My name is Alexandra, and I go by 'Alex.' I have two sons.
Mateo, he's almost three years old. He was born via emergency C-section.
And Lucas is my VBAC baby. He's nine months old.
With Mateo, my C-section baby, I was trying to have a vaginal birth, but he had problems, and the doctor called the emergency C-section.
The recovery with the C-section with Mateo was horrible.
I needed help to do everything.
And when you have a newborn baby, you want to be able to take care of your baby.
And people were taking care of me.
And all I could really do was breastfeed him. They would have to bring him to me.
When I was pregnant with Lucas, I knew that I wanted to avoid a C-section.
So I was like ... give me as many contraction pains as you want, but do not give me the recovery C-section pain.
So I just started researching online, looking about repeat C-sections and VBAC.
The big thing that scares most women, I think, and me also about having a VBAC, is that your uterus could rupture in the middle of labor and your baby could die.
After doing all the research, I knew that, with the right support, that I would likely have a successful vaginal birth.
So, yes, the risk was there. I knew that this risk existed.
I knew it was a small risk, and I was willing to take it for the benefits of not having to recover from a C-section, being able to have my baby the way nature intended ...
Additionally, I wanted to be there for my son, Mateo.
He was going to be two at the time.
I don't know how many more kids I'm going to have, but I may have more than two.
I knew with the repeat C-section there would be more risks involved in future pregnancies.
So those were things I definitely wanted to avoid in case I had more than two kids.
My husband supported me completely.
He knew that ... how difficult it was to recover from the C-section, so he wanted to avoid all that.
I would not have done anything differently, as far as the VBAC is concerned.
I was so happy about it. I tell everybody about it.
It was the best decision I made, as far as birthing my child.
