Welcome to the World, Luke!

Our new baby has finally arrived!  We had a beautiful, healthy baby boy on Tuesday, December 14, at 9:52 p.m.  We named him Luke Anthony LeBlanc, he was 6 lbs. 14 oz, and 19.5 inches long (**I originally put that he was 16 lbs...SO not correct!  sorry...I just had a baby, please forgive the typo =).  And, he is just perfect!  I think we are all in love =)  The labor and delivery went very well, and VERY quickly!  It's always interesting to me how if you get around a group of mother's, especially if there is a pregnant one, the conversation inevitably turns to birth stories.  Mothers love a good birth story!  And, of course, I have a good one for each of mine.  Luke's went very well, and VERY quickly.  I had a doctor's appointment the morning he was born, and I was at 2 cm.  I left there thinking that I would have a baby by the weekend, but sure that it wouldn't be that night...little did I know!

Our first family photo with the new addition!

  I had a few contractions throughout the day, but nothing consistent and nothing I couldn't walk or talk through.  I spent the day doing what I normally do, and even worked on a few sewing projects.  I fixed dinner, but then told Phil I was boycotting the cleaning part.  I was feeling pretty tired and sore, so I went to lay down.  After that, I had a few contractions in a row, so at 7:51 I started timing them.  By 8:30, they were still there and were between 3-5 minutes apart, lasting between 30 seconds to a minute.  I told Phil it was time to go.  We called the neighbors to come sit with the kids, called my Mom to let her know, and started our 45 minute drive to the hospital at 8:45.  Phil managed to make it to the hospital in about 35 minutes, and I labored pretty well in the van.  Thank you, Lord, for the Rosary!  I don't think I've made it around a Rosary that quickly in a while...I'm sure I got at least 2 or so of them in.  It really helped keep me focused...it was very comforting, too.  I highly recommend the Rosary during childbirth.  Even if you just hold it.  Anyway, once we got to the hospital, my contractions kicked up a notch and all I could manage of the prayers was "Hail Mary"...so, I turned the Rosary over to Phil and just focused on the task at hand.  

just after delivery

 Now, I don't know how your hospital works, but you can do something called 'pre-registering' at ours.  Supposedly it allows for you to go right up to the New Family Center and get in without having to do all kinds of paperwork.  I think I will never waste my time pre-registering again, because we had to fill out information at the Emergency entrance AND at the New Family Center.  This is NOT a fun task when you are about to deliver a baby.  Then, the nurse at the emergency room desk has the nerve to call the delivery ward and tell them "there's a woman here who *thinks* she's in labor"....oh man!

Finally, I just tell her my water broke and we just go up to where we need to be.  The fun really began when we actually got to the lobby of the New Family Center, because my water actually did break...in the lobby...which means I had very little time before the baby was ready to be born.  But, of course, they go through all the requests for information and papers need to be signed by me...I try to tell them to call my doctor and fast, but they didn't listen.  I guess they just had to make sure I really was in labor before they called him.  In the end, the nurse and I did a good bit of yelling at each other...we each had our own idea of how things should proceed.  You know that saying about how "a drunk man's words are a sober man's thought"?  Well, I firmly believe that the same principle strongly applies to a woman in labor.  While I normally try to avoid confrontation as much as possible (almost to a fault), the same is not true when I am in labor.  I make my wants and needs known and no one is going to tell me otherwise.  And, what I wanted and needed was not in accordance with hospital protocol, so the nurse was not very cooperative with me.  By the end, she was literally yelling at me...who does that?!  Aren't we paying them for their services?!?  Sorry..it's one of my soap boxes.  Luckily I had Phil on my side...he just kept holding my hand, and telling me what a great job I was doing, which makes him the perfect husband/labor coach ever in my book =).

  I should note here that if you are having a baby without any medical intervention, you pretty much have to do what your body is telling you to do, and most of these nurses are used to having ladies who are under an epidural, which means they don't have to follow their body's cues quite as immediately.  

They wanted me to wait for my doctor to catch the baby, but I was having none of that.  Needless to say, my doctor was about 10 minutes too late, and from the time I started timing contractions to delivering Luke, it was exactly 2 hours and one minute. 

Luke and his Daddy =)

 So, despite the stress of dealing with hospital protocol and a nurse who was inconsiderate of my wishes, everything worked out in the end.  The baby and I did just great, and within 48 hours we were home and adjusting to life with 4 children =)  The kids are doing really well with him.  

she LOVES him!

 Natalie wants to hold him ALL.THE.TIME.!  Luckily, I'm the only one who can feed him; otherwise, I'd never get to hold my little guy!  But, I think Natalie will come in very handy for when I need to get a shower in ;).  Rachel was a bit skeptical at first, but after I finally got her to hold him for the first time, she didn't want to put him down either.  There is now a battle in the house among the females over who gets to hold the baby.

this was about as close as she would get at first

then she warmed up to him and realized how much fun it is to hold a new born =)

 Andrew really likes him, too, but it's obvious he doesn't have that same built in desire to hold him like the girls do.  It's interesting how that works, isn't it?  He looked over Luke for about 10 minutes, max, and then had better things to do...like play punching bag with the gift balloons we got from Phil's office...

Granny helping them check out Luke

checking out the fingers and toes

moving on to better things =)

Well, I think there is a baby that needs to be fed somewhere around here.  Life with four is definitely more interesting and hectic than life with three, but I wouldn't change anything for the world!

the note Natalie wrote for us while we were in the hospital =)