Josephine Skriver Opens Up About Giving Birth After 30 Hours Without Sleep: 'Most Crazy Experience'

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Skriver welcomed her first baby with husband Alexander DeLeon in August

<p>Josephine Skriver/Instagram</p>

Josephine Skriver/Instagram

Josephine Skriver is opening up about her birth experience.

The former Victoria's Secret angel, 30, appeared on Dr. Elliot Berlin's podcast Informed Pregnancy and walked Dr. Berlin through her experience giving birth to her daughter Aurora James. The podcast, which was divided into episodes about Skriver's pre and post-birth experiences, detailed her feelings about welcoming her baby girl.

"Actually, when we spoke, I guess I didn't realize, but I was slightly in labor," Skriver says, referencing the first episode the two had recorded together. "I had started feeling a little pinchy during that meeting, but nothing that I was...Thought was anything like pain level two."

She continues, saying that after they finished recording, she went home but was unable to sleep that night as the pain began to intensify. When it hit 3:30 a.m., Skriver says she decided to wake her husband because her contractions were every five to seven minutes.

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Related: Josephine Skriver Welcomes First Baby, a Girl, with Husband Alexander DeLeon

Her doctor told her to try to make it until 9 a.m., despite her pain levels getting worse and worse. "This is where all the hypno classes came in," Skriver tells Dr. Berlin. "And I just started getting in on my zone, sitting on my ball."

"Actually ended up putting on this nature show, so there was just some monkey sounds and some nature stuff in the background."

For the next few hours, her pain levels didn't change. "It's just going through it now," she says of her labor cycle. She and her husband left their home around 9 a.m. to head to the hospital, but she admits "this is where it gets a little blurry." Dr. Berlin acknowledges that Skriver was now "approaching 30 hours of no sleep."

Once she got to the hospital, the model says that things began moving faster. She was admitted to the hospital with high blood pressure and as she was sitting in her triage room, her water broke. "Fully big gush, and I just stop and everybody looks at me. 'Are you okay?' I'm like, I just think my water broke because it came almost movie-like down my legs, the whole thing."

As her husband is getting her birth room set up, Skriver says that the pressure got worse. "I'm starting to not have a pause between the contractions because the pressure downstairs is getting really, really intense."

"It felt like bone on bone. It felt like there was such a pressure on my pelvic bone, and I'm also starting to get rectal pressure," she remembers. "And I'm just like, I really don't want an epidural. I'm trying to do this all natural, but obviously, you want to be safe. And then my doula, between contractions, makes eye contact with me and goes, 'Hey, these are the three options, and you can try and keep going, but this blood pressure is a little nervous.'"

She agreed to one dose of fentanyl to help with the pain. After getting the dose, things picked up even more. "But at this point, I am starting to push," she tells Dr. Berlin. Her husband spotted a head as the nurses in her room began to frantically call for the doctor.

"It's just happening with the surges, and I'm just doing my breathing exercises, probably crushing every bone in my husband's hand at this point," Skriver recalls. "I'm laying with like a peanut ball to kind of be sideways, but I'm kind of squirming, and I think the head is a little bit out by the time the doctor rushes in."

Her husband rushed to put a gown and gloves on to catch their newborn daughter, but there wasn't enough time. "I kind of have to flip on my back to get the ball away, because [the doctor] needed to be able to see, so I don't make it back on my side because within 58 seconds, two pushes, she was out," she says.

"And it was the most crazy experience. I have a video of my husband be like, 'I don't have gloves on yet,' and they're like, 'Doesn't matter.'"

Skriver welcomed her first baby, a daughter, with her husband Alexander DeLeon, who goes by the stage name Bohnes.

After welcoming her daughter into the world, Skriver says that she had no trouble breastfeeding and connecting with her baby. "It wasn't a long latch or a big feed, but just that instant connection."

"And then, that is when I think I feel like my oxytocin or love hormone or something kick in, that felt really, really special."

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