SAY HELLO TO RAEGAN!

RICHLAND, WASH. -- I guess it's safe to say my children take after me and are always running late-- because not one of them has arrived on time into this crazy world. Our newest addition followed suit. At numerous doctor and ultrasound appointments, I was told baby number four would likely be my biggest baby yet. And they were right.

Raegan Candrian Reeve 

 Wednesday, July 24, 2019 

8:09 p.m. 

9 pounds 10 ounces, 23 inches long

Here's the story of her birth...

After nearly a week past our due date, the staff at Kadlec Medial Center kindly scheduled me for an induction. Isaac and I arrived to the hospital at 6 a.m. Wednesday morning. By 8 a.m. my induction had begun and we were off to a slow moving start with our crotchety nurse reminding us every chance she got that being "advanced maternal age" was not a real reason to be induced and that we shouldn't have been scheduled already. She sure made us feel welcome! Thankfully our night nurse, whose name I wish I remembered, was the most amazing nurse we've ever had.  

After several hours of erratic contractions, the doctor (Dr. Mulholland) broke my water to speed things up. Soon thereafter, the contractions picked up steam and got incredibly painful. So, I asked for the much beloved epidural. I'd had three incredibly awesome ones with my previous births that killed all horrible pain without a hitch. God bless the person who invented the epidural! I was starting to think how lucky I was that my epidurals had always worked wonders, when just before 8 p.m. I started feeling incredible pressure-- indicating that the baby wanted out ASAP. I'd experienced this pressure, to an extent, with my other babies, so I knew just what it meant. I called the nurse, who called the doctor and told him to return from his dinner break STAT! Ten minutes later, the doctor was in the room and it was game time. 

Now... unlike my previous births, the pressure usually didn't bother me, because, like I said, those epidurals worked amazingly. This one, however, started to feel alarmingly different. Suddenly the pressure I was feeling turned into enormous pressure and then irritatingly uncomfortable pain. As soon as they told me to start pushing, the pain increased and the pressure was the most enormous, uncomfortable, horrendous pain I'd ever experienced. I couldn't push this baby out fast enough! Suddenly, all those awful stories I'd heard about people's epidurals not working, were coming true for me! I was so thrown off and mind-boggled by all of it. It was so unexpected and completely caught me off guard. As I started pushing, I kept looking up to Isaac (who was standing to the left of me) and grabbing at him-- wanting him to grab the baby out and make my pain go away! Isaac later told me he knew something was wrong by the look of absolute terror on my face. The pain was immense and I was SO mad my epidural stopped working right at the time it was supposed to work the best! 

Anyway, that awful pressure turned into a fiery pain that was beyond anything I'd ever felt. The nurse told me to wait for the next contraction to start pushing, but you couldn't have had me wait to push if you paid me a billion bucks. I told her I would not be waiting, but I was going to keep pushing because I wanted this experience over NOW.  So, I pushed a few good more pushes and out sweet baby Raegan came. I think I pushed for less than ten minutes-- which was far less than any of my other babies. Normally my doctors had me laying down to push, but this doctor left me sitting straight up, so I was able to see my sweet little baby as soon as she was in the doctor's arms. It made me tear up to see the most beautiful little girl with a dark head full of hair, and boy was she chubby! It was an emotional experience. Such a beautiful, big, healthy baby girl.   

Unfortunately, I hemorrhaged, and lost a ton of blood. They had to give me a shot and a pill to slow down the bleeding. I lost a sixth of my body's blood and shivered uncontrollably for hours afterward. 

It's amazing to me the miracle that babies are when they arrive healthy and strong into the world. I was a little nervous after having Britta that something would be amiss with Raegan. But we are grateful all is well. Our other girls are smitten with her, and I was so nervous we'd have a rough go with Britta. But she is Raegan's biggest fan. Life is good.