The Unassisted Birth of Kai

Our amazing birth captured on video ❤️

I didn't sleep much that night though I wasn't sleeping much at all anymore. Once again I spent most of the night trying to get comfortable with all my pillows, going pee or breathing through contractions. Boy was that a fun time. Lol. Anyways I gave up on sleep probably around 3 or so when contractions started getting really uncomfortable and just meandered around the apt till about 5 when they started picking up and I felt like I could really use some support so I woke up Keni and told him things were intense, manageable but intense.

Keni documenting the beginning of labor as I squat and breath through another contraction

I wasn't convinced labor had officially started because I had been getting contractions on and off for weeks and nothing came of it. It was only when all of a sudden I felt something slimy fall out of me that I knew this was different! My mucus plug had fallen! Shortly after my bloody show happened my contractions went from I can totally handle this to hand crushing and howling through them. Eeeeek. Poor Keni.

He ran around the corner to gather a few supplies and when he returned I was in so much pain I started throwing up. Glamorous right!? He got me a bucket so I didn't make a giant mess and started blowing up our child's inflatable pool, aka my birth pool, and as each contraction would hit I would tell him fuck blowing it up the rest just fill it so I can get in! Lol! So impatient! All I wanted was to get in the nice warm water and when I finally did holy beegeezes was it good!

Sitting in pain and patiently, but not really patiently encouraging Keni to go faster! Lol

After he got the tub blown up and filled so I could get in he got the room ready. I really wanted to birth Kai into a peaceful sacred space with lovely music on and dimmed lights so that's exactly what my incredibly partner did for me. He put on our birthing playlist, closed all the curtains and lit candles, saged the space and of course put plastic sheets on everything. Lol. If it wasn't for all the screaming it would have been exactly what I had pictured. Not saying it wasn't perfect just saying I was LOUD.

I spent the next 12 hours in the tub screaming through each contraction and resting between. I was so so tired from the lack of sleep I had been getting and of course from my body working so hard all day that I actually fell asleep a few times!

Then suddenly while Keni was filling up a bucket of hot water to warm up the tub a bit I felt something change in my contractions. I felt like my body was bearing down on its own so I yelled to him I was getting out of the tub. He said wait I'll help you in a minute but I was too gone in my own world to wait for help so I leapt out and onto the bed and asked him to check my dilation. He did of course and said he didn't think I was there yet which kinda crushed me but I still knew things were changing. I felt things changing. Each contraction my body was pushing.

I learned a breathing technique to help resist pushing and help slow things down to allow FER(fetal ejection reflex) to take place to help reduce the possibility of tearing which was a big fear of mine and so each contraction that came I would breath short panting breaths to slow things and this went on for about 5 hours till suddenly a big contraction came and his head was suddenly out! Wooowweeee! I screamed a big nasty scream cause well that was the most painful part. Ouch!

I remember then telling Keni I was done. And I meant it. I needed a break. Lol. As if that was possible. Little did I know that his head was dark blue from the cord being wrapped around his neck and Keni was holding the cord off his neck to ease the pressure. So I don't know any of this nor does he tell me all he says is you gotta push and get him out NOW! I said no no it's fine honey I just need a minute. But I then felt his urgency so I give it all I had and pushed and out came this perfect little blue thing that we of course named Kai. Keni was holding him and the first thing I said was GIVE ME MY BABY! Lol. I just couldn't wait to get him in my arms!

Our first photo together

We layed in bed snuggling for awhile while Keni did a ton of cleaning then realized I still hadn't birthed the placenta yet. Ugh. More work. Now by this time I was feeling great! Contractions were basically gone and I was floating higher than I had ever been before. But I still needed to get this placenta out so I layed Kai down in front of me and squatted on all fours over Kai so I could kiss him while we delivered the placenta. It took every last bit of strength I had and a bit of help from Keni to manually put traction on the cord to get it out. We had waited so long that my cervix was already closing up shop around my placenta! Yikes! Next time I certainly won't wait so long to do that part.

Once everything was done and cleaned up we all layed in bed snuggling and nursing and drifted off to sleep. It was the best day of my life.