The night before Luca was born I had a serious case of insomnia. My mind would not shut off, which had been an ongoing issue during the later part of my pregnancy (I suppose it was my body's way of preparing me for a newborn, HA.). I had completed my last day of work on November 30 (the Monday before Luca was born) and I had spent the week cleaning and preparing for when Baby J would arrive. At that point my bag was packed, the house was clean, and everything was feeling more real. The whole night I was contemplating how our life was about to change (though I had no idea how soon that change was going to happen).
My doctor had told me from about mid-pregnancy that she did not think I would make it to my due date (December 9). Luca dropped pretty early on and was sitting really low, which made simple things, like walking, VERY difficult and painful for me. When I began to have contractions at the beginning of the third trimester I was a little concerned and decided I needed to take it easy so that baby boy could stay in there as long as possible! My goal was to get past Thanksgiving and finish November at work and I am so grateful I was able to do both of those things!
The morning of Luca's birth I had fallen asleep at 4 AM only to wake up to contractions at 6:15 AM. I had false contractions in the past so I was hesitant to take these seriously. They started to come every 15 minutes or so and were so painful that I decided to ease the pain by taking a nice hot bath! I knew Ben was supposed to be up soon for work so I let him get some rest instead of burdening him with false labor.
While taking a bath, the contractions started to get closer together, from 15, to 8 to 4 minutes apart. I was in so much pain but was so nervous about going to the hospital and being turned away that I wanted to wait and be certain it was the real deal.
Once I had gone back into the bedroom and told Benjamin of my dilemma, he made the decision for me - we were going to the hospital.
We arrived at the hospital close to 9 A.M. Once there, the nurse checked to see if I was dilating and was unable to get a very clear picture because Luca was sitting so low (this had been a problem for my doctor as well). She needed to make sure that my contractions (which were coming very regularly 3 to 4 minutes apart) were doing their job. I was given the assignment of walking around for an hour before she checked me again. That was a really hard and painful hour and I am so glad that Benjamin was there to help me through (He even did the labor dance with me so I didn't feel like a fool!). At that point, my fear of being sent home was growing. I didn't know how long I would be able to handle all of the pain.
After the hour had gone by, a different nurse came in to check me. She could see how much pain I was in and that my contractions were still coming in regularly and very strong so she decided to get me my epidural and have my doctor break my water. She was my angel that day! By the time I got my epidural it was around 12 or 12:30, and my doctor came in to break my water shortly after.
Once my pain had subsided, I was able to progress very quickly. My body was no longer tense, which helped the contractions to work faster. By 4 o'clock, I was fully dilated. The nurses told me that I would rest an hour before starting to push, unless of course the pushing contractions came sooner.
Literally 10 minutes after they left the room I began to feel the urge to push. I tried to fight it, I didn't want to call the nurses back in too soon if it was false alarm (here I go again), but Benjamin came to the rescue again and convinced me otherwise. Once they had got all the equipment in, I began to push and was feeling quite a bit of pain again. The nurses had me hold off on pushing until they could get me more medicine.
Once I had been given more of the epidural, I began to push again for what felt like 15 or 20 minutes. At that point, I needed to stop once more in order to wait for my doctor to arrive. Luckily that only took about 15 minutes because our little Luca was ready to be born! Our doctor arrived and our sweet boy was delivered about 15 minutes later!
He was so beautiful! His hair was dark with a little curl (though it has straightened out now). He had the most darling almond shaped eyes, with big squishy lips! His fingers and toes were long and slender. His legs were tiny and long.
Not much has changed with our darling boy in these past 6 weeks, he still has the most adorable personality. He is a very mellow little guy who loves to be around people. He's losing all of his hair in the front and growing some new hair instead! His hair is looking less dark, and more auburn. His eyes are a green-brown color right now but change continually. He makes the best expressions and has the best smile (he gets that from Benjamin). He has been growing like crazy and is finally starting to get some baby rolls on his thighs (which we love).
I wish there were accurate words to describe the feeling you have when you see your baby for the first time. He was the most perfect little person I had ever seen! I have never felt so much emotion all at once at any other time in my life.
We love our sweet little Luca Benjamin.
I call this picture the bedroom takeover.
