Episode 329 Ashley's VBAC + Inverted T Scar & Extension + “You Will Never Have a Vaginal Birth

The VBAC Link

Women of Strength, we have a truly inspiring story for you today! Ashley joins us from the Liverpool/Sydney area in Australia and shares her VBAC with an inverted T special scar and extension story. During her first Cesarean, Ashley’s OB mentioned that she had only performed that kind of incision one other time in her entire career and that Ashley would never have a vaginal birth.

Ashley did not find out the actual circumstances around her first Cesarean until she requested her operative notes during her second pregnancy. In spite of what she was told, her heart longed for a VBAC. She committed to doing all she could to try and find a VBAC-supportive provider as long as it was medically safe to do so.

Ashley went into spontaneous labor and utilized the tools available to help her baby rotate from a posterior position. She and her provider both stayed patient, trusted the process, and after pushing for 20 minutes, her baby girl was earthside!

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Full Transcript under Episode Details

Meagan: Hello, Women of Strength. How are you today? I hope you are doing amazing. We have our friend, Ashley, with us today and you guys, she is from Australia. It has been so crazy. I don’t know why I cannot understand time. We were talking about how we literally had to Google, “What time will it be in Australia if it’s this time in Utah?” It was such a challenge to get this scheduled but I’m so grateful for Ashley for taking the time out of her Monday morning recording with us today so welcome, Ashley. Thank you for being here.

Ashley: Thank you so much for having me on. Like I was saying to you before, The VBAC Link was so invaluable to me with all of the research and the statistics and just trying to hear other people’s stories to help me change my mindset to get through it so I’m really excited to add to that with my story as well.

Meagan: Me too. Your story has a little extra tidbit to it. Something that we know happens because we’ve got lots of stories on them as well. We actually haven’t had one for a few minutes and yours is a special scar. You had an inverted T with an extension. Do you want to share with our listeners exactly what that means? We’ve had some J scars. There are all different special scars. An extension we know goes past the initial cut or incision. But tell us about the T.

Ashley: Yeah, so I actually only found out after the surgery that it was an inverted T but I didn’t know what that entailed so I had to do a bit of my own research especially when I fell pregnant the second time to know what was involved with that. Yeah, it was really scary just to see that I had a vertical cut in the middle. Obviously, you’ve got your normal horizontal cut–

Meagan: Low transverse, yep.

Ashley: Yeah, that’s right and then through the center going vertically I had a 3-centimeter cut which was obviously riskier. A lot of providers said no to me when I started to look into it when I was pregnant the second time and started to have a look to get somebody to take me on. Even the public hospital that I had originally gone to with my son actually said, “No, you will have to have a Cesarean if you come through us.”

In Australia, they can’t really say no to you in a public hospital if that’s what your wishes are, but I wanted somebody who was going to be supportive of me and the whole journey. So yeah. That’s where I come to going private instead and having an obstetrician this time which I know is quite rare with VBACs. You find a lot of people who won’t take you on. I had a really amazing experience if anyone is listening from Sydney. I’m in Liverpool and my provider was Brian Hollis and he’s extremely VBAC friendly. He was amazing.

He had actually somebody with an inverted T before.

Meagan: Really? Okay, so he had also seen one. Definitely there are so many providers out there who do support VBAC and then they have a special scar patient come in and they are like, “I really like VBAC but I don’t know. I’ve never seen this before.” But we know it exists so I can’t wait for you to share more in your story and about him maybe because we know it’s so hard. It’s so hard to find these providers. It’s hard enough to just find a VBAC-supportive provider in general and then that’s something unique that Australia does that at least here in Utah we don’t do with the private and public.

We just have this hospital and then we have the birth centers and then we have the home births. There is not the dramatic difference in the hospital system like in your case. Okay. Oh my gosh. I’m so excited to dive it. I do have a Review of the Week. I’m so excited that I’m talking so fast.

I do have a Review of the Week and then we’ll get into those stories. Like you said, you didn’t find out until after. That’s is the case so many times. They don’t even say during. We’ll go into this as well if they went into why but sometimes there’s not even a clear answer to, Okay, I now have this different, unique scar but why? We’re going to get into that.

We have this review from xxooxx and it says, “Informative, supportive, and empowering.” It says, “After having a C-section that I certainly did not want and that I did not know was not necessary, I knew nothing about VBACs. I had dove head-first into this podcast and on top of learning so much, I became informed and empowered to get my VBAC which I got. Thank you, Julie and Meagan, for loving your listeners and pouring your knowledge and support into us. What you do matters and I will always recommend The VBAC Link.”

Well, thank you, xxooxx, for that amazing review. Congratulations on your VBAC and I couldn’t agree more. This podcast really is so empowering and so informative like you were even just saying. I think a lot of this comes from the storytellers and the moms and the Women of Strength. This is just so amazing. I definitely suggest sharing this podcast to anybody. If they’re not a VBAC mom, if they’re a first-time mom or a second-time mom, I definitely suggest that because I truly believe that the stories on this podcast will help people avoid a Cesarean in general.

Meagan: Okay, cute Ashley. You found out after so how did this first birth lead up to this inverted T with an extension?

Ashley: Yeah, so I guess my story starts in 2020. I had a low-risk pregnancy and other than being sick the whole time but giving birth in March 2021 with my son and it was super traumatic. It took a long time to heal physically and mentally from it but my waters broke on their own two days before my due date. I had gone into the public hospital I was booked in for. I had seen the same midwife the whole pregnancy which was really fantastic. Midwives are amazing and just empowering telling a first-time mom, “You can do this.”

I had no signs that anything would be wrong. So as usual, I went back home and then the contractions started that night. They started to really ramp up and become heavier so that night at about midnight or so, I tried to get some sleep. I wanted to stay home as long as possible.

At 3:30 AM, I had to go to the hospital. I was just beyond. The pain in my back was just– yeah. I didn’t know if this was normal but in the end, when I got to the hospital, I was only 3 centimeters dilated. I had used the gas and the TENS to get through the contractions but he was posterior which I was nervous about. I didn’t know as many things as I knew in the second pregnancy in terms of Spinning Babies and trying to get into good positioning.

With my son, I don’t know how it happened but he was posterior and the pain was just unbearable.

Meagan: And it happens. We learn through pelvic dynamic courses and things that sometimes really truly, babies have to enter in a posterior position before they get into an anterior position and sometimes that means back labor. It is very, very intense. It really is intense.

Ashley: Yeah. Yeah, it was. At this point, it went on for a few hours and I just actually couldn’t deal with it anymore so I had the epidural which turned out to be quite a good thing for me. It was relieving of some of that back pain but I still had felt a lot of it through it so it’s almost like it didn’t seem to work as much as I thought it would at that point. The contractions through my back were still there.

We tried to do some things before I had the epidural to get into a better position, but it wasn’t working for me. Every contraction, my son’s heart rate would drop and the midwife was really good in just letting me keep going. “Let’s see. Let’s see.” But as soon as the doctor on call knew that it had been quite a few hours came into check me, “You’ve got meconium in your waters. You have to have a Cesarean.”

I was just devastated because I had really thought that this was just going to be a great, empowering birth. I was so excited to give birth and to hear that it wasn’t going to go the way that I had intended, I was devastated and crying. But yeah, he was in a compound position as well so he did have his hand up past his head. There were a few things going against me in that time.

But despite all of this, they gave me a little bit more time to keep going and I did get to 9 centimeters. I was in a position where they thought, “Okay.” My midwife was pushing, “Let’s try. Let’s try and see if she can continue and maybe we can try some repositioning to get him out,” but the doctor was, “No. Cesarean. There is meconium in the waters. Let’s get him out.”

I was so exhausted. It had been 34 hours from the time my waters broke and I just gave in. When I was in that vulnerable position of just so much pain and didn’t know any better, I just said, “Okay, I’ll give in and I’ll have the Cesarean.”

During the Cesarean preparing, I heard the surgeon say to her assistant, “She’s 9 centimeters,” and explaining it and the assistant said, “Should we just see? The head is almost there.” There was a little bit of whispering and then it all just stopped. I was just laying there terrified like, What’s going on? They’re talking about how far I’ve progressed and that they were concerned about me having a Cesarean.

Meagan: Your baby was so low.

Ashley: Yes. I found out later that he was so low that they had to push him back up during the Cesarean.

Meagan: Did they push him back up vaginally?

Ashley: Yes. Yeah.

Meagan: They do that sometimes where they go in vaginally where one doctor is pulling from the other end and one doctor is pushing from the other end vaginally

Ashley: Yes. Obviously the recovery is like you gave birth, isn’t it?

Meagan: Yeah.

Ashley: Yeah. The doctor panicked and I was in such a blur that my husband and I actually debriefed afterward and he said, “I’ve never been so terrified.” A team of doctors just flew in. She was making calls. Obviously, when she started to begin the Cesarean, she saw that she couldn’t grab him. He was too low and that’s why they had to cut vertically but nothing was explained to us. We were just lying there terrified. The tarp was up.

Meagan: They were doing their thing.

Ashley: Yeah. And with our first child, we didn’t know what to expect anyway but my husband just said there were all of these people who just flew in and there were all of these conversations and whispers.

Not long later, he emerged. The tarp wasn’t lowered and he wasn’t breathing. He started breathing once they transferred him to resus, but that time was the longest time.

Meagan: Absolutely. It feels like 5 hours.

Ashley: Absolutely, yeah. I don’t even know how long it was but it felt like forever. By the time that they placed him on me for the standard amount of time I suppose, I was in just a shock that the spinal block had made me have the shakes. It was just not what I was hoping for.

Meagan: Anticipated, yeah.

Ashley: Yeah. They wheeled him away with my husband. They went and then I was to go separately into recovery. Before I did that, the doctor then lowered the tarp and said to me, “You will never have a vaginal birth. I’ve only had to do what I just did twice in my career.”

Meagan: Oh wow.

Ashley: Yeah, and just so brutal. Just the shock of that was like, I didn’t want this either. It was just really hard to hear because I just had this baby not how I had anticipated and to hear that for the future was a big shock to me.

Going into recovery and then later on that initial bond with my son, I was just in so much pain that it was hard to hold him. It really took a long time to recover from it. The next day, she did come and talk to me. She said that she had to cut an extension and cut an inverted T incision of 3 centimeters to get him out. She said, “Yeah. I’m so lucky it wasn’t worse.”

Meagan: Wow.

Ashley: Yeah, then she left and I just had to go home and start my new life as a mum with just this recovery. I could hardly walk. As a Cesarean, it’s already painful, but I had all of this pain and it left me with an awful feeling mentally as well. I just obviously adored my son. I was so happy to be a mum but that lead-up and then just bang. That’s how you’re giving birth, it was just a shock.

Yeah, so that’s what happened. The details of it I found out with the second pregnancy. I didn’t know afterward that was our only conversation we had. I didn’t get any discharge notes with that information. It wasn’t until I was pregnant the second time that I requested my hospital notes.

Meagan: So important. So important to do. I really encourage anybody whether you were at one, two, different hospitals and all of the things, request your records because you really do learn a lot about what really transpired that day in your op-reports.

Ashley: Yeah, definitely.

Yeah, so I guess that brings me to now with pregnancy. A lot better, a lot happier result but I fell pregnant in May 2023. Both my pregnancies were normal, and low-risk. I was a little sick and I actually got quite dizzy and things like that but nothing that was going to impact me from giving the VBAC a try.

Like I mentioned, I had gone to a few different providers and when I had my pelvic floor checks and things after my first son, I spoke to the doctors there and said, “Would it be possible to have a VBAC here?” They said no. That was something that was a big shock to me. I didn’t expect that I would have to look for somebody. Yeah.

That was a big shock. I found out through some of my friends about this OB who was quite VBAC-supportive and I knew I wanted to give it a try and ultimately, if I did have to have the Cesarean, I would be okay with it but I just wanted to try.

I heard about this OB and had an appointment with him. My husband and I after the initial appointment were instantly comfortable with him. He was so supportive. He said to me, “Ashley, is this what you want to do?” I said, “Yeah. I really would like to try.” He goes, “Well, that’s what we’re going to do.”

Meagan: I love that.

Ashley: Yeah. I was just like, “Oh my goodness. He’s so honest about this is how it’s going to be.” “If you want to give it a go, these would be my conditions,” which were to have monitoring which I was fine with. I still was a little bit nervous. I know that some people would rather have no monitoring and just let your body tell you, but with the special scar, I thought if there are any signs of rupture, I really want to know.

Meagan: That’s actually a very common request from a provider in a VBAC situation. They usually want continuous monitoring. You can fight not to have continuous monitoring, but that’s a very normal request. On top of VBAC, having a special scar, it’s even more of a normal request for a provider to say, “Yeah, let’s totally do this. I just want to monitor things,” because we do know that one of the signs of uterine rupture is fetal distress.

Ashley: Yeah, that’s right. He was just really supportive about, “Let’s put a birth plan together and see what you want to do and I’ll see what is the best thing to do.”

During the pregnancy, I tried to do as much listening to podcasts. That’s how I came across your page and Instagram just constantly looking for information. It’s actually a beautiful Facebook group called, Special Scars, Special Hope. Being in Australia, I was just like, this is global. There were so many amazing women on there offering support and advice. There was even information on there– statistics. Yeah.

I did a little bit of research but I didn’t want to overwhelm myself. I just wanted to have a really strong mindset. There were times of doubt and, Maybe I’ll just book the Cesarean, but then I thought, No, this is what I want. Let’s give it a try. My OB was really supportive from the beginning about, Let’s just see how we go.

He retrieved my notes and he found out that all of those details where they had to push him back up vaginally and they had to do this extension cut and all those kind of things. It was good that he was prepared. He knew and I just tried to stay as active as I could through the pregnancy. I did the dates at the end. I did the raspberry leaf tea and the vitamins. I just was always on the ball. I tried to do as much as I could to prepare myself physically, but yeah.

The conditions with my OB were that we said I would be giving birth at the public hospital that is next to the private. It was a different one to before because of any emergencies and that kind of thing. He would have to do some examinations every hour or so which I was also fine about.

Obviously, I couldn’t use water. That was one thing I really wanted. I wanted to be able to get into the tub.

Meagan: Birth in the water.

Ashley: Yeah, or even just use it for pain management.

He said, “No, because of the monitoring,” so that was one thing I was ugh about. I thought, When I do go into labor and it starts, I will try and use water at home before I get to the hospital. My husband was so supportive of me and said, “I will help you. Let’s do this. If you want to use the water–” he was a little bit nervous about, “When they start to ramp up, we really need to leave” because the hospital was about 30 minutes away. We just wanted to be at a point that no later than 5 minutes or so apart and they wanted me in.

Meagan: Well, and you had already made it to 9 centimeters before so even though you’d be a first-time mom pushing baby out vaginally, your cervix is not as much like a first-time mom.

Ashley: Exactly right. That was something that got me through the whole labor. I just kept saying to myself, My body knows how to do this. I’ve gotten here before. I know what to do. That was just something in times of doubt, I would just keep saying.

But yes, my OB said at any point that he was concerned, we’d have the discussion and if anything was to go wrong, we’d be calling a C-section straightaway. I was fine about that. I came in at 39 weeks. Sorry, I booked at 39 weeks for a stretch and sweep but I got COVID.

Meagan: Oh no.

Ashley: My whole family all got COVID and I was just like, “No.” I couldn’t hardly breathe. I was congested and everything. I’m not going into labor like this. I’ve done that much preparation. So I just tried to rest and get better. It was put out until 40 weeks. I had until 41 weeks then he said we would be having a discussion about a Cesarean. He didn’t want me to go too long with the scar.

So 40 weeks, my due date. I came in for a stretch and sweep. I came home to relax after, nothing. Nothing at all happened. No pain, nothing. Two days later, I started to have some mild period pains. I carried on the day with my son. I just kept going but I had been attending acupuncture weekly from 36 weeks. I had another session at 6:30 that night and by 9:30, the pain really started to ramp up. I decided to try and sleep but by the time I had a shower, laid down in bed, and at 10:00, they were coming faster, stronger, and I just knew I wanted to stay home as long as possible.

I got into the shower then I did some type of positioning that I could get comfortable with the TENS machine on but I knew the pain of the back and I just knew that this baby had to be posterior again because the feeling was just like I had experienced it yesterday.

Meagan: Deja vu.

Ashley: Yeah. I just said to my husband, “She’s posterior. I just know it.”

We left for the hospital at 1:30 in the morning. We got there and I had to walk a really long distance from the car to the birthing unit. It was just so odd. There was no one there, no wheelchairs for me, just no one.

Meagan: Huh.

Ashley: Yeah, I was so shocked. I was like, What’s going on? I just said, “This is going to help me progress.” Any little obstacle that would come up, I just said, “I’m going to be able to do this.” Helping I think in the end actually helped my labor progress.

Meagan: I was thinking that. This is actually probably really good. That’s a lot of movement for the pelvis and good for the baby to rotate.

Ashley: I was having these contractions that I had to get on the floor to breathe them out and rock through them. It took us a long time to get from the car to the birthing unit because I had to keep stopping but when I did get there, they were like, “Wow. You are almost 5 centimeters. You have progressed really quickly.”

Meagan: Just like you wanted.

Ashley: Yeah. The contractions then were so weird. It was like I had to push but it was too early to push. She was posterior. It was confirmed so that pressure was just such an odd labor. I didn’t have that at all even though I was posterior with my son too. This one was like an intense pushing feeling that I couldn’t control.

Then yeah. Once I had discovered that she was posterior too, I just tried to get into some good positioning. I had done a lot of research about posterior because I was terrified of it happening again. I got on the ball trying to rock back and forth and my husband was such a great support because we had done a little bit of information reading about this pressure point on the lower back.

Meagan: The sacrum?

Ashley: Yes, that’s it so anytime I had these contractions, he would just push on there and I swear by that. I have to say more than the TENS machine, more than anything, that got me through that labor. But yeah.

At one stage, I sat on the toilet to try and help with the pressure of this pushing and my waters broke. Yeah. That really ramped up from there. I was 6 centimeters at that point and it was unbearable. I couldn’t take it anymore. I asked for the epidural and the midwife was like, “Are you sure you want to do that? You said you didn’t want to.” I just knew that I had to do it. I couldn’t take it any longer. I was at that point where I was asking, “Just wheel me in. I’ll just have the Cesarean.” I didn’t want that. I wanted to keep trying so I had the epidural and I fell asleep.

It was just like my body needed that.

Meagan: Yeah. Rest and relaxation can really be the best tool in labor. Even in early labor, we are so excited and want to keep going but rest and relaxation.

Ashley: I was so tired, yeah. I just relaxed. My body completely relaxed and I fell asleep for about an hour. At that point, my OB came in to see me and measured me and discovered that baby had turned while I was sleeping and I was 10 centimeters.

In that hour, I had progressed that quickly. He looked at me and said, “Ashley, you’re having your VBAC.” He said, “You’re going to push this baby out. Within a half hour or so, this baby will be here.” I just was in pure– I’ve got the feeling all over again. I just was so in a pure disbelief. I was just so happy and I just said to my husband, “We’ve done it. This is it. This is the moment that I really wanted.”

Yeah. It’s making me emotional all over again. I pushed for about 20 minutes under his guidance. I still had feeling and control in my legs because I didn’t have the epidural at full dose so that really helped and within 20 minutes, my baby girl was born.

And just that feeling of pure joy and pure connection, that bond was just immediate. Pride, shock.

Meagan: It was just all of it.

Ashley: When they laid her on my chest, I will never forget my husband– the pride he had in me. Yeah, it was just beautiful and it was truly empowering. It was a beautiful moment. It’s just something you never forget. She’s 12 weeks now and I just relive that moment over and over.

But yeah, it was my healing birth. Yeah, it was beautiful. It was everything that I had hoped for. Just shock, really because it was such a different experience to the emergency that I had with my son.

I had that golden hour. She wasn’t taken away from me like my son was. They gave me that time with her and it was just pure disbelief in a beautiful way.

Yeah, so that’s it. I recovered so much quicker and I think for me, that chapter of my life closed. It was just a beautiful way to really celebrate what birthing should be like and how I should feel afterward. You know, that bond that you should have. Yeah. That’s me.

Meagan: I felt all of the emotions as you were sharing it and I know that I get an extra advantage because I can see your face and I can see you get teary. Oh, just to see it in your face. That moment is amazing when you realize you’ve done it and it is so overwhelming in all of the ways but holy cow, I am so happy for you. I am so glad that you were able to find the support because it’s just so hard. It’s so hard and you were even told– you hadn’t even met your baby yet really and were told, “Just to let you know, you will never have a baby vaginally.”

To even be told that in that space, that in itself is so overwhelming and being told, “No. No one here is going to support you. No one.” When you are proof along with so many other Women of Strength who have had special scars and gone on to have a vaginal birth that it is possible and you do not have to but when you’re in that vulnerable state, I can just picture my own C-sections in an OR with the drape up and the bright lights and the beepings and if I were told that I would never have a baby vaginally again, I would already be in that emotional intimate space and vulnerable where I could have and many people could be like, Okay and then just never look past it and that was it. I’ll never deliver vaginally.

But that’s where I think this podcast just is so important for people to listen and hear these stories that you may be told something and that may be true. That really may be the best choice in the future, right? It may be medically best or emotionally best but it doesn’t mean it is always what your fate has to be for the rest of your life when having a baby.

Ashley: Yeah, and when I was told that and then I fell pregnant, I thought to myself, Okay, if that is what is medically necessary, I will do that. I just want my baby here naturally and safely. If it isn’t the way that I had hoped then that’s okay. At one point, I even looked at the maternal-assisted Cesarean and I had that discussion with my OB. He said, “Yep Ashley, if you decide you’re going to have the Cesarean elective, I’ll do that for you.” He’s like, “I will make it beautiful for you. I can play music you like. I’ll do whatever you like. It will be different from the first.”

I said to myself, Okay. That is an option if I just feel that.

Meagan: That’s a good plan B.

Ashley: Yeah, that’s right. Exactly. He said if we call it early enough and there are no signs of rupturing, “I can still do that for you.” I still felt really comfortable going in that no matter what, this would hopefully be a better experience than what I had. But yeah, you’re right. There’s almost this stigma that C-sections, especially with special scars, that your body failed. I wanted to break the mold on that that bodies aren’t broken. I almost left my first baby coming home with him and I just looked at him and loved him and adored him but I also felt to myself, That’s not how I wanted to bond with you by laying here and I can’t move.

I felt like my body was broken or it had let me down and this time around, I just believed in myself. I believed in my body and I said to myself, “Your mindset is everything. Going in, this mindset is how I’m going to birth this baby and get through it.” Birthing is incredible and I feel like we should feel incredible afterward.

Meagan: Absolutely. Birth is incredible and it really is incredible no matter what, but the experience really does matter. We hear the whole “safe mom, safe baby” but of course, duh. That experience really, really counts and it sticks with us really for the rest of our lives. I mean, my oldest is going to be 13 in just a few months and I still remember her birth. My other is 10 and I remember her birth and of course, my VBAC baby I remember his birth and those are sticking with me. They are sticking with me and it’s just I love that your provider was like, “Listen. I’m going to support here and if it goes here, I’m still going to support you and no matter what, we are going to make this a better experience for you.”

I love that your provider saw the better experience as an important part.

Ashley: Yeah. I’m paying for him and his expertise. But I almost felt like he just wanted me to be happy. For him, it was like, “I can see your pain. I want you to be happy this time around.” We felt that from the initial appointment. It was more than just, “I’m paying for you. You have to do this.” It was like, “Help me get a better experience for you. What do you want? What can I do?” That was so important to me so it was wonderful. It was really important to me to acknowledge him as well because he was such an amazing support.

Meagan: Yes. I’m so happy for you. I’m so happy for you. I do just want to mention that group again, you guys. Special Scars, Special Hope on Facebook. What kinds of things did you see in your experience in that group?

Ashley: It’s just hearing other people’s stories because I would see VBAC stories and I was like, Yes, 100%. I need to do this and I need to do that. It’s got that little bit of a fear factor with it because it is a special scar and not that many people attempt it. So to have a group of women globally who do attempt it and just empower each other like, “Hey, I had an amazing experience. This is what I did,” that was just invaluable to me taking on all of this advice. Quite a lot of these women are in the U.S. and they do talk about how providers can either be for you or against you and just write you off completely.

It is similar here too. There were quite a few who said, “No way.” They don’t want that liability so yeah, it was just really great to have that group with such amazing, brave women who are going out there and sharing their story on there because it helps people like me who are like, Look, it can happen. It’s rare, but it’s not impossible. That group is amazing. I encourage anybody who has had all of these different types of scars on there, not just inverted T. There are people who have had inverted J’s and extensions. So anything a little bit special.

Meagan: Yes. I was going to go over the C-section incision types. We’ve got the low transverse which is considered the safest way to VBAC having a low, boring, low transverse. But then we have a low vertical which means they cut lower in the abdominal segment and it’s vertical up and down. Then we have classical which is higher and sometimes we have classical scars when maybe a baby is very preterm, very small and the baby can come out that way, multiples, or maybe if a baby is transverse but it’s earlier on or something like that, they may have to go higher.

Then there is inverted T and like I said, inverted J’s and then we have extensions on all of these. There have even been low transverse with an extension where it can go further or that’s where it goes into that J. Yeah, there are just so many different types and honestly, the statistics are not that powerful out there. There are not a ton and I don’t know. I would say there’s not a ton of really solid concrete. There are some but they are smaller.

Ashley: Yeah, really hard. I didn’t want to overwhelm myself with statistics and things. A lot of people in that group share the rupture risks and the statistics and what they throw at you, these OBs are, “You’ve got a 20% risk of rupturing,” that would turn anybody away. I just knew from women in this group that I had just glanced over seeing that it’s not that high. Don’t let anyone tell you it’s that high. Obviously, there are situations when you need to have the Cesarean because it is unsafe, but in my case, I knew that it wasn’t a 20% rupture risk. I knew that there was definitely less and mine was 3 centimeters. It can be bigger than that obviously, but when I had spoken to my OB, he said, “It is 3 centimeters but in the span of your whole labor progressing, 3 centimeters is not a big deal.”

Meagan: That’s pretty small.

Ashley: Yeah, it’s pretty small so even just hearing that, it was like, “Wow, you are telling me something different than all of these other people.” It’s good to back yourself up a little bit in your conversations and have just that little bit of research behind you.

Meagan: Yes. We are also going to have a bunch of links in the show notes so if you guys want to go check that out, I highly suggest it. Go check out the show notes. We’re also going to have the link to that group because anytime anybody has a special scar, I’m like, This is the group. It’s so empowering over there. It’s so informative. There are not many groups like that. Specialscars.org as well.

Ashley: But even most of the people who have had a rupture as well, that group is just a safe space to talk about how you are feeling and there’s a lot of women on there who have become friends really just in sharing their experience. So yeah, it’s a really informative, great group.

Meagan: Yep. Awesome. Well, thank you so much again for taking the time out and figuring out the time changes and being here with us just 12 weeks after your VBAC.

Ashley: Thank you and thank you for everything you do to help empower women. Obviously, it’s reaching globally and it’s just so informative and supportive. Yeah, it’s amazing so thank you for everything you do.

Meagan: Absolutely.

Closing

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