While home in CA, a dear friend of my mom’s asked me, “Have I missed a blog post?!?” It made me realize, I reeeallly need to log on to good old Huntington Letters:)
It’s been THREE months today since the birth of Ronan. He has been a really ‘easy’ baby — is there such a thing?!;) It’s still a lot of tired mornings and feeling like I’m constantly behind in every area of life; but I know it’s worth it, and I’m grateful that the long road to this boy means that I’ve tried to soak in these past few months as much as I possibly can. Every extra pile of laundry, every interruption, every meal I eat cold, every diaper explosion — I’m here for it:)
Rewinding a little … I was scheduled for an induction at about 38 1/2 weeks, for a couple of different reasons I won’t get into right now! I had never been induced before so the concept was a little strange to me but in some ways, especially since we have no family nearby, it made everything work out more smoothly. I was able to organize childcare ahead of time for Méabh and Eamon — I’m SO thankful for sweet friends here who loved on my kids while I was in the hospital for a couple of days. Here’s some pics we snapped before dropping them off for their sleepover — “good bye, just going to leave you here while I have a kid, no big deal!”;)
After being induced at around 5 am, the contractions started coming, but they were really irregular and not very strong. After a few hours, my OB asked if I’d like her to break my waters. Uhm… sure?! WOW … that did it. From that point on, active labor came on fast and was very difficult — just over a couple of hours later, our BOY (I was convinced I was having a girl) was here. I can’t describe the feeling of finally holding him. It was a long awaited moment I will remember forever.
Thankfully Ronan was healthy and strong and fed well — he passed all the tests and after one night in the hospital, we were able to go home!
Though those first few weeks are usually a blur, I felt like I was fully present — probably largely in thanks to Niall getting two weeks paternity leave + my parents arriving when Ronan was one week old. Having extra hands meant Méabh and Eamon weren’t just looking to me for entertainment — so THANK YOU Niall, mom and dad!! We even got to go on a date in the River District downtown. It was pretty dreamy:)
We booked tickets to California soon after Ronan was born — basically, once we knew for sure that we could handle a trip like that so early;) But thankfully because he is a pretty chill dude, we decided to go for it. Time spent with my family + the growing brood of cousins is always so special. The kids were in heaven!
It’s always an adjustment arriving back to Georgia after being in the paradise of Santa Barbara;) But we’re doing just fine and soaking up these ‘normal’ summer days. The pace of life is different with a baby. It’s been over four years since I’ve been in this phase and though some feel that ‘starting all over again’ is an inconvenience, for me it just feels like a second chance, a huge privilege I wasn’t sure I’d get to experience again, something I don’t want to ever ever take for granted. There’s lots more I could say and more photos I could post about about our three months with three, but I’ll end with a photo that I think sums it up pretty well:)
Much love to all of you, my family and friends. xo
