Our Little Early Bird Arrived!!!!!

Welcome to the family sweet Ivye Elise!!!!

She shocked us all by coming a full 5 days early with a head full of very dark hair!!! Our very 1st dark headed baby. I wasn't planning on a baby until around the 20th but the Lord definitely had other plans and gave her a birthday of November 10th.

I noticed some changes lending themselves toward imminent labor sometime Saturday afternoon. Even with the changes taking place I knew I still could very well go, at the very least, until Friday and maybe even make it into next week. Contractions were hard but VERY far apart so we continued on with the day. Brad and the children worked on the swingset while I sat in the lawn chair watching all of the activity on this gorgeous fall day. We eventually got all of the children into bed and Brad and I settled in for the night. Contractions continued throughout the night but continued to remain entirely inconsistent and spread apart. Nothing worthy of note.......just uncomfortable. It was a rather sleepless night and by Sunday morning there was nothing much of anything going on. They continued working on the swingset and I napped. The contractions were getting harder but still an hour apart. We finally decided that I should just take the children with me and head to Fort Worth since this was obviously not going away.....though it definitely wasn't going anywhere fast either. But by the time we got finished loading and finishing up details........I needed a shower and wanted makeup on, the laundry needed to be tended to, all of the animals needed to be topped off before we left, a few dishes had been used since lunch that needed to be done, etc.........contractions were very hard but still very far apart. Though when I did have them they were enough to need to stand still for and I didn't exactly feel like having a conversation through them. With that Brad asked me if I wanted him to go with us.........and I did. I hate leaving him behind and I hate doing this on my own without him. So, he hurriedly threw his stuff together, showered and and had to run into town for bank stuff. The children and I went ahead and hit the road with him falling in about an hour later somewhere on the dark road behind us. We pulled into FW about 11pm and dropped the sleeping children off at Mother's. I climbed in with him and we made our way the rest of the way to Denton, arriving there around midnight. Evaluation was that I was definitely in early labor but instead of trying to get things stirred up as long as they were still spread apart to go ahead and try to get a night's worth of sleep. Disappointing but welcome news since I was desperately tired by this point. We slept and everything all but went away. The next morning's evaluation was that I had made little to no progress and this could go on for days. True labor? Maybe. Early labor? Ummm.........possible. And I could be in early labor like this for as long as a week. So, over a long breakfast and the drive back to Mother's the debate began on whether for Brad to return home and work the last 1/2 of his shift or just stay and wait it out with me. With there not being an overly large amount of room for the entire family to camp at Mother's and with contractions still every hour or so we both felt at peace with him returning home. Neither of us wanted to spend a fortune on hotel nights waiting for this to go somewhere and the animals needed to be tended to. So, it was that he dropped me off at Mother's and loved the children and set off on his journey to return home........with the promise of returning to us in only a matter of days for the arrival of Ivye. It was a bit depressing saying goodbye to him and I was already overly emotional and tired. I took Aubrey, Garrett and Gavin and laid down with them for a long afternoon nap while Mother took the other's and did some grocery shopping and errands. After a long 3 hr nap I woke up to some more hard but inconsistent contractions. A lot more of the same. I finally decided a shower would work and probably help them to die off since it usually relaxed everything and was enough to change the pace of everything to get my body to settle down. By 5 pm and several really hard contractions in the shower I guess I finally began to realize this was really going somewhere and that they were growing closer together. I called Brad and after we both debated on it for a long while I told him I really felt like he shouldn't go in........but that to turn right back around and come back was absolutely insane. He'd JUST gotten home! I had a contraction while we were on the phone and it was enough to convince him to turn around yet again and head back to FW. The absurdity of it was growing a little more ridiculous, not to mention humorous, as this story unfolded. All I could obsess on was the gas money now involved, all of the money we had spent on the road and on the hotel the night before and the fact he got home just long enough to throw a bail of hay out in the pasture and feed the dog and the growing collection of cats we have going now. Flying by the seat of our pants and spontaneous doesn't even begin to come close to describing this little scenario. And I was feeling horribly guilty for not being able to know what was going on with my body and feeling like we had just spent a ton of money. Given the fact that I am a planner.....though I do fairly well with some forms of spontaneity......this was not going according to plan at all, and I was growing increasingly irritated with that fact.

By the time I was out of the shower and dressed I told Mother we indeed needed to head over to the midwife's pretty quick. By this time the worst torrential downpour in probably 4 months had hit the FW area. Hard rain hammered the windows like bullets while lightening and thunder rocketed through the skies. Grayson and Evye got everybody loaded and Mother and I with all of the children set off bound for the the little birthing home. During the drive there weaving our way through a wreck and the Amazon downpour contractions once again spread way apart. I guess the deterrence was enough to get my mind off of everything and once again postpone labor. They waited to see if I'd made any progress and I was grateful to hear the report of now being 7 cm. Now just to get Brad there in time. Mother left to return back to her house with the children and I was left at the little birthing home to wait for Brad to arrive. Contractions at this point were now back to being 30 minutes to an hour apart. I was fine with that since I knew it would give him time to arrive and that this was making labor actually very pleasant and rather painless. To hurt for only 45 seconds and then have an hour break was pretty surreal and somewhat enjoyable. AS time passed though I began to get a little more mad....mad at the fact that all of this whole labor and delivery plan was as far as we could possibly get from everything I had envisioned and dreamed of for it. The huge glamorous birthing suite was taken by another laboring mom which meant the birthing tub was yet again out of my reach for this delivery. There the wicked hussy lay in her dreamy little watery birth world while I lay on the same bed I delivered Garrett on....dry as a bone and no water in site.....away from the sheer flowing chiffon canopy that was supposed to make every dream in life come true. And not only did I lay on the bed minus the oceanic epidural that I was promised but Brad was hundreds of miles away. I couldn't even go sit on the porch swing while I waited for him due to the artic front blowing through dipping down into the 50's and Hurricane Ike that seemed to be accompanying the swirling thunderstorm that was electrifying the world outside. I had dreamed of a beautiful fall day surrounded by orange, red and yellow trees as we sat on the swing on the breezy day working through labor together. And then I had envisioned climbing into the huge birthing tub when things got hard and finishing it out there in peace and serenity with only minor pain. But here I was now stuck on a bed in a rainstorm without him and the tub as far away a possibility as one could get.....not to mention that the wicked devil woman laying serenely in the dreamy birth bed hogging the tub managed to peacefully and quietly deliver her baby after only an hour after she arrived at the birthing home. The far away cry of a newborn rung through the home as I lay there in my growing self pity. So......I just got madder. And everytime I talked to Brad he was fighting the same storm system I was listening to outside and he was always farther away than what I imagined when he would give a progress report as to his location. After 2 hrs of laying there and only 3 contractions things started to pick up without warning and suddenly I was in the throws of labor without him. I called him to tell him I didn't think he was going to make it and just to hurry...which was a bit repetitive at this point and really very fruitless since he was doing 90 and 95 to get there......through the torrential rain. He finally arrived when things were starting to get really really hard and all anger dissipated at just having him finally beside me. We found out at that point I was an 8. A whole centimeter in 2 hrs. It was disturbing to say the least....but then again I think my body just held on and wouldn't ever let go until he arrived. After surviving sheer torture through 4 or so contractions I finally gave in and let her break my water. Almost immediately everything kicked into high gear and we were ready to have a baby. I never make labor look glamorous by any stretch of the imagination and it was, as always.......really tough, hard work. But I couldn't imagine ever doing it without Brad there and I held onto him for dear life. After a seemingly infinite amount of time spent in misery, when in reality it was only about 3-5 minutes and 2 pushes later, we held our newest little member to the family.

She weighed in at 8'2 and is 20 inches long....and a full 5 days early. The 1st baby that has ever spontaneously arrived before her due date. It was a fun, albeit very unplanned for, surprise. Since I had never rehearsed this scenario in my mind it still managed to catch me off guard and wreak havoc on the plans we had made. It seemed a bit empty when we left for home since it felt like nothing had really happened the way it should have. Kind of funny now looking back on it all. She arrived at about 10:30 or so and after staying and recouping and then getting cleaned up Brad and I left the little birthing home for a very peaceful much needed night's sleep at the same hotel we had slept in the very night before. We both slept late, had a huge incredible breakfast and headed back to have her "24" hr assessment done...which was really more like 15 hr assessment. Once everybody was given a perfect bill of health we headed back to Mother's to pick up Grayson and Evye and show everyone their Baby Ivye.....or according to Garrett, his "Baby I-thee". They all got to take turns holding her before Brad and I set off into the sunset with Grayson, Evye and now our sweet Ivye in tow. For Brad this was making the trip down this same stretch of highway for the 4th time in less than 24 hrs. I think that beats every commuting record he had going. But this was by far the most fulfilling, rewarding, gratifying trip he had made yet.

So, he we are at home with the younger 5 camped out with Mother until the end of the week. She'll drive them back home and stay for a few days sometime this weekend while I try and focus on staying in bed and NOT doing anything else. It will hopefully enable me to hit the routine and get back into a schedule when they return. So, here we sit still 3 days before my due date holding a sweet new baby girl. What a welcome surprise!