Welcome Lukas!

Lukas is here!  He arrived at 6:29 am on July 10th.  Here is the last picture of him inside Mommy (while I was in the first stage of labor):

Once labor got going this time it was faster, more intense, and more overwhelming,  Since being in the water helped with pain relief, Lukas had a water birth.  We had not considered doing this intentionally, but it actually worked out quite well.  As soon as they handed him to me I could tell he was a big baby, and indeed he weighed in at 11 lbs 1 oz and measured 23.5 inches long.

Here he is shortly after birth:

And with big brother Ian, who arrived to visit with Greg, Danielle, and Leo:

My recovery from labor has been remarkably smooth (complicated only by a nasty case of poison ivy), and we were home before noon.  Here Lukas is with Daddy and you can see his characteristic long dark hair:

Interestingly, he also has one swatch of gray hair:

The first couple days he didn’t open his eyes very often or very far, but now he has some long alert periods in which his eyes are open wide and examining things intently.  Here is a video of him in an alert period:

Lukas looks around and chews on his hand.

Here he is examining his big brother:

And to keep things interesting, add cousin Leo:

It gets quite active in our little living room with all three boys here.  Ian bouncing around, Leo watching and trying to keep up, and the adults trying to protect Lukas from being squished.

And some random photos of Lukas in his first days:

At one week old he already looks a bit different, so we’ll have to post a new set of photos soon.