At the Hospital

Lucas had quite a fan club at the hospital! The first to arrive was GiGi (Allison's Grandmother). She surprised us by walking in the room at 7:30 a.m.! Next to arrive was Allison's parents (however it all started at 5 a.m. with a phone call checking on us!) Followed closely by was Ben's parents and sister. Allison's brother Taylor came all the way from Athens just in time. We were also very happy to have our closest friends Shawn and Dylan sharing this special time with us. Shawn and Dylan left for a few hours so that Dylan could get to work, only to return shortly after since the labor didn't take as long as expected.

Here is Ben and Penny helping Allison cope with the pain and cold feet!

Ben was so proud to bring Lucas over to the new Mommy!


Here is Lucas' fan club waiting to take him to the Recovery Room.


Here we go, getting pushed by the new Daddy!


Here is Lucas meeting his Grandma Candy, Pop-Pop, and Uncle Taylor.


Lucas being held by his Pop-Pop.

Lucas being cuddled by his Grandma!

Here are the proud Grandfathers!!


Here is Luke being admired by MiMi!


Aunt Brooke and Uncle Taylor couldn't wait to get their turn holding him!

Here is GiGi holding Lucas. This is just the beginning of her inability to put him down because she just loves him so much!

Lucas is getting tired of all the cameras taking his picture!

The Birth of Lucas!

Lucas finally arrived on August 27, 2008 (3 days LATE!).
He weighed 8 lbs. 1 oz. and was 20.75 inches long.

I began having contractions on Tuesday at 8:00 a.m. at the doctor's office during my non-stress test. The doctor said that we would wait it out and see if my water would break on it's own. We also scheduled an induction for the next day just in case my water did not break. Well, by Wednesday 5:00 a.m. the next day, I was still pregnant (and HUGE)!

We headed to Northside Hospital in Atlanta at 5 a.m. which was a good thing because on the way down there, my contractions were really getting strong! When we got into our room, I was hooked up to all the machines and given Pitocin to get my contractions stronger. The doctor broke my water and I received an Epidural around 1:00. I went from being 4 cm. dilated to 10 cm. in 3 hours!! However, little did I know that the epidural was administered wrong and they had to give me another one because I was in sooo much pain! My wonderful husband, mother, grandmother and mother-in-law were all in the delivery room with me. I began the long journey of pushing around 4:00 and around 5:00 we were painfully informed that my epidural had run out again. Which means that I had to go the rest of the way WITHOUT pain medication! Ben was absolutely wonderful and kept helping me through the pain and was giving me a ton of moral support. He was absolutely wonderful!!

I really think that the only was I got through it was that I couldn't wait to see if our baby was a Boy or Girl!

At 5:35 p.m. our family was blessed with a beautiful, healthy Baby Boy who we named Lucas James Wheeler!