HI Family & Friends,
Rain Hawthorne Henkel was born Thursday September 17th, 2009 at St Helena Hospital at 8:12 pm. He weighed 10 pounds and 5.2 ounces at birth. He was 2 1/2 weeks early. Kellie started to feel contractions on Thursday morning around 2am. The contractions were "cramping" like feelings that were about 1 hour apart. She didn't think too much about it as she had been feeling braxton hicks contractions and light cramping for weeks. By 7am, the contractions were about 30 minutes apart and she thought it would be a good idea to work from home to get some paperwork done. She dropped off River at daycare- Rosa's (not knowing she wouldn't see him again for a few days). She got right to work and hammered out 3 reports. By 11:30 the contractions were 10 minutes apart and seemed to be getting stronger. She still didn't think much of them as she wasn't "due" for 2 1/2 more weeks and she had just been to the doctor the day before who said she was not dialated and had not dropped. She called the Dr at 11:30 to get feedback on what to do about the contractions. They told her to go to the hospital to get checked. She went to the hospital to get checked at 12pm, thinking she was going to still make a 1:30 diabetes appointment in Napa. They put monitors on her and checked for dialation. They saw she was having contractions but still no dialation, so they gave her medicine that was supposed to diminish the contractions to try to keep baby Rain in the womb for another week or so. They thought it was important to keep Rain in another week to let his lungs develop. For most people the medicine works right away. The medicine was not working. By 3pm, they gave her more medicine and waited to see if it would work. It was not working and the contractions were now 3 minutes apart. They checked her again - no dialation. At this point they were waiting for Dr Geary to get off work to, to do one more check and make the call. By 6pm the contractions were so painful, Kellie could not talk through them. The nurse quickly checked and she was 6 cm dialated. By this point, there was no turning back. They had to call in the Doctor immediately to do an emergency C Section. By 7:30 they were giving Kellie a Spinal Tap and prepping the OR. At 8:12 Baby Rain was born!! They laughed when they pulled him out because he was so big and they really had to work hard to get him out of Kellie's tummy. He had a knot in his ambilical cord! The doctor said he is a miracle baby as not many babies survive a knot in the cord!! The cord was thankfully really thick and healthy and the knot was not tight. The knot must have been there from early on when Rain still had room to flip around. They immediately checked his blood sugars and jaundice and everything checked out beautifully. He nursed right away and even guzzled a bottle because he was so hungry. Currently he is purely nursing and seems to be very content. River loves his baby brother. He doesn't seem to understand why he can't play with all the baby "toys." He takes his brother's hand and makes him wave "bye bye." River is enjoying the stuffed zebra that Rain brought home for him. All is well and the family is recovering and bonding at home. Enjoy the pictures!
Love
The Henkel Family
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