Timeline...

Just wanted to give everyone a timeline of Quint's birth, since our lives have changed quite a bit...

Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2009

3:00 am-6:00am contractions 10 minutes apart
6:00-6:30am- tried to take a bath, but contractions getting closer and more painful
6:45- called hospital, doc told me to come into the hospital
6:45-8- finished getting ready, got things lined up for Reagan, in the meantime, having contractions 5 minutes apart that lasted 30-45 seconds and they did not feel good!
7:45 Lauren arrived to take care of Reagan...Reagan didn't know what to think when I was in the middle of a contraction...it scared her to death!
8-left for hospital
8:30 got checked in...contractions 3 minutes apart and I was NOT a happy camper! 6 cm
9:45 epidural ordered, and they said they'd be in within 20 minutes...
10:45 still no epidural!!!!!!!
11:00 epidural guy finally gets there...with "a student" (should have known that was a bad sign)
11:30 had to "make adjustments" with the epidural (basically, the student messed up the epidural...nicked the dura, so they had to stick me again)...ironically, the exact same thing happened to my sister 3 months ago
11:45 finally comfortable...ahhhhh!
12:00 doc comes into break my water, but I talked her into waiting on my mom...7 cm.
12:30 BP dropped to 88/28...not good, so they had to give me ephedrine.
1:30 Mom took off from Columbus to try to get here for the birth...7 cm
2:40 Mom landed at BWI...8cm
3:15 9cm, still waiting on Mom...cutting it close
3:20 Mom walks in, they break my water
3:30 start pushing
3:40 I yelled at Mom (funny story)
3:50 Carl Herman Kuhl V was born weighing 8 lb, 12 oz, 21 inches long, cute as can be!

Not much happened the rest of this night...Quint got his first bath and I got moved to another room. Angela (aka Nana) got there and was an unbelievable help! Jim and Charis came to visit us at the hospital. Carl went home to relieve Lauren and take care of Reagan and Mom stayed with me at the hospital.

Thursday, Jan. 22
Reagan came in to meet her baby brother for the first time. She got there at about 9:30 and didn't know what to think. She kept pointing at him, but other than that was disinterested. She was more fascinated by the different things in the room (Mommy's hospital bed, the phone, etc). I was feeling pretty good most of the day because they had me downing a TON of caffeine in order to produce spinal fluid so that my spinal headache from the whacked epidural would go away. Oh, little Carl got circumcised too. Poor baby!

Friday, Jan. 23
Today we get to go home! Most of the morning, we just got ready and tried to organize all of the stuff we had accumulated over the past 2 days. I was feeling really lousy all day though. I had all kinds of neck and shoulder pain and couldn't figure out what the deal was. The nurses just kept telling me it was from tensing up so much when I was pushing, but it was so unbearable. At one point, the pain made me nauseous and I got really sick. At that point, they were concerned about discharging me...ugh. I just wanted to come home and see Reagan! Finally they decided to send me home and we got home between 2-3. I was pretty miserable all afternoon and was only comfortable lying flat on my back, so I called my doctor back and she said I needed to go back into the ER for a blood patch. Basically, they take blood out of my arm (20 cc's) and put it into the hole in my back where they messed up the epidural to "fill the space". This allows the spinal fluid to be redistributed back throughout the spinal column and takes away the headache. So, once we got Reagan down for the night, we headed back to the hospital where they did this procedure on me. Though it hurt, the pain of the 3rd epidural was nothing in comparison to the headache! By 11:30 we were headed home and I was back to my happy self again!

What a whirlwind! Angela stayed until Saturday night and did a ton...took care of Reagan, ran to Target, Wal-Mart, and random other places for us, cooked, etc! Lauren was a huge help too for keeping Reagan all day while I was in labor, and I can't imagine adjusting to all of this without my mom here! She's been doing laundry, vacuuming, changing Reagan and Quint (I'm not supposed to be lifting Reagan yet), and helping me in the middle of the night when the boy's up! It's been crazy around here, but worth every second!

Weepy...

Lately I've been really emotional and I couldn't put my finger on why until last night when I was putting Reagan to bed. I went through our typical nighttime routine of changing her diaper and changing her into her pjs, giving her some medicine (this isn't typical, but she has an ear infection right now), rocking her while singing a couple of songs, praying with her, and then just snuggling her for a little bit before I laid her down in her crib. As I was doing all of this I was so, so emotional and Reagan just kept looking at me like "what is wrong mommy?" I realized that I've been this way because there are only about 3 weeks left until the baby comes which means I only have 3 weeks left to focus most of my attention on Reagan. I know that she'll be fine and I'll be fine, but I guess the closer I get to the due date, the more I wonder if I'm ready for 2 or not. It doesn't help that Reagan's been sick, so she's been really needy lately, plus I haven't been sleeping very well....which adds to me being emotional. I took this picture of Reagan relaxing with Daddy one day when he got home from work...so sweet!