“Every baby, every delivery, and every birth is so different.” 

Rebecca’s first birth was a smooth, textbook experience. Less than 12 months later, Rebecca arrived at the hospital ready to deliver her second baby girl. However, after four hours of pushing, unmedicated manual rotation, and scary heart rate readings, Rebecca knew she needed to consent to a C-section. 

In surgery, Rebecca was told her pelvis was too small to ever birth a baby vaginally even though she already had a prior vaginal birth! She also experienced a cervical laceration. Rebecca was left traumatized after such a drastically different birth experience. 

With her next baby, Rebecca fought for healing and for her TOLAC. Her third delivery was quite unlike either of the two previous deliveries. We can’t wait for you to hear about her wild ride and to learn from her particularly unique experiences!

Additional links

Intrapartum Cervical Lacerations PubMed Article

The VBAC Link Blog: Special Scars

Special Scars, Special Hope Facebook Group

How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents

Full transcript

Note: All transcripts are edited to correct grammar, false starts, and filler words. 

Meagan: Good morning, everybody. You are listening to The VBAC Link. Today is the first episode without Julie and let me tell you, I am already missing her so much. It’s going to be a little different not having this podcast with her. I was just telling our guest today how weird– I don’t even know what episode number we are on right now because Julie was such the backbone. She did all of the technical, little-detail things and I am going to have to get used to that.

So bear with me as I am weaning into doing all of the podcast stuff by myself. Today, we have our friend, Rebecca, and she is going to share her story. You guys, she has a special scar, or a cervical extension I should say, that ended up turning into special scar. We don't have a ton of these episodes on the podcast. They are not as common and one of the reasons why I am personally excited for her to share her story is because they are not as common but they are still possible. We really want to get the word out there to do your research and do what’s comfortable for you, but know that it is possible.

Something that’s also a little different about her story is that it was from the cervical extension. I can’t wait for her to share a little bit about this. We are going to talk about what a cervical extension even means, what that looks like, and what it could mean for future vaginal births. But of course, we have a Review of the Week. Normally I would turn the time over to Julie, but we don’t have Julie, so I am going to read you a Review of the Week. 

Review of the Week

Meagan: Today’s review is by Sarah and she said, “One month ago, I had a successful VBAC induction just 18 months after my Cesarean section. I almost called to schedule a repeat on my due date because I was so scared. I found your podcast and listened to it for two days straight. It gave me the courage to go through with induction and I am so glad I did. I’m hoping more people find this as a resource.”

Oh, that’s awesome. It looks like she emailed us that. We love reviews. As you know, we have Apple Podcasts. We have Spotify. We have Google play. We have jus