Katie and Kip and Kyra and Jack and Emmett and we should throw Pepper in there, too.: August 2005

Happy Birthday, Kyra!!

Fancy cake for Kyra

Fancy cake for us

Babies have taste buds all over their face.

Mmm Cake

Oh man, what a sugar high! (no worries, the red stuff is raspberry mousse, she didn't eat her fingers.)

Kyra's birthday flowers from her mom. Looks like we've got a tradition!

Amalie always wears her sunglasses upside down. We haven't figured out why yet. We think she's just way cooler than the rest of us and we will never understand her style.

Girl's got skills - present opening skills. Believe me, this was a hard thing to learn, this was like her 20th try.

Birthday chaos

I got a BOOK!

Happy Birthday, Kyra Love!

8/20/04

Woohoo, she's here!! After going through an entire week of latent labor, my dr. finally decided last Wednesday that I was ready to be induced (2 cm, 85% effaced, -1 station). So, we went in on Thursday evening at 10:00 to start the labor. The pitocin didn't hurt very much, it felt exactly the same as the contractions I'd been having. What hurt like heck was around 1:00 in the morning when right in the middle of a contraction it felt like my bladder exploded. I've never felt such a sharp, instantly debilitating pain like that before. Kip says he heard it pop!

The nurse came to see if my water had broken and determined it hadn't. Of course, the minute she left and I stood up, I was standing in a puddle of amniotic fluid. I was in so much pain I didn't know what to do -- I just stood there, and Kip paged the nurse. It was like I was powerless to move or make any kind of decision. Just stood there looking down at the thankfully clear puddle.

Man, the contractions hurt after that! Luckily by that point I had dialated enough to get an epidural, which was very difficult because I had to crunch over in addition to the very painful contractions. That and she irritated a nerve going down my left side. After the epidural went in, life was beautiful! Suddenly I didn't hate everyone in the room for joking around and acting like the world wasn't about to end. I was at a +1 station already and labor progressed pretty steadily after that. By 9:15 in the morning I was ready to push. However, with some contractions her heart rate would drop from 150 all the way down to 50 and the dr. was worried about the cord being around her neck. After maybe 15 minutes of pushing with the contractions the dr. decided it was time for an episiotomy. She almost came before he could do it. I agreed to it and one small 2 stitch incision and 5 minutes later, there she was, the most beautiful cone-headed baby in the world!

Her cord wasn't wrapped around her neck. When the rest of her body came out, she handed the dr. the cord in her tight little fist. I guess she had been clamping down on it during the head compression contractions. Poor girl! Apgars were 8 and 9, and as soon as she was wrapped in a blanket and calmed down, she just stared at the world with a look of wonder, her mouth half open, for and hour and a half. I couldn't believe something so perfect and tiny came out of me! Truly strange, and wonderful.

During our stay Kip had his share of fun too - he managed to turn off my blood pressure machine, erasing all of the information they were collecting; he set of a code pink alarm; and then there was the small glitch where my insurance company was billing some woman in Texas with a similar name to mine for my baby. However, everything managed to calm down and they actually let us leave the hospital with this perfect baby.

Kyra Elizabeth was born on the 20th at 9:40 a.m., 19 inches long, 7 lbs and 1/2 oz.

I feel so blessed to have her! Now if I can just figure out how she works without too many wrong turns!