on in pregnancy if you have it because your baby will stretch out the uterine space, so you can really only tell in the first trimester if you have an ultrasound.

Meagan: Interesting. Good to know.

Flannery: So my pregnancy progressed pretty normally after that. I was very stressed at this new job in labor and delivery that I was working in. I was seeing really scary births all of the time, traumatic births, and some good ones too, but it put this idea in my head that you cannot plan your birth. Things are so out of your control that there’s no reason to have a plan because you’re just going to be disappointed anyway. All you can do is go with the flow. That was my attitude at the time. It’s definitely changed since then.

It was definitely interesting trying to be a first-time mom and also learn how to be a labor and delivery nurse and reconcile the two experiences that I was seeing.

Meagan: I bet.

Flannery: Yeah.

Meagan: I bet that would be really challenging.

Flannery: It was. It was interesting. I established care with some midwives who I worked with. They were highly recommended, but I didn’t really feel like they were giving me the midwife experience that I had heard so many people rave about. I felt like they really treated me like a coworker instead of a first-time mom when I was going to their appointments.

I was fine with their care. I wouldn’t say it was the best or the worst by any means. Then I realized around 25-26 weeks, “Gosh. I’m really feeling this rock under my ribs all the time. I think that’s the baby’s head. I think the baby is breech.”

Then at 28 weeks, I had a growth scan because you have to have growth scans if you have a bicornuate uterus, and they were like, “Yeah, sure enough, the baby is breech.” The midwives told me, “Okay, you can do some Spinning Babies and put an ice pack near the baby’s head and play music down low,” and all of those crazy things that you hear. I was like, “Yeah, sure. Okay, I’ll try it.”

I did a few inversions, but they gave me terrible heartburn, so I was not super consistent with that. The baby just wasn’t budging week after week. Eventually, it came to about 35 weeks, and I was getting another growth scan. I had just worked a very tiring shift at work. I went to get my ultrasound. I was dozing off as she did it.

She stopped the ultrasound, and she said, “I’m going to send you over to your midwife’s office. Go over right now.” I walked over, and the midwife was like, “Girl, what’s going on?” I was like, “I don’t know. I just had this pit in my stomach, but I had no clue what was going on.” She was like, “You have no fluid. Get back to the hospital. You’re going in as a patient now, and we’re going to try to rehydrate you.” I was like, “What? What is going on? No fluid? What does that mean?”

I guess they had found in ultrasound that my baby’s left kidney was super dilated, and my fluid was low which is called oligohydramnios. I know you’ve talked about this on the podcast before, but I think they measure it with an AFI. It’s supposed to be over 8. Mine was a 4.

Meagan: Really low. Yeah, below 5. But they were just going to rehydrate you. They weren’t going to induce you?

Flannery: Not yet, no. They wouldn’t have induced me anyway because my baby was breech.

Meagan: Which is good. They wouldn’t. Yeah.

Flannery: They were going to try to rehydrate me first and see how that went. It did, and they decided to give me some steroid shots too. My favorite midwife came in, and she said, “We’re going to do these steroid shots, and we’re going to see if the rehydrating works. I know you’ve been working hard. Maybe this is just a dehydration situation because you haven’t been able to take care of yourself properly.” I was like, “Okay”, then she made a comment about delivery at 37 weeks. I was like, “Oh, this is a delivery-type situation.” It had really not sunk in with me yet that this was that serious. She was like, “Yes. Oligohydramnios can cause stillbirth. It’s very serious. Probably what we are looking at is two weeks of monitoring, and then delivery at 37 weeks which will be a C-section unless your baby flips.”

I was like, “Oh my god. Okay.”

Meagan: Yeah. But with the fluid, did they want to continue giving you fluid? Did they encourage your hydration with electrolytes and everything?

Flannery: Yes, they did. I was chugging water like a maniac for a few days and coconut water and all of this stuff and getting IV fluid. It did come back up a little bit to a 6, maybe.

Meagan: I was going to say, did it fix it at all?

Flannery: I was still getting a bunch of ultrasounds, then it went right back down to a 4. They said, “We’re going to have you consult with maternal-fetal medicine at a bigger hospital on March 9th. My baby was due April 11th, but this was a lot earlier than I was expecting anything to happen. We went to this appointment to get this more detailed ultrasound, and the doctor comes in. She seems very nervous. That’s not what you want. You don’t want a doctor to seem nervous.

No. She’s like, “It looks like your baby’s left kidney is non-functional. It’s just a cluster of cysts.”

Meagan: Oh no.

Flannery: I was like, “Oh my god.” I was so terrified. I just had no clue. This didn’t show up on the 20-week ultrasound or anything. She was like, “And your fluid is still super low.” We did an NST. They sent us home, and I was just waiting around at home with my husband for my midwife to call to make a plan. I was like, “Am I going back to work tomorrow? Am I going to be having this baby?”

She called me, and she was like, “So, this isn’t what I was expecting to tell you today, but I’ve been consulting with the neonatologist here and some OBs. Since you’ve already had your steroid shots, we want you to go to the hospital now to have your baby tonight.” She was like, “Don’t rush down the highway in the snow. This is an urgent, not an emergent situation. You’ll be in good hands.”

I was like, “What in the world?” I was so taken aback. I didn’t believe it. They were also transferring me to a different hospital from the one that I had worked at and had planned to deliver at.

Meagan: Is it because of the NICU situation?

Flannery: Because of the NICU, yeah. This bigger hospital had the capability for surgery, and my hospital did not. It was a situation where it was a small hospital and a situation that they weren’t really comfortable with. We hopped in the car and drove through this big snowstorm. I was just crying and shaking. We had no idea. We were both terrified. We had no idea what we were about to walk into.

When we met our OB, she walked into the room. She just radiated calmness and kindness and peace. She was just an angel. She made us feel so safe. They were monitoring the baby and putting my IV in. I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I was having a baby tonight.

Meagan: Yeah.

Flannery: I was wondering, “Is this baby going to be okay? What is going on here?” We walked down the hall to the OR. I kissed my husband goodbye. I remember just thinking, “Okay. Here we go. There’s no going back now.” The only way I could stay calm was to surrender any of the control that I thought I had and really just trust in God and trust in the people who were going to do the surgery on me. I lay down on the table and the anesthesiologist was so kind. He was petting my head and talking to me.

My husband came in and they were setting up the drapes. My doctor who I had just met leaned her head over and she said, “This is where I had my first daughter.” That just made me feel so happy. Things are going to be normal again. She had a C-section too. It made me feel very safe.

Everything went really well during the operation. I remember I could see the reflection of the operation in the lights that they have above you. I bet other moms will know what I am talking about, but they have these big OR lights, and I could kind of see what they were doing which was crazy.

Meagan: You can. They’re like mirrors.

Flannery: I know. They should come up with something better.

Meagan: Yes. For those who don’t want to watch or see anything, just turn to the side.

Flannery: Close your eyes.

Meagan: Close your eyes. Turn to the side.

Flannery: Yeah. They said, “After a few minutes, okay. Here he comes. Then he’s out.” I didn’t hear anything. I heard someone say, “Okay. I need to take him.” I could tell that was the neonatalogist saying they needed to work on him a little bit. They took him over to a corner where we couldn’t see or hear anything that was going on. We could just hear people talking. Eventually, we heard a little cry. My husband started to cry. I looked at him, and I smiled.

I just felt relief that he was alive, but I didn’t feel anything. I just felt this nothingness.

Meagan: I can so relate to that.

Flannery: Yeah. It’s so strange. It’s just not what you’re hoping to feel in this big important moment.

Meagan: Mhmm.

Flannery: I remember the neonatalogist after a while, he was breathing on his own. He had peed and pooped. They showed us pictures of him. She walked over with him in his arms in this little bundle of blankets. She stood pretty far away, maybe 6 or 10 feet away. She was like, “Okay. You know the plan. We need to check his kidneys in the NICU. What’s his name?” I said, “I don’t know. I need to see his face.”

She flashed the blanket at me and flashed it down so I could see his face. I couldn’t see anything. I said, “I don’t know. I don’t know what his name is,” and she walked out with him.

That is just the worst memory from that whole experience. The surgery itself was really good. The care I had was great, but I’ll never get that moment back. She could have brought him over to give me a kiss or see his face. It was hours until–

Meagan: Touch or kiss his face.

Flannery: It was so long until I could see him and meet him in the NICU. I just think about that all of the time. I did get to go meet him after a few hours. He was doing great. I didn’t recognize him at first when my husband rolled me over to his isolet in the NICU which was hard, but as soon as I held him, I just had this overwhelming rush of love. It hasn’t changed to this day. He’s just such a joy.

He turned out to be fine. His kidney was normal. It’s resolved on its own, and it wasn’t a cluster of cysts like they had thought.

Meagan: Yay.

Flannery: Yeah. He’s doing great. He’s a very rambunctious, very smart 2.5-year-old now.

Meagan: Good.

Flannery: Yeah. I’m so grateful that I have him now. I’m so grateful that I accidentally got pregnant with him.

Meagan: Yes. He was meant to be, and he was going to make sure that he was.

Flannery: He totally was. Yeah. Yeah.

Meagan: I’m sorry that you had that experience. I want to say it’s unique, but it’s not. That sucks.

Flannery: It’s totally not.

Meagan: I hope that as people are listening, if they are in the birth world of labor and delivery nurses or OBs or midwives or whatever it may be, please be mindful of mom. Please be mindful of mom. Don’t forget that she doesn’t feel these things because does. She needs to see her baby. She needs to touch her baby. She needs to kiss her baby. If it is a true emergency, true emergency, understandable. But in a sense of this, it doesn’t sound like it was a true emergency.

Flannery: It wasn’t. It wasn’t.

Meagan: They went over, and they took a lot of time with your baby, and then came and left. They didn’t need to just come and leave.

Flannery: Right, right. Especially when baby is breathing on its own and stuff, you can take 10 seconds to let mom give baby a kiss.

Meagan: It will impact mom.

Flannery: It totally will.

Meagan: Here you are 2 years later still feeling mad. You’re like, “I still think about that.” I saw it. I saw it in your eyes as you were telling that story. You feel that still. That’s there. I hope that people can remember that protocols and what you think needs to happen and all of these things do not trump mom.

Flannery: Totally. Totally.

Meagan: Right. Yeah.

So, having a NICU baby, how long– what was the exact gestation?

Flannery: He was 35 and 5.

Meagan: Okay, so it was a preterm Cesarean as well.

Flannery: Yes.

Meagan: Did they have to do any special scar or anything like that because it was preterm?

Flannery: No, thankfully not, but he was very stuck up in my ribs. He had the cord around his neck, and there was meconium. I know that he needed to come out that way because I don’t think he could have flipped if they did an ECV. I don’t know if he would have tolerated labor if he was head down even.

Meagan: Yeah. That’s definitely an early baby, but good that all is well for sure.

Flannery: Yeah. He did great. It was a rocky start, but he’s doing great now.

Meagan: Yeah. Yeah. Do you have any advice for NICU moms listening?

Flannery: Yes. There is this foundation that will pay for your parking costs while you’re in the NICU. I didn’t know about it in time. Parking can get very expensive when you are visiting your baby. If you just Google, “Parking Foundation for NICU parents,” I’m sure it will come up because I can’t remember the exact name.

Meagan: I’m going to look it up. I’m going to look it up while you start your next story. We’ll make sure to have it in the show notes if I can find it.

Flannery: Yes. Yes.

Meagan: Okay, keep going.

Flannery: My next pregnancy, I was determined to do everything right this time. I was like, “You know what? The last pregnancy was so rocky and so unexpected that this time, I’m going to do everything right, and therefore nothing can go wrong.”

I think people have that feeling a lot which is so irrational, but we can’t help it. I did go back to see my OB who delivered Freddy, my son. I just loved her. I thought she was wonderful. I just wanted to see what her opinion was about why I had those complications in my pregnancy and see what she thought about a VBAC because even though I wasn’t sure if I could have a VBAC, I was interested in it.

She listed out all of these rules that she had about VBAC, about, “You can’t be preterm. You have to go into labor naturally,” and all of the things that you say are red flags on the podcast.

Meagan: I’m like, all of the normal things, but they are all red flags.

Flannery: Yes. I mean, I loved this doctor, and I think if I was going to have a repeat C-section, I would have gone back to her because she is awesome, but that wasn’t the experience that I wanted to have this time.

I did a little research, and I found this midwife practice that everyone recommended to me. I decided to go with them instead.

This pregnancy was super uneventful. I was very conscious of taking care of myself and taking walks a lot and prenatal yoga and being on top of my vitamins and all of that sort of thing. I was very religious about positioning and Spinning Babies because I was like, “If I can just get my baby head down from the beginning, I think that I can do the VBAC,” because with a bicornuate uterus, you have less time to flip them, so with a normally shaped uterus, baby can flip up until the very last minute if they are breech, but with a bicornuate uterus, first of all, you have more of a chance of baby being breech and less of a chance for them to flip based on the shape of your uterus. There’s just not as much room.

I was trying to sit on my yoga ball and doing all of these stretches. I was thinking, “Gosh. This is so unrealistic. Who’s not going to sit on their couch for 9 months? I have to be sitting on my couch. I can’t be walking 3 miles every day,” but then I’d go back and forth in my head like, “Do you want a VBAC or not? You have to be religious about this.”

You don’t have to do everything I guess is what I’m trying to say. You’ll try your best, but you have to do what’s right for you, but you can’t go to the extremes.

Meagan: I love that you pointed that out. With my second baby, I was doing the red raspberry leaf. I was doing the dates. I was doing all of the things, and even with my third baby, I was the one who didn’t sit on the couch for 9 months. I still had a posterior baby. I will just say that I still had a posterior baby. I had a head-down, but still a posterior baby. Actually, he was still going breech too throughout pregnancy. Yes. He was such a stinker.

But, I did do all of those things. I did the dates. I did the tea. I did all of it. For me, With my third, I had to dial back a little bit and say, “Okay. I’m going to do everything I feel is right for this pregnancy.” Dates wasn’t one of those. I actually didn’t do the dates thing. I know there is some evidence on that, but I just didn’t do it. It didn’t feel right to me, but I did other things like chiropractic care. I did drink tea. I hired a midwife and decided to go out-of-hospital and hired a birth team. I did birth education.

I think the biggest thing is to do all of the things that stick out and call to you. There are so many things. We give so many tips. Some tips might not apply well to you. Walking 3 miles is a lot.

Flannery: It is a lot.

Meagan: It’s a lot, but if you can walk a mile, that’s better than not walking any.

Flannery: Right.

Meagan: Right? So trying to go and find what is sitting right for you in this pregnancy, this baby, and in this birth, and doing those things and then knowing you did all of the things you could that felt right for you.

Flannery: Yes. Totally. I totally agree.

Meagan: I knew I could do all of these things and baby might still be breech. Baby was breech at my anatomy scan, and then again at 28 weeks at my other growth scan. I remember going into the midwife and just saying, “What can I do?” She was kind of saying, “Nothing will supersede the shep of your uterus. You can do everything. Why don’t you just visualize because at least then you will feel like you’re doing something?” I was so mad after I left that appointment.

I was like, “You can’t tell me that I can’t do anything to make this baby flip and that it’s all down to the shape of my uterus.” I kept trying. I was 28 weeks and I was going to the chiropractor and acupuncture and inversions. This time, I was really good about the inversions even though it gave me heartburn. It worked. The baby did flip. I remember actually listening to a podcast episode from The VBAC Link, and it was about someone who was trying to flip a breech baby. She flipped her breech baby. I was like, “Okay. This gives me so much hope. I can do it.”

It paid off because baby did flip. I was so happy. Yeah.

At one ultrasound, they did pick up an issue with the kidney. I remember being so upset because it was the same issue that my son had, but very mild. The baby had been breech at that point. I was like, “I’m trying so hard. I’m doing everything right, and it’s not working.” History is just repeating itself. That’s what it felt like to me, but we ended up finding out that the kidney resolved at the next ultrasound and the baby had flipped. It was like, “Oh, my prayers are being answered.” I couldn’t believe it. I was so happy when we got the results from that next ultrasound.

We just continued doing the prep. I had planned. I was planning to deliver in the hospital. I had a doula who was amazing. She was just with me every step of the way talking me down when I was anxious and telling me all of the different things I could try and come up with plans for repeat C-section or vaginal birth.

I had really wanted to go without the epidural because I didn’t mention this, but I had gotten a spinal headache from my spinal last time, and that was just awful. It was almost worse than the C-section pain.

Meagan: I’ve actually heard that because nothing really takes it away full-on.

Flannery: Yeah, except lying down.

Meagan: Lying down, yeah.

Flannery: I was trying to visit my baby in the NICU. I couldn’t just be lying in the hospital bed all day. So I was like, if I can avoid an epidural just so that I don’t even have the chance of having a spinal headache again, that’s what I’m going to do.

I was reading Ina May. I was watching all of the YouTube videos and doing everything that I could, but it got to be a lot. It got to be like, oh my gosh, so much work to prep for this birth.

The whole time, you don’t know if it’s a given if you’re going ot get that VBAC.

Meagan: I know.

Flannery: Sometimes, it can feel like, why am I doing this?

Meagan: Yeah. Yeah.

It is hard. It is hard because we don’t know until it’s done.

Flannery: Exactly. Until it’s 100% over. Yeah.

Meagan: Yeah.

Flannery: Yeah, so you know, 37 weeks came. 38 weeks, 39 weeks. I was feeling overdue basically since 35 weeks.

Meagan: I’m sure. I bet you were like, “I don’t know how much longer I can go.”

Flannery: I mean, I was definitely hoping to make it to term this time and I was so happy that I did. It was a big, big moment when I hit that 37-week mark, but then I just kept going and going and going. I was like, “Am I ever going to go into labor? What am I doing wrong?” I was walking. It was the end of July and it was so hot out. It was hard to get out there and walk.

I eventually hit my due date which was July 25th. I got a membrane sweep on that day which was not super fun. It made me lose my mucus plug and have a few cramps, but nothing else. I was very hopeful that it would kickstart labor, but it did not.

Eventually, I thought, “I just have to let go. The baby will come. You might have to have an induction, but you just have to relax.”

Finally, finally, 5 days after my due date, which I know is not that long, but it felt long.

Meagan: It feels long. It feels long when you are almost 6 weeks after you had your first baby.

Flannery: Yes, exactly. I woke up in the middle of the night and I had this period cramp feeling. I was like, “Oh my god. Is this it? Am I in labor?” I managed to calm down and go back to sleep. I put my hand on my belly and was like, “Am I going to get another cramp?” They came, and they came, and they started coming every 20 minutes.

Eventually, I had to wake my husband up because it was pretty painful at that point. Maybe 2-3 hours in, I squeezed his hand. He was still sleeping, and he was like, “What’s going on?” I was like, “I think I’m in labor.” He said, “I was having a dream that your water broke.”

Meagan: Oh my gosh. You guys were both willing it in.

Flannery: Yes, exactly. It was like we were on the same wavelength. The contractions kept coming, but they just felt like mild period cramps. I had a midwife appointment at 8:15. They said to go in to see if I was in early labor. She checked me and said I was 3 or 4 centimeters dilated and almost completely effaced. She said, “Your cervix feels labory.” I said, “I think that today is the day.”

I was convinced it was prodromal labor or going to fizzle out or something. We went all the way back home. My plan was to labor at home for as long as possible and have my doula come over. I said goodbye to my little 2-year-old. My mom was taking him to hang out with her while we were in the hospital, and I remember she had him say to me, “Good luck, and be strong.”

The sound of his little voice saying that to me literally just sustained me through the entire labor. It was replaying in my head in the hardest moments. I could just hear him saying that and it meant so much to me. Yeah.

We just hung out at home. I was getting pretty irregular timed contractions. I was wondering why they weren’t getting closer together because sometime they would be close together. Sometimes they would be spaced apart, but they were definitely getting stronger. I got in the bath or the shower. I was leaning over, and swaying and moaning, doing all of the things that you’re supposed to do– the low-toned moaning and the breathing.

I eventually had my doula come over after one really bad contraction. I was like, “What’s going on? Why isn’t it picking up? Why aren’t they getting closer together? Should I go to the hospital? What’s going on?” I was really afraid of the car ride because it was about 40 minutes in the car. She said, “I think what is happening is that you have this mental block about the car ride,” because this whole time, I was like, “What if I have the baby in the car? What if I have the baby in the car?” I heard a lot of stories about car babies, and I actually recently had a patient who had a car baby at work.

She was like, “I think you have this mental block, and once you get to the hospital, your body is going to let you get fully into labor. So I do think you could go.” I was like, “Okay, okay. Let’s go.” I called the midwives and let them know we were coming. My favorite, favorite midwife was on, the one I had hoped this whole time was going to deliver my baby.

She was only on for a 12-hour shift, and it was already halfway through her shift. I was like, “Oh gosh. I’m glad she’s going to be there.” We drove to the hospital. It was this very hot, very bright, and humid day. I was like, “I don’t want to be here. I just want to be in a cold, dark room.”

I remember as we turned onto the street that the hospital is in and pulled in the driveway, my contractions boom, boom, boom were ramping up. I was like, “Ashley (my doula), you are so right. This is exactly what happened.”

I got into triage. I was making a lot of noise. It was very intense at that point. They checked me. I was 4 centimeters and 100% effaced. I wasn’t too disappointed that I wasn’t further along because I was like, “This feels pretty intense. I think things are really happening.” But they said, “You picked a very popular day to give birth. There are no rooms available on labor and delivery.” I was like, “No.”

Meagan: What?

Flannery: I was especially nervous because working in the field, I’ve seen how a busy unit can really affect the care that is given. It shouldn’t be that way, but it totally is.

Meagan: It’s the reality sometimes.

Flannery: Yep. My sister-in-law had recently given birth on a very busy day. She had a very difficult birth, and a very not attentive staff, so that was one of the things I was really afraid of is that I was going to give birth on a super busy day, but my care was excellent thankfully.

We eventually waited in triage for a room to be ready, and it was a tub room that became available. There was one tub room in labor and delivery. I was so excited to get in that tub. I jumped right in as soon as we got there. Not jumped, waddled right in.

It felt so good. The water felt amazing, but I did find it very hard to maneuver and get in the right position to work through a contraction in the tub because it was weirdly shaped. I didn’t stay in there super long, but I was very surprised at how intense the contractions were which sounds silly, but they just really took over.

I was hoping to use some coping techniques like music or my rebozo. I brought my massage gun. I brought this whole toolkit of stuff, but in the moment, all that was going through my head during a contraction was cursing and, “I need the epidural. I need the epidural.”

I was squeezing my husband’s hand so hard. My doula had this spiky, silver ball that you could use for counterpressure so I was squeezing that in my hand so hard breathing. I labored on the toilet for bit. I was in the bed. I was moving around. I could not be lying down. They were having to use continuous monitoring which I didn’t really mind. The nurse was very good about not being intrusive about that. She would just follow me around with the monitor. The midwife, who I was hoping to have, was just there with me the whole time. She was holding the monitor onto my belly and speaking kind words to me.

I remember going through this terrible contraction and looking over at her. She is just sitting serenely in her rocking chair just looking at me. In my head, I was like, “How can you be so calm? Help me. Do something.”

Meagan: I can relate.

Flannery: Being present.

Meagan: Do something. Help me.

Flannery: Help me. Help me.

Meagan: Sometimes just being present is what you needed.

Flannery: It is. It totally was. She was super hands-off, but in the moment, you’re like, “Come on. Somebody do something to help me.”

Eventually, I was just sitting on the toilet. The midwife had dimmed the lights. My husband was there speaking to me. I had been making these very loud moans through each contraction, and then during one of them, I started grunting, and I knew exactly what that meant. I was pushing involuntarily.

I had been hoping to feel the fetal ejection reflex, and I think that’s what this was because my body completely took over. There was no way that I could have not pushed during these contractions.

The pain of the contraction was so intense, but it would go away when I pushed. Then I would just feel this really uncomfortable pressure, but at least the pain of the contraction was going away. I had been pushing for maybe 5 minutes, and my midwife was all excited. I was like, “Okay. Please, can you check me?” She was like, “No, just go with your intuition. Listen to your body.” I was like, “No. I need you to check me.” I did not want to be pushing on an incomplete cervix. She did, and I was a 9 and 100% effaced.

She was like, “Okay, you can definitely push. That cervix is just going to melt away.”

Yes. I tried the nitrous while I was pushing, but I really hated how it restricted my breathing. It also made me throw up everywhere.

Meagan: Really?

Flannery: Yes.

Meagan: Interesting.

Flannery: Yes. So much puke. It was so embarrassing. It was splashing on everyone’s shoes. I was like, “Oh my god. I’m so sorry.”

I pushed on the toilet for a little bit, and then I moved over to the bed. I went over to the bed because when I was on the toilet, I felt something coming out between my legs. I reached down, and it was the bubble of amniotic fluid. It hadn’t popped yet.

Meagan: Your bag of waters, yeah.

Flannery: My bag of waters was coming out. I think I said to my husband, “Do you want to touch it?” He was like, “No.”

Meagan: It just feels like a water balloon.

Flannery: It felt exactly like a water balloon. I went over to the bed. I got on my side, and I was pushing so hard just totally going with my intuition, but it wasn’t the type of peaceful breathing that people tell you to do like the J breathing or anything. There was no way I could breathe through these contractions and these pushes.

I was totally holding my breath and bearing down, but that’s just what was right for me in the moment. They were saying, “Can you feel the baby moving down?” I was like, “No. Not at all.” I think that’s because the bag of waters was still intact. I couldn’t feel anything except this really uncomfortable pressure. They said, “Put your fingers inside of yourself and see if you can feel a baby’s head.”

I put my fingers past the bag of waters, and I could feel the baby’s head right there. I pushed, and I could feel the baby move down. It was the most incredible, coolest moment of the birth. I loved that.

My midwife said, “Okay, baby’s definitely feeling the squeeze.” Her heart rate was going down a little bit. She said, “Turn onto your left side, and with this next contraction, let’s have the baby.”

I pushed as hard as I possibly could, and just felt this release of pressure. I had no idea what was going on, but I had this cold cloth over my face so I couldn’t see anybody, but I heard cheering. Then I felt this warm, wet baby come up onto my belly. I was laughing and crying, and everyone was saying, “Yay! You did it!” I was just like, “Oh my god, what happened?”

Meagan: Just like that.

Flannery: It was surreal. It was incredible. She started crying right away. We didn’t know she was a girl. My husband looked down between her legs. We both looked at the same time and said, “It’s a girl.” I said, “I knew you were a girl.” She just stayed with me the whole time right onto my chest. It was just the best feeling. I was so, so overjoyed.

Meagan: That is so amazing. It’s so amazing with VBAC how the whole room sometimes can just erupt with joy and, “You did it!” and screams and joyful laughs. Oh, man.

Flannery: Yeah. It was beautiful. It was so, so intense in a way that I hadn’t been expecting it to be. It was a calm, beautiful birth, but the intensity of the contractions and the way that my body completely took over, and I was just along for the ride. I was just riding the waves. It was crazy.

Meagan: Truly riding that wave. We talk about it in HypnoBirthing and riding the wave, but that wave came over, and like you said, your body was just like, “Okay, I’ve got this. Let’s go.” Here you went, and this baby came out pretty quickly it sounds like.

Flannery: Yeah, she was born at 7:23 PM. I had felt my first contraction at 2:00 AM or something. It wasn’t the shortest labor, but once I got to the hospital, it was 5 or 6 hours. It was pretty quick in the end there. She came out en caul. Her head did.

Meagan: She did?

Flannery: As her body came out, it popped, so she was almost en caul I guess which I thought was so cool.

Meagan: Oh my goodness. That is so awesome. I love that. I’ve seen a couple in my doula career, and it is so cool-looking. A lot of people have said, “Oh, vaginal birth can’t have encaul babies.” Oh, yes they can. Yes, they can. 100%.

Flannery: Yes.

Meagan: I love that you had mentioned, “Once I got to the hospital–”. Sometimes I’ve had this with doula clients where I’m noticing this pattern of inconsistency and a lot of the times, the client is saying things like, “Should I go? Should I go? Is it okay to be here still? How much longer should we stay?” They are saying these questions because inside, there’s a lot going on.

I had a client where I said, “You know what? I think we should go. I think you are going to feel safer there. It seems like you are going to feel safer there.” The second we got there, things ramped up. Doctor didn’t even make it. The baby slipped out on the bed. Seriously, the second she got there, her body released. It was almost like her epidural. Sometimes, with an epidural, we get an epidural and our body is able to relax.

If our mind is not confident or comfortable, we can’t let our bodies sometimes. So I love that you pointed that out.

I wanted to talk a little bit more really quickly on the types of uterine abnormalities or different types of uteruses.

As she was saying, you have a bicornuate uterus which means it’s a heart-shaped uterus. I’m probably going to butcher these names especially if you are a provider and you are listening. I don’t really know how to say these words. There’s an arcuate uterus which is similar to a bicornuate uterus, but with less of a dip in the heart shape. It’s like an oddly shaped heart. It’s asymmetrical in my mind. That’s how I envision it.

There’s an arcuate uterus, which means there’s a divide down the two parts of the membrane wall. Then there’s a unicornuate uterus, which is when the fallopian tube has an irregular shape to it.

Then I always butcher this one. It’s didelphys. I don’t even know how to say it.

Flannery: Sorry. I can’t help you on that one.

Meagan: I’m going to stop trying. That is when you are born with two uteruses which does happen. One baby can be in one uterus, and we can have another uterus over here. Those are all abnormalities of the uteruses.

Of course, we have different shapes, sizes, and all of the things. I wanted to just have a link in the show notes for that as well so you can read more on each of those types of uteruses.

Then tell me if this is the right link. I found Jackson’s Chance Foundation.

Flannery: Yes. That’s what it is.

Meagan: Why parking matters.

Flannery: Yes.

Meagan: It looks like this is inspired. It’s a foundation inspired by another person’s story, another NICU baby’s story. It said that–

Flannery: Yeah. I believe that Jackson’s parents set it up.

Meagan: Yeah. Wow. This story is precious and inspiring. Wow. These parents are incredible. Then it does show that you can donate or sponsor a parking pass. They talk about the why and all of that. This is so awesome. I’m going to make sure that we have that in the show notes.

If you know a NICU baby, or you know someone who is going to have a NICU baby, don’t be like Flannery and find out later. This is how we all learn, and this is how. We find out when it’s too late, then we have to go to show on. So, thank you for sharing that tip. I’ve actually never heard of it, but that’s probably because I’m not a NICU mom.

Flannery: Yeah. Yeah. I hope it helps someone.

Meagan: Yes. Thank you again so much for sharing your story.

Flannery: Oh my gosh, this is amazing. Thank you so much.

Closing

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