Monday, March 12, 2007

Our Newest Addition

It's about time I get back to blogging. We've been home for a week now with our new little addition and it's been great. The adult to kid ratio has been 1:1.667, not to bad. All that changed today as my mom headed home. Now we are at 1:2, and on Wednesday when Guapo resumes his crazy travel schedule, it will be 1:4, give or take a muchacha here and there.

I still have not given my sweet little boy a blog name-I am open to suggestions.

His delivery went very smoothly: here's a brief recap so as not to bore any of you.

Friday March 3, 10:00 am: I go in for my weekly check-up, the doctor tells me there hasn't been a lot of change, and that I am at a "generous" 1 cm. Generous seems like a weird adjective to use along with 1 cm, but whatever.

3:00: fairly regular, but not hard, contractions begin

3:30 pm: Margarita arrives home from school with her birthday party in tow. We decided to do her party a little early this year so it wouldn't get lost in the baby shuffle. We had 6 girls here for a swimming party. We ate haystacks and I made a very tall, 7-layer, ice-cream cake (Guapo family tradition).



9:30 pm: last guests leave and not a minute too soon- my contractions were getting stronger and I was starting to feel panicky.

9:45 pm: blog

10:15 pm: I tell Guapo I think that this may be it and that I had better call the doctor.

10:20 pm: Doctor tells me to go to the hospital


10:25: I call my friend to come over and stay with the kids.


10:30-10:45: frantic packing

11:00: we leave for the hospital. NO traffic which is amazing for Big City.

11:10: we arrive at the hospital and my doctor was waiting for me. I was at 4 cm.

11:45 pm: Yay! epidural in place!!! (me giving Guapo the "thumb's up", a traditional picture we take during each birth after I get an epidural)



Four short hours later: New little guy born.



Later that day, the kids were able to come and meet there new little brother. Here's Julio (6 yrs old), and Juan Carlos (3 yrs old), meeting the baby.



This was probably the best, easiest delivery I have ever had. My doctor was wonderful and the hospital was very nice. There were several differences that we noted between having a baby in the States and having a baby in Mexico.


  1. Number of People that Saw Me "Desnuda": 10 people were in the delivery room. My doctor, the anesthesiologist, OUR PEDIATRICIAN???, two other random doctors, four nurses and Guapo.

  2. Security. At some point in this hospital's history, some babies must have been nabbed because it was pretty hard to get our hands on our baby. He was born at 4:00 in the morning and we didn't see him again until 9:30 am. When he was brought to and from our room, he was brought by a nurse accompanied by an armed guard. And when the nursery was open for viewing the babies (forget about going into the nursery!!),you had to stand well within the viewing range of the security camera. When they finally handed him over to us, he was accompanied by the armed guard and 4 nurses. We had to sign about 10 different forms to finally get him.
  3. Toast: They sell pre-toasted toast in grocery stores here. The slices are like huge unflavored croutons. I never knew what they were for-but I was served this pre-toasted toast numerous times in my 2 day stay in the hospital. Odd. Let's ask our expert in all things Mexican, No Cool Story: what's up with this toast? Do Mexicans just not want the hassle of a toaster?

All in all, it was a great experience and we are doing well here at home. My mom was a great help; she was the official bather and poopy-diaper changer. Here she is with Margarita (9 yrs old) giving little guy his first bath:


Thanks again for all of your thoughts and prayers. Remember-I need help with his blog name-give me your best suggestion!

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

As your babies cyber name: I vote for Emil

Special K ~Toni said...

Why do you looks so good right after giving birth?? Must be nice! The baby is beautiful!

I like the name Emil too!

Anonymous said...

Congratulations on the new little one. I am glad everything went so smoothly. I vote for Hector (why not?).

utmommy said...

Congrats!! He's is darling! You look amazing.

I'm no good at blog names, that's why I just use initials. Sorry no help there.

Super Happy Girl said...

O.M.Gosh!! Just this weekend I was thinking I should send you an e-mail, but I’m just goofy about "bothering" new mommies.

Congrats!! Do you ever not look beautiful? look at you! I can stand looking at my pics after giving birth. Aww, beautiful pictures with the kids and your mom (your mom must be the awesomest mom ever).

Pan tostado = pre-toasted bread. Hmm, very interesting, when I was little I'd eat it with cajeta or sweetened condensed milk (cavities deluxe). Why pre-toasted? who knows? it's crunchy and it stay crunchy no matter what I guess.
Did you get gelatina with your meals? gelatina is very very important and nutritious you know?

Armed guards?! what? I had both of my kids in government hospitals, and you know, getting to see your baby is not an easy deal, but I had no armed guards, maybe you got the Super American upgrade. They let Guapo in the delivery room? wow, cool!...did he have to pay anything to anyone? :)

I loved this post Gabs, have a great week!

PS. Guapo is an expert with names.

Millie said...

You do look good! Congrats on great birth pictures! :) He is quite a little cutie.

Let's see, a name... I'm still stuck on Pedro (after Napoleon Dynamite). It's easy to type.

Code Yellow Mom said...

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

I would vote for Pedro. :) But I also like Paco and Pablo.

He's beautiful and you look great. Wish you the best with the 1:4 coming up.

Unknown said...

I'm glad your delivery went so well. I agree that you look great!
I vote for Jeronimo, but I like Pedro, too.

Lana said...

He is beautiful!

I like Pedro and Paco.

Janice said...

I like Marco or Mario. Glad to hear your delivery went smoothly.

Awesome Mom said...

What a handsome little guy!

Rachelle said...

Congrats! He's such a cutie!

Anonymous said...

We share your family's joy at "little guy's" arrival. I vote for Gabriel (from your name) or Joaquin (in your boys' J-lettered names tradition).

Maybe a 1.5:3.5 ratio with Margarita being a big sister? Your boys are adorable and M is getting to be quite a pretty young lady!

Super Happy Girl said...

3 Pedro
2 Emil
2 Paco
Hector
Pablo
Jeronimo
Marco
Mario
Gabriel
Joaquin

I am also voting for Pedro and Marco (love that name)

Gabriela said...

All good names. Emil-has anyone ever heard of this name? Emril-now that I have heard of.

I am leaning towards Hector or Pedro. I've got to give the little guy a couple of more days to see if his is more Hector-ish or Pedro-ish.

Zoe said...

Oh my goodness!!! Congratulations! He is beautiful. You are amazing. Good job mama! :)

Anonymous said...

YEah You had a baby!! And it's a boy!! how great. I hope you are doing good with four... Sleep is something I figure "other" people do :)

Anonymous said...

Ok, my younger brother has a child named after him. I just thought that it would be a nice stab at diplomacy is the cyber name was Emil. I have a student with that name.
I don't like the name but I thought that equal rights were meritted here.
I'm sorry I didn't sign my name on my suggestion... that must be why my suggestion was taken seriously.

M

Deannna - Younique Presenter said...

I tried commenting earlier and blogger wouldn't let me.

my suggestion is Javier,
here are a few names of the kiddos at school: Emiliano (thats probably what Emil is short for), Luis Adrian, Rodrigo, Hugo, Miguel, Marco, and Raul.

and for the pan tostado, its probably for those people who don't own a toaster. Some people still only make about $5-$10 a day. The picture on the bag always shows it smeared with cajeta. I always thought toasted bread was kind of funny too.

We need to talk more about your Mexico delivery, since we are staying longer than planned I might be having one as well.

Lei said...

congrats again!!! he's gonna be a looker :)