Baby Kate

Here she is...



Katherine "Kate" Genevieve Kirkwood, born April 2 at 4:55 a.m.

Contractions started Friday night after Molly went to bed. They felt the same as the ones I'd been having all day so I didn't think much of it. I got a couple hours of sleep before the contractions were strong enough to wake me, then I started timing them in bed around 11:15 p.m. An hour later they were still strong and regular so I got up. As usual, walking made them closer together but weaker. I told Jim to go back to bed. I figured I'd time a few more then go back to sleep. While I was waiting between contractions, I looked at some stuff about how lying in certain positions during contractions can jiggle the baby into a better position to kick-start labor, so I decided to try it. It took about an hour -- long and boring waiting for contractions while lying weird ways in the dark on the living room floor. When I got up, the contractions changed almost immediately. They were stronger but more irregular, so I still thought this was another false alarm. Fortunately, in retrospect, around this time I thought I felt my water break. We called the midwife and she told us to head to the hospital and they would decide whether it was time to be admitted or not. My contractions were very intense in the car but I was still worried they would stop at any moment. While we waited to register I was pressing my head against the wall and leaning over on chairs during contractions. This was around 3 a.m. They hooked me up to the monitor in a delivery room and I had to wait through several contractions sitting in the bed while waiting for our midwife, Amy -- not fun. When Amy finally checked me she found that my water hadn't broken but was trickling. Then she checked my dilation and announced that I was almost fully dilated! Wow! So I stood up and pressed my head against Jim's chest through some more contractions. Then totally instinctively the pushing started. I felt like my legs were going to give out so I got on my knees on the chair that they had put next to the bed for Jim, leaning my hands on the bed. The doula gave me a cold wet washcloth for my forehead. Amy let me labor there for a while before deciding it could get dangerous and suggested I climb onto the bed in the same position. They raised the back of the bed and leaned against the back. Everybody was saying encouraging things, like that we'd have our baby in our arms before breakfast. Pushing was intense and hard and awful, but I didn't feel my body fighting it as much as it did during Molly's labor. I just wanted it to be over so badly I felt myself giving extra pushes at the end of each surge. Kate was born in her amniotic sac -- my water never broke. They handed the baby forward to me through my legs and laid her on the bed right in front of me. It was amazing!!!! I could get such a good look at her that way. So less than two hours after arriving at the hospital we had our baby.

Everybody in the hospital was very supportive of letting us leave after just a day, so we were able to check out this morning. We decided to keep Molly home yesterday to give her a little more time to clear the germs before seeing the baby. This morning she came in and escorted her little sister home.

It's so nice to have our little family together. Kate is sleeping, Jim just made dinner and the rest of us sat down to eat, just like are usual routine. It feels so good to be home and to be done with all the worries of the past week. Ahhhhh.