A friend's battle with an arrogant doctor.

  My friend from high school is expecting her third child. She had an emergency c-section with her daughter and through out this pregnancy she has told her doctor she is planning on doing a VBAC. Luckily for her, her doctor has been mostly supportive of this decision. That is a rare thing to find, since most doctors do not suggest VBAC to their patients. She has had numerous moments of preterm labor and has been in the hospital to stop it multiple times. At one of her most recent doctor visits, her physician said since she is at 37 weeks and the baby is measuring on the larger side for 37 weeks that he would no longer stop her labor if it started. She has been hoping for over a week that her labor would start naturally since she wanted to avoid having another c-section. Her physician said he would not start labor for her since it was a VBAC, it was all up to when little man felt ready.
   She has been in pain all week and last night she was about to give up hope for her VBAC. Her labor actually started last night and she went to the hospital expecting to be seeing her little boy this morning. Her physician was not the one on call at the hospital. She tried to explain to the physician on call everything that her physician had said to her. He did not listen to her, and even worse he did not attempt to call her physician. Instead he ordered the nurses to administer the shot which would stop her labor! She was in active labor and this doctor stopped it. She left the hospital this morning. Her contractions have started again, but they are sporadic and nowhere near as strong as they had been last night. She is distraught because last night could have been her one chance to avoid c-section all together. She called her physician this morning and had a discussion with him about what happened. To say he is angry is an understatement. He knew how badly she wanted a VBAC and he wanted that for her as well.
   She is now at home, cleaning the house top to bottom and using her exercise ball to encourage her contractions to continue to strengthen. I am hoping she is able to have the birth she wants. Situations like this are the reason us women need to demand to have doctors more educated about VBAC. We need to speak up and demand that they listen to us in situations like this. Our voices matter, especially since we know our own bodies better than anyone else. We need doctors that listen and consider everything we are saying before rushing to decided they know what is best. I understand they went to medical school, but when they do not even consult with our physicians who have been with us for nearly 10 months through this journey they are not doing their job.