It's all I've been able to think about today...the fact that this starts tomorrow and standing here, I'll have the chance to see firsthand and be a witness to this process that could bring us further into the light or send us stumbling back into the virtual dark ages where women's autonomy doesn't matter.

There are so many facets to VBACs. EVERYONE has a stake in it. Is it really just about science and risk? Is it about the ability for the woman to look at the science and make decisions based on intuition and faith in her body OR logical factors or some combination of the two? Is it about the ability for physicians to practice without undue constraints? Is it about the physician's right to decide what they will or will not do? The hospital's right to decide which "procedures" are too risky? The woman's right to give birth wherever she wants with whatever attendant she wants? Is it driving up insurance rates for too many cesareans and we should do VBAC or is it about a woman's right to choose an elective surgery if she wants? Can we decide who should get to make that decision FOR the woman involved? Once you begin to look at all the facets of VBAC, you can see how the relatively simple but complicated picture evolves that is not about the woman or the baby. It is about alignments within coalitions and alignments in politics and alignments of support. Protection of the status quo while not knowing where to go if something shifts.

All in all, it's sometimes hard to remember that most women, given the chance to labor with their babies in their own time and space and vaginally. When we stop playing the "what if" cards and start playing the "Normally, birth happens" cards then VBAC becomes less about who we have to protect ourselves from and more about how to make it happen in a positive and healthy way.

I'm hoping that this NIH-VBAC Consensus is more about how to help facillitate healthy births than about political maneuvering to put VBAC up as unsafe. Stay tuned!

You can watch here: http://consensus-nih.org/omar-public/conferences/vbac/cannotattend.aspx