Reese

My three sweet kids!

Beautiful baby Reese!
She made it! Little Reese was warmly welcomed into our family June 3, 2011. It was a rough ride to get her here, but she was worth it! Kassi and Tyler couldn't possibly love her more and they are great helpers for me. In fact, everyone always says #3 is so hard, but I have found it to be my easiest transition yet. Kassi was hard just because she was my first and adjusting to working full time and only ever thinking about me to being home full time and NOT thinking about what I wanted all the time was a little rough. Tyler was a hard transition because Kassi was only 18 months and Ricky was working out of town all week every week. Spending all that time alone with very little adult inderaction and two very small needy babies was very very hard on me. Reese has been a very good baby, eating and sleeping well, and being very conent in between. Kassi is very attentive and sure loves her liitle sister. Tyler loves to hold her and kiss her and tell me how cute she is. I love to sit and just hold her while she sleeps or talks to me, so I'm way behind in cleaning my house...but that can all wait. Reese is already 2 months old and it just goes by too fast!
Ok so here is the story: Reese was born on Friday, June 3rd. After weeks of contractions , I was dilated to 3 cm and 80% effaced, but not progressing very much or very fast. My doc was afraid she was getting too big. (Little did he know that I had like 5 lbs of water in there!) So after careful consideration, we decided to be induced. Pitocin started at 1:00. Since I was having such good contractions, and being my third, I was ready for a quick labor and a baby by dinner! My water broke on it's own around 4, and everyone was getting ready for progress- I got my epidural and got excited. Well...nothing happened that was good. I had SO much water that Reese had a really hard time adjusting to the sudden drought. Her heart rate started dropping pretty low after every contraction. Since it wasn't WITH the contractions, but after them, it was not good. So the nurse turned off the pitocin. I was back to square one- lots of regular contractions, but no progression. When my water broke I noticed it was slightly off color, not the usual clear water. Shortly after, I found out why. I started bleeding a lot. I thought that must mean that I was ready to push...but no. I was only at 5 cm. So all the blood was coming from my placenta separating too early. Between the blood, and Reese's heart rate, and NOT progressing but not being able to turn on the pitocin either, I was stuck. My doctor got me ready for a c-section and then we waited just a little longer. At the last min (we are now at like 8:00 at night...a few hours past my anticipated baby time. I was supposed to have a baby in my arms and a good steak dinner in my belly!) I started dilating...even with my weak contractions. Reese still took her sweet time, but was finally delivered at 11:07 pm. Since it was so late, no steak dinner for me. :( She was a very healthy 8.0 lbs and 20.5 inches long. She had a head FULL of hair (which none has fallen out!) and was just beautiful! I was instantly in love with my sweet baby. I love her so much and I'm so glad she is safely part of our family!

Oh baby!

I know I said I would post before and after pictures of our house. I lied. I will sometime but not tonight.
Baby #3 is expected to arrive in a little over 10 weeks. I just thought I'd write some of my thoughts about this new addition to our family.
First off... it has taken a little more work to get her here than our other two. After getting pregnant very easily with both Kassi and Tyler, and having really pretty great pregnancies, I really thought I had control over the whole having kids thing. We had a surprise pregnancy while Ty was still little, and it ended in an early miscarriage. At the time, I was pretty relieved! I really wasn't ready for three kids under 3 years. December 2009 we found out we were expecting again, and we were thrilled! We hadn't really planned it, but were very happy for the surprise. Late January I miscarried again. That was a pretty sad day. Since it was so hard on me, we waited a month and then decided to try again. Soon after I got a positive test I went to the doctor. He did an ultrasound to make sure baby was in the right place and that everything looked good-considering my recent pregnancy past. I went in two weeks later and was hoping to hear a heartbeat. The look on my doctor's face was unforgettable. I knew something wasn't right and asked if the sound was turned on cause I certainly didn't hear anything. He told me that there wasn't as much form as there should be-and there was no heartbeat. I was crushed. He quickly went on that maybe I hadn't calculated right and wasn't as far along as I thought I was, etc. I knew I was right. The baby just wasn't forming or growing at all. I miscarried within the week-at school none the less.
The following weeks were hard. I tried to tell everyone and myself that things were fine and that when the time was right we would be able to have another baby. Deep down I though I started preparing myself for the fact that we may not ever have another baby. I wanted to wait a while to try again. I took baby stuff to my parent's house in Colorado so I didn't have to look at it. I thought about selling or giving away ALL my baby stuff. (Thankfully I didn't go that far.) After about 5 months, I couldn't stand it any longer and decided to try again. 4 weeks later= positive test! Of course, it wasn't the getting pregnant that I'd had a hard time with, it was the staying pregnant. It had kind of become a sick game. I asked Ricky how long he thought this one would last. I didn't really want to go to the doctor and spend lots of money if I was just going to miscarry again-I could do that on my own.
At 6 1/2 weeks I made my 8 week appointment. I was just hoping to still be pregnant by then. When I went to the doctor I really almost cried when we could hear a solid heartbeat. The doctor did ultrasounds for my first few visits since I was considered high risk. Baby looked great and we were ecstatic!
I won't go into all the challenges I have faced this time around. I just want to say that I feel so blessed to have the opportunity to be a mother and to be having another baby. We are so excited to have this little angel bless our home. We are truly grateful for the tender mercies of the Lord in our lives.