Summer Kei

I'm finally getting around to posting about the last two weeks. As many of you noticed and pointed out from my previous posts, I had some lofty goals for my week off, but Pierson decided to make his debut a little early, and I so I spent Monday, September 17th at the hospital instead of attending ACU's lectureship! The funny thing is that when I posted that late night blog on the 16th, I was having a lot of hard contractions the whole time I was typing. Little did I know I would be holding my son less than 12 hours later!

I use this blog as a journal of sorts, so I am going to post a little about Pierson's birth story. It was pretty exciting! I stayed up late on Sunday night blogging because I was pretty uncomfortable and having some hard contractions. I didn't wake Chad because I had been having pretty regular contractions for months and had even packed my bags and the car twice, but the contractions always stopped after a while. At about 1:00 AM, I finally laid down and fell asleep. At 5:00 AM, I woke up with even harder contractions, but continued to lay in bed while I timed them. They were only about 7-10 minutes apart so I wasn't too worried, and I was still convincing myself that this was not real labor. Finally, at 6:00 in the morning, I was so uncomfortable that I couldn't stay still so I got up to take a shower. Chad woke up and I told him I was having some contractions, but I thought they would go away so he could go back to sleep. About 5 minutes later as I was getting in the shower, my water broke. I stuck my head out of the bathroom door, and said, "Scratch that! This is it. Get up!" Chad lurched out of bed and started running around packing his bag and getting Ava up. I went ahead with my shower and got ready. My mom arrived at our house around 7:30 to take care of Ava while we went to the hospital. I still was in no huge hurry and figured it would be mid afternoon before we had a baby in our arms.

We got to the hospital around 8:00 AM to check in. My contractions were considerably harder at this point. The nurse let me know that there were so many women in labor that all of the delivery rooms were full! They put me in a small pre-op prep room and promised that I would have the next available delivery room. Several women were much farther along than I was and so they assured me I would have a room soon. Within the hour I progressed from 3 cm to 6 cm and got my epidural, which worked this time! What a HUGE difference from the epidural I got with Ava! I still felt a lot of intense pressure this time, but nothing near the pain I felt while delivering Ava. Friends and family arrived to visit and wish us well, and by 10:30 I was fully dilated and ready to push. I progressed so much more quickly than anyone expected that they ended up having to wheel my bed down the hall to the OR to deliver because there were still no rooms available. Just a few weeks before, I had been watching Father of the Bride II with Kate and made the comment that delivery is not as dramatic as in the movies since they don't actually push you down the hall while you're in labor anymore. I was wrong on that one! Chad was grabbing cameras, I was breathing deep and nurses wheeled me quickly to deliver. After about 30 minutes, Pierson Reed was born at 11:04. He was perfect, and healthy at 6 lbs 11 oz! I fell in love instantly.

We did get a recovery room and stayed in the hospital one night. The last two weeks have been a blur of loving moments with our new family, as well as some emotional fall out from hormones, sleeplessness, and learning how to parent a 3 year old and a newborn. Ava has adjusted well overall, but has had several tantrums in the past couple of weeks. It's all I can do sometimes not to cry right along with her. We are all adjusting right now. She kisses and loves on Pierson, but has made the occasional comment about wanting him to go back in my tummy or to the hospital. It's hard for her since I spend so much time nursing, and I feel badly that I physically can't play with her the way I did before since I am still healing and am taking care of Pierson occupies so much of my time. I am sure that everything will smooth out in time as we figure out a new routine and hopefully start to get more sleep. Many of my friends have two, three and four kids and seem to have it under control, so I am thinking of you all as a reminder that I can and will figure this out! In the meantime, I am praying for peace and patience for each of us, and an extra degree of wisdom for me and Chad to be both consistent in our discipline as well as gracious and loving since Ava's world has changed!

Thank you for all of your prayers for Pierson's safe arrival! We are so thankful the miracle of this new little life. I am amazed and grateful every day. Enjoy some more photos: