Sweet Baby Reese

She's here! And I don't think I can even begin to tell you how beautiful she is. Reese Robinson Walker arrived at 4:26 p.m. on Saturday, September 18th weighing in at 8 pounds and is a whopping 20 1/2 inches long.

I'll start at the beginning...

I decided to celebrate not going into labor on my due date by going to a high school football game on Friday night. We walked a lot, and I went to sleep very tired. Wes, on the other hand, didn't fall asleep until 3:30 in the morning. Oops. When I woke up at 6:03 to what felt like a much different contraction than any other I had experienced, I stood up and realized my water had just broken. I tried to let Wes sleep a bit more, but by 6:28, three contractions had gone by, and I was thinking we needed to get this show on the road. By 7:30, my contractions had been 3-5 minutes apart for quite a while, and we made the move to the hospital. I was admitted at 4 cm and progressed to 8 cm in a few short hours. With Wes, my doula, and dearest friend Lauren (who also happens to be a labor and delivery nurse here), we were on track to having a very short natural labor. Ha. I stayed in transition (8-10 cm) for over four and a half hours, experienced an 8 minute contraction, and finally got to a 10 a little after 4:00 p.m. After 20 minutes of pushing, God helped me deliver Reese into this world. And yes, I did it without any medical interventions. What an answered prayer. I am not exactly sure why I wanted to do this naturally, but I did it...and it was the most painful experience of my life.

It was the most painful experience of my life until we realized that Reese had a few complications. Perspective totally shifted. Very quickly. I have forgotten the pains of childbirth, and I now just long for our baby girl to be well. I won't go into all the little details, and trust me, there are lots of little details, but Reese has Group B Strep. I tested negative for it at 36 weeks pregnant, so I didn't receive any of the antibiotics during labor. Nonetheless, Reese is looking and appears to be feeling much better than she did on Saturday and Sunday. As of now, without further complications, we are looking at another 10 or so days here in the hospital while Reese receives antibiotics, recovers from this nasty infection, and stays under constant watch and care in the Intensive Care Nursery.

We are praising God for answering so many specific prayers in the way we wanted them to be answered. Reese has been off oxygen since Sunday, and her coloring is just beautiful now. Recent test results are coming back in favor of a healthy recovery, and we feel the hand of God constantly. We would like to ask for your prayers, however, for Reese to continue this road. She has had a few setbacks, and we pray for no more of these. Pray for all current and future test results to be good, pray for her ability and desire to breast feed alone, and pray for a procedure that will be done tomorrow morning. I trust God to give the doctors and nurses the wisdom and discernment throughout this whole process, but it can't hurt to pray for them either.

We have been showered with love and prayers from so many, and we appreciate all of the phone calls, emails, text messages, etc. Keep it up, please. We are encouraged and believe that Reese will be perfectly healthy in a matter of another week or so. Until then, we wait with faith here at the hospital.

I'll leave you with a few of my favorite pictures of our precious daughter. Like I said before, she is beautiful.