Maverick is here. My second precious baby boy arrived September 12th at 5:27am. I wrote the story of Paxton’s birth and I loved being able to go back and read it time and time again so I figured it was time to write the story of how Maverick came into this world.
I desperately wanted to go into labor before my due date. I just didn’t think there was any way possible I could carry my baby to my due date of September 20th. And besides that, I was fat, uncomfortable, and in pain every.single.day. Sleeping was uncomfortable and intermittent and the skin was stretched so tightly over my belly that I just didn’t know how it could accommodate a growing baby any more. The Sunday night before I went into labor (September 8th) I started to feel slightly painful contractions around 8pm. I felt a glimmer of hope and joy (ironically at the fact that I was in pain) and got out the trusty timer on my iPhone and began timing contractions. They were inconsistent at best and only slightly painful, like mild cramps. I went to bed determined to get up the next day and walk this baby out, just like I had with Paxton.
I got up the next morning with a few inconsistent and mildly painful contractions and emailed my boss to say that I wouldn’t be in that day because I was having contractions, with the clause that I wasn’t sure this was real labor but that I was going to stay home just in case. I got dressed in about the only t-shirt and shorts that still fit me, laced (loosely, since my feet were swollen) up my tennis shoes and headed to the bicentennial gardens to walk. Most of the gardens were shaded and it was a fairly mild morning, temperature wise. I began to walk, and walk, and walk. I walked 2 miles and took a break to rest and assess my condition. I was having some contractions but I knew they weren’t consistent yet so I hadn’t even bothered to time them yet. I walked another mile and then my mother-in-law, Joan, brought me some water and we walked one last mile. By this time, I was having painful contractions about 4 minutes apart. I was exhausted and sweaty, and getting really excited… and scared.
You see, I had done some research and decided I wanted to try and not get an epidural. Some of the research I read said that epidurals could delay your milk coming in and since I planned to breastfeed again, this was important to me. The research also said that epidurals could affect the recovery time from delivery and I knew I need to bounce back quickly, since I would have a toddler to keep up with, in addition to an infant. Plus, with my first birth, the epidural only worked from the waist up, so I felt like I could certainly do it again, since I basically did it the first time!
I had been mentally preparing myself to deal with the pain of contractions but I was still terrified. I was scared of the pain and scared I wouldn’t be able to do it without an epidural. I didn’t want to let myself down and I didn’t really want to tell anyone how scared I was because I knew that I would be encouraged to “just get the epidural.” My goal was to trick myself. I wanted to make it as long as I could without an epidural and then if I got to the point where I needed it, it would be too late to get one. Again, I just wasn’t sure I could make it to that point.
When I left the gardens, I knew I needed to head home to take a shower. Picture big, sweaty, pregnant woman, and by sweaty, I mean swollen sweatiness allll over the place. I had to pull over in a Wendy’s parking lot on the way home to wait out a contraction. I was elated, yet still scared silly. I was starting to get really hungry and I knew they wouldn’t let me eat at the hospital so I got a jr. bacon cheeseburger from Wendy’s and headed home. I finished about three quarters of the burger and when I got home, I was so exhausted I could barely get up the steps before collapsing in bed. I was still sweaty and hated to lay down in the bed but I was literally overcome with exhaustion. I timed contractions until I fell asleep. By the time I woke up, my contractions had subsided a good deal. I was bummed because I had a feeling I had stopped walking too soon. At that point, I knew I had a doctor’s appointment in the morning and that surely I had to have dilated a little more with all that walking through contractions.
The next morning my mom texted me to see how I was doing and ask if the baby was moving around a lot. I told her good morning and that yes, he was an active little fella and then began to get ready for my doctor’s appointment that was scheduled for 11:30 that morning. I got a shower and then began drying and straightening my hair. In the middle of straightening my hair, a cold sweat came over me because I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt the baby move and eerily I heard my mom’s text message ring over and over in my head. I poked my tummy, straightened another section of hair, and when I didn’t feel a kick back, calmly put the straightener down and went to the bedroom to lay down on the bed. Usually, when I lay down on my side the baby would go crazy town thinking this was his time to shine and I get pummeled with kicks and other acrobatics. Fifteen minutes later, nada. I was in a full blown panic at this point. I called Brandon and told him what was going on and that my last resort was to eat something sweet to see if the sugar would make the baby be active. I also told him I was not ok with waiting until my doctor’s appointment and that I was going to go early. I just knew that I could never live with myself if something was wrong with the baby and I waited until my scheduled doctor’s appointment time to have it checked out. I was only going to be about 50 minutes early so I grabbed a handful of candy corn, threw on my clothes and left the house, yes, with my hair half straightened!
I called the doctor’s office on the way (since it would take me about 25 minutes to get there) and the poor girl that answered the phone was so sweet, especially when I couldn’t even choke out my name through the sobs that overcame me. I finally was able to tell her my name and date of birth and she told me she would alert the doctor that I was on my way. She was kind and reassured me that I would be taken care of, probably since she knew I was sobbing while driving.
At the doctor’s office, Brandon and I waited nervously for what seemed like an eternity. It was almost my scheduled appointment time and I was starting to get mad. Every second counted and it seemed as though no one cared that those could have been precious seconds to save my son’s life. Thankfully I had felt 3 soft, very subdued kicks since the time I had realized I couldn’t remember when he had moved last. Finally I was called back and we were taken to a room to be given a fetal stress test. I was hooked up to this machine that was going to monitor his heart rate and when the machine was turned on and the nurse found his heartbeat, we all breathed a huge sigh of relief. It was the sweetest sound to hear after an agonizing 2 hours of not knowing if my baby was ok. I was given a button attached to a long cord and told to press the button every time I felt the baby move. All of a sudden it seemed as though he wouldn’t stop kicking! I even commented to Brandon that I felt like the doctor was going to think I was crying wolf! Then when the doctor came in, she said that it was likely that the candy corn I ate did have an effect on him, kicking in about the time we were hooked up to the machine! In the future, if you ever have this problem, drinking OJ is apparently the best way to get immediate results. Who knew!? Not me anyways.
The doctor confirmed that he was just fine and that right before labor babies tend to sleep for longer periods of time in a deep sleep phase and that likely explained the timeframe where I didn’t feel him kicking. She also measured me at 2 cm dilated and confirmed that he was still head down. She also stripped my membranes. It was just like I had felt it when I was pregnant with Paxton, uncomfortable and slightly painful but not too bad.
That night I started having more contractions, but just like the other night they were inconsistent and only slightly painful. Brittney called and asked if she should come in town from Asheville and I told her I just wasn’t sure that this was it yet. I didn’t want to tell her to come in case I wasn’t going to go into labor for another week! See, Corben has school and it was a Tuesday night and I hated for him to have to miss school, especially if I wasn’t going to have the baby! Brittney ended up talking with Joan and Joan told her to just go ahead and come home. She got there about 10:00 that night. Even though I hadn’t told her to come home, I felt guilty because I just wasn’t sure I was going to have the baby anytime soon. Even though I desperately wanted to have the baby early, I knew nothing anyone did would make him come when he wasn’t ready.
I went to bed and around 4:15am woke up to go to the bathroom and when I did, I noticed that I had lost my “mucous plug”. Yes, this sounds disgusting, and if you’re like my husband, this is one of those details you’d just rather not know. However, this was the turning point in both of my pregnancies, because I knew I was going into labor. I was ecstatic. I climbed back into bed, and I’ll be honest, I didn’t try to be quiet because I was so excited, and I wanted to tell Brandon. He sleepily asked if I was ok, and I blurted out “I just lost my mucous plug!” His reply: “Well all right then.” I told him to go back to sleep because I wasn’t having any contractions but I was so stinkin excited that I couldn’t go to sleep right away. I kept waiting and waiting to have a contraction and I guess I must have fallen asleep waiting because the next thing I knew, it was 7:00am and I was waking up from a contraction. My eyes immediately flew open because I remembered I had lost my mucous plug during the night and this was exactly how I woke up when I went into labor with Paxton – 7:00am with contractions! I was having mild contractions at this point but I started timing them then. Brittney came and got in the bed with me a little later while I was timing contractions and we were both so excited. We all finally decided it was time to start getting ready and get our bags packed.
At this point I was feeling so many different things at once. I was exhausted from not sleeping well, I was excited because I knew it was only a matter of time before I would meet my son, I was terrified of the pain, and I was curious to see if I could stick to my birth plan and not get an epidural. Going into labor the second time is a crazy thing. It’s crazy because you try to compare it to the first time, but it’s so hard to do that because it’s been so long ago, plus can you really compare instances of pain? That’s a hard thing to do.
Anyways, we started showering and packing bags and called Kellie, Brandon’s aunt, to meet us so she could watch the kids (Paxton, Collyn and Corben). As a side note, in preparation of being apart from my child for a few days, I typed up 4 pages of instructions to go in Paxton’s bag detailing pretty much anything you ever wanted to know about my kid. I was so worried about him being ok and felt proud of myself for having though ahead of time to do that. I guess we decided to meet at a place to have breakfast (I say I guess because at this point I wanted to focus on keeping those contractions going!) and the only place between Joan’s and Kellie’s house is a little breakfast joint hooked onto a gas station. Pretty much all they offered was biscuits and grease. I don’t think I ate much because I wasn’t that hungry having the contractions. I wanted to eat because I knew I needed the energy but when your stomach is cramping up every 6 minutes, you don’t really feel like it. Random thoughts about eating breakfast that I want to remember are that Kellie sat down with her coffee right near me and with my coffee aversion, I thought I was going to be sick. I think I moved tables to sit away from her and apologized, telling her it wasn’t her, it was just this crazy aversion. I’m pretty sure Paxton wanted sausage. Just sausage. And he ended up eating Brandon’s and Joan’s. We took our last chalkboard pregnancy picture outside this little gas station/breakfast joint and I said goodbye to my sweet 3 year old. Of course, Brittney and I took a picture here too, and put it on APFP’s facebook page.
After that, Brandon and I decided we needed a camera. We had been talking about getting a nicer one since Pax was playing soccer and to take pictures of the baby, and thought we would have that upcoming weekend to go buy one but since I went into labor early, to Best Buy we went! By the time we got to Best Buy, my contractions were a lot stronger and I was having to go around another aisle to lean over and have contractions. (Side note: A few weeks after having Maverick, I was in line at Moe’s getting lunch and a lady in front of me introduced herself and told the gentleman she was with “Oh this is the girl who was in labor when she came to buy a camera at work the other day”… embarrassing…) One memory I just have to include is that the employee helping Brandon and I get our camera deal all figured out (of course we were price matching to get the best deal) had his fly unzipped. Brittney and Joan noticed this right away and could not.stop.laughing. When I figured out what they were laughing about, the jokes started rolling inside my head! I was having a hard time keeping it together, what with the fly down jokes and the contractions and making sure we got the best deal!
After we purchased our big boy/girl camera (ha!), we left to “walk it out” literally. It was hot and I was hot, and I didn’t want to jack up my hair for pictures later, obvi. I just didn’t want to sweat. I had already exerted the effort to shower and get ready and I just wasn’t sure I had it in me to do all that all over again. We headed to the mall to walk. Yes, you heard me. We were mall-walkers. Very cool, very chic mall-walkers. I might have just given up some cool points with you, but alas, I need to walk without sweating and the quiet mall we have here was the perfect place. We walked, and I continued to have contractions, and then we decided to go get some lunch. I wasn’t that hungry, again, but everyone else was so we headed to Village Grill and I ate about half of a half of a chicken sandwich. I was trying to conduct myself in the restaurant like I wasn’t in labor and by the end of lunch I was ready.to.go.
We then decided to swing by the house to check and see if they had done anything. Funny, huh? Did you picture me having a quiet, restful labor before heading to the hospital? Yeah, I did too, but I’m busy people! I am an achiever, and there is much to be done, even while preparing to deliver a child. At this point, it was HOT outside, and my contractions were getting STRONGER. I could not sit still in the front seat while Brandon chatted it up with the plumber. I had to get out of the car, and because it was so hot (and remember, I was trying not to sweat so I would look good in pictures later with my newborn – HA!) I managed to figure out that I could hunch over the front seat, sway my hips back and forth while standing outside, but have the AC blasting on my face. Boom.
My mom and Deryl arrived and I knew it wasn’t time to head to the hospital yet because I was determined not to be sent home, so even though I knew I was going to have a baby today, I wanted to make sure I was good and dilated by the time I got there. We went back to the mall. I hadn’t packed tennis shoes because I had naively thought I would be laboring at home most of the day so thankfully mom had some with her that I wore because my rainbows were NOT cutting it. I developed a RAGING case of plantar fasciitis while I was pregnant and my left foot basically felt like it was breaking every time I stepped with it. The rainbows weren’t my smartest decision, but luckily mom came to the rescue.
After walking and contracting for awhile, I wanted to be in a room and comfortable. I wanted to be able to labor without having to worry about fellow mall-walkers staring at me, or trying to chat it up with me. At this point, I didn’t give a rip about anybody else’s labor or how big your baby was, or whether you had a c-section or not. Yep, that’s how I knew it was time to go to the hospital. I was in the “focused, don’t-give-a ri- bout-nothin-else zone.”
We drove the one half a minute drive to the hospital and I immediately became anxious when I saw what a construction zone the hospital parking lot was. Like, it was gonna be closed or something. Right. But, nonetheless, I felt a flutter of anxiety, and then again when Brandon had to let me out and a security guard said he would wheel me to the Emergency Room. Like Brandon wouldn’t be able to find me. Like we would never see each other again. Like I would birth the kid without him by my side. Hey, labor is another beast. I was in a crazy place, feeling crazy feelings.
I checked in, while sitting in the wheelchair, and the lady actually (I can’t make this stuff up) asked me why I was there. I told her as bluntly as I could without being all out rude “I’m having a baby right now”. She, again I can’t make this up, stood up from her seat, like she maybe didn’t believe me, and said “Oh, well I didn’t even see that you were pregnant!” Really?! My face is about as chubby-bunny-fat as it can get, I’m grimacing every 4.5 minutes, and was wheeled in holding the basketball stomach I was sporting, and you didn’t realize I was pregnant. I forgave her, chalked it up as a possible compliment, or maybe she was even trying to help me focus on something other than the contractions, and we moved on. I was whisked up to the labor and delivery unit fairly quickly, thankfully.
I was checked and was only dilated to a 4. The next 15 or so hours are a bit of a blur for me, because I was already getting very tired from the contractions and the pain blurred my sense of time. I had to be monitored for just a bit but I asked if I could get up and move around after that because I wanted to be able to labor freely. I found out very quickly that sitting in the bed laboring was verrrry painful. I could almost literally feel my hips trying to spread and the weight of me sitting down on them made the contractions twice as bad.
I got on the birthing ball and loved it. I was so glad I asked for it. I swayed my hips around, bounced, and sat on the birthing ball for hours. Brittney massaged my back during contractions and it took some figuring out what helped and made things feel better, and it actually changed throughout the labor. I got up and walked the halls some and by this time was having very strong contractions. I would have to stop and grab onto the railing on the wall to be able to cope with the pain. I remember focusing on the wallpaper right in front of my face during a contraction. I was moaning and groaning and didn’t care. All I was focused on was not asking for an epidural. I saw every contraction as a step closer to reaching my goal. While walking the halls, the nurse offered me an orange popsicle, and I don’t know if my mouth was super dry or what, but I remember thinking that it was the best orange popsicle I had ever eaten in my life. I devoured it. I also got mad at Brandon at one point because I thought he had eaten some of it during one of my contractions when he was holding it for me. How funny. I got mad over a hospital popsicle.
I also asked if I could have ginger ale while I was laboring. I don’t drink soda. I can literally count on one hand how many times soda has touched my lips since 8th grade. I quit drinking it because my track coach said it was bad for me and I never liked it again. I’ve had it after surgery, you know, when they make you drink it to make sure you can keep it down. Or, I’ve had it when I was nauseous and was freaking out about the thought of throwing up. I don’t know if my body was needing the sugar for the energy to keep laboring, but for some reason I wanted it and ended up drinking 2 or 3 of those small half cans! Crazy!
One of our favorite shows is Big Brother and it was coming on that night so we turned on the tv and watched Big Brother! I was sitting on the birthing ball and would just watch in between contractions. At some point after Big Brother went off, the nurse came in to talk to me because I was getting very, very tired. Like, worn out tired. Like, it felt like I had had one of those days where I got up early and didn’t sit down all day because I was running around and then went to work out and then was up late. Yeah, it was that kind of tired. The nurse knew that I didn’t want to get an epidural, and had had 3 natural births herself, so she was really supportive or that, but she asked if I wanted some pain medication. She said “Bethany, it isn’t cheating if you have something to help take the edge off the pain so you can rest for a few minutes.” I was so torn about this because she was so sweet and so understanding about my birth plan but I didn’t want to make a decision too quickly so I told her to come back and ask me the same thing in an hour.
The next hour, she asked me again, and once again I was so torn about “giving in” and having some pain medication, or going completely natural so I told her to come back and ask me in a little bit. I think I told her one more time to come back and then I finally agreed to have a tiny bit of pain medication. She said she was going to give me the smallest dosage she could, and that it would just take the edge off. She gave me the medication in my IV and I felt the contraction pains lessen right away. It was wonderful. I had to sit in the bed while I had the medication because they didn’t want it to make me loopy and for me to possibly fall. She gave me a little bit more once it wore off because the contractions came back even more intense than they had been and I was not ready for that pain yet.
Then shift change happened. The craziest thing happened. The nurse who was there during Paxton’s delivery walked through the door! I was elated! She had been a huge help to me during Paxton’s birth and I was relieved to know I was in good hands, even though my wonderful nurse was leaving. She was a little less “all around wonderful” than the last time, if I can say that. She was still great but she seemed a little more tired and a little less encouraging. Who knows, maybe it was me.
She ended up asking if I wanted more pain medication and I said yes, that this would be my last dose before I was going to give birth. She ended up giving me a much larger dose without me knowing it and it knocked me out. Like, I was literally sleeping through my contractions. Now, granted, it was after midnight at this point and I was seriously exhausted, but the dose was so much so that it stopped my contractions for a bit and stopped my labor. When I came to and they checked me and I realized that my labor had basically stopped, I was very frustrated and slightly angry. Part of it was the fact that I knew all my family was there, exhausted too, and waiting to help me give birth and I wanted to get this show on the road! I know I shouldn’t have been worried about that at the time but I couldn’t help it.
When I woke up and they checked me and said that labor had stopped I was feeling very anxious, like I had gone through all that pain for possibly nothing at this point. We discussed the options with the midwife, and she suggested breaking my water. I knew, from doing some research, that once my water was broken, the contractions would get extremely painful and it wouldn’t be long before I would deliver. I was terrified to make the call because I was so worried about being able to give birth without an epidural. I knew I was just delaying the inevitable though so we agreed to have the midwife break my water. Immediately, I mean within probably 2 minutes, I felt the worst contractions of my life. I was freaking out. The pain was ridiculous. I was panicking because I just didn’t think I could stand the pain and I sort of knew that it was too late for an epidural at this point.
I don’t know how to describe this part of labor. I was in transition, and it was painful. I was crying and trying not to hyperventilate. And I was a Chatty Cathy during this part of labor. I kept everyone abreast of what I was feeling and I couldn’t shut up. It felt like if I shut up and stopped talking, the pain might get worse and no one would know. It was like I kept thinking that if people knew how much pain I was in, I would be ok, I wouldn’t die. They wouldn’t let me die. I kept focusing on the monogrammed “D” on one of my overnight bags, and I remember fussing at people to move if they stood in front of it and I couldn’t see it. It was like that defaulted to be my focal point. I wanted that stupid “D” to rescue me. I wanted it to reach out and hold me and take the pain. How weird, right?
During this part of labor I had been sitting on the birthing ball and the pain started to get so bad that I was getting nauseous and feeling like I was going to throw up. If you know me at all, you know I do NOT do throwing up. I have a phobia of throwing up and seriously panic when I feel like I’m going to be sick. Of course Chatty Cathy told everyone that I was feeling nauseous and how freaked out I was (and having hot flashes because I was seriously panicking so badly over the thought of throwing up) and I went into MAJOR freak out mode when I saw them getting a barf bag out. Like, I remember seeing someone shake it out, like you would before you put a trash bag in the trash can, and I was just freaking out. I was swallowing hard and trying to breathe through these horrible contractions and I was NOT having fun.
I felt like very soon after my water had been broken, that I was getting the urge to push, but I wasn’t sure. It was freaking me out to not be sure if I was feeling the urge to push and I was absolutely terrified to push too early because I had read that if you push too soon, you can cause the area to swell and then its even harder to birth the baby.
Someone asked if I wanted to get in the bed to be checked to see if I was ready to push and I said yes. I was a little panicky getting off the birthing ball but I also didn’t want my little Maverick to be birthed on the floor or bounce off the birthing ball. At this point, I kept telling everyone I was ready, I couldn’t do it, I might die, etc. I had wanted to trick myself into waiting so long to get an epidural that I couldn’t have one and here we were. And I hated life. I was so riled up that I couldn’t shut up. I was crying and trying not to cry, and hyperventilating and trying not to, and all the while having the most serious pain happen in my life. I felt as though someone had taken a jagged knife and was cutting the inside of me out, like they were carving out a melon. Then I started thinking about the possibility of ripping again and I was freaking out over that. It was all around the craziest freak out session I’ve ever had. The word that comes to mind is desperate. I was desperate to have the pain gone. I was desperate to have people understand how I was feeling. I was desperately crying out for relief. I was desperately asking God to help me not throw up. I was desperate to meet my baby.
When it was finally time to push, I admit, I majorly held back the first 2-3 pushes. I wasn’t even worried about pooping, well, I mean, the thought crossed my mind, but I wasn’t worried about it. I was strictly focused on the amount of pain and exhaustion I was experiencing. I was afraid that I was going to have a big baby so I was worried about the head making me rip again and when I finally started pushing, truly pushing, I naively thought that if I pushed harder, it would ease the pain. Um, no. That did not happen. But, for some reason, I kept thinking it so I kept pushing harder. I remember being so mad at everyone because no one was giving me an update on how I was progressing. I wanted to know if they could see the head, or if they knew what color hair he had, and I remember thinking I was just so upset with all these people in the room because no one thought enough to keep the birthing mother informed. I was later told that I was being given updates on the regular. Oh. Who knew!? I guess not the pain-crazed patient. I remember feeling one push feel a lot different, and the only way I can describe it is if you’ve ever had a stomachache that cramped your stomach so bad that you went to the bathroom and (excuse me for this analogy) pooped because your stomach was cramping and it was just happening, not because you were doing any work to make it happen. I’m really hoping that you know what I’m talking about right now. That’s how this one push felt, like I started pushing and then my stomach just took over and we were both pushing and apparently I birthed his head and then the midwife told me to push some more and she worked the shoulders out and he was here.
Maverick Banning Delk was born at 5:27am on September 12th, 2013 after 30 minutes of pushing, weighing 7lbs 13oz, 20.5 inches long. Part of my birth plan was that I wanted to have skin-on-skin time as soon as he was born so we ripped open my hospital gown and put him on my chest. They put my gown back up over top of him and we cuddled like this for over an hour. I didn’t cry like I cried when I gave birth to Paxton. I felt a lot more clarity after giving birth to Maverick. I had cried so much during the labor and delivery, maybe I had cried myself out… who knows. But I do know that my mascara was a seriousssss mess on my face and people were snapping pictures and I finally said “Um, can someone fix my face so I can get some decent pictures!?”
I also remember birthing the placenta was a little more difficult this time and I actually had to really push to get it out. After that, Brandon cut the cord and I was being prepped to stitch up. Yep, I ripped again. I was still in so much pain and with the midwife giving me shots to try and numb the area and not waiting for the shots to work, I was pretty irritated. I finally said “Um, I’ve done my part. I gave birth without an epidural and I am DONE being in pain. I need something for pain RIGHT NOW.” I wanted some kind of narcotic or something. I was seriously done with being in pain. I had been in pain for a whole day and was exhausted and wanted to enjoy my time with my new baby. According to Brandon, I was not nice. Oops. Hey, I'm nice most of the time and dang it, I had just given birth! The last thing I wanted was to feel that needle sewing me up!
I got to nurse Maverick and it was beautiful. It was one of those moments where I didn't care that everyone had just seen all my lady parts and that my gown was down around my waist and there were 3 or 4 hands in there helping squeeze colostrum out of my boobs. It was like it was just me and Maverick, in the glow of the hospital lights, bonding and snuggling together, trying to remember the touch of each other's skin and how we fit together so perfectly. If you're a mom, you know exactly what I'm talking about. That moment where the edges get fuzzy because you're so in love and so in awe of the beautiful being that you created with someone you love so much. It's like the love makes everything feel like it will burst. Like it all has soft edges and smells sweet and new and warm.
I cherish that time I got to be with Maverick right after he was born, and I remember being so curious about how much he weighed and how long he was but that I didn't want to hand him over to anyone else. After cuddling him so long in the womb, I wasn't ready to part with him yet. I wish I could describe the feelings in that moment, because none of this seems to do is justice.
I know this was a crazy long (and slightly TMI in some areas) post, but I love being able to read Paxton's birth story and want to be able to remember the births of my babies for all time. I know I'll cry when I read this in the future and I hope you cry a little too, thinking about your own babies' birth stories. I'm so glad God gave us Maverick. We love you so, so much already little guy!
