Jan Garcia Photography

Lucas Edward Garcia. Our new baby boy was born on July 3, 2005 at 8:42 pm in Hoag Hospital, Newport Beach, CA. He weighed in at a slim and trim 6 lbs. 10 oz. and measured 19.5 inches.

It was a very long Sunday. At first we weren’t sure that it was actual labor since we read about many different types of contractions. There were Braxton Hicks or practice contractions, there were false labor contractions and there are actual pre-labor contractions. We called the hospital to make sure that we were doing the right thing. They said “if the contractions are so-and-so apart and were so-and-so long, come on in.”

Slightly hesitating, we gathered everything that we thought we needed and drove to the Labor and Delivery building at 2:30 am. After being consulted and checked out by the admission nurse, we were advised to go home saying that she was way to early to be in delivery. They told us to come back when she was closer to birth. At the time, I thought it was insane, but they reassured us that Tey would be much more comfortable in this early stage of delivery at home, so we bought it. We went back home around 3:15 am and tried to go back to sleep.

Around 7:00 am, Tey wakes me up frantically saying “We gotta go! We gotta go!” I tried to make sure that she was really ready to go thinking “I don’t want to get turned back again.” We called the resident doctor on duty and Tey described her symptoms; more painful contractions and now only 5-6 minutes apart. The doctor told us to come down to the hospital saying this was the real thing.

We arrived at the hospital and Tey was in pretty bad pain already. The admitting nurse informed us that we are gonna have a baby today! Good freaking lord! After some super painful contractions, Tey says to the nurse “Epidural please!!!” After about 15 more minutes of waiting, the anesthesiologist arrives with his package of needles ready to poke through to Tey’s spinal cord. Sheeeeesh. I felt light headed…seriously.

After 10 hours and 2 more epidural refills, the big moment was near. The nurse came in and said Tey was at 10cm and we are ready to push! Good Lord.

Tey was in such pain that I felt pretty bad that I could not do anything to help her out. All I could do was stand next to her and let her know that I was there. She hadn’t eaten anything all day and was so drained and tired. Every push that she gave drained every ounce of energy from her body.

After Two and a half hours of gut-wrenching pushes,it was time. The doctor was there do deliver and when she said “It’s a little baby boy!”, the room erupted in excitement. Little baby Lucas was born. Daddy cut the umbilical cord. Mommy was doing just fine. There were 10 fingers and 10 toes. In-laws were hugging. All was well in the world.

July 3rd pretty much signaled the end of our movie-going days. After meeting my little baby boy, I’ll gladly make that trade.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 11th, 2005 at 12:27 am and is filed under Portrait. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.