Leaving the hospital

Hailey is one month old, where did the time go. So much has changed in the past month, it’s hard to imagine my life before baby Hailey. Many emotions have been experienced, some positive and some negative but I’d have to say the positive outweigh the negative by far.

Hailey stretching after being unswaddled after a nap

Before Hailey was born I had not held very many babies, now it feels so natural.  It’s amazing how quickly you can get used to incorporating a new life into your life.

I love everything about her. Her cute nose, ears, lips, fingers (which are getting chubby), her big feet (yes she takes after mama), and well just everything!

I haven’t posted much about life with a baby, I guess I’ve been preoccupied.

My day goes a little something like this.

• 2:30 or 3am Pry myself from bed, feed Hailey and put her back to sleep
• 6:30 or 7am Feed Hailey again entertain her for a bit and then back to sleep we go.
• 10am Feed Hailey
• 10:45am Play a bit until she gets sleepy and I put her down for a nap (which is challenging at times).

I won’t write out the rest of the day because it is very repetitive but I feed her every 3 hours (which takes about 45 min), we have some activity time and then Hailey naps while I get stuff done around the house, do some of the never ending laundry (this girl can easily go through 4 burp clothes in 1 day! She’s a spit up queen), or try to convince myself to take a nap. It’s fairly exhausting and Scott and I normally end up crashing on the couch at 9pm feeling exhausted (with one more 10pm feeding to go after that).

And just when I tell Scott that I think I’ve gotten the hang of this baby thing, Hailey goes and throws a loop in our day- She has her first cold. She started getting congested on Saturday and wouldn’t you know it, by Saturday night she was sneezing and coughing like crazy. She woke us up every 2 hours on Saturday with her coughing, making me feel so devastated for her. I think we’ve finally gotten over the worst of the cold, it certainly has not been fun.  It’s also really thrown off her schedule making life a little unpredictable right now.

At Hailey's baby shower

I know she’s grown a lot in this past month (at birth she was 7lbs 15oz and on last Wednesday Feb 17 she was at 9lbs 10oz-she’s probably at a 2 lb weight gain now) but I don’t really notice it that much, probably because I’m with her every moment of her life.  She still fits into her (borrowed, thanks Harry!) newborn clothes but they are almost reaching their stretching max point. She’s still not broad enough in the shoulders for her 0-3 onesies so they look large on her but I still put her in them, just because she looks so darn cute.

As for my recovery over the past month I seem to have bounced back pretty well. I have about 7lbs on top of my pre-pregnancy weight (I ended up gaining just over 30 lbs), but I fit back into all my clothes already so I think most of that weight lies in the chest region. I have a lot of back pain so I plan to book a massage with my favourite massage therapist when she gets back from her wedding!

Over the month I thought of many things I would write in her 1 month post, but surprise surprise I have mommy brain and can’t remember what I had planned. So I’ll leave it at that, and will add a few more photos for your viewing pleasure.

Playing with Aunt Lauren

How Hailey spends most of her day

Saturday January 23rd 2010

times are approximate, towards the end of the labour times are fuzzy.

3:00AM- Kate wakes up feeling contractions! They are 5 min apart but only about 20-30 seconds long.

7:00AM- Scott wakes up and learns that Kate has been having contractions and doesn’t know quite what to think.

9:15AM- Scott & Kate drive to the pig barn. Scott goes in the barn and Kate breathes through her contractions in the truck .

11:30AM- Kate straightens her hair to be pretty for the baby (and for photos)

12:00PM- Scott & Kate decide to head to the hospital. It’s been 9 hours and the contractions are still 5 min apart.

12:30PM- Walk up to triage at the hospital and get put into a labour room. Kate thinks nurse does not believe that she is actually in labour.

1:00PM- Kate gets hooked up to a monitor to track baby’s heart rate and the strength of the contractions.

1:45PM- Nurse checks Kate and she is 5 cm! Wooo Raspbaby is on her way!

3:15PM- Kate decides contractions are starting to hurt too much to cope and asks for epidural.

3:30PM- The IV gets put in Kate’s arm- Kate starts shaking horribly and can not stop.

3:45PM- The anesthesiologist finally arrives and Kate get’s an epidural. Her legs start to fall asleep and contractions pain peters out -a great feeling.

4:00PM- Kate gets wheeled to delivery room.

4:15PM- Kate gets an in-out catheter (ewww) and they check her progress- she is at an 8! Because her water has not broken they call for the resident doctor to come and break her water.

5:30PM- Nurse goes on break- get a replacement and she decides to give Kate’s epidural a top-up because she is starting to feel really bad pains in her lower belly.

6:15PM- Resident doctor finally comes and breaks Kate’s water. She is announced to be at a 9.

6:30PM- Kate get’s another in-out catheter (ewww) because bladder is blocking baby.This worked -baby moves even farther down and Raspbaby will be born soon.

6:50PM- Kate starts pushing

7:10PM- Hailey is born!

The Long Version

On the 22nd Scott and I had a date night and went to see a Knights game in London.  I mentioned during the game to Scott that I was feeling a bit of a piercing pain in my lower belly, but quickly said it’s not contraction pain, just pain and didn’t think anything more of it.

I woke up on the 23rd at 3:00am feeling contractions. The first contractions I had felt throughout my entire pregnancy. They felt like people said they would-  a tightening in my belly.  My stomach hurt a bit right when I woke up, so I think that I was having contractions before that, but lucky me got to sleep through those early ones. I timed the first few and they were consistently 5 min apart. Which I thought odd because when your contractions are consistently 5 min apart is when they tell you to go to the hospital. There was no way I was going to the hospital yet- I had myself convinced that this was false labour and that they would go away. Well they didn’t. I started to read all the pregnancy books and magazines I could find in the house to find how long the contractions were supposed to be and where I was supposed to be feeling the contractions. One said that in false labour you feel contractions in your lower belly and that when you are in actual labour it starts in your back and spreads to your front. So to me all signs pointed to false labour. I walked around the house, sat on my exercise ball, laid on the ground and dealt with the pain. The contractions were not super long- about 20-30 seconds and as always 5 min apart. Finally I went and laid back in bed and grimaced through each contraction, there was no way I could sleep through them. Scott woke up at about 7 and was like why are you up? I told him that I had been having contractions since 3 and then to me that’s when it started feeling real- Raspbaby was on her way!

We quickly decided that I was definitely not going into the barns with Scott, as that was our original plan  for the day. So Scott went to our closest barn and I had a shower. When he got home we packed up everything we would need for the hospital in the truck and drove to our barn that is father away, I went along just in case there was an emergency and I needed to go to the hospital asap. I timed the contractions while he was in the barn, and when he got back I made him guess how many contractions I had felt in an hour, I think he guessed 10 and I had actually had about 14. So they were a bit closer then 5 min apart, they were also longer at this point about 30-45 seconds long. We drove back home and then I did my hair, taking breaks as I had contractions. Here’s the part Leah loves- basically the only reason I did my hair was for her. I knew if she saw photos of me after having the baby and my hair was a mess she would say ‘Kate, you should have done you hair!’ Okay well she might not have said that, because I would have just had a baby, but that was my thought process, so nice hair it was.

At noon we decided to go to the hospital. I was still convinced that we would get there and they would send us home, but figured we’d rather be safe then sorry. We walked to the triage desk at the hospital and I told the nurse that I was having contractions and thought I was in labour. I really don’t think she believed me. I showed no pain and probably looked too relaxed. But she signed me in and put us in a room and said a nurse would be in soon. Soon turned out to be about 20 min later, which felt like an eternity. I got hooked up to 2 monitors- one for baby’s heartbeat and the other to track my contractions. It was so cool to hear baby’s heartbeat all around us, and to be able to see the severity of my contractions on the monitor.  The nurse finally came back in and said, well looks like you are having contractions. She asked us where we were from and we told her just outside of town and she said, okay then not too far away- firing off my thoughts of, looks like we are leaving soon. That is, until she checked me.  Scott was and I was so sure that she would say maybe 3 cm (I was 1 cm on Wednesday). As she was checking me her face was kind of shocked and the way she said, well you are dilated- you are 5 cm I knew she was shocked. Then she started talking about having a natural birth and was like, so you were planning on going natural and I was so confused. I had gotten to 5 cm, that’s where I wanted to be when I got the epidural but I was still coping! I said at that point I was unsure and she left us alone and a few nurses came in and out to check on me. It turns out the 23rd was a really busy day for babies in the hospital so we did not get our own nurse for a while.

After labouring for another hour and a half I decided that the contractions were starting to hurt more and were getting longer so I wanted the epidural. For some reason I was actually nervous to press the call button to tell the nurse I wanted to get the epidural- it seemed like I was taking the easy way out, even though I was proud I had gotten that far with no epidural and had always planned on getting one.

The nurse came and told us that it was a really busy day and they had some emergency C sections that were getting priority but that I would get it right after that because I was progressing really fast.  They put an iv in my arm (which took 2 tries) and that’s when I started shivering rapidly from all the cold fluids pumped into my body. After another 15 min (3:45pm) the anesthesiologist comes in and I got the epidural put in. It was an odd feeling- the needle they put in to numb the area stung a bit, but nothing horrible. When the put the epidural tube in it was a weird funny bone pressure in my back. Quickly after I got the epidural my legs started tingling, the epidural was working! Because I had gotten my epidural in the labouring room they wheeled my bed down to the delivery room and I moved myself to the delivery bed. I was surprised that I could move as much as I did. I thought that the epidural made you incapable of moving your lower body but that was untrue- it just all fell asleep and I could still move my legs (though not with full control).

After getting settled into the delivery room my nurse (Lori) told me that I would need either a catheter (which would stay in) or an in-out catheter (which only gets inserted to drain the bladder and then gets taken out again). I elected for an in-out catheter since the catheter was the one thing I was truly scared of and grossed out by. Weird I know. She checked me after the catheter and I was at an 8. After that times just get kind of blurry for me. I was pretty sleepy and hungry but loved not feeling the pain and just talked and joked with Scott and the nurse.  My water had still not broken so Lori called for the resident doctor to come in and break my water. It took a really long time for her to finally come and I was so happy when she arrived. She broke my water, which was still clear, a sign that everything was okay with Raspbaby. After that she checked me and I was at a 9. It had been about 2 hours since I had my epidural and Lori said that she thought giving me an in-out catheter would help because she thought my bladder was blocking the baby. Turns out she was 100% correct. After giving me the catheter baby moved right down and we discussed the hows of pushing.  After pushing through a few contractions Raspbaby was so close, I had to stop pushing, the doctor arrived and very quickly after that Raspbaby was born! I got to reach down and pull her up to lay on my chest and got to announce that it was a girl! I was so shocked that Raspbaby was a girl, Scott and I were both so sure that Raspbaby was going to be a boy it was such a wonderful surprise. Next time around we will for sure not be finding out the sex again, it was so fun this way.

After Hailey was delivered the doctors delivered the placenta, I didn’t even notice I was too busy staring at Hailey and being in aww that she was already holding onto my finger. I had a little tear, nothing major so they stitched that up and then we got to watch as Hailey was weighed and checked over.

Labour was an amazing experience and I’m so happy that Hailey is here! Scott and I love having her here and I find myself staring at her so much.  Probably all of my next posts will be about Hailey because she is my life right now! I eat, live and breathe Hailey.

Here’s a photo of Hailey about 2 hours after she was born with her Grandma and Oma.

Photos taken by VdK Photography.

7lb 15 oz

Saturday, January 23, 2010

7:10 pm

First of all Thank You for all the wonderful messages that were left on the “It’s a Girl!” post. We ended up staying another night at the hospital and came home yesterday at lunch.  We had a difficult and long first night, but so far today is going much better. I’m hoping Hailey will let Scott and me get some sleep tonight.

I should tell you quickly about our name choice!  Scott has always had a favourite girls name and I always had a favourite boys name, so we knew quickly that those would be our choices for first names.  Rhea is a family name- my Oma’s name! Hailey was due on her wedding anniversary (though didn’t arrive then) and I have just always loved the name Rhea. Plus I love how they sound together… Hailey Rhea.   If she had been a boy she would have been Benjamin Gregory- we’ll have to save that for our first boy, unless we are blessed like my parents with all girls! Only time will tell but for now we’ll just concentrate on cute little Hailey.

The cats are still on edge about this new baby. Chase is so concerned everytime Hailey makes any sort of noise, it’s amusing to watch him react. Coco just sort of stays away.

Labour and Delivery was amazing and surprisingly quick (so I hear for it being my first), I’ll have to write a post about that later this week, after I gain the energy. I need to write it all down soon though, before I forget any moment.

I would say that the most amazing moment was right after she was delivered and I got to reach down to grab her to bring her up to me and the doctor says “What do we have mom?” and I got to announce that it was a girl!  We were very happily surprised and love her so much.

So there’s just a quick little into post for you, I’ll make sure to post again soon!

Four of the blondes are now AUNTS.

One is now a MOM.

The ’sixth blonde’ has entered the world! Kate and her daughter (born Saturday, January 23rd at 7:10pm) are doing excellently and will be heading home from the hospital tonight. Dad Scott is very proud. Kate will write about it all when she gets home – and upload photos, of course!

I don’t know what else to say right now other than we are SO FREAKING EXCITED. Micaela and I both got to cuddle our niece today (and even persuaded our husbands to hold her, if just for a minute or two!). She’s very pink, very tiny, and very sleepy!

I think that we can retire the Raspbaby name now…but you’ll have to come back to read Katelyn’s post to find our her name!