I'm watching you toss and turn in your sleep right now on our video monitor. Poor little thing. Sometimes you are so uncomfortable trying to sleep. At 10 weeks old, you're still pretty gassy. We don't swaddle you anymore so sometimes you wake yourself up with your little hands. We had a good weekend this weekend. We took you up to one of our favorite climbing areas on Saturday. Our friends Jason and Susan Henrie helped us out by taking turns holding you. You were so good! You even cooed at them. On Sunday you made your first trek to the Grand Canyon. I don't think you were very impressed as you slept most of the way through it. I'm sure there are many more Grand Canyon trips in store for you! So I think you were pretty worn out today. Maybe it was too much excitement for you so young, but you seem to love being outside. I hope that continues!
Ok so we still need to catch up by talking about your birth. I'm going to copy the text of an email I sent out describing what those days were like (I will edit it a bit). It was quite a ride--but I think many births are for the mommies.
So the plan was to have you at home. As we approached your due date of March 3rd, I was beginning to get anxious. I wanted you out! On the evening of March 2nd, your dad and I went climbing at the climbing gym. I promised you a pony if you would come on your due date! So on March 3rd when my water broke at 8 am we were hoping for a smooth ride ( he he). Since I wasn't having contractions, dad and I went for a 4-mile hike to try to get things going. In AZ, midwives only have 24 hours from the time your water breaks to get you into "active labor" (generally defined as at least 4cm dilated with hard contractions). So when after the hike nothing was happening, we got a little concerned. At 4, I drank castor oil. This did end up stimulating contractions, but it also causes diarrhea so it was hard for me to tell which was which! I was getting really worried.
Finally, contractions began at 9pm and reached 5 min apart at about 3:30 am. We called our midwife, Sierra, and she came over and checked my cervix. Bad news only 1 cm. She left and came back at 7:30 am. I felt my contractions were pretty hard, but at 24 hours post water breaking, I was still only 1.5 cm.
Unfortunately, this meant we had to go to the hospital. There was a danger of infection to you once the water breaks. So we loaded up and went to the hospital at about 9:30 am on the fourth. I was so scared that they were going to freak out at Sierra for letting us go so long. I was also really concerned about you.
At the hospital, I was given iv fluids and pitocin to stimulate contractions. Unfortunately this basically tied me to the bed which made contractions unbearable. I labored like that until about 5 pm. Another exam showed that I was only 3 cm dilated. Yikes! At that point I had been up for over 24 hours and my pitocin contractions were heinous. I made the difficult decision to get an epidural.
Boy what a difference that made! I actually managed to sleep for a few hours! That was huge. After a nap, we checked again-- still only about 4 cm. They upped my pitocin right about the time we discovered that the epidural was only fully working on my right side. It was fine though--actually nice to have some feeling.
Anyway this went on for a few more hours without much progress. They gave me antibiotics because my temp was starting to rise and you seemed stressed. Finally at about 11:30 pm they said that my cervix was fully dilated and your head was really low (thankfully you had also managed to turn from a sideways facing direction to a posterior facing one--by the way--thanks for that!).
By this time, the epidural had mostly worn off-(or whatever happens to give you feeling again)-which was a good thing because I could feel the contractions and knew when to push. Lucky for me, this was the one stage that went fast. I started pushing at 11:45 and you were fully out by 12:22! They let your daddy catch you and cut the cord. You were so beautiful. When they first brought you out onto my chest, you looked like a bloody monster, but as soon as they wiped you clean, you were just as cute as can be. You were 6lbs 15 oz and 19.5 inches long. All the nurses agreed that you were extremely cute for a newborn.
Wow what a day (or couple of days). I was so exhausted, but couldn't keep my eyes off of you. The nurses kept telling me that you had a good chance of getting sick due to infection. They came in every few hours to check on you. At one point, I took a little nap and the nurses said your temperature was too low and took you away. When I woke up I was freaking out. Your dad told me where you were, but I didn't want them to take you to Neonatal Intensive Care (NICU). I got up and went to the nurses station to find you. There you were on the little warming pad--just as pretty as can be!
The hospital was exhausting because they woke us up so often. We worked on getting you to eat well and you seemed to do pretty well. Gosh you were so tiny. You hardly cried at all. Even when they stuck you with a needle to draw blood you didn't cry. You were just so mellow. Your father was so exhausted, he probably barely remembers the hospital! I was lucky enough to have the adrenaline of giving birth, so I just stayed awake and held you. It was so hard to believe that you were my daughter!
The nurses were pressing us to give you a name. I was so stressed about it. Your dad and I had a list of some names, but we couldn't decide what to call you. Finally we narrowed our choices down to four and we each ranked them. We agreed that the name with the lowest rank would be yours---that's how you became Catalina! First we called you Catalina Amelia, but we decided that didn't quite sound right. I think it was your grandmother that suggested Catalina Rose. We both thought it sounded perfect for you. I hope you like your name.
Ok my darling. I will probably take one more entry to write about the early days of having you--then we should be caught up to the present. Its hard for me to imagine you reading this one day. I hope I keep up with writing the entries. Sometimes I'm not very good at that!
Love
Mom
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