INTRODUCING.........Finally....

Luke David Estes
January 21, 2007
6 :53 am
7 lbs 15 oz
20 1/2 inches

Luke's very first picture - not looking so happy

Well everyone, much to my surprise, Luke came much closer to his due date than I expected! Sorry it's taken so long to get info up, but things have been rather crazy. I will give you the short version of the labor story. Saturday evening (the 20th) I actually got together with a friend of mine Rachel and we rented the Devil Wears Prada and got Ben and Jerry's ice cream. We had just finished the movie and our bowl of ice cream, when all of a sudden at 9:30 my water broke sitting there on her couch. Through the movie I was having a lot of severe lower back cramping and should have suspected something. She didn't believe me at first, but I went to the bathroom and that's definitely what it was! She grabbed my cell phone for me and I called David at home, who had apparently just fallen asleep on the couch. He went into panic mode and anxiously finished packing my bags for the hospital ( toiletries etc). He picked me up at her house and we were at the hospital by 10:30. I was hooked up to the monitor in the triage room and at that point I was having contractions about every 5 minutes...not too severe at that point and was 3 cm dilated. David's parent's arrived shortly after. After about and hour and a half they took me to my LDRP room, started an IV and fluids, monitoring etc. My parents arrived too and we hung out in the room while I was having contractions every 2-3 minutes and this time they were much more unpleasant. Going into it I didn't know if I would get an epidural, but at about 2 am and 4 cm I said PLEASE give it to me! That was the best decision I could have made! Other than the pain with the epidural itself, after that I was basically pain free and along with that came a foley catheter, and bricks for legs. It was the strangest thing being able to not move my legs or reposition myself in bed. After the epidural David's sister Dana and my sisters and their husband/boyfriend arrived from Indianapolis, and Toledo about 2:15 am. We broke out the cards and played some Euchre! Ha! I kept an eye on the monitor to see when and how strong my contractions were. They were still about 2-3 minutes apart but they were hitting 100 on the scale. I was checked about 2:30 and still about 4 cm, almost 5. Everyone decided to try and get a little rest, including me. In the mean time they noticed I had meconium in my fluid so they hooked up a catheter inside to flush my uterus out, and then put an internal fetal monitor in because they were having difficulty picking up Luke's heartbeat. THEN, with my contractions he was having decelerations of his heartbeat. At any rate, after resting for about 2 hours, the nurse came in to check me and by golly I was 10 cm and his head was right there. David, my mom, and the nurse, helped me push for about 45 minutes until Luke was ready and then the Dr came in and on my second push they gave me an episiotomy, told me to stop so they could cut the cord from around his little neck ( which was apparently pretty tight) and then one more push and he was out. They took him straight over to the NICU team to check him out and suction him. I only saw him for a second before they worked on him. Thank the Lord that he pinked up pretty quickly and didn't have any problems. He breast fed right away which was wonderful! So that's pretty much it!

He is already a week old, and is such a tremendous blessing! It's hard to believe David and I are mommy and daddy to this little one! It amazes me every time I think that this little person started from a microscopic pieces of David and I. Motherhood is wonderful, but so very different than life before. You never think you can love something as much as you love this new baby. David is head over heels in love with his little boy, and he's been an absolute Godsend for me this week. Sorry I've gone on and on with this, but especially for those of you who have recently had or are going to have babies, I thought you'd be interested in the birth story. Everyone's is so different. I'll be updated again soon I hope with new pictues, as this little guy changes every second it seems!

Our first family photo :)

All bundled up ( he never stayed like that for long) Quite the squirmer

Long and skinny....are you sayin I have frog legs??

There's my eyes!

Daddy and son time :)


Just too cute!

Heading home....Think he's warm enough?? It took 15 minutes to pack and unpack him. Ha!

Mommy and her little boy

The 3 musketeers....Mom, Luke, and Abby (the dog)

Oscar loving his little brother


Am I tiny or is this bear huge!?

Luke with daddy

The whole crew....minus antisocial Maggie the other cat ( this, by the way is how I spend just about every night sleeping) The animals love to sleep with mommy


Sweet dreams! :)