Maximilian Marley McKnight was born at Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley, Ca. at 1:58am September 7. He is a healthy baby weighing 7 pounds 6 oz and is 21 3/4 inches long. Mother and child have eaten and are resting fine as I write this. Max found his food on his own (Linda exclaimed that she has been waiting 12 years to see that!) and nursed for 45 minutes. The joys of a natural relaxed birth!

Thank everyone for their prayers and positive thoughts. Your kindness and generosity made the process so much more enjoyable! For those special people who guided us on our course of natural childbirth - we thank you especially as it was even better than we could have dreamed. Margaret claims she wants to do it again so I guess it was a success =)

Max is more beautiful than I thought he could be. And yes, he is the smartest newborn on the planet, thank you very much! We think he has red eyebrows (they certainly are light) and he has a LOT of hair. He actually seems quite happy and content and does not cry except when his parents are not around to cuddle him and tell them how special he is.

Can someone please explain to me why they need to take flash photos of a child? It just seems cruel to me and can not possibly have much use. I would have gladly shot an entire video of him and handed it over. My boy does not like bright lights in his eyes! I can tell you there will be no more of THAT around here for a good long time >:|

The nurses and doctors of Alta Bates were fantabulous! They totally supported our desire to have a non-intervention birth and spoke in nice soothing tones the entire time. Our nurse Peggy was tops!

In short - life is grand! I am in love with the world and my family all over again and I wish peace and happiness to all. We request that people ONLY send email. No phone calls or visits please. If you are interested in coming by to see Maximilian after our two week rest (no visits before then please!), simply drop me an email and we will arrange it.

No need to read below this line unless you want the rated-PG details of the delivery =)

His mother, Margaret felt her first contractions while shopping around 3pm. We practiced our Hypnobirthing techniques (www.hypnobirthing.com - thank you Mamak and Diane!) and kept Margaret nice and relaxed for the rest of the day. Actually, we were not sure she was really having contractions until about 9pm when they started getting more intense and coming around once every 5 minutes.

We, can you believe it, got her to doze on and off from 10:30 till just before midnight. Just before midnight she walked calmly to the bathroom and had her water break. At that point our doula, Linda was asked to come over and the midwife, Lindsy, was called for the 4th time. Linda showed up at 12:15 realized M was pretty far along and packed us off to the hospital at 12:40.

Good thing she showed M how NOT to have Max in the car as he could easily have been delivered at San Pablo and Ashby! (Trust me, if that light had stayed red 10 more seconds I would have run it right in front of the cop!) We arrived nice and calm (ummm, that would be a relative term in this case) and wheeled M upstairs. The sweet doc on staff came in to give her a quick check. He raised his eyebrows and declared as only a true San Franciscan can; "Honey, if you push four times Max will be with us. If you want to wait for Lindsay don't push darling." Brave M held off till Lindsy arrived 10 minutes later. 30 minutes of pushing and Max was with us in all his glory.

Everyone in the room said it was a picture perfect natural delivery. The way they count labor, Margaret was in it for under 4 hours! There were no complications. Margaret says the "transition period" (from just before we left till we arrived at the hospital) was "harder" than the final pushing. At no time did she yell out in pain. She did produce a few loud exclamations of pushing and concentration. The only time it was hard for her to stay relaxed was when we were in the car and I asked her politely not to deliver Max for a few more minutes. Note to self: do not do that again.

Margaret can not speak enough about how wonderful the process was. I quote: "It was even easier than I ever imagined! Wow!" We are both very happy with how everything went and ecstatic that Maximilian is now putting his unique stamp on the world =) He has done great things already... his future is bright indeed!!!

Ulan McKnight
September 07, 2002