Jaffa Family: Announcing the birth of Katelyn Eula

It was Wednesday night and Doug and I were in our room watching tv. I started feeling what I thought could be contractions at around 7:00 pm, but they didn't hurt and they were sporadic so I thought it could be Braxton Hicks, maybe, if it was even a contraction at all. Then around 9:00 pm I noticed they were more regular, so I tried timing them. They averaged 7-8 minutes apart, and lasted anywhere from 1-2 minutes, but I still wasn't positive it was a contraction. I kept timing them and by 10:30 pm they hadn't gotten closer together or more intense so I told Doug I'd last out the night and just go to my scheduled doctor appointment in the morning to see if I had progressed. Doug went to sleep, and I tried to go to sleep, but I was feeling so uncomfortable. It was mostly in my back, I couldn't sit still. I woke Doug up just before midnight and said I wanted to try going to the hospital. I was okay if they turned me away, but the chance to get an epidural and relieve the discomfort would be worth it. At this point the "contractions" were about 5 minutes apart.

We got to the hospital and checked in. The nurse checked me and I was dilated to 5 centimeters and almost fully effaced. I got to stay! They took me to a delivery room and it wasn't long before I got the glorious epidural. I did make it hard for the anesthesiologist because he'd touch my back and I would twitch... I'm really ticklish. He said to keep still, but I couldn't help it. I wasn't worried about the shot, it was just a reflex. After that the nurse would come and check me about every hour and I kept progressing slowly. About 3:00 am the doctor on-call came in and broke my water. The nurse told me to page her if it ever got to the point where I felt pressure and wanted to push. I finally felt something like that at around 6:30 am. The nurse said I was dilated to 10 centimeters but her head was sideways. My doctor didn't come in until 7:00 am, so the nurse wanted to check with the on-call doctor to see if we should start pushing right now or wait a little while and see if my contractions would turn the baby on their own. We decided to wait, and it turns out that my doctor actually got in at 6:45 am. The baby still hadn't turned on her own, so during a contraction my doctor turned her the right way.

We were in the pushing stage now. It took a little while because my contractions weren't very consistent. Some were farther apart than others. It still didn't take too long because at 7:30 the doctor said that one last push would do it, and she was born at 7:31 am. They handed her to me and she proceeded to have her very first bowel movement. I was so happy she had hair! And she was so little! She weighed 6 lbs 11 oz and was 21 inches long. After her first initial cry she was really quiet. Doug had decided he would cut the cord (I was surprised), and then they took her off to do some tests. The doctor finished stitching me up and then they moved me upstairs to a recovery room where we met up with the baby.

She was sooo sleepy that first day and had no interest in eating. I tried breastfeeding but she wouldn't latch on, even with a nipple shield. After about 12 hours where she hadn't eaten anything, the nurse gave me some formula and a feeding tube to feed via SNS (Supplemental Nursing System). That's how she ate the entire stay at the hospital. I never produced more than a couple drops of colostrum, so without the formula she wouldn't have gotten any nutrition. We stayed at the hospital until Saturday and then got to go home.

First day fresh from the nursery

Ready for her very first car ride

The first night home was, memorable. I probably got 30 minutes of sleep between trying to feed her, pump, and then hold her because she'd cry when I put her down. I was pretty miserable. On top of that, the SNS feeding wasn't going very well. To relieve some stress we decided to bottle feed instead, and that decision made all the difference. She would eat a lot faster (15-20 minutes instead of an hour) and it was painless for me (I was getting very sore because she didn't have a good latch). Once my milk came in I was able to pump, and we give her breastmilk during the day and supplement with formula during the night. She sleeps a lot longer on the formula, (3-4 hours) and that makes a big difference.

We had her 2 week appointment today (February 19). She now weighs 7 lbs 2 oz and her length is 18.7 inches. The hospital must have measured her wrong at birth, because she was 21 inches, and I don't think babies shrink. She's in the 15 percentile for weight, 4% for length, and 5% for head circumference. So basically she's just a little thing. She eats about 2-3 oz of breastmilk or formula every 3 hours or so. We're still working on a waking/sleeping pattern. Some days she'll be awake for 2 hours after eating, and other days she'll sleep for 4 hours. She doesn't hate tummy time, and is getting really good at lifting up her head and turning it from side to side. Her umbilical cord fell off a while ago, but the belly button is almost fully healed now. The Dr. said we are okay to start giving her real baths.