lukas goes a little farther

lukas tries walking

Feed me!

Lukas chills but not for long...

Rasberries

Precrawl

Lukas laughs

This is one we'll talk about forever.

Labor: how it happened

On the day after her birthday N's water broke. In the kitchen.

While she was making eggs.

So on the morning of january 14 we went to the hospital.
How fun! I thought. The baby will be born the day after her birthday!

How wrong I was—it would take much longer than that.















She wasn't in active labor so they started to give her Pitosin to get things moving.














And then they began to increase it because nothing was happening.














Still increasing. Still nothing.














This is starting to look like it might take a while.














Might as well get some sleep.














Checking in with the parents: nothing yet.














And then: contractions (and the pain).














The freaking pain!
("breathe. Don't forget to breathe"
the nurse says to me.)














And then the epidural gods came and took it all away.














And before we knew it (like 17 hours after we arrived) it was time to start pushing.














N was not doing badly at this point (thanks epidural!) so I decided to grab a seat.














And at about two o'clock in the afternoon we had what we came for—a baby boy.

Lukas!

Lukas Sy Levine was born 6 pounds 5 oz on Jan 15.

We won't be posting an overwhelming number
of images to the blog, which will probably be O.K. for most.

Unless you're a relative—in which case you'll want to see more.

accessory

J: Not the kid's accessories, the kid as accessory. Even if buying myself clothing is no longer in the budget, I can still buy the baby some great street wear. I'm starting to see the potential here.

focal point

J: Almost there. Not unlike other moments in our life, we've decided to take a few photos. Jill is the amazing photographer behind the camera. www.photojill.com

Bucco

J: That's his nickname. Pronounced BOO-KOE.

We've been calling him that for a few months. He's actually Bucco Junior (N calls me Bucco). Bucco came from Boca, as in "besame boca".

It doesn't make a ton of sense, but thats just the way pet names go, I suppose.

clothing becomes difficult

J: Four weeks to go.

Four weeks to go? That was fast. I can't believe I'm going to have a baby in less than a month.

N is feeling the strain of pregnancy. Up until now it's been easy—that's all over. The past month been less walking and more waddling, less sleep and more toilet trips, less spunk and more funk. But above all, the biggest problem seems to be clothes.

Every morning I walk into the room and N is standing half naked leaning on the chest of drawers either exhausted or exasperated. "I can't put anything on," she'll begin. Followed shortly by "all my clothes are uncomfortable", or "all my clothes are in the laundry", or "I'm tired".

To be honest, I'm surprised I haven't been recruited to help her put on more than just her socks.

Has she enjoyed pregnancy? Yes. Is she ready to retire her maternity clothes? Absolutely.

Birth U

J: Six weeks to go.

N and I spent the past two nights at Birth U. To those who might be dubious as to the need for such a class, doubt no more—you really don't know what you don't know until you've seen an actual birth on a 12 foot projection screen.

It wasn't all gory—we practiced breathing, too. (Here I learned I'll probably be passing out from hyperventilation somewhere along the way.)

Did you know the time to get to the hospital is when the woman can no longer walk or talk during the peak of a contraction. Well good to know. I probably would have been one of those guys who shows up and is told to go home. How embarrassing. You probably lose all your credibility with the nurses right there.

They still use those metal forceps! Metal. Forceps. Hello? There's been significant advances in medicine, there's been advances in monitoring, there's even been advances in the crappy pillows they give you—they haven't gotten any further than metal with the forceps?

Cooplah, R.N. told me when someone actually tries to perform CPR in the real world, they never remember the details of what they learned in the YMCA gym two years prior. What makes the difference is doing something. Anything. Breath, compression, breath. It doesn't matter, just do something.

This is how I see my role. Don't get me wrong, I'll do my best, but holey moley was there a lot of information to absorb. I don't think I'd remember it all on a test in a quiet classroom, let alone when N is actually giving birth.

I think the most important thing I can do is just be there with N.

That, and ask not to be filmed for the next Birth U.

big little black dress

n: Here's us Thanksgiving day. If you can't tell from the picture, my dress is super tight. I would never have worn anything like this before--go figure.

Why am I more willing to show off every inch of myself now?

It must simply be because I am honored to be carrying around this blessed soul and because I have so much respect for my body and all that it is capable of producing. Who wouldn't want to flaunt that?