Presenting, our fourth joint venture, Lucas Henry Holder!
Lucas was born December 
9th at 11:06 am weighing in at 7 lbs 6 oz and measuring 21 inches.
Excuse the puffy face in the picture ( yes I'm vain, I 
freely admit it....) i was on IV fluids for about 20 hours...
I went into labour on the evening
of December the 8th, after a session of extreme Christmas shopping. We got some friends in to take care of the existing brood, and headed for the hospital.
When we got there, the nurse gave me a scare when she said she thought I was already completely fully dilated...WTF???? But another nurse checked and said that I was only at 5 cm. Whew! Still time for the all-important epidural!
We got ourselves admitted, and hooked up to all the garbage they hook you up to...
My contractions were coming at about every 3 minutes, and we were ready to go! Then. Everything stopped. The contractions petered out until they were about every 20 minutes....Man! After 4 pregnancies, once the ball is rolling, you'd think my body would keep it that way! But no. I guess maybe subconciously I was holding out for the tenth of December (which is both my and Samuel's birthday).
Anyhow, after the OB came and checked my progress, they decided to keep me in overnight as my bp was high, and I was quite dilated, and break my water in the morning. Fine with me! They gave me a lovely little Ambien tablet that gave me the best sleep I have had in recent memory and I drifted off to dreamland.
First thing in the am they hooked me up to some pitocin to get things moving again, with the idea that the Dr would come in later to break my water. They asked me when I wanted my epidural, and I decided maybe a little later, as the last thing I wanted was for the epidural to stall the labour again..n no c-section for this puppy!
BIG mistake. Big. I mean HUGE.
When the Dr broke my water, I was 5 cm. I went from 5 to 10 in about 35-40 minutes. All of you experienced mommies out there know that that means the epidural does not have any time to work.
Yes. This means I experienced the joys (said totally and completely sarcastically) of natural child birth. Yes, people, it hurts as much as you think it does. Maybe more. I kept thinking "is this really happening???? Where's my meds!!!!" I was not in the least mentally prepared for going natural. I was used to doing it the easy way, Man! Jim was also not prepared...the poor sucker left his earplugs at home. And to any unsuspecting first time mother that may have been labouring in the adjacent suite, I humbly apologize for scaring the bejeezus out of you.
That said, my beautiful Lucas Henry arrived, and I (mostly) forgot about how much his arrival had truly sucked. No angels singing or birds flying around that LDR suite, let me tell you! At least I had refrained from dropping the f-bomb.
AFter his arrival, they had some trouble stopping the blood flow, so I had to be given a dose of hemabate (sp?). Now, you nurses and doctors out there know that there is a truly nasty side effect to hemabate, and I will leave it at that.
I finally got a chance to hold and nurse my beautiful baby....and truly, there is nothing like nursing your newborn for the first time. Ok - cue the angels and bluebirds of happiness......
Unfortunately, when he was taken off to the nursery for his cleanup, they detected some breathing difficulties (an OB friend of mine calls it "Wimpy White Boy Syndrome")...basically, he was born so fast, the birth canal didn't have time to squeeze out all the fluid in his lungs, so it made it 
hard for him to breathe.
After 2 days in the NICU, I was finally allowed to bring my sweet baby home...and this is what I find on my camera...????? I 
guess everyone has their own 
method of childcare!
To see more (read:better) pics of the L-man, go to www.merrifieldphotography.com, click on VIP Room, and enter "Lucas" as your pw. And if you think he's cute, drop me a line!
