Waiting out labor at home

[cameragirl]

Are you comfortable with staying at home during labor for as long as possible in order to get your VBAC? Do you prefer to go to the hospital earlier? I'm planning on staying at home as long as possible, but also thinking about the drive to the hospital. It is either the freeway (which I find obnoxious under normal circumstances), or really bumpy country roads. Is it really that bad to be in the car in active labor, or is it just annoying?

[txtarheel]

IMO, it's really tough in the car in active labor, but then, so is the intervention at the hospital and increased paranoia for VBAC'ing moms.

[justKate]

cameragirl, I'm glad you asked that, its something that I'm wondering about.  We live about 40 minutes from the hospital where I'm VBACing.  On one side, I know that staying home as long as possible gives me the best chance for a successful VBAC, but I'm nervous about staying home because 1) no way to know how baby is doing (DD went downhill quickly between hours 27 and 29 of my labor with her) and 2) my mom's labors where a hard 24 hours and an easy 3 hours, respectively, and I don't want to have the baby on the side of the road.  Accidental UC would be fine, but not in the car.

I had a ton of bleeding with DD during my labor, and although it wasn't diagnosed, I wonder if i didn't have a partial abruption....

So I'm interested in hearing what others think. 

[cameragirl]

We aren't too far, but it could be a half hour in traffic. With minimal traffic, it is about a 15 minute drive on the freeway. I do have a doppler, as well. I don't know what to expect as far as labor, since I had prodromal labor for weeks, but didn't go into labor before the c-section. I'm crossing my fingers that I can hold out for as long as possible, without crowning while I'm in the car.

[Monkey Keeper]

Honestly, my doula was key to my peace of mind for laboring at home. If I had gone by what "they" say, I would have gone in about 15 hours before DS was born, been labeled FTP and sectioned again. As it was, I was admitted at 6+cm about 6 hours after I initially would have gone in without her support and guidance and still didn't deliver for 9 hours. But I was comfortable at home knowing that she would be able to guide me as to when to go and also when something wasn't going quite right.  I had a 7 mile ride to the hospital, about 12 minutes with lights at 3am, and it was hard but doable.

[AprilM]

Subbing. I am in the same boat!

[mtn.mama]

I'm staying home FOR SURE, unless we feel that something is wrong.  After laboring at home for 40 hours (including 8 hours of pushing), and then having traveled a mile and a half down the mountain in the back of a 4-wheeler trailer, and then 2+ hours to the hospital last time... being at home and traveling don't scare me at all.  Hospitals scare me.

[AprilM]

I just did this, actually. The hospital I birthed at was about 35-40 minutes away with no traffic. Luckily, we seamlessly made the trip at about 9:30 at night. If I could do it all over again, I probably wouldn't have waited so long to go. I was literally in transition in the car, my water broke in the back seat, and I was in such pain, the car ride felt like an outer body experience. Of course not everyone's labor is as painful as mine was (all back labor until transition, then it just felt like someone was blowing up dynamite around my uterus) One mistake I made was forgetting to call my OB before coming in. They were pretty upset about that, and gave me a lot of attitude.

When I got to the hospital, almost pushing, they asked me a ton of questions and put me in a waiting room! My water was leaking all over the chair, and I was screaming out in pain, people were looking at me like....what is she doing in here! One piece of advice I have is, bring your own water! All I wanted when I got there was a glass of water, and no one would get me one until it was determined I wasn't going to be a C Section. I probably could have avoided all that if I would have gone in sooner.

My plan was to go all natural, but when I got the hospital, which was a big city learning hospital (Magee in Pittsburgh), there were a million one people in my face asking me questions, someone putting an IV in my arm, someone wanting to put their fingers up my vagina, someone strapping TWO external fetal monitors around my contracting belly (tight I might add), etc, I couldn't handle it, and asked for the epidural. I was at 10 centimeters when they gave it to me. I felt like a a failure, but I just couldn't handle it all.

Unfortunately, when I started to push, the external fetal monitors showed that my baby's heart rate was deceling everytime I would push, and then, because I had a fever and bronchitis at the time of delivery, the baby's heart rate sped up a little too fast. OB's got freaked, were gonna do a C Section. Yep all that laboring at home for nothing. They ended up doing a vacuum extraction instead, but since they wanted the baby out fast, they cut me from hole to hole and yanked him out as I pushed. I was told I literally had 5 minutes to get the baby out. There were 15 people in the room when I gave birth, most of them were students. I never gave my consent for that. In fact, my birth plan stated I wanted the least amount of people in the room as possible. I had even talked to my OB about this prior to delivery.

My baby came out and screamed before even hitting the warmer table (I had originally wanted delayed cord clamping, but the cord was wrapped around his neck, so they cut it as soon as his little head popped out), he had an Apgar of 9, and was perfectly fine. It was me who was not fine. It took an hour and 45 minutes to stitch me up, and I don't know which recovery was the hardest, the C Section of the episiotomy from hell.

That's my unfortunate story. My doula, who accompanied me, said she sees heart rate activity in her homebirth babies like mine all the time, and she thinks the urgency of the situation was exaggerated. Who knows. I will never know. It is what it is.

I know if I would have gone to the hospital sooner, I probably would have been a C Section. But like I said, I don't know what recovery is worse.

[sunflwrmoonbeam]

We considered doing a hospital birth an hour away for this pregnancy and decided that, if so, we'd travel to that town in, ideally, early active labor, labor at a motel very nearby until pushing, walk in and push out a baby. I wouldn't want to drive far in advanced labor, but I also wouldn't want to be in a hospital too early, and for $30-$50 it seems like a good compromise.

[trekkingirl]

I waited till transition with both my vbac's and traveled an hour away(30 min w no traffic) to San Francisco where I received excellent care. I truly believe I would not have accomplished two natural vbac births had I not showed up ready to deliver. With my last birth it was really close. My water broke on the golden gate bridge and I was pushing in the elevator on the way to L&D. I really never thought to worry about how the baby was handling labor? I trusted my body and the process and my higher power. I never truly believed my c sec was really necessary anyways.

[justKate]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sunflwrmoonbeam 

We considered doing a hospital birth an hour away for this pregnancy and decided that, if so, we'd travel to that town in, ideally, early active labor, labor at a motel very nearby until pushing, walk in and push out a baby. I wouldn't want to drive far in advanced labor, but I also wouldn't want to be in a hospital too early, and for $30-$50 it seems like a good compromise.

We may end up doing just that.  Laboring in a motel across the street from the hospital sounds better to me than driving 40 min--1 hour to the hospital.

[konayossie]

I worried about this a lot before my VBAC a couple months ago. I had thought maybe I'd rent a Doppler for peace of mind in staying home as long as possible. I ended up just going in when I felt like I was hitting the point of not being able to ride contrax smoothly during the triage period (it's such a pita). I only had about a 15-min ride to the hospital, which wasn't bad at all. I really wasn't even in pain yet when we went. I would NOT have wanted to do transition in the car. Anyway, it worked out perfect for us. I was at 5 cm with bulging bag on admission, and I had the baby about 6 hours after I got there with no intervention but having my water broken when I wanted it.

And AprilM, I am so, so sorry about your terrible experience. That's just awful.