Piper Renee

Welcome Piper Renee Mercado

Our sweet little Piper arrived on February 19th, 2013 at 1:24pm,  7lb 11oz and 19.5in

I'll never get over the fact that this little baby was INSIDE my body only a few short minutes before this picture was taken.

 Piper was born 5 days later in my pregnancy than both Emma & Levi. Ever since my run in with the flu at nearly 37 weeks pregnant, I was experiencing contractions. I was getting very nervous I would go into labor at any moment and wanted to be sure Emma & Levi were taken care of. After my 38wk check-up on a Monday, the doctor said I was already 3cm dilated & 80% effaced and she thought I would go into labor before Friday. Friday came and went, and we still had no baby. However, Jackie secretly made plans with Felix to fly up here and surprise me. I was so happy to see her!

I continued to have contractions, heart burn, nausea, and some may say I was in a permanent bad mood. By Monday night I had enough. I woke up at 4am Tuesday morning for my usual bathroom run and was in a lot of pain. The contractions continued to be painful but were about 14min apart, so I assumed they were nothing. By 6am I was so frustrated with the pain that I turned the light on in the bedroom, paced around the room and told Felix I was calling the doctor to get induced! I originally planned to wait to call until the office opened at 9, but by 7am couldn't take it anymore so I called the on-call doc. He said it could be false labor but I should come in to the ER, and if possible they would induce.

So, as I continued to deal with the painful (and what I assumed were just braxton hicks) contractions, Felix went upstairs to get the kids settled with Jackie since we had them signed up for a class at the Y for that morning. By the time everyone was downstairs having breakfast, I was yelling at Felix & Jackie, abbreviating curse words in front of the children, and getting angry they were just fooling around making fun of my bad mood. Felix was toasting a bagel & said he wanted to stop at Dunkin Donuts to grab a coffee on the way to the hospital. It was around this time I had to grab onto the wall for the next contraction and have Felix support me. Little Levi was holding my leg as well, not really knowing what was going on.

Yet still- nobody thought that perhaps I was in labor. It wasn't until we were about to walk out the door- I was holding on to the entry table when a big contraction came and Jackie said "woah, I think she is having a contraction". These were getting closer and closer. We decided to skip Dunkin on the way to the hospital.

We arrived and I was 7cm dilated. Definitely in labor. THANK G-D!

 

 After 3 attempts to get my IV in and me biting my tongue to not be rude to the nurse, they were wheeling me up to the delivery room. I considered not getting the epidural since I was already 7cm....but then I had another contraction and changed my mind! I was surprised to actually get the epidural only 45 minutes after we had arrived. I was soon very relaxed, and the nurse advised we wait as long as possible to push the baby out to make things easier. I kept getting nauseaus when on my back, but other than that, Felix & I relaxed and waited about 4 hours together relaxing as last-time "parents of two" before little Piper arrived after 3 short pushes.

As she was coming out the cord was wrapped around her neck, so the doc asked for scissors. Nobody told me the cord was around her neck- and I thought she asked for scissors to cut ME! As soon as she came out, Felix & I both saw at the same time that she was a girl. I remember looking right at him saying "it's a GIRL!" with a huge smile and I saw his familiar teary eyed face, same tears he had when both Emma & Levi were born. And they handed her to me, and she didn't make a sound- and they said she was perfect, and she was :)

 Piper was born just before 1:30pm, but my epidural took so long to wear off- I wasnt able to move my left leg until about 5pm! After passing the "mobility" test, they finally let us get settled in our postpartum room and Jackie brought the kids to meet their new sister. My heart absolutely melted to see how sweet and caring Emma was with her. Levi was really interested in checking out all her different parts, along with all the buttons in the room and my dinner tray :) And they both kept fighting with each other to be the one to hold the baby.

 When Emma was holding Piper, they just stared at each other. One of the few moments Piper actually had her eyes open. It was the sweetest thing ever.

 Felix took the kids home to get ready for bed, Mom & Dad flew in and drove straight to the hospital to meet Piper, and Jackie actually stayed with me in the hospital snuggling Piper until 1am when I was able to finally walk on my own.

We had a pretty good first night. I got about 2 hours of sleep simply because I couldnt stop staring at her and just didnt want to put her down! She was such an unbelievably good baby- didn't cry at all. I couldnt believe it!!

Around 5am the nurse came in to give Piper her first bath.

 The next day everyone came back to visit us in the hospital for a bit and then I took a nap for a few hours while mom stayed with me and Piper. We had another good night for our 2nd night, and Felix came back in the morning to bring us home. After I showered and got dressed, I said to Felix I thought my face looked really bad with welts all over it and I was itchy. My loving husband said he didnt see anything and thought I looked great.

 But later that night at home, my parents noticed my face was swelling and I was extremely itchy. We couldnt think of anything that was causing the swelling so decided to wait a day or two. The next morning, I looked even worse! I could barely open my eyes as you can see in the pic below!!!

Luckily, that morning was the worst of it and it gradually got better throughout the day. I guess we will never know what caused the reaction!

Mom, Emma & Levi made these signs to welcome us when we came home. I had to take a picture and save them- Emma drew a picture of me pregnant with tears because the baby was hurting my belly. My sweet big girl :)

Jackie couldn't wait to snuggle Piper. She only let me hold her when it was time to nurse ; ) I let her fight it out with Emma & Levi for holding rights. At one point, Jackie actually hid the baby under a blanket when Levi was coming down the stairs so she wouldnt have to share! 

Oh how we love our little Piper Renee. I feel so lucky that she is such an easy going baby. I can't get enough of her, she is an absolute dream baby (so far) and while I'm excited for our family of 5 and what the future holds- I wish I could freeze this moment in time!