Theo and I started talking about having kids in early 2020. We had a trip to Disney World planned over our anniversary in May, and since you cannot ride most of the rides while you are pregnant, we agreed that we would start trying after we got back from Disney. As we all know, the world shut down in March, and our Disney trip was postponed.

In early September, we finally were going to Disney. This meant that we would be starting our family shortly after.

We were very blessed that we found out we were pregnant on October 22, 2022. I couldn’t wait to share with my family; however, Theo and I agreed to wait a few weeks to share. Then we announced our pregnancy to the world in our Christmas Cards.

During my pregnancy, Theo wasn’t allowed at any doctor appointments, as there were stringent rules with COVID. We did get to do our 20-week ultrasound via video chat but waited to find out the gender of our little one until we could go to dinner together that night. After dinner on February 16, we opened our envelope and discovered, “IT WAS A BOY”! We were both excited and knew our Archer would be one special little guy.

We had regular appointments throughout the next few months to check on Archer. Everything was going smoothly. We had decided to bring Archer into this world via C-Section. My Orthopedic Doctor recommended that I don’t have a natural birth with everything my knees and hips have gone through and the stress natural birth can have on my legs.

We finally sat down with my OBGYN and decided that our scheduled C-section would be for 8am on Monday, June 28, 2021.

During this whole time, Theo and my dad were working on moving a wall in the nursery to build a closet in it, as well as building a better layout for our laundry room and adding a pantry, which would be more beneficial for when we had Archer. As nesting had set in, we also cleaned our house and every room possible.

As June approached, I was getting increasingly nervous about having a C-section. There were all of these different tasks to ensure that I was ready, didn’t get infections, and prepared for Archer. I just felt overwhelmed and anxious.

On the morning of June 26, 2022, Theo and I were sitting on our front porch, and we decided that we would finally pick up our new fan/light fixture for our porch. We headed over to Menards to pick it out and get a few odd-and-ends we felt we still needed from the store.

We got to Menards early afternoon and started walking through the store. I am walking through the 2nd-floor lighting area and go down the appropriate aisle looking for our porch fixture, and another pregnant lady is in the aisle with me. Then this woman and her husband walk up to the aisle, saying, “I’m not going down that aisle. There are too many pregnant women,” and then laughed (like she could ‘catch’ pregnancy).

Suddenly, I got an extreme shooting pain through my back. I just hunched over and told Theo I needed a minute. I told Theo that I thought I had to use the bathroom, so we grabbed the fixture and headed to the escalator to go down and check out. I start crouching over as we descend on the escalator, just holding on to the cart. People definitely gave me weird looks.

I make my way to the restroom as Theo checks out. I got out and told him I still didn’t feel great and that my back was killing me. I didn’t know why.

We got to our car, and I told Theo that I needed to just call my mom. So I call her and say something along the lines of, “Mom – What does labor feel like?”. My mom told me to call my doctor, as I was probably in labor. She and Dad said they would come to meet at my house to get Zelda while we went to the hospital, just in case we got admitted. I called the doctor’s office, and they said they would give me a callback.

We got home, and I was still in pain, but my house was A MESS. So what do I do? I clean my house for an hour….

We then received a call back from the on-call doctor, and she said that if the pain hadn’t gone away, I should come in and get checked out. So we decided to listen and head into the hospital.

We got checked in and had to wait to be seen. When we finally saw the doctor, she told me that I was 3 cm dilated and that Archer was coming in the next few hours. We called all of our family and let them know that Archer would be making his way into the world that night.

At 7:17pm, Archer made his way into the world. We fell deeply in love when we laid our eyes on him. I couldn’t take my eyes off him; I was so excited to get to hold him. The moment I was set to go and in the recovery room, I held him and kissed his little face.

Theo and I looked at each other and laughed as we talked about how squishy his cheeks looked and felt. From that day forward, we called him ‘Squish.’