Welcoming Esme Perle

After 9 months of bad things like morning sickness, heart burn, numb hands and swollen feet; and after 9 months of fun things like decorating a nursery, baby showers and shopping for really cute, really small clothes, I was really not feeling well. Sunday, June 7th, was one of the longest, most awful days of my whole life. So much so that I went to my 10:00 OB appointment on Monday an hour and a half early with my hospital bag packed, prepared to beg my OB to say I could have the baby that day. It turns out, I didn't even have to ask. My blood pressure was a little high, there was protein in my urine and the baby's heart rate was a little low one of the times that they could find it (baby was shy). Dr. Sarkinen told me to head to the hospital and prepare to be induced. She said that I shouldn't even go home to get a bag (little did she know).

So I drove over to the hospital and called Aaron to meet me there. Dr. Manneh was the OB on call. Just before noon she said that I was 2 cm dilated. I had been at 1 cm for the last 3 weeks. That was enough that she said she could break my water which she did right at 12 noon. Then we would watch and see what happened. In the next hour I had 2 or 3 contractions, but nothing was really going on. In fact, I wasn't even sure that I was having any contractions, they were so minor. At 1pm they added pitocin and that started the contractions. They were about 10 minutes apart for awhile. Then all of a sudden it seemed like they were at 3 minutes and starting to get uncomfortable. I asked for the epidural then. But the lab hadn't drawn my blood yet and evidently there are some readings that the anesthesiologist needs before they can do the epidural. So they gave me another pain drug and the lab came and we waited about 40 minutes for the results. Then I got the epidural - yaayy! At that point, I was dilated to about 7 cm, but the baby wasn't moving down and every time I had a contraction, her heart rate dropped. Dr. Manneh thought that having a c-section would be the best.

Once that was decided, things moved really quickly and our daughter was born at 6:09 p.m. She weighed 8 lb, 2.4 oz and was 21 inches long.


We didn't have a first name picked out for her when she was born. We had it narrowed down to 2 names, Breah and Esme. When Dr. Manneh asked us what her name was, we told her our two choices. She asked if we wanted to know what she thought and we said "of course". She said she preferred Esme because it was classic but unique.

Later in the room, we agreed and decided to name our daughter Esme Perle. Aaron had heard the name Esme and really liked it. A lot of people ask if it had anything to do with the book "Twilight". I can assure you that Aaron never read that! Also, there are a lot of "Br" names that are popular right now and we thought Esme was a little better fit for us. Perle is a combination of my Grandma and Grandpa's names, Merle and Pearl. Yes, that really was their names! :)


Esme had visitors right away. Grandma Barb and Grandpa Dan came and Grandma Jackie and Grandpa Rex came all the way from New England, 8 hours away. They got to visit us about 10 p.m. that night. After everyone left, we sent Esme to the nursery so Mom and Dad could get some sleep.

It was a great day!