Our little Nina is already a week old and what a week it was! While I'll spare most of the gory details, here's a recap for those that are interested:
I started with contractions on Tuesday night (the 25th) around 10 pm. They were pretty consistent - about 15 minutes apart. On Wednesday morning, I called the doctor and they had me come in that afternoon to be checked. The doctor said we could go straight to the hospital at that point, but the midwife talked to us and said that if went to the hospital, I'd probably end up hooked up to an IV and on drugs. Because I wanted to avoid that, she suggested we go walk around, go home, do our breathing exercises, and wait until the contractions were closer together.
We did that. I went to the hospital at 12:30 on Thursday morning (the 27th), was directly admitted to the maternity ward, and we were hooked up to the monitors. The nurses left Fredy and I alone pretty much and let us work through the process. By 4 AM, I announced that I was ready to push, but that I was sure it wasn't time yet. Fredy called the nurse (Mia), who announced that "Oh! We need to get the midwife here. She's at 10." She then told me to wait...that I needed to keep breathing. (Aargh! The longest minutes of my life...Fredy actually lost his temper and yelled at the nurse, "She doesn't want to wait. She wants to push! Where is Donna??" Mia calmly responded: "She's not here yet, she's at home, but she's on her way.") My water broke around 4:05.
Donna, the midwife, was at home asleep, but got there very quickly. As soon as she walked in the door, we were pushing. Nina Xuxabell Perez was born at 4:28 AM on Thursday, August 27, was 20 inches long and weighed 7.5 lbs. She inhaled quite a bit of fluid on her way out - 14 CCs, according to the peds nurse, the most she's ever suctioned out of a newborn! But she's healthy and strong and beautiful.
Donna, Nina, and HeatherShe's definitely Papi's girl, with a head full of dark, wavy hair (Mami hopes it will be curly) and a round, cinnamon-colored face with dark eyes. Her ears are pixie-pointed and lay flat against her head (hopefully not Halpin ears), but she has long fingers and toes like her Mami. (Perfect for violin or piano!) We think she's beautiful, and hope you do too!
Her name was a bit of an evolutionary process. Ever since Mami and Papi were dating, Papi talked about having a daughter named Xuxabel [pronounced "Shooshabell"]. (He knew a girl in school in Guatemala with this name and always liked the name.) Mami liked the name, but didn't want the baby to have a name that would always have to be explained and spelled constantly and mispronounced. So we had been bouncing names back and forth and finally found "Nina" in a book of names. It worked with Xuxabel. And when she was born, she just seemed to look like a "Nina"...even more than a Bella, which was what we were planning to call her. So she's our little Nina Xuxabell, or Nina Bell or just Nina or occasionally Bella.
She's very sweet and rarely cries. So far, she's a gifted baby, passing all of the marks on the first week's tracking record (pees, poops, feedings) and she sleeps 4-5 hours at a time at night! :) We are enjoying her so much and are excited for everyone to meet her soon!
