Newborn Lukey

I really wanted to have some newborn pictures of Lukey, so my amazing friend Lacey (with some help from our amazing friend Michelle) took these precious pictures of Luke. We cranked the heat to 90 degrees in her house and patiently waited for little Luke to fall asleep. Poor Lace was sweating and ready to pass out because she is pregnant and we all know that heat and pregnancy are not a good combo! We all survived the heat and it definitely helped keep Luke asleep. These pictures capture his "newborness" perfectly. So sleepy, cuddly, pliable and just precious! He is already changed so much in four weeks and I am so happy to have these priceless pictures of him. Every time I go get him up from his nap I look at his beautiful face and thank God that I have this amazing little boy!

Hospital

We checked into the hospital on Wednesday afternoon and checked out on Saturday afternoon. I know that some people can't wait to go home, but we actually really enjoyed our stay (well, as much as one can after giving birth!).

After the delivery we got to stay in our labor/delivery suite for a while longer because all the rooms upstairs were full. So, we enjoyed staying in room 7 until Thursday afternoon. One of the best things about staying at the hospital was the food! I had this amazing menu to choose from and I just called up the number and all this lovely food was delivered right to my bedside. It was awesome!! I became obsessed with cranberry juice and cottage cheese. If you ever have to stay at Kaiser Sunnyside make sure you get the Chicken Caesar wrap. It is SO delicious!

We had some visitors at the hospital. First, a few of my friends stopped by to meet Lukey. Lacey, Daya and Becki were the first ones to meet him. They are amazing friends and it was so fun to see them oooh and ahhh over our beautiful baby boy. Daya and Lacey will both be having babies soon!

The next visitors were my sisters family. It was SO fun to see Dawsie (my first baby!) hold Lukey. He was so excited to come and see him. He asked how he got out of me and he was so eager to hold him. I love his cute little face in this picture.

Jenna was up next. She LOVES baby Luke. She was taking pictures of him with ther iPod touch and she just wanted to hold him non-stop. She was so sweet and so cute with him.

Then there is the tweenager! I was there when she was born and now she is SO old! She is a very good big sister and she has already offered to babysit Luke (when he gets a bit older)!

Here is mommy and Luke. I know that I look like death, but I also felt like death! We were both sick with colds and going on NO sleep! The first night in the hospital we got no sleep (beacuse I was giving birth). The second night we got a few hours and then the third night we finally got some decent sleep. In the wee hours of Friday morning we got up to feed Luke and it just so happened that the royal wedding was on. It was actually really fun to watch it live! We were up for about an hour so we got to see all the fancy people arrive and we saw part of the ceremony.

Here is Daddy with his Lukey. I have to give MAJOR props to Dan. He had a terrible cough, congestion, body aches and who knows what else. I know he felt terrible, but he was a real trooper. He would bring me Luke in the night to feed him, he helped me to the bathroom, he got me ice packs and took me to the sitz bath! On the second night I was so tired and we had fed Luke, but he wanted to be held. So, Daddy build a little nest on his bed and held him so I could sleep. I think that he actually did that both nights! He was really amazing and I know I wouldn't have made it through this experience without him.


Our sweet little Ducky! We started swaddling Luke moments after birth and he is a huge fan! If he is fussing or tired we just wrap him up and it helps to calm him right down. He rarely cried while we were staying at the hospital. He cried when he was hungry and when we changed his diaper, but besides that he was such a good little boy.

We were doing all skin to skin feedings in the hospital and so this was the first outfit Luke ever wore. The crazy thing is that now he is almost four weeks old and he doesn't fit in this sleeper at all!

Here is the room that we spent most of our stay in . It was actually very comfortable and we had an AMAZING view of this beautiful tree covered hill! We had such wonderful nurses, doctors, midwives, CNA's and everyone else! I know that Kaiser sometimes gets a bad wrap, but I have absolutely nothing bad to say about my experience. They were so helpful to us, they answered all our questions, they helped me manage my pain, they were always willing to get whatever we needed, they filled up our ice water like 50 times a day and we had one really awesome nurse that went above and beyond to help us with Luke and to help make me more comfortable. I also have to say that they have amazing Lactation consultants and all the nursing staffed is trained in lactation and that was SO helpful to me because I knew NOTHING about breast feeding and they helped me to be successful.


This is our little chart where we got to keep track or breast feeding, pee diapers and poo diapers! We also set "goals" with the nursing staff and if you can see at the bottom our number one goal was REST!!

This is the AMAZING view that I was talking about!
So, overall our hospital stay was GREAT! I was ready to come home on Saturday, but I still miss the food and beverage!! I was in a lot of pain the first few days, but it felt SO amazing to NOT be pregnant anymore. I really enjoyed the diaper ice packs, sitz bath and my vicodin/ibprofen combo! Dan is a GREAT daddy and he truly amazed me! I guess if we can get through birth with terrible colds we can get through anything!

Birth

WARNING!!! This is the longest post in history. It is really mostly for me to have a document of Luke's birth! :)

In the wee hours of the morning on April 27th I woke up feeling cramps in my lower abdomen. I didn't think much of it because I had been having these pains for the past week on and off. I went to the bathroom and tried to go back to sleep, but 20 minutes later (at 3:22 am) I felt them again. They were quite painful and I had to sit up to endure the pain. Dan was sleeping on the couch because I had a terrible cold and was extremely uncomfortable from being so pregnant. I turned on my little DVD player and tried to sleep, but every 15-20 minutes I was having contractions and had to jump out of bed. Finally, around 4 am I told Dan we needed to switch places. I thought about not telling him about the contractions, but I did and he told me to start timing them. So, I got out my handy worksheet and started keeping track of the time. They were about 15 minutes apart, but I still didn't think I was in labor.

I tried to sleep during those 10 minute breaks, but my efforts were futile. Dan left for work around 7:30 am and I told him not to worry and that it was probably just false labor. It was my friends birthday and I had promised her breakfast, so I showered and made her french toast all while having contractions about every 10-15 minutes. As the morning progressed Dan was texting and calling me every other minute. He finally left work around 9:30 am to come be with me. The contractions were definitely getting more painful and more frequent, but not 5 minutes apart yet. Everyone kept telling us to walk, so we went to Costco and walked around for about an hour. As we were walking around the store the contractions were becoming more frequent and more painful. I would have to stop and brace myself during some of them.

I was so hungry so we stopped at Subway and grabbed some lunch on the way home. It felt so good to eat. (little did I know that would be the last food I would eat until 3:30 am the next morning!!) I had a OB appointment scheduled for that day at 3:00 pm. I told myself that if the contractions kept getting closer together that I would call Labor and Delivery at 2:00 pm to see what they had to say. I told Dan to take a nap (he also had a terrible cold with sore throat, body aches and cough) so he could have some energy for later. I sat on the couch and continued to time the contractions. They were about 5 minutes apart at this point and getting very painful. At 2:00 pm I decided to call Labor and Delivery and they told me to come on in. Dan heard me on the phone and I told him it was time to go!! He was so cute and rushed around the house putting last minute things in suitcases and loading everything in the car. I was in too much pain to be excited or scared. I just wanted to get to the hospital. I do remember thinking as I locked the door to the apartment that the next time I came home I would most likely have a baby with me.

We were so lucky to have no traffic on the way to the hospital and Dan even asked me if I wanted him to drive faster. (He is someone who always obeys the speed limit!) We arrived and headed down the long hallway to the Labor and Delivery entrance. They checked me and sent me to triage. Before they checked my cervix the nurse had to ask me all sorts of questions and put the monitors on me. She even had the guts to tell me that I might have to go walk for an hour. When she said this I literally had to hold back the tears. I had already walked around Costco for an hour. I was just hoping that they weren't going to send me away. Finally the midwife came in and checked me. She had good news!! I was dilated 5 cm and had won a ticket to be admitted!

We were admitted and led to room seven! This was a very lucky sign to us. We love the number seven. Dan was born on the 7th and we were married on the 7th. I was very happy at this point and I was also very happy to find out that I could get the epidural whenever I wanted. We got situated in our spacious room, got hooked up to an IV and waited for the anesthesiologist. While we were waiting my sister arrived with some beautiful flowers and she was joining us for our journey through labor and delivery. I was a little nervous about getting the epidural, but Dan was sitting in front of me and I didn't have to see the needle so I survived. The worst part was enduring the contractions while having to hold so still. As soon as that epidural kicked in I was a HAPPY camper! I don't know how anyone would endure labor without medication. I hope that I never have to. As you can see in the picture, I LOVE the epidural!

I got the epidural around 5:00 pm and was feeling much better. Dan and Marci took turns getting some dinner and I munched on my ice chips. I was hot and had the air conditioning cranked in the room. Marci and Dan were wearing their coats and covering up in blankets all night. We watched the news, Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, Ratatouille, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Survivor and The Holiday.

The epidural was definitely working and definitely felt strange. It was working more on my left side and I couldn't even lift my own leg it was so numb. It was a very strange sensation, but definitely better than the pain I was feeling before. My progress definitely slowed down a bit after the epidural. Then around 11:20 pm I started feeling the contractions in my uterus. I was dilated 10 cm, but he wasn't down low enough yet. I did a trial push around 11:30 pm, but I was so numb that I couldn't push effectively. They told me not to push the button for the epidural anymore so that I would be able to feel when I needed to push. I tried to rest, but I started feeling the contractions really intensely around 12:45 am. It hurt so bad! I was so tired and sick . I had slept about 4 hours the night before and the night before that it wasn't much more. I had a cold and I was exhausted at this point. I didn't know how I was going to make it. Finally, Marci and Dan got the nurse and told her that I needed to start pushing or I needed more pain medication.

So, we started pushing around 1:15 am. After the first push I started to cry and I said, "I can't do it. I'm too tired". Everyone told me that I could do it and with God's help I was able to start pushing. With every push I was thinking, "Please help me Jesus. Help me push this baby out. I can't do it on my own." I started getting some good pushes in. Marci was counting while I pushed and holding one leg and Dan was holding my other leg and encouraging me. I can't even tell you how helpful they both were. I could not have done it without both of them there by my side. When they started to see the head their excitement made me want to push more. They started to see some muconium so the nurse told me that some extra people would come in when he was delivered and that I wouldn't hear him cry until they suctioned him out. I was so exhausted that I didn't even notice extra people come on the room. At this point I was pushing with all my might. On one push I pushed a little too hard and totally gagged and puked a little bit. As 2:30 am approached I knew he was getting close. I got to reach down and touch his head. That did it. I was getting this baby out! I can't even describe the sensation as he slipped out of me. It was one of the greatest feelings in the world. I didn't really get to see him because they wanted to suction him out quickly. I just remember saying, my baby, my baby. I told Dan to go over by the baby while they delivered my placenta.

Then came the cry! I looked over at the little table and there was my baby boy crying! It was such a relief to hear him cry. I started to cry and after Daddy cut the cord, they brought him to me and I cried more as I held my baby boy. It was so wonderful to hold him next to my skin and to feel that little body that had been growing inside of me. It was worth every push and pain that I felt. He was moving his hands all around and grabbing at my face and it just felt so wonderful to hold him. I didn't even know that as all this was happening the midwife was sewing up my second degree tears!!

I got to hold him for a bit and then they weighed him, bathed him, vitamin K and eye gooped him. They also brought me a box lunch and that sandwich and cranberry juice tasted so amazing!! I already felt great not being pregnant. It felt amazing to have the baby in my arms instead of in my stomach. He weighed in at 8 pounds 4 ounces and 21 inches.

Here is Luke with my amazing labor buddies! Marci and Dan were so amazing. They were tired and cold and Dan was so sick, but they stuck it out with me and I couldn't have done it without their encouragement and help.

Around 4 am Marci headed for home, the nurses and doctors left and there we were with a baby boy. As we put him in his little cart and tried to get a few minutes of shut eye I heard the birds chirping outside. It was finally over. It was about 23 hours that I was in labor. Definitely worth it! Definitely hard! Definitely the best reward I have ever received!