Max Wren Morehouse

Our third son was born on Saturday morning, January 10th. We waited so long for this little guy to get here! Here's his story:
On Friday night, I crawled into bed feeling frustrated with my situation. I was hours away from being 42 weeks pregnant.  Like the past 3 weeks, I went to bed having contractions but didn't think much of them. It was 2am when I woke up feeling pretty uncomfortable. I laid there for an hour trying to fall back asleep, but no luck. So I got in the bathtub and thought about what I should do. Something told me this time was different than all the other false alarms. I got out, woke Ted up, and told him that we should call our babysitter.
Danielle got to the house ten minutes later (She's so great!) We grabbed the suitcase and drove to the hospital. It was 4am when we checked in. I kind of felt like we may have come too early, but it worked out okay because it took awhile to get upstairs to a room.
The nurse checked to see how far I was dilated at 4:45am. I was between a 3-4, so the same as I had been earlier in the week. By that time though, I was starting to have the urge to hold my breath when a contraction hit, so I had hope that we would be staying! She said she wanted to check me again in a few hours to see if anything had progressed. In the meantime, I got in the bathtub and Ted got the 70's folk music playing. The contractions at this point weren't too bad. Just being in hot water and floating around really made it seem like I was just having bad period cramps. Sure enough, by 7am, I was dilated to a 6. My doctor gave the go ahead to stay. I tried the birthing ball for awhile, but felt too squished. I mostly stayed in the tub and had Ted in charge of filling it with hot water. I got super tired and somehow, even though the contractions were getting intense, I was able to almost sleep in between them.
I decided I had had enough tub time and wanted to get things going. Ted reminded me that the more upright I could be, the quicker things would happen. So I tried standing beside the bed, held the rails, and just tried rocking my hips back and forth. The nurse came in around 9:15am and I asked her if she could check for progress. I was between a 7-8 and having a lot of bloody show. (Sorry for the mental image, but this is a birth story after all) Boy, did that stir things up though. I immediately felt the contractions hitting harder and I had Ted run out to the hall after her because I felt like I was going into the transition phase. I didn't think it was time to push exactly, but I felt like it was going to be very very close to that time. I told the nurse to call my doctor because I just wanted to get this thing over with!

Contraction beginning...

Dr. Kimuri walked in the room at 10:00. She told me, "As soon as I break your water the baby is going to be right there and you can push him out". I said, "Do it!" So my water was broke at 10:04. I felt a gush of fluid and everything move downward. The baby's head was right there. I guess his pulse dropped really fast and the nurse was saying something to the doctor about it and I got really scared. I made it through 2 hard contractions that were no longer cushioned by that bag of water before saying, "Okay, I'm pushing now!" They weren't even ready with all their gear that they're supposed to put on, but they yelled across the room that it was fine to start pushing.
All that I remember during these next few minutes was that Ted somehow had moved to the other side of me, I looked down at my stomach and it was deflating like a balloon, and someone saying that the baby was crowning. I guess I pushed 4 times total, and I looked down and saw our baby and said, "YAY HE'S OUT!!"
The doctor immediately put him on my chest. He took a little while to take his first breath, but then started crying. His hands and feet were really purple- black colored. (Poor circulation like his mom) After he started warming up and his cord had been clipped/clamped by Ted, everyone was taking guesses on his weight. I guessed over 9 lbs, Dr. Kimuri guessed 7 1/2 lbs. The nurse put him on the scale and we were both wrong.

Max Wren Morehouse
Born 10:12am on Saturday, January 10th, 2015
Weighing 8lbs. 10 oz
Measuring 20 1/2 inches long

He has just captured our hearts these last 2 days. Such a sweet baby. He looks so much like Briggs right now with his little mouth and narrow lips. He has cheeks like Finn had too. Max's hair is looking strawberry blonde right now. I'm crossing my fingers that he's going to be my red-haired baby that I long for!
We came home yesterday afternoon. My parent's and Jared's family came to visit us. Last night Max slept for 6 hours straight, giving us a nice long stretch of sleep too!