Baby Luke

I am currently at the hospital and wanted to post some pictures for our family and friends that don't live in Ohio. Baby Luke is here. He made his entrance at about 3:57 pm on May 6th 2011. Further down I will record more of his birth story, but first I will describe what is occurring in the pictures. These first two very unflattering pictures are of me the night before we left for the hospital. I look huge, and I felt huge too.

So, I went into the doctor on the 5th and was told that I had dilated to a four, but unfortunately, that didn't matter. I still had to be induced--even after walking 2.5 miles with my mom in an effort to start labor naturally. No avail. Here I am the morning of the 6th after just having been given Pitocin at about 7 am. I'm still smiling. Luckily for you, Jon Mark didn't take any pictures of me when the true pain started. I think that I would've killed him if he had. At that point, I was in too much pain and needed his support too badly.

Here's a picture of Jon Mark. We were still in good spirits at this point and he was joking around with me quite a bit.

I was given the Pit. at 7 am and felt pretty good. As the contractions continued, I really did feel as though I was handling the pain well. I was remembering to breathe and relax, I changed positioned, concentrated on Jon Mark's touch, and tried to visualize my baby. Jon Mark gave me a priesthood blessing the night before and in it he told me that Heavenly Father would be supporting me through it and that all would be okay. I tried to remember this as the contractions became severe. They broke my water sometime that afternoon and that's when everything went super fast and intense. First of all, my water broke like Niagra Falls and poured out onto the floor like crazy. It was nothing like I had experienced with the other two births. Seriously, there was a reason why I literally felt as though I was a full water balloon ready to pop. My goodness, I didn't know my body could hold that much liquid. Moving on...

My water broke. My contractions became intense and extreme. Suddenly, I didn't feel as though I had control over my pain anymore, but I still tried to do everything I had been taught years prior to this birth. I remember that I really liked swaying with Jon Mark. I found this to be very comforting in spite of the pain I was feeling. I was crying pretty hard at this point and was starting to feel a scared. Then there came a point when I really thought to myself that I would welcome a bullet to the head... yeah, that's when I looked up at Jon Mark and with tears (and between breaths) said that I wanted the epidural and I wanted it fast. He called out to the doctor, who had just come in to check on me, who quickly rushed out the door to get the anesthesiologist. They came quickly and began the epidural process. Now my body was in transition and began to shake as I tried to hold still. As they were putting the epidural in, I could suddenly feel pressure in my nether regions and I knew that the baby's head was there, waiting and ready to come out. Panic set in as I realized that the epidural wasn't in yet, and that I didn't want to feel that pressure. As soon as the anesthesiologist was finished with the procedure, the doctor checked me. I had made it to a nine (cm) without any drugs and the baby was just about ready to come. Once the epidural was in place, it was a half of an hour before I began to push.

I pushed for an hour before the doctor used the vaccuum to get him out. He was big, 8 lbs 15 ounces, 21.5 inches long. His shoulders had gotten stuck, but the vaccuum and tug of war freed him from my birth canal. He was beautiful ( and slightly cone-headed). I was sad that I was one of the last people to hold him. They didn't bring him over to me until I had been stitched up... I'm not sure why. But Jon Mark was good about showing me the pictures he took and he described him to me in detail. He has dark hair and reddish skin. He looks like Joshua did and he's a great nurser (when he isn't so sleepy). I loved him from the start and so did Jon Mark and the kids. We're glad Baby Luke has joined our family. We love you.

Joshua was especially interested in his new baby brother. And surprisingly, so was Mercedes.

Our Family.