The Arrival of Ivy

The First Contractions
On Sunday, November 9th, contractions began in the afternoon and lasted th entire day and into the night. They were stronger than the Braxton Hicks contractions I had been feeling for weeks, but they were still inconsistent in timing and length. So I knew I wasn't in real labor, but it was certainly a warning sign.
Early Monday morning, around 3am I woke up in discomfort. I laid in bed and watched the clock to see how often the contractions were coming. By 4am, they had been fairly strong and about 6-8min apart. Since I couldn't fall back asleep, I went downstairs to lay on the couch, watch TV and time the contractions. By 6am they were pretty consisten 5-7min apart. I was thisclose to calling my mom to head down by us (to watch the girls). I went upstairs and woke Tim up to let him know my status and took a shower. But low and behold the contractions mellowed and I didn't have one for 20min and some were weaker. 
I was supposed to go downtown for a team meeting all day, but I decided to play it safe. Even if I wasn't in true labor, I definitely was not feeling physically up for tooling around downtown and being in a business meeting as I was still having contractions relatively frequently. So I set myself up on the couch and worked for the day. Contractions continued and around 3pm I went for a long walk. I didn't have contractions for most of the walk, but when I got back is when I believe that real labor began. The contractions were stronger and about every 6-8min and continued like that for the night. We decided to call my mom around 5pm, just to be safe in case it continued and we ended up heading to the hospital in the middle of the night. Having my mom come down and sleep over was going to be much easier logistically than dropping the girls off at my brother's house in the middle of the night.

The Middle of the Night
We went to bed around 10pm. I had been having some painful contractions but knew it wasn't quite time yet. I wanted to try to sleep for a couple hours and see what happened. Well, shortly after midnight I couldn't sleep through the pain anymore. I laid awake for a bit, but then decided to take a hot shower. I continued timing the contractions and they were about 5min apart or less. I woke Tim up and told him to take his time, but that it was time to go to the hospital.
We headed to the hospital around 1:30am, calling the doctor on the way. I was able to walk from the car to the hospital at which point I knew I was going to be in a wheelchair and then a bed the rest of the time. 

We're Ready!
I was about 5-6cm when we got the hospital. With Addison and Eden I was at 7cm and in much more pain, so this was nice to have some time to settle in and try to take it easy. For the first hour we were there I was only in pain when I had contractions, the nurse was so impressed because I didn't seem like I was in pain at all, but I told her eventually I would be showing it.
I opted to go drug-free again, as I did for Eden and very happy I was able to do it! The pain got worse and I knew I was getting closer, but it wasn't until I was about 9cm that they broke my water manually and then it really kicked in.
I felt the urge to push so we went for it. Minion wasn't coming on her own, whereas I think Eden came out on her own because it was so quick. So Minion required more pushing. I also was much more tired with Minion than with Eden, since that labor didn't start until the afternoon and I had a full night sleep the day before and much quicker labor. So when the pushing started, I realized how truly tired I was! So it took a few tries for the muscle memory to kick in on how to do this. Then, I finally started having good progress. After about 20min of pushing, Minion was born.

She's Here!
 It was my hardest delivery being that she was my biggest and she was face up. Knowing it would be my last was what motivated me in the last few pushes. We told the nurse we thought we were having a girl, so in those last few pushes, the nurse was "cheering" me on by saying "She's almost here!" So the fact that it was a SHE made that a pretty cool experience. Like we knew without having to know :)

Ivy Maureen O'Neill
Our last little girl was born on November 11, 2014 @ 4:57am. She weighed 8lbs. 3oz. and 20". 
The date is significant, other than being the cool "11/11 make a wish" date, it is also the date of my parents' wedding anniversary! It would have been 47 years! 
Another, more minor, significance is I won the Baby Minion Pool! There were 7 other guesses on 11/11, mostly Girl - but I won due to only being 1oz off from Ivy's actual birth weight!
Instantly we thought she looked more like Addison, which I think is still true, although she may have Eden's nose. We lucked out again with another beautiful, healthy, sweet little girl as we complete our family. Big sisters Addison & Eden were so thrilled when they met their little sister later that morning.

The Final Month

The last month of the Baby Minion pregnancy certainly felt like the 9th month. The last couple weeks the "you're gonna pop soon" started coming and there were days where I was quite worn down after not doing much at all.
Also, the annoyances of being pregnant wore on me as well. Normally I can shrug them off, but I had a day in week 38 where I was over it. I wasn't ready to actually have the baby and leave work and have everything set up at home, I just didn't want to be pregnant anymore.
Heartburn
Knowing that heartburn goes away after birth was one of the glimmers of hope I had towards the end. The heartburn was unrelenting. I was up to 2 Pepcid A/C's a day and several TUMS. I slept sitting completely upright and nothing I could do helped. Even avoiding certain foods made no difference. Heartburn appeared every afternoon no matter what.
Soreness
My body was sore, especially in the hip joints. There was no back pain really other than if I sat for too long, my tail bone would hurt.
Swelling
My ankles were comically swollen - so much so that I could no longer wear most of my shoes. Even keeping my legs elevated at work and at home didn't seem to make a difference. My feet were basically big pillows!
My hands were swollen too. Not as noticeably as my feet, but I couldn't wear my wedding rings in the last month. The Dr did have me take a 24hr urine test to screen for preeclampsia. Thankfully I tested negative for that, but that test was quite the pain in the you know what!

Names
The baby name conversation first began back in June when we made our "long list" of any name we could even come up with. The "long list" was not very long at all and only a handful of new ones were added. By this 3rd baby, we had gone through so many names so many times - so many names we've already shot down because we've found something wrong with it. Even the names that were our runners up with the other 2 had just lost their luster even though we still did like them. 
We sat around and tried to come up with more names a couple other times but then decided it's just easier to work with the short list of names we got. We were able to settle on the boy name pretty quickly this time - sticking with the same name we would have used on a boy Baby Punkin. So that was settled in September.
We weren't ready to make the call on the girl name. We got it down to 3 names and then just let them sit for a couple weeks. After a couple weeks, though we still made no progress. Each of the 3 girl names were a different "category" to us: cutesy, common/plain and trendy. I tried to pressure - even telling Tim he just needs to pick it because Addison & Eden were names I came up with. But he couldn't decide either. I knew that if we weren't settled on a name by November, then Minion would definitely end up being a girl! So we just kept thinking about it.
I was about settled on the "common/plain" name when Tim said he was liking the "trendy" name more and more. So I thought and thought and in the end, that "trendy" name grew on me more and more too. So finally at the end of October, we settled on our girl name. It was stressful to push it so last minute like that!

Dr.'s Appointments
The entire family came along to the 35 week ultrasound as our last chance to see Minion before the big delivery date. We got to see him/her pretty well and a good shot of his/her profile. I did think I saw *something but in all honesty I really have no idea what I'm looking at unless the tech is telling me. However, this was the first ultrasound where the tech told us to turn away!
Minion measured just under 6lbs which is just under 50th percentile. 
At 36 weeks I had my first internal exam but there was no progress. At 37 weeks I was just under 1cm which of course is really nothing. But week 38 I was dilated 2cm and 60% effaced and was the same way at week 39.

Date Night
Addison and Eden had a sleepover at Grandma G's Halloween weekend so Tim and I took advantage and went on a "last night of freedom"/Anniversary date. Nothing fancy - just Panera and to see "Gone Girl". While Addison and Eden may have sleepovers again this winter, we will still have the baby with us every night for several months if not a year! 

So I think we're ready. This is the 3rd time around, so we know what we're doing. I also approached this pregnancy very patiently because I know how crazy the waiting can make me at the end. But now that the end is near, I keep thinking of all the things we do have to do and now feel all behind. Of course! So hopefully the baby doesn't come too early!