In this episode of The VBAC Link Podcast, join Julie as she sits down with Ambrosia to discuss her journey from a teen pregnancy to achieving a VBAC after two C-sections. Ambrosia shares her unique experiences, the challenges she faced, and the importance of advocating for herself in the medical system. Julie and Ambrosia give insights into the myth of a small pelvis and preeclampsia. How is a small pelvis really diagnosed? Does preeclampsia always mean a medically necessary C-section? Listen to find out! The VBAC Link Blog: Overuse of the CPD Diagnosis Coterie Diapers - Use Code VBAC20 for 20% off How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents Full Transcript under Episode Details Julie: All right, Good morning, good morning, good morning. It is Julie here today with The VBAC Link Podcast, and I'm really excited about our story today. I have with me Ambrosia. Is Ambrosia how you say it? Ambrosia: Yes. Julie: Okay, good. I didn't want to go the whole episode without saying your name wrong. Okay, we have it. Ambrosia. I'm really excited because today we have a VBAC after two C-section story. I love especially these stories. Her first pregnancy was a teen pregnancy, and I am really interested in hearing her experience about that because I know that it's a very unique circumstance and a very different journey as a teenager, and there are unique challenges associated with that. So I'm excited to hear more about that and about all of her journey through all of her births. But before I do that, I'm going to share a Review of the Week. This one is a throwback to 2020. I was looking through our spreadsheet and saw that we haven't done that one yet, so I'm going to throw all the way back almost four years ago. This review was on Apple Podcasts, and it says "Meagan and Julie and the women sharing their birth stories are amazing. They share real life stories of all kinds of births and helpful, useful, practical information that has really helped me feel prepared for my VBAC which I hope will happen very soon. I highly recommend listening to this podcast to be informed and encouraged. I also highly recommend their online VBAC course. It's self-paced and offers so much valuable information and good resources. It has really helped me feel ready and empowered to birth my baby. Thank you for all you awesome ladies do for women and the birth world." I will say thank you so much for sharing a review. If you haven't already, take some time, pause the podcast right now. Go ahead and leave us review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen, and we might just be reading your review on the podcast one day. All right, let's get back to it. I'm really excited to meet Ambrosia today and hear her stories. Ambrosia is a 27-year-old mother of three boys. Boy Mom, that's super exciting. They are ages 11, 5, and 1 month. I'm really excited to hear, especially, about a fresh VBAC after two C-section story. She is from El Paso, Texas, and she is very excited to share her story with us today. So, Ambrosia, why don't you go ahead and share your journey to a VBAC after two C sections with us? Ambrosia: Cool. I'll start off with my first pregnancy. I got pregnant at about 16. And with that, I just wanted to mention that I wasn't really raised by my mom. I had my grandma in my life most of my life since I was two. So with her, I had a lot of freedom with her, in a sense. I did fall pregnant very, very young. But she did support me in so many ways. She helped me out through all of my pregnancy, but it was more providing shelter and food and stuff like that. When it came down to me knowing what to do, that wasn't really a thing. I found myself watching YouTube a lot and getting my information from the Internet, but still, I was just completely naive to what birth was and all of that. I just went straight off of what my doctor would tell me. Once I did find out that I was pregnant, I chose a doctor and didn't really do any research with that. I just chose a female because that's who I was more comfortable with. But little did I know, the doctor that I did choose, she was, from what I've heard around El Paso from other women and their experiences and doctors too, they were like, "Oh, she's really good at C-sections. She's one of the top ladies that you would want to have to do your C-section because she's really good at it." That was later on that I figured that out. But at the time I was just like, however my baby comes out is how it comes out, but I did want to have like a vaginal birth. I didn't want to do no surgeries or nothing because I've never even broke a bone in my body, so just the thought of surgery kind of scared me. My first visit with her was good, but she automatically told me, "Your pelvis is too narrow. You won't be able to push your baby out. There's a chance that he could get stuck," and this and that. I had my grandma with me, so we just gave each other that look of like, "Oh well, whatever is best." I ended up having a C-section with him, and she schedules the C-section. Then on that day that I got it, after everything was done, she mentioned to me, "You want more kids, right?" I told her, "Of course." She told me, "Well, if you wait a couple years, at least one to two or two-and-a-half years, then you could have a vaginal birth if you would still want that." Julie: That is so funny. Hold on. Can I interrupt for a second? Ambrosia: Yeah, of course. Julie: I'm so sorry. I think it's so funny that she told you that after she told you your pelvis was too small. Ambrosia: Exactly. Julie: Isn't that silly? Anyway, we're gonna talk more about that at the end of the episode, but I just had to call attention to that. Anyway. Sorry. Keep going. Thank you. Ambrosia: You're okay. Yeah. I thought that was weird, too, because knowing what I know now, I know that a lot of doctors get more money, in a sense, out of the C-sections rather than a vaginal birth. So I'm like, yeah, that's probably why. And not necessarily that, but it's more convenient for them. They don't have to really wait around and whatnot. And then with my second pregnancy, my son was already about 5-6 years old. And so I was like, well, of course I can. I was pretty excited. I did want to push for vaginal birth, but I did end up going back to her for that pregnancy. I should have known better. But honestly, I didn't know really how to advocate for myself still because I was 21. I feel like I just wasn't adamant enough. I didn't have that confidence yet be like, no, this is what I want. I don't want another C-section. This is what I want. I would mention it to her that at almost every appointment. With the first initial appointment, I told her, "I do want to try for a VBAC." And she's like, "Well, yeah. We can talk about that in your next appointments." As I kept going back for my appointments, she was just kind of like, "It's just an in-and-out type of thing and transactional experiences trying to see if you're healthy and whatnot." I started noticing at around 20 weeks pregnant that my hands would feel pretty weird. They would feel kind of stiff and a little swollen. I started getting very, very swollen. I worked full-time. I'm a nail technician, and so I work at a spa full time, or I did at that time too. I thought, maybe it's just stress from work or normal pregnancy symptoms. But I started feeling very noticeably swollen. I would see a lot of flashes and little stars just floating and bad headaches. Toward the end of my pregnancy, I would start feeling indigestion depending on what I ate. I thought it just wasn't sitting right in my stomach, and sometimes I would end up vomiting. But at the time I just thought, oh, this is just normal pregnancy symptoms or whatever. But knowing what I know now, I'm like, no, that was definitely signs of preeclampsia. But the thing is at every doctor's appointment that I would go in for, my blood pressure was always normal. So it was pretty weird that I had that. I would tell my doctor, I'd be like, "Hey, girl." I'm pretty swollen, and I don't really feel like myself." Obviously you're not gonna feel like yourself with pregnancy, but I felt not what I felt with my first pregnancy. It didn't feel good at all. So she looks at me, and she goes, "Oh, no. I mean, you're swollen, but you're also very slim," because I am very skinny naturally. But she's like, "Maybe your family isn't used to seeing you pregnant, you know?" So I was like, "I don't think that's what it is, but okay." Again, me being not very adamant about sticking up for myself in a sense like, no, I don't think this is. So I just told her. I was like, "Okay, we'll keep seeing." I kept going for my appointments and at 38 weeks, I had one of my appointments, and then I was feeling super bad. That's when I was just like, "No, I really don't feel good. I'm very swollen." She told me during that appointment, "Yeah, I mean, you look a little more swollen than usual. I'll have you go across to the hospital to get some bloodwork done." So I was like, "Okay." So I went. I remember telling my grandma at the time, "She wants me to go do some blood work." She just gave me that looks like, "I don't know," like she knew something. I was blindsided too. So I was like, "Yeah, yeah, I'm just gonna go get this bloodwork done real quick." I took my son with me, and then she ended up having to come pick him up again because I had to be admitted. They wanted to monitor me. She came and picked up my son, and then I went and got the bloodwork done. They took a urine sample, and then a couple of hours later, they're like, "Oh, yeah, you have preeclampsia." I was like, "Oh, no." I kind of knew it was that because I did a little bit of research, but at the same time, I didn't want to self-diagnose myself either. I was like, I don't want to say this is what it is when it really isn't, but I did a little bit of research and every
