Little Girls

It was time to buy Adelaide a pool since we can't do much outside in the summer unless you have a lot of water. She is obsessed with swimming and Tea pots lately. So of course the most obvious thing was to combined a pool party and tea party together. Daddy is a good sport. I guess he had a lot of practice with having a younger sister and playing "Pretty Pretty Princess" all the time. 

Snuggled in her bouncer. Only a few days old. 

Cate's first outing. We took the girls to the outside Mall and like always we ended up in the water. 

Catherine Rae

It's once again time for me to catch up on my posts. Sorry. More pictures of our sweet little Catherine's birth. We have a picture of Geoff cutting the umbilical cord, but we will spare you the dramatizing background and gore. :-) But here is one after he cut it. I wonder what he's thinking? haha!

We had visitors but the only documented ones were the Molen's. 

Cate Arrived

Here is the story of the arrival of our perfect little Cate. I was having three appointments every week to keep an eye out for this pregnancy and everything was dandy every time I went. When I went to my OBGYN at 35 weeks she measured how big the baby was and was about to let me leave but then realized I had a history of preterm labor. She decided to check my cervix and before doing so, she said that as long as I'm not a 5 that I should be okay. Then she started laughing and said, " you're at a 4.5! ...I'm not going to send you to the hospital yet, but once you start having contractions you NEED to get to the hospital! Just don't sneeze or else you might have her. "

 I go home and go about my business and at my 36 week appointment, she checked my cervix again and I was at a 6 and 80% effaced. She then sent me to the hospital to get an amniocentesis to see if Cate's lungs were mature enough to induce me. My doctor didn't want me walking around when I was advancedly dilated. So in the process of getting the amino, the Dr. Was having a hard time finding a pocket of amniotic fluid. He almost admitted me to the hospital right then and there, but thankfully he found some. It took 2 days to get the results back. But while we were waiting for the results I had another ultrasound and it told us that I had very little amniotic fluid. I was at a 5. I'm not sure what that number is out of but apparently it's really low. 

They called my OBGYN and she said I needed to go to the hospital immediately. She warned me that the hospital was super busy and it might be awhile before we get a room but that we needed to go now. Cate's lungs were mature and with the new info about the fluid, she decided to induce me.

We got to the hospital about 1:30 in the afternoon. Didn't get back to OB triage until about 3:30 and didn't get into a room until 6 pm. Then we had to wait for the charge nurse to come and start the pitocin and that didn't happen until 7:45 pm. So when my Doctor told me it was busy, she wasn't kidding.  I thought we were going to have a baby that night but apparently my cervix had other ideas (which is okay because I have a problem and wanted her to be born on an even date...haha). My nurses came in every half hour to up my pitocin. I wasn't hurting so I didn't get an epidural until about 3 am when I started to get uncomfortable. But the best part is that I hadn't progressed. At all!! I was still a 6 and 80% effaced.

By 6 am the nurses checked me again and still no change!! I told her I was getting frustrated and she agreed. :-) My nurses were awesome and they genuinely cared about me and wanted to meet Catherine. Unfortunately their shift ended at 7 and they knew they wouldn't be meeting her and they were disappointed, which made me feel special. 😄

My nurses Casey and Leeza ran around the LD floor trying to find the Doctor to break my water so things could get moving along. My pitocin level was at 24 which is the highest you can go I guess and my cervix didn't cooperate. At 7:30 am my Doctor came in. Once again, my cervix was checked and I was complete! FINALLY!! She still had to break my water though.

For some reason Dr. Best left the room and the nurses told me to have a practice push. While in the process of this, they told me to stop pushing because she almost came out. I only pushed two more times after that and she was here. What a beautiful baby! Daddy hesitantly cut the umbilical cord but was glad he did it. She was born at 7:53 am, 6 lbs and 19 inches long on April 14.

Getting ready for baby

My parents got here this week. They wanted to make sure they didn't miss the debut of little "miss" since last time they did with Adelaide (being 5 weeks early). They have only been here a couple days but Adelaide LOVES to play with them. She follows Grandma around everywhere. They have already made 2 or 3 Easter crafts and have played non-stop with Princesses. Right now, Grandma and Auntie have taken her to an Easter Egg Hunt. She is loved and spoiled by everyone and I can't say that I complain. :-)

If you remember, I have three Dr. Appointments a week and yesterday I had two. My normal ob/gyn visit was a little funny. I'm 35 weeks pregnant and typically they don't start checking your cervix until 36 weeks. And that was the Doctors plan until she looked at my chart and noticed I had a history of pre-term labor (I had to get a new Dr. Because mine went on maternity leave). "We will go ahead and check you today. As long as you're not dilated to a 5 you should be fine," she says. While she's checking me she laughs and says, "you pretty much are. You're at 4.5... I won't send you to the hospital yet. I just want you to be prepared!!" I wasn't really scared because I was half expecting it. But I'm also not excited quite yet because who knows how long I'll stay at a 4.5. I might not advance for another few weeks... Who knows!!

My specialist appointments this week have been great. One thing they look for in babies on the ultrasound is if they are practicing the breathing exercise. And she is practicing constantly, which is wonderful. My NST ( non-stress test) went well. She wasn't stressing out when I had contractions, so everything looks normal and healthy. I've been told some babies devlop faster and my body might stay in the habit of going into labor sooner than others. Everyone is different and every pregnancy, so I guess we will find out within the month when she will actually be here. I am hoping that my water will just break again and I'll go to the hospital. I've had some painful contractions but never consistent.

Pregnancy update

I went to the specialist again today to get another ultrasound. Everything looks great! She is already 2.9 lbs and I think she has daddy's nose. :-)

I have mixed feelings about getting 3D pictures. It's creepy and adorable at the same time. :-)

I don't think I wrote this on the blog (I didn't tell anyone really). But at week 18 I got my blood drawn and had a Quad test done. This looks out for four different problems. The only one I can remember is the one that came back positive, Down's syndrome. The Doctor's office called and said that I was high risk and it doesn't mean that the baby will have it. I immediately started crying. I had to wait almost 2 weeks before I could go to the specialist to check it out. So as you could imagine, it was torture for me. I knew we would keep the baby and I would love her just the same, but it was still hard. Geoffrey made it easier by telling me "we prayed for a baby and we were blessed with one." And he was exactly right.

It ended up that everything was fine with the baby. The blood work not only told us if we were high risk for any of the four problems but told us what my protein levels were. I had two that were super high. They want the levels to be around 1.0, but mine were 2.14 and 2.84 which is extremely high! This told us that she has restriction to grow/might not have enough blood flow for her.

Because of my high protein levels I now have to start going to the specialist twice a week every week until she is born. One day will be for an ultrasound and the other day they will perform a stress test. I am not going to complain because I get to see her sweet face every week, how many people get to say that (and I'm sure my insurance is loving me right now).  :-)