When they set me up on the hospital bed and checked my cervix, I was already 6 centimeters dilated. The nurse and doctor both predicted that the baby boy would arrive before Noon on Monday.
I was 3 centimeters just four days prior, on Thursday the 25th, when I went to get checked by my doctor, because I was bleeding all day while teaching at school. Obviously, it was a false alarm, and they sent me home from the hospital Thursday.
Although I was already dilated 6 cm, the doctor decided to have the nurse give me the Pitocin (Oxytocin) medicine to induce labor. It didn't take long, and I was ready to deliver at 11:45 AM.
The epidural procedure went very well this time. When I went to the hospital for Reagan's induction appointment at another hospital in July 2014, they messed up my epidural the first time, and they needed to do it again. However, yesterday, after the anesthesiologist gave me the epidural, the medicine worked quickly, and the entire lower half of my body was numb. If you shot a bullet in my thigh, I don't think that I would have felt it by the time that I gave birth to the baby boy.
After about five rounds of three pushes per contraction, our new baby boy arrived at just a few minutes after Noon. David and I had already picked "Max" as our top boy name, but we were still deciding on a middle name... Then, after David and I played with a few names that were synonyms for "leap" because this baby was certainly coming on Feb. 29th, David suggested a few names that had nothing to do with Leap Year, nor were any names that we had discussed up until now, one of which included "Christian." I loved it because it was unique and sounded good with the rest of this baby's name, so we went with it.
Max Christian Haase measured at 8.0 pounds in weight and 22.0 inches in length at 12:03 PM on Monday, February 29th.
So far, Max has slept a lot, pooped a lot, "chirped" a lot with his little baby noises and I just want to hold him every second of the day. We compared Reagan's newborn pictures with those of Max, and they look almost identical. We can't wait to see how Max will grow up in this next year!
Reagan came to visit Max at the hospital on Monday evening. She was a little confused about this new baby that we passed from Mommy's arms to Daddy's arms to the grandparents' arms and to Reagan's godparents' arms, and she cried at points, but we think that Reagan and Max will grow close soon. Already when I came home from the hospital Tuesday afternoon, we asked Reagan, "Where is Max?" and she would looked into the bassinet to look for Max or go toward Max resting on Mommy's lap on the couch. We think she even said, "Hi, Max" while we made the introductions between Reagan, Max and Hank the dog.
After we took Max out of the infant car seat in the house, Hank went right to the carseat and started sniffing out these new smells from the baby. Hank was a little nervous and confused about Max because Max made a lot of chirping and squeaking sounds as he woke up in his sleep, so Hank probably thought this was a new dog toy that we were hiding from Hank, but Hank seemed to remember well from July 2014 that, yep, we brought home another "one of these" from the hospital and they would learn to live together as a family.
David and I feel so happy and blessed that Max arrived as a healthy, happy baby boy yesterday! While Reagan turned out to be a healthy, happy girl when she arrived, there were many uncertainties and confusing test results prior to her arrival that made us anxious with our first baby. We are thankful to have these two healthy babies in our lives.
Great Pictures!!! Max is precious and so cute. Congratulations!
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