Announcing Owen Nathaniel Maynard

It's true. We finally had our baby boy! Owen Nathaniel Maynard entered the world with a big splash (more on that in a moment) on Sunday, September 25. He is lucky enough to share a birthday with his mommy. Owen's birth was certainly was the best birthday present I've ever received! Owen weighed 6 pounds 15 ounces and was 20.5 inches long. We didn't name him until today...I wasn't kidding when we said we didn't have a name going into this! But we are really excited about Owen and it fits him perfectly. And I really wanted to name him after his daddy, hence Nathaniel. He is doing very well health-wise and is a great sleeper and eater (at least for now!). We are beyond overjoyed to have welcomed him to our little family.

This will forever be engrained in our memories as the week when two Maynard girls ended up in unexpected surgery under general anesthesia. As if Cate's broken arm and operation weren't enough , Owen's birth proved to be just as, shall we say, exciting.

Sunday was the 41 week mark for the pregnancy. We were scheduled to go in that morning for an induction, but I started having contractions Saturday night and we ended up at the hospital 3 hours earlier than we had planned. Everything was calm and progressing steadily, and in fact Nate and I got a little bit of sleep that morning (after I had literally been up the entire night timing contractions on the iPad). My contractions slowed down a bit, so they started me on pitocin, at which point I decided to get an epidural. The epidural went in and not long after that my water broke, which is when the craziness ensued. I will not go into all the gory details, but essentially the water breaking caused some complications, which led to a prolapsed umbilical cord (the cord comes out before the baby). From the moment they discovered the prolapsed cord to Owen's birth was only 6 minutes...I was whisked so quickly into the OR both of our heads were spinning. I ended up having to go under general anesthesia (if you want the details on THAT I'll have to tell you in person!), but woke up fine and met our sweet little man about 2 hours after his birth. Needless to say I was a blubbering basket case when Nate rolled him into our postpartum room. I have never been more happy to take someone in my arms and shower them with love.

Owen is beautiful and perfect and we are so grateful he has joined our family. He is simply perfect and his presence is a miracle.

Without further ado...pictures. And lots of 'em. To see them up closer, just click on the photos.

This is his serious pose.

This is what Anna would do when she was little...suck thumb, pull ear!

This picture makes me cry. This is right after I met Owen (two hours later than I should have)...it captures so much for me.

I love this photo.

And this one.

The girls are SO cute with him.

Pictured: two proud sisters and two grandparents who literally saved the day the last two weeks. Don't know what we would have done without them through all the craziness.

Anna was SO cute the first time she met Owen. Really really sweet.

Cate was SO cute, too. Can't wait until the cast is off and she can hold him on her own!