Home Sweet Home

Hi All.

Today we brought our daughter home. It was and is amazing.

We fed her when we got home and then she took a 3 hour nap in her crib. It was really nice for us to be able to relax a bit as well.

When she woke up we fed her again and then took her for a stroll through the neighborhood, introducing her to trees and the sunshine. She seemed to love being bundled in her stroller. The fresh air was good for us all.

Tonight Ben and I are planning to relax a bit with Miss Ivy and enjoy our first night at home as a family.

Enjoy the pictures.

Welcome to the world Ivy Christine Swinehart

Ivy Christine was born January 27, 2009 at Providence Hospital.
She was 7.12 lbs and 20 inches long. She arrived at 1pm sharp.

Ben and I checked into the hospital at midnight with my contractions less than 5 minutes apart.
Our birth coach Cindy arrived at 1am.
It was slow going and extremely painful for the first 6 hours. Once I decided I wasn't a failure for needing the drugs, we got the epidural and things progressed quicker.
At 11:30 the pushing began and we welcomed Ivy with open arms and lots of tears at 1.

It's 9:15 and we've had a ton of visitors. We are certainly blessed with family and friends. Ben is rocking our little girl as I update everyone and then she'll be ready for a feeding before tucking her into bed.

We are so blessed and excited. She is perfect and we couldn't have asked for anything more.

I will post some of the pictures in a bit. Our connection is pretty slow.


Love,

Lindz, Ben and Ivy.

37 Weeks

I know it's been a LONG time since I last wrote, but I've been busy growing a baby and getting ready for her arrival.

Here's an update of what's going on recently.

We are well.
Ben is back in the swing of things at work and getting ready for his first meet of the new year this weekend in Corvallis.
I am trying to finish things up at work so I don't have any dangling threads if/when I go into labor.

We had a Dr. appt on Monday and things are progressing. I am now 1.5 cm and 25 - 50% efaced. Ivy has dropped and Dr. Bauer could feel the top of her head.YIKES. :-)

This doesn't really give us any idea on when the big day is, but it does tell us that we are progressing so that's nice.
She also said that Ivy is a good size. Probably between 6 and 6.5 lbs right now which is nice.
Her heartbeat was strong and my blood pressure was low, so everything is really good.

I have been loving the cool weather, as I am about 50 degrees hotter than the rest of the world. I am truly carrying around a little heater.I've been having sporadic contractions this week so I am working at home the remainder of the week trying to lay low and get my work done.

Week 37 is considered full term so I would be more than happy to greet little Ivy any day next week...After Ben is back from Corvallis.

See the big pictureHow your baby's growing:

Congratulations — your baby is full term! This means that if your baby arrives now, his lungs should be fully mature and ready to adjust to life outside the womb, even though your due date is still three weeks away.
Your baby weighs 6 1/3 pounds and measures a bit over 19 inches, head to heel (like a stalk of Swiss chard). Many babies have a full head of hair at birth, with locks from 1/2 inch to 1 1/2 inches long. But don't be surprised if your baby's hair isn't the same color as yours. Dark-haired couples are sometimes thrown for a loop when their children come out as blonds or redheads, and fair-haired couples have been surprised by Elvis look-alikes. And then, of course, some babies sport only peach fuzz.