Our Newest Addition!

Mike here (first time blogger, long time reader). MK as you might imagine is a little preoccupied right now, so she's asked me to up date the masses via the blog. Where do I begin...

I was just about to doze off Tuesday night around 11 pm when MK, who had been lying on the couch in the living room, walked into the bedroom and said, "I think I just had two contractions...". If it only had ended there :) Within 3 hours we were on our way to the hospital as MK's contractions were consistently about 3-5 minutes apart. After her initial exam upon arrival and being hooked up to all the monitors, I was certain we'd have a baby by mid-morning or noon at the latest. I guess that is why I don't have a medical degree... From start to finish, MK endured 20 hours of labor. Needless to say she was a ROCK STAR! She held off for quite some time before getting her epideral around 8 a.m., despite major back labor, which was great because it allowed the labor to progress nicely before the medication slowed it down a little. Now if only the last .5 cm weren't such a marathon... For whatever reason she stalled out, and they WON'T allow any pushing until you are 10 cm (this statement was for any guys that may be reading). She was stuck there for about 3 hours before some nurse whom we hadn't seen ALL day walked in and "accidentally" broke her water, which quickly got the show on the road. Ironically, all the time spent waiting allowed Allison and Arville to catch flights from TX and make it to Richmond prior to delivery. That is where all the fun began! Miss Linda, Allison, and Arville left the trenches (I tried to leave too, but they told me I had to stay) to MK and I for the grand finale. Now let me preface the finale by saying we had heard countless stories of deliveries from mothers who said: if you get the epideral, you can't feel a thing (Even some Dads privately told me that I could charley horse her in the leg and she wouldn't feel a thing :) . Suffice it to say, not the always the case. As everyone exited the room, MK looked at me and said she could feel "something". I told her don't worry, remember what everyone told us, oops! We've never been given a full explanation but MK's pain medication wore off/stopped working/became disconnected at the absolute worst time. MK gutted out 1.5 hours of pushing to bring Kate into the world. I can sum it up by saying it was the most amazing experience of my entire life. Excitement, joy, fear, surprise, pain (from MK squeezing my hand) were all experienced by me during that time, especially the last 10 minutes. I think MK just felt pain :) But after 20 hours of waiting (labor) and ~40 hours of no sleep, I learned you can still walk on air, because that is exactly what I did for the next 5 hours before we finally crashed for our 1st of many 2 hour naps...

Jennifer Kate Cothran arrived on September 17th, at 6:47 p.m. Weighing in at 8 lbs 1 oz and measuring 20 inches.

She has been an incredible addition thus far! She's cute as a button, has a great temperment, and is eating wonderfully (which has translated to a lot of diaper changing on my end). We just came home today and were met by our help for the first week, the Slaughters, and our Tucker who was ecstatic to see us (since we just mysteriously disappeared during the night) and very intrigued by this new person. He has already begun posting up as the security dog wherever we decide to lay her down.

We want to thank everyone for all the heartfelt prayers before and during labor and all the congratulations we have received since then. We look forward to introducing Kate to everyone very soon!

Now did anyone want to see some pictures? (At least you'll get to see more than MK's belly now!)

There are plenty more to come, but hopefully this will fill your appetite!