Welcome to the world Lucas Michael!

On August 16, 2006 at 4:30pm we welcomed Lucas Michael to the world. He was born at BC Women's Hospital (just barely!) on a warm, sunny Vancouver afternoon, and he weighed in at 7lbs 15oz and was 51cm in length. Lucas arrived a little earlier than we had anticipated and in a very expedient matter. I really can't complain about the labour process or delivery, having nothing much to compare it to, but it really wasn't as bad as I had set myself up for -- but generally things are never as bad as I set them up to be (BigTime says I really overthink most things!).

Let's recount our adventures this past week...

Friday, August 11 was my last "official" day at work and the following week I was scheduled to take a little holiday time before my maternity leave began on August 18. Lucas' expected due date was not until August 30 so I figured I still had a little time to get ourselves ready for his arrival. That said, a little nagging voice told me that he was ready to arrive sooner than later. Most people who saw me that last week of work could tell that my belly was getting pretty low, and Lucas was dancing up a storm inside there, and the more he rolled around, it became apparent that he had very little room in there. From the beginning he has been positioned in sort of headstand yoga pose, so he had been ready all along to enter the world head on! (despite how unprepared his parents were to greet him early!)

Friday was a pretty busy day and there were loose ends to wrap up and many lovely colleagues who came by to wish us good luck so I snuck back into the office on August 12 to clean up my desk and then headed off to the aromatherapy mommy massage that Liz treated us to at Bloom Essentials and that I had been trying to schedule much earlier in the summer. Strangely enough, I had thought it might be a little too late to have a massage and had actually considered trading it in for a pedicure, but I was a little tired and the allure of a little pampering beckoned. Now I know that if/when Tim (massage therapist extraordinaire!) reads this he's going to totally scold me for doing this, but it was a moment of weakness - we all have them and who knows if that really helped me go into labour earlier than expected (I swear I wasn't trying to skew the baby pool!). Anyway, after a lovely massage, the girls at Bloom wished me good luck hoping that I wasn't so relaxed that the baby would come earlier than expected - famous last words!

That night we spent the evening at Dehli Darbar with our good friends Hashmat (Hash) & Maya, Oli, Eric & Isabel, and little Maya to celebrate Hash & Maya's west coast wedding. It was a delicious evening filled with much butter chicken and naan!

On Sunday, August 13 we celebrated Hash & Maya's west coast wedding luncheon. (See Aug 13's post).

On August 14 I did a little shopping with my mom, who took one look at me and was certain the baby was going to come earlier than expected.

Then on Tuesday August 15 our adventures in labour began! First, of course, we had to go grocery shopping! We did a late night shop on Tuesday evening, and at one point as I was deliberating over something or other, BigTime mentioned this could be our last big grocery spree so we might as well get everything we needed! And, yes, he was right, because that night at about 11pm, after all the groceries had been put away, my water broke.

Jeanne was the midwife on call that evening and we woke her with the news. She came out to see us and since I hadn't had any contractions she told us to get as much sleep as possible because we would certainly go into labour in the next 24 hours (or have to induce labour) and we needed to be well rested for the big event. Well, we were pretty dizzy with excitement and a little too much adrenalin and we scrambled to add some last minute things to the bags we had packed for the hospital only a few days earlier! We finally fell asleep at 1:30am and I started to have some very mild contractions at 6am and slept in until about 8:30am.

Wednesday, August 16 was a flurry of activity. Don't ask me why I decided to do two loads of laundry that morning. My contractions were manageable and I kept waiting for something much stronger to occur. We called our good friend Sarah, who is also our doula, to let her know we were in the early stages of labour, and then made calls to cancel my hair appointment, pedicure and our lunch with Hash that were all scheduled for that day! By 11am the contractions were about 10 minutes apart and by 1pm I had a feeling it was best to call Jeanne and Sarah. Jeanne arrived first, and her examination revealed that I was 6cm dialated and that it was time to go to the hospital! We had to leave a note for Sarah to let her know we had to leave for the hospital without her.

I decided it was best to ride with Jeanne (just in case) as BigTime followed us along to the hospital. I probably managed to scare a a very calm pregnant woman and her support person who were relaxing outside the admitting doors to the delivery area as I walked into the hospital having a contraction every other minute. According to BigTime, it was 3:15pm when we were admitted to a delivery room. Strangely enough another pregnant woman and her support person were heading for the same delivery room we had been allocated. She was calmly walking around with an IV, and was headed for our room because her room was not yet ready, to which BigTime remarked "I think we need this room, much more than you do!"

Now they tell you that you shouldn't start pushing until you're told, but boy was Lucas ready to be born, so as soon as I got onto the bed, I asked Jeanne what was going on. She pretty much explained that I was fully dilated and it was time to push. One hour later, she told me to reach down for Lucas and I pulled him up onto my belly. He was born a healthy 7lbs 15 oz, with big wide eyes ready to see the world. His daddy cut his umbiblical cord and we both greeted him with lots of kisses.

Oh, yes, Sarah did make it to Lucas' birth. She arrived just as his little head was emerging and helped us through the end of our labour, and she is a fabulous aunty. Here is the first photo of our family (taken by Sarah):

Lucas' Nana (grandmother) Pola was our first visitor and by 8:30pm we were moved upstairs to a postpartum room to get some rest. That night, Lucas had his first bath at the hospital and we were both frequently checked. I hardly had any sleep that night because I was mesmerized with just how beautifully peaceful Lucas looked.