I had my regular prenatal appointment on Wednesday, and am now in the phase of being pregnant where you have to go in for prenatal visits every 2 weeks. This baby’s estimated due date is 10 weeks and 5 days from now.

I promise, I won’t get graphic in this post where I talk about whether to try to have Esmerelda Freugenspiegel by scheduled c-section or traditional delivery.

But if you would rather not go through my thought process about matters obstetrical — or you suspect that I would rather you not go through that thought process with me — then I invite you not to click through to the rest of this post.

I am waffling on the decision to deliver baby #2 by scheduled c-section.

On the one hand, there’s something very nice about the idea of waking up in the morning, taking Noah to day care, and going into the hospital to have the baby in a nice predictable way. And about being able to plan when I’ll be out on maternity leave.

There is also some risk — granted, only a 1-2% chance — of severe complications (uterine rupture) in attempting a vaginal birth after a c-section (VBAC).

When Older Experienced Midwife and I discussed it at my appointment on Wednesday, it was clear that she was working hard to keep her emotions under control. Until a few weeks ago, the practice had never had a mother have uterine rupture. Without specifying what exactly that meant, she said that the results can easily be “catastrophic.” I think that means that either the mother or the baby died. And in that particular case, it was actually NOT a VBAC.

On the other hand, from everything I’ve been told, the recovery from a vaginal birth is much, much, much easier than recovery from a c-section. There’s a reason why mothers can routinely leave the hospital 2 days after a vaginal birth — and in many cases, even have the baby in a birthing center or at home. Our bodies are designed to have babies that way, and recover quickly from it.

I asked specifically about Young Perky Midwife’s opinion that I was not a good candidate for a VBAC.

Older Experienced Midwife reviewed the medical notes from Noah’s birth for a few minutes and then explained:

There’s nothing in your history that specifically indicates you’d be a BAD candidate, but several factors that keep me from saying you’re a GOOD candidate: you have big babies, we weren’t able to get you into active labor with cervadil or pitocin — but that was at least partially the baby’s reaction to the pitocin. This baby might react differently.

This decision is really up to you. We’ll support you in whatever choice you want to make. Scheduled c-section recovery is a lot easier than your last one was. At the end of the day, I would say it probably works out to be a little bit safer for you to have the baby vaginally, and a little bit safer for the baby for you to have a scheduled c-section. But both are close and probably safe.

We also talked about what limitations there are. They will not induce labor this time — I either go into labor or I have a c-section, but we don’t jump start. They will only let me go to 41 weeks gestation. (September 16) If I haven’t gone into labor on my own by then, it’s scheduled c time. I don’t have to quit waffling until either then, or the baby shows up.

The other argument for baking the baby as long as possible is that the last few weeks of gestation are mostly about the baby putting on weight — and as much as the idea of pushing 9.5 lbs out of my body on my own is scary — is that everything I’ve read indicates that larger babies that aren’t big because of gestational diabetes, are generally the healthiest.

And I can tell you for sure, the idea of caring for Noah while recovering from a c-section is scary. He likes to climb on me. I would be restricted from going up and down the stairs more than twice/day, and from driving, for the first 10 days after surgery.

Then there’s completely the non-medical factor: short term disability insurance payments during my FMLA leave. A healthy vaginal birth gets 6 weeks of short-term disability; a c-section gets 8 weeks. That’s two weeks of additional partially paid time off.

Various bonuses and reduced expenses while home mean we could probably afford to have me out for 2 unpaid weeks out of the 12 (I’ll have 4 weeks of vacation accrued by Labor Day Weekend). But of course it’s riskier to plan to spend savings than to plan to be at least partially paid.

If you’ve read this far, I have only one specific request for you. Feel free to comment including your opinion, but please don’t judge.

Jill and I will make the decision we think makes the most sense for our family, all factors being considered. It might or might not be the choice you recommend or would make, but there’s no reason to try to make us feel badly about whatever that decision turns out to be.