Feel guilty for wanting a VBAC

I had an emergency C-section with my first in April 2023, and I was hoping to have a VBAC this time around. Reasons for wanting a VBAC: I want to experience it, recovery will hopefully be straightforward so I can still be hands on with my toddler, I will hopefully be able to just generally be on my feet and active much sooner which will be great for my mental health. However, baby is measuring large (93 percentile, head circumference 98 percentile) and I'm 5ft3 with a higher BMI which statistics-wise increases risk of uterine rupture, emergency C-section, and baby's size increases the risk of shoulder distocia/ getting stuck. I feel like in this case, a VBAC would be selfish of me, and that a planned C-section would actually be less risky for the baby in this instance. Baby's safety has surely got to come first over my wants and my toddler's needs, but I'm still having a tough time committing to either plan. So so tough. I know I would mourn never having a vaginal birth (this is likely our last baby), but I don't think I would forgive myself if anything happened to baby during an attempted VBAC. So I think I know what I have to do.

Show your support

Because I really wanted a vaginal birth I wanted to try my hardest to do it. Obviously like you said baby comes first. So for me we just monitored me and baby. If anything were to go wrong it would be immediate c section. Or if it took longer to progress or something like that we would switch. I wanted to try. With my first we went to the hospital pretty early on and got an epidural pretty early on. The second time I wanted to stay home and not get the epidural as soon so I walked and walked to try to help. I did still end up getting it but it was so much better and so much calmer. As long as baby looked good I tried. And if baby wasn’t coming out because they were too big then we would switch. Women can birth big babies. Some can’t but most can. You can definitely try and see what happens

I would encourage you to at least try! I’ve been going back and forth deciding with my second, but I really do want to experience labor, hopefully a vaginal birth, and have an easier recovery so I can be involved with my active toddler. My midwife assured me they monitor very closely and watch for any distress of baby. Like Gabrielle said, my plan is to try until it may not work and be totally ok with a c section if that needs for the baby. I’m actually getting some extra monitoring for the opposite reason as my first had FGR. But that being said, women have big babies all the time! And the scans are estimated and can be off by quite a large percentage.

Hi, I had 12 months between my last childbirth which was via EMCS and wanted a VBAC too against all advice. I did agree that if any point safety was compromised I’d go ahead with another emergency c section. I laboured overnight at home not knowing I was labouring by the morning I was fully dilated and my daughter was born vaginally. I was high risk pregnancy and had to have the straps on during the whole time but it is possible. I went with my gut and I advise you to balance that with advice from docs. But you can always try as said above x best of luck

Thank you everyone for your positive words of encouragement, will likely be asked for my decision tomorrow so will do a lot of thinking tonight.

‌

‌
‌

‌

‌
‌

‌

‌
‌

‌

‌
‌

‌

‌
‌

‌

‌
‌