I want a VBAC, please support me

My second child is due in about three and a half months and I want to have a VBAC, a vaginal birth after cesarean.  My son was born two years ago via a necessary c-section because after meconium-laden-broken-water and hours of pitocin I never dilated beyond 2 centimeters and he never got into position, so to speak. It was a routine and normal c-section with an uncomplicated, albeit painful, recovery.

The easiest thing to do would be to just sign up for a scheduled c-section on my due date and check myself into the hospital after a relaxing evening with my family, a home-cooked meal and a cozy night of sleep.  Not one to take the easy route, I am opting and hoping, of course, to go into labor, on my body's own will and time, prior to my due date and have a successful and hopefully, medication and intervention-free, natural birth. 

The other slightly significant detail is that I changed doctors between my almost 2-year old kid and well, when I got pregnant this past spring. It wasn't an easy decision but one made for convenience because the new office is a mile from my house, not fifteen, which is agony in rush hour, particularly when schlepping your toddler BOY to your OB checkups if you know what I mean and I really hope you don't.

In the process of meeting the doctors, male and female, I have only found one so far who actually looked me me in the eye when I spoke about my girlie parts and my hope to engage them in a little activity called childbirth.  Recently, a male doctor actually told me that while the scheduled elective Cesarean is easier for him, they would allow me to attempt a VBAC but he wouldn't give me any guidelines and instead, handed me a release form to sign stating that I knew the risks. He also spoke to me with his hand on the doorknob and I didn't get through all of my questions. I do know the risks (uterine rupture) and I also know that I am the perfect candidate for a VBAC; low transverse bikini cut in first c-section, first baby in the low 6-pound range, and the likelihood of my water breaking with meconium again is slim.

I've done my homework and I'm anxiety-ridden and disappointed that the new doctor's office is so impersonal.  I am not an annoying patent.  I go in with a short list of questions, complaints, issues, whatever ... I know doctors are busy and on tight schedules and that the job isn't terribly desirable since they don't actually get any payment from my insurance company until someone is actually holding the placenta and the baby is nestled again my chest. 

But, still ... I deserve better.  

And that is why I am going back to my old doctor's office.  It takes a lot more time to drive there, they are further from home, and this really matters because I'm trying to simply life.  I also know it is the right decision.  The hospital where they deliver is further from home, older, the rooms are small and the bathrooms are unnavigable post c-section, but the hospital stay is only a few days, if that, and I would rather have better care and attention during this pregnancy than a family waiting area with kitchen and free wireless. 

I hope I am making the right choice.

This is an original posting to DC METRO MOMS.

Stacy Kravitz writes about motherhood with matter-of-fact honesty and humor at The Fabulous Miss S.  Her first childbirth story can be found here, and here.