The following is Kai’s Birth Story:

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Kai was supposed to take the stage on October 31st 2007.

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We were all ready for him to go on stage, and the audience had been getting pretty restless by the time halloween had come and gone.

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None of that mattered to Kai, we kept telling him, 2 minutes to curtain call…two days past curtain call… ugh, ok, (banging on the greenroom door) two weeks past curtain call now buddy.

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Finally on Tuesday November 13th we decided to get the process started w/ a little intervention called a foley catheter. Baiscally is a small sterile balloon that mechanically dialates the cervix. We came to the birthing center and started the balloon and they kept us here for observation. At, 10:19 PM Erica’s Water broke – GAME ON!

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Erica, was a champ the entire time. Once her water broke her contractions immediately started increasing in frequency and strength with only 60-90 seconds rest between contractor her entire labor, she is a wonder woman fer sure!
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Kai burst onto stage 7 hours later at 5:32 AM weighing 9 lbs 2 oz and 21 1/12 inches long…you ruggers out there will enjoy this… (When Erica asked what he looked like, right away I told her I was planning on Kai wearing #15 like his daddy and being a great fullback, but after seeing him we figured we’d still love him even if he plays Prop and wears a #1.)

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Understandably mom needed some recovery and while the doctors attended to her I was able to hold Kai for a bit. He settled down right away, bretahing a little heavy which is understandable from his stressful labor. It seemed as if the whole world eyes were on him and the little guy must have enjoyed this attention, because, once he knew he could capture our attention he reveled in that fact.

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Over the next 72 hours when Kai felt he was not getting enough of the spotlight he would periodically do thing like, make his breathing erratic, lose 10% of his birth weight due to not eating as much as we’d like or hold a 100.7 degree temperature. That one got everyone’s attention FAST.

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On Friday the doctors did a bunch of blood tests on Kai and he fought them the entire time, some of the nursing staff even said they were afraid to put in his IV alone because he was too strong.

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Docs said he may be fighting some kind of infection and just to rule out any viral infection they needed to do give him antibiotics and take a spinal tap for testing. He didn’t like that and I pretty much had to use everything but handcuffs to Keep Erica from laying waste to the entire nursing staff when the were poking and prodding him.

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 Kai has now been stable for 36 hours and the doctors say that all his vital signs are doing well, and they expect we may be able to take him home Tomorrow. DRAMA! what a little Ham he is.

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Anyway, Mom and Baby are doing much better now, we can’t wait to get him home to meet his furry big brother.

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