sisters

One week old!

Kaela is one week old! We celebrated by going to church and eating pizza at brent & melissa's house. All the kids had fun playing outside, and the adults held the baby and watched football.

all the cousins

gymnastics!!

Busy, fun weekend

We had a very busy weekend. First, Grandma and Grandpa Kriete came for lunch and to visit. They got to get in some more baby holding time (well, at least grandma!), and grandpa got to play with Jenna a lot. Saturday night, grandma ruth and all the cousins and aunts & uncles from niki's side of the family came to visit. Mammo fixed a wonderful meal, and the kids all had a great time playing inside and outside. We got a gymnastics demonstration from all the kids (jenna even did somersaults and david, well, I'll just call it tumbling). All the cousins got to hold their new baby cousin, Kaela.

A smile (or at least a pleasant look!)

Doesn't it kind of look like she's already smiling? Probably not, but its a cute picture.

Labor Story

Sunday Morning 4:00 am: After getting up to go to the bathroom, I went back to get in bed and something was trickling down my leg, I realized that my water had broken and amniotic fluid was slowly trickling out of me (much different than the gush I would have expected). So, thankfully, Betsy was able to take over and stay with Jenna while we got things ready and went to the hospital. Meanwhile, I was still leaking. We got to the hospital about 4:45 and check in. At this point, the people checking me in are kind of confused because I am so cheerful and not at all like a woman in labor. I was having mild contractions with no pain at all. So, they got me into a room and wanted to verify that my water had broken. They took a sample of the fluid, and it was negative. Another sample, again negative. At this point I think I'm going crazy or that I've lost all control of my bladder or something because I was still leaking. Finally, the attending came in just as they are doing an ultrasound to check my fluid levels and announced that she looked at the sample and that it was amniotic fluid. Hooray!! So, they take my blood, hook me up to some iv fluids, and start the pitocin, since I'm still not having regular painful contractions and I was only 4 cm dilated. They also informed me that I can have an epidural whenever I wanted it woohoo! But I decide to wait since I wasn't in pain yet. After a couple of hours, I heard the nurses comment about how laboring women were just rolling in the door. So, I decided to go ahead and have the anethesiologist put in the epidural while he was still available. At this point, my mom and dad and matt's mom had made it and were keeping me company. A few minutes after my epidural was probably the scariest part of my labor because the epidural caused my blood pressure drop drastically and I about passed out. After pumping me with fluids and high blood pressure meds, I was back to normal. The rest of the morning was pretty uneventful, they took me off pitocin because I was dilating and contracting, and the baby didn't like how often the contractions were. At about 2:30 I felt extreme pressure (still no pain because of the epidural) and it was time to push. At 2:51, Kaela Grace was born!

She's Here!!!

Kaela Grace Kriete has arrived!

She was born Sunday, October 21st at 2:51 pm

she weighed 8lbs 4ozs, 20 inches long

I'll fill in more details later, here are some pictures!

wednesday morning, october 17, 3cm

I went to the doctor this morning and I am 3 cm dilated. My doctor scheduled an induction for tuesday night, but she thinks I'll probably go before then. Its just nice to know that there will be a baby here at least by next wednesday!

still waiting....

We are still awaiting the arrival of Kriete baby girl #2. When asked if she would like mommy and daddy to bring a baby sister home from the hospital, Jenna replies with a defiant "No"! So it should be interesting to see her reaction. She does enjoy playing with her baby dolls and especially likes to take her baby for a walk in her little stroller. There is supposed to be a big storm coming through wednesday night, so maybe the change in barometric pressure will get things going....we'll have to wait and see!