I feel very fortunate that I had a relatively"easy" labor and Olivia was born healthy and the most precious thing I have ever seen! The days following were not so easy. This will be a two part post. I will tell her birth story here and go into PPA in another post. I apologize in advance, I'm sure this will be long and wordy.
I was diagnosed with gestational hypertension and mild preeclampsia towards the end of my pregnancy. It continued to get worse so my Doctor thought it would be best to induce me at 38 weeks. We drove to Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, CA to be there at 5am on Monday April 8th to start the induction. After getting all settled in we started the process of adding pitocin to my IV at about 7am. I was already 3cm so I would probably have gone into labor on my own pretty soon. The contractions were getting intense and I had the feeling my water broke. At about 11am I was at 6cm and the Dr. said that indeed my water had broken on it's own. A little later my nurse told me that the anesthesiologist would be going in to surgery so if I wanted the epidural before he went in I needed to get it now. I decided to go ahead and get it as I'm a big wimp I knew I would eventually need one. It ended up being good timing because just after I agreed my contractions got even worse. Labor was really progressing! I had some family and friends come to visit me but unfortunately my blood pressure went super high and my nurse kicked everyone out! Plus I soon started to feel very intense contractions again. I had to get two addtionional spinal flushes because my epidural stopped working for me twice! I tried to distress by talking to Josue or play games on my phone. I think we may have even watched an episode of Full House on the TV. My nurse gave me a cherry Popsicle and some ice chips, I even got a major dose of of BP medication to help bring it down. Finally just before pushing at began at 4pm my blood pressure came back down to a reasonable number, but of course still not great. I pushed and breathed and pushed and breathed for about a 1/2 hour and at 4:30pm Olivia was born! She was placed straight on my chest for a few minutes of snuggling then they whisked her to get cleaned up and her apgar score. It was beautiful. Josue ran over to her and I've never seen him so in awe. I cried just seeing what a good father he was already. He brought her back over to me and she nursed. Olivia Nikelle Esquivias was born on that day April 8th, 2013 at 4:30pm. She was 7lbs 1.1oz and 20.5inches long. I had never seen a more beautiful thing in my life, bringing life into this world was amazing! I did have a second degree tear that needed to be stitched up, but I only felt the pressure and tugging no pain.
Josue and I had decided that it would just be us in the delivery room. Though sometimes I think that it would have been nice to have my Mom in the room for support, I'm glad it was Josue there to hold my hand. He was a great support and really helped me through the pain and then the pushing. I know he was nervous before it all began but in the room he wasn't scared at all. He was a big part of the day and even cut her cord. It all went by so fast I'm happy he was there to help me remember that special day. Just don't remind me about the pain or the rhogam injection, ok?! ;)
Just before we had my Mom and sister come in to meet the newest member of our family we had to make sure we wanted to go with the name Olivia. We were pretty positive that would be her name but hadn't really disclosed that to many people as we were not 100%. Naming Olivia was tough for us. We went back and forth and back and forth. In January Josue was positive he wanted to go with Emily, then in February it was Sophia. We pretty much had Olivia as a front runner since back before she was even conceived but we couldn't 100% go with it. Josue was so wishy washy and I wasn't sure I wanted to go with such a popular name for her. Just around my birthday we decided to each write a list of our top five names separately and see what we came up with. Josue's list was Alexandra, Emily, Sophia, Olivia, and Allison. My list was Aria, Sutton, Alexandra, Olivia, and Alexandria. We decided that since the two that matched; Alexandra & Olivia those are the names we would bring to the hospital and decide when she was born. Even though we were both almost positive it would be Olivia. When she was born we both knew that Olivia was the right choice! Nikelle is a name that we chose to honor close childhood friends of mine that passed way too young. Her name totally fits her and her initials O.N.E are just perfect! Although I think she could totally be an Aria or Sutton too, just don't tell Josue ;)
My Mom and Sister just adore her and took their turns holding her. They were followed by Nina & Nonno, great friends, and more family. It was the most amazing day in my life. It felt perfect. Her apgar score was a 9 and she looked like my perfect little angel. Even her cry was precious. I couldn't have prayed for a better day. It all went so smoothly and I was blessed with the most amazing gift at the end of the day. Josue and I wanted this day to come for so long, it was even the perfect timing. But as they say, that was only the beginning. And not to discount my perfect day or perfect daughter the story gets a little gray from here on so I will make that a different post. Now if you got through that you get pictures, yay!!
This was just after the nurse took her for Apgar/cleaning and we finally remembered to grab the camera!
First family photo :)
Grammi & Livi
