Xander Wayne Koelliker

So, the story... early Monday morning (2/8/10) I woke up with contractions that were pretty close. I timed them, they were 5-6 minutes apart, I got nervous. I woke Justus up, who luckily stayed home from work that morning to be with me, and I told him how close the contractions were. He was kind of out of it and said to keep timing them and lets see if they slow down or get closer. Well, they definitely got closer. I woke him up again, telling him the last 3 contractions were 2-3 minutes apart. So, we scrambled to get things and head for the hospital. Luckily I had a "nesting phase" the week before and had a bag packed for the hospital. And we headed up to Alta View.

On our way there Justus called my parents (its 4:45am by the way) and he told my dad we were headed to the hospital. He just said okay, call us when you get there and let us know what's going on. My family thinks I overreact to things, so they don't always take me seriously... My mom asked him who was on the phone and he told her that we were headed to the hospital. And she said well should we go over there? my dad's reply "It's Katie..." so she ended up calling us back and she was going to meet us there. We also called the Koelliker's and they were more apt to head right over, we told them we'd let them know what the situation was before we had them head over.

So we get to the hospital and get admitted and all hooked up to a monitor. My contractions were strong and still very close. After being monitored for a while, Justus finally asked the nurse what was going to happen, if we were going to be there and have the baby or what... her response "Oh, you're going to have the baby today." POW! Definitely wasn't completely prepared for that answer, but I was still very excited but very nervous. Knowing that he was breach I knew I was going to have a C-Section. The nurse informed us that Dr. Tanner had another C-Section schedule for 7:30am but would probably push that back so he could do mine first (since I was in active labor). She went to call Dr. Tanner and let him know our status. He ordered to have them give me a shot of some medicine to see if my contractions would slow down or stop, since he knew I was only 36 almost 37 weeks along. I had a wonderful reaction to the shot, and almost passed out. It was fun stuff! The medicine made my contractions less strong but they were still going just as often and after maybe 15-20 minutes they were back just as strong and still very close together.

So, after being in the hospital for maybe 2 hours I was in the operating room getting set up to have our baby.

I was so nervous. We weren't ready for him to come yet, but we were so excited to finally have him coming into our lives. We knew we'd make it all work even though we weren't completely prepared.

Xander Wayne Koelliker born at 7:54am on Feb. 8th 2010

He was 5lbs 15.6oz and 17 1/2 inches long


Our first family picture

Mommy finally gets to hold her boy, he was so beautiful... I just cried. I was so amazed that he knew my voice and how he just stared up at me knowing I was his mommy.

Justus holding his boy. He is such a wonderful dad!

Grandma Burt, finally getting to hold her first grand baby!

She has been such a big help to me and loves our boy so much.

Thanks mom!

He's already posing for pictures!

Isn't he beautiful?! Especially when he has his eyes open wide!

Our little guy after his first bath at home.

We had to go out and buy some preemie outfits because we didn't have any and all the newborn clothes we have are too big for him right now. He's so tiny!

We can't even imagine our lives without him. He is such a wonderful baby.

I love you Xander!