Katelyn Rose is here!

Katelyn is just like her big sister. They both like to do things in their OWN time, apparently! The day I scheduled Madison's induction, which was going to be a week from then, I started labor the next day. With Katelyn, I made the induction appointment and sure enough, the next morning, (right on her due date, in fact!) I woke up and started having contractions right away.

long story short: Katelyn was born this evening at 6:03pm; 7lbs, 9oz; 20 1/2 inches long. Lots of brown hair, blue eyes. They tried to break my water at one point, but couldn't only to figure out later that my water had already broken at some point so Katelyn might have swallowed meconium, so NICU was called in for the delivery. She came out crying a healthy cry, but then had trouble breathing. Despite them trying to suction it out and the NICU team working on her for what seemed like 10 minutes, she still had problems, so she had to be intubated (they inserted a breathing tube down her throat and she was put on a breathing machine) and after laying her on me for literally 5 seconds, they whisked her off to NICU. She was put on a breathing machine to breathe for her and she has a pneumothorax (air bubble) between her rib and lungs. That should resolve itself in 2 days or so, but if it doesn't, they'll need to put a chest tube in, so they can drain the air pocket. The major threat is the possibility of infection from the meconium that was swallowed. She will be in NICU for a minimum of 3 days and if tests come back negative for infection, she'll be on her way to being released. If she DOES have an infection, she could be here 7-10 days for antibiotics. We never even got to hold her before they rushed out of the room. I was a wreck, of course, and completely in tears. Gordon was trying to be okay, but his eyes got very red and I knew he was about to cry, then as he stepped out to tell my parents they can come in and what was going on, he broke down in the hallway. Poor Madison had no idea what was going on and why Mommy and Daddy were sad. She doesn't even realize she has a baby sister yet because she didn't get to see her.

*sigh* its late, i'm tired...more later!

The full story:

At 6am I woke up to the sound of Madison trying to get out of her room. I suddenly had constractions and felt some leakage. Apparently, I lost my mucous plug. I went and got Madison and had a few contractions. When I’d stop and lean on the table for a second, Madison would say, “Sorry Mommy. You feel better?”. Such a sweet girl. I took her downstairs, got her cereal and milk, then went to get dressed. I was planning yesterday to try to call my doc this morning to see if I could get my membranes stripped, so Katelyn would have a chance of coming on her own. There is just something exciting about timing your contractions and wondering if this is really the day you’ll get to meet your baby. Not the same with an induction. I really did not want to be induced, especially because I was afraid of a failed induction resulting in a csection. I called Gordon at work around 6:15 and said, “what was I thinking?” about wanting Katelyn to come on her own. I told him “this is over rated” talking about experiencing spontaneous labor. I told him that it’s the first day that I’ve felt contractions, so she probably wouldn’t be born today. I actually wasn't timing the contractions to begin with, since I *knew* early labor takes a long time, but then when he asked me how far apart they were and I had to guess, I figured I better really time them. So I started timing the contractions (rather easily thanks to contractionmaster.com!!!) and they were consistently 2-4 minutes apart, 30sec to a minute long. I also told him not to worry too much, he didn't need to come home and that it wouldn't be today, but I did start contracting. Little did I know how wrong I was!

Then I realized that I felt some stomach/ab pain while I was sleeping. I called him back about 6:45 and told him “just kidding, how soon can you be home?”. So he was on his way as soon as his coworker could get there.

My dad came at about 7am to pick up Madison; my mom was going to take her to school. Gordon got home by around 7:15 and I was throwing a few last minute things together, like our camera and charger, video camera and charger, etc. Meanwhile, I had been going to contractionmaster.com since 6:15 this morning and watching my contractions that way. It’s great; it times the duration and frequency for you…the last thing you want to do when you’re in pain is math! We left at around 7:45 and my ctx were 2-4 mins apart. We got to the hospital around 8:30 or so. When they checked me, I was about 2cm dilated and 80% effaced…the same as yesterday’s doc appt.