Varrah's First Thanksgiving

Varrah spent her first Thanksgiving in North Dakota and got to meet the the Kensinger side of the family. She still doesn't fit her hats, but we had to put her in the pumpkin one and take a picture.

Varrah is 2 weeks old today and Auntie Krista was there to document her day. Happy 2 week birthday Varrah! She also had an appointment with her pediatrician and she now weighs 7 lbs and is as sweet as ever!

Bath Time!

Varrah had a bath today, but she was not too happy about it :)

Varrah's First Photo Shoot

Thanks to her wonderful Auntie Krista, Varrah had the opportunity to have professional photos taken in her first week. Krista is a photographer and does just what she is doing for Varrah, takes pictures of children. Auntie Krista came over this Saturday and set up her equipment in our living room and went to work. Varrah was a perfect little angel and cooperated fully. Check out some of the shots below. In a few weeks Krista will be back for a winter/christmas shoot, so check back.

Varrah's Birth - David's Account Part 2.

Welcome back to the Chronicles of Varrah, she had her first Pediatric appointment and has already surpassed her birth weight, which we were told usually only happens after the 2nd week. She is perfectly healthy and Erika and I are getting way too much sleep :D

Part 2:

After hearing that today would be the day, Erika and I got excited and giddy. We watched the monitors even closer, looking for signs of an upcoming contraction and how Varrah's heart would react to it. Finally after about another 30 minutes the nurse in the assessment room told us that we were going to move to a Labor and Delivery room.

Erika's contractions were now a 4 on the 1-10 scale of pain, but she still insisted to the nurse that she could walk to the labor and delivery room after being offered a wheel chair. Laying in the bed in the assessment room for a few hours made walking look like a nice option. We entered the Labor and Delivery area and were taken to room 7, a nice corner room with lots of space and windows overlooking a park.

The room was very open with the bed surrounded with nice cabinetry and instruments. There was a large sofa chair and some folding chairs scattered about the room. In one corner there was a high tech bassinet with a heater, oxygen, and other monitoring equipment for the minutes after the baby is born. Windows lined one wall and a bathroom with a jacuzzi tub rounded out the room.

The nurse helped Erika get settled in and hooked up to the monitors again. Meanwhile, I made a trip out to the car to grab our bags. Needless to say, we may as well have moved in with the amount of luggage we had. I had 9 bags from full sized luggage to camera cases drapped over me in an attempt to get it all in one trip. Luckily on my way back I ran into Grandma and Grandpa Kensinger who lent me a hand.

Erika was starting to get more and more uncomfortable with contractions still about 5 minutes apart. It was time to check her progress. When we came in she was about 4 cm and now after a few hours....still a 4. WHAT! Well progress had been made with the direction the baby is sitting, but she hadn't dilated any further. With that, the nurse decided to call our OB, Dr. Arnhold for further direction. Upon returning she told Erika that they were going to break her water to try to get things moving.

Breaking her water went fine, fast and painless. But her contractions were up to a 6 in pain now and laying in bed was getting old and causing her back pain. The nurse suggested getting in the jacuzzi tub. And Erika jumped right in. A hot, bubbling jacuzzi helped put counter pressure on her stomach and eased the contractions severity. By this time my parents and sister had gotten cozy in the family lounge as well as Erika's Mom. While Erika took some time in the tub, I decided to run out and talk to the family about the progress.

Erika spent about 45 minutes in the tub and then had to get out for a fetal heart rate check. Everything was good, so Erika decided to go for a walk around the floor. We walked the floor with the grandmas stopping for contractions then moving on. It really helped Erika's pain to walk around.

After we got back to her room the family came with and we all sat around conversing for awhile, and comforted Erika when she would get a contraction. My dad ran and got me a cheeseburger with I reluctantly ate in front of Erika who wasn't allowed to eat. Not a bad burger for hospital food though.

A few more hours passed and Erika's contractions were starting to reach a 10, so we had a conversation with the nurse about pain medication options. We decided that we would see how far along she was before making a decision about drugs. So the nurse checked and reported that she was up to 6.5 cm. Not exactly what we wanted to hear, but progress none the less. With that news and thinking that her contractions were going to get that much worse, Erika decided to get an epidural. So I called the nurse and told her to order it up.

The anesthesiologist was in surgery and would be a while before she could come to administer the epidural. Not the news you want to hear when you have made the tough decision to finally take something for the pain. Now Erika had to hold out and take on those contractions head on for another 30 min. Well about an hour later the anesthesiologist walked in and gave Erika her relief.

Just after they finished up with the drugs, I went to get our family from the lounge to come join us back in the room for a few hours more of waiting while Erika progressed further. As I reached the door to our room, I met the nurse coming out. "Change of plans...i'm calling the Doctor and we are going to start pushing!" the nurse said. "WHAT!" I said in shock. I turned around to my parents and said, "I guess we are pushing, back to the lounge."

I went in straight to Erika and asked her what happened. Turns out after the epidural was in place the nurse asked Erika to let her know when she feels the need to push. Immediately Erika who had been feeling that urge since halfway through the epidural, spoke up. So while I was out getting the family they checked her progress again and low and behold....10!

Now we just had to wait for the on call doctor, who was in her car on her way, to show up. The nurse said, "if you need to push, then do it and I will deliver that baby. Otherwise, we'll wait for the doctor." The nurses started preparing the room for the delivery and Erika and I discussed having Grandmas and Auntie Krista present for the birth. Erika decided to have them in the room, so I ran to get them.

When I got to the lounge they were all there except my Dad, who had run out to the lobby to get cell phone signal to call my brother. Well they decided to abandon him and head to the room, "he'll figure it out." After all we could come tell him in a little bit since according to the nurse we had at least a few hours of pushing ahead of us.

By the time we got back to the room, it was ready to go and Erika was feeling pretty good from the epidural. It was just a few short minutes till Dr. Rice, the on-call OB from our clinic arrived. Everyone gathered around: Dr. Rice, two other doctors, our nurse and an EMT observer. The Grandmas and Auntie Krista stationed themselves in the corner of the room giving them a good view, just not a direct view :D

Here we go said the Nurse calling out a coming contraction. Erika pushed with everything she had. "Holy cow," said Dr. Rice, "Hey Dad, you wanna see her head?" "What! Already?" I said. I looked down and there was Varrah's head with a little bit of baby hair visible. I couldn't believe it, I could see our little girl, the one I could only feel kicking Erika's belly for so long. No one could believe that after one push she was already visible.

Erika's contractions were still about 5 minutes apart and gave us plenty of time for small talk with the doctor who had a very outgoing personality. Here comes another one, the nurse said. And Erika pushed, "what a natural pusher," said Dr. Rice. It was going so fast that the nurse changed her mind about how long it would take. I guess Dad would have to wait to find out what happened to everyone.

Four contractions later and the volume level in the room rose as Varrah's head emerged. Her eyes were open and looking at Dr. Rice who removed some fluid from her nose and throat, as well as removing the umbilical cord from around Varrah's neck. On the next push, at 10:20 PM Varrah Claire Kensinger was born. Changing our lives forever.

They put Varrah directly on Erika's chest and the emotions started flowing in the room. She was beautiful, looking directly at mom right away. The nurse handed me the scissors and I cut the cord that had nurtured our little bean for 9 months, making her dependent upon us and the oxygen in the air for the first time.

Krista started snapping pictures and the nurses went to work cleaning Varrah up and running her through the tests and processes. Most of the next 30 min are even a blur to me due to the emotion and activity that was taking place. She was so tiny and beautiful, it was hard to believe that she was here, where we could look at her, touch her and kiss her.

As I lay here writing this, Varrah is next to me looking at me attentively. It seems as though she has been with us for so much longer than a week. She has already gained over a pound and lost her umbilical cord just a few minutes ago. Our little girl is already growing up so fast :D

Thank you all for putting up with my over detailed ranting account of Varrah's birth. But as you know this is written most of all for Varrah, who someday will be curious about the day she came into our lives and the world. Stay tuned for more pictures and updates about our perfect little princess.

Varrah's Birth - David's Account

First of all I would like to thank everyone for all the great gifts and words both through the pregnancy and since Varrah's birth. Every bit of it has added to this most wonderful time.

It all started like any normal morning, I got up around 7AM, got ready, kissed Erika goodbye and went to work. I had been at work for an hour and was away from my desk for a while. I got back to my desk to find an email with the subject, "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU AREN'T ANSWERING YOUR PHONE." I quickly looked to my phone and found 8 missed calls, adrenaline started flowing and the thought that the baby was on her way hit my mind.

I called Erika back and after getting scolded for not answering my phone, which was on silent, she told me that she was having contractions and that they were 5 min apart. Before I could finish asking if she had called her Doctor, she told me that her Doctor had already told her to have me come home. I jumped up from my desk and said, "on my way!"

I quickly fled the office and jumped in the car and sped home as fast as possible. During my drive I called my Mom to tell her the news and couldn't get past my nervous laugh/cry to tell her. Finally I got the words out and the excitement started to spread. I reached home and ran inside to find Erika calmly going about her daily routine.

I grabbed Erika and hugged her tightly, "could this be it?" Wait, I still had so many things to do, she wasn't supposed to be here for another week! I told Erika to sit down, take it easy and keep track of those contractions. Meanwhile I would attack my "Things to do before the baby is born List" Over the next hour I cleaned the entire house top to bottom, got laundry taken care of, finished packing our bags and loaded the car. During that time Erika called her OB again because she hadn't felt Varrah move for some time. Hearing that, the OB told us to head to the hospital, and we did just that.

The drive to North Memorial Hospital in Robinsdale was fairly uneventful aside from having to stop for gas, and Erika's ever intensifying contractions. Luckily we made it to the hospital so I didn't have to use my internet knowledge on "how to deliver a baby."

We made it up to the 3rd floor birth ward and checked in to the triage for assessment. By this time pretty much everyone in our families were aware that something was happening and were trying to get a hold of us. Could it be false labor? Or was this really it!?!? The nurses hooked Erika up to a fetal heart monitor and a contraction monitor to see if they could get a view at what was going on.

The machine immediately started thumping at 130 beats per minute sending a wave of relief to Erika and I that Varrah was ok. Just as they were watching the graphs showing the heart beat and contractions the phone in the assessment room rang. "Who knows that you are here?" said the nurse. Confused as to who it could be, Erika answered the phone to find her mom on the other line. We both laughed at the effort that it must have taken to get to that particular phone when we had only been there for 20 min. Erika gave her an update that we were still being assessed.

Erika's contractions were still about 5 min apart, looking over to the wall in the assessment room and seeing a chart with a 1-10 scale for pain levels, I asked her how they felt. She replied that they were about a 3-4. If you ask me she made it look like they were more like 2s. The nurse came and and having been watching the graphs at her station said, "looks like you are having a baby tonight."

Stay tuned for the next chapter in Varrah's Birth! :D I don't want to write to much without throwing in some pictures of our little angel.

Baby Varrah has Arrived!!

11/2/2007
10:20pm

6 lbs. 1 oz.
20 in.

Check back for the whole story when we get home!