Emily’s first birth experience was a home birth turned hospital transfer which ended in a C-section and then a birth center VBAC ending in hospital transfer and another C-section with her second. She found herself feeling alone, frustrated, and surrounded by people who just didn't get it as she worked to process the trauma and grief of not one but two back-to-back traumatic births and C-sections. Throughout her journey, Emily took charge of what she could, learned about her options, and made the right decisions even when they were disappointing. Emily has been proactive about physical and emotional healing. She has been open to new perspectives. Emily is grateful to share her story and all that she has learned for other mamas who have found themselves in similar situations. And we are so grateful that we can feel of her strength! The VBAC Link Blog: How to Cope When You Don't Get Your VBACThe VBAC Link Blog: Deciding on VBAC vs Repeat CesareanNPR ArticleSpinning Babies: What to Do When...Needed WebsiteHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details 05:02 Review of the Week09:10 Emily’s first pregnancy and labor14:59 First C-section17:47 Second pregnancy21:16 Moving and switching providers33:20 Pushing for 5 hours35:45 Transferring37:47 C-section41:29 Tips for adhesions44:20 Hospital births are beautiful49:09 All about transferringMeagan: Hello, everybody. It is Meagan and we have our friend, Emily, with us from Texas today. Hello, Emily. How are you?Emily: I’m good. How are you?Meagan: I am wonderful. I am so wonderful. I love recording these stories if you can’t tell. We are producing them a lot because I love recording. I love hearing these stories and sharing these stories. Your story is a CBAC story which I think is so important to share on The VBAC Link Podcast. As technically a CBAC mama myself because I don’t know if anybody knows who is listening, but I had a C-section then I wanted a VBAC and had a Cesarean and then I had a vaginal birth. So all over the place. CBAC is really special to my heart and I think that this is such an important topic to share on the podcast because we know that obviously, so many C-sections are happening, right? I also think it’s important to know that sometimes even when we are preparing for a VBAC, it might end in a Cesarean birth and even more important, I think it’s really important to know that Cesarean births can be healing and are a lot of the times healing. Would you agree with me, Emily? Emily: Yes. I mean, I loved hearing the healing stories. Mine was not and I think that’s what I yearned for to her is that I’m not alone and it’s okay to have a repeat C-section and I hate calling it a failed VBAC, but a repeat C-section that wasn’t wanted and wasn’t healing. I mean, my second birth was much more traumatic than my first. I mean, I hate saying traumatic because I have two beautiful, healthy babies, but I also want listeners to know that just because you have a healthy baby and you didn’t have serious complications you can’t feel what you felt about the trauma of it all. Meagan: Okay, and I love that you point that out too because just as much as Cesarean birth can be healing and can be amazing, it can also have a lot of that trauma. Trauma, I think, is a completely valid word to use. It can be used to be described as traumatic. It can be described as hurtful. I was angry. I was angry when I walked myself down for my second C-section. I didn’t want that. That was not what I wanted. It was not what I planned. Yeah. Also, going into that it doesn’t always happen the way we want to. It can go both ways so that’s why I think sharing CBAC stories on this podcast is so important because we have to learn both sides of things. We have to know that Cesarean birth can be healing and it can be exactly what someone needs and it can also be traumatic and not what someone needs. I think that through these stories and through the journeys, this is how we learn