pepper kelsey reece: a birth story

so i meant to write this a whole week ago!...but then our family got hit with what we think was the swine flu. ugh...... luckily everyone but pepper and me got it. so we feel pretty lucky about that. now if i can just stay healthy and keep my new little babe from getting sick all will be well! but how awful has this flu season been...ammi right??? it's the worst.

so any who... today our little miss pepper is 2 weeks old!! and she is the sweetest ever. both of my girls have been easy babies and i feel so lucky! she eats like a champ, sleeps like a champ, it's been awesome having her in our home. the love a new baby brings just isn't comparable to anything else! so...here we go... the birth story....

it was monday and i was 38.6 weeks pregnant and ANNOYED. i hadn't had ANY contractions for over a week. the saturday before new years eve i had had some small contractions for about an hour and then they went away and that was it. since then....radio silence. i had had an appt on thursday and was dilated to a 3.5 almost 4 and about 75% effaced. he asked if i wanted to be induced but i told him no...i had always gone on my own before so even though i reeeeeeaaaally wanted to have this baby, i opted to just let my body do it's thang. but since the appt....nothing was happening. i just KNEW i was going to make it to my next appt on the next thursday and end up having to be induced anyway. 

well like i said, monday rolled around (38.6 weeks pregnant by now, remember) and i was annoyed...i had been talking to family and friends and all of them were sure i was going to go into labor soon... i wasn't buying it. now, i had brecken at 39 weeks exactly so once you've had a baby at 39 weeks.... you expect all of them to come at least that early. haha. but i didn't feel like it was gonna happen. 

well around 4 o clock i was folding some laundry and started feeling some contractions. i feel like a loser cause i never know if they're really contractions or not. i mean... this is my third kid, people...i should know by now, right??? even my doctor was like "well this is your third one, so ... you know how it goes" and i'm like... i SHOULD know how it goes. buuuuut i still question every time i start having contractions. they just don't hurt at first! and i feel like for me to know for sure...they should hurt! anyway...moving on. so i started timing it just to see...and they were coming about every 15 minutes. so i just let my mom and my in-law's know since they were going to have to drive from pocatello. my in-law's would stay with our kids, and my mom was coming to the hospital with us. so they all made their way to our house cause they were sure it was the real deal. i wasn't so sure still.

but my contractions kept coming. getting closer together. we were watching the georgia/alabama championship football game and just watching the clock. finally...they started coming every 5 minutes pretty consistently so i decided to finish packing (with some nudging from norman... he was anxious to get me to the hospital haha). we headed to the hospital around 10:15 ish.

they hooked me up to everything and checked me....i was only 4.5-5 cm dilated. ugh...i had this feeling that it was going to be a long night. the nurse called my doctor and came back and said that he wanted me to stay in the hospital but that he wasn't going to augment me until morning (apparently "augment" means to start me on pitocin). so either my body would do it on its own....or we would wait til morning and get things rolling.

well, let me tell you... it WAS a long night. norman and my mom fell asleep and i was still  just chilling... having contractions every 5 minutes or so... but nothing happening. i finally told the nurse one of the times she came in to fix my baby monitor that i wasn't sure i should've come in...she reassured me that with it being my third baby, and already being dilated to a 5..it was good that i came in. that made me feel a liiiiittle bit better. but i was still kind of annoyed. i finally fell asleep around 3 and woke up at around 5. she checked me and she said i basically hadn't dilated at all but was thinner....are you kidding me?? i mean..i wasn't that surprised cause although i had contractions all night...they were mild and didn't hurt at all. so she said around 6:30 she would come start me on pit. i couldn't wait.

so i finally got the pit drip on around 6:45 am and this is when the party started to happen. THANK GOODNESS. 

i made the mistake with brecken by waiting too long for my epidural, and by now i had kind of figured out that once i get on the pit drip, i dilate pretty fast. so i asked for it right away. which was good because it took fooooooorrrrreeeeeever. jake (my CRNA) was there right away to put it in but he was struggling. he had to go in twice because he said my "spaces were really tight" and he couldn't thread it through... it wasn't super fun. it probably took him a good 20 minutes JUST to thread it into my back. anyway... it was all good and he got it in probably around 7:30?? i don't even know, but i was terrified it wasn't going to work again. luckily it started working...unluckily....i had a big patch on my left side that i could still feel everything...and my contractions were getting REAAAAALLLL hard.

my doctor showed up around 8:15 to see what was up and to break my water. which felt super weird, by the way. i wasn't completely numb yet and so i felt it break and it really did feel like a big water balloon being popped inside me...it was odd. haha. 

so he broke my water and said ok.... call me when she's ready to go. the nurse said we should make bets on when the baby would be born... so dr. adams (my doc) said 11:00 and then we all guessed and then he left. 

well my contractions were getting harder and harder and my epidural still wasn't working all the way. jake was so great though and was working so hard to fix it and eventually...just in time.. he did! thank goodness.. thank you, jake. :) 

in the mean time though i had had some craaaaazy hard contractions....so my nurse decided to check me... this was at 8:40 ish... i was at a 10!!! so she called dr. adams to come right back. we all laughed cause he had only left like 25-30 minutes earlier.

so they got everything ready, the doctor showed up and we started pushing. (when i say we, i mean me...) The nurse had already announced that again, we didn't know the gender and norman would be the one to announce it. we were so excited to finally meet our little baby!! its such a thrilling and exciting moment.

i pushed through about 3-4 contractions and then SHE was here!!! 

they plopped her right up on me and there were hands and chords flying and we couldn't see if she was a girl or boy!!! finally i looked up at norman and he smiled and calmly said "it's a girl!" we both smiled at each other because we knew.... we knew there was a precious little girl in there! i was thrilled.

what we DIDN'T know was how BIG she was gonna be. as they took her over to measure her, the doctor was like ... she's big! i bet at LEAST 8lbs. and i thought 8 lbs?? no way! my biggest had been 7 lbs 7 oz... just after that they announced that she was 8 lbs 7 oz and 21 1/2 inches long! what?? a full pound bigger and a whole inch longer than grant. i should've known though... i whined like i had a big ol' fat long baby in there.... 

and after that is just bliss. newborn bliss. she is the sweetest little addition to our family and we can't get enough of her. giving birth truly is such a blessing. we always leave the hospital feeling so grateful for everything...for the experience, for the health, for the love, it truly is so sacred and special that there are no words. 

welcome to the reece clan, miss pepper! you are so loved.

pepper kelsey reece

january 9, 2018

9:15 a.m.

8 lbs 7 oz

21.5 inches