Welcomed my beautiful daughter into the world on 7/1/18!

My beautiful Maya was born yesterday, July 1st, at 1:57 pm at 38+5 after nearly 30 hours of labor (21 hours at home, 9 at the hospital) ! I was scheduled to be induced on Tuesday, but baby girl obviously had her own plans 💕

***Side note before I get into my delivery story: I was able to do it completely natural! Contractions started and strengthened on their own, dilated on my own, no epidural or IV pain meds! Blessed to not have had any complications during labor, but I did have to have to be snipped which I did not expect but it wasn’t too bad, thank goodness!****

Saturday morning, I woke up to my bloody show at 7am and the cramps started right away but didn’t turn into “actual” contractions until around 11am. Labored at my parent’s house the whole day, and by the time nighttime came, contractions were roughly 7-8 minutes but PAINFUL. My stubborn self refused to head to the hospital right then, and wanted to be at my house sleeping in my bed. Not the greatest idea because I got home 1am, and by 3am I had full fledged contractions every 3 minutes! Crazy how they changed in intensity and timing sooo quickly! I got to the hospital at 4:00am, not able to walk or talk from the pain. Was hooked up right away to the monitors and had my cervix checked. Contractions were every 2-3 minutes, lasted nearly 2 minutes, and my cervix was 4 cm dilated...which meant baby time yay! Was then moved to a room right away (perks of having a tiny hospital...I was literally the only L&D; patient). By the time I’m all set up, it’s 5 am and the contractions were freakin killer. Jump to 9am, and I am 7cm dilated and my water breaks. By 11am, I am 9cm dilated and in the most excruciating pain.. I was literally screaming and crying like someone out of a horror movie but was still determined to go on without any pain medicine. At 12pm, the urge to push came full blown and being told not to push was the worst experience I will probably ever go through. Fought the urge until 1:00pm when my body took full control was pushing on its own. Was checked and was fully ready to go after some practice pushes. Started pushing at 1:30 (my body was in complete control.. coolest thing ever) and at 1:57, my little heart and soul was born!

Good luck July mamas! You got this! We women are actual superheroes! We are so incredibly strong and our bodies were built to bring little humans into this world! WE ARE AMAZING, and don’t you ever doubt that for a second! 😘