a little more about our little guy

We thought this might be a good place to give a few more details about what happened a couple weeks ago.

Laura's due date was June 8. The baby had been measuring a little on the big side during a number of her checkups, and we have heard that baby #2 is more likely to be early than late, so we were kind of planning on baby boy arriving sooner than later.

The night of Monday June 2, Laura had four painful contractions within an hour -- she'd been having contractions for a couple weeks, but this was the first time she thought it might be happening "for real." They were sporadic over the next few hours, but increasingly painful and really started to set in around midnight. By 1:30am or so, contractions were 3-4 minutes apart and we figured it was go time.

Our friend Emily had volunteered to be on call to come stay with Brooklyn in case of a late night trip to the hospital, so we gave her a quick call and she came right over. It was so nice to know Brooklyn would wake up to a familiar face! We left for the hospital and arrived a little after 2am.

We were a little worried Laura wouldn't be far enough along and we'd get turned back, but she was already over halfway there -- so they checked us in and got us settled into our room that we'd be calling home for the next 36 hours or so.

Things moved pretty quickly from there -- Laura's contractions were getting more and more intense and closer together. The hardest part of the delivery was during this period where the nurses had a tough time getting the IV in prior to giving the epidural. Laura was worried they wouldn't get it ready in time. Luckily things worked out and the epidural kicked in right in time. This was around 3:45.

It was time to start pushing around 4:30 and at 4:56am our family officially grew by one! He cried a little bit and then got to snuggle with Mommy for a while. This was a special treat because last time Laura had to get some extra attention and they took Brooklyn off to the nursery for a couple hours.

We had talked about names briefly on the way to the hospital, but as recent as that morning, we still had a pool of four or five names we were debating between! We were able to decide pretty quickly that this guy's name was going to be Evan. Evan Robert Taylor. Evan is a name that we've liked for a while -- it slowly but surely climbed to the top of our list. Robert was always going to be the middle name (unless it had been the first name) -- it's a Taylor family name: Austin's middle name, Austin's dad's first name (though he goes by Scott), and Austin's grandpa's first name. Austin also noted that Evan is a Welsh name -- an indirect nod to the lineage on his mom's side of the family.

After some time with Mom, it was time to check his vitals...

...check his weight...

...and get him all clean and swaddled.

Daddy got a turn holding Evan...

...and he snapped this quick photo on his phone to text and email to family and friends.

We got a lot more time with Evan in the first little while than we did with Brooklyn. She was so little that she had a hard time regulating temperature at first, so she spent a fair amount of time under heat lamps in the nursery. This hospital didn't have a nursery anyway, so Evan got to hang out with us all the time. No arguments from his Mom!

First family photo with Evan. But wait, something -- or someone -- is missing...

Brooklyn had been with friends and we decided we wanted her to meet her baby brother that afternoon. So Dad went to go pick her up and brought her to see "Baby Evan."

She was incredibly sweet with him -- she is going to be an awesome big sister.

Now that's a first photo of our family of four.

Since Brooklyn had had a little bit of a rough day to that point -- she had an upset tummy and some anxiety -- we decided it would be best for Austin to head home with her for the night. Evan had been a sleeping teddy bear all day so Laura felt confident she could handle things herself. It ended up being for the best as Brooklyn's tummy was still upset in the middle of the night (put two and two together) and definitely needed a parent -- and Winnie the Pooh -- to help her feel better. The next morning she crashed on the floor when we were about to go to the hospital.

After a couple hours, we made it to the hospital early in the afternoon and got our little guy ready to take home with us!

Someone was excited about this idea.

Very excited.

We were excited to have Evan at home with us and officially start this next chapter in our family. We are incredibly happy that things went well -- that Laura and Evan were both safe and healthy, and that everyone who helped us -- from the nurses to the doctors to our friends that watched Brooklyn and/or brought us meals -- was so kind and willing and made us feel like everything was taken care of.

We love being a family of four. Keep your eyes open for more blog posts about Evan and our new adventures!