Here I am at 41 1/2 weeks!
Luc's birth story - read if you want LOTS of detail!

Written by Luc's Mom, Megan:
After 41 weeks and 2 days, I was induced at Evergreen hospital at 8AM on July 31st, 2006. I had a foley catheder (quite uncomfortable but quite helpful in getting things rolling!) on Sunday night, so I was 4 1/2 cm dialated when we arrived at the hospital Monday AM. We left the house at 7AM with all our bags packed :)
Dr. Skrypzak broke my water, and I started contracting. I got Pitocin and that kicked off the contractions pretty strongly. Over the next few hours, Ashley and I hung out between contractions, and I was pretty comfortable except for the minute or two of the actual contractions. We took a walk, I ate a popsicle - not too bad! At around noon, the contractions were getting pretty strong - a bath helped. My mom and Colleen arrived about 1 and Mom was very helpful along with Ashley in getting me through the next few hours. We tried lots of different positions and breathing methods. Having Ashley rub my back or put pressure on my hips helped a lot. At around 3 or 4, Dr Skrypzak came back, and we discovered I was only dialated to 5 1/2. That was pretty frustrating, since usually you dialate about 1cm an hour! At that point - I decided I wanted an epidural, because I thought labor could last another 8 hours, and I was worried about handling the contractions for that much longer, and being too exhausted to push when it was time.

After I received the epidural, Dr Skrypzak returned and started discussion a c -section. Apparently, my contractions were strong enough that I should have been progressing well, and she was worried that the lack of progress was distressing to the baby. While she was discussing this, the baby started to have some big dips in heartrate, and Dr Skrypzak then recommended that we definitely proceed with the cesearean. That was a pretty emotional time, and pretty scary.

Things started happening pretty quickly - the anesthesiologist came back and gave me more drugs, and I got an oxygen mask which scared me a bit (This was to give baby more oxygen, apparently). We were about to head into surgery when an emergency c-section came up in the next room, so we were put on hold for about an hour.

Around 6PM, we went into to have a baby! The surgery itself was not bad - Ashley got to sit beside me the entire time, and kept trying to distract me by asking me which book we'll read baby first. I wanted to concentrate on what was happening behind the curtain!

The anesthesiologist sat next to me and gave us a play-by-play as baby was born "I see an ear, I see hair, I see another ear!" When baby was out, Dr Skrypzak held him/her up to the window in the screen and said "What is it Mom?" I started crying and said "It's a BOY!" I was totally shocked - even though we hadn't found out, I was sure we were havinga baby girl. Luc went over to be cleaned up, and I told Ash to get over there and take pictures :)

After I was "put back together", we wheeled out and went straight back to our room - where Baby Luc proceeded to eat for 45 minutes. He seemed to know just what to do. Thank goodness, because I sure didn't! Reading and looking at pictures helped, but it's a totally different thing in real life!

Finally - Luc seemed full and the family came in to meet him!

Luc Lessard is here!

Baby Luc was born on July 31, 2006 at 7PM. He weighed 7lbs, 4 oz, and was 20 inches long. He has blue eyes so far and lots of black hair. Life has changed dramatically, and we are enjoying almost every minute :) I'm going to publish the birth story separately - so read that if you are interested in ALL the details :) We plan to use this site to post lots of pictures of Luc growing - so stay tuned.

Love,
Megan, Ashley, Leroy and Luc