Welcome to the Mamasafeit podcast birth story Friday. In this episode, Lauren is going to be sharing her vaginal breech birth story where she found a provider at the last minute to support a vaginal breech birth when she discovered that her baby was breeched towards the end of her pregnancy.
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Gina: Thank you, Lauren, for being here with us on the MamasteFit podcast.
Lauren: Yeah, I’m super excited you guys are having me on. Thanks.
Gina: So, we’re definitely really excited to hear your vaginal breech birth story that you’ve shared on The Birth Hour, and now you’re here sharing it on our podcast over two years later. So, I’m really curious to hear how time has kind of changed your perspective on your birth, because we’re always told that we will always remember our birth story. And so, I’m really interested to hear how your perspective on it has changed over time and then how it influenced you to become a birth worker yourself.
Lauren: I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting, and I actually listened to The Birth Hour podcast yesterday. And while the story is the same, how I feel about it is very different. So, time my experience in birth, so much life has been lived and just totally changed my perspective about certain things that have happened.
How was your pregnancy?
Lauren: My pregnancy with my first and second were very easy. I was lucky both times. We’re going to specifically talk about my vaginal breech birth, but I want everyone to know that it was my second because that really changes the game when it comes to vaginal breech birth. If you’ve already had a vaginal birth, it’s a little bit easier to have a vaginal breech birth because you have a proven pelvis and you have a little bit of confidence because you’ve done this before.
My pregnancy with Jameson, my second son, overall was great. It was during COVID so it was 2020. I found out I was pregnant right before the lockdowns, so it was stressful. I was stuck in my house with my toddler, my husband who was working from home.
But as far as the pregnancy, there were really no complaints. I tried to do the same things the first time I saw a chiropractor regularly, I hired my same birth doula. I wanted to stick with a birth center. And I did have to go to a new birth center because the one from my first pregnancy had closed.
But I enjoyed my first birthing experience, and so I was trying to just kind of recreate it. This is going to be fine. I’ve done an unmedicated vaginal birth before. I’m just going to check all the boxes, and this is going to be a breeze.
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What happened when you found out your baby was breech?
Lauren: I had absolutely no clue he was breech. And at the time, it was almost laughable. My first birth center did not do a 36-week ultrasound. I’ve learned over time that just like OBs and midwives, they work on a spectrum of kind of what they’re comfortable with, and if they’re more medical or if they’re more physiological birth friendly. And birth centers are the same.
My first birth center was more on, like, the home birth end of the spectrum, whereas my second birth center, I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was much more medicalized. And me and another friend were pregnant at the same time, and we both were just complaining that we had to do a second ultrasound. We’re like, “Why are we doing this? We don’t need this. This is so unnecessary.”
And then I rolled in for my 36-week ultrasound. I was 36 weeks, two days, and I immediately saw that he was breeched. And I was just like, oh, shit, this is not good. This means that I cannot birth here. This is a problem. And because it was during COVID my husband was not there. They had a policy where you could bring one support person with you. But we had a toddler at home, and the summer and fall of 2020 was not the time to be getting babysitters and exposing yourself to random people. So, he was home with my toddler, and I was alone. And I was trying to remain very calm and listen to whatever my midwife was telling me. But deep inside, I was definitely kind of panicking, like, okay, this is unexpected. I have no idea what to do. I don’t truly know what this means. All I know is it means I am risking out of the birth center if something doesn’t change.
Gina: Did you have to transfer your care to another birth facility?
Lauren: The way they did it is they said, don’t panic, remain calm. We’re going to have you come back in one more week. The baby might still flip. Babies can flip up until the time that you give birth. So, for this next week, try to remain calm. They said that over and over again. Like, try to be calm. Take a deep breath. It’s not the end of the world. I know, right? Just relax. Just relax. Just relax. There’s a pandemic going on, but you can figure this out in seven days.
They recommended that I see this acupuncturist who they said had really good results. And they said that she also had ultrasound capabilities. So, if we felt like the baby flipped during my session, she could verify. And they were like, if baby flips beforehand, let us know if you’re not sure it’ll be okay. And they told me that if the baby didn’t flip in that next week, then we would talk about the next steps. They very much were trying not to panic me, so they didn’t kind of lead me down. The story of you’ll come in this week. If the baby is still breech, you’ll do XYZ. They were just focused on this week, live in this moment. Let’s see what happens.
And at the time, I was okay with that. So I went home, and told my husband, that even though he had attended birth classes with me, and they were very detailed, especially with my first birth center, they did a really great job with birth education. He still was kind of deer in headlights, and he was thinking that a breech baby was an OP baby. And he was like, “It’s fine.” And I was like, “no, do you need me to show you diagrams? Like, we can’t birth there.” And then he was like, “oh, okay, I see the issue. It got it, got it.”
And once I got home, that’s when my brain kind of started turning. And I got on Google and I was like, okay, I’m going to do acupuncture. I’m going to do moxibustion. I’m going to go to my chiropractor twice this week instead of once this week. I got on spinning babies. I did the breech tilt. I was doing inversions. I’m a swimmer anyway, so I went to the pool more, and I was doing handstands. I was doing everything that everyone does when they’re trying to obsessively flip their baby. And it was really stressful, and my gut always told me he was not going to turn. But because I’m type A and I like to be in control, I still wanted to do everything I possibly could do so I could check those boxes and be like, tried this, tried that, because that was the only thing that was making me feel better at the time.
So, based on that, this is a vaginal breech story, my assumption is that he did not flip, correct?
Lauren: Yes, he did not flip. Spoiler for everyone.
When I went back for my 37-week appointment, they told me he had moved. So at my original ultrasound, he was frank breech. So his feet were up by his head. And then when I went back, they told me he was transverse, so he was perpendicular. But I don’t know if I truly believe now that he was transverse because I would have been a lot more uncomfortable, and that’s not how he was feeling to me, anyway.
They told me he was transverse, and they tried to spin this as a positive thing. They were like, he’s halfway to turning head down. So if you want to try an ECV, an external cephalic version where an OB tries to manually flip the baby. If you want to try this baby halfway there, you have really great odds. The odds are higher if you’ve had a previous vaginal birth. So they weren’t pushing me to do it, but they were like, this would be the next step. Because if the baby did flip, you could come back here. If the baby doesn’t flip, you’re not our client-patient anymore.
Gina: Goodbye. So, did you opt to do an ECV or did you seek a new provider at this point?
Trying an ECV
Lauren: Well, both, because the birth center didn’t do the ECV. So the birth center sent me two names of providers and they were like, call one, set up an ECV. So I called one of the providers, and we set up an ECV. They had me go into an appointment before the ECV and I saw just a random OB, a random office I’d never been to before. They did an ultrasound. We’re like, yes, your baby’s breech. Yes, we should do an ECV. They kind of walked me through what it would be like, basically. And then we scheduled it. And this was something I didn’t realize until later. That was majorly kind of screwed up, in my opinion.
So ECVS are charged as if they’re surgery. You’re supposed to go in early and kind of do this whole workup and they don’t want you to eat beforehand. But this OB’s office never told me that. They never called me. I actually got a voicemail three days after my failed ECV, giving me directions on what to do before the procedure. And it just made me live it. I was like, I’m sorry, what? In my mind, I was going in. They were turning baby.
Let’s say my appointment was at like 10:30 A.m. Or something. I showed up at 10:30 A.m. Because that’s what you do for appointments, you show up on time when later in the voicemail it told me I was supposed to be there one or 2 hours early because they wanted to do things like put an IV in and do all this prep work. Because there is a chance with an ECV that babies go into stress and then it’s an automatic Caesarean. And I knew that I did have my hospital bags packed. They were in the car. So that worst case scenario, if baby needed to be born, then we would just hop over to the or. Have a Caesarean birth if that’s what needed to happen. But I totally missed the memo on all these things you were supposed to do beforehand.
So when I showed up, they were kind of irritable and I didn’t know why until three days later when I heard that message. But for anyone who’s going to do an ECV, I’ve heard stories that they’re easy and I’ve heard stories that they’re awful. Mine personally was horrible.
I would compare it to transition, if not even like, worse than my entire birth experiences that were unmedicated. It was extremely painful. Some people do ECVS with an epidural. They gave me Tri butylene to relax my uterus and then essentially I had to lay there flat on my back while a doctor tried to put one hand on the baby’s head and one hand on the baby’s butt and manually turn the baby. And they’re like, relax your body, slow deep breathing. But it is excruciating. Honestly, for me, it was at least I was curling my toes trying to slow deep breath.
But at this point, the baby also had turned from frank breech to transverse, and now the baby was deeper in my pelvis and baby was complete breech. So baby was kind of like hugging his knees.
And so the OB was having to really get down there in my pelvis and he tried three times to flip my son. The first time was awful. The second time was like, wow, next level. And then the third was just excruciating, like horrible. It felt like the first time he kind of bruised me trying to get my baby, and then each time he was trying to press on a more bruised and sore belly, if that makes sense. And so it was not successful. I was devastated, but also not really surprised. And the biggest issue I had was that I felt really weak afterward. I had visual bruises all over my abdomen and it was really painful to the point where when I’d go to pick up my toddler, who was almost two, if he touched my belly in any way, I was cringing.
And so now I’m stressed because I’ve officially risked out of the birth center. The ECV didn’t work. I was paranoid that maybe the ECV was going to stimulate my own labor and I was going to go into labor in the next 24 hours or something, but I was in so much pain and my belly’s all bruised and so I was just immensely stressed and I felt like there was nowhere to go. I knew I risked out of the birth center. And so the official recommendation from this OB office was we should schedule a cesarean. But I didn’t want to do that. My biggest issue with everything surrounding the end of my pregnancy was I had zero complications with my first birth, my first pregnancy, with my second pregnancy. So someone’s looking at me telling me that, you have this healthy baby, you’re a healthy woman, there’s nothing wrong with this pregnancy, but you need to have a Cesarean. It just felt so wrong in every part of my body, but everywhere I turned, it was like, oh, that’s unfortunate, but yeah, it’s a Cesarean. Oh, that’s unfortunate. But yeah, the cesarean is really the best choice. I felt stuck. I felt lost. They wanted to put a cesarean on a schedule. I hated the idea of picking a day, even. I just felt frozen in time because I didn’t like any of my options, because I didn’t know I had any at that moment.
So how did you end up getting the option for a vaginal breech birth? Did you seek out a totally new provider or realize that you did actually have another option?
Lauren: I’m honestly not sure where the idea fully came from. The only thing my midwife at the birth center said was, I would hate to have a cesarean birth, too. But never once did a midwife or an OB mention ever that people have vaginal breech births that were never mentioned by anyone.
So I went home after the ECV, cried a lot, and was really upset, and then the next day, I started just googling on the internet. And I did have a doula. So I talked to my doula. I reached out to every person in the birth community I had at the time. I was still a teacher. I’m now a birth doula and photographer. But one of my childhood friends, Brynn, runs the Birth Hour, which is why I was on that podcast. And so I reached out to her, and she told me to watch this documentary called Heads Up. And for anyone who’s never heard of it, it’s basically the business of being born. But the breech version, it tells you why vaginal breech birth is not done anymore, and it destigmatizes it. And it makes you think, like, oh, this system’s really screwed us.
So I watched that documentary. I talked to my doula. I, at the time also had hired a birth photographer who’s really well known in Denver. So I was reaching out to everyone in the birth world like, do you know anyone who does vaginal breech birth? Because this documentary said that it can be done and it’s safe. People just aren’t educated anymore. It’s not taught anymore. And I just started go down. I went down all sorts of paths. I looked at breech without borders. I found Dr. Stu. I joined the Facebook groups. I became obsessed with learning everything about vaginal breech births. And the more I learned, the more I felt confident that I could do this. I just didn’t know how to do it.
I didn’t want to free birth. My husband and I weren’t comfortable with that. Midwives in the state of Colorado are not allowed to assist with vaginal breech births. So it would have to be an OB, which meant it would have to be in a hospital. But finding OBs that are trained and then finding an OB who’s willing to take me as a new patient at 38 weeks, that’s something most people don’t do. So me and my husband talked about it. I got him to watch the documentary. I sent him all the research I was doing. He at first was totally freaked out because he just heard all the things I heard from doctors. That was the next step is a caesarean. And so when I first threw vaginal breech birth at him. He kind of looked at me like I had three heads. Like, where is this coming from? Yesterday you were crying about a caesarean, and now you can have a vaginal birth. Like, are you insane? But my husband was really great about kind of diving down this hole with me and trusting me. He’s like, if you think this is what’s best for your body and you think you can do this, I’m all for it.
So I called around to lots of providers. There is one OB in the Denver area that was known to do vaginal breech births, but he retired in 2018, 2019, and this was 2020. So all I kept getting, it’s not that far. He also moved away, and came out of retirement. I know everyone was like, oh, it sucks he’s gone. And then what I also found out was the few providers that used to also do vaginal breech first. Once this provider retired, they stopped doing it as well. But there was one who was known to do breech birth if it was for twins. A handful of women through the grapevine said that they promised to be on call for them specifically because that was a big issue me and my husband had. If we were going to go for this, we wanted someone who was experienced in vaginal breech birth, because everything we looked up basically was everyone said no. But they said no because maybe only one provider in the practice had ever done it before. And you don’t know who’s on call. So it’s a huge liability issue. What if the doctor that’s never done it before is on call and I think I’m having a vaginal breech birth and they panic and then they actually create an emergency situation.
So I’m 38 weeks pregnant. I technically have a provider who wants to schedule a Caesarean, but I’d only met them in that one appointment in the ECV. So I didn’t really feel like I had a provider. And then I hit 39 weeks, and I’m like, oh, my God, what am I doing? They’re still calling me asking me to set up a cesarean date.
So I officially scheduled a Cesarean that I had no intention of showing up for 40 weeks. That way I at least wouldn’t have to pick the due date. They wanted me to do one at 39 or by 40. And I was like, I’ll put this on the calendar for 40. I’ll tell you I’m coming. But again, in my heart, I was like, I don’t want to do this. And so, I just kept searching and kept searching and kept searching. And I got one provider to give me an appointment for 03:00 P.m. On a Thursday I was going to be 39 weeks and two days. And he was that provider who sometimes did breech births. So, I was holding on to this glimmer of hope that he would see me, he would tell me I was a great candidate for vaginal breech birth and that I would have this vaginal breech birth and it would be this epic story and I would live happily ever after. And that is what kept me going every day and the rest of every day, I was doing all those breech things. Obsessively every night, moxibustion like chiropractor all the time, acupuncture, like everything, every single day on the schedule, because I didn’t know what else to do. Was so stressful. I cannot emphasize that enough.
So, tell us about the appointment.
Lauren: So, never happened. It was on a Thursday. And Tuesday night, I woke up with some cramping. And I was like, oh, shit, no, you’re not allowed to go into labor. This is Tuesday night. Your appointment is Thursday. You need to shut this down. And I woke up Wednesday morning and I was like, okay, I made it through the night. Like, good job. With my oldest Bodie, my story was similar. I had two nights of contractions with him. And then after that second night, I didn’t think I was in labor. I went to the birth center, not even through the emergency, you’re having a baby entrance, but through the main entrance just to see what was going on. And I was 7 CM with a bulging bag and just in denial. I was in labor.
And so I was like, you know what? His labor was two nights that’s Tuesday, Wednesday night. Like, I can make this appointment. So me and my Doula talked on Wednesday.
Gina: I’ll just have the baby at the appointment.
Lauren: I’m not going to lie. That was kind of like, what if I show up to that appointment and I’m 7 CM? Surely he will support me in this birth if I just have the baby right there. Because my first when I showed up at the birth center at 7 was maybe 2 hours until my baby was born. It was very fast once I hit that transition phase. So it was a very slow early labor. And then it went very fast, active, and transitioned to the point where my Doula almost missed it. I got there, got in the tub, and boom, baby was out. So I’m thinking like, we can do like, I can do the same exact thing.
And I talked to my Doula on Wednesday and she was like, you just got to make it one more night. And I woke up Thursday morning and I was, oh, I did this. Like, Lauren, you are such a badass. I can’t believe you failed your labor for two nights. Again, because I did have contractions Wednesday. The contractions were more intense Wednesday night. But as soon as the sun came up Thursday, I was like, I can make it. I can make it to this 03:00 p.m. Appointment. You got this.
But at 01:00 p.m., the doctor called me and he was like, hey. So I was reviewing your file and were you coming to see if I would support a vaginal breech birth? And my heart just sunk. I was like, oh, shit, he knows. Which the front office knew. They knew I was 39 weeks when they made this appointment. They knew what I was doing. I appreciate that he called me himself instead of the front office. He basically was like, I’m not comfortable. I will not offer this to you at this time. I don’t want to waste your time, make you drive down here. And I am glad he said that, because I was in labor. I would have driven the 30 to 45 minutes to his office having contractions, and then if he wouldn’t have even seen me, I would have who knows what I would have done? It would have been a horrible situation.
Gina: Had the baby in the lobby.
Lauren: Potentially. But after he called me, I just totally broke down. My husband was working from home. It was COVID again. And right before he called me, my husband went on a walk. We had our birth bags packed. My toddler, I put him down for a nap. My mom was there. And the plan was my husband was going to come home from the walk, eat lunch, and we were going to go. And I had told him, we’re going to this appointment and we’re not coming back without a baby. There is zero chance I’m making it through the night again. This baby is being born today, no doubt about it. And so he leaves on this walk like, I’m going to go enjoy some fresh air. And then he came back to me just, like, sobbing, hyperventilating.
After the OB said he wouldn’t take me, I called my doula. I called a handful of close friends. I called the birth center. I felt like I had no provider. I knew what I wanted, but no one would support it. And I didn’t want to have this baby at home alone, but I didn’t want to be wheeled into a cesarean. I also didn’t want to show up at a hospital, have them freak out, and injure me or my baby. I didn’t want to attempt a vaginal birth and then end up with a cesarean anyways. I was just in full-fledged panic mode.
When I called the birth center, I talked not to a midwife, but they had one family physician on staff who did births and also saw the babies and parents postpartum and whatnot. And it was someone that I’d never met before. And I had a very negative conversation with her in my head, I was trying to convince them that they should let me go to the birth center just to see if I was dilated. Because if I wasn’t dilated, I was not going to a hospital. I have no provider. You’re the only people that have seen me for this pregnancy, right? And so I’m just thinking, I can roll up. It’s ten minutes from my house. Do a quick cervical check. If I’m like six, 7 CM, I’ll figure out what hospital I’m going to roll into to try to vaginally birth this baby, but if I’m not dilated, I’m not going to go. The provider I talked to just made me feel like shit. She just made me feel very irresponsible. She made me feel like, I just needed to go accept the Cesarean and stop calling them, and almost like I was bothering her. And so when I got off the phone with her, I was even more devastated. It’s the only provider I had ever really known right this birth.
Finding that Unicorn Provider & Lauren's Vaginal Breech Birth Story
And I truly, guys, I was such a mess. I don’t even think my friends could understand what I was. I’m so, so lucky because Brynn, right, my childhood friend, pointed me toward that documentary that put this idea in my head and made me realize it was practical. And then one of my best friends here worked at a hospital in Denver, and she was a mom and baby nurse, and she was like, I know you don’t want to go to Denver Health because not all the providers have experience with preach birth, but I’m going to give you this phone number. It’s the midwifery line. Call. Talk to whatever midwife is on. Ask them what OBs are working right now. See if they have experience.
And I was so brain-dead. I was so exhausted, I had no clue what to say. And so, she literally told me what to say, and I didn’t write it down, but, like, memorized it in my brain and I hung up and I called them a provider I’ve never been to before, a hospital that I had heard of but I never, ever set foot in. And I called, and the midwife that answered was Phoebe. And she’s an amazing human. And so many people have sent her my birth story when I recorded it with the birth hour, and my friend went and talked to her later. And so many people have seen her since and been like, you helped Lauren. I’ve never met this woman, really, but she forever changed my life.
Within, like, a minute, she had me calm, and she was like, “wow, you are in a hard spot. This sucks.” Basically, she just kind of validated how I was feeling. And then she said, you have every right to labor and birth the way you want. I’m going to call the OB floor. I’m going to see who’s working. I’m going to see how they feel about you attempting a vaginal breech birth with the medical history that I just verbally told her, like, they have none of my medical files, nothing at all. And she’s like, and I’m going to call you right back. And I hung up with her, and she called me back within five minutes. And I was like, wow, this woman is just amazing, right? Like, how amazing is that?
And she basically told me the doctor that was on was Dr. Lund and that she had some experience with vaginal breech birth and that I should come in when my contractions were consistently five to six minutes apart. She’d be willing to meet with me, see me, and if I wanted to attempt a vaginal breech birth, I could do that there. And it blew my mind. I was like, wait, what?
I’ve been spending weeks, for real. I’d spent weeks trying to find someone one five-minute phone call after spending weeks calling offices, googling, joining all these groups, asking if anyone had ever in the history of life had a vaginal breech birth in Denver. And so I got off the phone, and for the first time in forever, I felt hopeful. I felt calm. Ish, let’s be honest, ish I called my doula, and I was, you know, I just freaked out. My contractions are all over the place. I’m going to get in the tub. I’m going to truly relax my body. I’m going to see if my body goes back into labor, and I’m going to see what happens. And my Doula was like, that sounds perfect. I’m going to start driving to Denver Health right now. And Lauren, I love you. Remember your first birth when you didn’t want to go to the birth center, walked in the main door, you were 7 CM, had a baby 2 hours later. Do not stay in the tub forever. Like, make this a brief little moment to regather yourself, and then you need to go.
And my husband, he filled the bath for me, and he gave me the same little lecture, and I was like, yeah, whatever, guys. I’m not stupid. Everything kind of famous last words. Everything kind of shut down, though, because I was so panicked, right? We’re mammals. We are not going to birth when we are traumatized and being chased by lions. And I was being chased by lions when that OB told me I couldn’t come to his office. Like, I was so stressed, after maybe ten minutes, my husband was like, get out of the tub. And I was like, no. And he’s like, Lauren, you get out of that tub right now. You get your clothes on. Like, we’re going.
So, we showed up to Denver Health probably, I don’t know, around, like, 04:00 p.m. And it was everything I didn’t want. It was a big hospital downtown. We didn’t know where to park. We didn’t know what entrance to go in. We’d never set foot in that hospital before. The security guard was really rude to me and rolled her eyes, and I was like, oh, my God, where’s my birth center?
Gina: Why are they always so rude?
Lauren: I don’t know. And I was like, they knew I was in labor. And the security guard literally looked at me and said, you don’t look like someone who’s in labor. Rude, because you know what? I had my baby less than 4 hours later, so shove it.
Gina: Obviously, they’ve never seen someone in labor.
Lauren: But I walked up and Phoebe, the midwife, was the one who I saw when I actually figured out where to go in the midwifery unit. And so I did meet her for that five brief minutes. She did a cervical check. She told me I was six to 7, had a bulging bag. So this is exactly like my first birth with my oldest son. And she was like, yeah, everything looks good. I’ll walk you to the OB floor. And that is all I saw of this magical midwife, Phoebe, who I will forever love and adore truly. It’s just so ridiculous to me that I spent such minimal time with her on the phone and in person, but she forever will have such an amazing impact on my life, where it’s almost three years later and I don’t have to hesitate for a moment to remember her name. Her name is as vivid to me as my doula who has spent hours with me and who now I work with as a birth doula like Phoebe forever. I love you.
Gina: I mean, I love her, too.
Lauren: She’s awesome. If you are in Denver, check out Phoebe at Denver Health.
Gina: Actually, I think one of my friends is in Denver. I need to tell them, find Phoebe.
Lauren: I’ve had a lot of people reach out to me because I have breech babies or they want VBACs and they’re going to the Denver Health midwives, and they’re like, who do you recommend? I’m always like, Phoebe. What’s her last name? I don’t know. She’s so amazing. She doesn’t need one.
Gina: I mean, how many Phoebes could there be?
Lauren: No, she’s the only one. And I’m pretty sure everyone knows her last name. I think at one point she might have been, like, one of the head midwives or something. She can’t be hard to find. I should look up her last name, but I kind of like her just being like Phoebe. She has, like, Shakira, Beyonce, like Brittany status. She doesn’t need a last name.
But they sent me to the OB floor because, again, midwives in the state of Colorado cannot attend vaginal breech births. And the attendee that evening was Lund, Dr. Lund. So Dr. Lund came in with the chief resident, and they kind of talked me through what a vaginal breech birth would look like at their hospital. I had a whole list of questions that I was going to ask that other OB for my appointment that didn’t happen. So I just asked her. I’m like, what are the worst-case scenarios? I’m doing air quotes for those who can’t see me. Do you have rules? Because all hospitals have these regulations that they pretend are laws.
And basically, what Denver Health wanted was, if you’re going to attempt this, we require you to birth in the OR. I didn’t want that. But at the time, that was a concession I was willing to make. I’m like, you guys, an hour ago told me to come in here when no one else told me to come in. If you want me to birth in the OR. Sure, I’ll walk down to the OR. For you, like, whatever.
And then she also told me that they were more comfortable if I had an epidural, because that way if there was an emergency, I already had anesthesia going because Dr. Lund made it very clear that if she needed to do a cesarean, she was not going to hesitate. And if I did not have an epidural, they would knock me out with general anesthesia, which, I mean, that’s not what any mother wants. You want to be present when your baby is born. You don’t want to wake up 30 minutes an hour later and be like, here’s my baby. My husband and I decided that we were okay with a walking epidural. And she did a cervical check. She said I was more like five to 6, and did have a bulging bag. My contractions had completely slowed down, like, maybe every ten to 15 minutes. When I’d have one, I’d slowly breathe through them.
They’re all looking at me like, this chick’s not in labor. She’s going to be here forever. But it makes sense, especially now, being a birth doula. I went into a place I didn’t really feel safe. They’re trying to put in my hep lock. They’re talking to me about delivering the OR. There’s bright lights, there’s injections, there’s all these things. Again, my body didn’t feel safe, so my labor stalled. It shut down. That is what happens. We are mammals. This is normal.
So once they got me situated, once they got all my medical files, everybody left the room, and it was just me and my husband. And I was like, okay, we are getting this baby out. I do not want to be in this hospital. I want to be here as short as possible. Like, let’s get this rolling.
So I put on the diffuser. I put on some soft music. I think I told my husband to fill up the tub. Something to note was my doula was there at the hospital, but she was not with me because, again, COVID like a really horrible time in the world. They made me do a COVID test, and she wasn’t allowed up until I tested negative.
And so she’s in the lobby just hanging out, not really sure what’s happening. And I’m like, it’s fine. And she’s like, it’s not fine. I know how you birth, Lauren. As soon as you feel good. This baby’s flying out, and my husband is asking the nurses going out into the hall, like, every ten minutes, do you have her test results back? Do you have her test results back? He also really wanted Mary, my doula there because it’s stressful. We just showed up in some unknown place where we knew no one, and we’re just hoping for the best, but, yeah.
So we were alone, trying to get my labor started, and it is kind of starting to build back up. Whenever I’m in active labor. I really love hip squeezes. Luckily, my husband was a pro. He did them a lot during my first labor. He, the midwives, and my doula switched, and they were all fantastic to the point I never knew who was touching me. I did the same thing with both labors.
When a contraction was building, I would lean over something, start swaying, do my guttural sounds, and I would knock. And when I knocked on it, that was me being like, I need your support. I need hip squeezes. And so I didn’t even tell my husband. I just leaned over, started swaying, and knocked, and he runs over, did the hip squeezes. And so we’re doing this as the tub is filling, and I’m like, okay, I’m getting into my zone. I’m going to birth this baby. I’m going to be in and out of here. Because in the back of my mind, the longer I am in this hospital, the more likely I am to have a Cesarean.
I need this birth to be fast, safe, and efficient so that I don’t change my mind. They don’t convince me it’s unsafe. I just needed it to go. So I got into the tub, had one contraction, my water broke, and then my body immediately started pushing. And while this is what I said I wanted, of course, I was like, oh, man, that was real fast. That escalated really fast just to take it back.
Gina: Take it back. I am rethinking things now.
Lauren: The epidural we had talked about, they had told me that they would come back in three to 4 hours, and at the time, I kind of scoffed and was like, sure. And I told them it would be faster. And they were supposed to send an anesthesia to at least walk me through the paperwork, but there was no time for that. I told the nurse.
Gina: So, my guess is you did not get an epidural.
Lauren: No. And in retrospect, I’m so glad I didn’t, because it wasn’t what I wanted. I was going to get one out of fear and to make the hospital staff more comfortable. But it wasn’t my plan. It’s not what I wanted. It was something that I was willing to do to have a vaginal birth, but I didn’t want it. So I’m glad I didn’t have one.
But I told them. The nurse was like, at the computer in the hospital room, and we were in the bathroom, and so, like, was like, I’m pushing, and I think she heard it in my voice as well. And so, she comes in, and then within a minute, Dr. Lund and the chief resident, they’re both in there and they’re kind of like, what’s going on, Lauren? And they can hear me contracting. You can tell when someone’s pushing. If you’ve ever you know what’s going on, medicated at birth, like you hear it. And they were know, like, you need to get out of the tub. We had already agreed that I had to birth in the OR. And I was. Yeah. Yeah. And I told her that I just needed a moment.
And this is actually a part of my birth story I forgot until I re-listened to it yesterday, and it made me chuckle. I told her I needed a moment, and they assumed I was having a contraction, and I just needed to work through it. But I was not having a contraction. I just really didn’t want to get up. I felt good. I was on my hands and knees in the tub. And I really think if I had stayed in that tub, I would have had my son out in like two, three pushes. I really think that would have been the birth story. And so, in retrospect, my husband and I have played the game of why did we tell them? I was like, what if we didn’t say that and we just had the baby in the bathroom alone? Like, if something went wrong, we were in the hospital. Because what you’re about to hear is my least favorite part of my birth story.
They were like, “Lauren, we say you’re not having a contraction. Get out.” And I’m not sure how I got out. They honestly might have carried me out. They got me on the bed. I was on my hands and knees. I’m like, doing the full-fledged, like, I’m not pushing. My body is pushing. Guttural moans. They throw a blanket over me. They’re wheeling me down the hall to the OR.
And guys, this is the moment my COVID test came back negative. And my doula is walking down the hallway to my room, and she sees my husband. And all my husband is saying, is because he’s trying to put on scrubs for the OR. All he says is like, we’re going to the OR. And she’s just like, okay, what’s happening?
So my husband’s trying to put on scrubs. They’re wheeling me to the or. I’m on hands and knees like, I’m just going to birth my baby right here, and then we make it to the OR. And they had also talked to me about this earlier. The way that Dr. Lund had been trained was to have women lying on their backs so that they have a better view of the baby being born or whatnot.
And this is another part of my birth that, looking back, I don’t love, but it is what it is. I was on my back, and the moment I got put on my back with my legs up in stirrups, everything stopped. I went from, this baby is coming. My body is pushing to I don’t feel a thing. I could no longer feel my contractions.
I was in the OR. I had my eyes closed. I maybe opened my eyes once or twice. I was squeezing my husband’s hand on my left, and I looked up into his eyes, maybe one or two times. Besides that, my whole body was so stressed and so tense because I’m now in the operating room. There’s all these bright lights. There were so many people in there. You all I didn’t open my eyes, so I don’t know how many, but I could hear them. I could hear them talking. I could hear them pull the medical tray with all the instruments closer.
All of these things to me that screamed Cesarean were now happening, right? Like, you have Cesareans in the OR. You use scalpels and all the medical-sounding instruments in the OR. So, my body totally went into this flight mode, and I shut down completely. But while shutting down, I have in the back of my head, if you don’t push this baby out, they’re going to cut this baby out. So I was like, you have to push. And they were actually telling me when I was having contractions because the baby was on a monitor. They were telling me when to push, and that’s how I knew when to push.
That’s why me and my husband play the game of what if? We didn’t shout, hey, I’m pushing right now in the bathtub. Because the entire environment in the OR. Was the opposite of the quiet, peaceful birth center birth I had with my first and that I hoped for with my second. There’s little things I try to block out, but I’ll always remember it was also 2020, like a time of really intense politics. So there were people in the room, like, discussing the election as I was pushing my baby out. That’s just inappropriate.
And I think part of the reason that happened was that vaginal breech births aren’t that common. And so, I really kind of was like a sideshow, like someone’s having or attempting a vaginal breech birth, like, who wants in the OR. And I do want more nurses, more OBs, more residents to see this so it can be normalized. But the fact that I could hear all these people and that they were talking and that it was adding to how unsafe I felt isn’t great, right?
Gina: Maybe, like, ask permission before you just show up.
Lauren: And you know what? Maybe they did. Who knows? The whole thing happened so fast.
Gina: Yeah, likely not.
Lauren: I know likely not, right? But we’ll say maybe they did. We’ll say maybe. And when I ask my husband afterward how many people were in there, he’s like 20. I don’t know, 30? He doesn’t even know either because he was panicked. He’s trying to throw on scrubs. He was delivering in an OR. This is different than everything he knows about birth as well. And the whole time I was in the OR. It wasn’t that long, but in my mind, because I was so certain they were just going to cut me open. I was in there for hours, but it was maybe, I think my husband said 15-20 minutes. So very short pushing.
And the way he was born was I pushed his butt out. And then I don’t think they allowed time for either of his legs to be born. I think they did a sweep to allow each to help each leg come out, and then baby came out to its chest, and then it’s one shoulder, the other shoulder, and they kind of helped with the shoulders as well, and with the arms fully coming out. And what I know, based on my husband, I had my eyes closed again, was that Dr. Lund wasn’t the one actually doing it. She was very calmly watching, and she was kind of directing the chief resident what to do, because the chief resident had never done a vaginal breech birth, and Dr. Lund had. And Dr. Lund was really great in the sense that she was calm, even though I was panicking and feeling like they were going to cut me open. She never once said anything that made me think that. She never was like, you need to push right now, or if you don’t have baby out in two pushes, we’re moving to a Cesarean. That was not her.
She was very calm. I don’t even know if I remember her saying a single thing to me. And she was also very straightforward when we had our meeting beforehand, talking about the or birthing on my back. She was very frank with what her experience was, how many breech births she’d attended, what her background was, what she knew, and what she felt competent doing. So I absolutely adored her in that respect. It was just being in the hospital, right?
A lot of people ask me what it feels like to birth a baby backward, and I think it feels, honestly, kind of the same. So the hardest part was getting the butt out, just like the hardest part would be getting the head out with a head-first baby. And there was a brief moment where I could feel his body dangling, because his head was still inside, but the rest of his body was out. But it was just one to two minutes, and then the next contraction, and I pushed and his head was out. So it’s not like he was dangling there for a really long time.
If you’ve never watched a vaginal breech birth video, I think everyone should see it because they are so insane. Babies usually poop on the way out, meconium, because as they get that squeeze, it forces the poop out. And that’s something my son did. And because there were 800 million people in there, someone said, OOH, that’s just, again, like…
Gina: Even before the butt is born.
Lauren: Yeah. So there was black tar coming out of my vagina as my baby is being born. I get that it’s gross. But that was just another thing that I don’t need people to be commenting OOH as I’m giving birth. Right. But he was born. He was immediately put on my chest. He hesitated to cry. Initially, a nurse put a finger in his mouth and she scooped out like a big chunk of what looked like a blood clot. And then he started screaming. He was pissed. He pinked up really well. He was livid to be on the outside. His feet were by his face. He was like a half-baby, but he was there.
And in that moment, this is the part I really remember. I remember just feeling joy that my son was born, but also immense relief. Like, I thought I could do this and I actually did it. And I was saying, like, you did it. I did it. We did it. You did it. I did it. We did it. And I just felt so much relief because even though I thought I could do this vaginal breech birth, what if I couldn’t?
That was always in my head. What if I’m wrong? What if all the people that say it’s dangerous are actually right? What if I hurt myself? What if I hurt my baby? What if I’m making a really poor choice and something horrible happens? That was always in the back of my head. In part because there’s so little information about vaginal breech birth. And I think there are a lot more resources now. It’s only been three years almost, but I see so many more videos, and I hear so many more birth stories on podcasts. I think it’s becoming a lot more normalized. I don’t think more providers are offering it per se, but I think more women are realizing that it is an option if they want to attempt it. And that’s why I want to be on your podcast.
I want everyone to know that it can happen and it might be right for your body, it might be right for your baby, it might be right for your family, and you absolutely should be able to choose that not your provider.
The Importance of Choice
Gina: Absolutely. I think the biggest thing is knowing that you have options and that you get to make the decision on how your baby is born. If your baby is breech and you want to have a cesarean birth, that’s wonderful. That’s an option available to you. If your baby is breech and you want to have an ECV, that is an option that should be available to you. And then if you want a vaginal breech birth, that should be an option too. It shouldn’t just be. You could only have a C section and that’s it gives families the decision to decide which one feels best for them and what risks that they want to take.
Lauren: Absolutely. And my whole experience with this birth is why I’m now a birth doula with my first birth, I knew nothing. No clue what I was doing. Switched to a birth center at the last possible moment. Loved my experience, and I was sad to leave the birth world, but I moved on and went back to teaching. But then once I had this experience, I was just like, no, this is not okay.
The fact that no provider looked at me and said, you have two options. There’s a vaginal breech birth or there’s a Caesarean. I personally don’t have experience with a vaginal breech birth. You are probably going to have difficulty finding a provider with experience in the Denver area. But if you want to go down this route, like, these are the risks, these are the benefits, these are all of your options. Try these. Like, have them look at your baby, your body. Because not every breech baby is the same, right? There’s different positions. There’s complete incomplete. Frank, foot lean.
And then I’d already had a vaginal birth. I knew that I could vaginally birth a baby. That also is really important and was really helpful to my mindset. I’ve done this before. I can do this again.
So looking at women and families as individuals and not just every person needs a Caesarean is absolutely the way it should be. Which is why when you had Dr. Stu on the podcast, I was like, yes, I love Dr. Stu. And whenever I listen to him speak, I’m just like, yes, yes, Dr. Stu. You get them. You get them. You tell all these providers to do that?
Gina: Yeah. While listening to your story of being in the or. Where there’s just, like, a bunch of random people having their side conversations that are irrelevant to your experience, it just felt so disrespectful to me, and it reminded me of my own first birth where there was like, 20 people in the room. And at one point, while I was pushing, because I pushed much longer than you for my first one, it was like two and a half hours. I looked around and I was like, who are all of you people? You over there are talking about something random. I don’t even know who you are. I don’t know who any of you are. I’m butt naked. Can we just maybe recognize that I’m in a really vulnerable position and my body is not a learning tool without my permission?
So that’s kind of like my biggest thing, is you can’t use someone’s body as a learning tool to teach without getting their permission to do so. And I think most of us are willing. I’m sure if they asked you, can we have these three residents be in the room, too? So they have this experience because this can change their perspective of birth. You would have been like, yeah, of course. But it’s different when they just show up and they feel like they have the right and that they’re entitled to use your body as a. Learning tool is kind of where my frustration is with that kind of stuff. But thank you for sharing your story with us.
Lauren: Yeah, I know I ramble a bit on it, but it’s not at all.
Gina: It’s your story. You can tell it how you want to tell it. And it was great. You did a great job. You did a good job.
Lauren's Advice for Others
Gina: So what advice do you have for others who may be navigating a decision point in their birth or what they feel is a lack of decisions? Or what advice would you have for a partner who’s feeling really vulnerable in the moment as well?
Lauren: I would say the first step, once you find out you’re pregnant, who you choose as your provider really matters. You want a provider who is not telling you what to do, but is having a conversation with you. They can absolutely give their recommendations. They can tell you what they are comfortable with, but they need to tell you what all your options are, and you need to feel comfortable asking them questions. What are the benefits, what are the risks, what are the alternatives? Like, what if we do nothing? All of those things you have to be able to ask.
And if you have a provider you feel safe with, that you have a good relationship with that talks to you and looks at you as an individual, then hopefully you can avoid all these stressful moments when it comes. To birth because you’ve already had these conversations. You’ve already had some education. You already know that they’re not just going to, I don’t know, put four steps on your baby. They’re going to say, hey, your baby is having some heart decelerations. We think it would be safer for you and your baby if they were born sooner rather than later. I’d like to use this tool. And you’ve already talked about the tool and learned about the tool in your pregnancy, right? And so then you can have informed consent in that moment and be like, this is what they’re doing. This is what I agree to. That feels safest to have my baby being born. There’s so much to learn about birth, and you absolutely cannot learn everything. So having a birth team that you feel safe with, that you trust, that can help kind of point you in the directions of what to know and what to ask as your pregnancy and your birth kind of veers is really important.
So not all midwives are the same, not all bees are the same, not all doulas are the same. Find someone who fits you and that you feel good with.
Gina: Absolutely. And I think what you said about having your provider tell you what they’re comfortable with too, because they also have the right to be able to make a decision on what type of care they want to provide and what type of patients they want to accept. And so also giving them the opportunity to say, like, yeah, I’m really comfortable with supporting that type of birth, or Actually, I’m not. And if that’s what you’re really wanting, these are other recommendations that I have. I think takes a lot of courage for provider too, to say, hey, I can’t support what it is that you’re wanting, I’m not opposed to it, but these other providers might be a better option I think is really powerful too.
Lauren: Totally agree.
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