“My birth stories are my testimony…I have never trusted God more with any situation in my entire life other than with the lives of my children and bringing them into this world.” Shelby’s story is one of faith, trust, and surrendering. Shelby joins us today from Indiana sharing her wildly traumatic Cesarean story due to a placental abruption and her peaceful, healing home birth.  Shelby was on vacation at a cabin in New York at 34 weeks when she woke up to regular contractions and heavy bleeding. She rushed to the nearest hospital, was put under general anesthesia for her Cesarean, was transferred via a separate ambulance from her baby to a hospital 3 hours away, and had a 23-day NICU stay in the height of COVID 800 miles away from her family and community. She and her husband were certain they would not have any more children. But as they fought for healing through faith-based counseling, their hearts yearned for another baby and a chance at a healing birth experience.  She completely surrendered, found holistic prenatal care, and created a birth space for herself where she knew she felt safe. She was brave and vulnerable, and her second birth was everything she hoped it would be.  As Meagan says at the end of this episode, “Get educated. Love yourself. Have faith in you and your body and your baby. You are amazing. You are a true Woman of Strength.” How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents Full Transcript under Episode Details  Meagan: Women of Strength, we have our friend, Shelby, here with us today sharing her HBAC story. In addition to her HBAC story, she’s got some other unique things that I think are going to be important for us to talk about today. One is placental abruption. That is something that is definitely a reason for a Cesarean and one of those absolute needed reasons for a Cesarean. We are going to talk a little bit more about that and then we are going to talk about faith and how faith in whatever faith looks like to you, it’s so important to cling onto that. Shelby has some messages about that.  Then we really want to talk about physiological birth. We hear it. We see it online. I mean, if you go on Instagram and you go into the birth world, you’re going to see it almost 100% guaranteed but what does that really mean? We’re going to be diving in with that today.  Shelby, you are in– where did it say, Indiana?  Shelby: Indiana, yeah.  Meagan: I have to look at my notes. Indianapolis, Indiana. She’s in Indiana so Women of Strength, if you are coming from her area, definitely listen up as well.  Okay, so we have a Review of the week and this is by birthing confident. It says, “Invaluable information. I love this podcast. As a mom planning a VBAC and a VBAC-trained birth doula, the information shared on this podcast is invaluable. I have become so passionate about helping all women know their birth options and avoid unnecessary C-sections. I think this podcast is great for all expectant mothers” and I 100% agree with that.  This podcast is for anyone and everyone because like she said we are wanting to help people avoid unnecessary and/or undesired Cesareans. We have a ridiculous Cesarean rate. It is through the roof. I would love to see it start dropping and I don’t know if this podcast truly is going to impact the Cesarean rate the way I would love it to, but I do believe that it’s a starting point. It’s a starting place for you guys to learn your options for birth after Cesarean and to learn how to have a better Cesarean experience if you have one because that’s also a really important factor that I think a lot of people forget about. Not only do we share just VBAC stories, but we do share healing, beautiful CBAC stories and repeat Cesareans.  Thank you so much, birthingconfident, for your review. As always, please if you haven’t yet, leave us a review. You can do so on Apple Podcasts. You can message us. You can rate us on Spotify and