Community Voices for Health

By Abby Keane

Please excuse any typos, or sentences that just trail off.  I’m currently in the throes of the extreme sleep deprivation that can only follow the arrival of a new baby.  If anything I say here seems a little crazy, well, it probably is.

Hi everyone!  My name is Abby, and I’m one of your eight new Signature Mommy Bloggers.  The reasons I’m here with you are my two sons, Finnegan and Eamon.  Finnegan is 19 months old, and an absolutely amazing kid.  Eamon was just born on March 21^st, and although we don’t know him quite as well yet, we’re pretty sure that he’s awesome too.

I am married to a great guy named Mike, and we met 10 years ago when we were set up on a blind date on Valentine’s Day.  We were married almost five years ago, and started trying to have a baby not quite a year after getting married.  We first had a lot of difficulty conceiving, and when we finally did conceive after eight months of trying, I had a miscarriage.  Six months later, I had another miscarriage.  And six months after that, I became pregnant with Finn.  Finn entered the world in quite the dramatic fashion that he is still prone to at times.  I had a long, difficult labor that turned into quite a few complications that eventually ended in an emergency c-section.  We had a rough few days that included a stay in the special care nursery, but he is now a completely healthy and extremely energetic toddler.  He has a strong sense of humor, and is quite a chatterbox.  He smiles constantly, and adores not only his dad and I, but his entire extended family that help care for him when Dad and I are working.  He is easygoing and happy, and has truly been a blessing in our family.

We’ve known for awhile that we wanted to have at least two, maybe three or four, kids.  We didn’t want the age gap between them to be huge, and knowing the difficulties we had faced having Finn, we didn’t want to wait too long to try and have a sibling for him.  Well, the surprise was certainly on us!  Two weeks before Finn turned one year old, we found out that I was pregnant again.  We were overjoyed, and very nervous at the prospect of “two under two”.  We chose, for many reasons, to have a repeat c-section.  This took place just a few days ago, and the result is currently sleeping on my husband in the other room.  Eamon arrived looking much like his big brother, although where Finn had some light hair when he was born, Eamon’s full head of black hair drew the first comment from everyone who entered our hospital room!

I’m finishing up week one of my twelve weeks of maternity leave, and I’m glad I’ll be able to share with you what I’m sure will be many funny stories over the next few weeks and months as we adjust to our new family.  I unfortunately don’t have a picture of all four of us together yet (I know, Mommy stinks at this already!), but I’m hoping you will all hold me accountable to the goal of getting that photo for my next entry.  Instead, I’ll introduce you to Finnegan hanging out with Daddy, and Eamon getting ready for his big car ride home.  I’m looking forward to “talking” more with you over the weeks and months to come!