Pictures & the rundown

This is me waiting in triage to be taken to the OR, the last pregnant picture. Notice the big grin? I'm WAY excited to be almost done being pregnant!


This is Mark just before entering the OR. My midwife, Janice, was kind enough to take this shot. Even though you can't see his face I know that he has a big grin under that mask. We were both SO excited & happy!


Mark took this one when he was finally able to come into the OR. They were still doing a little bit of prep for the surgery but it could've been almost over for all I knew. I couldn't feel a thing! Spinal blocks are AMAZING once you get past the side effects of feeling like you can't breathe and that you're going to puke. Once I got the puking out of the way I could breathe just fine! I think the oxygen mask was precautionary.

Once Katy was out I told Mark to hurry and get some "gooey" pictures of her. I have the mental image of my other kids like that but with the c-section I didn't want to miss out on those memories!


The nurse from the nursery brought Katy over to me after they did the initial clean up before heading to the nursery & Mark took the top photo. Then she was kind enough to take this one of the three of us. I couldn't stop looking at Katy even long enough for the picture. She is SO beautiful & she is FINALLY here!

For those of you who can't imagine it, here is a picture of Katy on the scale in the nursery, minutes after birth. The reading is 10 lbs 11.4 oz. At 22 inches long I feel like she can't really qualify as a newborn, can she?

Here are Mark & Katy together in triage where we went to recover until a regular room had opened up. I honestly have zero memory of taking this picture so I REALLY hope one of the nurses did!

This is Katy with Aunt Sarah just a few hours after birth. It took a little while before we got into a regular room & Aunt Sarah came within minutes us getting settled! We had to document the big alert eyes. She looks like a baby who is a few weeks old in this one, not like a baby just hours after being born!

Here is another of Katy's very first visitors, Uncle Mike. You can't tell by the smile on Mike's face but he was a little nervous about holding her. He did though & he has even held her a few other times since then as well! We think he is a great uncle & the kids seem to agree!

This is the first time Jay & Lizzie met their new sister. When we went into the hospital last Wednesday for the big fake out we were happy to notice that the visitor policy for children was that siblings could visit, any non-sibling children visitors had to be 12 & over. Well, on Thursday that changed the rule to no children in the hospital AT ALL due to a late RSV season & the swine flu outbreak. The kids had seen pictures but were disappointed in getting to see the real thing until we were released on Monday. Contrary to the look on Lizzie's face in this picture they were both very happy to meet Katy & to get to see mommy again after almost 3 whole days!

Katy was already showing off what a good sleeper she is in this picture. We were outside the hospital, waiting for Mark to bring the car up & she slept & slept & slept! She is still doing her long sleep stretches during the day but last night I got about 4 hours in one stretch & then we were up for about 2 hours with gas pain before she was able to fall asleep again. After that I got another 3 1/2 hours so she is doing pretty good so far!

This is Katy meeting Grandma Dee for the first time yesterday. Grandma got here yesterday morning & will be here until next week & Katy got to go to the airport to pick Grandma up. It was fun for the whole family to go & see Grandma arrive & then we spent the day at Aunt Sarah's house playing and taking turns holding the baby when she wasn't eating. It was a nice day all around.

There it is, all the pictures so far & the rundown of how things are going so far. We are so happy to have Katy here & SO blessed to have so much loving family around to take care of us while we figure out how to take care of Kathryn. And even though there isn't a single picture showing it, I do hold the baby & often!