Welcome Luke Christian!

SUCCESS!  We delivered our sweet boy Luke Christian on Saturday afternoon.

I went into labor on Friday after finishing up my last day at work.  Chris had to go out of town for business, so my parents had just arrived to help me with Sam while Chris was out.  I woke up from a nap in pain but not overly hurting.  My parents, Sam and I went out to eat for one last dinner, and I placed a call and got Chris to start heading home.  I went into the hospital with my Mom around 8pm but got sent home around midnight due to poor progress.  They gave me a sleeping pill, and told me to go home, take it, and relax.  I was a little hesitant but man that sure did the trick!

I woke up about 4 hours later in for real labor pain.  Chris was home by then, and he and I went back to the hospital around 6am.  Things flowed very smooth after that.  Got my room, got my epidural, and by 1130 we were pushing.  I'm a championship pusher (all the nurses told me how awesome I was,especially considering the epidural) and he was born after just 3 contractions worth of pushes.  Seems like there should be some kind of lapel pin or bracelet you should get to wear around for that kind of awesomeness. 

Anyway, Luke Christian was 8lbs 8oz, 21 inches long.  It was truly different getting to hold the baby immediately, keep him in the room with us after delivery, actually NURSE!  I can list forever the things that are already so different about this birth compared to Sam and the heart experience.  We even got to come home WITH HIM after 24 hours!  We got home yesterday afternoon, and have been enjoying figuring out what to do with a true newborn for the first time...it's like being a first time parent.

He slept great in the hospital, but decided last night to stay awake AAALLLLLLL night long...and try to use me as a giant pacifier ALLLL night long.  Sigh.  But we are having a great time.  My Mom stayed after the birth to help with big brother Sam, who is far more interested in having Nana around than Mommy, Daddy, and/or baby.  He does like to look at him momentarily, but would really just prefer to go to another room with Nana to play.  That's fine.  As long as we aren't having meltdowns over the baby like I thought we would, Sam will be fine. 

Say a prayer for us that this nursing thing keeps going well.  We pumped for 4 months with Sam and it was tortuous.  Also, Luke is not without a slight congenital defect.  He has a mild urethral defect that went undetected until birth that will need a specialist's opinion, with a possible outpatient surgical correction.  But we'll take that over a heart defect ANY DAY, and we feel confident all will be fine.  We are happy; we are blessed.

~Kathy