September 16

2 days before Kendall arrived!
In triage--waiting for a room.

Lots of contractions...no fun.

Finally got my room...and my epidural!!!

And then the epidural stopped working in some areas...ugh.

But soon, it was all better! Kendall is here!!!

Same weight as Casey and only 1 inch shorter...

Getting her first bath!

Hello!!!

Meeting Grammy and Pappy!

Casey got there and she was asleep!!

So I cuddled her awake! I missed her!

And here's your little sister, Casey!

Casey's sister got her a present...

A Cinderella dress...she loved it...can you tell???

Thank you, Kendall!!!

Cuddling with my big girl!

Bye little sister, see you tomorrow!

With my daddy!

With my mommy!

The girls =)

Coming home!

With my Grandma

Hi All~

As promised a "birth story"...

It's funny because as I type this, one week ago I was just beginning my journey through labor. Thursday, September 9th, I dropped Casey off at preschool and went to my routine 38 week doctor appointment. All went well at the appointment. Kendall was active on the monitors, I had plenty of fluid, and I was 3 cm dilated and 50% effaced. Nothing to indicate labor was right around the corner as I'd been dilating a bit for the past 2 weeks. I left the appointment, got a dunkin donuts iced coffee and bagel and came home to eat and wait to go pick Casey back up at school. Around 11am I realized I was really, really uncomfortable and had been for about 15 minutes...I quickly realized why...I was contracting every 2-3 minutes!!! I called the doctor and they said to sit down and drink water...well, I'd been doing that when the contractions started! I called Kyle and we decided he'd leave work and go pick up Casey and drop her at our friend Allison's house (who had been prepared to take her when the time came!) I got to the hospital and on the monitors around 1230, by 130 I was dilated to a 4, but still not effacing anymore, nor had the baby "dropped"...they let me labor for a while and then they had me walk for one hour. At around 4pm, we were told to go home (even though I was still having contractions every 2-3 minutes and starting to get really tired!!!) The nurses were pretty confident that I'd be back that night...they told me to go home and keep walking and eat a light dinner. So we had Casey stay at Allison's--went home and took one walk, ate dinner, and then another walk. We sat for a bit and around 9pm we left to go back to the hospital. The hospital was PACKED with mom's in labor. I had to lay in triage for about 4 hours until we knew we were definitely being admitted -- my contractions were still happening every 2-3 minutes and were getting stronger--but I still hadn't dilated past 4cm!!! BUT at 130 ish I was finally admitted and got my epidural! Woo hoo! We finally knew at this point we were having a baby!

By 430, I had dilated to 5cm with the help of some pitocin and the doctor broke my water. By around 8ish, I was at 6cm, but not effacing and my epidural was starting to wear off in spots (boo)...So things went quick after this. Around 830 they turned the pitocin up a bit. I was fully dilated in 45 minutes (915) and I really, really wanted to push, but Kendall hadn't dropped down yet. They said I needed to wait a little longer...10 minutes later, I said there was no way I could wait and they checked me and she had completely descended in those 10 minutes. I started pushing at 931 and three sets of pushes later, she was born at 940am!

So she is doing great. She slept A LOT the first few days of her life...now that she's settled in at home a bit, she's a little more alert. She seems to hit a rough patch each night for about 2 hours (usually middle of the night) where she wants to eat a bunch and be held, not sleep in her pack and play. But 2 hours of a little fussing -- not so bad...especially for all of you who remember Casey and her 6-8 hour colic each day!

Casey loves her baby sister. She loves to "pet" her. She loves to watch us change her diaper. And the greatest ever was today when she came in the door from school, she immediately asked, "Where's my baby sister?" and got right down on the floor with her to say Hello and gave her lots of love!

Anyway---I'm going to get to attaching a bunch of pictures now. Enjoy and hope to update again soon!!!

Love,
Katie, Kyle, Casey, Kendall, and Jimmy