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.