Ivy is Here!!

My sister, Nat, gave birth to her fourth (and she says, final) child, her only girl - Ivy Marie! I'm embarrassed to say that I can't remember the exact birth weight. Six pounds, something ounces. And 20 inches long. Nat had sciatica in both hips/groins/legs/butt cheeks pretty intensely for the last couple of weeks of her pregnancy, so she begged her doc to induce her, and he said okay. I'm so jealous. So she had Ivy about 1 1/2 weeks before her due date.

The labor and delivery went very smoothly, and Nat is sooooooooooooo happy not to be pregnant anymore. (Pete is happy that Nat isn't pregnant anymore, too.) She says that she feels amazing, now that she's not pregnant. That is so true. After I have my babies, I feel like a zillion bucks. No more nausea, heartburn, sciatica, constant headache, etc. etc.

Alright. Enough blathering. Here are the photos of my gorgeous neice. She has Brock's chubby cheeks and Jake's mouth. Here's me, holding her for the first time. She is sooo teeny!! My kids are always 8-pounders when they're born, so it's weird to hold a 6-pounder. Nat and I always joke, because we have the same vocal intonations, kind of, and our newborns always look at their aunts like, "Are you my mom? You sound like my mom!!" We call me "brown-haired mommy" and Nat "blonde-haired mommy":

Nat did her hair and makeup before she went in to be induced. Smart girl. She looks fabulous:

Ben, our family's renowned baby-hog. Once he holds a baby, he won't let anyone else hold it:

Nat is bottle-feeding Ivy from the get-go. She did the same with Troy. She just really, really hates breastfeeding. I would totally follow suit, but I breastfeed to lose the baby weight. Seriously. That's the ONLY reason I do it. Because it's never been pleasant for me, either. Here's Ivy at the bottle:

I was interested to see my kids' reactions to a newborn. Dylan was very tender and sweet. He loved holding the baby, and he was good at it. So that's exciting to me:

Sadie couldn't have cared less about the baby. At one point, when I was holding Ivy, she got jealous and said she wanted me to hold her. So I'm kind of nervous about her reaction to our baby, but she'll just need to buck up. I need to go see Nat and Ivy again today. I was soooo sick yesterday that I wasn't able to go see her at the hospital for her second day there.