Welcome Catherine!

Our 3rd beautiful baby arrived 4 days ahead of her due date on February 19th.  We are all so in love.

Catherine Ann

6lbs 4oz, 19.25" long

Feb 19, 2014 at 9:23AM

Her Birth Story:

-2:45AM, I wake up to a trickle and realize my water broke--the exact way I was hoping labor would start!  I wake B, call Allison (our sitter), and start getting everything together and showering.

-4AM, arrive at the hospital and B gets some coffee

-4:30AM, confirmed water has broken and admitted for delivery--checked and I'm at 2.5 cm 60% effaced, same as I was at my 38 week appointment.  Contractions weak, but coming every 5 minutes.

-5:15AM, in our delivery room and went ahead and got the epidural before in pain at all.  Got 1 painful contraction while getting it, but that's it.  I felt so guilty getting the epidural before I even had pain, but I've had 2 glorious epidurals during my previous deliveries and just don't have the drive or desire to learn about that "ring of fire" people have talked about.  

-8:15AM, checked and at 5cm 90% effaced

-8:55AM, baby showing some decels, so checked again and at 10cm, 100% effaced, and ready to push!  Waited while my OB was paged and got there.  I could not believe my body progressed that quickly without any pitocin or anything. 

-9:23AM after pushing/laughing through 2 contractions, Catherine was born.  There was a minute of suspense while I'm asking for someone to tell me if it's a girl or boy and the delivery team all looks at B to tell me--it's a GIRL!!!  Totally in shock!

-Catherine didn't cry at birth, so they had the peds team come and check her out.  She was breathing fine and the conclusion was, "she's just not a cryer."  Nice!

-After delivery, we did skin-to-skin for a long time.  Catherine had some trouble keeping her temperature up, so she had to go to the nursery and spend some time under the heat lamps while we were finishing up in the delivery room and being transferred to the recovery room.

Thankfully, instead of a horrible 3rd/nearly 4th degree tear when Matthew was born (which took them an hour to sew up), I had only a barely 2nd degree tear this time and only about 5 minutes of stitching.  The recovery so far has been so much easier and I'm barely sore at all anymore.  Hopefully this will continue and we won't have any setbacks like last time.

In total shock and completely excited that IT'S A GIRL!!

Catherine's first picture with her Mom and Dad:

Hello World!