Welcome Baby Luke!

Thanks, friends and family, for all of your prayers and support!

As you know by now, baby Luke was born at 2:42 a.m. yesterday morning. And yes, he does indeed have a cool birth date that will always be easy for his wife to remember!

I kept many of you up-to-date even when we were waiting for the doc to arrive at the hospital, and then complete silence through last night, so here's a bit of what transpired during that time.

Baby didn't come all on his own, so my doctor broke my water to begin the "eviction" process. He was 12 days past his due date, and we decided it was time to move on!

The laboring process itself went extremely well, and by 7 pm I had the pleasure of seeing once again the anesthesiologist who gave me the epidural when I had Colin. Funny how I recognized him immediately! With his assistance, I was a happy woman through the remainder of the process of bringing Luke into the world.

Luke joined us as such a big boy! At 9 lbs. 4 oz., I learned that babies over 9 lbs. are automatically tested in intervals for blood sugar levels, so poor little guy has endured having his heel stuck numerous times, and his levels are just fine. He was just in the cooker for a long time making him a big boy!

Immediately after he was born, I begin to have the chills. That can be normal, but they got uncontrollable and I had a fever reach 104 which they couldn't get under control with some simpler measures, so I ended up with iv antibiotics and ice packs on my body. We still don't know the cause of my infection, but my fever is now gone and baby seems to have had no impact. As a precaution, however, we are both being held until tomorrow (at least) for observation.

So, mom and baby spent much of yesterday being poked and prodded and trying to rest while a parade of people came in and out of our room. And we fully welcomed baby's invitation to the nursery last night so we as parents could rest after our first all-nighter.

And here we are today with a gorgeous, sunny day in the PNW, and baby is sound asleep. He seems to be a fairly mellow lil' guy (and thus was in no hurry to leave mommy's tummy!) and we feel so very blessed! Thank you again for all of your prayers and support!

And now you know.....the REST of the story!

Humbled by a Pair of Socks

I decided this week that if baby wasn't coming, I wasn't just going to sit at home and wait. One morning while Colin was at school I ran a few shopping errands, which included scoring some fabulous deals at Old Navy.

As I was checking out, the woman in line behind me was waiting simply to buy a pack of size 6-12 month Halloween socks. I listened as she talked with another lady in line behind her. This woman explained that her grand baby, her first, turned 6 months the following day. The other lady commented how tough those first 6 months can be. The grandma replied that, yes, her daughter had had a tough pregnancy and the baby barely hung in there and was so little, but that he made it. It had been a long road.

Her daughter would have given anything for even two extra weeks with baby in her tummy, and there I stood, humbled that this grandma was just so grateful that she was able to buy a pair of size 6 month socks for baby's first Halloween.

Thank you, Lord, for the gift of this extra time!

In Case You Were Wondering....

....Still here!