Birth story and photos!
At 1:30 AM on August 19th I went to the bathroom and noticed I'd started to lose my mucus plug and was having bloody show. Hurray! Just a matter of time! Contractions continued all day long and were intense, but not terribly close together. I told Levi he could go to work, but at 6:30 PM I called him and told him he'd better come home.
At 9:30 PM my friend Christy came over to be with me. I'd intended to have Christy and another friend, Marlena, there to take pictures and help out if there was anything Levi needed. Marlena had a small surgery that morning, but she insisted she'd be fine to come over still if I needed her. However, once the time came she'd taken a pain pill and was fast asleep! I didn't bother asking for her to be woken, because I wasn't sure still that this was going to be it.
Around 2 AM on August 20th I decided that contractions, while intense, weren't getting any closer together and that Christy should go home and get some real rest instead of just dozing on the couch. I went to bed as well (Levi had already gone to bed earlier with my blessing that I didn't need him at the time) but I wasn't able to sleep very well. I was waking with contractions, but didn't pay any attention to how close they were.
At 3:45 AM I noticed that when I was waking with contractions I was already involuntarily moaning through them in my sleep, so I decided to get up. Pressure in my lower back was incredible so I hopped in a hot shower to relieve some of the pain. Around 4 AM I went into the living room to sit on my yoga ball and moaned my way through contractions. Levi got Nikko out of bed and brought him back to our bed in case my moaning woke him up; we didn't want him to be scared.
At some point (I wasn't watching the clock then) Levi came out into the living room to be with me. Contractions were very intense, especially in my lower back, and were just minutes apart, but it wasn't too bad at all and I figured we'd be in for a long haul that morning. Around 6 AM I decided I wanted to soak in the tub in the hot water.
While I soaked in the tub and moaned my way through contractions, Nikko woke up and Levi got him breakfast. I was just going through contractions without needing Levi's support, so he just went about his day: taking the trash out, etc. The pressure in my lower back was unbelievable but I didn't think I was fully dilated yet (and couldn't reach my cervix around my big ol' belly to check) so I was trying to just bear against the pressure without much pushing.
Suddenly though, I felt more pressure than I'd felt yet and bore down against it only to feel a head sliding in to the birth canal! I yelled to Levi that the baby was coming, and he noticed that it was 6:40 AM at this point. The impending birth came out of nowhere, so he was running around getting our supplies into the bathroom and getting Nikko (who wanted to be present when the baby was born). I reached inside to see if I could feel the head and realized that my bag of waters was still intact. I pushed through another contraction or two and suddenly felt my water break - it was like a giant bubble popping; it even created a bubble popping on the surface of the water in the tub!
Another contraction or two and her head was crowning, gently. I waited through two contractions to push gently and give my skin some time to stretch, then on the next contraction I decided to go for it and push her head out. Levi cradled her head under water and said she'd been born to about her chin by that point. (I was on my hands and knees.) He told Nikko, "Look! It's the baby!" to which Nikko replied, "I don't see anything!" Haha! It'd been so easy to push her head out in one contraction so on the next one I gave a nice big push and out she came!
Levi caught her and brought her up out of the water, while I turned around and brought my leg over the cord so I could sit. Levi handed her to me and I turned her on her stomach so she could cough/sneeze out any mucus or water she had in her mouth or throat. She gave two little coughs and was making noises that Levi says sounded like she was say, "Whoa! Whoa!" I don't blame her - being born has to be quite the experience!
She didn't really cry, but she was breathing very well, without any rattling sounds, so we knew she was just being quiet. We checked to see the gender and were not so surprised to see a little girl! Everyone thought she'd be a girl! Levi ran out into the bedroom to check the time quickly and it was 6:55. 15 minutes from passing through the cervix to being born - not bad at all!
I passed a few clots and not even half an hour after she was born the placenta was delivered. The water was still plenty warm so we just stayed in the tub, alternating warm towels over us. Plenty of phone calls were placed, and finally over an hour after she was born we cut the cord and got out of the tub to weigh and measure her. 9 lbs 7 oz and 21" inches long! Two pounds heavier than Nikko and two inches longer!
Despite being so much larger than Nikko, my labor with Sakura was much faster and I did not experience any tearing (I had a 2nd degree tear with Nikko). I fully accredit it to Nikko being born in the hospital where I had to fight with the nurses and doctor, and was not able to relax at all. At home, alone, with just the important people there who were supporting me fully I was able to relax and enjoy the labor and birth, and my body was able to do exactly what it was intended to do!
