Under the Lights

Friday May 8th - Katelynn came home from the hospital! Yeah! It is so fun to have a brand new baby in our home!

Monday, May 11th - We took Katie to the doctor so he could check on her jaundice. She hadn't been jaundice in the hospital, but had started to look a little bit yellow before being discharged from the hospital. Katie had her blood drawn to check the biliruben levels and we got a call directly from the doctor telling us that her levels were quite high and he'd be sending some bili-lights to our home for her to use. She would need to be under the lights as often as possible and we would need to have her blood drawn the following morning to check the bili-levels again.

Tuesday, May 12th - Blood is drawn, bili levels still too high, another night under the lights.

Wednesday, May 13th - Blood is drawn, bili levels still too high, another night under the lights.

Thursday, May 14th - Blood is drawn, bili levels are down. Katie can sleep in her own bed! Parents are thrilled! We have our sweet little baby back!

Wednesday, May 20th - Katie is 2 weeks old! We take her in to the doctor to have her PKU done. They poke her foot, but it only bleeds enough to fill half of one of the seven circles. They poke her foot again, and after about 10 minutes of squeezing her little foot and listening to her scream, the PKU sheet is done. I hate PKU sheets. The doctor comes in and says she's looking a little yellow again, so he just wants to check her bili level one more time just to be safe. WHAT! They just took a quart of blood from this girl's foot and you want to poke it again??? ARGG!

At this point, baby has had her blood drawn on 7 different days, and she's only 14 days old!!!

Later that evening, doctor calls and says her bili levels are up again...WHICH ISN'T NORMAL. He has never seen this. Put her back under the lights, but now we are going to check a little further for a more serious metabolic issue. This means more blood gets to be drawn - 4 tubes to be exact. YUCK. Mom is starting to lose it and doesn't want to watch them poke baby's foot anymore. Doctor also requests that baby is breast fed every 2-3 hours (she'd been sleeping for 6 hours at night...bye bye mom's sleep), and when done given a bottle of formula to supplement. This means feeding takes mom about 1 hour from start to finish and translates into 1 hour of sleep every other hour (bye bye mom's sanity).

Thursday, May 21st - Blood is drawn, bili levels still too high, another night under the lights.

Friday, May 22nd - Blood is drawn, bili levels are down, but doctor wants to make sure they stay down, so he puts her back under the lights for one more night and wants to see her again on Tuesday after the holiday.

Tuesday, May 25th - We take Katie back to the doctor for another check. He thinks she looks really good, the yellow is gone, but wants to check her bili level to get a base line. YES, MORE BLOOD WORK!

Now Katie's feet are starting look like she's a drug addict. All of the tests so far have come back negative (phew!) but there are still a couple more we are waiting on.

Doctor calls and says her bili level is still down (sigh) so we can finally send the lights back.

Through all of this, Sammy has become quite the protective older brother. Each time he'd see her under the lights, he'd walk over and say "Hi baby." The last time I took her to the doctor, Sammy screamed and flailed and grabbed at Katie whenever the doctor came in.

Today, May 28th - Baby is doing great, although I can't tell if she's looking yellow or not. Hopefully its just the lights in my house! I hope and pray that the jaundice doesn't come back and that she can just be a "normal" baby.

Big Brother

What do you mean "I'm not the only child anymore?!!"

For the last few months, we've tried to get Sammy excited about babies. Whether it has been talking about the baby in Mommy's belly or pointing out babies that we see. And in fact, he is a fan of babies and loves to play with dolls. Yes it's true. Necklaces and dolls, he certainly has a tender heart.

So far he has been super sweet about baby "kit-ty." He loves to give her kisses and hold her, and he is learning to be soft. He of course makes us nervous because he is so strong and sometimes quite quick. We have to keep an eye on him because if he sees her, he is going to go and touch her. Everyone loves to feel soft baby skin, and Sam's no different.

It is truly amazing how similar these two babies are. Both have a ton of beautiful little hair and have pretty similar faces with those same adorable chubby cheeks!

Here is a collage of a few videos we took of Sammy and Katelynn. Whenever I see Pete & Abby together I think of how lovely a relationship these two will have.

Here is our first family photo as a foursome

Being a big brother certainly must be tough work! I'm sure he would love to put little baby Katie on his sleepover list, but I think we'll hold off for a little while!

Welcome Katelynn -- with pictures

Michelle really was a cute pregnant girl. Some people have a really rough time, and don't look so cute; but Michelle continued to glow throughout and actually lost weight through most of the pregnancy right up to the very end. Our cute neighbors told her that she should be a pregnant model. This is the final bulge right before we went in.

We checked in at the Davis hospital right around 7am. They got her all hooked up and plugged into the Matrix and started downloading some Pitocin by 8. Here she is, all ready to go!

I was coach, and must say our team executed flawlessly. I certainly was instrumental in watching from the sidelines and she wouldn't have been able to get the baby out so impressively without my strategizing. Not to say she didn't play an important role, it just helps when the offense is executed so well.

The Not-so-flattering photo. Typical girl: throw a fit when Dad is trying to take a picture and your makeup isn't perfect.. The first of many "Dad don't take my picture!"

7 pounds 10.2 ounces (21 inches)

Here she is all cleaned up and ready to pose for the pictures. My camera isn't fast enough to take it with her eyes open. She sees the little focus light and quickly shuts her eyes.

All done with the first bath.

Great job Mom!

Great job Dad!

We love you Katelynn!

Welcome Katelynn Michelle Droge

Our sweet baby girl joined us shortly after 2pm today weighing 7 lbs 10 oz and 21 inches long.

Labor actually was fairly quick. We checked in at 7am, the doctor broke her water at 11:30, the intense contractions came shortly there after, and out popped baby Katelynn just after 2:00.

Mom and baby are doing very well. I'm having troubles with uploading anything on this hospital server, so the announcement will have to do for now. I'll keep trying!

Dave, Michelle, Sammy & sister...

Good news! -- We haven't died! I guess we've been busy with finishing the basement and getting ready for the new addition to the fam. Anyway, here is a quick update:

The Dave-Sammy Male regime is coming to a close. No longer will basketball be an automatic 2-1 vote. The final countdown is here, can you believe it?!

Michelle went in for her final appointment today, and the verdict is that early Wednesday morning our little baby girl will start squirming her way into our family.

So we've kind of had a tough time with the name of this little sweetheart. We've had a few that seemed to be perfect and then one thing or another happens and we aren't as convinced. Case in point, the last month or so, we decided on the name Ella. We thought it was a cute name and it had some family ties to it, until someone put together the combo of Sammy and her. She said, "Oh that will be cute, Sam and Ella." I thought in my mind, "Sam and Ella," "Sam an Ella", "Salmonella" Yikes!! So apparantly Ella might have to wait until further down our little family tree.

Anyway, I'll post more on Wednesday, hopefully with the little stats of our new little girl and maybe even a name to go with her.