Max's Birth Story

Around 2AM on Friday October 22nd, I woke up with a contraction. I tried to fall back asleep, but I kept feeling them on and off every 15-30 minutes. I eventually got up and walked around downstairs to make sure they were continuing - watched some TV, worked on the computer, I kept feeling them. Around 7AM I told Judd he should probaby work from home. We took a walk, went to the grocery store - they started coming closer together and seemed to be getting stronger.

We decided to call the doctor, they said to come in to be monitored. We then called Jen (Judd's cousin) to ask her to come over to watch Charlotte. I told her we might be back in an hour, or they may send us to the hospital - I just wasn't sure.

We got to the doctor's office and she checked me. I was only dialated to 2cm. I was pretty bummed. She said that was progress and I would probably go into active labor later that evening or Saturday. She offered to augment my labor by breaking my water and starting pitocin. At that point, I was so ready to have the baby I agreed. She sent us over to Northside and said she'd meet us there in an hour.



We got the hospital and got all hooked up. The doctor came over and broke my bag of water, about 15 minutes later I opted for my epidural :) (No need to be a hero, right?) After that, I just kinda laid there - well shook uncontrollably from the epidural. The nurse would come in and adjust the pitocin as she saw fit, she told us we would probably have a baby by dinner time - this was 3:30 PM.

Judd and I just talked, I tried to rest.

Around 6:30 PM, the nurse came back in and said she wanted to check me, she thought that the contraction pattern looked like I was probably fully dialated. Sure enough, I was.

After about 25 min of pushing, Max made is way into the world.





Tears were streaming down our faces - we had our beautiful baby boy. The next few minutes are a blur to me- I just remember him crying - a wonderful sound.





After a while, Jen brought Charlotte over to meet her baby brother. She was pretty excited and VERY proud.



Charlotte was even able to help give his bath. The nursery worker let her squeeze some water onto him to get him cleaned up.



Charlotte and Jen left not long after the bath and Judd and I moved up to the recovery room.

It was a wonderful experience - we had great nurses and everything went perfectly. We are so very lucky.