Nicole is a military spouse who had her VBAC in England. She shares what it was like to unexpectedly move overseas during pregnancy, how she navigated not receiving her household goods in time, and how she made the choice to deliver on base versus off.  Nicole’s first birth was a Cesarean during the height of COVID. During pushing, she was required to pause, take a COVID test, and wait an hour for the results or risk being separated from her baby after birth. Labor had gone smoothly up until that point, and Nicole knew something had changed after the pause. Things felt different, progress stalled, and ultimately Nicole consented to the Cesarean.  Her VBAC was a surprisingly wild precipitous birth with only 2 hours between her first contraction and pushing the baby out! Meagan and Nicole discuss the unique challenges of precipitous births and how important it is to hold space for every birth experience.  Needed Website How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents Full Transcript under Episode Details  Meagan: Hello. Welcome to The VBAC Link. Today is Veteran’s Day. If you are just joining us this month for the very first time, then welcome to your first specialized episode week. I don’t even know what to call it. What would you call this, Nicole? I don’t even know.  Nicole: A one-of-a-kind situation.  Meagan: Last month in October, we had Midwifery Week and now we have Veterans. Nicole is the wife of a Servicemember and she definitely and experience that I think a lot of military members and moms experience and people don’t think about it. I don’t think about that. When I was having my baby, it was like, Which hospital should I go to? There are 10-15 right around me.  Then you’re like, “Oh, hey. I’m pregnant and now I’m moving overseas.” You know? I think it’s something that we just don’t think about. It’s fun to have it be Veteran’s Day and to have a Servicemember’s wife sharing your story today. We might even talk a little bit about navigating the military healthcare system and what choices you made. We learned a little bit about that before we started recording.  We’ve got her amazing story today. Where are you right now? Nicole: I’m in England right now.  Meagan: You are in England, okay. And that’s where you had your baby.  Nicole: Yes.  Meagan: Awesome. So England mamas, definitely listen up for sure. All mamas, really. We do have a Review of the Week so I’m going to get into that then we’ll start with your first story. This is from Roxyrutt and it says, “Inspiring”. It says, “Listening to these podcasts has been truly inspiring and I have been on my own hopeful VBAC journey. Listening to other stories has been incredibly helpful in my mental preparation.”  We were just talking about that before we started recording as well just how impactful these stories can be for anyone but especially during your VBAC journey.  It says, “My due date is April 17th this month–” so this is obviously a little while ago. It says, “I’m hoping to have my own VBAC story to share. Thank you all for what you do.” Thank you so much, Roxyrutt, for sharing your review.  As always, we love your reviews. You can email them to us at [email protected] or you can comment “Review” on your podcast. I think it’s on Apple Podcasts, Spotify– I don’t know if Google allows reviews. You might just have to do a rating. But wherever you listen to your podcasts, if you can leave a review, please do so.  Okay, Nicole. Let’s get going on your stories. I seriously thank you so much for joining me today.  Nicole: Oh, thank you so much for having me. Like we mentioned before we started recording, this podcast has been extremely inspirational to me and it really led me to having the VBAC of my dreams.  Meagan: And you had a precipitous VBAC, right? Did you have a pretty precipitous VBAC if I’m remembering right? It was 2 hours or something? Nicole: