Our new edition: Meet Liam!

You might have noticed I’ve been a bit quiet on social media lately–I’m officially a sleep deprived Mombie!

My pregnancy was strange because it seemed to drag on and fly by at the same time. I swear I was just announcing it to the world! July 30 was my official due date, but Mr. Liam decided to arrive August 1 after 22 hours of labor. I honestly felt like I was in the hospital forever!

Being induced is such a strange thing. Your body is forced to jump into action and I thought I was doing to be in labor for like 30 hours. Everything took forever until the very end–I have a feeling Liam is going to be my (most) stubborn kiddo. He decided my womb was much more comfortable than the outside world, I guess. I’ll share the cliffs notes version of my birth story–no one needs all of the gory details!

The last few weeks of my pregnancy were rough. He was laying sideways and “sunny side up”, plus the doctors were concerned about his size. Since I was considered high risk, they were constantly monitoring his heart rate, plus doing weekly ultrasounds. Like anyone in the last few days, I was miserable and ready to meet the little guy. The twice daily blood thinner shots made everything worse–they caused bruises all over my body. Thankfully, it wasn’t super warm out compared to other Michigan summers.

At my last doctors appointment, they informed me that I would be induced on my due date. Knowing there was an end in sight was so refreshing, yet there was one little glitch: there was a WAITING LIST to be induced. This year, there is an overwhelming amount of people giving birth right now. They’re thanking a stressful election (no comment…) and the Cubs victory in the World Series. Ricky actually contemplated a name change to something Cubby related in the end. We stuck with our original plan, thankfully.

Finally on Monday, July 31, I got the call to come in to the hospital to be induced. My mom rushed over to take care of the girls and I was officially comfy in my hospital bed by 12:00pm. Stupidly, I was expecting things to escalate quickly. I should have remembered that it took over 18 hours after being induced for the twins!

While at the hospital, I was determined to unplug, but passing time without my phone was quite hard! I actually did a little bit of work, then watched trash TV. Since we don’t have cable, it was quite a treat, but then I quickly remembered how annoying commercials are. The quiet in the hospital was almost like a mini-vacation for me, plus not having to cook was amazing, even if I could only eat broth and Jell-O at first.

Even though I wanted to try to have him without an epidural, I ended up really needing one. I basically had heavy contractions for 12 hours, without any progress. It was torture! The doctor checked me at 10:20am Tuesday morning and, with hesitation, she said that she thought it would probably be quite a few more hours. Since I was induced at 12:00pm the DAY BEFORE, I was almost in tears.

Immediately after the doctor left the room, it was as if Liam heard her and was like “no way, Jose!”. I felt like I needed to push and after a quick 5 minutes of excruciating pain and pushing, he arrived. Richard William “Liam” Jr was almost 9 pounds and born super healthy.

I had a few complications afterwards, including a spinal headache and a bruised tailbone. Right before I left the hospital I started to notice awful headaches when I would walk around. They were fine when I was laying down, but standing up would cause so much pain. I left the hospital with a prescription to drink caffeine heavily and return if not better in 2 days. In the end, I had to go back on the weekend to get what is called a blood patch: aka, another epidural, inserting my OWN blood instead of pain medication. After that was taken care of, I felt like a whole new person!

Since we’ve been home, it’s been an adjustment, but he definitely completes our family. It’s crazy how all of the puzzle pieces quickly fit together and he fits seamlessly. It’s going to be quite an adventure with 4 kids!