Baby Lucas!

After 39 weeks and 4 days of pregnancy, I am very proud, pleased, and delighted to announce the arrival of Lucas James Mullen! He joins an overjoyed family as the newest and youngest member of our family and we are thrilled, albeit exhausted.

I have limited time to write, so won't go into a huge amount of details on his arrival other than to say I am not surprised when my water broke on Sunday evening/Monday morning. I was so energized on Saturday and then so crabby on Sunday. I had contractions all Sunday afternoon and evening, and we gave Liz and Sandy a heads up before we went to bed that things could be imminent. My mother's intuition was correct since my water broke at 3:15 a.m. Ugh -- what timing! I felt terrible calling Liz but had to get to the hospital so had no choice. Wonderful Liz -- she got right up out of bed and came right over to be with Zach (who handled the confusion quite well in the morning -- where are Mommy and Daddy? Doesn't matter -- Aunt Liz is here to play with me for the day!) We got to the hospital around 5:30 a.m., was induced around 9:30 a.m., got the epidural (twice) at 12:15 p.m. and then again about 45 minutes later since the first dose only numbed my left side. I fell asleep by 1:30 p.m., was woken by the nurse at 2:00 p.m., started pushing at 2:05 p.m., and had a baby at 2:59 p.m.

Baby Lucas has a big noggin so pushing took a little extra time. Plus the epidural was in full force by then so I couldn't feel very well to push effectively. Regardless, was happy to not end up with a ceserean! And his little head is perfect, nicely shaped and very cute. He has hair as I suspected due to my heartburn throughout pregnancy. I think he's going to be blonde although it's all shades right now. Just like Zach, Lucas does not have eyebrows, or what he does have is a very light blonde. I think Lucas might look a little bit more like me than like Kevin. Or maybe like Emily as a baby. Still hard to tell. He's 1 week old today and starting to keep his eyes open longer and longer now (they're blue, by the way) so I guess we'll tell soon enough. Or maybe he just looks like his own little self.

This past week has been a blur. I've been absolutely exhausted and the first few days both in the hospital and once we got home I was pretty much a zombie. Kevin's mom came up on Monday and relieved Liz of Zachary duties. They came to the hospital that evening and Zach got to meet his new little brother. I have to say, he's been an excellent big brother so far. He doesn't even seem to be (too) jealous. He has shared toys and blankies with Lucas and gives him kisses. He is very sweet. I think it helped tremendously that Sandy was here for 6 days because she gave Zach a ton of attention and let me focus on the baby. Kevin also devoted a lot of time to Zach, and I think that is just what he needed because then he didn't get too upset about me not being able to do so. Lucas is a big snuggler and a big Mommy's boy. He really just wants to be held 24/7, and almost exclusively wants that to be done by me. I'm sure that's because I'm the source of his food, but it would be nice to be able to put him in his bassinet or swing for longer than 5 minutes at a stretch. He's been sleeping in the bed with me and Kevin at night (or in the glider rocker with just me) so I'm not getting much sleep. Hopefully that changes soon! He is starting to like his infant car seat so I'm trying to use that to get a few minutes to myself (as in right now as I type and he snoozes next to me).

Famous last words. Mr. Handsome is starting to fuss. Will update more later when my new boss allows me to.