Sariah Faith is Here

John and I are so excited to announce that our daughter, Sariah Faith Nobile was born on September 17th at 5:54am. She weighed 6 pounds and was 19 inches long.

Birth Story:

My water broke at 2:00AM, Monday morning and I called my midwife to let her know. She said sometimes it takes a while for contractions to start, so I could go back to bed and try to get contractions going in the morning. She told me she would call me at 8:00AM to see how things were progressing.

About 10 minutes later, contractions started on their own and very quickly became super intense! I started to walk around the house and John kept trying to convince me to go to sleep and relax. I was so excited that we were going to have a baby soonish...at least in the next 48 hours, there was no way I could go to bed and sleep. About 15 minutes later, the contractions were so intense and my lower back hurt so bad I decided a warm shower might help. John headed over to the kitchen and started washing the pile of pots and pans we had used to make apple sauce and apple butter the previous night. I love him for knowing that I would not like to come home with a baby to find dirty dishes in the sink. 

I had texted our doula twice, but she had not called back...so I just swayed my body under the warm water for about an hour until I could no longer stand without holding on to something. The contractions were only lasting about 30 seconds, but they were coming every 1.5 minutes. I remembered that we were told to head over to the Birth Center when contractions were lasting about a minute and were 4-5 minutes apart...so it seemed that my labor was not following the 'normal pattern' we were anticipating.  

At some point, I started to moan and groan pretty loud in the shower and told John to call the midwife and let her know the contractions were really intense and I could not endure it until 8:00AM. I knew I was going to have to get out of the shower in order to head over to the Birth Center, but I could not imagine HOW I was going to get out of the shower. I am so thankful our doula helped me find a breathing pattern that helped me through the phone! We headed out to the Birth Center at 4:30am -John had packed everything in the car, had his shoes on, the car running and the front door open because I had to somehow get out of the shower, put some clothes on and get to the car before another contraction came. The 5 minute drive was really hard as I went trough three contractions, but I was so happy that we had made it to the birth center where my doula and midwife waited for our arrival!

I got in the tub right away (I think) and it felt wonderful to let my body float and relax a little. John rubbed my lower back during each contraction and it was so encouraging to hear him say that he was proud of how hard I was working! I was in the tub for about 40 minutes when I felt like I had to push, so the midwife decided to check me. I was terrified she was going to say I was only 4-5 cm dilated because I didn't think I could handle the intensity of the contractions for another 10 minutes. Seriously, I felt like I was getting hit by a train every few minutes and there was hardly enough time to catch my breath before another contraction came along. I was super surprised when she said I was ready to push! Praise God for the quick progress because I was starting to think that trying to go through labor and birth the natural way was a stupid idea. At that point the Epidural sounded like a miracle drug from Heaven. 

Through many grunts I pushed for about 14 minutes and Sariah was born! John and I were in complete disbelief of how fast everything had gone and as I sat in the tub, holding Sariah I kept repeating that I couldn't believe I had just had a baby!

Up until I started to push, John was completely oblivious to the fact that labor was not going to last 12+ hours. He remained calm the whole time because he thought we were still in the beginning stages of labor so he was pacing himself for the long marathon ahead.

The minutes and hours after Sariah was born were completely magical! John and I could not stop looking at her perfect lips, toes, ears, hands...She is so precious!

We were at the birth center for about 3 hours before heading home and life with a baby has been a wild roller-coaster ride. We are completely sleep deprived and completely in love with our daughter.

Stay tuned for photos of Sariah!