Hi everyone! After months of patiently reading everyone's birth stories, I can't wait to finally tell mine!

Quick note: it's a little long - I'm also writing this for my own records so I got a little wordy!

First a quick back story: at 28 weeks I was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes; pretty disappointing but not the end of the world. I was lucky enough to be diet controlled the whole time and baby was measuring perfectly. I did have twice weekly NSTs starting at 32 weeks and all but one of then were perfect (we did have one non-reactive test at 33 weeks but that's just because baby wouldn't stop jumping around and provide a baseline!).

At my 32nd week OB visit, I was told baby was head down and ready to go - but when I went to my growth scan at 36weeks, I was informed that baby was actually breech and my fluid levels were, "on the lower end of normal". I was told to go home, drink tons of water and come back in 3 days to check my fluid levels.

Unfortunately after my next ultrasound my fluid levels were still lower than they liked and baby had no intention of flipping (I just knew he was too comfortable in there!). I was advised to plan a c-section for 39 weeks. Again, I was disappointed but determined to make him flip!

Well after plenty of exercises and tons of water, I decided to accept my c-section fate and just move on - you get a baby at the end either way!

At my next (and, as it turns out, very last ultrasound) at 37 weeks 5 days, I was informed that my fluid levels were now at a 4 and that we would be having this baby today! I was sent off to the hospital, picking my husband and bags up along the way!

I arrived at the hospital at 5:25 and the c-section was started at 6:20 - William Finn Crinigan was born on at 6:32 PM on Thursday, February 28th, 2019 weighing 6 pounds, 6 ounces and measuring 20 inches long!

Unfortunately, he had alot of fluid in his lungs and after a few breaths, his right lung collapsed and he was rushed away to the NICU. They took my husband with them while I was stitched up and sent to recovery. After about 20 minutes in recovery, my nurse came back to tell me about the lung collapse and that my husband needed to come and give consent for a chest tube.

At this point both my husband and myself were very anxious and just had to wait on our nurses to keep us informed. 3 hours after the chest tube was placed, his doctor came by to tell us he had to be transported to another hospital with a level 2 NICU about 30 minutes away.

Unfortunately they weren't transferring me with him - I'd have to stay at this hospital and recover. Man did that devastate me. Not only had I not seen my baby for more than 10 seconds after he was born, but now he was going to a different hospital than I was!

Thankfully the transport team stopped by my room on the way out so I could (finally) see him. Although I'm not sure I felt any better after seeing him in his transport gear:

They assured me it looked worse than it actually was and that he was in the best hands. My husband did go with him to the other hospital (which has private NICU rooms so he can stay with baby the whole time) so I was left in the care of my amazing nurses for the night.

Incredibly, the next day I was informed that my midwife, my nurses, the doctors at the other hospital, and my baby's nurse all fought for me to be transferred to the other hospital and I was able to move the next day and finish my recovery with my husband and my baby!! I cannot explain the contentment at that point and I will forever be grateful to those people for fighting for me to be with my son.

Here he is when I finally got to go up to his room!

Fast forward just 2 days and Liam is doing WONDERFULLY! They've removed the oxygen he was on, removed the mouth tube, removed the chest tube and turned off all IV fluids. He's been taking 30 cc of breastmilk (I've been pumping like crazy!) and as long as he stays stable like he is, they should be releasing us in the next day or two.

While my birth experience certainly wasn't the one I envisioned, everything has turned out perfectly and we are SO happy baby Liam is finally here with us!!

TL;DR - Had a c-section, got a baby! 😍