8 Days on Earth

Okay so I have a good excuse for the long delay in a new post.. here's how the story goes..

I had half jokingly said throughout my pregnancy that one of the days I would like my baby to be born on was July 1st, Canada Day. Imagine my thrill when I woke up at 4 a.m. on Canada Day feeling....different. I suspected maybe I was in labour and by 7 was quite certain that's what it was!! I managed to stay home until 11 a.m. and labour with my husband running around in circles (literally), asking me what to do what to do! I kept telling him to stop running around but it was no use.

Peters Mom had paid for a benefit that entitles us to in home medical care should we require it, so she called the Ambulance/Medic team for us. They came right to my bedroom with a doctor and a paramedic and confirmed that yes, I was indeed in labour, 5 cm along and needed to go to the hospital kinda "right now". I got a cushy ambulance ride, the wrong way down the Ciclovia and right to the hospital door! Cool, too bad I missed it. I could only see the helmeted heads of ppl on bicycles going by the ambulance door.

The hospital is called San Ignacio, it is the third best in Colombia and is a teaching hospital affiliated with Javeriana University here. I was ecstatic to learn that the doctors all spoke english because all of their text books are in english. I managed to get by with Spanglish with everyone and we had no problems communicating.. "IT HURTS LIKE HELL" is pretty universal!!

After getting all checked out and checked in, hooked up to a fetal monitor and eventually and IV, Peter had to vacate and I was on my own. The amount of pain pre-empted any fears I was harbouring and oddly (or not??) I feltvery excited that finally the day was here! Finally I was going to meet the new member of our family.

At 3:00 I finally received an epidural and was able to chat to the Anasthesiologist for a good half hour like a normal person about world stuff and such :O) At 4 it seemed to wear off and things moved along quite quickly after that, with pain increasingly on my mind.

After another epidural and a shot of Oxytocin to get things moving faster as baby was starting to get lazy and by 4:45 I was being rushed down the hall to the delivery room, with three doctors in tow. Delivery here is taken seriously, no extra ppl hanging around in the delivery room, only medical staff consisting of three doctors. Two for me and one for the baby.

Three or four huge pushes and I found myself belly to belly looking into the deep blue eyes of the little person that had been wiggling around in my belly for almost 40 weeks. I am sure it is impossible to ever put into words that moment and have it come through cyberspace, so I won't. All I know is that for mere seconds time stood still, that I won't ever forget it, and that he is the most beautiful thing I have ever laid eyes on. Oh.. and he's all mine!!!

So, world meet our son, Lukas Alexander Suarez, July 1st, 2007 @ 5:04 p.m., 7 lbs, 4 oz