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!