Welcome to the newest member of our clan! Scott’s brother Mike and his wife Maren had their first baby today.

They texted me at 6:15am and said they were checking in to the hospital. Maren and I had talked about me coming to the hospital to take photos of the baby. I was so bummed because Scott was out of town and I had Ian and Nora. I waited a while and then decided to call my mom to see if I could drop the kids off to her. She agreed and I got ready as quickly as I could. By the time I was on my way there I got another message from Mike that said her water had broken, and I knew I didn’t have much time. I missed the actual birth by about 15 minutes. Bummer!

Maren did awesome! She used Hypnobabies (like I did ) and she was able to have the natural birth that she wanted. I was so proud of her! She was 2 days past her due date, and she had a nice short labor for a first baby. She had her first contractions around 3:30am, went to the hospital around 6:00am and delivered at 8:38am. Sounds a lot like my birth with Emma. Except Mike and Maren’s baby was 8lbs 14 oz! She doesn’t have a name quite yet, but they had some cute names they were thinking about.

I was really happy to be able to spend most of the day with her. I helped her get started breastfeeding and I just loved every minute of it. Call me crazy, but I love everything associated with pregnancy and childbirth. I loved my pregnancies and I also loved my deliveries. Today brought back a lot of memories for me and made me think a lot about my births. It feels like just yesterday that I was the one delivering my first baby. Now that “baby” is about to turn 7. It just made me realize how quickly it all goes. I couldn’t wait to give Emma a big hug when I got home.

I was happy to be able to take some photos. I didn’t get as many good ones as I would have hoped. The lighting was difficult and quite a few of my photos turned out blurry. Still, I got a couple that I was happy with. Maren has an appointment with my favorite photographer, Katie from Peekaboo Photos, in 2 weeks. I can’t wait to see what kind of magic Katie works with this new little one!

Congrats to Mike and Maren. I know you guys are going to be GREAT parents!