She's here!

So i have survived the first week of motherhood (well, almost, at 8:20 tomorrow a.m. it will be a week). It has not come without a few kinks, but all in all, things are going okay. I want to record the whole process of how little Ivy came into the world.

Last Tuesday I posted about my doctor's appt., and how he stripped my membranes. I went home and stayed on my feet all day. We walked around Costco, and I walked around my cul-de-sac as the kids rode bikes around 5, and I started having contractions (apparently Costco agrees with me because I walked around Costco the day I went into labor with Kate too!). My contractions felt a little stronger than the Braxton-Hicks I had been having, so I started timing them. My kids just wondered why we were still out riding bikes after it got dark, but I didn't want my contractions to stop if I went inside and sat down. :) I waited about two hours, and they started coming pretty regularly. So I called the on-call doctor, who never even called me back, so I called the Labor and Delivery unit at the hospital and they told me to come on in. So we dropped the kids off at Christy's house, and headed over there, with bags packed (but left in the car, just in case).

They hooked me up to the monitors, and checked me and I was a 5, and 70% effaced or so, so they told me i could stay (Huge exhale by me!). So they admitted me, and we started discussing my history of quick labors/deliveries. I was having contractions pretty steadily on my own at this point, but the anastheiologist (sp?) was in a c-section so I labored about an hour without an epidural. So after an hour or two they paged the doctor, and she came in and did an exam, thinking I was going to deliver so quickly. Well, even though I was dilated to a 6 my baby was still really high. I could tell the doctor was a little annoyed that she was paged in, and I wasn't ready yet. I thought she would just break my water, but she said that she was too high and that it was risky to do that if they baby hasn't dropped yet (something about the umbilical cord). So they put me on pitocin, and left me there all night long! Literally! I was so annoyed. I kept dilating more every hour, but I couldn't sleep, it was the middle of the night, and I was bored and anxious. Jim, of course, was sawing like a log all night long. So finally the doctor came in around 7 a.m. and broke my water. But by then her shift had changed so a new doctor came in. He checked me around 8:10 or so and said I was a dilated to a ten and ready to push. So they told me to do a few practice pushes, so I did one set of pushes and the room just turned into a flurry of activity. I guess my pushes were successful because I could see in a mirror that the baby's head was already coming out! So needless to say, literally two pushes later, little Ivy came into the world! Other than the laboring through the night, the actual delivery was the fastest yet of all 3 of my kids. And I didn't even get an episiotomy, just tore a tiny bit. It was great.

Little Ivy, two weeks early, weighed a healthy 8 lbs. 15 oz., and is 20 1/2 inches long. She is so cute! And although she might be considered quite "hardy" compared to most babies, she still seems so tiny to us!! I asked Jim to change her diaper in the hospital, and he said, "No thanks...her buns are way too tiny to mess with." My friend Christy ended up putting my kids to bed that night we went to the hospital, and after she tucked my kids in and they said their prayers, she left the room and she heard Kate say to Ezra, "Hey Ezzie, tomorrow we get to go meet Ivy!!" Christy told me that over the phone in the hospital and I of course burst into tears. My kids have been great though. We call Ezra Lennie (you know the story, the character in Of Mice and Men who squeezes his mouse to death?) because he hasn't really grasped the concept yet of being soft.

Now that we are home though, I have to be honest about my reality. I have a pretty severe case of post-partum anxiety. Not depression, but full-blown anxiety, complete with a racing heart, panic attacks, sweaty palms, no appetite, upset stomach, etc. It is so crappy. I don't know why I get this way, but it has happened with every one of my babies. Newborns are just so terrifying. I find myself always getting nervous anticpating what is to come. For instance, what will Ivy do tonight? Will she cry? What if we can't get her to stop? Are we going to be up all night? Am I going to be exhausted tomorrow? etc. etc. I do this all day long. The best way I can describe it is that I feel like I am on the starting line of a race, waiting for the gun to go off....and I feel that way all day long. It is gradually getting a little better, with the help of some select meds. But it's still so crappy to always be anxious and nervous. I wish I could just enjoy this tiny baby who will only be small for a moment. But my physical reaction is completely chemical because no matter how rational my brain thinks about it all, my body responds in an entirely different way that I can't control.
And since little Ivy came early, we haven't had any help since we came home. Jim spiked a fever the first night home from the hospital, and was in bed with chills and aches and a sore throat. So I was basically up and at 'em trying to take care of everyone. I laugh because when I came home with Kate, I don't think I lifted a finger for two weeks. My very first night home I fed my kids dinner, bathed them, and cleaned their bathroom. You just don't have the liberty of lying around once you have other people to take care of. But my mom will be here Sunday night, and then Jim's mom will be here the week after that, so I'm just trying to make it until then. I'll get through this....little Ivy is so tiny and precious, I'm just trying to breathe. :)

ps. Her full name is Ivy Bean Zimmerman. Jim conceded to Ivy if he could choose the middle name so he chose Bean, which is his mom's maiden name. I actually love it....and we already call her Beans. :)

Seriously....she needed to come out!


Waiting for the action to start....


9 pounder anyone?


Looking wiped out already :)

Our family of five....yikes!!





If this doesn't melt your heart, you must be dead inside. :)

These are the kind of pictures that Jim takes that crack me up. This was when little Ivy was getting her hearing test done.

Ready to come home from the hospital, all strapped in.





Well, that's our first week in a nutshell! I mentioned that we had no help, but obviously we did. I called in a favor with everyone of my friends to help with my kids, so thank you so much for everyone who took a turn with my two little monkeys. I don't know how we would have managed without our family and friends this time to help us out.

Who knows when I'll post next...I'll be submerged in the newborn hole. :)