Please join us in welcoming Kate Elizabeth Archer, born April 30, 2014, at 9:24 am. She is a healthy, beautiful baby girl, and she has filled our hearts with joy!
This is the story of her big entrance...
From the beginning of my pregnancy, I had been hoping for the chance to try a VBAC rather than just scheduling a C-section. I'd love to say that I wanted to do this because I thought it would be better for my baby, but it was for purely selfish reasons. After my C-section experience with Sarah and the time she spent in the NICU for low blood sugar after her birth, I did a ton of research and found that skin-to-skin contact between Mom and Baby immediately after birth helped to regulate blood sugar in babies. Being the selfish girl I am, I wanted to keep my baby with me. This meant no trips to the NICU and, therefore, no blood sugar issues. The only way to get that skin-to-skin contact with my a baby appeared to be having a successful VBAC. Unfortunately, Kate was in no hurry to arrive and (because of my gestational diabetes) we weren't allowed to go past my due date of May 3.
And so we scheduled a C-section for the morning of April 30.
The blessing in this is the fact that I began pushing for skin-to-skin contact in the operating room as soon as I realized a C-section was inevitable. And, lucky me, the stars aligned for us! Originally, the hospital had told me that I would not be allowed to hold my baby in the operating room, but they would allow Tom to have skin-to-skin contact with her in the recovery room while they completed my surgery. This wasn't what I had been hoping for, but I was willing to take it!
Then, the day before my C-section, I had to go in for instructions on how to prep for surgery and to have some preliminary blood work done. I also wanted to verify that Tom would be allowed to hold our daughter immediately after she was born. Imagine my surprise when the nurse told me that Shawnee Mission Medical Center was coming on board with mom-baby contact in the operating room...beginning May 15! I was heartbroken that I would miss having the birth experience of my dreams by just two weeks!!! And then the wonderful woman started making phone calls. Within 10 minutes, she had arranged for me to be one of the trial patients for this practice! I broke down in tears in the poor lady's office and thanked her at least a million times - I was going to get to hold my baby immediately after she was born!
Needless to say, I was much more at ease knowing that I would be able to hold my baby right away. I walked around with a smile on my face for the rest of the day...until Sarah's bedtime on Tuesday night.
I had hoped to cuddle with Sarah one last time as "just the two of us." Being a 3-year-old, though, Sarah had other plans. She spent from 9-10 pm having a temper tantrum in her bedroom. (I think she knew things were changing!) She finally passed out, and Tom and I immediately went to bed since we had to be up and at the hospital early in the morning.
As luck would have it, though, Sarah woke up again at 2 am and began showing signs of tantruming again! I sat with her until Tom came in and tried to put her back in bed...which, of course, caused a full-on tantrum. Unable to leave my "baby" when she was that upset, I stayed with Sarah until she calmed down and fell asleep again around 3 am. And it was then I realized that Tom had locked the two of us in Sarah's room. (We had reversed the door knob on her door so she couldn't lock us out - clever, huh?) A luck would have it, Tom had also decided to go down to sleep on the sofa in the basement so he wouldn't have to listen to Sarah screaming. This meant that he couldn't hear me banging on the door and yelling for him to come let me out! I ended up spending the rest of the night curled up at the foot of Sarah's bed, hoping that Tom would come let me out before I had to be at the hospital in the morning.
Finally, around 6:15, Tom came upstairs and realized that I couldn't get out of Sarah's room. He opened the door and I didn't even take time to yell at him - I just rushed to go take the mandatory pre-surgery shower the hospital wanted me to take! I showered, dressed, and was ready to go by 6:45 so we could be at the hospital by 7:00...but PaPa hadn't shown up yet to take care of Sarah for us. (Apparently, he and Grammie got their messages crossed about times, and he was picking up doughnuts from John's Space Age for Sarah!)
I was panicked about getting to the hospital late, so I drove myself to Shawnee Mission Medical Center and checked in by myself. Luckily, Tom arrived about 15 minutes later and we were taken back to our pre-surgery/recovery room across the hall from the operating rooms in the maternity ward. We met our nurses (Allie and Megan were there to help me, and Kaitlyn would be helping Kate), I got my IV in and my hospital gown and mesh hat on, and then we killed time until they were ready to start the C-section.
Just before 9:00 am, the nurses told me that we were ready to go! I walked across the hall to the operating room, passing through the huge crowd of people who were there to help with the C-section. I felt like I should be shaking hands or high-fiving them as I walked into the O.R.! Then I hopped up on the table and the anesthesiologist put in my epidural while Tom put on his "jumpsuit." Before I knew it, they were checking to make sure I was numb and the surgery had begun!
Tom sat on the stool next to my head and held my hand throughout the surgery. We talked about what Kate might look like and how much we thought she would weigh, and then my doctor was announcing that they could see a lot of hair! The next thing I knew, I was hearing her first cries. Is there any sound more amazing in the whole world? I think not!
The nurses gave me a quick peek at little Kate before whisking her over to be dried off and weighed...
Tom had brought his iPod with him, so Kate was welcomed to the world the same way Sarah was - she got to listen to the song Tom and I danced to at our wedding ("In My Life" by Allison Crowe) in the operating room. Unlike Sarah, though, she stayed on my chest through the rest of the surgery! She even tried to nurse, but only got to suck on my collarbone...and my chin...and my cheek...due to the way she was placed on my chest.
As soon as we made it back to recovery, though, she started eating like a champ!
Kate stayed on my chest while we admired her tiny beauty and marveled at how much she looked like Sarah had at birth! We counted her fingers and toes (ten of each!) and debated which side we should part all of her hair on. We let her wrap her fingers around ours and rejoiced in the sheer happiness that we felt just looking at her tiny nose, her perfectly arched eyebrows, her serious expression. In short, we fell in love with her!
Eventually, though, reality set in and we had to let her go long enough to have her blood sugar checked. While her numbers were low, she didn't show any other symptoms of low blood sugar, so she was allowed to stay with us. YEA!!! Another hour of breastfeeding and skin-to-skin contact brought her numbers up to normal, and we were cleared to move to our postpartum room.
But first, Kate got her first bath! The nurses did this in the recovery room, which meant that I got to see it, too!
After her bath, the nice nurse made Kate a hat with a giant bow on it. If you know me at all, you know how much I HATE giant bows on little girls (just a personal issue!), but I managed to leave the hat on until we had been moved to our new room. Sorry, Kate!
Around 1:00, we moved into our new room. As luck would have it, we were put in "overflow" in one of the old labor and delivery rooms. So much for enjoying the nice new maternity addition! The room was nice and big, but the window was about 3 feet from the huge windows of the new maternity ward lobby. This meant we had to keep the shades closed most of the time to avoid being on display for everyone entering or leaving the maternity ward!
Luckily, I was perfectly content to look at the baby in my arms.
Around 5:00, Grammie and PaPa brought Sarah up to the hospital to meet her little sister. Sarah ran into the room pushing her own "baby" in a stroller with an "It's a Girl!" balloon tied to the back of it! She was very curious and very sweet with Kate, and she shared her doll and lots of kisses with her sister.
Then the nurse brought in the gift that Sarah had picked out and wrapped for Kate when we took our "big sister class" at the hospital!
Sarah helped Kate unwrap it.
Then Sarah got an official "Big Sisters Rock" hospital bracelet! She didn't wear it long (and who can blame her?!), but it was cute for a minute and a half!
Then Sarah discovered my Jello. And the controls on my bed. I was glad that my epidural was still in by the time she was done moving that bed up and down!!!
Grammie let PaPa take a turn holding Kate...
...and then everyone said goodbye for the night!
Adam and Megan stopped by around 7:00, but then Kate and I were on our own until the next morning. I was happy that she has so many people in her life who love her, but I was more than happy to spend some time alone with my youngest daughter, too. Even though I was exhausted, I was thoroughly happy and completely in love!
Welcome to the world, baby Kate. We're so glad you're here!
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