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

third pregnancy, ya'll

so i haven't posted a blog post in roughly one million years.... and i feel a TINY bit bad about it. mostly because i stopped once i got pregnant with baby #3 here and i haven't documented ANY of my pregnancy. which i know i'll regret if i don't write SOMETHING down about it. It's fun to go back and read what it was like with grant and brecken and remember those little things i forgot about. so.... now that i am 35 weeks pregnant...i will write down how this pregnancy has gone so far! 

^^ our pregnancy announcement ^^

^^ 19 weeks ^^

^^ 21 week ultrasound ^^

^^ 28 weeks ^^

^^ 35 weeks ^^

this pregnancy has felt like quite the doozy for me. i mostly think it's because i have a 3 1/2 year old and a 1 1/2 year old to take care of.... makes me sweat just thinking about it. but i have had some symptoms this pregnancy that i didn't have with the other two that have been new. nothing crazy... just different. which makes it impossible to decipher whether i feel like it's a boy or a girl because parts of it feel like grants pregnancy and parts feel like breckens... (which, by the way, grant and brecken's pregnancies were very similar soooooo that's not saying too much).

i have had so much fun this pregnancy not finding out the gender. i really do love not knowing!!! i think on our next baby i'll probably do the same thing... if norman will let me. he's been more anxious about it than i have. in fact, i didn't let him go to my 20 week ultrasound with me because i knew he would peek and see what it was.

the beginning was pretty normal.... from about 6-18 ish weeks i was miserable. sick and tired and hating life. by the way, in case you didn't know... this baby was a bit of a surprise for us. not that we didn't want another one, in fact we want another one after THIS one...but he/she just came about 6 months before i planned to get pregnant with another one. so, i wasn't completely ready mentally and emotionally to be pregnant again. i will say i am so so so SO grateful for this little baby to be in our family and have felt extremely blessed to be able to get pregnant and carry healthy babies... i'm just saying it took me off guard and so that first little bit was a bit hard. just trying to wrap my head around having a THIRD child (which they say is the hardest transition) and prepping to be sick for months again.... etc. etc... you know what i mean. I will never not be grateful for being able to have a child, but that doesn't make it easy, either!

anyway.... this pregnancy i have had pretty similar aversions and "cravings" with food as my last two pregnancies...i haven't really noticed anything that i "crave" all the time with this one other than i have been diggin the doctor pepper... don't worry i try not to have too much but it does always sound so good to me. and i feel like i can never get enough water. i'm always sooo thirsty. i have had some heartburn now that i'm bigger but not near as much as i did with brecken. i feel huge this time around. which makes sense... third pregnancy and all. i started showing SOOOOO early with this one. like... OBVIOUSLY showing at around 12 ish-13 weeks...then it kind of slowed down to a normal pace, but, i still feel huge. sleeping has been a hit and miss. it's so uncomfortable always having to sleep on your sides.... i wake up and my hips and shoulders and hip flexers ache SOOOO bad. the good news is... i have been seeing a chiropractor this pregnancy and it has helped a TON with my back pain. in fact, since i started going, i don't think i've had any. which is extremely rare for me even when i'm NOT pregnant. so that has been such a blessing. my chiropractor also told me that he has heard that women who get adjusted through their pregnancies have easier labors because their body is all in line... makes it easier to do its job. so we shall see, jury is still out.....so i'll let you know.

so far i have gained 17 lbs which is actually significantly more than i did with my other two at this point. but i'm not worried about it. this baby definitely sits differently than the other two... i feel like i can NEVER breathe. i am constantly readjusting so that i can get some air in my lungs. baby is VERY active and moves a ton. which is always comforting. i have had TONS of braxton hicks contractions (and some real ones) this pregnancy. i think they started around 20 weeks which freaked me out but i had a friend whose pregnancy overlapped mine (she was ahead of me by 3 ish months) and hers started around then as well, so then i wasn't so worried. i was having some real contractions not too long ago but they didn't last very long.. my doc said it's just my body practicing. he said by third pregnancy your body definitely knows what's going on and is just getting ready for the baby to come. he thinks i will go early again like i did with brecken (she was a week early) or maybe even a little earlier (i'm not getting my hopes up, though). soooo we shall see!! I am due January 16th but at both of my ultrasounds baby was measuring a consistent 5 days big....so we are crossing our fingers over here for at least a FEW days early. 

anyway...i guess that's that in a nut shell! my next doctors appointment is in a week and its the group B test and then weekly appointments from then on! He said he could check me at the group B test appointment if i wanted to but i haven't decided if i'm going to yet. I'll be 36 weeks and i DO usually dilate early but i think i may wait til week 37 for him to check it out. i'm getting so excited to meet this little boy/girl!!! we are still struggling in the name department.. mostly for a girl name. we have a decent set of boy names to pick from, i think...but our girl names are always a struggle so...... again.. if you have any suggestions... send them our way! :) 

my girl....

a year ago in about 2 hours from now my water broke.... and this amazing little girl entered our lives. i love this picture because it's when we first met...even though she had been occupying a good chunk of space in my body for the previous 9 months...this was the first time we laid eyes on each other. and i still remember our instant connection. 

for me... after i had grant i was more anxious about trying to figure out how to be a mom that i feel like it took me a little longer to really feel that bond with him.

but brecken...hers was instantaneous. i felt something from her that touched my soul. i know that sounds cheesy... but it's true. and i felt that bond instantly... and if i'm being honest... i still feel that with her. i don't know how to describe it, and i keep writing sentences and erasing them because i don't know how to say it. but she is a special girl. she has lit up all of our lives. often times norman and i will be talking about her or playing with her and one of us will just say... gosh...i just love her so much!!!! 

there is just something about her little personality and her interactions with me and others that makes something in my soul so happy. anyway..... i can't describe it so i'll stop trying to. hah...i'm just feeling all nostalgic tonight because i'm just thinking about how almost a year ago exactly she changed our lives for the better and i am so glad my heavenly father trusted us with such a beautiful soul. 

.................................

below are pictures that i found that i never posted of the first bath i gave her...with grant helping. :) i think even grant feels what we feel about brecken. he loves his sister and it's so fun to see them together. having kids really is the best...ever. let's have some more, norm..k???? k... 

(by the way...don't want this post to sound like i love grant any less than i love brecken hahah... i'm just expressing how precious my little girl is to us, too).  :)

3 weeks of being a brother

miss b is 3 weeks old today! which means grant has been a big brother for 3 weeks now. so i wanted to talk about him for a minute. 

below are the pictures of him meeting brecken for the first time.

i had read a few things, not a ton, because i didn't want to feel overwhelmed...haha...but a little about how to introduce a new baby to their older sibling. there are lots of opinions about it. but the way we did it was we wanted very few people in the room, so it wasn't overwhelming to him. i was to have my arms free for grant to give me some loves without the baby already taking all my attention, and other than that...we just went with it.

when norman went to get grant, they had to take brecken to go get some test done of some sort, so we brought grant in, hung out for a minute and explained that mommy's baby wasn't in her tummy anymore. 

once they brought her back in, we explained again that she wasn't in my tummy, but was out here with us now. and he actually seemed to grasp it. i'm continually surprised by how much he understands. not once since she's been born has he still thought there was still a baby in my tummy.

he was very curious about her though....

he kept looking at her and just saying "bebe....bebe..." over and over again. he wasn't sure what to make of that.

he eventually got comfortable enough that he wanted to give her a kiss. which was adorable of course. and then he was done. he wanted to see grandpa and play with his trains, etc. he then left with my in-laws to head to pocatello until i was discharged from the hospital.

i was nervous about all the change that would be happening for grant. norman and i had planned for me to go to pocatello after i had brecken to stay at my moms so i could have some help with grant while we adjusted to the new baby. norman would go back to rexburg to prepare for his huge Fundamental Engineering Exam he has to pass to become an engineer, along with other tests, projects, etc. he had to get done before graduation coming up in a few weeks (eek!!!). when grant was a newborn it was haaaaaard for us. breastfeeding was hard, he didn't sleep at night, he wasn't pacified unless he was breastfeeding, but like i said...breastfeeding was hard....so it was just a vicious cycle for a bit and it was overwhelming to both norman and i, but norman still had to go to school every morning ....so with brecken, we assumed the worst...we assumed she would be like grant, so we planned for it. and that is why we made this plan.

well... i was dishcharged on saturday and we headed to pocatello. when we got there grant was acting odd. which was understandable. he saw the baby and knew she was there but wanted to ignore her. which was fine. so i played with grant and tried to get him to feel a little more comfortable. a little while later brecken was hungry so i went to feed her and while feeding her, grant wanted to come sit on my lap, so he was trying to crawl on top of me and brecken and i didn't have another hand to grab him. so, i asked my sister in law to grab grant, i would give brecken to someone, and then give him some attention that he needed. well the second she grabbed him, he freaked out. crying and asking for mama. it broke my heart...so i put him on my lap and we just sat and cuddled for a bit. 

norman stayed til sunday and then left for rexburg. i was a bit of a mess when he left. post baby hormones, i guess, but i was crying and really didn't want him to leave. 

the next couple days grant was a nightmare. wouldn't let ANYONE help him with ANYTHING.... besides me. threw fits over everything. fought bedtime like i was sending him to club GTMO. tuesday night rolled around...another awful evening with grant, and i called norman in tears. i couldn't do it anymore. i wanted to be home, and norman wanted me home, too. luckily for us...brecken is an ANGEL child. sleeps fabulously...in fact for the first few days i had to wake HER up to feed her. she nurses fabulously....everything was going so smooth that i really didn't feel like i needed the extra help. so the next day after class, norman came to pocatello and picked us up and we went home.

ever since we came home...grant has been fabulous. he loooooves brecken and is already very protective and concerned about her. every time we get out of the car he yells at norman "baby!!! baby!!!!" and points at her carseat until norman or i get her out and explain to him that yes, sister is coming with us. he gives her kisses all day long, but isn't smothering (which is nice for me...). every time she cries (which is basically never.....seriously...angel child) he runs to me with a worried look on his face and yells "mom!! BABY!!!" until i take care of it. he likes to hold her at night before he goes to bed, and he likes to give her her "blankey" and her binky. and just recently, while we are in the car, sometimes i keep her carseat cover over her if we are just making a short trip, and he likes to put his hand in the little opening at the top and pull it down so he can see her at all times. he just keeps his hand there to make sure she's doing ok. it's kind of the sweetest thing ever.

i won't lie...it's been so much fun growing our family. with brecken in our home we can already feel a difference and we love it. it kind of makes me want to have a million babies...... :) and i love that grant is going to make such a good big brother. having brecken has made my love for him grow even more. didn't even know that was possible.