Welcome to the World, Frances Joy!
Note: This post contains details about her birth. If you don’t like birth stories, you may want to skip this post.
I am so pleased to be writing this post to introduce you to the newest little lady to join our crew - Frances Joy Reesor. She joined our family on February 5th, 2023 at 8:15 in the morning after a fast and furious labour. She was born at the perfect size of 7lbs 14oz with whispy brown hair and beautiful blue eyes. From the moment I laid eyes on her, I knew she looked just like her Dad and my heart did something I wasn’t sure it would be able to do: it fell in love all over again.
Other than sharing just a few short weeks ago about how I was preparing differently for this postpartum experience, I didn’t share about this pregnancy here on our blog. It was late last May when I took the pregnancy test that confirmed her existence. I had hosted some friends for a brunch time crafting session when I realized that all I could smell throughout the morning was the cheese on the charcuterie board. When the food was cleaned up and everyone had parted ways, it suddenly dawned on me that I could be pregnant. Within moments of the thought, I was fixated on taking a test and even abandoned Curt in the middle of opening our pool to go take one. Sure enough, there were two little lines and I cried big globby tears of excitement - a reaction I could have only dreamed of just a year prior.
It had taken a lot of time and a lot of work to be at this point. I know a lot of people struggle with infertility, which I’m grateful has never been a struggle for us. However, there was a point in time after having Mabel where I genuinely didn’t think I would be able to do it all again. Pregnancy, birth, postpartum. My step into motherhood felt more like a constant stumble and even though my heart longed for a bigger family, I truly didn’t think I was going to be able to go through the mental and emotional turmoil I experienced with my first. But through a lot of prayer, personal growth, talk therapy, acceptance and healing, I had miraculously reached a point where I felt I could entertain the idea. When I looked at that positive test result on that late-May day with a reaction of indescribable joy, all I could muster to say was “I want this baby SO badly.” And the rest is history.
My pregnancy went well. It had all the characteristics of my pregnancy with Mabel, but to a more intense degree. My morning sickness was sharper. My skin was worse. My sweet cravings, intense. I knew in my heart that we were expecting another girl for these very reasons and sure enough, my 20-week ultrasound confirmed it. Mabel was thrilled to learn she would be a big sister to a little sister, but then again, she was mostly just excited that she got to eat a cupcake with pink icing when we revealed the news to her. A series of concerns popped up throughout the pregnancy, like the potential for placenta previa, failing the gestational diabetes screening, and once again, low iron, but I felt covered in peace and one by one those potential issues resolved themselves. Throughout the 40 weeks, my singular prayer was that this entire experience would be a redeeming one and I’d let my mind recite Romans 15:13 every time I felt overcome with worry. The weeks flew by and with every day we were closer to meeting her, my heart would grow with more anticipation and excitement.
Over the seemingly endless months of being pregnant, we faced a series of challenges and hardships as a family. This past year has been the hardest year of my life. Curt and I made some important but difficult decisions for our family, we battled various health challenges, and I grieved the loss of my Dad. But despite the deep wells of grief and sadness, the anticipation of this little girl also brought us a deep sense of joy and purpose. We settled on her middle name, Joy, for that very reason.
Only a couple of hours old.
At 40 weeks and 5 days pregnant, I was starting to get a little more antsy for her to make her appearance. I could feel my body adapting and various signs of an approaching labour began to reveal themselves, but she wasn’t quite ready to come. As one last ditch effort to serve her an eviction notice, Curt and I spent the Saturday walking around town. We journeyed to our favourite coffee shop in the morning and then out again later through the snow for an extensive walk to his parent’s house. Later that night, I woke up around 1:30am to use the bathroom and when I laid back in bed, I sensed a contraction. Sure enough, 14 minutes later, another. They continued in that way, growing only slightly more intense as time went on. Not wanting to wake anyone, I moved to our bathroom so I could labour on my yoga ball for a while. I listened to worship music and timed my breathing to the beat of the songs that came on. Suddenly around 6:15am, I had a noticeably more intense contraction and my water broke. My contractions weren’t yet consistently regular, but I had an instinctual sense that we should be heading for the hospital. I called the midwife and Curt gathered our bags.
We arrived at the midwifery unit of the hospital around 7:30am on Sunday February 5th. My contractions were intense and I was in agony. The hospital midwife on duty checked my progress and noted I was dilated to 7cm before asking about my birth plan. I told her I’d prefer to have an epidural, but otherwise, didn’t have much of a plan. She was quiet for a moment and then lead me to the birthing room. I could barely take any steps before another contraction would come and once we arrived in the room, she applied pressure to my back and calmly told me that the baby was in transition and there wouldn’t be time for an epidural. She offered to set up the laughing gas as an aid, but even those plans were abandoned when we all realized the baby was coming now. The rest was a blur - I started pushing and my own midwife walked in just as the baby was making her appearance. In fact, she didn’t even have time to change into her scrubs. I’m pretty sure I only pushed for 15 minutes, if that, and suddenly, Frances was here. They placed her on my tummy and Curt and I admired everything about her. She was born within 45 minutes of arriving at the hospital.
Only 36 hours old and already loves being nice and cozy.
When I had Mabel, I had retained placenta and haemorrhaged both immediately after giving birth and then again 10 days later. The entire experience was incredibly traumatic and played a huge role in my hesitations to do this all again. It was isolating and terrifying as a frenzy of people worked around me to get the bleeding under control. I ended up having a DNC and a blood transfusion and was left with very little explanation of the why, which made the entire experience difficult to process. Having gone through that, my midwives warned that I would be at an increased risk for it to happen again, but they worked patiently and empathetically with me throughout my pregnancy to understand what had happened, why it happened, and how we would handle it should it happen again. Their compassion was essential. Unfortunately, when Frances was born, my placenta didn’t detach from the uterus and the entire scenario happened again. Yet despite being faced with a very similar situation, the entire experience was incredibly different.
My midwives were calm, collected, and prepared. We had planned for this and they executed the plan seamlessly. When the placenta didn’t detach within 30 minutes of Frances being born, they quickly transferred me to an OR in the labour and delivery unit. The on-duty OB performed a manual sweep of the uterus and removed the placenta, all while my midwives stuck by my side. Eventually I was transferred to the ICU for 36 hours where I received multiple units of blood, white platelets, plasma, and an iron infusion as well as a 12 hour cycle of oxytocin. The entire time I felt at peace and well cared for. I didn’t feel isolated or scared like I had the first time. As I laid resting, I wondered how Curtis and Frances were doing and could hardly wait to see her again. I longed to study her little body and cuddle her in close to me. I tried to remember what I had noticed in the 30 short minutes I had with her after she arrived.
Curt cared exclusively for Frances for the first 36 hours. He did such a good job keeping her fed and cozy.
My Mom brought Mabel to the hospital to meet her new sister and she was instantly smitten. She’s going to be such a good big sister.
Later that evening, my midwife arranged to bring Curtis and Frances down to the ICU to visit me so we could do some skin-to-skin and get her latched. I was so happy to catch another little glimpse of her. They spent a couple of hours with me before returning back to the maternity floor for the evening. The next afternoon, I was stable enough to be transferred back up to be with them too. We stayed another day and a half in the hospital before being discharged for home, but not before I asked a million and one questions and felt emotionally well enough to leave. Everyone was incredibly sensitive to my anxieties about my condition because of my previous history and they went above and beyond to support me. We arrived home to a cozy home where my Mom was waiting to spend the night with us as an extra set of hands. It felt so good to be home and I was eager to settle in to the slowness of these newborn days.
As I mentioned, my prayer throughout this entire experience of welcoming Frances was that it would be a redeeming experience. To me, that obviously meant that I didn’t want what happened with Mabel to happen to me again. But as I reflect back on it all, even just 12 short days later, I can see that my prayer was absolutely answered. The entire situation was so similar, yet I felt so different this time. I experienced a deep sense of peace through it all and felt utter and complete trust in the way God was working. I could sense the prayers the people around us were praying on our behalf. I never once felt alone, but instead, supported. And we have a beautiful and healthy little girl who now fits so perfectly into our little family at the end of it all. I’ve come to realize that I needed to experience the same thing in a new way in order for that redemption to actually occur.
Our first snuggle after spending the day apart. I just sat in this moment and cried and cried.
My visitors in the ICU. Despite all the wires and needles, we still managed to get Frances latched and she settled in quickly.
Frances Joy, you are so loved. I didn’t know if I’d be able to love another little one like I love your sister Mabel, but alas, you’ve proven me wrong. I have so much love in my heart for my girls. I am blessed to be your Mom and I pray that you never doubt my love and gratitude for your precious little life. I never could have imagined you, yet now that you’re here, you feel so perfect to us. How can life truly be this sweet?
