Happy Birthday Katen Elisabeth Remer!

So... yeah. We're stunned completely but very excited to be parents!I had my 36wk ob appt this morning at 8:30 and was dilated to 1. My Ob said that baby looked pretty cozy in there and to go ahead and travel for Christmas. I then went to work and at 10:30 I grabbed some breakfast and went to sit down in my office chair when a huge gush soaked the chair, my pants, and pretty much everything. I freaked out. Seriously I had SO much to do at work today. So I told my admin assistant I was leaving, walked two blocks to my car, and headed to the hospital. Meanwhile I called Mike but couldn't get a hold of him. The contractions started right away and I was told that I'd probably deliver around dinner time. I was determined to tough out the contractions until I really needed the epidural so I spent some time in pretty good pain thinking Mike would call back at any time and he'd help me through. At 1:45 I buzzed the nurse. I was out of my mind in pain and figured I wasn't far enough along for the epidural but wanted to at least check. They called the anesthesiologist for the epidural and did a quick check to see how far I was. Oops! The next thing I know the nurse has really big eyes and says, "uhhh she has hair! Honey I'm so very sorry but you can't have the epidural. You're too far." All I could think of is holy moly this is going to hurt and where the heck is my husband? Seriously I went from 1cm to fully dilated and effaced in a matter of 4 hours. So, at 2:35 Katen Elisabeth was born med free. She is 5lbs and 10 oz. I held her briefly and then she was taken to the NICU and put on oxygen and IV. Mike finally arrived at 3:15. He'd taken his team out for a Christmas lunch and had left his cell phone at work. No big deal though. I'm glad he got his lunch in and he didn't have any reason to believe that we'd be going into labor at 36wks. Based on the info from the OB that morning he thought we had plenty of time. Shortly after Mike arrived he was able to see Katen in her special care nursery. Each baby in the NICU gets their own room which is nice for privacy and noise reduction.
Katen's neonatologist spoke with me around midnight to give me an update. They'd taken xrays of her lungs and they showed fluid/infection so they were increasing antibiotics. Best case scenario she can go home in 3 days but more likely in 7. This lung infection was apparently caused because of the quick birth. Usually the lungs have time to empty of fluid while the mother labors but it didn't work that way for us. She was too anxious. I will begin pumping breast milk for her because she has not yet developed the sucking reflex and her stomach isn't fully developed. It will be fed in a tube that runs from her nose into her stomach. I will go to see her first thing in the morning and am very anxious to see her. The room felt empty without her and panic came over me each time a code blue was called for the NICU. I just prayed it wasn't my baby.