Glorious Day!

My mom came back this weekend for a short visit and has been such a blessing to me! Last night she brought Luke to me when he was hungry and took him back after each feeding and slept with him downstairs so that Allen and I could get some real sleep without all his little newborn noises. He slept 4 hours between stretches, the longest so far! It was wonderful!

Saturday morning I got to run errands all by myself! I ran by the post office, went grocery shopping and dropped off the drycleaning. Never before have I been so excited for such mundane activities, but I had not been out of the house since Tuesday and that was just a quick run to Babies R Us. After my errands I had a hair appointment! My hair stylist would not let me make any changes to my hair through all of pregnancy because she said everyone who does ends up regretting it. Pregnant women are often looking for a change to go with their changing body and she was just sure I would not be happy with a decision to do anything drastic during that time. SO today was the day I finally got it cut, not just trimmed. Hooray! If you have not yet been the mom of a newborn, just wait. You, too, will celebrate the opportunity to even just shave your legs one day.

Saturday afternoon our friend, Dave, came over to do a newborn photo shoot of little Luke. He did our maternity pictures and took some great ones of Luke in the hospital. We have been very blessed by his talent! We will share some of those pictures when they are available. Here is the link again to our maternity pictures if you have not yet seen them:

http://davechristy.smugmug.com/Maternity


So this is also the first day where I have not gotten a nap. I am tired and will probably head to bed very soon. But how great it was to be normal again (though how normal is it for a day's activities to drive you to bed at 8:00??).

Luke at Two Weeks

. . . and almost two weeks

Hiccups

He gets the hiccups at least once a day.

Think he looks like his daddy?

A Week of Firsts

First Car Ride


First Sun Tan
(for slight jaundice, we're not just into making him a SoCal boy too soon)

First Bath

First Doctor Visit

Coming Home!

Everyone will remember the great shots that Dave Christy took of Sarah several months back. Well, he (and his wife and cute little girl) came to visit us today. Dave took some AWESOME shots of Luke at less than 24 hours old! Here is a preview.

Here is a quick little clip, mainly for the grandparents. Not too long (because who likes 8 minute videos of newborns just blinking their eyes), but enough to see him open his eyes and mouth. Taken at about 26 hours old.

100th post and THE most important post so far!
Our baby boy decided he wanted to be born early . . . a WHOLE LOT earlier than we expected!

Sarah went into work yesterday morning. We were supposed to go get our taxes done at 3:00, so we were both planning to get home no later than 2:30. She had been home for about 20 minutes and called me at 2:00 "Are you on your way yet?" "Yeah, almost" "Ok, cause I think my water just broke."

When I got home at 2:25, Sarah was already having contractions. We hadn't packed bags or anything, so we were scrambling around to get out the door . . . well, I did most of the scrambling and Sarah made faces of pain.

We got to the hospital with no freeway traffic and a few congested stop lights.

They got Sarah up to a room quickly and the nurses and and anesthesiologist got to work checking her out, while her contractions were getting worse. Because we told them that her water broke only an hour earlier, they weren't moving too fast, but then when they saw the print out of the contractions, they realized this baby would be here a whole lot sooner. There was about 15 minutes when I wasn't sure they were going to get her an epidural in time . . . and boy would Sarah had been mad!!

I watched the screen and talked sarah through her contractions.

Well she got her epidural and it was all down hill from there.

Sarah's Doctor (Dr. Fine) showed up and said, yeah, I can see the head, he'll be here by 7:00.

After pushing and pushing, our baby boy arrived at 7:27pm. He was 7 pounds 5 ounces and 20 inches long. So far we think his hair will be blonde.

Here are some pictures.
. . . there were no pictures before the epidural . . (cough, cough)

She couldn't resist responding to a few emails since this was all a surprise.

She closed a few deals before she started pushing . . . just kidding, she was calling family.

Here’s every one just waiting around through her contractions until its time to push.

After pushing like a champ, Sarah got to hold her baby boy.

Getting his first of many diapers.

5.5 hours of labor . . . no sweat.

Proud Daddy with his boy!

Ok, now that I got that out of the way, how do we close this deal? . . . just kidding.

Whoa, my mom is pretty!

We made it!

Lucas Allen Gillespie
7lbs 5 oz
20 in
Arrived 7:27
February 11, 2009

We will call him Luke!!

9 Months Pregnant and Counting Down to D-Day!

I am 9 months today and, in celebration, I wore what I call my "stick shoes" to church. They are just my black boots, but they have tall, very skinny heels that a 9 months pregnant woman might choose not to wear. Not me! This has been an amazing, fairly easy 9 months for me and so I wore the stick shoes to celebrate. :)

We hope to make it at least another couple weeks to ensure he is considered "term", but after that -- come on, Baby!