Hola Ivy! Wherein I Introduce My *Daughter*

This brief post will not nearly capture all of the awe and coziness and exhaustion and delight and fear and everything else that we feel when we consider our new and lovely and velvety soft and sleepy little star, Ivy Elizabeth.

She was born nearly three weeks ago at St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital — my favorite hospital for getting babies; you should try it! — after a scheduled C-section.

Pregnancy cripples me. However, I make fantastic babies.

But instead of deciding they are ready for their debut and that it’s time to come out, these babies cling to my ribs like stubborn monkeys, never descending into my pelvis to be delivered in the old-fashioned way. Well, thank goodness that Caesar and his mom shot us forth into modernity, what with unusual surgeries and delicious salads and snippy snip snipped haircuts named after him.

Ivy was born without complication, thanks in part to a fantastic obstetric, anesthesiology, and nursing team. She was held up for me to see doing her first little lion roar and oh how I laughed and cried to see her out in the open for us to get to know for real, rather than getting to know just through the knees and elbows and hiccups!

One distinguishing characteristic of this baby is her petite size. Her fabulous bruiser brother was nearly 9 lbs, which may have been slightly exaggerated because he’d been pumped full of liquids and pitocin while they tried and failed to induce him out of me in the more typical way, but still: big.

Ivy weighed a mere six pound and five ounces, a fuzzy headed blue eyed slip of a thing. But she’s a super eater — constant, efficient, happy — and she’s gaining like wildfire and pleasing her mother no end.

She doesn’t have eyelashes or eyebrows, in stark contrast to her brother, who was born in high definition, looking manly, like a captain of industry. This is my sweet delicate little baby baby baby, sleepy and squinting and meowing questions about why she’s been brought out into the light.

More Ivy trivia: her toes and fingers are extraordinarily long. She might be a pianist, everyone says. With her hands and with her feet, is what they don’t say. If you want someone to grip your finger with their toes, Ivy is your gal. She already has talents!

We took her to the doctor and this was certainly a freak accident but she rolled over on the table. When she was less than a week old, she rolled from her tummy to her back. Great: tiny or no, we wish for her to be strong and healthy and stubborn.

Welcome to you, our new and beautiful little love!