The Zuniga's: September 2012

I've been meaning to write this post for a while, but as you can imagine, life has been a little crazy these last three weeks. Right now both of my babies are sleeping so I'm going to attempt to get this written before one or both of them wake up!

Natalia Jean Zuniga decided to finally come on her due date, August 19, 2012. Jon and I had gone to sleep the night before really hoping that she would decide to come. I got a couple hours of sleep before I woke up to Veja crying around 2:00 am. I was going to go help her go back to sleep, but by the time I got up she had already stopped crying and was back asleep so I crawled back in bed as well. I was laying there for a couple of minutes and then I realized that I was having contractions, and they hurt! (I had LOTS of braxton-hicks leading up to this) I just laid there for a while wondering if I was just imagining it or if I was really starting into labor. Well they didn't go away, no matter how I readjusted myself, and I also noticed a little bit of a bloody show when I went to the bathroom, I figured that it was my mucus plug so I woke up Jon and told him that I was having contractions. Needless to say, Jon was ecstatic! We started timing the contractions. For my entire labor my contractions were 3-5 minutes apart and lasted just under a minute in length. We called Jon's mom to let her know that I was in labor but told her to say and get some rest, we knew she would be there as soon as we needed her. I labored through the rest of the night, and Jon slept so that he could be wide awake and alert when I needed him most. Ann came over just after 6 and started setting things up. This was when Jon took Veja over to his family's so that they could get her ready for church and take her with them.

Jon and I went on a walk down the canal at the end of the street around 7:30. We continued to keep track of the contractions and Jon made sure I could talk through them (he didn't want me to be able to because he wanted his little girl to get here). By the time we turned around I was still able to talk through them, but it was getting harder and I could handle them better if we stopped walking. We got back to the apartment around 8 and I thought that my water may have broken. It did, but it was higher up so it was just a trickle, a MAJOR difference from when my water broke with Veja. This was when Ann checked me, I was dilated to a 7. Sure enough my water had broken, but there was still a forebag of water around Natalia's head. We decided to not break that, which turned out to be a blessing in the end.

At this point I decided to get in the pool. I very much enjoyed the warm water! It felt absolutely amazing! After I got in though my contractions started getting harder and harder, I was in transition. So we texed my mom to let her know she should come. It wasn't very long before I started feeling the need to push. This was when I started using the hypnobirthing technique of breathing the baby down. Because I did this Natalia came with just two pushes! (So much better than 2 hours of pushing that I did with Veja)

Here's where the miracles come in! The forebag of water broke as I got Natalia's head out. Once her head was out Ann was trying to get the chord off of her neck, I heard her trying to tell me something, but another contraction was coming and I needed to push so I did. With that push Natalia came all the way out. On her way out her chord snapped because it was only a little over a foot long! Which is really short if you were wondering. Her chord was also really thin which aided in it being able to snap. As you know I had placenta previa early on in my pregnancy but the placenta moved, but it was still low lying. Because it was low lying I was able to have Natalia naturally without complication! If the placenta was any higher she wouldn't have been able to come out of the birth canal without the chord snapping. The forebag of water also held Natalia up out of the birth canal until the last possible minute so that she wasn't stressed and the chord was loose around her neck until the end. Natalia was perfectly healthy in every way! She is my miracle baby, coming into the world with little miracles along the way. I know that my Heavenly Father was there watching over both me and Natalia and that is why everything went so smoothly and why we're both so healthy.

Natalia Jean Zuniga was born at 9:07am on August 19th. She weighed 7lbs 10oz and was 19.5in long. She is beautiful in every way! Her hair is dark brown with a hint of red in it and her eyes are already brown! She has her own little look and we adore her! Veja absolutely loves being a big sister! The first time we introduced her to Natalia she had the biggest smile on her face! She acts like a second little mother. She loves to hold her and give her kisses. Whenever Natalia is crying and we're in the other room Veja will stop whatever she's doing and bring me to the baby. We are a happy little family and are so glad we have a new beautiful little girl that decided to join us. We weighed Natalia last week and she was 9lbs 13oz...she gained 2lbs in 2 weeks!!! She has already grown so much! I can hardly believe that 3 short weeks ago I was still pregnant! Recovery for me has been a lot faster this time around. By the end of the first week I was mostly back to normal. I am a huge fan of home water-births now! I'm loving being skinny again! Funny how I missed it.

Here are some pictures of Natalia and the rest of us on her birthday: