K's room - finished pics!

Didn't Dad do a terrific job on K's rughooking??

Not much to share

..just a couple of pictures. We had a fairly lazy day today. Patrick slept in a bit, and so did Ms. K. We all napped in the afternoon and then all went out together to run errands. Ms. K has been happily feeding every 2.5-4 hours depending. I'm ok with 2.5 during the day as long as I'm getting 4's at night!

Ms. Kathryn asleep in her car seat, post-errand running:



All passed out on the tigger activity mat after a good long stare at the dangling keys:

Ms. Kathryn with her Grandma D:

K: 2 weeks old! P: 20.5 months old!

Photo sessions for all! Unfortunately, only these 2 pictures turned out!

Post-appointment

We're back!

Ms. Kathryn now weighs 7 lbs 8.5 oz! Thats a 6.5 gain in a week! What a girl!!

My staples are out. My incision looks good. I'm now being held together with 8 steri-strips which can come off next Tuesday if they don't fall off in the interum!

Ms. Kathryn doesn't have to go back to the N.P. again until after Feb 4th. Yippie!!

Auntie Boo finally meets Ms. Kathryn

Lisa was sick when Kathryn was born, but was finally recovered enough yesterday to come and meet her! Yay!

Course our little sleeper slept through the whole thing... silly girl.

1 week old!

Kathryn is 1 week old aready. WOW! We've come a long way in 7 small days.

Kathryn is now (knock on wood) on somewhat of a schedule. Generally she eats at 3, 6, 9, 12 around the clock, with a few cluster feeds a couple times a day.

Her awake spells are getting longer and longer, and she had 2x2-hour awake times yesterday. Unfortunately one was when I was hoping to be sleeping from 10-12midnight last night. She pretty much fed non stop and was still rooting at me when I said "enough!" and put her to bed. She fussed briefly and then went on to sleep until 3, and then till 6. I finally rolled out of bed around 8, just in time to play briefly with P before my Dad took him to school.

K fed again at 9 and then had a bath, which she surprisingly enjoyed! She now smells sweet again, instead of her usually gassy self. I hope it will last. She snuggled with me a bit and then drifted off into dreamland, and I had a nice hot shower which was LOVELY.

I guess there isn't much more to report than that. I continue to heal. I can get around pretty well, until around dinner time when I am sore and tired, despite having a nap in the afternoon.

I thought I had new pictures, but i guess I haven't uploaded them yet! Maybe next week.

Pictures FINALLY!!

They never load the way I want them to :( Oh well. Here they are, in random order!

Ms. K and mommy in the hospital - the first few minutes of meeting

Ms. K in the swing - Monday January 8th.
Mommy & Ms. Kathryn
Daddy and his little girl - Sunday January 7th
Grandma and Kathryn - Saturday January 6th.

Monday

We've made it through another night. Ms. K decided she was AWAKE after her 1:30 a.m. feeding and proceeded to be awake until 3 a.m. She did sleep well after that until 6:30 and I have a surprising amount of energy! Go figure.

Patrick has gone to school with Grandpa, my mom is having her shower, and Ms. K is in the swing beside me. She's not too happy that we're trying to keep her semi awake - I can't handle the late-night-awake-times and we need to adjust her to being awake during the day.

She's smiling away, being just full of gas. Very cute. I tried to capture the moment. Amazing how much she resembles Mr. P when he was this age!

At about 9, Ms. K is having a bath, then a snack, and then a photo session! I need to get her thank you card photo done as well as the enclosure pictures for our "christmas" letter which will go out (hopefully!) later this week.

We're home!

on Jan 4th, Kathryn was born at 8:37 a.m. weighing 7 lbs, 13 oz (making Sara, dad and Janae equal winners of the birth weight prize) and 19 inches long. She has a TON of dark black hair and really long fingernails! We've been joking that she spent more time concentrating on her hair and nails then growing longer. Silly girl.

The surgery was completely different for me this time. I could feel every tug, pull, push. It was quite nauseating! However, my time spent in recover was about half of what it was with Patrick which was terrific. I got to hold my little girl IN the operating room before she and Shaun were off for tests, etc. She's got a clear bill of health!

The first night went well. She's quite the nurser on my right side, but is rejecting the left. We've tried quite a few things to get her to latch and she did successfully once - but now the left is sooo engorged there is nothing really I can do. We're going to call around about breast sheilds and hope that helps. Otherwise, I'll let the left dry up and we'll feed exclusively on the right - it can be done! And the aggrivation for both of us concerning the left is just too much.

K is also eating formula after nursing each feeding. The amount has decreased drastically so we can only assume that she's getting 90% of her meals from me! This is quite encouraging as by this time I had completely given up with Patrick. I am quite excited at the prospect of having a child that nurses and not having to worry about bottles.

She is a very content baby. Sleeps well in her crib or anywhere. Last night she went from 1-5 without waking, but I woke her at 5 to eat because I needed relief.

Right now she is napping in the swing - which isn't swinging because the batteries died last night. They are on the shopping list.

Patrick is doing well too. He's still working on that 17th tooth so he's a bit cranky. He was thrilled to meet his sister and was just fascinated with her and he wasn't 'mad' at us which was nice. Today I'm going to make quite an effort to spend some quailty time with him as we haven't had any since the 3rd.

As for me, I am healing well. I'm slow, and I can't pick up anything heavy, but I'm finding ways around it. I can pick up P if I'm sitting because I use my back, not my abs, which is great because I need my Patrick hugs :)

I was going to post a picture , but all the ones of me are terrible. WE're planning a photo session later today after K has her bath, so there will eventually be photos. Stay tuned!

25 hours to go!

At this time tomorrow (6:45) I will be at the hospital checking into the surgical unit and being prepped for Kathryn's birth. The surgery is scheduled to start at 7:45, with her birth being around 8 a.m. I will likely be moved to recovery by 8:45ish and then spend about 2-3 hours there until I get the feeling back in my legs. Then I will FINALLY get to hold my little girl. I can't wait.

I had my final weigh-in this morning and I've gained EXACTLY 30 lbs. NOt to shabby at all! I would have prefered 25, but I didn't work that hard at not gaining weight, so I am happy with where I am.

Shaun has gone to work. He left just before I got up, but I know he had a nice long hot shower because he left me JUST enough water for a 4-minute rush job. I was not amused. Tomorrow I'm having FIRST shower and I might just be nice enough to leave him enough hot water so he can experience the frustration.

This morning, Mr. P and I are getting groceries and then at 10 we're going to his school to re-introduce him to his teacher and the playground. I've been very worried about him going to school tomorrow because he's been off for a week and a half (they were closed and then monday was a holiday). I am hoping that a brief re-introduction to his teacher and some of his friends during his favourite part of the day (outside play) will help him when he is dropped off by my parents on Thursday morning.

Patrick is also teething. He seems to be getting his 2nd year molar (tooth #17) on the bottom right. Yesterday he was chewing his fingers so hard that he had indents from his other teeth on them, and they were red and sore. I've been keeping him fairly drugged to help with the pain, but he refuses to use chewey toys. I've been feeding him smallish-hard things so that hopefully he will crunch them over the new tooth site as a way of teething. I also brought more icecream bars up from the basement freezer as they have helped in the past.

My parents are set to arrive today around 11 a.m. Mom is going to stay here with P while Dad and I go to the hospital for an OB appointment and my presurgical screening appointment. It would also be nice to hit walmart, time permitting.

I can't believe we're down to the final hours. I'm not even sure I'm ready!!

bragging

ok so I lied. I'm updating again!

Patrick and I JUST got back from a big walk! I wasn't planning to go as far as we did, but we ended up leaving at 9, playing at the park until 9:30, and then we walked downtown to get stamps, pick up a balance of my prescription, spend some time at the pet store (Patrick is currently REALLY into fish) and then we got muffins at Tim Hortons for a snack and walked home! We didn't get back home until almost 11!!! I am very proud of myself for being able to go that far at this stage of the game (39.5 weeks).

On our way home we met Grampy Paul who was on his way home from shopping at the grocery store. Patrick was really excited to see him! I am so glad the he recognizes and gets excited when he sees his grandparents.

Patrick is now having a yummy lunch of re-heated mac&cheese before heading off for nap-time probably at 11:30. I think I'll be joining him!

Alone

Well, Shaun went back to work today. He got up and left quite early. When I got out of the shower at 6:30 he was already gone. He DID make me a coffee before he left though which was SUPER sweet!!

P is still sleeping. This is our last mommy-son full day together. Shaun took the van so I'm hoping for good weather so we can go to the park and potentially walk downtown. We'll see.

I got out the baby bath last night and this morning after my shower I washed it. I put out a towel and cloth for Kathryn. I can't believe she's almost here!! Don't forget to register your birth weight guess!!

Stay tuned to Shaun's blog (manofport.blogspot.com) for updates and pictures following the big event on Thursday morning. He likely won't get anything posted until Friday afternoon, but you never know! Oh and if you just ITCHING for details, call here (but not between 11:30 and 3 because P is napping) and my parents will give you the details.

Kathryn's birth weight

I've started a list of people's guesses for K's birth weight. If you'd like to wager a guess, send me a comment and I'll update this entry to include it. The winner gets nothing, except the satisfaction of being RIGHT!

Deb: 8 lbs 2 oz
Shaun: 7 lbs 10 oz
Dorothy: 8 lbs, 7 oz
Paul: 7 lbs, 8 oz
Ellen: 9 lbs, 2 oz
Alan: 8 lbs, 10 oz
Sara: 8 lbs
Derek: 7 lbs, 6 oz
Lisa: 8 lbs, 6 oz
James: 6 lbs, 4 oz
Charlene: 8 lbs, 3 oz
Steph B: 7 lbs, 5 oz
Jay: 8 lbs, 1 oz
Ayla: 9 lbs
Mattea: 9 lbs
Janae: 8 lbs
Grandpa F: 7 lbs 4 oz
Marilyn & Jim: 8 lbs, 3 oz & 7 lbs, 9 oz
Dr. B: 8 lbs, 11 oz

Welcome, 2007!

Well here it is, a brand new year! Already. Where did 2006 go?!

I was REALLY hoping to go into labour on my own yesterday and have a new years eve baby, but no such luck. We had a fairly quiet day and had Shaun's parents over for cards and munchies last night. They stayed till 11, and Shaun and I were asleep before midnight.

We got an early start today - P was up at 7! He's been sleeping well past 8 for the past few days but no such luck today. The weather looks nice so hopefully we'll get out to the park for a while!