[Periwinkle]

Hi - I'm new here. I am 6 weeks pregnant with our third child -- I have two 2 year-olds (boy/girl twins). I had a c-section for my previous pregnancy.. dd (Baby A) was born completely naturally (not even an IV) but ds (Baby B) turned after she was born and became transverse; since they were born at 32 weeks, we couldn't wait for long for him to turn again before doing a c-section. I had spinal anesthesia and a low/transverse incision.. but during my c-section there were complications from a previous surgery. About 10 years ago, I had a dermoid cyst removed from my left ovary. It was large enough they did a low-transverse "bikini" incision to remove it; in fact, my OB went in through the same scar for my c-section so I wouldn't have to have two scars. Anyway, I had a lot of adhesions from that first surgery and my OB had to call in the general surgeon to assist -- bowel adhesions, uterine adhesions... basically, he said everything was stuck together.

The incision he made was milimeters from perforating my bowel as a result. Anyway... after ds was born, they spent like 2 hours cleaning up the adhesions. I was given a double-layer suture and staples then steri-strips for the skin part. I know I still have adhesions (old ones and/or new ones) since I had them so bad last time and since I can tell again e.g., when I sneeze.

I have a couple of questions...

1.) What can I expect this pregnancy with regard to adhesion pain? What does an adhesion tearing feel like as opposed to the uterus scar tearing? I'm worried I won't know the difference - since both would be intense pain.

and most importantly:

2.) Does the prior abdominal surgery and especially the adhesions problem have any impact on my ability to VBAC successfully?

3.) Does it impact the risks of VBAC? For example, are there any studies saying women with lots of adhesions are at greater risk for uterine rupture, etc?

Thank you in advance.

 

[stafl]

try www.adhesions.org for info. The answer to your first question is that pain is so relative to each individual woman there is no way to answer what you might experience. I think you'll just know it, deep inside, if something were to go terribly wrong (like rupture).
the answer to both of your other questions is a resounding "NO"

My personal experience was that at about six or eight weeks, I felt the tell-tale pulling, stretching, tearing adhesion pain (I also had previous abdominal surgeries, the first of which left me with severe adhesions, the second took care of them so I know what adhesions feel like, too). I was dancing with my toddler, when the adhesion pain became really sharp. Suddenly it felt like a giant rubber band snapped inside me, doubling me over and made me cry. Then it went away, and I wasn't troubled with anything of the sort for the rest of my pregnancy.
I had a very perfect all-natural vbac with no complications.

I know the adhesions didn't go away, since I am still having certain problems that I attribute to them (it can't be the endo returning, as my cycles have not returned yet), but they caused no problems at all during my pregnancy or birth.