This week has been pretty life changing. We welcomed our baby boy into the world on Monday night and I am so beyond grateful that he is healthy and arrived without any complications. Being a mom is the greatest blessing and being able to experience having a child of your own is unlike anything else, so seeing my heart expand twice to a love I didn't know existed has been incredible. We definitely have our hands full being home with two kids now, but I wouldn't have it any other way and I feel like this little boy was just meant to be part of the fam. Here's the story of his birth.

For the past couple of weeks before he was born, I was having contractions and just felt so uncomfortable that I couldn't sleep at night. I was so ready for this little babe to make his arrival and because of all the symptoms I was having, I was shocked that he wasn't coming early. Every night I would go to bed with the house clean thinking he could definitely come tonight. The end of pregnancy is the hardest part for me because I am so large and uncomfortable that you can hardly do anything and it's so hard having everything all ready just to hurry up and play the waiting game of wondering when your baby will decide to come. When I went to my 39 week checkup, my doctor said everything looks great and asked me if I wanted to be induced. I didn't even know that was an option because she wouldn't induce me with my first pregnancy until I was way past my due date and luckily my water broke with that pregnancy, but this time I was having all the signs of labor coming but no baby. So we decided to wait through the fourth of July weekend and see what happens on Monday morning. My parents arrived into town on Thursday night and a huge part of me felt relieved that they were here because now we could leave at any moment to the hospital and I didn't have to worry a thing about Capri because she would be taken care of at home with her nana and papa that she loves. So we kept busy entertaining my parents while they were here, going out to good restaurants and enjoying the Fourth of July festivities in our town. But every night when I was having contractions I was shocked to wake up the next day with nothing else happening. So we set the date for Monday morning, the day before my due date.

We arrived at the hospital just after 6 am on Monday morning. We got all checked in to labor & delivery at the hospital and it took awhile to get everything all in place. I was having contractions when I came in so they started monitoring me and got me on antibiotics. The day started out slow and took me awhile to progress. They waited to start me on petocyn and once they did, my contractions got painful pretty quick. My doctor came back to check me and broke my water which really moved things along. It was so different this time because not much came out as opposed to my experience with my first labor when my water broke at home and a bucket of water came gushing out all at once. By the afternoon I had progressed to a four and was breathing hard through the contractions and my sweet husband went and told the nurses that I was ready for the epidural and I'm so glad he did because by the time I actually got it, I was definitely feeling a lot of pain and was so happy to have it. It felt great to be able to relax and get some rest after a full day of being in labor. But I started progressing really quickly at this point and the contractions came really fast and hard. I moved quickly up to a 7 and then in ten minutes to an 8. The baby was showing some stress between contractions so they stopped the petocyn and things slowed down a little. My parents hurried and got to the hospital so they could be there with Capri after the birth and we were able to see them for a minute before I started delivery. I started feeling everything really intense at the end and knew it was time to push. I had to wait for my doctor to arrive so by the time she came, the pushing went so fast. It seemed like I only pushed 5 times and there he was. As my doctor pulled him out we saw that his head and body were all blue and he wasn't breathing as she quickly cut the cord that was super tight around his neck. She layed him on me and the nurse rubbed his back trying to revive him but when he still wasn't breathing they rushed him over to the infant bed and a flood of nurses came into the room to help our little guy. I held my breath until I heard his cry which felt like an eternity later. Our doctor is so amazing and remained so calm during the whole delivery that Adam wasn't worried, but my mama heart was just emotional thinking we worked so hard to get our son here and now we didn't know if he would start breathing?! When our baby boy was well and breathing they brought him on my chest and I instantly fell in love with this little guy. He was so alert and sticking his head up looking all around to see us. Those first golden hours with our babe were just a piece of heaven and I couldn't love him more. Adam brought Capri into the room to meet him and it was the sweetest thing ever I just had tears of joy streaming down my face looking at my babies. She held him and said "Oh this is so wonderful" haha I don't even know where she got that from. Then we had a present there for her from her baby brother and when she opened it up to find a pink tool set, she was so excited and still hasn't let it out of her site. She told my dad at the hospital not to touch her tools haha. She loves helping Adam fix anything whenever he has the tools out so we thought it would be a perfect gift to get from her baby brother. It's so surreal to be a family of four now, I feel like we are such a large crew.

Liam Kingston Hale

7 lbs 14 oz 20" long

July 6, 2015

Born 7:18 pm

Thank you so much for all the sweet comments and congratulations on Instagram over the past few days. It really means the world to us! I've been trying to soak up every ounce of this time together with our new little one and getting as much family time as we can while adjusting to our new normal. Cheers to being a family of four and hope you'll follow along on all our new adventures.

Photos by Klose Up Photography