Reece's Pieces: Grant Clifford Reece: a birth story

i can't believe it's already been a week and a half since baby boy was born. it's still weird to me that instead of having a big ol' belly to rest my cell phone, remotes, and cereal bowls on...i have the sweetest little boy snoozing on the couch beside me.

here's how he got here.

it all started saturday, the 15th. my parents were in town to get away for a bit to celebrate their anniversary that friday. but saturday they wanted to hang with norm and i. first thing we did was head to the greenbelt to walk around. of course my mom and i were talking about baby/pregnancy stuff and i was whining at her about my doctor telling me "you'll probably go into labor this week" when i clearly wasn't. i was complaining about how i wasn't sure what a contraction felt like and how frustrating that was. so i told her.."like right now...i'm having some major cramping...but it doesn't feel like what everyone tells me it feels like." however they were coming off and on every 10 minutes or so. but didn't hurt. my mom got excited though and made me start keeping track. so we did. the rest of the day. they were pretty consistent at 7-10 ish minutes apart but didn't hurt at all. just felt like menstrual cramps. we went to bed that night and they stopped....my dad went back to pocatello and my mom ended up staying because i had a doctors appointment on monday and she wanted to see if i had progressed past my 3 dilation.

we went to the doctors office and i was dilated to a 4 and 90-95% effaced! yay! more progression! my doc then decided he was going to strip my membranes to try to get me to go into labor. he told me "ok, that should put you in to labor within the next 24 hours and if it doesn't, come in on wednesday and we'll look at getting you induced."

yay again!! so we waited out monday....and tuesday....and not a dang thing. how could i be dilated to a 4 and nothing happening still???!! so wednesday morning we headed back to the doctors office. he checked me and i was dilated to a 5! {don't know how that happened....} he didn't tell me he did, but it felt like he stripped my membranes some more. then he asked if i wanted to be induced. i was 39 and a half weeks along....so i opted for the induction. i was then expecting him to tell me that thursday would be the day! but no....he said he would call the hospital and schedule it for friday morning at 7 am. ugh......i had to wait another day and a half. i had about had it with the waiting around thing....

so that day we tried to keep ourselves busy. i don't even remember what we did. but as my mom and i were cooking dinner for my grandpa, dad, and norman...i started having some major cramping. it occasionally hurt enough to make me stop what i was doing. again, though...everyone told me my belly would get really hard...and it wasn't doing that. so i didn't think it was it. however, my mom urged me to call my doctors office and ask if i should go get checked up at the hospital, bein as i was already dilated to a 5. so i did. and my doc had been called in to deliver a baby, so i talked to my nurse, leslie. i explained what i was feeling and she urged me to go get checked just in case.

so we finished dinner and took our time going home, packing our bag, and heading in to the hospital. the whole time norman and i were saying....this isn't it. i know it's not. but better safe than sorry. we got to the hospital probably around 7. we got checked in, and they hooked me up to the monitor. i was glad they did because i was finally able to pinpoint what a contraction was and what it felt like. i would have those cramps and i was validated in seeing on the monitor that they were, in fact, contractions. they found dr. oldroyd and told him i was there, so he came to check me. still no progress...i was at a 5. he told me to hangout for an hour and he would check me again. so we did....and he did...and i was still at a 5....ugh. they were gonna send me home. he told me i needed to be aware of my contractions, though and if they got closer together or harder to come right back in.

so we went back to my grandpas, played some cards, and went home to bed. i was still having little contractions but nothing that made me feel like it was the real deal......until about 3 am.

i had a haaaaard one.

it instantly woke me up and i checked the time to start keeping track if another one came.

and then i fell asleep.

then 5 am rolled around with a fury!

they started coming hard and fast and i didn't wait to keep track of how far apart they were. they hurt. i was 5 minutes from the hospital. and i wasn't going to hold out to make sure they were 2-3 minutes apart. so i called my mom at my grandpas and through tears of some intense pain, told her we were headed to the hospital.

although i was in a lot of pain trying to hurry and shower and get everything we needed, norman and i were so excited. and instantly i knew norman was going to be so great during this whole process.

we got to the hospital at 6 am, and the nurse that saw me the night before was still on her shift. she got me into a room {115}, hooked me up to the monitor, and checked me. i was still at a 5.......when she told me, i thought...nope..i don't care if i haven't progressed at all...i'm having this baby today...i'm not going home...this hurts too much to go home.

luckily, she was in my room while i had 2 or 3 reaaaaalllly painful contractions. she headed out to call dr. oldroyd to see what he wanted to do. it felt like HOURS before she came in and said "well, looks like he wants to keep ya. i told him you looked like you were in some major pain and that this could be the real thing and so he wants you to stay."

thank goodness....

honestly it didn't even cross my mind til a second later that this meant i would be meeting my baby boy.....today! it was a crazy thought. i had been anxiously waiting for so long. and it was going to happen that day!

then some not so good news came.....

the anesthesiologist that was working was in a surgery and wasn't going to be done for about another hour. i about had a panic attack....i needed that epidural...if at any time i was waffling on whether or not to have an epidural...that was all gone...i wanted it...now.

they decided to give me some drugs through my IV. not sure what it was called, but it was supposedly supposed to take the "edge off." which i guess it did....but it mostly just made me super dizzy. i couldn't focus on anything. then minutes later another nurse walked in with jan. ooooooh jan. they had found jan. an anesthesiologist that was just about to get off his shift. i was so happy! so they talked me through the epidural...i did the whole sit on the edge of the bed, hug a pillow, relax my shoulders...and he gave me the epidural. which, by the way, didn't hurt one bit. everyone says "compared to your contractions the epidural is nothing" ...well...compared to nothing the epidural is nothing. i literally didn't feel anything after the first poke to numb my back before they put in the epidural. it was heaven. what i was mostly scared of when getting an epidural was that i was going to feel paralyzed. which i didn't, at all. i could feel everything from my knees down. it was so nice.

after that we kind of just hung out til i dilated some more. i was going at a pretty normal rate. they say when you're in labor you should dilate a centimeter an hour and i was dilating a centimeter every 45 minutes ish.

and let me just tell you, my nurse was awesome. i absolutely adored her. i also had a student from byu-idaho shadowing her that did fabulously as well. but camille, my nurse, made me feel so calm, she explained everything that was happening, she made sure i was always sitting on a fresh drop-pad-thing, she always made sure i had anything i needed to be comfortable.

{dilated to an 8}

once i hit 8 cm they broke my water....it still hadn't broken on its own...apparently i had a tough sac. tmi? whatever. so they broke my water, gave me the tiniest tiny bit of pitocin just to push me over to that 10 and then it was go time.

camille came and sat on the bed next to me, explained how to push and then we began. pushing is hard, friends. i never really thought about the pushing part of labor. i was always just nervous about the contractions and the epidural. well...the pushing is hard. and exhausting. luckily i only had to push for a total of 1 hr and 45 minutes. and i got a nap in between for about 20 minutes. the anesthesiologist had to come in and "top me off" cause my epidural was wearing off and although i pushed the little button to give me a tiny bit more, it didn't work. after he topped me off we had to wait about 15 minutes to start pushing again and i fell right asleep. it was a good power nap cause once i woke up i was ready to go.

and even though the anesthesiologist "topping me off" didn't work much either...it was actually rather nice. i could feel the pressure of the contractions and i knew when to push. it made my pushing much more effective. and let me just say...i cannot get over how good my husband was. we always made jokes about how he was going to be during labor and how he'd probably be freaked out, but guys....he was seriously the best. he helped count through my contractions, urged me to keep going, kept a damp rag around my neck, it's like he knew exactly what to do and when to do it when i needed it. i couldn't have asked for a better help than him. and then my mom was on my other side cheering me on and being so supportive and great. i loved having her in there with us. everyone was seriously the best. i felt so blessed. i had the best little team helping me meet my baby boy. it started to get really close and they were starting to finally see a good portion of the head {thanks to me puking a few times...it helped push him down more}. so they called doctor oldroyd and told him to come down. so he came in and after seeing me push once he rallied everyone to hurry and get things ready because this baby was going to come any second.

a couple more pushes, a ton of pressure, a huge rush of relief and there he was...

March 20, 2014. 12:54 pm. 7 lbs 7 oz. 20.5 inches.

camille {my nurse} had told me much earlier that he had pooped inside of me and so it could cause problems if he swallowed any, but they would still set him on my tummy and let me see him before they took him to make sure everything was ok. and so he came out completely covered in poop. and we could've cared less. we were touching him and lovin on him and had that moment of complete and utter happiness.

i not only felt so much love for this little human i had created, but i felt an incredible love for my sweet husband. we had created this perfect little boy together. and the feeling in that moment was indescribable. watching my husband as he helped bathe our boy for the first time was so tender and precious. he was beaming.

i was in complete awe of him. i couldn't stop staring and analyzing and memorizing every detail of him. he was so perfect. he is so perfect.

i don't remember a lot of detail after he came. i just remember nurses and family and doctors coming in and out and i was fixated on my little boy. i felt so much appreciation for him, for my husband, and for my Heavenly Father for answering all our prayers of worry and giving us this perfect little piece of heaven with a perfect little spirit sent straight from Him.

he was so content in my arms. he knew me. he knew his dad. we all radiated love for each other as a new family of 3. the night we came home from the hospital i laid in my husbands arms in bed and began to sob. tears of complete love and gratefulness. we were so happy. and so complete.