Baby Max is here!!!

The long-awaited arrival of our little guy is finally here!!! We are so excited, he's of course the cutest thing in the world to us! The timing of it all caught us a little off guard though because I had an induction scheduled for Wednesday morning at 7:30. So I'd gotten the whole house cleaned, and scheduled a few extra piano lessons before I took my maternity leave. Well, Tuesday evening at about 6:30--I had literally just finished teaching-- I started to feel contractions. But I didn't think much of it because you always hear the stories of women who think they're in labor, go to the hospital and get sent back home. So I ignored it as just discomfort from being so busy that day, and went to a Relief Society dinner. But ten minutes into it, I started to time the contractions because they were really getting painful. They were about five minutes apart, so I called Ryan to come back to the church, and we left for the hospital. We didn't even have time to stop home and grab stuff, or take Cecily anywhere because they were so intense I knew we needed to get there fast. Sweet Cecily was asking, "You ok mommy?" and " We go to the Doctor and he make you feel better." She was very concerned! What a sweetheart! I couldn't answer her during the contractions because I was just trying to get through them! Luckily Ryan's parents met us at the hospital right as we pulled up and took Ceci home with them.
By the time I got into the room it was about 8:30 and I was dilated to a five. I was pretty anxious to get the epidural but they had to get an IV in me first, and they couldn't find a good vein! Apparently my veins are really small and they roll, so it took about three tries of jabbing the needle around to finally get it in!! The epidural went really smooth though and I was finally pretty comfortable. But I could still feel the contractions, and they started to get more and more painful again, so the anesthesiologist gave me another dose and then I went completely numb--I couldn't lift my legs--that's such a weird feeling!! It felt a little scary 'cause my chest was even a little tingly. But I progressed really quickly--in about an hour I was at an 8 and by about 11:30 they called my Dr in. I started to push at midnight and he was born at 12:11. My mom almost missed the whole thing--I had been calling her since my contractions started but she and my dad had gone to the temple and didn't have their cell phones with them. So I told my sister Amelia to come because we could have one other person in the delivery room besides Ryan and I thought she might as well be there in case my mom didn't make it! But we finally got a hold of them, and they got there with just a half hour or so to spare. My mom was pretty relieved. And they ended up letting Amelia stay in the room too, so it was great.

Anyway, the little guy was 7 lbs 3 oz and 19 inches long. He looked so healthy and perfect and I just can't say how happy I am to have him here!!!

I have to tell the story of how we decided on his name too. We had decided even before we got pregnant with him that our two boy names were Christian (my maiden name) and Max--we both jsut really liked the name and it happens to be my Grandpa's name on my mom's side. I have loved both names equally and I still hope to be able to use them both, but if we only have one boy, I honestly didn't know which one i liked better. I kept saying I was gonna need some kind of sign, or have him come out screaming his name for me to decide. Well, when I scheduled the induction, we just randomly picked a day that was close to my due date and when the Hospital wasn't too busy. When I called my mom to tell her the date, she said "Guess who's birthday that is?? My Dad's!" It seemed meant to be that we should use Max after his namesake. That was the little 'thing' I needed to help me make a decision. But when I started to go into labor on Tuesday the 17th, I thought "oh no, he's not gonna have his birthday--now I have to start from scratch!!" And with how fast I was progressing, I really thought he would come before midnight. But lo and behold, he came just 11 minutes after! So his birthday was definitely meant to be on the 18th!!! So we named him Maxwell Ryan Stevens. And here are his darling pictures!!!

Four days before he came


She loves her baby brother already!!


Minutes after he was born


Taking it all in!


So sad!


Proud Daddy!


Aunt Amelia


Nani and Opa