Everything I'm Doing To Prep For A Successful VBAC

How I'm preparing myself physically, mentally, and spiritually to avoid a repeat c-section.

When I had my son back in 2024, I planned for an unmedicated home birth that turned into a hospital transfer, cascade of interventions, and emergency c-section. I went into that birth knowing how these things escalate and still wasn’t able to prevent that from being my story.

It came with a lot of trauma. Going from “let’s check you to see if you’re ready to push” to “we need to get baby out right now” and then being rolled to the OR, jostled around on the table, and then meeting your baby all in under 10 minutes is an experience you just can’t quite comprehend.

I don’t want that to be my story this time around. While I still really wish my son’s birth had gone differently, I learned SO much from that experience that I’m taking with me into the birth of my second child.

Why I want a VBAC

If you aren’t familiar with the term VBAC, it means “vaginal birth after cesarean”. I want my next birth to be redemptive. I’m realistic enough to acknowledge that you can’t plan how your birth is going to go and some things are out of my hands, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to do EVERYTHING in my power to prep for the kind of birth I wish I had the first time around.

My son had a really rough entry into this world. Not only physically (he was quite literally ripped from my womb — the doctor had to work extremely hard to get him out even with a c-section), but he was put into the arms of parents who were in complete shock and just experienced trauma. Not exactly the warm welcoming he deserved.

He dealt with reflux, gut issues, and allergies in his first year that I absolutely attribute to being a c-section baby. When babies don’t go through the vaginal canal, their microbiome doesn’t get seeded with all the healthy bacteria they’re exposed to on their way out. This can cause a lot of issues in that first year that are hard to catch up with.

I know plenty of people who have great experiences with c-sections and I’m not here to tell anyone that they’re bad, it’s just not what I want for myself and my next baby.

Choosing the right provider

I’m still working through feelings of blame and resentment when it comes to the care team I had during my son’s birth. I switched care teams at 33 weeks pregnant because I didn’t feel comfortable with the first team, only to end up with a new team that I didn’t feel comfortable with either.

Without getting into the nitty gritty details of that trauma, I learned that the team you have around you when giving birth matters WAY MORE than I realized. I think a big reason why my labor was stalled was because I didn’t fully trust the people in the room with me. To be frank, I didn’t even like some of them. Your body can feel that, your baby can feel that.

This time around, I ended up choosing the team that actually wound up delivering my son in the hospital. I opted for a hospital birth this time around because I know there are risks with VBACs and I’d rather be somewhere that can swiftly take care of us if something were to go wrong.

The OB that delivered my son was so warm, so kind, and reiterated to me 100 times that just because I had a c-section this time doesn’t mean I’ll need one again. That’s the kind of provider I want on my team for my VBAC.

Even if it means delivering at an old hospital that’s kind of far and isn’t in the greatest part of town. The team matters more to me than being picky about location.

I am not being a potato this pregnancy

I think it’s easy to fall into the trap of “I’m pregnant, I can eat whatever I want and lounge around because I’m growing a human.” You can certainly have days like that, but that was my mentality for way too much of my last pregnancy.

Last time, I was super sick my first trimester and then ended up with placenta previa which limited my ability to exercise. The previa ended up resolving around 28 weeks, but my will to workout did not return that deep into pregnancy.

People say “you can’t train for birth” and I call bullshit on that. You absolutely can and I absolutely am.

Not only do I think I burned out quicker during labor because I was physically and mentally weaker than I needed to be, but my postpartum recovery was ROUGH with the amount of muscle I lost during pregnancy.

This time around I refuse to let that happen regardless if I get my VBAC or not. Starting around 12 weeks I started seeing an amazing pelvic floor PT to start getting my body in shape for birth. She’s helping me with some pelvic floor weakness I had after my son was born and I’m doing daily exercises to work on diaphragmatic breathing, core engagement, mobility, and strengthening to optimize my body for birth.

As we get closer to the end of my pregnancy, we’ll start working on optimal positions for pushing and getting baby in a good position. I SO wish I had done this the first time around.

It’s also nearly impossible to be sedentary with a 2 year old, so I’m up and moving a lot more than last time. On top of that, I’ve been doing Mind Body Core workouts from Doc Lizzie which are amazing 30-40 min pregnancy specific workouts to keep the body in shape (admittedly I need to be more consistent with these, but still).

I want my body to be strong, but I want my mind to be stronger

This is an area that I didn’t work on enough the first time around. Labor is INTENSE and I don’t think I took that seriously enough. I have a pretty high pain tolerance so I just assumed I would handle it fine. Nothing can prepare you for 22 hours of unmedicated back labor with 8 seconds of rest between contractions.

Now that I’ve experienced what it can be like, I’m leaning much more into mental prep work this time around.

Mental prep looks different for everyone. I’ve been listening to pregnancy and birth prep affirmations on the Activations app to get my mind into the right state for the birth I want to have. After a traumatic experience the first time around, it’s really easy for my brain to follow the path of fear rather than believing it can and will work out the way I want it to. Activations help center me and remind me that what I want is possible.

I also plan to lean in to hypnobirthing this time around. Learning to control your breath and your thoughts during times of stress is an invaluable skill. I have an online course that I’ll be doing through the Built to Birth course and I’m looking forward to diving in to that soon.

When you’re in the thick of labor and your mind is in “labor land” it’s really hard to implement these strategies if they aren’t practiced ahead of time. I want positive affirmations burned into my brain and my breath control to come as naturally as possible so labor can be a much smoother experience this time around.

Creating a solid birth plan

I was naive the first time around believing that because I chose a home birth that my baby would absolutely be born at home (LOL)

Well that didn’t happen and let me tell ya, it’s chaotic to try to communicate your desires to a brand new team in the thick of labor. This time around I will have a very clear birth plan that my whole team will understand so I can just focus on labor when the time comes. Removing this stress will hopefully allow my body to relax into the experience rather than tense up and prevent that baby from coming out.

I’m happy to share my birth plan after my babe is born but for now I’m keeping that closer to my heart.

Planning for it all, going in with zero expectations

If my last labor taught me anything, it’s that you can plan all you want but ultimately it’s these little babies who run the show. I will do everything in my power to facilitate the best birth possible but I’m realistic enough to understand that interventions are sometimes necessary.

This is where having a team that you fully trust becomes PARAMOUNT. When you’re in the throes of labor, you don’t want to be weighing pros and cons and making decisions on interventions that may be necessary. I trust my midwife to give me her honest opinion on whether something like a repeat c-section needs to happen due to xyz complication.

I’m not going to put myself or my baby in danger by refusing the birth that I don’t desire simply because I don’t desire it. I know better than that. So I’ll plan everything I can so I can be mentally and physically prepared but I’ll be entering birth with the mindset of “whatever happens, happens.”

If you’ve had a successful VBAC, share your story with me!! I want to hear all the positive VBAC stories going into this next labor.

If you had a traumatic or unsuccessful VBAC story, my heart goes out to you but please don’t share that with me right now. Mindset, remember???