Katelyn Joy

Poor forgotten Katie..... she's three weeks old already and I haven't posted a single picture of her yet. We really do love you Katie!!

I guess the best place to start would be at the beginning....

Monday afternoon (May 25th) I started feeling pretty sick. I had bad heartburn, a headache, a fever and a stiff neck. But, I toughed it out through my entire shift at work. (I also made Mark FINALLY take a pregnant picture of me that afternoon... I blame the picture for the following events!!) Tuesday morning I wasn't feeling any better - in fact I felt much worse and wasn't feeling the baby kick very much. I got a little panicky and called my family doctor who told me to head over to the Foothills hospital to get checked out.

Mom took me to the hospital and we got to triage around 3:30pm - where they hooked me up to some monitors. Their first impressions was that yes, I was sick. I was running a high fever and the baby's heart rate was sky high - I must have some sort of flu (in fact they made me wear a mask for the first hour or so because they were worried it was H1N1.) They said they were going to hook me up to an IV, give me some fluids, and then I could probably go home and go to work (I still had 4 shifts left at work.) However, even after being pumped full of fluids my fever and the baby's heart rate would not come down. It was consistently beating around the high 180's. Which really concerned the doctors and they started thinking maybe it wasn't the flu, but an infection in the amniotic fluid. They gave me more fluids, but it still didn't help - which made them then decide to induce me.

I was admitted around 5:30pm and given my own labor room around 6:30pm. As soon as we were in the labor and delivery room they went ahead and broke my water. I started having mild contractions immediately. Mom went home around this time and Mark showed up shortly after. The doctor said they would check my progress within an hour of breaking my water - and if the contractions hadn't intensified by then they would start me on oxytocin or pitocin to get things rolling. I had these drugs when in labor with Logan and just remember that they brought such horribly strong contractions with little or no breaks in between. There was no way I wanted those again! So Mark and I walked around the room and tried to make contractions come on naturally - and BAM!! Within minutes we were having strong contraction after strong contraction. (So no oxytocin or pitocin for me, yay!)

At the end of the hour I was dilated 5cm. At this time I wimped out and asked for some drugs and was given fentenol - which literally did NOTHING for me. I started begging for an epidural shortly after but was repeatedly ignored by the nurse and doctor. I was getting quite angry and frustrated and started insisting louder and louder that I NEEDED my FREAKING epidural! They kept sweeping it aside and told me second babies come a lot faster than first babies. When they next checked me (probably about an hour later) I was fully dilated and the doctor wanted me to start pushing. But again I kept insisting - NO! I NEED my epidural!! But, there wasn't time, the baby was ready to come. And after only a handful of pushes - maybe 3 minutes or so, Katelyn Joy Wiens was born at 9:48pm at 8 pounds 12 ounces. (With no epidural).

(This is the ONLY picture we took the night Katelyn was born... our camera battery died after this one and only shot).

After a rough first week, (I was super sick - so my milk wouldn't come in and Katie was wasting away to nothing) Katie is now doing extremely well. She was weighed yesterday and she is FINALLY back up to her birth weight. She just now weighs 9 pounds. She is feeding well and sleeping lots! (In fact we still have to wake her up for her night time feedings.) Logan is slowly starting to realize there is a baby in the house - he is becoming more and more enamoured with Katie. He tries to help lots, but usually just ends up making Katie cry and cry.

Thankfully labor was really easy on me. I didn't even feel like I had a baby. That part has been amazing. No stitches to worry about, no pain, no swelling. However, having said that, I still felt like CRAP for about a week and a half! That heartburn that started that Monday did not go away, but only intensified. I wasn't able to eat or drink for a week without having enormous pain. The doctors ran all sorts of tests (bloodwork, chest xrays, ultrasounds, UGI...) and finally found the issue. I have a small hernia in my esophagaus which was causing awful reflux. So they gave me a couple different prescriptions and after having lost over 40 pounds in six days - things are finally back to normal. So thats good.

So sorry it took me sooooooo long to post pictures of our little Katelyn. Hopefully now I will remain on top of things!!