Introducing....

Welcome, sweet baby Lucanne Alexandra Robbins!!!

Sorry this is so late in coming, but her first week in the wide world was a rather hectic one for Mom! On May 29, at 6:41pm, Lucanne decided to introduce herself to the world. It was a long, hard road to get here, but she did make it...and on her own time.

At 1:20am on Thursday my water broke leaving me in a bit of a confused state. Here I was, sound asleep, dreaming peacefully, when my dream suddenly changed into a half alert state of pseudo dreaming. Within a few seconds I realized that my dream was a reality and baby was on the way!

In real time it took me about a half hour to wake up Ty and an hour to call the doctor, who immediately said to start to head down the hill to the hospital despite having no contractions. To me it felt like only a few minutes had passed. I made the call to Mom and we headed down to the hospital.

After approximately 10 hours of labor and no progression in dilation, Lucanne rotated around and I went into what is called back labor. I wasn't feeling a thing in my stomach, but I could barely stand the pain in my back as she pressed up against my pelvis and spine. As much as I wanted to do a completely natural labor with no drugs or intervention I had to ask for an Epidural. With the Epidural came the first doses of Pitocin to get the dilation in gear. After the Epidural I became a much more lively person as I no longer had to worry about feeling anything at all. At some point Kevin showed up at the hospital to lend his support, but by this time I had absolutely no concept of time. It could have been 6 in the morning for all I knew.

Even with the Epidural and Pitocin, or maybe because of, it still took several more hours until I had reached the full 10cm of dilation to start the pushing phase of labor. But just because I was at that stage didn't mean it was going to go any faster. In an in-your-face style, Lucanne apparently made a decision to wait until after my OB left to make her entrance.

With a new OB on hand and 2 and 3/4 hours of pushing Lucanne was hung up on my pelvic bone and not able to make it out on her own. The OB informed us that if she did not come out soon we would have to go into surgery. Another option would be to use a suction device called a Kiwi to help re-adjust the position of her head and hope she moved down on her own. Since all our birth planning flew out the window with the introduction of the Epidural and Pitocin we decided to try the suction once before going to the more drastic measure of surgery. Thankfully, the Kiwi worked and 3 pushes later Lucanne was laying on my stomach!

Despite having problems with the OB and the delivery, we are extremely grateful to have our Lucanne with us. It was arduous, but at the end of the journey it was all worth the wait. Lucanne was born at 7 lbs even, 19.5 inches long and with quite a bit of sandy blond hair.

We were released from the hospital at about 1:30 Friday and took her home to meet the dogs. The dogs have been wonderful with her. They seem to love her and worry about her whenever she cries...which isn't really all that often.

11 days later and she is still doing great. She sleeps 4-5 hours at a time and is feeding wonderfully. Mom is doing good and is recovering nicely. Dad is a trooper and helps tons by offering to change diapers, get her from her cradle in the middle of the night, and even give her an occasional bottle when needed. When he holds her and talks to her she is calmed by his voice. And you can tell that he is completely smitten by her!!

Thanks again to everyone who sent their prayers and thoughts while we were going through the rough parts! We hope you all get the chance to meet her soon! She is as precious as any baby can be, and even more so to us after everything we went through to get her here!!!