It's A Boy!!!

It's a BOY!!!!

On Thursday, January 26th at 2:30pm our sweet son was born.

I went in at 6:00am to get checked in at the hospital for the induction. I was 3-4 cm when I got to labor and delivery and was contracting some on my own before the pitocin was started and my water was broken about 8:45. Labor was really pretty manageable (I did not have an epidural) until 7cm and then got really bad. But, thankfully, it didn't take too long to get to 10cm. Four pushes later we heard "It's a boy!"

Rodney and I were a little suprised...okay, I was a little surprised and Rodney was REALLY surprised to hear that we had another son. We thought in the beginning we would probably have another girl, and that didn't really change for me until the last couple of months as stress set in from not having any boy names picked out.

I have to say I was in too much pain to really take it all in at that moment, but we were both very glad for the surprise. It also gave me something else to look forward to during labor.

So, out he came and for another surprise, he was smaller than we expected too (keep in mind he was estimated to be 8 lbs 1 oz at 36 weeks).

He weighed in at 8 lbs 10 ounces and was 21.5 inches long.

His name is Andrew Paul Hodges.

He has so much hair! And, it is a dark blond/reddish color.

We are so glad he is finally here!

Proud parents

First looks at Mommy

His hair looks much more red in this picture.

He got to stay in the labor room with us for an hour before going to the nursery to get cleaned up, so we called the granparents and had them bring the kids to meet him. We brought them in alone and asked them whether they thought the baby was a boy or girl. Hannah said, "Boy!" Hudson said, "Baby in Mommy's tummy."

They are so proud, especially Hannah. She wants to cuddle him, hold him, and care for him already. She's not disappointed at all that he's not the little sister she mostly wanted.

Andrew is just so precious. He was a great nurser from the start and so content. And, every person who came into our room fell in love with his hair! It's so long and silky. We can't believe he has so much.

It seems so unreal that we have three amazing, healthy children. We feel so very blessed to be their parents.