d+k+h+n: It's a girl!!

Well...we saw this day coming. We met with the doctor and picked a day, and it has since come and past. Which is surreal, because now Katie and I are parents of two, a boy and GIRL!!! That's right, joining Henry Jon is Nora Beverly, weighing in at 8 lbs 13 oz and 19 1/2" long. Katie, Henry, and I couldn't be happier to welcome such a precious little girl to our family. Here's how it all went down.

Having picked a date for a repeat c-section a few weeks earlier, we had time to prepare more so this time around. So our story starts the night before with Barb and Jenna coming to spend the night before with us. To celebrate the birth, we decided to give Katie a last supper (no food after midnight), which subsequently resulted in going to Olive Garden! After enjoying a delicious meal, we rushed home to put Henry to bed and to finish packing for the hospital. After setting the alarm for 4 a.m., we headed for bed at about 11:30 (who needs sleep anyway)!

The next morning came swiftly and by 4:10, Katie was already up and getting ready. I sluggishly stirred around 4:45, but then again, I wasn't the main attraction for the day. However, our morning didn't start without a little hiccup. The day before Henry had a runny nose, which he had subsequently given to me making me a little sneezy and sniffly, which went over like a rock in water. But alas, we needed to get to the hospital by 6 a.m., so we quickly finished getting ourselves put together and arrived promptly to the OB floor at the hospital at exactly 6.

After getting settled in the room and finishing some last minute paper work, the fun began...with the IV. What should be a simple thing to do, turned out to be a bit of an issue. Katie hadn't had anything to eat or drink since midnight which meant her veins were very shallow throughout her hands and arms, making it somewhat difficult to put in an IV. With that said, Katie was stuck 5 times and on the last time, they had success. However, it took 5 nurses and finally the anesthesiologist to get the IV in place...OUCH! By 7:30 we were ready and just needed to wait for the hospital staff to prep the OR for the c-section.

Katie was wheeled to the OR for her spinal at 7:50, and they came back to get me about 15 minutes later. As I walked back the first thing I noticed was how cool it was in the OR area. It was probably in the low 60° area, which they had warned us ahead of time.

Just like last time, I took my position on a stool next to Katie's head and we proceeded to talk until 8:25 when Nora Beverly was born. Just like with Henry, we didn't know going in what we were having so we were ecstatic when we found out we had a little girl!

Nora was perfect! The first thing we noticed was that she wasn't crying very much, which surprised us as Henry screamed at the top of his lungs for quite a while after he was born. This makes me believe the Nora is going to have a similar personality as Katie, since she tends to go with the flow.

After a few tests, Nora and I were back over by Katie and shortly thereafter, we were back in the recovery room letting the family know of the arrival. The rest of the week we spent hanging out with Nora and our parents, until we went home on Friday. It's hard to believe, but we are now parents of two children...crazy!

Here are some more pictures of the big day/week: