Beautiful Girl #2

At 6:29 pm on Wednesday, May 28, Kayden Stephanie Culhane entered the world. For all you stats people, she weighed 8 lbs 7.2 oz and was 20 3/4 inches long. That is the exact same length as Keeley was and 3 oz lighter. That 3 oz must make a huge difference because she seems a MILLION times tinier. I suppose this could be because Keeley seems so grown-up now!

Here are some highlights of the event:





Our story if you are interested...it is long but will prevent me from repeating details a million times :-) :

Kelly and I checked into the hospital at 5 am Wednesday morning to have Kayden induced. Everyone said your second labor should go faster. I had high hopes for meeting Kayden by lunch. Unfortunately, she had created quite a swimming pool in me which prevented me from progressing. So, even though I was having contractions 2 minutes apart most of the day, nothing happened until they broke my water. Wednesday was apparently a bad day to be at the L&D ward because there were two code blues, an emergency c-section, and a woman that arrived on an ambulance just about ready to deliver. Needless to say, Kayden and I were a little lower on the priority scale than all those people! My doctor, whom I love, also delivered 4 babies at two different hospitals and had several patients who were being monitored for pre-term labor...all of which delayed meeting my sweet little girl.

Because the anesthesiologist was so busy, my epidural was delayed much longer than I wanted it to be. In the process, the nurse gave me some IV medicine...nubane or something. I only got half the dose but that was all I needed. Drugs are our friends. I quickly fell asleep and slept for a long time!

Finally, at 4:30 (almost 12 hours since we checked in...), the doctor arrived to break my water (a decision that was deemed necessary at 10 that morning). She confirmed that I had a swimming pool that Kayden was enjoying and assured me that things would progress much faster now that she had less room. I asked how much faster and she said that they expect second labors to progress 1 cm an hour. That was NOT what I wanted to hear. I was only at 4cm...I had no desire to spend 6 more hours waiting to meet Kayden!

At 6:15, I called the nurse to tell her I thought it was close. The doctor entered the room and the nurse began to prepare the room for delivery. The actual delivery started about 6:25 and she was here at 6:29. So, I suppose she was even faster than Keeley once she decided to come into the world!

We are all doing quite well - just VERY, very tired. "Sleep when the baby sleeps" only applies to one parent per child. Kelly and I are sneaking naps in while we can. I will update our picasa photo page as we get more pictures.