Well the day finally came. I went to see Dr. Astle on Tuesday 7/8/08 for my regular appointment. When I was there he decided to strip my membranes and said that I would probably still be a week before having Lucas. I was pretty disappointed at hearing this news, I was born a week early and really wanted Lucas to come early as well. My feet and legs had been swollen since the end of February and I was ready to throw out the compression stalkings!
By the time I got home I was already having a few contractions an hour, but nothing steady, so I convinced Brian that we should go for a walk and see if we could get the baby to come. At midnight I couldn't sleep well anymore so I started timing my contractions. They were coming 8-11 minutes apart. I was about to lean over and wake up Brian when I realized that he would not be a happy camper if I woke him up now and he had to wait forever for Lucas. So, I decided to let them get closer together before waking everyone.
At 6:30 my alarm went off and I got up and got ready for the day. I emailed Robin and let her know that the baby was probably coming today and I would be going to the hospital shortly. After I was ready it was about 7 am and my contractions were about 5 minutes apart so I decided it was time to wake up Brian and my mom. I told Brian that he had to get up and get anything done that was really vital for the day and he proceeded to tell me that he still had 30 minutes to sleep. By that time the contractions were getting stronger and I told him that he needed to get up NOW because we were going to the hospital very soon!
By about 8 Brian, my mom, and I were in the car headed to Dixie Regional Hospital, with contractions coming every 3 minutes. At 9 we were official admitted and I started to shake I was so nervous! I wanted Lucas to hurry up and come already, until they told me he was coming and then I started to panic. Was I really ready for him to come out?!!
I really wanted to have Lucas natural but I knew that I would have an epidural if things didn't look like they were happening quick enough. At about 11 the Dr. came in and told me that I would probably be having Lucas around 6 that evening that it was probably time to break my water. After the extremely uncomfortable event,...my contractions starting getting way harder, and my fabulous assistant Brian (he was in charge of pushing on my knees) had been sent downstairs to have some lunch. My mom was trying her hardest, but just wasn't as effective as Brian was, so around Noon I decided that I probably couldn't handle 6 more hours and decided to get an epidural.
At last I was able to unclench my jaw that had been aching through every contraction! I tried to rest, but even though the epidural took away the pain I could still feel the tightening of the contractions. Because I had gotten the epidural my Dr. decided to give me some pitocin to speed things along. It was 2 pm when they told me it was about time to start pushing. After 2 hours of pushing, Lucas finally arrived at 4:02 PM.
When he was out they laid him on my stomach and I could not control my emotions. Suddenly I was just filled with so much joy and an incredible feeling of accomplishment. We had created and BEAUTIFUL baby boy and I was almost in disbelief that this little person would be coming home with me. What made it worse was when I looked up and Brian and he was just emotional as I was, although without much of the water works.
Lucas weighed 7 lbs 14 oz and was 20 inches long.