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.

Happy Mother’s Day!! So I thought today would be the perfect day to make the official “Blog” announcement that I’m pregnant! YAY! I’m pretty sure almost everyone knows by now, but for those of you that don’t, we are expecting our baby girl at the end of July!

It’s so incredible to me that I’m going to be a mom and Mikey is going to be a dad. I have no doubt that Mikey is going to make an awesome dad, but I have to say I’m pretty nervous about being a mom. What if I mess up? During my whole pregnancy I’ve realized so many things that I’ve taken for granted about my own mom, and just how lucky I am to have her. All those arguments we would have about my messy room, curfews and all that teenage stuff – man I was SO wrong! haha. She just says she hopes I have a daughter just like me. hehe.

I wanted to share a photo from our maternity session the other night with my amazing friend Katie from Katie McMenamin Photography. Katie has been such a really great friend of mine since college, and it’s so fun to share all the big moments of our lives with each other, like being in each other’s weddings (she’s getting married this October!) and now babies! Plus, she is ridiculously talented and we are so lucky to have her capture all our special moments for us. Check out her blog for a few more sneak peek images from our session!

I know this is a pretty long blog post for me, but I thought I would end with a few things I’ve learned during pregnancy:

* Morning sickness is a myth. All morning, afternoon and night sickness, however, is real.
* That star tattoo on my abdomen that seemed like a good idea senior year of college, was not. It now resembles more of a distorted 3D star, much to my mother’s delight.
* I never knew what it meant to be exhausted before I got pregnant.
* Don’t share possible name ideas with family and friends. Everyone has an opinion and surprisingly, most are not afraid to share it. That being said, our final name for our little lady here is Finley Grace. No telling us if you hate it. K? K. hehe.
* Feeling Finley kick for the first time (on Valentine’s Day!) was quite possibly the most amazing experience of my life (so far).
* Insomnia exists. 3am and I are good friends now.
* Pregnancy is prime time to get back rubs and foot rubs from the hubby, and luckily Bean has been such a good sport.
* Just when you thought your stomach couldn’t possibly get any bigger, it does.
* Stretch marks will just appear one day, and no cream or belly butter can stop them.
* Foods that used to be delicious are suddenly the devil. I’m looking at you mushrooms.
* It is possible to gain 11 pounds in one month.
* Don’t watch A Baby Story on TLC. Just don’t.
* Heartburn can be caused by anything aaand nothing at all. My favorite was when I drank water and got heartburn. Awesome.
* Feet can and will swell up to twice their size. Bye-bye cute shoes.

But despite all those things, in just about 10 or so weeks we are going to meet our little daughter and I can’t even begin to express how excited we are. And scared. But mostly excited. So for all the moms in the world, especially my own, I wish you a super wonderful Mother’s Day!!