Welcome, Haley Lynn!

Haley Lynn Keene joined our family on Saturday, August 21st at 2:36 AM. Story and pics below.

Much to our surprise, on Friday, August 20th, at 7:22 PM, my water broke. It was a shock because not only is it a little over four weeks early, my water didn’t break with JT and it isn’t likely to happen anyway… but it did.

JT and I took the dog on a walk, had a snack, picked up the toys, and he went to bed. Then I called Jim and told him to come home from work. I called the hospital and let them know we’d be arriving soon, and texted our birth photographer to let her know to meet us there. Jim called a neighor to come wait at our house until my mom could arrive to spend the night with JT.

(Side note on the birth photographer… what a great decision. These are just a few pics that she’s already sent, but she was here for seven hours taking pictures and there are more to come. She even got to come into the delivery room! I would highly recommend her: www.sarah-ellen.com.)

By 10:45 PM, we were checking in at the hospital. The nurses did a test to make sure it was really amniotic fluid, and the test results came back positive just before midnight. We were second in line for a c-section delivery. Here we are getting ready to go…

By 2 AM, we were in the operating room, and at 2:36, our little girl was born. She weighed 5 pounds, 13 ounces and measured 18 inches long. Here she is at the moment of birth… what an amazing picture! She screamed right away… what a welcome sound.

I got to see her and kiss her, and Jim got to hold her. But because she is considered preterm, she was taken to the neonatal intensive care unit for monitoring. She scored nines on both Apgar tests but wasn’t breathing as well as a full term baby might. Jim and our photographer went with her while I was getting cleaned up. By 4 AM, without any extra help, Haley had excellent oxygen saturation, color, and vitals and they were just waiting for her “grunt” noise to go away when she breathed in. Jim stayed with her until 7 AM when we started to move rooms to the mother-baby unit.

On our way to our room, I got to swing in and see Haley. By 10:30 AM, she was in our room with us to stay. Hooray! She is nursing well and getting formula afterward to boost her nutrition until my milk comes in, and she’s actually gained weight in the hospital, which is unheard of.

Here she is 24 hours old.