Lucas James arrived today at 12:18pm, weighing 9 lbs 1 oz, and 20.75" long.  Both Josh and Audrey wanted to name him Anakin, calling him Vader when he was being bad, but we chose not to go down the dark side of the Force and stuck with Luke - oh come on, Anakin Aney does have a certain ring to it ;)  In all seriousness, everyone is so excited and relived that the baby is finally here.  Of course it wouldn't be Ann if she didn't make the delivery 'exciting'.

This was Ann's first (and only) c-section delivery.  She was strongly advised to have this due to the rough deliveries she'd had in the past, the size of our babies, and the hemoraging she'd had with both.  Ann had gone into false labor a couple times with strong contractions in the last week or so.  However, upon leaving her second false alarms, she was sitting at 5+cm dilated.  Since the doctors impressed the importance of a c-section to us so strongly, we were both now scared that she might have one of the 'deliver in the back of the car births while racing to the hospital'.  Ann was scheduled to have her original c-section on 10/13 which was the first day of week 39.  After Ann had a regular appointment 3-4 days after her 5+ cm scare (yeah, she was walking around dilated like that way too long in my book) she was 6cm dilated, so the doctor scheduled the operation for the following day, 10/9.

The doctors thoroughly scared us with the normal disclaimers about the risk of surgery for Ann, the possibility that Lucas's lungs might not be developed because they are taking him out before 39 weeks, etc.  Nothing like a good pep talk when you need one ;)  Just kidding to all the doctors out there, I probably trust/follow your advice more 'blindly' than I should.  I completely appreciate all that you do for us.  Anyway, things moved much quicker than we realized and all of a sudden Ann was wheeled into OR and I was told to change to scrubs and be ready.

A few minutes later, I was ushered into the OR and the show began.  It was kind of a blur obviously, but one thing was evident.  Ann was very uncomfortable.  During the surgery, they were trying to determine if it was pain or just pressures or what, and Ann would say pressure, so no more drugs were administered.  All of a sudden, they said, "here he comes" and I held my breath anxiously waiting for a cry.  The combination the surgeons lung pep talk about Lucas along with the fact that Audrey came out not breathing, I was scared.  Thankfully, Lucas immediately started crying and a great relief overcame me.  I real feel uncomfortable during deliveries.  However, to be honest, this delivery was by far the easiest on any of our babies.  The same can not be said for Ann.

While I was holding Lucas, I accidentally glanced back to see what looked like guts spread from one end of the room to the other and quickly looked away.  That was the one thing I wanted to avoid.  I went back to sit with Ann.  Whatever they were doing now, I can't pretend to know, Ann did not like it and was really struggling with the pain.  The doctors made the decision to administer general anesthesia and put her completely under.  My phone rang as she was going down, and that was the last thing Ann remembered.  I'll let her tell her side of the story if she wants.

So, after all that excitement and a day of grogginess for Mom, Lucas had his big brother and sister visit and they couldn't have been happier.  I'm actually surprised at how interested and excited Josh is.  He couldn't get enough of Lucas.  Audrey was a little more timid, but I think that is because we kept telling her she couldn't touch Lucas as she has a pretty nasty cold.  Although she was more than willing to issue a few Shhh's for good measure.  One funny thing was when I came home that night, I looked at my pictures and videos with the kids and noticed that in all the pictures the nurses took of me holding Lucas along with one of the videos I took, we accidentally had Ann's operation right out in the open.  While watching the video with the slip up, Josh finally asks, "What is that big red thing back there??"  So unfortunately, I don't have any 'presentable' pictures of the proud parent in the delivery room, but my kids are much cuter than me anyway ;)

All in all, Lucas is doing great, feeding like a champ and taking everything in stride.  Mom is slowly but surely on her way to recovery.  They will be home on Sunday and I think it is going to be a shock to everyone's system for a couple of weeks while Mom is immobilized.  But with Ann running the show, all will turn out great I'm sure!