Welcome to the World, Max

I'm incredibly late posting about this, but our little Maxwell Mark was born on Wednesday, October 30, 2013 at 1:29 PM, weighing 8 lb. 1 oz. and measuring 21 inches long.  We are absolutely in love with this little guy and are so grateful he's part of our family!

Now for the birth story! We completely expected him to come early.  (He was due Oct. 26.)  I had so many contractions and was dilated so early, I just assumed it would happen sooner than later.  At 37 weeks I was dilated to a 1 and 50% effaced, 38 weeks I was a 2 and 80%, 39 weeks was a 3 and 80%, and at 40 weeks I was a 4 and 80%.  (Yes, a 4.  I didn't know people walked around for days at a 4?!) It was really important to me this pregnancy to go into labor naturally.  Andy had to be induced at 39 weeks because of a problem with the placenta, so I didn't get to experience the excitement of going into labor on my own.  And more importantly, I felt like it was best and safest to wait until my body was ready to go into labor on its own.  We started getting nervous around my due date: we really needed this baby to come soon because our big move to Utah was getting close (Nov. 21).  I wanted to push out an induction as long as the doctor thought it was safe (41 weeks), but that would put the baby being just over 2 weeks old when we'd move.  Long story short, because of hospital scheduling and our worries about the imminent move, we set an induction date for Oct. 30 when I would be 40 weeks and 4 days.  We did everything we could think of to put me into labor before then (accupressure, a delicious tea concoction, etc.), but it just didn't happen.  So, at 6 AM on the 30th, we arrived at the hospital ready to go!

I had Cameron write down the details of the labor as the morning progressed, but somehow that document got deleted.  I remember the morning went something like this: They started me on pitocin at 8 AM.  I wanted to see if I could progress enough on my own without them breaking my water.  After a couple hours of that, I still wasn't feeling much and had only progressed to a 5.  I consented to breaking my water about 10 AM.  That's when things really picked up.  The contractions started to be pretty painful.  I asked for an epidural about 10:45 or so.  It took forever.  I didn't end up getting one until about 12:15 PM.  I was DYING.  Apparently, there was a little mix-up with the anesthesiologists about who was coming to give me the epidural.  Once I got the epidural, I was in absolutely heaven.  It worked great, unlike in Andy's labor.  (I could still feel a bit on the left side with Andy, so I kept clicking for more relief and was so numb I couldn't walk for 10 hours after Andy's birth.)  They checked me after the epidural and I was at a 7.  Dr. Orth came by and said she'd just go get a drink next door and be back in twenty minutes.  I was confused because I thought I was a good few hours away from delivering.  I was surprised when she came back and I was pretty much ready to start pushing! I only had to push for about ten minutes (hooray!) and our beautiful boy was born at 1:29 PM.  We were so thrilled about his good sized birth weight of 8 lb. 1 oz! Andy was small because of the placenta problem (6 lb. 3 oz), so we'd been nervous about Max.  Especially since I was measuring super small from the outside (only 28 weeks!) because of how low he was sitting.

Overall, the birth went so well! I felt like Andy's delivery was pretty good, but Max's was even better.  Everything went pretty quickly.  I loved that pushing was so much shorter than with Andy, since I really hated pushing.  I was so glad the epidural worked so well.  I could walk on my own just an hour after the birth!  Max didn't need any help breathing like Andy did.  Even smaller things went well, like that I didn't have to use oxygen like I did with Andy.  We were just so grateful everything went so smoothly!  He even latched on and nursed for an hour after the birth.  That was a big relief, because Andy was never able to successfully latch and nurse in the hospital. And now, lots of pictures:

Laboring! 

First family picture

On the way home!