Lalee Photography Blog

On July 22nd, at 8:30pm, little Finley Grace made her long awaited arrival into our lives. I know everyone thinks their kid is the cutest, but she is so stinkin’ cute I can’t stand it! She’s even cute when she cries and sounds like a cat. I love her.

Here is the story of her birth.

So on Sunday, July 18th I started to have contractions. Not very regular, but I definitely noticed them, aaand they hurt. Or so I thought. My OB disagreed. According to her, I did not yet understand the level of pain I would be experiencing when I was truly “in labor”. I of course thought that was a bunch of bologna and that perhaps I was just a very polite experiencer of pain. Four days and one false alarm trip to the hospital later, I began to understand what she was talking about. All of a sudden around 7pm on July 21st the contractions got SUPER intense. This is where my practical side kicked in and I immediately ran to the bathroom, plugged in my flat iron and went to work on my hair pausing every 3 minutes to moan through a horrible contraction because there was NO WAY I was going into labor with bad hair. That’s just not how I roll. I finished my hair and called my OB and she still said I didn’t sound like I was in enough pain (crazyness!) but she agreed to call the hospital to tell them to have a room ready in case we decided to head over that night. So I decided I was going to wait as long as I possibly could stand the pain before going in. Right around 3am the contractions went bananas and were right on top of each other as my whole body began shaking uncontrollably. It was bad. And definitely time to head to the hospital. So I woke up Mikey and we headed over, me moaning and yelling like a crazy person the entire way.

When we got all checked in they told me I was only 3cm dilated and apparently my OB has a strict “must be 4cm dilated before receiving the epidural” policy that I was not aware of. Awesome. So for the next hour I dealt with the pain (note to self: take a breathing and relaxation class before having next baby) and the nurses were SO nice. Finally they checked me, I was 4 1/2 cm dilated and I got the epidural, which if you were wondering is heaven on earth.

At some point I developed a fever caused by an infection of my uterus, and when it came time to push I was so sick that I had to keep stopping to throw up and dry heave. It was pretty much horrible. I thought there was no way I was going to be able to do this and seriously told my OB that maybe we could just try sucking the baby out. She didn’t think so. But at some point something clicked and I just got in this zone and was going to make it happen with Mikey by my side motivating me and counting, through the uncontrollable shaking and the fever and the vomiting. And an hour and a half of pushing later, little Finley Grace arrived! Unfortunately, due to my fever, she also had a fever and had swallowed some meconium so she was rushed off to the NICU after a swift kiss to the cheek from me. But six hours and lots of antibiotics for both Finley and me later, she was cleared and I got to really hold my little one for the first time, and it was the most amazing feeling I’ve ever had. It IS possible to love someone who you just met THAT much.

The last nine days since she has been born have been such a crazy ride trying to figure out this new little person in our lives. Mikey has been such an amazing dad doing so much around the house and taking care of Finley every chance he can so I have more time to recover. Sleep has never meant so much to me. But it’s been amazing and I can’t wait share more and more about our daughter on here as she grows up!

Here are a few photos my amazing friend Katie of Katie McMenamin Photography took of our little Finley this week. Katie is just incredible with newborns and it’s such a gift to have these photos of our Fin!

Side Note: I am on Maternity Leave until the end of August. I’ll still be checking email every once in a while and getting completed weddings and engagement sessions to clients during that time, but am not scheduling any shoots.