I just had my beautiful baby boy three weeks ago by VBAC. He is my third child, and maybe my last (not sure yet). I can remember looking and reading up on all the VBAC birth stories, and thinking how would I ever get through this. Well, I did and had an amazing experience!

My firstborn I had when I was 20 years old. He was born after almost 40 hours of labor, pushing for four hours and I had every possible medication I could take. It was very hard and doctors wanted to give me a Cesarean section but I said no because the baby was doing fine. He finally came out with a cone for a head because of how traumatic it was. I ripped very bad because he was kind of large (8 pounds, 7 ounces) and his head was big! Even though I was in rough shape he was just fine. I named him Gavin and he ended up being a great baby and kid. He is now 7 years old.

My second birth was probably the most traumatic of them all. I was 25 years old and had him by emergency C-section! Note that all my pregnancies were perfect and I was very healthy. I had started to stimulate my nipples, which I was told would get you going into labor, and walked a lot. I was three days late and could not take it anymore. After I did that, I started having contractions, and very strong ones!

We got to the hospital and I was already 7 centimeters dilated! Wow, I could not believe my luck; the stimulation worked!

Everything seemed fine until the doctors decided to break my water to speed things up even more (big mistake) and doing that made the baby's head gush down on the cord cutting off his oxygen, and his heart rate flat lined. It was one of the most scary times I have ever experienced.

They had him out in minutes by C-section, and even though I was awake through all this I don't really remember much because I was in such shock! Luckily everything turned out fine, and he was a healthy baby boy, 7 pounds, 6 ounces. I named him Anthonoy.

So now I planned on getting pregnant soon so they would be close in age. One year later I got pregnant! Now I was faced with a really hard decision. VBAC or C-section? I must have read hundreds and hundreds of pages about the subject. I talked with many people of all kinds, and still no one could give me a straight answer about how risky both were.

I first chose VBAC, but then when I was a few months pregnant I started reading all these horror stories and changed my mine and scheduled a C-section. For months I was dreading this because I already went through this and did not want this done again to me (it was so scary). What scared me about a VBAC was I had just had a C-section 18 months ago and thought it was too soon to try a vaginal delivery. The thought of rupturing my uterus was to scary to me.

I read and read and read up on VBACs and found out that the scoop on rupture risk is this:
Spontaneous labor: 0.4-0.5 percent risk of rupture
Augmented with Pitocin: 0.7 percent
Induced with Pitocin: 0.77 percent to 1.1 percent
Induced with prostaglandins (curtail, coyote): 2.45 percent

So the risk is very low. And honestly, to all you women wanting this: It can be done. A VBAC is so much easier than going through surgery. I got to bond with the baby better and remember it all!

I was three days early with this one and went into labor naturally after some long walks that I had taken. When I got to the hospital I was already 4 centimeters and this was all natural. Then the pain started to be too much and I had the epidural.

I was in labor a total of 17 hours. They used a tiny bit of Pitocin to get me to 10 centimeters and I pushed out a 9-pound, 2-ounce baby boy! No rips, tears or any complications.

I still can't believe I did it, because with all that said, odds were not really in my favor considering the baby was so big and I had Pitocin, which is not recommended for VBACs. I prayed to God for this and he listened!

I named this one Trey and I was 28 years old, and had him three weeks ago. It was the hardest and most emotionally draining pregnancy but the best outcome with the delivery. I am so glad I chose this and would always go with what your heart says to do.