Baby Ronan

Ronan Charles Leekley is here!  This was literally the fasted pregnancy ever! From trips in the spring and summer to photo shoots every weekend until the last month, I was so busy to notice! The first trimester was rough bc of norovirus, full body hives from a reaction to zofran and another rash from antibiotics from a UTI. Other than that, the rest was a breeze. Ronan was so nice to mommy. I didn't swell up like a puffer fish like I did with Dillon and felt great all the way to the end. He never really dropped, so that also had something to do with it. Here is the birth story, mainly for my records and to put in Ronan's First Year book like we did for Dillon!

December 14th (which was a horrible day, I cried and cried that afternoon watching the news) I felt itchy all day on my hands and feet. The day before I had a gall bladder attack but didn't put two and two together until I googled "itchy hands and feet in late pregnancy" and up pops something called cholestasis of pregnancy and I had a lot of the symptoms other than the itching and the gall bladder. Jenna had just arrived a few hours earlier, which was perfect timing!! I kind of freaked out about what I googled and called the OB on call (it was around 10:30pm at this point). She reassured me everything would be fine, but to come in and be induced since I was already 4 cm (from my dr appt that Monday before. Thank you Lauren for telling me to eat so much pineapple, it definitely helped!!). She said better to be safe and go ahead and get things moving and they would test for CoP. It was so surreal getting everything together already, two days before my due date. It felt so early compared to waiting for practically a year to have Dillon (he was 11 days late). So off we went and Jenna stayed with Sherman at the house. Dillon was already spending the night at my mother in laws, so that worked out great.
My emotions were all over the place at this point-so excited knowing he would be here soon and super nervous about being induced since that didn't go so well the first time. We arrived at UNC Women's around midnight and got settled. They started pitocin and I tried to get some sleep while my contractions got stronger over night. After maybe a couple hours of sleep, they checked me pretty early in the morning and I was still between a 4 and 5, but my contractions were a lot stronger. I decided to go ahead and get my epidural before they broke my water. Best. Decision. Ever. They broke my water afterwards and the waiting game was on. Not too much longer, I could slowly feel more and more sharp pain on my left side and was wondering if something was wrong with the epidural. I had to breath through those contractions and grit my teeth until they came and fixed the epi. Once I had more juice flowing, I couldn't feel a thing and looking back, it wasn't all that bad. They weren't going to check me again for a while, but I told them I could feel a lot of pressure. My sweet nurse, who I loved, checked me and said "um you are a 10!" So all the pain I was feeling was me going from 5cm to 10cm in less than an hour. It was time to push! I was all smiles at this point and ready to get this show on the road. I loved how calm and quiet it was in the room. Even though UNC is a teaching hospital, there was no one in the room except my one nurse and Evan the whole time I pushed. 20 minutes was all it took and she told me to stop bc he was RIGHT THERE! She said I was a champ at pushing. The doctor came in, a couple pushes more and he was out at 9:56am! Even though there was muconeum in my water, they still placed him on me and I got to hold my sweet boy before they took him to get suctioned and Evan cut the cord. Something I didn't think I would get to do.  It was such a calm, relaxing, and happy delivery. If we have anymore babies, they will be born at UNC. I can't say enough great things about the nurses and doctors!

Here are some pictures of our new little guy, who is just too cute for words, but I'm biased.  :)

 Dillon is such a good big brother! He didn't get to meet Ro until we came home because of his cough. He was so excited to see all of us and just tickled pink over his new brother. He kissed him, rubbed his head, and kept saying "Baby Ronan came out of your tummy!" and "I love my brother!" He even sang a couple songs to him. I hope they are best buds and never ever fight! ha!

Baby Ro is so good, he sleeps a lot and cries some in the evenings from gas, but he's pretty much just like Dillon was as a baby-laid back and easy peasy. I hope it continues!