Katie: One Month

One whole month with this beauty, how lucky are we!? Here's a little look back into month one with Katie.

We unexpectedly welcomed her into our life on May 26, and every day since then has been a true gift.

Brayden and Ashley sure love their baby sister. They both love to hold her, even if it's only for a few seconds before they are done. Brayden loves to get up right in her face and say "hiiiiiiii Katie" (even though he usually calls her Austin more than once in the day) in the sweetest little voice. Ashley constantly asks "Where Katie at?", and wants to help feed her any chance she can get. They enjoy giving her kisses and hugs. I can't wait to see how their bond continues to grow.

Katie rocked her newborn session with me, and Brayden and Ashley briefly cooperated enough for me to merge a few photos together for a sibling shot.

She has met 3 of 4 of her great grandmas (but we haven't gotten a picture with great grandma Schackmann yet). 

Katie has also met all of her cousins, but we failed to get a photo of all of the together. Maybe next time!

She helped Eric celebrate another Father's Day.

And she's slept through a pool day at Dan and Theresa's and my mom and dad's, as well as her first fair experience.

A few extra points to note:

• We haven't had our one month doctor's appointment yet for official stats, but my home measurements show that Katie weighs about 8.8 pounds and is 20.5 inches long. Official update from her doctor's appointment on June 28th- weight is 8 pounds 13 ounces (32%) and height is 21.25 (51%), so my measurements were a little off this month. 

• She is wearing newborn clothes and is in newborn diapers.

• Speaking of diapers, she really loves to poop right after I put a fresh diaper on her. And you can tell when she's doing it, this girl has loud and forceful bowel movements ha.

• Our current schedule- up at 7 and a bottle, nap at 8/8:30 until 10, up and a bottle, nap at 11ish till around 1, up and a bottle, nap at 2 till 4, up and bottle, nap at 530ish till 7, up and bottle, then down for bed, up around 12 or 1 for a bottle, then up again around 3 or 4 for another bottle. 

• She's a really great sleeper and is taking 4 ounces in each bottle. She does not like diaper changes or being put down after you've been holding her. 

We are enjoying her cuddles and her love, and can't wait to keep watching her grow as the months go on.

Packing it All In (May Recap)

(I wrote this post the week that Katie ended up being born, but I didn't have the heart to really change anything, so as you're reading pretend that we don't know Katie would be born that week.)

This past month has been a blur, so let me hash it out so I don't forget all the fun we've been having!

First up, how about a little house update? Since my last update in April, the house has come a LONG way. We have flooring in almost every room (just missing the carpets in the bedrooms), the cabinets are in (minus the counter tops), our bathroom shower is complete, and I think that all the trim work is officially done!

It's been a fun process watching the finishings start to come together. I'm so excited to get all of our lights in and the siding on. Our appliances and furniture are all waiting to be delivered- minus the table, chairs, and barstools which will be a few months still. And the fact that we actually found our living room furniture in stock (you know, since we didn't start looking for that until April...) was a true miracle. I stopped in to King's furniture in Olney at just the right time! It won't be long until we are actually living in the "new house". But don't expect it to be fully decorated for a while, there is the fact that a new baby will also be here in a few weeks and we all know that that will take top priority.

Speaking of adding a new one to our family, we have been trying to make these last weeks with just Brayden and Ashley a little more special before their world is completely thrown upside down and they have another sibling to share in on the love. 

I definitely think that Ashley realizes that something is changing soon, because she will not let anyone but me do anything. She needs her hands wiped off?-"Momma do it". She needs her diaper changed- "Momma do it". She needs help with a toy or a shoe or literally anything?- "No, momma do it!". At least she now says I'm her favorite when Eric asks her so I guess that makes it worth it? Brayden seems pretty oblivious to the fact that I'm having a baby, so we will see how that goes once he or she gets here. 

Aside from the extra clinginess, they are both loving the outside now that the weather has warmed up. The swing and wagon rides continue to be a favorite. 

And tractors. They love tractors. We have to point them out when we see them out the window, we read their "Green Tractor" book a million times a day, and Eric even brought in some of the old metal tractors that he used to play with as a kid for them (and Brady has slept with his on occasion). 

They even got their first ever tractor rides last week with my dad. They were both a little hesitant before the ride, but when dad brought them back and they came out, they were both all smiles and said they wanted to do it again. I'm sure that dad wouldn't mind having a few extra riders again soon!

On mother's day I got lots of extra love from the two of them, and Ashley even hand picked some flowers from my mom and dad's tree for us to match. 

Jordan's headstone came in not long ago so we made sure to make a quick stop out there that day too to see the half of my heart that's in Heaven.

Eric and I celebrated our 9th anniversary on the 11th, where he treated me to some country fried steaks and mashed potatoes and gravy- one of my favorites! It's hard to imagine life getting any more fun with this crew, but I know that there's so much more good to come for us.

On the 16th, we met up with Brian and Mara at Doug and Ashley's house for a play date and pizza dinner (courtesy of Brian and Mara's new pizza oven). The kids stayed up way past their bed time- read hours past their bedtime- but the memories made were worth it. Here's to hoping that we can get this crazy bunch (plus another little here soon) together a few more times still this summer for even more fun!

On the 25th, my school held a little shower for me. The "little cutie" theme was adorable, and the gifts were much appreciated. 

This weekend we are planning on spending one more time of just the four of us at Aikman Wildlife Center to let the kids enjoy all the animals there. Life is about to get pretty crazy, but we are here for it!

Katie: Birth Story

I've finally had some time to sit down and really type out Katie's birth story, and how she got here a week earlier than we had planned. 

Her birth story starts with my doctor's appointment on May 26th. I was scheduled for a non-stress test that afternoon, with a planned C-section scheduled for June 3rd. During my non-stress test, Katie was not wanting to move around much once they put the monitors on my stomach. She kicked the whole  way to my doctor's appointment, much like the last non-stress test I had two weeks before. Stubborn child we have on our hands!

They had me drink some ice water, and that got her moving around. The nurse came in and said that things were looking good, but they wanted me to stay hooked up for five more minutes. It wasn't long after that that I noticed the screen where baby's movements and heartrate are monitored showed that her heartrate had dropped to 89. I brought that to the nurse's attention, and she had me roll over to my left side and left the room. She came back a minute later and said that they wanted me to go over to the hospital and repeat the test over there. She also told me to go ahead and have Eric meet me there.

So to the hospital I went. I really didn't think much of it at that point. They wheeled me up to a labor room, which happened to be the same room that Jordan was born in almost a year before, and hooked me up to their monitors. Katie was moving more at the hospital, but I did notice that her heartrate was still having some dips down into the low hundreds. 

Eric made it to the room and I think my emotions finally got the best of me. I broke down crying to Eric. I was scared that they would send us home. I was scared that they would tell us we were having our baby now. I was so scared of losing this baby after having almost made it to the end. 

The nurse came in while I was crying, and made the comment that she was surprised how composed I looked coming into the hospital, and she had wondered how I was really feeling. She did reassure us that the non-stress test did look good, and she thought that the lower moments of 120's were just baby's resting heartrate and not necessarily dips in baby's heartrate. We talked about how there were still some lower dips as well. She left to go call Dr. Haller and see what she recommended we do.

When she came back, she said that Dr. Haller was on her way in and we were having the baby that night. 

Woah I wasn't prepared for that!

I mean, we literally had nothing ready. Just the night before I had packed a few clothes for myself in our hospital bag. Eric had nothing packed. We had nothing packed for the twins. Nothing ready for the baby. We didn't even have the infant seat in the car (though we had installed the base that weekend before). 

All sorts of things raced through my mind. I wanted to do one more fun thing with just us and Brayden and Ashley before this baby arrived. We were planning on going to the Aikman Wildlife Adventure that Saturday with them. 

I thought about how I had wanted to spend my last night with just the twins giving them all my love and attention and helping them prepare for what would be happening. The last time I saw them before Katie was born was dropping them off at daycare that morning with a quick hug and kiss and wave goodbye out the window. 

I wanted to take one more belly picture. I wanted to weigh myself one more time. I wanted to measure how big my belly had gotten. I wanted to attempt to do a few low key maternity pictures with Eric, and maybe the twins (though my expectations weren't high with that last thought ha!). I wanted to mentally prepare myself for this huge life change that we were about to undertake. And suddenly all those things were taken away from me.

Now we were making phone calls to our parents, having my mom and dad go to our house and get things for the twins, while we had Eric's mom and dad go to our house and get things packed for us to bring our bag and car seat to the hospital. Oh, and to let them all know that their newest grandbaby would be born that night! We also got to video chat with Brayden and Ashley for a few minutes and let them know that I was having our baby that night. Ashley gave us the cutest little surprised face with her hands on her cheeks and everything ha!

They started prepping me for my C-section, and a little before 7 Dr. Haller came into the room asking if we were ready to have our baby! As they wheeled me back to the operating room, one nurse mentioned how much I must mean to Dr. Haller since she decided to come in on her night off to do my C-section. She wasn't even the doctor on call. We really lucked out having her as our doctor through our entire journey to having a family.

My C-section went flawlessly, and at 7:21 PM, we found out that we were now the proud parents of another baby girl! Katie Jo Schackmann weighed in at 6 pounds 7 ounces and was 19 and 1/2 inches long. Much like her older sister Madison, she has some of the longest fingers and toes I've ever seen on a newborn. 

(And as a side note, Dr. Haller told us that Katie had a lot of her cord down by her head, which is probably why we were seeing the drops in her heartrate. There was talk of potentially trying to do a VBAC since I only needed a C-section due to the twins being transverse. But she let me know that if we would have attempted that, I would have needed to have a C-section anyway due to the location of her cord. It's safe to say that I'm so glad Dr. Haller made the call to just have Katie that night instead of waiting. There's no telling what could have happened if we hadn't just delivered that night.)

Needless to say, we were in love from the moment we laid eyes on her.

We were lucky enough to get to have visitors during our stay, and Katie enjoyed cuddles with her aunts and uncles, as well as grandma. The rest of the grandparents weren't able to make it in during our hospital stay, but got to meet Katie soon after we got home. 

Now that we are home and nice and settled in, we just have to figure out how to function being officially outnumbered. It's going to be a wild and crazy ride, but we are here for it!