Lucy had a weigh-in this week at her doctor's office and she's coming in at a whopping huge 6 lbs, 13 oz. The high calorie formula is making her gain weight like gangbusters. We're not sure we like how fast she's growing, but the doctor wants to keep her on that formula until her 2 month appointment. Our first week at home without Mike was pretty uneventful. Benjamin had Friday off of school, so he was excited to spend the day with Mommy and Lucy. We had a couple more visitors this weekend, but otherwise it has been quiet around here. However, that is about to change. We have a busy week and weekend coming up with a running group event at our house on Thursday night, a concert (and our first night out since Lucy's arrival) Friday night, a 5k race on Saturday for Benjamin, Lucy's baptism on Sunday plus Halloween. We have lots of relatives coming from near and far for Lucy's big event and it will be her chance to meet many of them for the first time. It should be a crazy, but fun and memorable weekend!

I am a little behind on this, I know. Lucy is just over one week old now. Although having her here feels so right and makes our family so complete, it hardly seems real that 10 days ago I was still pregnant and in labor trying to get her here. I am so thankful for how easy the experience was for me this time around. Benjamin's birth was tough on my body and it took a very long time for me to recover and to feel normal again. So I have been taking full advantage of how good it feels now and have been enjoying every single second of my time with Lucy.

Phew! Now that we have our routine down and finally have caught up on some sleep, I can play catch up on updating the blog and uploading photos.

Lucy Jane was born on Friday, 10-01-10, at 6 days past her due date. Labor began Thursday evening at a very appropriate location - the three of us were enjoying an Oktoberfest celebration at Whistle Binkies with a lively polka band entertaining us. Lucy must have been motivated by the music of her German people because my contractions started up before we even ordered our food. After dinner we came home and I tried to maintain labor, but the contractions fizzled out eventually so I went to bed. Around 11pm they started back up again so I headed to the couch and began timing them as I let Mike rest a bit for the adventurous night ahead of us. By 4am I decided that things had progressed enough to warrant a trip to the hospital, so I called my dear friend, Lora, to come over and be at the house with Benjamin and Mike and I set off for the hospital. I overestimated what I was experiencing because the hospital checked me when we got there and I was still only 1cm dilated. They sent us home to rest and to wait for labor really begin. By 8am the contractions were unbearable, so Mike drove Benjamin to school and came back to get me to the hospital. Sure enough I was right and was dilated to 4cm, enough to get me admitted and start receiving an epidural. Here is where things got crazy:

9:30 am - admitted to the hospital, anesthesia begin epidural

10:00 am - epidural done, medicine begins to work, 6cm at check

10:10 am - baby's heart rate drops, prepped for emergency c-section, wheeled to OR

10:30 am - baby's heart rate stabilizes, 10cm at check

10:40 am - begin to push

11:08 am - Baby Lucy is here!

It was a swift and easy delivery. Our biggest surprise though was when the doctors weighed the baby and we discovered she was tiny at only 5 lbs, 4 oz. Throughout our hospitalization the doctors did many tests on Lucy and all of them came back saying that she was healthy and ready for the world. She did, however, have some trouble eating at first so she was admitted to the intensive special care nursery where she began to eat like a champ. We happily took her home on Monday after only a short stay there.