The Texas Giffords: Maxwell Dean Gifford

I know this is a long time coming but we have been very busy!!

We welcomed Max on January 8th 2010 at 9:44pm. He was 8pds 5 oz and 21 inches. He was perfect. He has red hair and looks just like his dad.

The labor and delivery process was pretty uneventful. I went in on Thursday night at 9 pm to have Cervadil placed. Cervadil helps the cervix thin.

At 6 am, they took me up to labor and delivery and started the IV and Pitocin. At this point, I still had it in my head that I was going to go as natural as possible.

I worked through my contractions for 6 hours until they broke my water at 12:30. At about 1:30, I asked for an epidural. It was awful pain. Greg was an amazing coach though - rubbing my back and making sure I had what I needed. When they broke my water, they noticed that there was a little meconium in the amniotic fluid. For those of you who do not know what meconium is… the easiest way to explain is that Max has his first stool in utero. Dr. Richards told us that they would have the NICU staff on hand in the room and they would have to hand him over ASAP to suck out any fluid. He did not want to take the chance of him aspirating any fluid and getting sick.

At about 9 pm, Dr. Richards came in and let me know that it was time. I was incredibly excited and ready to go. I was ready to work, in my head I was expecting a 9 pound plus baby, so I was very determined to get him out.

I pushed for about 20 minutes and he was here. Like they said before, they whisked him off to the NICU set up and sucked out any fluid.

Everything turned out to be perfect and he was handed over to me and daddy!!

We were absolutely, unequivocally, head over heels in love with this little guy. We spent the next few days recovering and soaking up the idea of having Max here.