june 18: reed's is born!

Our first family photo!

June 18, 2013 at 2:15am our son, Reed Stephen Pearson was born!!! 8 pounds 13 ounces and 20 inches long :) It was quite the process but in the end- seeing him- it was more than worth those 40 weeks and 30 hours of labor....he is absolutely perfect!

I was being induced on Sunday night, so after dinner with my Mom and Brian's brothers, James and John, Brian and I said our "see you laters" and headed off to the ER where we checked in on Sunday, June 16 (Father's Day) at 9:00pm. Right away they put us in our labor suite and got me hooked up to all the bells and whistles. They put the cytotec in, which would thin out my cervix overnight. Our doctor came in on Monday morning to check our status and broke my water at 7:00am. The contractions began but they put me on pitocin to help out and by noon I was having regular, strong contractions. I wanted to hold off on the epidural as long as possible but by 5:00pm, only dilated to a 4, I had to request it. The pain was outrageous. Right away the epidural kicked in and I was back to myself and enjoying this process again! By 9:00pm I was dilated to an 8 and pretty much all thinned out except for one small corner of the cervix but we thought we were well on our way to having Reed that night. At 10:00pm I was a 9 and again, pretty much all thinned out so we began pushing to try and see if Reed could come through that one portion that was not fully thinned out. After several tries, they increased the pitocin, let that settle in and then pushed again. We repeated this several times before we got the news that his head would not fit- he was a big boy- and his head was down but facing the opposite direction. At 1:30am on Tuesday, June 18, after a minor meltdown (I was scared) we were on our way to have a cesarean section. Our doctor noticed that we love our tunes (played them all day in our suite) and also knew I was from California so on our way being wheeled into the room we noticed they had the Beach Boys playing California Girls! I obviously didn't feel much during the procedure and when I heard Reed finally cry it made the past 30 hours completely worth it. Words cannot describe it- it was just magical. He is such a blessing and Brian and I (and Patron) are so excited to have him in our lives!

Brian and Reed a few hours after birth