Owen's Birth Story

Friday, July 12th started out like any other day...

I put Sophie's hair in a ponytail for the first time (adorable).

We finished our cow costumes, because that night was dress-like-a-cow-for-free-food night at chick-fil-a. Here is Soph trying on her ears.

I was supposed to meet some friends for playgroup that morning, but I started to have some contractions, so decided not to. I had been having contractions for weeks though, so I wasn't getting my hopes up too much.

I figured it was a good day to have a baby, so I would try my best to really get things going. Soph and I cranked up the music had a dance party :) It worked! The contractions got more intense and I had to rest, so I decided to work on my mom's blog. She had told me that I wasn't allowed to have my baby until I finished giving her blog a face lift, so we were laughing pretty hard as I was finishing it up and the contractions were getting super painful!

I told Jonny I might be going into labor, and that he should come home for lunch. We had actually just purchased another car the night before, but it was getting some work done and we didn't have it yet. That meant that I had to pick Jonny up from work... while in labor. Awesome.

Thankfully, I made it there with no disasters! We went home and had lunch, and Jonny was still thinking he would be going back to work (silly boy). I was timing my contractions and they jumped from every 10 minutes to every 5 minutes. Yikes! I imagined the process being very slow, so I didn't have everything ready for the hospital. I threw together what we needed and told my sister-in-law, Chelsea, that we'd be dropping Sophie off soon. Unfortunately, that was Drew's first day of work, and he had taken their car so Chels couldn't come pick Sophie up.

All of a sudden it seemed like we were running way behind! This is where it gets good :) I decided to go to the bathroom one more time before we left the house (bad idea).
When I went to leave the bathroom, I turned the handle and.... nothing happened. We've always had problems with that door handle, but that day, it decided to snap. My contractions were coming every 3-5 minutes and I was officially trapped in the bathroom. Awesome.

After a few minutes of trying to get me out, Jonny yells "just back away from the door.. I'm breaking it down!" At this point I was laughing pretty hard (in between painful contractions) and told him he wasn't allowed to do that - even though he really wanted to. We called maintenance and, thankfully, they rushed right over. It took what seemed like an eternity, but they finally broke me out! (And severely damaged the door frame in the process).

 Now I really felt behind! We rushed to Drew's house and dropped off Sophie, then headed to the hospital. At this point, my contractions were every 2 1/2 minutes, and I was getting nervous. I was also in a considerable amount of pain, and pretty vocal about it. I remember Jonny saying "Umm.. you might want to get the screaming under control before we get there." Thanks, babe. I'll get right on that.

We made it to the hospital and by the time we were settled in my contractions had slowed down to about every 5 minutes and I was dilated to a 4.

By the time I was hooked up to the IV and had my antibiotics going, it was 4:30. That meant I couldn't have him til 8:30, because they needed 4 hours to kick in (I was group B strep positive again).

This time when I got the epidural, they wouldn't let Jonny stay in the room. And as they were prepping me, the nurse warned me that the anesthesiologist was usually really cranky, so I had to make sure I was doing everything right or he might get upset. Really?? So I was pretty nervous this time. Also because my nurse anesthetist brother-in-law had recently explained to me how an epidural works - too many details that I really didn't want running through my mind at this point!

It all went smoothly though, and it was great not to feel the pain! I don't take a lot of medicine though, so when I do, my body isn't used to it. I got really light-headed from the epidural, and felt like I was going to pass out. Everything was spinning and I just remember feeling super weird. So they cut the dose in half, which was much better.

It made me act really strange though :) Jonny was kind enough to take a video of me. And because I clearly have no shame, I am posting it online for all the world to see. Enjoy...

The nurse told me to tell her when I felt like I needed to push during a contraction, and when I did, she checked me out and said I was close, but not close enough. So she told me to tell her when I felt like pushing in between contractions. That never came.

Eventually, the doctor came in (my Dr. was unavailable, so it was someone I didn't know - luckily, she was great!) and decided to do a practice push. As soon as I started pushing she said "Stop! STOP! He's coming!" So they got ready for him and I started pushing for real.

I was very relaxed throughout the whole thing. We were all chatting, and it just seemed very casual. In between contractions, the Dr. asked if I wanted to deliver the baby. I laughed. Then she said "no, really. You're super calm and in control. You can do it if you want." I thought about it for about .03 seconds and said no.
The nurse told me that Kim Kardashian did it.
Well, in that case...

I still declined :) I had enough to worry about, I didn't need to catch my own baby! It only took 3 contractions (about 6 minutes) and little Owen Kory Katseanes was born at 8:39pm! (Almost exactly 4 hours after my antibiotics were started :)

It was love at first sight. They put him right on my chest, where he stayed for considerable amount of time. (With Sophie, they whisked her away and I didn't get to hold her until they had finished checking her out/weighing her/etc.) It was so great! He cried quite a bit, but let's be honest, he had just been traumatized.

Owen was 19 inches long and weighed 7 lbs 7 oz. He looked so skinny to me, but that was probably just because Sophie was such a chubby newborn :)

One thing that stuck out to me was something the Dr. said after I gave birth. She said how lucky this baby was to be born into such a good family, and it was nice for her to see how badly we wanted him. She said she could tell that he was going to be loved.
That made me sad. I'm sure she sees many women (or girls) giving birth to unwanted babies who won't be raised in a loving environment.

It made me so grateful for my family and for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I love that this little boy is sealed to me for eternity, and we will always be together. I am so grateful to have a loving husband who I can trust to take care of our family, because not everyone has that. It was a beautiful moment as Jonny and I looked at the newest member of our family, with tears in our eyes, and were so overcome with gratitude and happiness. We are so so blessed.