Amazing Ax-Man: Ivy is here!

My water broke right before 10 pm. Jeff and I had been watching a movie, then we heard Felix get out of bed so Jeff went upstairs to check on him (potty break) and I stood up to rinse out my ice cream bowl. As I was rinsing my bowl out, I felt the sudden gush of my water breaking. I ran for the bathroom, then hollered for Jeff. I called my mom first so that she could start heading our way, then called the doctor, who informed the hospital that I would be there in a few hours.

Coincidentally wearing the same shirt I wore when I went into labor with Felix. When you only rotate through about 5 shirts, there's about a 20% chance of that happening, haha.

We were not excited to labor overnight again, ugh. Poor Jeff was so beat!

We left for the hospital around 12:30am on the 11th. I wasn't really having contractions, so after I was admitted (and they checked to make sure it was really amniotic fluid I was leaking (like, no duh)) the nurse started me on Pitocin. Pitocin is the worst. I walked around for a while, but since you aren't allowed to walk outside your room because of COVID, I just had to do circles around the room. Eventually the contractions got more intense, so I sat on the yoga ball for a while. The monitor kept losing the baby's heartbeat in that position, so the nurse was constantly coming back in to reposition it.

At 6:30am I asked for an epidural. I had to wait until after shift change, so I finally got it around 7:30. Unfortunately it only worked on the left half of my body again (just like when I had Axel). Luckily this time I had an anesthesiologist who was willing to tweak things until it worked. My blood pressure plunged and I was super nauseous, so I got a bunch of meds to help with that. Baby's heartbeat wasn't recovering well after contractions, so the nurse was constantly flipping me from side to side. After 2 hours, the anesthesiologist pulled the epidural catheter out slightly and had me arch my back weird while he pushed in more meds, and that did the trick! I was so much more comfortable after that point!

Baby's heartbeat still wasn't recovering after contractions too well, and I wasn't dilating very quickly. They eased off the Pitocin. Jeff was starving at this point (it was around 10am) so he went to Chick-fil-a to get breakfast. Following the same trend as when Felix was born, the nurse checked me and it was suddenly time to push so I had to call Jeff to come back! Luckily he was just pulling into the hospital parking lot. He shoved his breakfast in his mouth, then ran upstairs to my room. I was about to start pushing. The baby's head didn't want to come all the way out, so I pushed for a bit longer than everyone was expecting, about 25-30 minutes. I was able to help pull her out, and Jeff cut the cord.

Ivy was born at 11:12 am on April 11th! 6lb 13oz, 19.25 inches long. She immediately peed all over me.

I got to hold her and nurse her for over an hour before they took her to clean her off and weigh her. Jeff was dying to hold her by that point.

She looks like combo between Axel and Felix as babies.

She loved to suck on her fingers.

That first night was a long one (well, all the nights have been). She didn't want to sleep in her bassinet, so I held her all night and went in and out of sleep. There were interruptions from hospital staff every hour or so, so I wasn't going to be able to sleep much anyway.