She's Here!!!!!

Last Saturday, September 14th our most anticipated day of the year finally arrived.  After being put on hold for the induction list twice and being sent home from the hospital once, Kate decided that if she was going to come into this world it would be on her own time in the natural way.  My labor pains started Friday night as we were getting ready for bed.  The contractions were strong enough that I was finally noticing them, but they were 20 minutes apart all night.  When I woke up around 6:30, the contractions were gone.  So like mentioned before, we headed off to our Saturday activities.  I started getting contractions again after Nathan's game.  We ran by Target to get a present for a birthday party and I started to notice the pain.  This time my contractions were coming about 15 minutes apart but they didn't get any closer than that.  I was worried that the contractions were going to stop so after lunch Kari and I began walking.  It was too hot and I noticed that as I walked, my contractions were not as hard and noticeable.  I decided to quit walking since I didn't think it was doing any good.  Still the pain was consistent about every 15 minutes.  I started to think that we would probably be going to the hospital to have a baby within the night or the next day.  Again, I decided to continue with our Saturday activities and went to Jacob's football game.  While at the game, my contractions started getting closer together.  After the game, we new we would be going to the hospital that night.  I insisted on going home to get our bags and get the boys set up for the next few nights.  Luke still had his football game and we had to arrange his ride and get the boys dinner, so we went home to get ready to go to the hospital.
I started to get in some good pain around 5:45/6:00.  I told Todd we needed to get going.  We dropped Luke off at his game, and went straight to the hospital.  After checking in, they wheeled me to triage where I waited to get hooked up and checked.  When the nurse checked me, I was at a 7.  She booked it to get me an IV so that I could get an epidural.  My water broke right before I got my epidural but the anesthesiologist was awesome and made sure my pain was under control. The nurses at Mercy Gilbert Hospital were excellent. Around 8:45 my delivery nurse, Jen predicted Kate would arrive in about 15 minutes even after the doctor came in and said we would have around an hour or two to wait.  About 15 minutes later, they came in and said that it was time to start pushing.  About three pushes later, Kate was out at 9:06pm.  She was delivered by a doctor, Doctor Mills, covering from another practice because Goodman and Partridge doctors were on a retreat.  That made me 4 for 4 with deliveries using doctors I had never seen before.  However, this was definietly my best delivery and everything went very smoothly.
  

Yes, Kate was big.  We all knew she would be.  She was two days after her due date and weighed 9lbs, 10oz.  She was my second smallest baby with only Jacob being smaller.  Basically all the kids have been about the same size at birth.  At the hospital they measured her being 20.5" long, but two days later, at the doctor, they measured her at 22" long so I am betting she is longer than the original measurement.

 

 

 

We are beyond excited that she is here and are very much in love and awe by this little spirit that is in our family.