Baby Liggett | Newborn

Being a new parent, you never know what to expect. All through my life (even as a little girl), I had to be overly prepared for EVERYTHING. My mom just told me that I asked for Hooked on Phonics as a little girl so I could be prepared for school. So naturally, I read everything you possibly could read about during my pregnancy.

I read about what contractions felt like, epidurals vs. without medication, inductions, what to eat, vitamins, how to breastfeed, everything. That being said, no amount of reading and planning could fully prepare me for what happened in the hospital.

We had a birth plan that, during the whole week before going to the hospital, Charlie and I went over all of the techniques I wanted to use. Thank goodness for that too, Charlie helped me so much! He was my advocate and he knew just what I needed when the moment came to meet Evelyn.

Here is our full story: My due date was May 24th. At my doctors visit that week, we scheduled my induction. That whole week, and the week leading up to my induction, I felt this weird tingle in my abdomen. I thought “this is it! Contractions!” I researched what a contraction felt like and everything I felt didn’t sound at all like what was described on the internet. I convinced myself it was just weird gas pains after that. At 42 weeks, I started the induction process - Friday, May 31st at 5PM. And turns out, I was one centimeter dilated and I was having contractions!

The first step was a Foley bulb. They had to keep it in for 12 hours. And for the next 12 hours, it hurt to sit or lay down. They told me to try and get some rest that night because the next few nights were also going to be long, but I had to stand! So I played my Spotify playlists and danced all night. The next morning I was dilated to a 4-5, halfway there! They had me on Pitocin from there out to try and regulate my contractions and to continue to dilate me. We played card games Saturday and Sunday and we were starting to wonder if this baby was ever going to show up. By Sunday evening, my contractions were finally starting to feel like how everyone described them and they were really close together but not regulated. My nurse suggested I sleep with a peanut ball between my legs because that can help sometimes, so I did.

Around 10:30 pm, I woke up to my water breaking! I felt this weird ‘pop’ and a gush of what I thought was for sure urine… as I’m hobbling to the bathroom, my nurse walks in and giggles at me. From there, the contractions started to feel like something you can’t even describe. It was painful; and after 3 or 4 contractions and some thought, I asked for an epidural. I’m still not sure if I regret that decision or not. It helped me sleep through my next few hours of labor. I woke up around 1:30 am to some more contraction pain. I thought “that’s weird, I’m not supposed to be able to feel this.” I had Charlie call the nurse, and she told me what to do. Just as soon as she left the room I realized what I was feeling wasn’t contractions. Evelyn was coming….

We had my favorite band, Magic Giant, playing in the background, Charlie telling me everything we practiced, I told myself “loose hands = a loose cervix”, we started thinking about our list of names and how they didn’t fit with the moment, and 30 minutes later our beautiful baby girl came earth-side. June 3rd, 2:25 in the morning. She screamed and screamed until she grabbed my thumb, then the nurse made her scream some more!

We ended up loving the way Evelyn sounded with her (though I was so tired I kept calling her Emerson). The name Violet was suggested at our baby shower and we really liked it, but they didn’t go with our current list of names we were considering. Charlie really liked the name “Avery”, or Ava for short but I just couldn’t see her with the name Avery. So after my water broke, Charlie began pondering over our name list and even started mashing a few together, he came up with a compromise of sorts. Initially he pitched “Aveline” but I couldn’t get that to sound right coming off my tongue, to which he then suggested “Evelyn” - perfect! As we were trying to figure out what middle name felt right, I remembered that we both like Violet and I suggested “Evelyn Violet” and we agreed that we loved the way that rolled off our tongues. Of course, nicknames were an important are an important aspect to consider and we thought Evelyn’s all sounded great too: Evy, Ev, Eevee, and Lyn. Our baby was finally here! And she’s just as stubborn out of the womb…

When I woke back up later that day, I had my first migraine. I’ve never felt something so pounding before! I drank soda (which I never do) because the nurses said caffeine can help, and we had to keep the blinds down because the light was just too much. The anesthesiologists really pushed going home and that it was just a simple migraine and I was too tired to argue, so we went home. By the fifth day being home, my migraine was so crippling that I couldn’t get out of bed.

Charlie said ‘that’s it’ and he took me to the ER where I had to get a blood patch. What had happened was the epidural left a hole in my spinal column and spinal fluids were leaking out, causing an intense headache. The patch took a few minutes, and then an hour or two of rest. I could finally sit up! While we were in the hospital, Evelyn and I could nurse perfectly fine, but that week at home was a pain. I couldn’t sit up to nurse and she wouldn’t latch. The night after my blood patch, she latched perfectly (coincidence? I think not).

I don’t know if I will do an epidural or not the next time. I’d like to think I could go un-medicated, but I also liked being able to sleep through labor. After getting that resolved, parenting was a breeze. Charlie and I would race to see who could love on our baby first that whole second week! He had to get as much time with her as possible before going back to work. I wouldn’t change this for the world; we love our baby girl!

Because of my migraine, I didn’t get to take these pictures until she was actually two weeks old. Enjoy our little woodland creature!