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Newborn Rebecca | Rhode Island and Boston, MA Newborn Baby Photography

Sarah has become one of my closest friends… she has helped me through so many things, and I feel honored to have been able to help her when she needed me.   I met Sarah in the Rhode Island New Moms Connection years ago, and I have remained good friends with a few of the women in the group to this day.  This past year has been full of ups and downs… it leaves me in tears to think about some of the hardships encountered.  There has been happy endings and sad endings within our circle of friends, and through it all, I believe it has made each of us stronger women, mothers, and wives.   I love this family.

 

In her words:

 

“It is April17th and it is a pretty typical day except it is my middle sister’s birthday. As I did every Tuesday and Friday for the last four months of this pregnancy, I am getting an ultrasound of my baby. This one marks ultrasound #63 and 64. I have spent more time in doctor’s office waiting rooms and being poked, prodded, and examined than I ever anticipated during this “high risk pregnancy” due to Intrauterine Growth Restriction. As it turns out, this day is different. The doctor says that baby has not grown enough since the last ultrasound; it is time to deliver the baby. I am in shock; feeling like a second place winner since I wanted to make it all the way to 40 weeks but instead, I am one week shy at 39 weeks.  My head is swimming with thoughts of what this induction would be like or would I have another cesarean section. I met my husband  at Women & Infants Triage at 3 p.m. We sat there waiting to meet with the doctor or midwife on call but after being there for over an hour, we were told that no one was available  to discuss my options. Instead, we got a phone call saying that I should go home to get my things and come back to the hospital later in the evening. This was my chance to buy time. I wanted to savor my last hours with my daughter who was up until that point, an only child. We ate dinner, goofed around in the front yard, and told her stories about princesses before bed. It was now 9 p.m. and Women & Infants called to see when I will be arriving to the hospital. I left my house at 9:30 p.m. knowing this would be last time I would close the door of house as a mother of one.

            At 11:00 p.m., one of the midwives came into my hospital room to explain the induction since we decided that I should attempt a VBAC. My birth experience with my first daughter was traumatic and the thought of a traditional cesarean section terrified me.  The midwife was aware of my desire to have a natural non-medicated birth so she opted for a more holistic approach to the induction. And she said she wouldn’t be able to any drugs to start the induction any way due to my prior cesarean, so instead she was going to manually dilate my cervix using a catheter. I slept through the night with the catheter hoping that it would work. It did! The next morning, April 18th, I woke up to be pleasantly surprised that I was 3 cm dilated. The nurses brought me down to the Labor & Delivery floor at 6 a.m. to start a Pitocin IV. It was around 7:30 a.m. when my husband arrived at the hospital after taking our daughter to daycare. It wasn’t much longer when the contractions started. As the morning wore on, they became more and more intense. The midwife checked my progress at 10:00 a.m. to find that I was 4 cm dilated. It was not much longer when I thought my body was going to explode. I did not anticipate that type of uncontrollable, unrelenting pain. My mantra “I am in pain but I am not hurt.” was no longer working. As much as I did not want an epidural, it was my saving grace. The epidural put my mind at ease and allowed my body to do what it is supposed to do. It was a short time later when my water broke and the midwife announced that I was 10 cm dilated.  She told me to rest for a little bit and then I would start pushing. This was a thrilling moment to know that my “baby dream” might actually come to true–that I may be able to deliver my baby and get her place directly into my arms. The whole time, I had a picture from National Geographic in my mind. It is a woman in a tub of water holding her baby for the first time. The expression on the woman’s was pure joy and relief. I wanted to have that feeling that was lost due to groggy drugs during my prior c-section. My husband called this picture my “Rocky photo”.  One of the greatest compliments that my husband has ever given me was when he told me that I had that same expression on my face when I touched our baby girl for the first time. The pride that I feel for having a VBAC after all of the struggles, fears and disappointments of a high risk pregnancy is unexplainable. My original doctor told me once that “happiness is healing”. Those words will forever ring in my head because for all of hurt and trauma that came my first born’s delivery and the frustrations and disappointments of this high risk pregnancy– all of the negative feelings have melted away in the first touch of my second born. Rebecca Hope Rocchio was born at 4 pounds, 4 ounces on April 18th at 1:47 p.m. She truly is my second first born.”

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Newborn Miqueias | Rhode Island and Massachusetts Newborn Baby Photography

Miqueias… your eyelashes are just incredible…. I am severely jealous of this 12 day old baby, haha

In his words:

“When we discovered that we were going to have a baby, we had a rollercoaster of emotions going through our bodies. Although we were mostly excited, we also had fear because maintaining a pregnancy was not easy.  We had already lost one of our little angels at just over seven weeks along prior to finding out about this pregnancy, and the pain that comes with losing someone you are looking so forward to meeting is something we did not want to encounter again.  Yet we knew we had to keep trying because this was both our dreams.. to have a family one day and share in the joys that only a child can bring to this world.  

Our GYN had told us after our loss that we needed to wait six weeks before we could begin to try again (due to surgery to remove the fetus)  and also, we could not dwell on the past, and “try to be relaxed”.  So we went out and bought a little puppy to help us along.  Well, this little guy must have been God’s assistant, because with not even six weeks (as the doctor had asked) we went back for an appointment.  To our surprise, we were expecting again!

The first eight weeks were the longest of our lives.  The eight week point came along and our angels heartbeat was still beating strong, then the first trimester passed and still beating strong.  We hit 17 weeks and found out we were going to have a baby boy, there was no way we were waiting to find out the sex… we had plenty of surprises already.  

The second trimester came and went, then the third, and before we knew it we were at 39 weeks!  We had a c-section scheduled as little Miqueias was breech.  The night before he was scheduled, we had to run to the hospital as my wife’s blood pressur was high; once we got there, they set up a heart monitor on Miqueias, and took a bunch of tests on mom.  Mom had calmed down, but the little one had not.. and the doctor said we could not wait until morning, as mom’s body was no longer tolerating the pregnancy.  At 4:03 am on April 24th, 2012.. little Miqueias came into this world at 8lbs. 3 oz with a length of 20 in.

People often ask “do you believe in love at first sight”.. I can’t speak for every parent out there, but for us, there is no question that it exists.”

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Newborn Brynlee | Rhode Island and Massachusetts Newborn Baby Photography

Brynlee Paige, thank you for coming to the studio!  You are more beautiful than you could ever imagine..

 

In her words:

“I had always dreamed of having a baby girl, so when my husband and I found out I was expecting we were beyond excited.  Although, it was a bit of a surprise because she was conceived the first night of our honeymoon (not what we had planned, but we were still very excited).  When we found out it was a little girl, we knew things were meant to be, and I instantly couldn’t wait for her to arrive.

Going forward a long 40 weeks to my 40 week check up, my doctor said “not much longer”  He thought I would have her over the weekend.  One week and two days later, I had lots of contractions, but still no baby!  He decided to put in a balloon to help me dilate without medication adn if I didn’t go into labor overnight, he would induce me the next morning.  Almost as soon as I got home, my contractions were five minutes apart and extremely painful.  Back to the hospital we went; I was so ready.  The nurse hooked me up to check my contractions and said “yes, you’re having contractions but nothing strong enough to say that labor has set in.  They are so painful because of the balloon.  In extreme pain and not to mention disappointment, we left the hospital and headed home.  Later that night my contractions stopped completely, and at the time I was very happy they did.  

The next morning we headed into the hospital for induction.  My doctor broke my water at 7:30a.m.  and I was dilated to 3cm from the balloon.  He waited until 12:00pm to start the pitocin in hopes that I would start labor on my own.  Around 4:30pm I got the epidural.  I was still only 5cm dilated so my husband decided he would go get some food.  By the time he got back I was feeling a lot of pressure; the doctor checked me and I was dilated to 7cm.  Finally, things were moving along!  

An hour later I said to my nurse “I really feel like I could push”  She didn’t seem to be in any rush, but said she would check me.  When she got around to it she said “Oh yes, let’s have a baby!”  My doctor came in right away and I started to push.. what seemed like forever was actually only 25 minutes.  At 6:52 pm our beautiful, perfect Brynlee Paige was bron at 7lbs 14oz, as what I thought was the cutest baby I ever saw.  

They put her on my chest for about an hour for some bonding time before they weighed and checked her.  At that point my blood pressure started to drop and I felt very sick.  I was given oxygen.  I was mostly worried that I needed to feed my baby and couldn’t do so because I was too week.  After eating I was feeling so much better and able to take care of her.  

Even though she may have taken some extra time to come out, she was worth the wait.  I’m such a proud mommy and we love every minute I spend with her.  We feel so blessed to have a happy, healthy girl”

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Newborn Landon | Rhode Island and Massachusetts Newborn Baby Photography

He went from being alert with shockingly strong eye contact, to a sleepy moldable bliss….

And here is her story…

In her words:

“After being told at my 39 week prenatal visit that I hadn’t dilated at all, I mentally prepared myself to go past my due date.  Friends and family would call every day to check in and see if I had any news, but I didn’t.  I started telling everyone that I would most likely be induced early in May and that I would call them if anything were to change.  Well, fast forward 4 short days later and things began to change. I finally had news to share!!
I went to bed Thursday night feeling great.  Around midnight I got up to make my usual bathroom run and felt something pop. I immediately turned on the lights to discover that my water broke! I noticed right away that there were signs of meconium in the fluid, so I didn’t waste any time. I showered, dressed and packed my hospital bag… made a quick sandwich, and by the time my husband walked in the door after working second shift, I told him to turn right around because it was “time” and we were in labor!It was a slow night in triage so we were admitted right away, and within the hour we were transported to the Labor & Delivery floor.  Since I still did not yet have any contractions, the doctor decided to start me on Pitocin to move things along. Knowing that the water had meconium in it, the plan was to deliver within 24 hours for the safety of the baby, so the nurse slowly bumped up the Pitocin every hour to get labor going. By 5pm contractions were coming faster and stronger. I started to get really uncomfortable. The nurse thought I was in a transition stage, and I decided it was time to get the epidural so that I could ride out the next few hours of labor. After the epidural started, everything changed. I was relaxed and calm and even took a quick nap. Around 7pm the nurses changed shifts and when my new nurse came in to introduce herself to me, she told me that she wanted me to change positions because the baby was not liking the side I was lying on. I flipped over to the other side and began dozing off again, when the nurse came back into the room with oxygen this time. She said the baby was still not happy and she wanted me to put the oxygen mask on to see if we could get his heart rate back up. After 15 minutes, two other nurses came into my room and asked if she needed help. I knew that was a bad sign. My nurse asked them to call my doctor and send her in to check on us. The doctor arrived a few moments later, she checked me and said that I had not dilated as much as I should have and that she wanted to set up an internal monitor on the baby’s head to get a more accurate read on his heart rate and my contractions. After that was in place, we realized that things were more serious then we thought. The baby’s heart rate was extremely low and she suggested doing an emergency C-Section at that point. We all agreed it was the right thing to do, so within 5 minutes I was whisked to the O.R., and 15 minutes later, our son was born at 9:19pm (which also happens to be the date of our wedding anniversary!). 
We heard his loud cries immediately, but we were not out of the woods just yet. The entire room got eerily quiet and we heard my doctor start counting. My husband and I were terrified and just stared at each other trying to figure out what was going on. After what felt like an eternity, the doctor finally peeked her head over the sterile drape and told us that Landon had managed to get the umbilical cord wrapped around his tiny neck 4 times!! We were in shock. The NICU team was standing by and rushed him over to one side of the room to suction the meconium out of his lungs and throat, and make sure that he was breathing okay. After a few stressful minutes, they finally told us that he was healthy, pink, breathing on his own and there was no lasting effects from the cord. They handed him off to my husband and when I finally came out of recovery I was rejoined with my new family. 
While the meconium and umbilical cord gave us a scare and caused our plans to change a bit, we are so blessed that everything else was absolutely perfect and our son didn’t make us wait until May to meet him. We truly believe that everything happens for a reason and we feel so honored to be home together as a happy, healthy family.”

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Newborn Baby Carter | Rhode Island and Boston Newborn Baby Photographer

Beautiful, sleepy, new Carter… thank you for coming to the studio!

In her words:

 

“I knew right from the beginning that Carter was going to be a special little man.  His conception was not planned, but right from the start we welcomed whoever decided to enter our world in 9 months.

As the months passed, Carter developed perfectly and on April 22, he decided that it was time.  He was scheduled to arrive on the 24th via cesarean, but in true Pina fashion, he couldn’t wait.  Contractions started early that morning and by one o’clock they were in full force.  By the time we got to the hospital the contractions were about a minute and a half apart and I was prepped for a c-section.  Forty-five minutes later, as we waited for the anesthesiologist, he was born VBAC.

Carter entered the world at 5:00pm without a tear in his little eyes.  He was such a peanut weighing in at 5 lbs.  10 oz. and only 18 inches long.  Looking down at him for the first time brought tears to my eyes.  He was so sweet snuggling up against me for his first hour of life staring at me with those alert little eyes saying “Here I am mommy!””