Hello, world! Meet the newest member of my family, my niece, Audrey Lauren "Kung Pao" Khu Garcia. I accompanied Olive to her doctor yesterday around lunch time. When I picked her up, I commented that her tummy is really low and looks like she's about to give birth already! Little did I know that my observation was right on target.
When the doctor examined Olive, she told my sister to call her husband and tell him that they need to check into the hospital already.
There were no contractions yet at that time but she's almost ready to give birth. So, I brought Olive back to their place and met up with Jerome there. Together, they calmly gathered what they needed for the hospital stay and proceeded to Asian Hospital in Alabang.
I followed to the hospital with Paul. When we got there, I sat with Olive while the boys went to the Admitting Section to get a room. I was just sitting there, chatting with Olive, while the contractions come at a more regular interval.
After a while, Jerome came back to the labor room and sat with Olive; Paul and I went to the nearby mall to look for lunch (this was already around 5 P.M.) After our lunch-dinner, I sat with Olive once again so that Jerome eat (I don't think he has anything to eat the entire day). By, 6:45 P.M., the doctor popped Olive's water; by 7:15, they were ready to move her to the birthing room. I called Jerome and told him to come right away so that he can go into the birthing room with Olive. Then I went up to the room to wait.
The wait wasn't too long, by 8 P.M., Jerome called me to tell me that both mother and baby are doing well and that we can already go see Audrey at the nursery.
When we got to the nursery, I saw a baby lying face down with her butt in the air. Right then and there, I knew that baby is Audrey! It's just so like mommy when we were kids. And yes, she can really scream - very loud! We were not able to look at Audrey up close as they were still cleaning her and doing whatever is needed with newborns.
After a couple of hours, Olive was transferred from the recovery room to her room. The nurses told Olive that they will be bring Audrey up to the room for feeding at midnight. So, we waited until the baby came, fussed over her before finally calling it a day and went home.
This afternoon, we went back to see how the new mother and daughter are doing. Both are well and recovering beautifully. This time, when I visited the nursery, I was able to get a couple of pictures. The first one had Audrey peeking out at me; then I asked her to smile for me - I'd like to think that she heard and understood me when I took the second picture (the one posted here) - so let me have my silly thoughts. Isn't she just lovely?
