Ready or not here she comes

Friday morning, I woke up in the mood to clean!  I was annoyed by the mess in my house.  I cleaned the floors throughout the house, dusted, and scrubbed my kitchen counters.  My mom called as I was finishing and pointed out that I had the burst of energy women talk about before they go into labor.  I chuckled and continued on with my day.  Rosie and I had a good afternoon together.  I enjoyed getting to spend some special one-on-one time with her.  Throughout the day, I kept having "cramps" but nothing real regular and at varying intensities.  I chocked it up to the fact that my body was getting ready to have a baby...on Tuesday :)  Bobby had a softball game so he didn't get home until after 6.  He brought Rosie and I gifts and a stack of super sweet cards (that I will treasure for a long time and will help me remember why I do what I do) from my students.  After dinner, we had a laid back evening as a family of 3...and those "cramps" were still hanging around.  

A blanket signed by all my students for Annie

And one for Rosie's baby doll too

We all went to bed pretty early (I was worn out from a hard day of cleaning) and at about 3 a.m. I woke up with some horrible heartburn.  Of course, this meant I couldn't fall back to sleep so I turned on the T.V. and tried hard to find a comfortable position to fall back to sleep. After about 20 minutes or so I realized that those "cramps" I'd been having were really starting to get annoying and hurt!  I decided I should start paying better attention.  I grabbed my laptop a top and found a website that had a contraction calculator (I know some of you think that's silly...but I don't have a stop watch) and started tracking them.  It wasn't long before I realized that they were happening about every 5 minutes or so and were lasting 30-45 seconds.  However, I wasn't convinced this was labor so I kept watching T.V. and playing on the computer.  By this time Bobby is awake and asking if I should call the doctor.  We both decided to get up and shower and at about 5:15, I made the call.  The doctor on call said I should head to the hospital, so we started calling the grandparents, grabbed our stuff and got ready to go.  Bobby's parents came over to stay with Rosie and we were off! 

 Of course we were stopped by every light on the way to the hospital and at one point I was convinced it had moved farther away...it took forever to get there.  Even though I now was pretty sure I was in labor, I wasn't convinced I was having a baby anytime soon and was worried about being sent home.  By 7 a.m. I was hooked up to monitors in triage and a short time later, was being wheeled into the OR for my second c-section in 20 months!!  My doctor was concerned that the baby's heart rate was dropping during my contractions (and she had a 10 o'clock baseball game to get to) so she wasn't wasting anytime.  At 8:55 a.m.,  Annie Rene Kiger was born!!  She's a little peanut, weighing in at 5 lbs 13 oz and 19 1/2 in long, with a head full of dark hair.  For those of you who read my last entry...all my apprehensions went out the window the second I saw her!

Just a few minutes old

It was so fun introducing Annie to her big sister too! Rosie wasn't so sure about things at first, and I'm not sure its really sunk in that this baby is ours , but eventually she warmed up to her and wanted to hug and kiss her over and over.  My favorite moment was when she got to hold Annie.  She loved it and tried to convince everyone in the room to let her hold her again.  She was very dramatic and too cute!

So sweet

Best friends in the making