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! :) 

brecken rose reece: a birth story

first of all...happy DUE DATE baby girl! i am SO glad we are on this side of things....as opposed to you still being in my belly....ugh.

it's been ONE WEEK since our little one joined us! perfect time to write down her birth story. these can get long and somewhat detailed so if you aren't into that......stop now.

it was monday, the 22nd. i had a doctors appointment and i had been dilated to a 3 for a few weeks now. i wasn't expecting much. came in with low expectations. expecting to be at a 3 still and life would go on. i would make my next weekly appointment.

so we went through the usual routine. weight, blood pressure, etc etc. doc comes in and finds baby's heart beat, then he checks me...."you're at about a 3 plus...probably more of a 4." at this point i'm thinkin....strip those membranes, oldroyd (that's my doc's name) lets get things moving! but he didn't. he walked over to his chart to write down whatever it is they write down....and i thought welp...see you next week, i guess. then he turns around and says the most magical words to an almost full term pregnant lady..... "would you like to be induced this week?"

ummmm.....YES!!! so he asked me if i preferred wednesday or thursday. i chose thursday because it fit our schedules better. so he called the hospital and scheduled it, and told me to be there by 6:30 so we could get the penicillin in me before inducing labor (i had the strep B virus so they needed to get rid of that before baby came).

i was thrilled!! so all week i start packing bags, cleaning the house, and prepping for baby girls' arrival. wednesday night rolls around...it had been an emotional day for me. i was excited to have this baby, but sad that it wouldn't be just grant and i anymore. norman came home from school and we were both wiped out, so we headed to bed around 10.

as i am sleeping, 12:45 am rolls around and i am woken up by what feels like peeing my pants a little bit.... so i wake up and not being all the way there, i wonder if i just peed, or if my water is breaking. i wait for a minute....nothing else happened, so i rolled over to go to sleep....and more came out. so i thought hmm....i should go to the bathroom just to rule out the whole "peeing the pants" thing. as i stood up...more came out. then i kinda knew that it was my water breaking. i went to the bathroom.....got a little bit cleaned up and as i'm walking back into the bedroom to get norman, i find him standing in the hallway headed to the bathroom himself... seeing my state (no pants on.....), i answer his question he hasn't asked by saying "i think my water is breaking...." he pauses, rubs his eyes, still half asleep and says, ".................what?" 

we decide to go to the hospital. we laughed because this happened with grant.... my doctor set a date for me to be induced and i went into labor the day before. this time... i went into labor the night before.... apparently i just need an inducement date and my body kicks into gear.

so we called normans sister to come be at the apartment with grant and we head to the hospital. we get there... get checked in, i hadn't been having any contractions that i could feel, and they checked me and i was at a 4. they started me on the penicillin and said we had to wait 4 hours for it to finish to start me on my second one, and at that point they could do some things to speed up my labor.

so they got me on the penicillin at 3 am and we had to wait til 7. my mom headed over to hang out with us and we talked for a bit, then all of us took a little nap. i woke up around 6:15 and started having some harder contractions but nothing terribly unbearable. my nurse kept asking me if i needed an epidural yet and i said no....cause it didn't hurt yet. (in retrospect i don't know why i didn't just get the epidural.....) finally...my nurse asks me again around 6:45 and at that point my contractions had started to pick up and i was dilated to a 6.5. so i said yes.....the anesthesiologist came in around 6:55 and at this point my contractions are getting haaaaaaard and frequent. i couldn't even focus on all the things the doctor was telling me about epidurals ...i just wanted him to get it going! 

they finally get the epidural in me by around 7:15 maybe??? and i lay back down....feeling my feet start to go numb but the contractions are still in full force. this is when things start to get a bit blurry for me. basically.... my epidural was working everywhere except for where i needed it to. it was working in my legs, and a little in my back, and a little in my downstairs region....but absolutely NOTHING in my uterus. they kept asking me "are the contractions ANY better than before you got the epidural???" the answer was no every time. if anything they were getting worse. it was sooooo incredibly painful. i started holding my breath through them...so the nurse threw an oxygen mask on me and kept saying "I need you to breath for your baby, morgan....keep breathing" while norman was on my other side holding my hand and comforting me telling me i was tough, that i could do this.

i was in so much pain.....i remember thinking i should've read something about how to cope with labor naturally...i always planned on an epidural so i have no idea how to deal with this pain. they called the anesthesiologist to come back, it was a new guy and he was trying to give me more drugs to help....it didn't help. i remember thinking these drugs are going to work eventually....pleeeeeeeease work. and at around that point norman leaned into my ear and i don't remember what he said, but he knew that the epidural wasn't going to work by the time this baby came. he said something to the affect of this baby is coming, and you gotta do this for us...you can do this. that's when it clicked for me. and i finally had the conscious thought.....this epidural isn't going to work...i got this. lets do this. lets get this baby out. around this time my doctor had arrived and came in to check me ... this was probably around 7:45? i have no idea.... it felt like i was in my own world. like this big bubble around me and everyone talking seemed so far away. all i remember is my doctor checking me and saying "oh, yeah...she's complete...i'm going to go change." he left and i said "what???? what does that mean??" so the nurses said, you're having this baby, we just have to wait for doctor oldroyd to get back and then you can start pushing. 

so. much. pressure. i seriously kept asking is he here yet???? is oldroyd back yet??? it felt like foooooooorrrrrreeeeevvver. there was so much pressure and i really wanted to push. he finally got there and i started pushing. it was such a relief. the contractions don't hurt near as bad when you're pushing through them. i probably pushed for 10 minutes? (at least ...that's what the nurse told me...time was so skewed for me). and then she was out! and at first i didn't even know she was here! i was so focused on getting her out, that i didn't even realize for a second that she WAS out. and i didn't hear her cry. i heard the doctor say we have a double something something something---insert doctor terms i don't know. i looked down and he was unwinding the umbilical chord from her neck. and she was really purple. so i kept asking is she ok??? is she ok? they all assured me that she was as they started sucking the stuff out of her mouth and nose. they handed the scissors to norman to cut the chord and right when he did she let out her first cry. :)

they set her on my stomach and i have never felt more relieved in my life. she was finally here and the pain was gone. 

they weighed and measured her while i got put back together.... i finally took my oxygen mask off (which i had accidentally tied into my hair when quickly putting my hair up during labor) and they handed her to me. she was perfect. that newborn feeling is the best. the spirit is always so strong and the peace is overwhelming. 

right away she was ready to eat. so we nursed and she was a natural. perfect latch. (thank you for that, b). honestly, she has been the BEST baby ever. i finally understand why some people have said they love the newborn stage. because if all my kids are like brecken....i would have 70. she nurses effortlessly, sleeps like a champ, never cries, in fact, i have to wake HER up at night to feed her. she is kind of the best ever. (grant was a whole different ball game....ugh).

So even though everything didn't necessarily go as planned..... epidural not working, and you possibly dislocating my tailbone during labor........here we are, brecken, on your due date...feeling a little more complete now that you are a part of our family. 

brecken rose reece

February 25, 2016
8:08 a.m.
7 lbs 1 oz
19.5 inches long

38 1/2 weeks! eek! and a birthday.....oh and valentines day, too

so i didn't manage to take any pictures for valentines day OR my birthday but i wanted to document on here what we did anyway before we get to this baby business. (and lets be honest....when you have a baby due in a few weeks....valentine's and birthdays aren't #1 on the mind).

so it was my year to be in charge of valentine's day. i was brainstorming with my sisters what to do for v-day, and we all decided we were going to do 14 days of valentines. for those who don't know...you give a little gift to your spouse every day up until valentines day. i kept it pretty simple this year and did cheap little things that i knew were his favorites and had little sayings to go with them. it was a lot of fun hiding them every day for him to find and he loved it! you know, valentine's day isn't JUST for the ladies....ladies. it's for the guys, too. and i know norman really appreciated the extra and thoughtful effort. since v-day was on a sunday, we went on our date the following day. dinner and a movie. kind of lame, i know, but i'm about to pop out a human, here and we had gift cards to the theater, and restaurant. so...free it is. (by the way...we went to zoolander 2....and it was "meh"...in case you're wondering).

then came my BIRTHDAY!! or birth week, as i like to celebrate all week long. :) my day of birth was on thursday (the 18th). my parents came up on the 17th to idaho falls cause my dad had a doc appointment, as did i. my mom made me one of my favorite home cooked meals and BTS cake. we ate at my gpas and played cards and enjoyed the day together!

then on my actual birthday, norman set up a scavenger hunt for me to find all my presents while he was at school! it was way fun and clever and it ended with me meeting him up on campus. i picked him up and we went out to lunch as a family. it was the perfect day!!

THEEEEEEEN (see.....how we celebrate all week??? i'm not mad about it) my mother-in-law and 2 sisters-in-law and i all met in idaho falls on saturday and we went and got a pedicure and then went out for lunch!! it was kind of the best ever because when you're about to have a baby, being pampered is like number one......

ok. whew.....this post has the potential to be the longest ever, but i will try to be brief. 

on the other hand...this is my blog...and the things that i want documented soooooooo, screw brief. i do what i want. :)

so i am 38 1/2 weeks people!!!! i'm getting EXTREMELY anxious over here, but trying not to. the other night i was reading my old posts from when i was pregnant with grant and my last pregnancy post that i wrote was at 38 1/2 weeks!!! so i'm hoping there's a pattern and you don't see me back here writing some 40 week pregnant post (please, no).

 i went to the doctor 2 appointments ago (so around 36 1/2 weeks??) and he checked me and i was dilated to a 2 1/2! i was excited! IT WAS BEGINNING!! so then i went in last week and i was at a solid 3. i asked if i was effaced at all and he said "you're still pretty thick, but that's normal" (tmi???). i didn't get excited because this exact thing happened with grant. I was dilated to a 3 at 37 weeks and nothing happened really. i still only had him 3 days before my due date. and then as i was about to leave last week my doctor says "well, i'll see you next week! but i wouldn't be surprised if i saw you sooner." 

pfft.....doc...you don't fool me. you said the SAME thing with grant....and it didn't happen....you had to strip my membranes TWICE for me to finally go into labor even though i was dilated to a 5 and almost all the way effaced soooooo....i didn't let him trick my emotions this time.

and look at us now...a week later for my next appointment and no baby yet, so .... looks like i was right to not get my hopes up. i honestly don't expect much, if any, progress at tomorrow's appointment. i haven't felt ANY contractions. and i just don't see it happening. i'm secretly hoping maybe he will strip my membranes tomorrow though and get something going....i wouldn't be mad about that at all. but again, i learn not to get my hopes too high or i'll go CRAZY. these last few weeks of pregnancy .... lots of things can make you crazy. so lets not add to the problem with false hopes of early labor. 

so i guess that's really all the news in the baby department. other than no, we still don't have a CLUE what we are naming her and it's starting to stress me out. but i DID pack what i could of our hospital bags yesterday, which got me a little excited. and i think i have purchased everything that i felt like i needed to before she came. so....we are ready for you little one!!!! hope to see you soon!