Henry Philip Hawes

Laney and Taylor had little Henry on Friday the 6th. Here's the story from Laney:

He came a little earlier than I had hoped, I missed two weddings this weekend (sorry Whitney and Bethany!) but I imagine it was all worth it. I woke up friday morning and headed off to the gym for kickboxing, i felt wonderful and class was going just fine until about six fifteen when I round house kicked to the left, and as I came down, I felt a warm wet sensation in my shorts. My first thought was, "o my goodness, I just peed my pants." I then realized that the liquid kept coming, so I tore off to the bathroom (all along the way, the water just kept coming) and realized I was soaking wet. Once in the bathroom, I concluded that I had probably not in fact peed my pants, but my water had broken, seeing as how it wasn't yellow and it just kept coming and coming!

I waited a bit and headed back to class to get my keys, jacket, and waterbottle where it was obvious to all (by my soaking wet shorts, and the puddle I had made) that I wasn't going to be finishing class. My teacher got excited and the class all cheered me off as a friend of mine (liliana, who is also nine months pregnant) walked me to the parking lot and wished me luck. It was all kind of exciting and scary- mostly because I realized I was going to have a baby and there was nothing I could do about it.

I put my sweathshirt on the car seat so I wouldn't leak too much in the car and I called Leisy to ask her what to do- she just laughed and said, I guess you should go to the hospital. I drove home and woke Taylor up and we showered, Taylor did our dishes from the night before and packed a hospital bag (of course we hadn't packed one yet) while I got ready to go (I figured since I wasn't having any contractions or anything, I might as well take the time to do my make-up and hair for the day). We then went to breakfast, ran a few errands, and set off for the hospital.

When we arrived at the hospital, I don't think they believed that I was ready to have a baby, but they did the tests and realized I was in fact ready to have a baby. They started pitocin a few hours later and voila, by six thirty pm, we had a baby boy. All I have to say about the whole labor and contraction thing is, thank heavens for the epidural! I thought maybe I could do it without (and I am sure I could have) but after feeling those contractions and all that pain, I don't know why I would ever want to! Everything was so much easier and better with the epidural. Unfortunately, the epidural didn't quite take as well as it should have, and a few times I thought I was going to die (really, I couldn't believe how badly it hurt), but the Anesthesiologist was always nearby, and he was kind enough to return and give me more medicine. Thank heaven for pain killers! Labor is so much better when you can't feel anything, and you can just chat with the doctor and nurses between pushes.

Anyway, here is our little bugaboo, he doesn't really fit in his car seat, and he is still a little squishy, but we quite like him and we have decided to keep him. We will post more pictures of the little guy soon. Thanks for all your well wishes!