Luke's birth

I promise I won't get too graphic here, but I wanted to write down Luke's birth story! The last few months of my pregnancy were rough. I was so big, so uncomfortable, had trouble sleeping (slept sitting up on the couch for a while), my hips hurt, my ankles were swollen--I really, really wanted to have the baby and be done. At my 37 week ultrasound, my doctor literally said, "Yikes! Wow, he's measuring big!" 

(Yikes. That's never a good thing to hear from a doctor.)

She estimated that he would probably be about 9 pounds. 9 POUNDS. Since it was my third baby she was sure that my body would be able to handle it, but she gave me the option to be induced a week early if I wanted it. And I did. I had had a good experience being induced with Emma so I felt pretty good about it.

So we scheduled babysitters for the kids, told our parents when we were going in and on July 11th we went to the hospital. 

(Again, it's not graphic but if you don't like specifics just skip to the pictures at the end.) 

I was already about 2 cm dilated and 30% effaced when I got to the hospital, but not really having any contractions. They started me on pitocin and broke my water at about 8:30 am and we waited for the contractions to start. After a few hours they got pretty strong and regular, strong enough that I decided to get my epidural. Epidurals are so wonderful. For the first time in months I was suddenly comfortable lying down, all my aches and pains were gone and life was just great. I took a nap and it was almost like I wasn't attached to a bunch of tubes and machines in a hospital. A few more hours and when my nurse checked my progress I was about 7 cm dilated. Then I started having some serious déjà vu. Just like when I was induced with Emma, they had me flip from one side to the other and suddenly I started to feel some serious back pressure. I was pretty sure it was time to start pushing soon. So we asked the nurse to check my progress again. Sure enough, I had gone to "9 plus" cm dilated and my nurse called my doctor. I basically spent the next 20 minutes breathing through contractions (trying very hard not to push) while I waited for my doctor. They gave me some oxygen, just to make sure the baby was extra happy while we waited (Taylor made fun of my unintentional Darth Vader impression) and after the longest 20 minutes ever my doctor arrived! I remember at one point everything was set up, and as my doctor pulled on her gloves (it felt like in slow motion) a contraction came and I asked, "Can I start pushing??" but because of my Darth Vader oxygen mask they didn't understand so I just waited until the next one. 

Three contractions later, Luke was born! Dr. Field placed a giant baby on my stomach to cut the cord and since he was a little purple and wasn't breathing all that well they took him across the room to give him some oxygen until he started crying a loud and healthy cry.

Meanwhile I sat there listening to:

"Wow, he's heavy!"

"Look at all that hair!"

"He's a big boy!"

"You hardly tore, you did great."
"How much does he weigh?"

After a few minutes trying to locate another scale (ours only showed grams for some reason)...

"9 pounds 14 ounces!"

I was floored. I couldn't get over it for weeks just how BIG he was. He was almost two pounds heavier than both of my other kids! I had basically given birth to a three-month-old.

Taylor later described his experience watching him being born: "I saw his hair, then I saw some skin so I thought, 'Oh, here come his shoulders.' Then I realized, 'No, wait. Those are his cheeks!"

We immediately loved our not-so-little chunker.

Luke Hamilton Moss

Born July 11, 2016 at 5:00 pm

9 lbs 14 oz

21.5 inches long