the arrival of maddux lee

apparently maddux didn't want to miss our anniversary... as is typical after a check-up during the last few weeks of pregnancy, i was having contractions while reading to madelyn at bed time last night. by 8pm i thought that they were staying strong enough to start keeping track of their timing. they were every 2-1/2 to 3 minutes but the intensity was not very consistent. then they started to space out to every 4-5 minutes so i thought that i would go ahead and try to go to sleep. but, nope, they got closer together again and i told matt that we needed to call our neighbor, tina, to come down for the kids because we needed to go to the hospital.

matt wanted me to call the doctor's office but i thought that we needed to just hurry up and get to the hospital. once we arrived at the labor and delivery floor for admission i was in rough shape and started vomiting. thankfully, i knew that it was coming and was able to ask for a container. at this point they realized that we weren't going to mess with triage and started to walk me down to a room. unfortunately, the vomiting continued and my bladder started to fail me. once in the room it was quick to get me into a hospital gown and into bed so that they could see how quickly things were progressing. i measured at 5cm and all parties agreed that next on the list was getting me an epidural. the nurse was trying to still get me admitted while they were tracking down the on-call doctor to okay my epidural.

the great news is that i was not having back labor! in fact, as far as labor goes this was one of the easiest times - except that the vomiting started much earlier than with the other two. my epidural was okayed and once they got that started i felt much, much better! and they were able to actually complete all the paperwork for getting me admitted. the on-call doctor came in to check on me and i was 5/6cm dilated so he wanted to go ahead and break my water to help keep me progressing. that was at 12:20am. everyone left the room for what seemed like 10 or 15 minutes. i commented to matt about forgetting how much more you could feel the contractions once they break my water and, geez, i could feel the catheter now. uh, matt, go get the nurse! now! and that was when she walked in and quickly checked me before getting on the phone to find the on-call doctor who had left to call my normal doctor (she had left a note for him to call her if i came in because she wanted to try and be there if possible - again - so great, but she never would have made it).

two pushes later and maddux was born at 12:45am! and he was 11 pounds! 11! it made me feel so much better about the difficulty i had been having walking and generally complaining to matt about how much pain my pelvis was in. i really can't believe that this was my quickest and easiest delivery when it was the largest baby - by a lot. it seems like most of that 11 pounds is in his cheeks because the rest of him is fairly slim. i have been saying that he is our hearty winter baby.

maddux is 22 inches long, has darker hair (it is hard to say if it is dark blond or actually brown, but it is the darkest of the three by far), his hair might even be a little wavy or curly, and looks like he might have dark eyes. i can't really get a good look at his eyes so i may change my mind later. he has the loudest cry of the three but has rarely used it. he seems to be a pretty good sleeper (3-4 hour stretches) and is nursing great. he barely fits into the hospital baby shirts and they gave up on the newborn diapers for a size one already. they have been joking around here that we had a toddler and not a newborn.

because the delivery was so quick he had a lot of fluid in his stomach and there was some talk about having his lungs x-rayed but after monitoring his oxygen levels for most of the day he is going to be fine. he just has a little exhaling 'whistle' that originally caused the concern.

i had hoped that he wouldn't have to share matt and my anniversary (today makes nine years) but he does make a pretty great present. maddux' spelling comes from pitching great greg maddux and lee is actually my middle name - matt thought that it was a good fit.

welcome to the family, maddux! love.