Jen’s Cesarean & HBAC Stories

In today's episode we meet Jen, who is a mother of two. Jen had a cesarean with her first child after a long labor and very little support in the hospital. Feeling dehumanized and traumatized by her experience, she began to look into other options and hired a home birth midwife as soon as she realized that she was pregnant with her second child. Jen then went on to give birth to her 10lb pound baby at home.

Join us as Jen shares her birth stories, the feeling she experienced during and after her cesarean of being the one giving birth but not mattering to anyone in the room, and the difficulty in navigating mainstream prenatal care when you don’t know the right questions to ask or that there are other options. We also discuss how quickly people are to say that VBAC and home birth are risky and the importance of remembering that repeat cesareans also come with risks, how home birth and birth centers only vary in regards to location, the difference in prenatal care from a midwife vs. an OB, the importance of taking the time to heal from previous birth trauma, how having your other children present at your birth will impact them and their perception of birth, the importance of taking time to rest in the postpartum period and process through your birth experience regardless of if it was traumatizing or not, and how motherhood can look different than you envisioned, especially if you start making choices that go against the mainstream. 

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This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended to replace advice from qualified medical professionals.