Kaitlyn Elaine is here!!!

Last time I posted, I had mentioned that my body was experiencing contractions after my dr appt, but they slowed down & went away. The next day I had minimal contractions during the day.

On Wednesday, Dec 13th, it seemed like everyone was calling me to see how I was doing & if I'd had the baby yet. My sister in law & I were talking & she asked if I was having anymore contractions. I told her no. But as we spoke, I noticed that I was actually having contractions. They just weren't painful & since my other kids keep me so busy, I hadn't noticed them prior to then! We talked for about 30 minutes & I had 3 or 4 contractions during that phone call. I didn't think the contractions really were that consistent, so I didn't time them in the usual fashion. The next phone call came in & I counted how many contrax I had while I talked & before hanging up the phone, I checked to see how long that conversation had lasted & divided out the number of contrax I'd had. It went from 10 minutes apart, to 8 minutes apart, to 5 minutes apart. They were definitely getting closer together & pretty quickly. But, they didn't hurt. I did notice, however, that I was starting to sweat, which is unusual for me. I called my husband up at work & told him that I was having contractions & that they must be getting somewhat intense b/c my body was reacting to them, though they weren't painful to me. At that point he said he was going to hop on the next bus home & told me to call my mom & to call the dr & see if I needed to go to the hospital. I figured he was overreacting; I wanted to time my contractions a little bit longer to see if they really were coming consistently. But, I decided it might be best to at least get a call in to the dr's office & get their opinion on it. I called & left a message on the triage line. Then I called my mom--who happened to be out on a walk--and let her know that I might need her to come by depending on what the dr's office told me.

A nurse called me back pretty quickly. She said that since this was baby #4, that I shouldn't rely on pain as an indicator of when to get to the hospital as things could happen quickly. She suggested that I get going NOW to the hospital. Well, that wasn't an option as there was no one to take me to the hospital & I needed someone to watch my kids. I called my mom back & told her to come to my house. While I waited for her & my husband to arrive, I did some cleaning & took the trash out to the curb; kept myself busy doing things that needed to be done. Finally, about an hour after I'd called the nurse, my mom arrived & a few minutes later my husband arrived home, too. I told him he could change out of his dress clothes if he wanted, but both he & my mom said they thought it would be best if we just went to the hospital. So, off we went. As we drove along, I noticed that the contractions were now 2-3 minutes apart according to the clock in the car. Interesting.

Got to the hospital & walked across the entire building to the L&D floor. I was checked out & would you believe I was STILL only at 1cm & 80% effaced?! Exactly the same as I was at my dr appt earlier in the week! They had me walk the floor for an hour & then checked me again. Absolutely no changes. So they sent me home!!! They acknowledged that I apparently had a high pain tolerance level as the contractions were definitely "moderate" on their scale & according to the monitors. I was a little worried about knowing when to come back in since I should've been feeling more than what I was at the time. They didn't know what to tell me; pretty much just said I'd know. O.k., that's reassuring. NOT! So, we left the hospital and headed back home. On the way home, the contractions were coming every other minute & lasting for quite a while & were starting to get painful. We got home & my mom rushed out the door to get home to take care of some things. She told me to call her later that evening to let her know how I was doing. I told her to pack her bag b/c I knew she'd be having to come back to our house that night. I went & laid down on the couch because the contractions were pretty intense. Only my oldest son was awake at this time. He & DH were playing by the Christmas tree. Suddenly I got the biggest contraction yet. It felt like it just rolled down from the top of my belly ALL the way down & kept going..."pop!" My water broke! I was actually very relieved because I knew it meant it was time to get to the hospital. DH called my mom back--she'd only been gone for 10 minutes before this happened--and told her to come back to our house. In the meantime, I had him run over to the neighbor's house & ask if one of their older kids could watch our son til my mom could get back to our house to take care of him.

So, we hopped into the car again. I've never known DH to drive quite so fast! It was definitely a night I'll remember because he's usually so slow...Mr "I drive 5 miles under the speed limit" was now going at least 10mph OVER the speed limit. Crazy! (He told me that now I know how he feels everytime I back out of the driveway!) As we drove along the freeway, a few expletives left my lips because the contractions were so frequent & really getting painful. As we got in the turn lane to turn into the hospital, and were about to get a green light, a cop car flew by in the other direction & messed up all the traffic lights so we had to sit through another round of lights before the arrow turned green. DH drove me to the emergency entrance and went in to get a wheelchair for me. I waited til my next contraction was over before I climbed into the wheelchair. Here's the funny part--it literally made me laugh so hard even though I was in active labor--DH had a heck of a time getting the wheelchair up over the little lip of the curb where the sidewalk meets the road. He kept pushing the chair forward & then it would hit that lip & jolt back. This happened about 5 or 6 times. I thought he was going to jolt the baby out of my body before all was said & done! Eventually the guard on duty at the emergency entrance stood up & began walking toward us when DH finally got the chair past that point & got me into the hospital. DH said that the guy probably was taking pity on him. I corrected him & said that the guard was probably taking pity on ME!

We got to the L&D room where they wished me luck getting my wet jeans off (remember, my water broke, I didn't pee my pants!) and gave me a gown to change into. When they checked me a few minutes later, I was now dilated to 4cm. My nurse came in & boasted about how she was so great at putting IV's in, claiming she never made a mistake. Well, her first try didn't work & she had to poke me a 2nd time. It was quite painful, but the contractions actually helped to take my attention off of her poking my veins. I just wanted her to hurry up & get the IV in so I could get my epidural!!! By that time I was at 5cm. The anesthesiologist arrived quickly & put the epidural in. Ahhh, nearly instant relief!

BUT, suddenly the baby's heart rate dropped from the 150's to the 90's & wouldn't go back up. Next thing I knew, the room was swarming with nurses. At this point in time, my legs were useless from the epidural & so I had to rely on the nurses to flip me from side to side. An oxygen mask was thrown on my face, etc. Thankfully the baby's heart rate went back up to normal & all was fine, but I was really scared after that time. Each time I had a contraction, I made DH watch the monitor & tell me if the baby's heart rate was o.k. Her heart rate went down a few other times, but didn't stay low for as long as the first time. My nurse wasn't the greatest in that she came in once & said she'd told the other nurses that she'd feel a lot better once the baby was outside instead of in. Um, you don't say that stuff to a woman in labor who is already concerned about her child's well being! It seemed to take forever for me to dilate further. I guess the epidural slowed down my contractions, so they gave me pitocin to get things going again. Finally at 1:45 a.m. (December 14th)we were set to have the baby. My dr wasn't on call that night, but another dr from his practice came. At 1:49 I began to push & at 1:51 little Kaitlyn was born! Only 1 & 1/2 pushes to get her out. She was by far my smallest child, weighing in at 7 pounds 6 oz & 20" long. I figure she came out so quickly thanks to her big brother who was 9 pounds at birth not quite 17 months prior to this event!;)

She's an absolutely beautiful baby--has a headful of dark, slightly wavy hair. She looks a lot like her oldest brother & her older sister. We can see both of them when we look at her.

But, the story does not end here. Kaitlyn ended up with a pretty bad case of jaundice. Turns out that we had ABO incompatibility. Which means that she & I had different blood types, so apparently during the birth process, my body recognized foreign blood in the vicinity & began to attack her, breaking down lots of her red blood cells, which in turn caused her to be more jaundiced than your average baby. Long story short, she ended up having to be under the bililights her 2nd night & had to be given formula to help her poop/pee some of the jaundice out of her system. Since she didn't have to do much to get food from the bottles, nursing ended up going out the window & she is now a formula fed baby. Her bili levels continued to rise, so although we were discharged from L&D after the standard 2 days, we were then moved to the pediatric ward where she had to stay an extra night under a biliblanket. I had to feed her formula every 2 to 3 hours, then call the nurse in so they could chart how much the baby had eaten & could weigh her wet/dirty diapers. Occasionally they would weigh her, too.

I was SO glad to be able to go home on Sunday afternoon! I missed my other kids & my husband terribly. Nothing is ever easy though--that very night I went to bed early, around 9:45. All the kids were in bed, so we decided to go to bed early, too. Less than 15 minutes later, our 17 month old son began to cry. DH went to get him & I then heard a "splat!" sound in the hallway...DS had thrown up. He threw up 2 more times. It was awful...I didn't want to come home to a house where there was the flu bug, especially not with the new baby! Turns out Josh just had some sort of little bug that only affected him, thankfully.

The first week, Kaitlyn slept all the time, day & night. Now, on her 2nd week, she seems to have an awake period between 2 & 4am. She goes 4-5 hours between feedings at night, but it's like after she eats, she wants to stay awake for another hour. Ugh! Last night she did pretty well & went right back to sleep after eating, but I don't know if she's going to keep that up or revert back to wanting to party at night! Overall she's a REALLY good baby though. She sleeps a ton during the day. The other kids have adjusted just fine to her presence. Nathan & Megan were SO excited to have her (and me!) home from the hospital. They like to help feed her her bottles & will tell me if she starts to cry (as though I can't hear her!;)). Megan will pat Kaitlyn's head & tell her she loves her. And Josh will walk up to her, smile & then blow her kisses. It's so sweet. I know it won't last, especially once she starts getting into their things, but for now I'll enjoy it! And maybe it's because she's such a good baby, or maybe it's just that it's how it works, but it really hasn't been much of an adjustment adding another baby to the family. I felt like it was hard switching from 1 to 2 kids & even harder going from 2-3. But from 3-4 has not been that big of a deal at all. Maybe that means that things were out of control at 3 kids, so what's one more kid?!

There's my loooong story of Kaitlyn's arrival to this world. To recap: she was a surprise pregnancy from the start & she ended the pregnacy with a surprise birthday. I had never gone into labor on my own before; have always had to be induced & always knew my kids' birthdays. So this was pretty neat. I am so thankful for my new little girl & thankful for my family as a whole. I'm also thankful that my family is COMPLETE! DH goes in for the big "snip snip" consult next Friday!;)

Thanks for following my final pg adventure. I miss being pregnant, but I know that going through another labor is not an option...I can't handle any more children, I don't think. Both emotionally & financially!