Christopher is born

Our baby was born today much to our surprise because he wasn't due until 7/28/10.

We had a very busy Saturday, that started with a mini junior high reunion for the Sutter class of 1992 at Balboa Lake, after that we drove to Glendale for Vanessa Castaneda's quincenera. Most of the family was there with relatives that flew in from Mexico. We stayed until 10pm because Nicholas had fallen asleep while I was holding him and I was getting tired myself. I felt hungry on the drive home and we drove around Glendale looking for a drive thru. I started feeling painful cramping and didn't feel hungry anymore and just wanted to go home and lay down. The cramping was getting worse on the drive home and I decided to stop at the hospital to have a non stress test done just in case. We pulled into the hospital parking lot and as soon as I stepped out of the car my water broke. I had no idea what had happened and wasn't sure if it was pee or not (the doctor broke my water with Nicholas). We walked to the admissions desk and I told them that I had thought my water broke, but wasn't sure. We went up to labor and delivery and I put on the hospital gown and had the nurse examine me. She confirmed that my water did break and that I was dilated 2 inches. She said she would call the doctor to have her come in and would do the c-section as soon as she got there. The contractions were so strong at that point that I had asked the nurse if I could have an epidural now, but she said I had to wait for the doctor to get there. We had Nicholas with us who was fast asleep in Jimmy's arms and who was missing all of the action. We called my grandmother to see if he could stay at her house until Tracy could come get him. Thankfully she was able to come over to pick him up, which she did just in time, because the doctor got there at the same time. When they wheeled me away to the operating room, the contractions were so strong at this point, that I was almost in tears from the pain. Thankfully the anesthesiologist arrived soon after and after a barrage of questions that I had to answer began giving me the epidural. As soon as it kicked in, I felt so much better. Before I knew it Dr Susman came in and Jimmy followed shortly after. The whole procedure didn't seem to take too long, and our baby was born on Sunday 7/25/10 at 12:48am. He weighed 8lbs, 8 ozs and was 20 inches long.

I had the same issues this time around that I had when Nicholas was born, with the low oxygen levels and the irregular heart beat. At least this time around, I knew what to expect. The anesthesiologist gave me something to help speed up my heart rate getting it back to normal and they just monitored my breathing. It seemed that my levels went low every time I dozed off, which meant no nap for me. Finally around 2am, they finally let me go to my room. I still couldn't really feel my toes and could barely move my legs, but I was tired of being in the recovery room. Jimmy kept me updated on our new baby throughout the time that I was in recovery. We decided on naming him Christopher James Hernandez. His blood sugar was a little low, so they gave him formula to see if that would raise his levels which it did. I was a little disappointed, because I was hoping we wouldn't have to give him any formula, but I knew it was for the best.

They finally brought him to my room around 4am and I got to hold him for the first time!

Jimmy picked up Nicholas and brought him to see the baby later that afternoon. He seemed excited at first, but there were a lot of people in the room, so I think it was a little overwhelming for him.

It was an exhausting day to say the least, considering we ended up only sleeping for about 2 hours (from 4am to 6am).