Welcome Luca Nakai 8lbs 5oz 22 inches long

Our due date had come and gone.  We were all ready and waiting  to meet the baby. My folks had come into town to help out. We were in the 41st week of pregnancy hoping not to be indued into labor so we had gone into our midwife  Thursday the 4th of February to have the membrains sweeped, a method to help start labor. That night Christian cooked a dinner of pad thai. He was feeling a cold come on and had decided to sleep on the couch that night so he would not get me sick. As I was getting ready for bed I noticed that my mucus plug had at least partially come out. I laid down then I felt a contraction this was around 9:30pm. I did not think too much of it because in the last few days I had had a few contractions.    At 9:45pm I had another contraction this time a bit stronger. I thought don't get excited I need to sleep. I decided to try and get some rest and sleep if I could figuring it would be a while before things picked up. Around 3pm I could no longer ignore the contractions.  I got up and walked around and noticed that my Mom was up so she came and laid with me and helped me labor. At this point I thought it would be hours till I we needed to go to the hospital and thought it would be best not to disturb Christian. He needed to rest for the labor later.  I called our Doula Barbara to let her know I was in labor.  She offered to come over and help me labor at home. I said not yet, still thinking it would be a while before labor picked up. A few contractions latter they were coming every 10 minutes and were intense.
By this time Christian was up and on the phone with our Doula telling her to come to our home. Then he called our midwife Emily to let her know we were in labor. Once the doula arrived we realized it was time to go to Newton Wellesley Hospital. The contractions were now 5 minutes apart. We were suprized how quickly labor was progressing. We got in the car and headed to the hospital at 4:30am. Arriving at 5:15am. Luckily there was no traffic. Christian was nervous that the contractions were so close. In the car the contractions had slowed down to 6 to 8 minutes apart. They wheeled me up to labor and delivery where they checked me out and I was already 7 cm dilated!
Our midwife Emily suggested getting in the tub to help with the pain. By this point labor was very intense and our doula was helping me with the contractions with visualization and massage.  Soon I felt the urge to push and was taken out of the tub to the bed. The hospital discourages people doing water births. I did not know how I was going to do this. The contractions had turned in to pushing and I could feel the babies head. My water broke.  I felt like giving up and just getting drugs. A couple of pushes latter and the baby was out. Christian said we have our Luca. They cleaned him off and took him to check his breathing since there had been meconium, the first bowel movement in the bag of waters that broken. After a few minutes of getting used to breathing he was fine.I could hear him crying any I said Luca my baby and all of a sudden he stopped crying and looked at me as if he recognized my voice. It was amazing. They brought him over and he started nursing. We were in shock that the labor had gone so quickly. I felt so lucky that it had gone so well. We are so thankful to our midwife and doula.