Our sweet little Max is five days old today.  That being said, I decided that it was time to give you an update on our new family life.

I guess you could say that our delivery was fairly under the radar.  Since I was induced, we decided not to tell people until he actually arrived.  This was both because we had no idea how long it would take, but also because I didn't want to add stress to the situation with any unsolicited opinions on inductions and didn't want to keep people waiting and anxious for an unnecessarily long amount of time.  I think we made the right decision.  It was nice having the time to ourselves and being able to focus on the task at hand.

Max arrived at 2:17 p.m. Sunday, April 22nd.  I had heard a million horror stories and had no idea what to expect.  To be quite honest, I was kind of afraid of what was to come.  However, the delivery itself was actually pretty easy.  Our nurse was taken aback at the progress I made and had to tell the nursing student that was observing how abnormal our delivery was and how it isn't a good example of what the average delivery would be like.  When it came to pushing, the nurse asked me to do a practice push.  She kind of laughed at me when I asked what would happen if I was an amazing pusher and he started to come out before the doctor came in.  After the practice push she said, "Okay...you were right.  No more pushing."  Once the doctor came in, I pushed through 3 contractions (Adam says it was about 5 minutes) before Baby Max was all the way here.

Recovery was and has been equally easy.  I had very minimal discomfort afterwards and was up and out of bed within a couple hours of delivery.  Max has been a great sleeper, too, so we haven't even been all that tired.  He still sleeps through most of the day and night.  We usually have to wake him up for feedings.  He does usually wake up to poop, but it's a rarity, so far, to see his eyes open.  If I had a dollar for every time someone told me to "enjoy it while you can" or "sleep when he sleeps" I think I could probably start a good college fund for Max.  However, if I did follow that advice, I'd A. be dreading him being awake (which I'm actually rather looking forward to so we can interact more) and B. would only be awake for an hour a day.  He's been a great baby and a great sleeper.  We've been able to take plenty of time to relax, nap, adjust, and ease into family life.  My mom is here helping, but in all honesty, there really hasn't even been all that much to help out with.  I feel kinda bad that we haven't had more for her to do, but at least she got a vacation and rest out of the deal.

So that pretty much sums up life, at the moment.  We've had several visits from good friends and people have been more than generous with gifts, meals, and offers to help.  My mom doesn't want to leave her grandson, but is more than confident that we have things under control and that we have made and will make an adjustment into family life smoothly.  Adam's going back to work on Monday.  He's been super helpful, and you can tell by watching him how much he loves his son...but like I said, there's not much to do at the moment, so it'll be nice for him to feel like he's being productive at work and all that much more rewarding to come home and see his boy.  It'll be interesting to see how things go once I'm on my own, but I'm looking forward to starting our new life and day to day together, too.

All in all, it's been a huge blessing having Max in our family (and not just because he was 8 lbs. 10 oz. :)).  It has already made me appreciate the little things more than I did before, and put less importance on things that don't really matter.  I feel very lucky that everything has been so easy for us.  I don't at all take for granted that we have had such a smooth ride from start of pregnancy to now.  I'm trying to take the horror stories with a grain of salt, and am somewhat grateful for them, in a way, because I know how lucky we have it because of them.  Thank you to all of you who have been completely and utterly supportive of us and our decisions.  We are confident that we are doing what's right for our us, Max, and our family, and your support of that means a lot to us.  We'll do our best to keep everyone updated with pictures, milestones, and blessings.  We look forward to sharing Max with all of you.

-Erin, Adam, and Maxwell