That sums up the last few weeks since Lucas was born. Overwhelmed by people's goodness, overwhelmed by my feelings and thoughts, overwhelmed by love for Luke and for Ryan and for our family, overwhelmed by good food from our ward, overwhelmed by lack of sleep and physical discomfort. Just plain overwhelmed. And being a "fixer" and "move forward in liferer:)) sometimes I don't know where to put those feelings.
First though I want to document Lucas' delivery since I have with each child and don't want to be too far removed and forget details. They called at 5:30 in the morning and told us to be at the hospital at 7:30 to be induced. We texted Karen who was still staying with Karla and let her know and just left the kids sleeping since Aubrie was there anyway and is perfectly capable of watching the kids. Despite some pressure from Dr. Rappleye I opted out of doing antibiotics for 4 hours to make sure I didn't have strep b problems. I didn't want it in my body or in the baby's and risk was minimal. They started pitocin right away. Our nurse was Heidi and she was late 50's and the mother of 9 kids and she was SO good and chatty and warm. I liked her so much! She was with us the whole day and asked if we could please have him before she left cause she wanted to be there. She felt like a good friend by the end of the delivery. It was a long day of very little change. I didn't want to sleep though because I wanted to just get things moving. I told Dr. Rappleye that I would take awhile to get to a 4-5 and then if he broke my water I'd have the baby within the hour. He went in to a surgery that ended up taking 5 hours and told the resident doc NOT to break my water cause he'd miss being there for delivery. So, we spent a lot of time waiting for him to get out of surgery. I finally got an epidural and then when he was done around 5, he had a resident doc break my water and when he came in to check me a few minutes later I was still at a 4 but I could tell things were picking up and he said, "no you still have miles to go". I think Heidi believed me though because she had the table/instruments/mirror all prepped during that time. It was a pretty painful 30-45 minutes following because the epidural had worn off and things were going quickly. The anesthesiologist came and gave me a "boost" and that helped with the pain a lot. Heidi checked me soon after that and she said, "ohhhh, there he is, you're ready" and ran to call the doctor. He came rushing back from a Target run with his wife and was ready to get him in just a few minutes. They set everything up and he told Ryan to hold one leg, Heidi got the other and I pushed one time and Dr. R said "Wait stop, his head is already out. Then he told me to push just a little baby push, he made sure he was all lined up and then one more push and he was born! It happened SO quickly. He gave Lucas to me immediately with his cord still attached (we'd asked to let it stay attached for a few minutes to get all that blood flow/platelets back into his body before cutting the cord). They just tucked him under the gown and he snuggled up. RYan and I could both see right away that he was a BIG boy, bigger than any others. Those few minutes of time right after delivery, everyone in the room kind of fades into the background for me except for Ryan and our baby. It's some of my favorite moments of our lives. It is so exhilerating and meeting our little boy for the first time was just perfect. He nursed within 5 minutes probably and eventually Ryan cut the cord and they wiped his eyes and sucked out his mouth and then just let us hold him for a long time. The kids showed up soon after I'd delivered the placenta and been sown up and it was precious to see them all ooohing and ahhhing over him. We saw Erika and Chad/Karla/Karen came to the hospital soon after and then for the next 2 days Ryan and I pretty much just hung out and chatted, slept a little and help Luke. It was soooo nice and quiet. The kids did come the second day and we went to the family room and played apples to apples and had a snack. I love that time in the hospital! Luke was 9 lbs 4 oz and was 20.5 inches long. He was perfectly healthy, the first child not to be jaundice because he is O+ blood type just like me. From the very beginning he has nursed so well and gained plenty of weight and been amazing.
He has had his days and nights mixed up for the first week and a half and that was really hard. Karen took him the 2 nights before she left and just brought him in to nurse every few hours and it was such a sacrifice on her part and helped me to feel so much better to get a few hours extra of sleep. I was feeling pretty yucky.
Our neighbors/ward has been SOOO good to us. There have been so many amazing/huge dinners (from Mia, Ellen, Gerry N. Robyn Childs, Mlisa Long, Judy Johnson, Myrna Hutchings, Audrey Hadley, Gayle Summerhays and Sister Knudson--they had them team up in 2's to bring us dinner for a week), Tara brought salads and a huge bouquet of flowers, Eva brought a casserole, blackberry butter, and lots of things from her garden, Loretta brought over baby towels, a salad and lots of notes on how to have a great delivery (before I went into the hospital)--it was SOOO thoughtful, Melanie Medaris gave me a "hospital recovery kit" and we have received blankets/clothes/money from the primary presidency I serve with, a huge basket of clothes/diapers/wipes/blankets from Ryans team at work as well as from INstructure as a whole sent an embroidered blanket in the mail, we've gotten a $50 gift card from the Smiths in our ward to get pizza a few times when we are desperate on a hard day, we've gotten clothes from Sandi Childs and Sister Davis and from Sister Neeivard, a stuffed animal from Vogels (Kyle) next door, mom bought a huge pile of clothes from Kid to Kid for us for Luke, Erika and Chad gave us a cute outfit, Doxeys sent presents for the rest of the kids in the mail and a shirt for me and for Luke, Durphees gave us a box of presents for all the rest of the kids individually (notebooks for older kids and coloring stuff and clothes for Clara) and Robyn Childs brought over a big bowl of treats/popcorn for a family movie night for the rest of the kids, Joan Fisher took the kids swimming and made them lunch and let them make icecream shakes for a few hours last week, Sister Fredrickson brought over pizzas nad some bread and jam, and the RS presidency brought a loaf from great harvest bread, icecream, etc. SOOOOOOO generous. I don't even know how to try to say thank you. It sounds so trite. I know I am forgetting some things too.
I have felt so much love and support from those in our neighborhood and from our moms being here helping. We didn't even have a shower but it feels like it because Luke's closet went from pretty bare to plenty full! :)
And I especially felt and feel SO thankful (We have said many prayers of gratitude as a couple and as a family and me personally) for Luke's good health and for mine as well. The actual delivery was teh easiest I've had and he was born without any problems at all. And I selfishly have had a hard time letting him just sit, I hold him as much as I am able (and had a little bit of a hard time giving him up especially the first few days). I don't know if he slept not being held for a week :)
He is just adorable!!
