I AM WOMAN!!!

I am woman; hear me roar (and groan, and moan, and cry, etc.). Wahoo! I just gave birth vaginally for the first time!! I was in the comfort of my own home, as planned, and I used no drugs and did not have any interventions! We now have a beautiful baby girl. She is joy personified and we named her Ivy Fiona. Levi and Ivy get their names from my maternal grandfather's maternal grandparents, i.e. my great-grandparents Bodily, which is why Levi's middle name is Bodily. Ivy makes sweet little sounds all the time and she is growing like a weed. Sometimes her hair looks like it's thinking about maybe turning red (the grandmas would just die of happiness). 

These two pictures are of Ivy just after her first bath.

 And this is her the morning after her birth. She was born at 8:30 pm on Saturday the 27th of November. She weighed 7 lbs and 8 oz and measured 20 inches long.

She is now 3 weeks old and still seems tiny to me. I think she is now about the size Levi was at birth. She likes to hide her face in my arm or a hat or a blanket when she sleeps. Her baby acne is clearing up. Her cheeks are getting fleshier, as is the rest of her body (good thing, she was a stick at birth!)

Levi loves Ivy. He likes to hold her or give her hugs, comfort and calm her, be sure she has enough blankets, help bathe her, and call her "my sweet boy" (just right at first). Now he has mostly learned to say she and her instead of he and him. He talks about our "little baby" and wants to know where she is and if she's OK. Ivy returns the affection, as much as any 3-week-old might be able to: she watches him and lets him hold her.

 Levi and Ivy meet.

Nathan is a wonderful father for both children. He certainly looks forward to Ivy being able to interact on a larger scale, yet still enjoys holding her and talking with her. He stayed home the first week after the birth and took very, very good care of me. He made sure that I followed the midwife's instructions to the letter, and brought me food and things to do, and changed all the diapers. Even though he may not believe me, I can with conviction say that I have the best husband.

Mom stayed with us for the next two weeks after Nate had to return to work and cooked and cleaned and entertained Levi and even helped me prepare neighbor and friend gifts. We made sugar cookie dough and wrapped it such that it can be frozen for a while if people don't want another treat in the house right now and we included some homemade frosting. Because Mom was helping me, everything got done AND they looked super-cute rather than hum-drum.

Nate's sweet mom, Suzanne, came out to be with me a few times when Mom had to go in to work and that was very helpful. I/we are so very lucky to have both our moms close by and also lucky that they are willing and able to help. I hope I can be of as much help and comfort to my children's families sometime in the future.

The grandmas and great-grandma are tickled pink to have a granddaughter and I enjoy having a girl. So, now we have one of each and I can give the highest recommendation for boys and girls. I love being a mother. I feel fufilled, blessed, favored, lucky, happy. There is absolutely no other thing I would rather be doing.

Our family

I am now 35 weeks along and the arrival of the newest member of our family is swiftly approaching and we are very excited. It is being awfully difficult to stand up, roll over, stay comfortable, etc., but it's all worth it. I feel our little Ivy move a lot. Molly, our midwife, was over yesterday morning and told us that Ivy is facing forward and that is why I can feel so much movement of her limbs. I haven't felt her so much today, so maybe that means that she has turned around, which would be a good thing. The birth will be much easier if she is facing backwards.

Levi knows who is coming in November and where she is right now, though he still occasionally points to the wrong belly, e.g. his own, Nate's or Mom's. He kisses my belly when he wants to say hi to Ivy, and he even knows her middle name: Fiona.

Levi is very good at "lawning" with the toy lawn mower and toy trimmer we bought at a garage sale recently. He is very good at taking care of Froggy and at telling his two-foot-tall Elmo that "It's OK." We read The Bernstein Bears' New Baby yesterday and I think maybe we should do that more often and find other such books to help him prepare for the new arrival.

Nathan is a wonderful father. He loves to read stories with our son

and go with him to the Living Planet Aquarium. They always come back from the aquarium with great stories about everything they saw and how big it was. This last time, they were there while the frogs were being fed, which was really cool because the frogs aren't usually very interesting, but at feeding time they are all sorts of active. I'll have to get some pictures from Nathan of Levi at the Aquarium. They also like to play outside on the lawn and go to the park. Levi has become quite the independent boy and can climb up and down almost everything at the park and go up to and down from the slide all by himself.

Wow, looking at pictures I realize I am a bit behind.  Here are a couple of pictures of Levi playing (wrestling?) with his friend Sam:

Sam and his brother Shay are new very good friends of about 4 months, I think. Their dad, Larry, works with my mom at Stampin' Up! and their mom, Jen, and I are become fast friends. Shay just turned 4 and Sam is exactly 2 weeks younger than Levi. The also wear cloth diapers, but are recently potty-trained and Jen, generous and kind soul, gave me all of their diapering regalia, OK maybe not regalia exactly, maybe paraphernalia is a better word. Anyway, I'm tickled pink. Now I really will be spared the necessity of ever buying a diaper again in my life!

Next are some pictures taken and Andrew's house:

Nice hairdo, oder? And these last two depict Levi enjoying his favorite (most requested) treat: a popsicle. We love visiting Andrew and his mom, Samantha, who is an old dear friend of mine. We first bonded over Smith's chinese food and Jane Austen way back in 2000, I think.

These next pictures are of Levi eating half of a massive burrito before going to Taylorsville days with Same and Shay and parents:

Levi eats very well and likes most food, but he is getting a little pickier as he grows up. Oh, well.

These next pictures were taken a couple of days after Levi's 2nd birthday. I snapped the one of him on the shelf as he was stressing out about how to get down. He has much more climbing confidence now, but I've not seen him climbing any shelves since that day.

Levi loves to check the mail:

Still a girl!!

As of yesterday, the baby we're expecting in a couple months is still a girl.

This is a picture of her profile. Her head is on the right and she's got two hands right there in the middle and I'm not sure exactly what's on the left end of the picture.
The placenta is high up in the back of the uterus, so about as far away from my scar as it can be. Wahoo!!