‘Dancing With the Stars’: Lindsay Arnold Shares Emotional Birth Video Days After Welcoming Daughter Sage

Lindsay Arnold is sharing the emotional footage of when she first held daughter Sage for the first time after giving birth to her first child with husband Sam Cusick on Nov. 2. The Dancing With the Stars pro, 26, shared a YouTube video Sunday chronicling the big day for her fans, beginning with the drive to the hospital.

“It’s 4:15,” the pro dancer told the camera as Cusick took the wheel. “I woke up at 3:30 and thought I peed my pants. I’m pretty sure my water broke and now it’s like I can’t stop leaking fluid and contractions every five minutes.” Cusick revealed he actually thought his wife “might be pulling a prank,” because the news was so sudden.

Once Arnold was settled in the hospital before her C-section, she updated the video diary. “I am four centimeters dilated,” the Season 25 winner said. “I’m contracting. Nurse says we’re having this baby today. This is so weird.” During the C-section, Cusick manned the camera, reassuring a crying Arnold, who asked to hold their daughter while the nurses cleaned her off and weighed the newborn. When the new mom was handed her baby for the first time, it was an emotional time for everyone. “She is the most precious thing, and we love her so dang much!!” Arnold captioned the video. “Now go get your tissues because this is a tearjerker.”

Arnold and Cusick announced the birth of their little girl on Nov. 2, sharing their first family photo. “The most beautiful surprise on this special day,” the So You Think You Can Dance alum wrote. “Baby Girl and mama are happy and well.” After revealing they had named baby girl Sage Jill Cusick, Arnold shared the couple’s inspiration behind calling her that. “She entered this world on the same day that we lost Sam’s beautiful mother just one year ago and we couldn’t help but see God’s hand in this and know that Sage was handed down to us by her beautiful angel grandmother, Jennifer Jill Gillette Cusick,” she wrote.

Arnold and Cusick are high school sweethearts who married in 2015 in Utah, and have managed to maintain a long distance relationship during her time filming Dancing With the Stars in Los Angeles. In May, the two announced the dancer was expecting. “Ohhhhh baby,” Arnold wrote on Instagram at the time alongside an ultrasound photo. “Mom and Dad love you already. #November2020.”