I did it!  She is here and two weeks early to boot!  I was so impatient and miserable and cranky. I wanted this pregnancy to be over and now looking back it seems to have flown by.

Here is Ivy's birth story.  I wrote this hours after her birth while everything was still fresh.

I woke up at 3:39 a.m. because I was uncomfortable.  As I was laying there I felt a very strange feeling.  It was like a plop and then I felt a sudden urge to go to the bathroom.  I got up to go and felt my first contraction.  I had been having weird pains for weeks I got back in bed to see if it would go away.  I laid there about five minutes before I couldn't lay anymore.  I woke up John to warn him and then told him to go back to sleep since he had just got home from work at 2a.m.  I told him I would wake him if I needed him.

 

For the next 30 minutes I timed contractions, went back and forth to the bathroom and called my mom.  While talking to my mom I felt a little weepy.  I hung up and made some toast thinking maybe that would make me feel better.  It didn't help, in fact the toast was still sitting on a plate in the kitchen hours after Ivy made her appearance.  I felt like I couldn't be alone anymore and woke up John.  He stumbled out of bed and came into the kitchen and asked what was up.  I told him the contractions were 2 minutes apart and 40-60 seconds long and then I got all weepy again.  That perked him right up and he called Beth, our midwife.  She said she was on her way.

I got into the bath tub and that helped.  The pain was very intense.  Beth arrived and checked me and said I was dilated to 6cm.  I was a tiny bit disappointed and told John I just didn't know if I could do this for hours.  A few minutes later I had to get out of the tub to pee.  I told Susan one of her assistants and she helped me.  I asked her to not talk or touch (this must have been a big flashing sign that I was in transition).   As soon as I sat down on the toilet I started screaming "Take me to the hospital, I can't take this, I have changed my mind!"  Beth came in and said she would take me to the hospital if I wanted but she wanted to check me first.  She checked me and said I was at 8 cm.  She left the bathroom to go set things up and I started screaming that I was feeling pushy.  She came back in with Jessica (her daughter who is also her apprentice) and they helped me get up and walk to my room.  That was the longest walk of my life!  My room is on the other side of the house.  I kept stopping every few steps to scream that I had to poop and I didn't want to do it on the floor.  My body was pushing with no help from me.  It could best be described as "dry heaving backwards".  I was also screaming that my "pee area" was splitting.  I couldn't remember what it was called at the time.  I just knew it was ripping and burned like hell.

We finally got to my room and I was leaning over the foot of my bed and Beth touched me and I screamed.  Every nerve in my body was screaming!  It was like they were all on hyper drive.  I climbed on the bed and lay on my side and started pushing with my body.  I pushed and pushed and felt like I was not getting anywhere.  I was screaming with every push.  Beth suggested that I grunt instead of scream and I said I felt like I was getting no where.  She had me reach down and feel and I felt the baby's head, all wrinkled from being squished through my birth canal.  That gave me strength to push more and finally her head was out.  At that time Beth told me I had to get on my hands and knees because Ivy didn't rotate and it would be harder to get her out.  So I did as told and a few more pushes and I felt that slithery plop as she came out.  She lay beneath me and I Said "oh my gosh, it's a girl!"  We didn't know what we were having because we decided not to have an ultra sound.  She was gorgeous and we decided right there that she would be called Ivy Sunshine.

The whole labor lasted about 1 and a half hours.  She was born at 5:09 a.m.  It was very intense because it was so fast.  I felt think hitting transition so fast really freaked me out.  I was not ready for it.  I was just getting used to the idea that I was really in labor when I hit transition.

The boys came in right after Ivy came out.  Avery said he heard me screaming and thought they would just stay in their room till I stopped.  Smart boy.  When I told him it was a  girl he said "I know cause I told God I wanted a girl".  I think one of the highlights for him was seeing my birth canal.  He told me several times that he saw it and it was red.  Nolan just kept stroking her feet saying "babee soft, gentle".  Both boys were thrilled.

Oh yeah, Ivy weighed 9.4oz and was 21 inches long.