“It’s not that birth is painful. It’s that women are strong.”

Due to her bicornuate uterus, Jess was told that she could only ever have Cesarean births. When her first birth experience involved a rough surgery and brutal recovery, Jess was tempted to wonder if she even wanted to get pregnant again in the future. 

Then, she made a choice. Jess decided to trust in her intuition, in a supportive birth team, and in the natural process of birth. She chose to believe in her body and chose to take a risk. Jess’ VBAC story is fast, furious, and magical. She found the mental strength to fully commit and the physical strength to achieve the unmedicated VBAC she was told she’d never have. 

Jess is truly a woman of strength and so are you. 

Additional links

The VBAC Link Facebook Community

How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents

JessandBabe YouTube Channel

Full transcript

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

Julie: Welcome, welcome. This is The VBAC Link podcast and we are really excited to be here with you today. I feel like it’s been a while since we have been recording. I guess it hasn’t really been that long, but it just feels like a long time since we have been talking to people. We have a really fun guest with us today. Her name is Jess. She is a full-time mom. She has two girls and she has a bicornuate-- however you say it-- uterus where it’s a heart-shape, right?

Jess: Mhmm, yep.

Julie: That can sometimes cause problems conceiving. It can cause problems with baby’s positioning. She has a really, really cool story about her VBAC with a heart-shaped uterus. I am just not going to try and pronounce it anymore. 

But I am really excited to talk with Jess today because we actually had her scheduled to record a couple of weeks ago, but they had an ice storm. She lives in Oregon and they had an ice storm in Oregon that shut down power and internet for days. At that time, we hadn’t had any more recording sessions planned, but then all of a sudden we decided to open this huge day. We are recording a ton of podcasts today and Jess, you are our very first one. We are so excited that you are not iced in anymore--

Jess: Me too.

Julie: -- and that your power is back on and you can share your story with us. But before we do that, as always, we have a Review of the Week and Meagan is going to read that for us.

Review of the Week

Meagan: Thank you. Okay. So this is a review that is actually from a listener from Ireland which is super awesome. The title is, “So informative.” It says, “Hoping to have a VBAC in July. Listening to all the podcast episodes in preparation for my VBAC. Really positive and informative. I feel the more stories I hear, the more prepared I am for every eventuality. Fingers crossed. Thank you, Julie and Meagan.”

And that was in May of last year, so I am assuming she has had her baby by now. So, “duffipe”

Julie: Duffy-pee, duffy-pay, duh-fee-pay?

Meagan: I don’t know, yeah.

Jess: <