Christmas gift of a lifetime!

Baby boy Chiron Joseph arrived at 1:26 pm on Christmas eve and we couldn’t be more happy. He is a big boy at 9 lbs 4 oz and I got to have the birth experience I dreamed of. Had prodromal labor for 3 consecutive nights. Last night, I was so sure it would end the same.. 5-1-1 contractions suddenly and inexplicably vanishing out of thin air dashing my hopes for a delivery. At 1 am on the 24th I had a feeling things might be different so my doula headed over. Baby was sunny side up so we got to work rotating him. My contractions got to 5-1-1 and began to slow- and we all needed some sleep. So my doula stayed in the guest room to be safe even though I was convinced it would be another dud of a night leading to no true labor. At around 5 I started getting these really intense contractions that made me clench my toes in my sleep. I was only half realizing what was happening until I suddenly had the urge to pee. Got up and my waters clearly broke! Labored a bit on the toilet and then woke up my doula and said “we gotta go to the hospital”. I wasn’t measuring the contractions but I knew they were like 3-4 min apart. Off we went! Arrived at 6:30 am, was measuring 3 cm and 100% effaced at 7 or so when my midwife arrived. I got in the shower and by the time I did that and 1 round of rainbow meditation (I was doing hypnobirthing) I measured 7-8 cm. Everyone was amazed. I even was lol! Then I tried laboring in a few positions and ended up back in the shower doing rainbow meditations one lag time. Got onto all 4s on bed and knew it was almost time to push. My midwife didn’t even need to check me- I was instinctively bearing down on my own. Chiron was born at 1:26 pm. We had successfully flipped him from sunny sunny side up and he is a little ginger babe !! I did end up tearing a bit :/ but that’s ok. Also didn’t get the skin to skin breast crawl I wanted due to baby’s temp being a life low so we are still working on his latch. Anyways, all in all a great experience and a powerful one. I’m so proud of my body! No medications whatsoever— amazing!