Luca!

Introducing Luca James Hamann! Seven pounds, nine ounces. Oh yeah, and that photo of Diana? It’s the AFTER picture.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start this story right. By talking about me. I was at work yesterday trying to tie up loose ends on a big pitch. I was getting ready to write a whole bunch of scripts when Diana called.

“Come on home. I have Preeclampsia again.”

For those of you who are new to HamannEggs, Preeclampsia is a semi-dangerous blood pressure condition that requires quick getting out of the baby. Di had it with Elijah and it resulted in a pretty nasty labor plus some major side effects from the Preeclampsia drugs.

I took a cab home and found Steve already at our house for Eli duty while Diana was upstairs packing. I was feeling good. I’d been through this before. I bent down and tried to explain the situation to Eli. He simply said, “Please come with me.” My heart immediately ripped in two.

Then Grover ripped my heart into fourths by looking at me and whimpering.

Diana casually walked down the stairs and said, “My doctor forbade me from coming home because Preeclampsia gives you seizures.”

I’d had enough of people trying to give me a panic attack and guided Di to the car.

The doctors were not terribly concerned with Diana’s blood pressure, but got the labor ball rolling with some drugs. They inquired about if and when Diana would like drugs for the pain. We explained that with Eli, they screwed up the epidural and Diana experienced labor like Scarlett O’Hara. She would be taking the drugs, thank you very much.

The delightfully nerdy Anesthesiologist arrived and proceeded to make Diana’s back look like a piece of Swiss Cheese attempting to get it right. We appreciated his perfectionism, but watching him attempt to yank Di’s spine out (in my mind) made the outer edges of my vision get mighty fuzzy. I thought passing out before the labor really began would make for good blog material, but I opted for staring intently at the wall clock until it was over.

Di, of course, repeated over and over, “It’s…better…than…the…alternative.”

I went back to writing my scripts. Oh yeah, I was writing scripts in the delivery room. I’m not sure if that makes me really dedicated or sick. I’m going with sick.

At about 7:15pm, Diana got really uncomfortable. Really. Uncomfortable.

She called for the nurses. I asked, “Hey, have they checked your, you know, gear down there?” Di thought for a moment. No, they had not, in fact, checked her since we arrived 8 hours earlier.

Look, Labor and Delivery nurses don’t come down to my advertising agency and tell me how to wear short sleeve t-shirts over long sleeve t-shirts. But Diana was at the point where she was about to yank the bed railing out for use as a weapon.

So they took a look.

Go time.

I’m not kidding here people, it took longer for me to get to this point in the blog entry than it took Diana to get Luca out. As the nurses cleaned up my beautiful, beautiful son, there was a little bit of a “that was it?” feeling in the room. Hence, the photo.

Diana was so awesome, so unfazed by the whole thing that she got into a really deep conversation with the doctor about her placenta. And then took a picture of it. If you want to come over and take a look at the photo, be my guest.

I love that woman. I love my son. Happy birthday, little guy.

More later.