Episode 313 Happy Birthday to Meagan’s VBA2C Babe + Walking Down Memory Lane with her Husband, Ric

The VBAC Link

“Trust your partner. Trust the mom. They know things better than you do.”

Meagan’s husband, Ric, joins the podcast today as they celebrate their VBA2C baby’s 8th birthday! Ric gives the perspective from the partner’s side of things as they both share details of Webster’s birth story. He talks about some not-so-proud moments and is the first to admit how little he knew about how to support a VBA2C labor– especially one that went over 40 hours!

But through it all, Ric came to understand the importance of doulas and how magical it can be to have not one but five doulas! He agrees that the births of each of their children ultimately was a special journey and brought the two of them closer together.

Needed Website

How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents

Full Transcript under Episode Details

01:17 Review of the Week

04:10 Deciding to birth out of the hospital

06:35 Agreeing on a birth center

10:57 PROM for the third time

15:05 Laboring loudly

20:23 Relying on the doulas

28:33 Navigating doubt and transition on the toilet

34:25 Pushing Webb out in three pushes

37:08 Passing out after birth

40:37 It takes a village

42:45 Ric’s advice to other dads

Meagan: Today is my VBAC baby’s birthday. I cannot believe that it has been 8 years since that little boy joined our family and today I wanted to share or reshare his story. I know I’ve done it in the past, but I invited my husband, Ric, to share the story again for you and maybe I might just give him a couple of questions and see how he felt about it from his perspective.

When we were going through pregnancy and preparing for me, it was just like, This is what I want to do. This is what I want to do. I would always go and say, “Hey, these are my thoughts”, and to be honest, I don’t know if I even gave him a ton of opportunity to share his exact thoughts because I was so driven and just wanted to get this.

We are going to dive more into his thoughts and his perspective on the birth because we know so many dads out there are also a little hesitant when it comes to the idea of VBAC because the world as we know it talks about VBAC in a very poor manner and it can be a very scary thought.

So we will be diving into that today in just one moment.

01:17 Review of the Week

Meagan: We have a Review of the Week so I wanted to get to that before we get into Webster’s birth story. This is from Katiewarren11. It says, “I wish I would have found this sooner.” It says, “I love the show. I wish I would have heard these before my last baby. I was planning for a VBAC 7 years after my first baby and just thought it would happen. I didn’t realize I might have to fight for it.” That just gave me the chills.

It says, “I got to the week of my due date and my body didn’t seem at all ready. Then they were estimating her to be 9 pounds, 12 ounces, and the doctor told me, ‘No option. You are getting a C-section.’ After listening to these stories, I now know that there were other options.”

Thank you, Katiewarren11, for sharing your review. I want you to know that you are not alone. There are so many of us who get to the point at the end of our due date. We are being told that our babies are too big or our bodies aren’t working because they are not dilated yet or whatever it may be. There are lots of scenarios that people are told, but there are options. You have options and that is definitely what this podcast is about is helping you learn and grow and know your options.

So thank you, Kate, again, and as always, if you have one moment, we would love to hear your review of the show. It really does help the show grow. It helps other Women of Strength find these stories and help them know their options as well. You can do that on Apple Podcasts. You can even Google “The VBAC Link” and leave us a review there or if you would like, you can email us a review and let us know what your thoughts are. We always throw those into our spreadsheet as well. Thank you so much.

04:10 Deciding to birth out of the hospital

Meagan: Okay, you guys. As I mentioned, I have my husband, Ric. Hey, hon.

Ric: Hello, everyone.

Meagan: I’m sure he is just so excited that he is here. But really, I wanted to go through the experience from your perspective on VBAC and not only just the birth but also before and us deciding to birth out of the hospital. I was already kind of a crazy pants when we were trying to conceive because we really wanted a boy so I was really dialed into that. Then once we found out we were pregnant, I really, really just wanted to find someone to help me through the journey of VBAC.

I interviewed many, many, many providers in fact, even before I was pregnant. We know on the show, I have talked about it, that it is really important to interview and look for providers before you are pregnant if you can but I ended up finding a provider actually just right after I found out I was pregnant or right before I found out I was pregnant.

We went in and it seemed like a really great fit. Ric, you seemed like you were pretty on board with the provider shift at that point.

ric: Yeah, I mean those who know Meagan know that when she is passionate about something, it is very unlikely that she will be turned away.

Meagan: Convinced otherwise.

Ric: Convinced otherwise so I just kind of went with the flow. But yeah, the provider seemed great. You seemed happy which was most important.

Meagan: Yeah. And just kind of a quick little back summary, how did you feel about the C-sections? Did they bug you at all? Did they affect you at all? Did they just seem normal?

Ric: Yeah, I mean, I didn’t know anything other than the C-sections so it was normal. It was just that you were very unhappy with them which was hard for me. It was hard because I was stoked that we had the babies and you were upset with yourself, with the provider, and I didn’t share those feelings because I didn’t know.

Meagan: Yeah, It was hard because like you said, we were so happy that we had our baby but I was in this cloud of doom and just and unsettled cloud.

Ric: Dissatisfied.

Meagan: Yeah, I was dissatisfied.

06:35 Agreeing on a birth center

Meagan: Okay, so we found this provider and everything is going really great. This provider at the time was the VBAC provider in Utah. Everybody went to him and he was amazing. He flat-out said after reviewing my op-reports that my pelvis was too small and my baby would probably never come out of my pelvis and that my body didn’t know how to dilate, he really agreed that I probably just wasn’t given a fair chance and he didn’t understand why we wouldn’t be able to go forward.

But at 24 weeks, I attended a birth just before that with a midwife out of the hospital that blew me away. I immediately knew that I wanted to go talk to her which was kind of interesting because we never really discussed birthing outside of the hospital, but I went and met with her and I told you, “Hey, I want to birth out of the hospital.”

Now, you knew nothing but C-sections. You were okay with me finding a provider, but how did you feel about the idea of birthing outside of the hospital?

Ric: I don’t think I was that excited about it. I was okay switching providers, but not being in the hospital was worrisome. I actually think, didn’t you broach the subject on birthing from home?

Meagan: I think I did.

Ric: I immediately put the kibosh on that.

Meagan: You were like, “No.”

Ric: So I think when you initially discussed birthing outside of a hospital, you gave a couple of options of a birth center or a birth from home so I completely– that was too big of a jump for me from hospital to home so we went and did we go to multiple birth centers or just one?

Meagan: We just went to one and we interviewed with a different provider than the one I met, but it was at the same birth center that the provider I met would have birthed at so we met with another midwife at the birth center.

Ric: Right. It was awesome.

Meagan: It was awesome.

Ric: No, the midwife was cool too. She was great.

Meagan: Yeah, she was really awesome. Yeah. So as we were there, did you feel like, Oh, okay. Once you saw it, did you feel more comfortable?

Ric: Yeah, because it seemed more medical. I don’t know the word for it, but it just seemed like, Oh, hey. Things looked sterile which was a big deal for me and it just made it seem like, Yeah, it’s not the hospital, but– can I swear on the podcast?

Meagan: Yeah, sure.

Ric: –if shit hit the fan, then we were in a better circumstance than trying to find gauze and stuff at our home.

Meagan: At our home, yeah. Which for those who are birthing at home, typically your midwives would bring all of that to the birth but we didn’t even get there for me to explain that.

Ric: I don’t need to know if I would have even let you.

Meagan: Get to that point?

Ric: Yeah.

Meagan: Okay, so then fast forward. Labor begins. Actually, we hired a doula.

Ric: A doula?

Meagan: Multiple doulas.

Ric: You had these two mentors in the doula community here and you said, “I definitely want to hire them,” so we did. Those two mentors were in a group of three. Not only that, your really good buddy who became a doula at about the same time and had gone through the doula course with you wanted to attend, and then your cousin who is about as much of a doula as you can be without being a doula–

Meagan: Seriously, yeah.

Ric: Also had to attend the birth. Plus the midwife–

Meagan: And the assistant.

Ric: And the assistant. There were a lot of people in the room.

Meagan: There were a lot of people in the room.

Ric: Initially when you said, “Hey, look. We are going to hire a doula,” because you were doing the stuff, I was totally on board. I had no idea how many doulas would actually show up.

Meagan: Yeah.

Ric: But they did and it was fine.

Meagan: It was great. And rewinding back, remember back with Lyla when I asked you if we could hire a doula or bridge that, you weren’t super keen on that idea.

Ric: I don’t remember that conversation.

Meagan: You don’t.

Ric: But I remember our nurse being a doula.

Meagan: Yes.

Ric: And she was awesome.

Meagan: She was fantastic.

Ric: And that solidified your desire to be a doula. Yeah.

Meagan: Absolutely.

10:57 PROM for the third time

Meagan: Okay, so with all three of our kids, I for some reason have PROM. If you don’t know what PROM means, that’s the premature rupture of membranes. My water broke with each kiddo and my body took its sweet old time to kick into labor. They say only 10% of women will experience that, but we are 3 for 3.

Ric: Do they know the story about where I was when your water broke with Lyla?

Meagan: No, I don’t know. That was another reason why I wish we had a doula. So going back to Lyla’s birth, my second C-section–

Ric: Kind of just showing the progress of where Meagan began as a, “Hey, look. I trust my doctors. I’m going to do everything that they say on the first birth.” The second birth opened my eyes as to how Meagan was going to control the situation as much as she possibly could. So yeah, tell them where I was when your water broke.

Meagan: So you were in Texas when my water broke with Lyla. As he mentioned, my cousin is pretty much a doula without the doula training and she just is so loving and caring. She was really excited because we wanted this VBAC. I wanted this VBAC really, really badly. So yeah. Ric was out of town and my water broke. I was like, “Uh, you should probably come home.”

Nothing was really happening at all really. I was just leaking. Yeah. You got home probably 6-7 hours later.

Ric: No, it was about 10.

Meagan: Was it about 10?

Ric: Yes and I assumed you were going to go to the hospital.

Meagan: Yeah, you were not happy when I was not at the hospital when you got home.

Ric: I walked in and you were sitting there naked in the bathtub and I’m like, “What in the world are you doing? You are supposed to be in the hospital. Your water broke.” Because for me, your water breaks, you go to the hospital. For Meagan, that’s not necessarily the case.

Meagan: Well, yeah. I think going back to what you were saying, a lot of providers actually say, “If your water breaks, come right in,” even if labor is not going on. Through my research with Lyla and the VBAC, I realized that I didn’t necessarily need to just run right into the hospital. I checked my vitals. All was well. Everything was good, so we stayed and labored at home.

Plus, I was waiting for you to get in town.

Ric: Yeah, but it kind of prepped me for what the next birth was going to look like. Obviously, that birth ended up in another C-section and you were really disappointed after that one. You worked really, really hard.

Meagan: I was, yeah.

Ric: Then with the next one, when you were going through options of birth centers, doulas, and midwives, that instance where I flew home in an emergency fashion as quickly as I could and came home to find you in the bathtub realizing, Meagan is going to do what Meagan wants to do.

Meagan: Yeah, so when I told you, “Hey, let’s birth out of the hospital”, did you feel like, She is going to do whatever she wants to do anyway? Or were you more comfortable with the birth centers? Were you okay with that?

Ric: Yeah. It’s hard to tell you no, but when we went to the birth center, I did feel significantly better about having a birth there.

Meagan: Yeah. What had you heard about or had you heard anything about VBAC just in general?

Ric: Nothing.

Meagan: So you didn’t really hear a ton.

Ric: Other than what I heard from you.

Meagan: So you didn’t hear anything scary.

Ric: No.

Meagan: Okay, because a lot of dads out there do hear when they say, “Oh, my wife wants to VBAC,” people are like, “Oh my gosh. It’s so scary.” I think that can be really hard especially if their partner is saying, “Hey. I want to birth out of hospital.”

15:05 Laboring loudly

Meagan: Okay, so my water broke with Webb at 3:00 AM or something like that. Yeah, what do you remember about that? My water broke in the middle of the night. I don’t even think I told you until I woke up. Do you remember anything about that?

Ric: With Web, that was where you labored forever, right?

Meagan: Yeah, 42 hours.

Ric: I don’t remember that first morning. I remember the next night.

Meagan: Yeah.

Ric: Didn’t Hillary– Hillary is her cousin, everyone. Hillary showed up at 6:00 in the morning and you guys went out and walked around the neighborhood.

Meagan: Yeah, so the night–

Ric: The first night?

Meagan: No, that was the second morning, yes. My water broke and again, I had PROM so I was so frustrated. I was 40 weeks and 3 days or 4 days. I had him at 40 weeks and 5 days. We had a visit with Danielle and my water had broken. I was sort of contracting a little bit here and there. I asked if you would come up to Park City with me. We went up to Park City and I went in and I did my regular visit and then she said, “You’re going to Christine.” Christine, at the time, was my chiropractor so we went to the chiropractor. You got me a Jamba and we drove back down the mountain and came home.

My body just really wasn’t going into labor. It was taking its time so I went and I took a nap which is really hard to do when you are in labor because your mind is so excited and you just want to have a baby, but I needed to nap so I went in and I napped. It’s weird. I can even picture exactly how our room was set up that day.

I took a snooze and woke up and I was sort of starting to contract. I actually went out into the driveway and threw a tantrum. Do you remember me throwing a tantrum in the driveway?

Ric: No. Was I working? Was I at home?

Meagan: You were at home. I threw a tantrum that my water broke. I was triggered. I was like, “This is going to be the same. I’m going to have another C-section.” I was just so upset. I remember our next-door neighbor had this big pine tree and they were watching me throw this insane tantrum in our driveway.

But yeah, so then that night, that’s when you said you started remembering. My cousin came over for a little bit and actually, my doula came over and was doing some rebozo work and some things, but then they left and I really wanted to labor in my son’s room, in our baby’s room.

Ric: Yeah, but wasn’t Hillary there at that time?

Meagan: She was for a little bit, uh-huh. You ended up going to sleep because you were super tired and again, labor wasn’t super happening. I had Hillary there. We were just hanging out. That’s when you came in with a pillow.

Ric: Guys, so I mean, it’s not a big house but we’ve got enough space where you can spread out so you don’t have to wake everybody up with your– can I say moaning?

Meagan: I was moaning. I was moaning to cope through. At that point, I was contracting.

Ric: Yeah, so there were three bedrooms right next to each other, but we had a whole family room on the other side of the house and she could have done that and not woken everybody up, but instead–

Meagan: I just woke you up.

Ric: You were so loud though. You were so loud and can I make the noise? Can I pretend?

Meagan: Oh my gosh, sure. But you are going to be dramatizing it.

Ric: No. No. You exaggerate pain so much.

Meagan: I don’t think so.

Ric: You think you are great at handling it but–

Meagan: I am.

Ric: You obviously are enough, but the way you are great at it is by being really loud.

Meagan: Posterior baby, everybody just to let you know.

Ric: I don’t know what that means. But you were contracting every 5 minutes or so–

Meagan: Yeah, every 5-8.

Oh my gosh.

Ric: That’s exactly how it was and it was loud and you were in the room right next door to our two little girls and right across the hall from me so I was super frustrated because I was exhausted and I couldn’t sleep and of all of the places you decided to labor, it was right next to everyone so I came in with a pillow and threw it in your face and said, “Muffle yourself.”

Meagan: Oh my gosh. This was not the brightest moment.

Ric: This is why you hire a doula because sometimes dads just don’t get it.

Meagan: Just don’t get it. And you were tired. It was really late.

Ric: You don’t need to excuse me. I was being a complete jerk.

Meagan: But this is why I love that it is from your perspective because in my perspective, I was not that loud. I was moaning for sure. I was coping. Oh my gosh. I had so much back labor, but yeah. It was so funny.

20:23 Relying on the doulas

Meagan: You throw the pillow at my face. You walk out and you leave and Hillary, my cousin, was like, “Oh no he didn’t.” She was laughing. So we continued. We definitely were just quieter. I don’t know.

Ric: No, you didn’t leave the room.

Meagan: No, we didn’t.

Ric: You were so stubborn. You were so stubborn. You probably were louder after that because you were so mad.

Meagan: When you find a space where you want to labor and are coping really well, you stay. Then the next morning came around and one of my doulas was up in the canyon so she was not even getting a ton of messages and didn’t have service. She was coming down and obviously the texts were blowing up so she started texting me and said, “Why don’t we call the midwife and see? Maybe we should plan on heading there.”

Like Ric said, my cousin and I decided to go walk. It was 6:00 in the morning and my cousin and I decided to go walk around the block. Man, my labor totally picked up after walking. We were doing curb walks. You go up and down the curbs. We were just walking and it was such a beautiful morning, absolutely beautiful. The birds were chirping. It was July 1st. It was such a great time of year.

We actually had gone to the birth center the night before to go get checked. I don’t remember if you remember that and they placed a Foley balloon which is a catheter that they can fill up with saline that pushes pressure on the cervix to try and help dilate so I think it was 1 centimeter or something like that.

But it popped on the way, so nothing really happened. The next morning, we went in. It was 9:00 AM and we met everybody there. My cousin had left at this point. Maybe she had stayed for a little bit actually, and then my doulas were there so like Ric said, there were just so many people there.

Do you remember arriving and anything about that?

Ric: No, I don’t actually. The part that I do remember is hanging out outside of the birth center with Robin who is my favorite and just watching her. She just had her hands on your belly and was just calming you down.

Meagan: Yeah. Yeah. I’m going to rewind a little bit. We get to the birth center. She does. She did do a cervical exam and she said, “All right. We’re going to stay. Let’s go upstairs.” So we go upstairs. At that point, she didn’t tell me what I was dilated to but I knew I was dilated enough to stay.

For me, dilation was a big mental block because I had never made it past 3 before. I had never made it past 70% effaced either. I was told on my op reports. I don’t know if you remember that day that I got the op reports and I was just crying and so upset, but I was told on those op reports that I was failure to progress and that my pelvis was too small.

I was just worried about dilating but at the same time, it gave me some oomph because she said, “Let’s go. Let’s go upstairs.” So we went upstairs. I later learned that I was 4 centimeters which was huge and yeah. My baby just really was posterior and really having a hard time turning.

We did the stairs. We walked up and down the stairs and like Ric said, we went outside and we went underneath this beautiful tree. I sat on a peanut ball or I sat on a ball and my one doula was behind me holding my belly. You were there and then I had another doula keeping me hydrated. It was just a beautiful time. It was a beautiful time. I really liked it.

Yeah, then we went in and I feel like that’s from the point we went in, it started getting a little bit more serious but you hadn’t eaten. It was like, Okay if we are going to take a turn, we need to get Ric food because we are going to have a baby soon.

Do you remember that you left for a little while? Do you remember leaving?

Ric: I don’t. No, I do remember leaving because that’s when I came back and everybody had shown up. Everybody had shown up.

Meagan: Everybody was there, everybody. Yeah, so you left which was nice that you were able to leave and decompress and maybe reset. Did it feel good to be able to leave? Did you feel nervous leaving?

Ric: No, again, the benefit of having Robin there. Robin was kind of the main doula for me. She was always the one who would talk to me and make sure that I was doing okay which I was.

Meagan: Which is good to know because I think that hours and hours and hours into labor, you could have easily been freaking out.

Ric: Yeah, I don’t know why. It was just calming.

Meagan: It felt calming.

Ric: It just seemed we had a bunch of hands on deck that could have handled any situation that presented itself. So yeah, I remember coming back. Did you move to the room with the bed?

Meagan: Mhmm. I had. I was getting counterpressure.

Ric: I walked in and there was Courtney, Robin, Hillary, Angie, Danielle– there were five. Yeah.

Meagan: You said Courtney, yeah.

Ric: There were five women there.

Meagan: Surrounding.

Ric: I walked in and there was such a relief. I didn’t have to do a thing. I was like, I can just sit. Because I think I brought my food. I just sat and ate and watched as you were getting pampered. You were getting attended to by these amazing women.

Meagan: Such a princess. Really, there was a point where all of them like you said, all hands were on deck. They were all giving me counterpressure. They were all doing something. After you ate, do you remember when I was like, “I need Ric”?

Ric: Yeah, for some reason I’ve got magic fists.

Meagan: You have strength.

Ric: I basically punched my wife in the lower back over and over and over again. Just as hard and as much pressure as possible. For some reason, it worked for her. Those women are way stronger than a man.

Meagan: They are so incredible.

Ric: Yeah, but I remember we would go between there and the bathroom that had the bathtub. I remember for a second we filled up the bathtub. You hung out in the bathtub for a while.

Meagan: Yeah.

Ric: And just kind of sat there. You obviously kept working yourself up because the progress wasn’t quick enough. Baby wasn’t coming fast enough. You were obviously uncomfortable.

Meagan: Yeah, it had been at least 35 hours at this point of being in that tub.

Ric: Yeah, so you just kept trying to find the spot where you felt would trigger things for the labor and get the labor going.

Meagan: Yeah, I was really trying to get that baby to rotate. I was trying to move. Every five contractions, I would re-position myself in that tub. Eventually, I got out.

Ric: Yeah, we went back into the bedroom and that’s when Robin pulled me aside– or maybe it was Danielle– I think it was Robin who pulled me aside and she was like, “Hey, you were very much in your own head and starting to doubt yourself.”

Meagan: I was, yeah.

28:33 Navigating doubt and transition on the toilet

Ric: Robin said, “Hey, I think we need to leave.”

Meagan: We might need to leave, yeah.

Ric: No, no, no, no, no.

Meagan: Oh, I don’t know. I shouldn’t correct you.

Ric: She was saying that the girls needed to leave like all of the women needed to leave and it just needed to be me and you. So we hung out for a little bit longer. We went back into the bathroom. Do you remember fainting on the toilet?

Meagan: That was after the birth, but yes.

Ric: That was after birth.

Meagan: So it was just you and I. What happened was you all went out and Danielle and I were in the bathroom and she did an NST on me. She was just checking on the baby to make sure he was doing okay and he was doing fantastic.

Ric: What’s an NST?

Meagan: A non-stress test. They did a non-stress test on him and he was doing great. Everything was great. We weren’t having issues. I didn’t have any fever because again, it had been many hours since my water had broken and I’m assuming that’s when you were being talked to and then I remember Danielle taking the machine out, going out and you coming in. It was just you and me. I was on the toilet. I was facing backward– the dilation station– and I was really hot. That position is a really good one though. It really opens the hips. It just helps.

So I was there and I had a backpack– or not a backpack. I had a pillow.

Ric: You had everything.

Meagan: Yeah, I had a pillow and then you were keeping me cool with rags and stuff. There were some pictures of you even touching me and just your touch was so amazing and did so much for me. I remember just absolutely loving it. I think that’s even more of why I was like, “I need Ric,” for counterpressure. Yes, your counterpressure was incredible, but I just needed your touch too.

Anyway, but yeah, we were in the bathroom for a bit. It felt like a little bit.

Ric: Yeah, and you really started doubting yourself.

Meagan: I really was getting down. She had just done an NST and she said the NST was great, but I was thinking, Whatever. They’re going to transfer me. I’m going to have a C-section.

Ric: The one lady had come in and said that you should transfer so a midwife who wasn’t our midwife who was at the center–

Meagan: With another mom.

Ric: I think she was frustrated that we were taking so long.

Meagan: She was.

Ric: But she had mentioned the hospital word and that really set you off.

Meagan: That really impacted me.

Ric: You immediately started feeling doubt in yourself. Up until this point, I don’t think you had.

Meagan: In my head, I was like, Oh my gosh. This is taking forever and it’s getting really strong but we’re not getting anywhere. I was thinking that, but when she said the word– I remember she wasn’t very great. Her bedside manner was not very great. She checked me and I was 6 centimeters which was great, but I had been just lagging. She was like, “I think it’s time to go to the hospital,” or something like that.

I think that’s when she told the midwife and the midwife came in and did the NST. But we were in there and one of our other doulas came in, Angie. I turned to her and said, “Are they going to transfer me?” She just said honestly which I really appreciated, and I really encourage doulas if you are listening, to be honest with your clients. Honesty is so important. She just said, “They are looking at things. It’s one of the things they may consider.”

I was like, “Okay. We’ve got to do something here.”

Ric: No, that’s not what you did.

Meagan: In my head, that was what I was thinking.

Ric: You got really down on yourself.

Meagan: I did.

Ric: This is when I turned into super-Meagan. I was like, “No. You can do this. You’ve got this. You worked so hard. You’ve done everything in your power to have the baby here. Let’s have the baby here. You keep doing what you are doing and it will happen.” That was the one time when I think I was the one who was pushing more for having the VBAC than you were and was it 5 minutes later when Danielle came in and said, “All right, we’re good.”

Meagan: Well, yeah. She came in. She had me turn around.

Ric: You had been checked. Sorry, let’s go back a little bit. Right before it was just you and I in the bathroom, you had been checked and you were like an 8.5 or a 9.

Meagan: Oh, yes. I was a 6 when the other midwife checked. She had checked me right before.

Ric: Probably a half hour past.

Meagan: Yeah.

Ric: Then right before we were left alone in the bathroom, Danielle came in and checked you and you were like a 9. I don’t know what everything else means, but I don’t think that Webb was in a great position though.

Meagan: He wasn’t. I don’t know if you remember, but first of all, I was already having back labor. Now my baby was really low. I was dilated pretty far and I wanted to push. I don’t know if you remember. I was trying to push, but they were like, “You’re not dilated.”

Ric: You thought you were going to go to the bathroom.

Meagan: Yeah, so I was living on the toilet then she came in and I think that they had been listening. It really wasn’t that long. Yeah. She checked me and what she did was she kind of advanced my cervix. I was 9 centimeters. My baby was posterior and she stretched my cervix over his head.

Ric: Yeah.

Meagan: She manually brought me to a 10.

Ric: She assisted.

34:25 Pushing Webb out in three pushes

Meagan: As soon as she did that, it was like, Oh my gosh. This baby is coming. Everybody flooded.

Ric: She brought in the stool.

Meagan: Yeah, she brought in the stool and everybody flooded in the bathroom. It was insane. There were so many people in this small bathroom. Yeah. I sat on the stool and you were right behind me. I think I put at least one of my feet on someone’s shoulder.

Ric: Courtney.

Meagan: Maybe. Courtney was taking pictures.

Ric: I don’t know.

Meagan: Yeah. I don’t know either but yeah. I put my foot on someone and I started pushing. She was like, “Let’s have a baby.” I still in that moment was like, No. It’s not going to happen. This isn’t happening. How am I pushing a baby out now? It was so– I don’t know if it’s euphoric but it was really weird.

Ric: It was exciting.

Meagan: It was super exciting but I didn’t believe it. I didn’t believe that what was happening was happening.

Ric: I did. I remember they asked me if I wanted to catch the baby and then they asked if you wanted to catch the baby which because of where you were at on the stool, you weren’t able to.

Meagan: Yeah. Yeah. I pushed and within one push, he made really great progress. He had rotated. He had rotated because I did not give birth to him posterior. He had rotated and yeah. It was one push with major movement. The second push had major movement then I just remember I was sitting there. It was really quiet and there was another mom in the next room also pushing. She was a VBAC and I was like, I’m going to have this baby before her. I made it a competition a little bit. It seemed like we were kind of on and off. When I was pushing, she was not. When she was pushing, I wasn’t.

With the next contraction, Danielle looked at me. I remember her eyes and I was like, It’s going to happen. I felt it. I felt a lot of pressure, a lot of pressure. I pushed him out, pulled him up, put him on my chest, and I don’t know. Were you crying?

Ric: No. You were.

Meagan: I was bawling. Everybody else I feel like was bawling, just all of the women in the room who had just gone through this whole experience with me, not just the labor but the journey of wanting the VBAC and then also as a doula watching me want this VBAC.

So anyway, we were all crying and then you’ll have to say. I don’t know what happened.

37:08 Passing out after birth

Ric: Yeah, you passed out. I was behind you with my arms around you and the baby. You had been crying and with the emotion, with all of the hard work, you suddenly just went limp. So I had just told one of the doulas, “Hey, can one of you guys grab the kid because Meagan just passed out and we need to wake her up?” They grabbed Webb and–

Meagan: Gave him to you, right?

Ric: No.

Meagan: Oh, really?

Ric: No, I hung out with you while they had the baby.

Meagan: Oh, I didn’t know that.

Ric: You came to and did they start? I remember they cut the umbilical cord.

Meagan: Yeah, because they took the baby. They cut the umbilical cord.

I saw pictures of you holding the baby and me on the ground.

Ric: I was just focused on you because you had passed out.

Meagan: I just assumed they handed the baby to you.

Ric: Eventually.

Meagan: Okay, yeah. So yeah. I don’t know. I woke up pretty quickly. It was pretty quick it seemed like.

Ric: Yeah.

Meagan: But yeah, then I was just on the floor and I was just beaming and laughing and just so stinking happy. And then we went into the bedroom and I nursed for a while and was doing really, really well. They were like, “Okay. Let’s get you to the bathroom and showered and then you can go home.”

What happened?

Ric: You passed out again.

Meagan: I passed out again.

Ric: Yep. You woke up on the floor. You had just sat up on the side of the bed and you passed out. This is when I did have Webb in my hands at this time and you passed out. Luckily, another doula had come so we had a fresh one, Rachel. You woke up laughing. You were like, “Oh, I’m on the floor again.”

Meagan: I was like, “Why does this keep happening?”

Ric: But you really wanted to go to the bathroom so we went. You and I just went to the bathroom. You sat down on the potty and you passed out again.

Meagan: Yeah, and Robin came in. I remember waking up and you and Robin were right there.

Ric: Yeah. We had to pick you up so we hung out in the birth center a lot longer than we would have.

Meagan: Than normal.

Ric: I think you ended up going to sleep.

Meagan: I did.

Ric: Because I was next to you and then Webb was between us. I was super worried about rolling over on him or you rolling over on him, but I think we hung out there for a couple of hours. They checked on him. They checked on you and then I just remember how amazing it was to go home that night.

Meagan: Yeah.

Ric: I mean, it was later. I think it was 11:00 at night.

Meagan: He was born at 5:30 and it was like 11:00 that we were finally stable enough to go home.

Ric: It was so odd to be told, “Hey, look. You can go home now.” He didn’t have to wait in the nursery. He didn’t have to do any of that. We were just able to go home. We came home. We had the crib in our room. We put him in the crib and we slept great that night.

Meagan: Yeah, we did.

Ric: He did too. He did awesome. I think he woke up once or twice to feed, but he was so calm.

40:37 It takes a village

Ric: From my perspective, seeing you accomplish what you wanted and for those of you who are unaware, I told Meagan unequivocally that this was our last child, so this was her last opportunity. She wouldn’t have had another opportunity after this.

So it was really fun to see you accomplish what you had wanted to accomplish. It truly did. It took a village. You had so much help. We had so much help. I had no idea what I was doing and it was awesome because I had no idea what I was doing and everybody else who was there knew exactly what they were doing and they did such a good job.

Meagan: Yeah, so obviously you would advocate for a doula.

Ric: Oh, 100%. When people come up to me and ask what a doula is, I tell them it’s what the perfect partner would be and how they would act and how they would treat their partner during birth.

Meagan: Mhmm.

Ric: So yeah, they were fantastic. Again, being able to leave and come back knowing that you were 100% taken care of– obviously, I had my spot there. I don’t feel like I was minimized or my role was minimized at all. There were a bunch of times where you would have me step in when I needed to get in there and help, but I was able to focus on being there for you and they were able to show me, “Hey, look Ric. Here’s where she wants you to push.” I remember that. You had showed and I think Robin or Angie said, “Hey, this is the spot where you need to push.”

I remember when we were out under the tree, I was able to look at you because Robin was holding you from behind and that was a big deal because I remember Robin was obviously there and it was just serene having her with us, but it very much felt like a moment between just you and I because we were able to just sit there and be with each other and talk to each other.

Meagan: Yeah. Yeah. It just helped the connection and the bond and everything. I just love doulas so much. I love you and I am so grateful that we were able to have this journey together.

42:45 Ric’s advice to other dads

Meagan: Do you have any advice to a dad who may be in the spot that I put you in?

Ric: Yeah, I’m sorry. First and foremost, I apologize to you because that’s rough. It’s a rough spot to be in. No, honestly, trust your partner. Trust the mom. They know things better than you do and again, for us, it’s really easy because you get your way 99% of the time in our marriage but seeing how things ended and how everything happened, it just showed me that yeah, I can trust her and I know that she’s listening to her body and she’ll know what needs to happen.

Meagan: I love that you point out that I was listening to my body. I think that can be a hard thing for any dad or partner to understand because there is this weird, innate thing inside of us. It just felt so right to birth vaginally after two C-sections and then it also felt right to birth out of the hospital. So thank you for supporting me through all of that and for being there.

I can’t believe our baby boy is 8 years old today so happy birthday, Webster. We love you so stinking much.

Closing

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