Oh, Happy Day.

About 3am on Sunday, September 27 I woke up with contractions that kept coming every 20 minutes.  They weren't painful, but were definitely uncomfortable enough that I got no sleep! Once Jesh woke up we got excited thinking this could be the day we met Reese! (It was, after all, four days past my due date.)  Instead of going to church (the thought of sitting still for over an hour didn't sound too great) we decided to walk around and try to get labor moving. 

(I'm smiling but I'm really thinking "Ok, let's get this moving!")

We went all over town and stayed out until late afternoon, but the contractions stayed only 20 minutes apart.  I was exhausted when we got home and tried to take a nap, but that was when my contractions started getting closer together and laying down made them worse.  By 6pm, after pacing our bedroom for over an hour, the contractions were about 5 minutes apart but were getting hard to time because it felt like there was no break in between.  I asked Jesh to call Becky, my midwife, to ask her what she thought we should do.  Becky said she would come check me and see if she needed to stay.  She came to the house around 7:30, checked me, and I was already at 6cm.  She set up everything and by 8:45 I was ready to push!  Little Reese Ann was born at 9:17pm.  She was 8 lbs. and 21.5 in. long.  It was such a surreal experience...when I was pregnant I kept trying to picture what she would look like, but she was so much more beautiful than I had pictured!  

She had a bunch of dark hair and a cute little chubby face :o)  Jesh was awesome through the whole thing - he left me alone when I didn't want to talk and he cheered me on when I was pushing. 

We had a lot of visitors over the next couple weeks, including my mom, "Mema", who came for a week to help with Reese, cook and do a little cleaning.  She was amazing and I don't know how we would have done it without her!

Cousins:  Menias - 5 months, Reese - 1 day, Sydney - 6 weeks

With Mema

The first week was tiring but so...beautiful, fun, overwhelming, the list goes on.  We were so excited to meet Reese and felt so blessed that she was healthy and happy.  Praise God!