Reece's Birth Story and Hospital Newborn Photos

Reece’s 3rd Birthday is coming up on September 15!!! THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING! MY BABY! It’s so amazing to think back on her being born and wondering what kind of little human she would be. We had no idea we would get to be parents to such a special person! About 3 years ago I was about to go into labor. This is a VERY personal post but while I was pregnant, I LOVED reading birth stories and I would search for them all over the internet. I wanted to read every possibility of what could happen to me because I was SO scared to give birth. Like seriously, I have never been so scared of something in my life! But the baby must come out, there is no other option. There are so many unknowns, which might be the worst part. I remember telling my acupuncturist about my anxiety and she made a plan for me to try to calm down. She told me to go down to the beach by myself and put my feet in the sand and really feel the earth so that I would feel more grounded. It did help some, just to have some time for myself and really focus on why I was so anxious. I wanted to feel zero pain and I had heard about epidurals failing or not being able to get one at all. I decided if that happened to me I would ask to be knocked out and go in for a c-section haha. Luckily I had the best experience! So for everyone reading this, here is a good birth story with no scary parts. :) The birth story is after the newborn photos we got when Reece was 24 hours old from the hospital photographer. P.s. look at all that hair!

Reece’s Birth Story (mostly written a few days after she was born)

I’m a numbers person and the whole time I was pregnant I knew I had to get past certain dates- 9/7 (our anniversary), 9/11, and 9/13 (I’m superstitious). Reece was born on a Thursday, on her due date, September 15. I think I was just mentally prepared for her to be born on her due date and that is what happened!

The Monday leading up to Reece’s birthday, I had 1 or 2 contractions. It was hard to tell if they were even real but I could definitely feel something that I hadn’t felt before. That day I had made 10 pints of my favorite sauce and 100 meatballs! I had to get all my last minute cooking done (I will post about my before baby food plan soon!). Later that day I thought my water broke so we actually went to the hospital but it wasn’t my water breaking (probably just pee or fluid haha). It was nice because my actual doctor was the one on call that night and she reassured me that things would probably be starting soon!

The next day I had a couple more light contractions. These days leading up to when it actually happens are filled with so much anxiety and excitement!! I could not wait to have more contractions but they didn’t come.

On Wednesday morning I woke up at 6am really feeling them and was finally sure they were contractions! I got in the bath because the hot water felt really good on my back (I had bad lower back pain the last couple of months of the pregnancy). I decided I wanted to see my chiropractor and my acupuncturist that day to try to help things move along. By 11am they were starting to hurt a little and at my chiropractor I had another contraction. At 12pm I had an acupuncture appointment (2 of my friends swore by this acupuncturist- Jessica Chalnick- who can make you go into labor!). Craig came with me to the appointment and held my hand because the contractions were more intense but still very far apart- I had 2 during the hour appointment.

For the next couple of hours I kept having more and more contractions and they were starting to become really painful. I can’t even put into words how much they hurt and I will never forget that feeling. I will say that contractions are like doing a really hard workout move where you feel like you can’t do it anymore and then all of the sudden it abruptly stops and so does the pain. I had to lean on our coffee table during each one to get through it. By 3-4pm they were getting REALLY bad but still far apart, like 20-30 minutes apart. I decided to go upstairs to take another bath and on the way upstairs, I dropped my phone on the stair and shattered the screen! There was no way I was going to do this without a phone! I needed it to tell everyone updates and to take pictures of course! We made the decision to go to a sketchy place to get the screen fixed and while there I was having contractions in the parking lot. I can still picture myself sitting in the car being like OMG I’m staring at a Carl’s Jr. having contractions! I didn’t want to get sent home from the hospital if we went and since they STILL weren’t 5 minutes apart we went home.

Around 5-6pm our friend Julie came and got Ravioli since it seemed like we were hopefully going to the hospital soon. Poor Julie witnessed my contractions. I took another bath and was in a ton of pain (I couldn't even talk) so Craig called the hospital- they asked to talk to me and I was in tears and could barely get words out so they said to come in. I was convinced that I had to be 10 cm (and would miss the epidural window lol) because the contractions were the worst pain I could ever imagine feeling in my life!!

Finally around 7pm on Wednesday night we got to the hospital! They gave me a checkup when I got there, again I was convinced I was about to give birth, and I was barely 1cm dilated! They wouldn’t even check me into the hospital since I was barely in labor but there was no way I was going to go home!! They had me walk around the halls for 2 hours!! It was grueling. Every time I had a contraction (every 2 minutes) I had to lean on the railing and Craig had to rub my back and then I had to take a sip of water and then there was a 30 second break and it would happen again. It’s making me nauseous right now thinking about how painful these hours were. Finally they “checked me in” to the hospital and I was hurting so much at that point (10pm) that they gave me local pain meds as shots in my sides and told me to try to sleep. So then I “slept” and was basically crying in my sleep. Apparently a nurse down the hall walked by our room and heard me crying in pain and she started crying because she felt so bad for me! That nurse (not even my nurse!) told them to give me that epidural!!

Finally, I got the epidural at 1am when I was 3-4cm. I made the anesthesiologist put extra tape on it and double check everything was perfect. I was SO tense this whole labor from the pain and not wanting to move that I felt my body immediately relax and straighten out once the epidural was in. Epidurals are AMAZING! You feel like you are in a hot tub!! I couldn’t feel a thing. Unreal!!! After that I literally slept on/off for 7 hours with no pain. During that time my water broke on its own. They woke me up at 8am and checked me and said it was time to push and I'm like whaaaat?! It was so calm. It couldn't be time. I pushed for an hour and a half and she was born at 9:41am. I didn't even break a sweat. The birth was totally the opposite of what I thought it would be!!!

Even though the contractions SUCKED, once they were over and I had the epidural it was such a good experience! I wasn’t really ever scared of the contractions, just the baby that had to COME OUT OF ME SOMEHOW. So it was fine and it all worked out and we had a healthy 8lb 3oz baby! She was 20 1/4 inches and had a FULL head of dark hair!! Reece Elisabeth Moore!