He Is Here

Holden Rudolf Brammer was born Sunday March 28, 2010 at 11:42 p.m.


I was hoping that the trend of our babies getting smaller each time would continue, but Holden had other ideas on that. He weighed in at 9 pounds 10 ounces, and was 23 inches long. He is our biggest baby by almost 2 pounds. My doctor suggested naming him Hercules.

We were all surprised. When the nurses took him to do his evaluation, they just kept exclaiming "Oh my goodness! Almost 10 pounds!". The delivery was very hard. Up until now, pushing has been kept to a minimum. Not with this guy. I had to work to get this bruiser here. Luckily, I had one of my cousins-in-law, Corinne Scott, there to help me. And oh, how I fell in love with the epidural man. I love him so, so much. Way more than Jeb. No contest.

The kids came the next day to meet their new little brother.

Holden and all of his mamas.

The biggest sister.

Our first big brother.

Leah loves the new addition.

And Hudson, you ask? How did he like seeing the baby? Well, just take a look at the picture of all 5 of them and you decide what he thinks.

Hysterical. I've been getting the cold shoulder from him ever since. We're working on it.

We still had no name for this big ball of love by the time we were supposed to be leaving. The yellow paper just sat, and sat, and sat on the table the entire time I was there. With every shift change my new nurse would ask if I was ready for her to take it, and I would deflatedly sigh and shake my head. The pressure was mounting. I called Jeb at night after he put the kids down so we could try and brainstorm something, ANYTHING, to name this cuddle monkey. Every visitor and nurse was asked for opinions. Bo and I scoured the phone book under "H" to see if any inspiration was to be found.

We finally landed on Holden Rudolf. Jeb got his "H" name, and the middle name is after my opa, Rudolf Gustav Wobbe. Abigail loves the Rudolf because she says that opa "helped save Germany".

The day we came home was wonderful. My mom and dad and Bo had come to give us a new baby heart attack. It was probably my favorite part of having this big guy. I loved it. I'm sure the post baby hormones had something to do with it, but seeing all the work they did for us made my heart swell to the point of tears.

We are so blessed to have had this bundle delivered to us safely. Now we are loving being back in this new baby place again. I am soaking up the delicious smell of a warm baby head on my chest, melting at the feel of big cheeks pooling on my shoulder, spending the day counting chins, and trying to memorize every minute of newborn he gives me. See me swooning?