His Name
You can see from the list in our previous post that we like pretty traditional names. As Jack Donaghy said, "Don't overthink the name. Stick to kings and queens of England. There will never be a President Ashton, or a Dr. Katniss, or a non-sexually-confused Lorne." That's been our philosophy, which was why William was a front runner for so long. However, about two weeks before Liam was born, Joseph announced that in all our time considering the name, it hadn't really grown on him, so we started back at square one and made a new list.
Patrick was considered, as well as Joseph, although Joey didn't really like the idea of using it for a first name (his dad is also named Joseph). I liked William because it lent itself to cool nicknames like Will or Liam while still being traditional and distinguished. Unfortunately, it lends itself to all sorts of nicknames I don't prefer, like Billy or Willy. We could have named him William and just called him Will or Liam all the time, but that is fairly common practice among his ten cousins and it gets confusing very quickly. (For example, there is an Adam James who was named after his father Adam, but he's called James so he's not confused with his dad, but there's also a cousin named James who was named after HIS father James, but is called Teddy so as not to be confused with his father OR his older cousin James. Great names, and we adore our family members, but very confusing.) Liam popped up because it was an Irish shortening of William that sounded nice. I admit it's not very traditional, and I didn't like it at first, but it grew on me. We decided to go with Joseph as a middle name because we didn't want to lose a nice legacy name like that completely.
Birth Story
(Note: This is prominently labeled so that those of you who don't want to read the details can skip this section completely) :)
The day before Liam was born, I reached an odd sense of peace about being pregnant pretty much for the rest of my life. Really. I was struggling and gnashing my teeth at the discomfort of pregnancy during the entire 38th week, but by week 39 I'd just become calm about it all. It happened with Diana too on her due date and she came the very next day. I guess that peace indicates the calm before the storm for me, because Liam came as soon as I'd made up my mind to just enjoy pregnancy again.
I woke up at 5 AM feeling crampy, a little nauseous, and with occasional killer back/hip pains. I wandered around a little bit, tried to go back to sleep, got up again, took a shower, and started timing the back pains, since I didn't feel any distinguishable contractions. They were about 10 minutes apart and moved to 8 as I wandered around. By 6:30 AM I was fairly certain that I knew what was going on, even though it was still hard to distinguish contractions from pains in my back and hips and it felt completely different from when I went into labor with Diana. I woke Joseph up to let him know what was going on and called my midwife, who told me to eat a big breakfast (with the nausea, that didn't happen) and time some more contractions and see how the morning unfolded. We called my mom and she picked up Diana around 8 AM after she woke up. By that time, the contractions had become very distinct and were getting harder. I had to close my eyes and concentrate to get through them. As soon as I felt they were starting to really pick up speed and intensity, we called the midwife. She arrived around 9:30, saw one of my contractions, and got all of her equipment ready in a hurry. Joseph said he'd been feeling calm and confident until that point, having seen me in labor before and knowing that it would probably be a while before hard labor began, but when he saw how quick Lisa was to set up her supplies, he began to feel less confident about the situation.
By about 10 AM I felt like I didn't have the energy to take the very strong contractions sitting up, so I went to lie down on the bed. Something about lying down made the contractions become VERY strong and intense and much faster. Lisa saw that things were going to happen very quickly and told me it was time to push my baby out. At that point, the only people around were her, Rachel (another midwife) and Joseph.
Though I disliked being the center of attention, I found that I didn't care much about it when I had other things to focus on. Everyone was so encouraging when they spoke, and Joseph was a good sport about letting me squeeze the life out of his hands with each contraction, but mostly everyone was quiet to let me do my work. Joseph put on some quiet George Winston music that I loved when I was growing up. That's what I love about home birth: it's relatively peaceful. You're in your own house, surrounded people who are calm and supportive. I've been lucky enough not to have a hospital birth, but I really can't imagine a better way for a healthy woman to have a healthy baby than at home!
Some women are silent and strong during labor, but I find it helps me more if I yell with each contraction. With Diana, someone mentioned at some point that I was using all my energy to yell and that I should push with each contraction instead. That's what I tried to do this time- less vocalization and more pushing with each contraction. I think that really helped. My water broke in the middle of heavy labor (same as with Diana). Liam was born at 11:30, after about an hour and a half of hard (pushing) labor. Much better than the four hours it took with Diana. His labor was like riding a lightning bolt through a thunderstorm. It was very quick, but so very intense!! I didn't get much time to rest between each contraction and they lasted much longer than I would have been comfortable with (if I'd had any input). I guess that's the nice thing about labor: it feels like someone is making your body work to push a baby out instead of you deciding to work hard and push the baby out yourself. All you can do is work with the natural process.
Our Liam didn't cry when he was born. He was also completely and very definitely blue. But no one panicked. Lisa, who has been to close to 900 births, didn't see any cause for concern because he was looking around and breathing. She called it "a peaceful transition." It's a good thing she's an expert, because both Joseph and I were a little worried. She laid him on the bed next to me (I was on my side) so I could meet him face-to-face for the first time. Our little blue baby just sat there with his eyes open looking around and studying the world. The cord was cut once the blood drained from it. When the placenta was delivered, there was a gush of blood and fluid that made both midwives jump into emergency response mode (P.S.- They both seem very capable in the event of an emergency). It stopped after a moment and they determined that there had probably just still been some water behind the placenta that came out after it.
I still required stitches thanks to the speed of labor and his 14 inch head. I think there were more than when I had Diana. Still, when you've just been through childbirth, it's not that big a deal to get some stitches. And it's much more manageable when you have your brand new baby to hold and talk to. Little Liam turned pink like all healthy babies should and even eventually cried about an hour after he was born. I let him nurse for a little bit, but mostly he just wanted to sleep. The midwives gave us a final checkup, packed up and left, and Joseph, Liam and I all got some rest. Around 6 PM we called my mom, who brought Diana back so our little family could all be together again. Diana enjoyed seeing me and Joseph and was even briefly interested in her little brother, though she kept insisting he was Ella or Emily, her 3 month and 6 week old cousins who live down the street.
It was such a blessing to have a speedy and healthy home birth. We love the newest member of our little family!
By about 10 AM I felt like I didn't have the energy to take the very strong contractions sitting up, so I went to lie down on the bed. Something about lying down made the contractions become VERY strong and intense and much faster. Lisa saw that things were going to happen very quickly and told me it was time to push my baby out. At that point, the only people around were her, Rachel (another midwife) and Joseph.
Though I disliked being the center of attention, I found that I didn't care much about it when I had other things to focus on. Everyone was so encouraging when they spoke, and Joseph was a good sport about letting me squeeze the life out of his hands with each contraction, but mostly everyone was quiet to let me do my work. Joseph put on some quiet George Winston music that I loved when I was growing up. That's what I love about home birth: it's relatively peaceful. You're in your own house, surrounded people who are calm and supportive. I've been lucky enough not to have a hospital birth, but I really can't imagine a better way for a healthy woman to have a healthy baby than at home!
Some women are silent and strong during labor, but I find it helps me more if I yell with each contraction. With Diana, someone mentioned at some point that I was using all my energy to yell and that I should push with each contraction instead. That's what I tried to do this time- less vocalization and more pushing with each contraction. I think that really helped. My water broke in the middle of heavy labor (same as with Diana). Liam was born at 11:30, after about an hour and a half of hard (pushing) labor. Much better than the four hours it took with Diana. His labor was like riding a lightning bolt through a thunderstorm. It was very quick, but so very intense!! I didn't get much time to rest between each contraction and they lasted much longer than I would have been comfortable with (if I'd had any input). I guess that's the nice thing about labor: it feels like someone is making your body work to push a baby out instead of you deciding to work hard and push the baby out yourself. All you can do is work with the natural process.
Our Liam didn't cry when he was born. He was also completely and very definitely blue. But no one panicked. Lisa, who has been to close to 900 births, didn't see any cause for concern because he was looking around and breathing. She called it "a peaceful transition." It's a good thing she's an expert, because both Joseph and I were a little worried. She laid him on the bed next to me (I was on my side) so I could meet him face-to-face for the first time. Our little blue baby just sat there with his eyes open looking around and studying the world. The cord was cut once the blood drained from it. When the placenta was delivered, there was a gush of blood and fluid that made both midwives jump into emergency response mode (P.S.- They both seem very capable in the event of an emergency). It stopped after a moment and they determined that there had probably just still been some water behind the placenta that came out after it.
I still required stitches thanks to the speed of labor and his 14 inch head. I think there were more than when I had Diana. Still, when you've just been through childbirth, it's not that big a deal to get some stitches. And it's much more manageable when you have your brand new baby to hold and talk to. Little Liam turned pink like all healthy babies should and even eventually cried about an hour after he was born. I let him nurse for a little bit, but mostly he just wanted to sleep. The midwives gave us a final checkup, packed up and left, and Joseph, Liam and I all got some rest. Around 6 PM we called my mom, who brought Diana back so our little family could all be together again. Diana enjoyed seeing me and Joseph and was even briefly interested in her little brother, though she kept insisting he was Ella or Emily, her 3 month and 6 week old cousins who live down the street.
It was such a blessing to have a speedy and healthy home birth. We love the newest member of our little family!
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