USC Verdugo Hills Hospital’s first baby of 2014 born
When a pregnant Raquel Trujillo wrapped up her 12-hour shift at the Los Angeles Police Department on New Year’s Eve, she had no idea New Year’s Day would bring with it one very special delivery.
That’s because she and the baby’s father, Jesus Aispuro, were planning on a Jan. 14 C-section in advance of the original Jan. 21 due date. But at about midnight on New Year’s Day, the 42-year-old Trujillo awoke to a strange sensation.
It was just a little startle, not like the water breaking that had announced the arrival of her first daughter, also named Raquel, two years earlier. Not alarmed, she went back to sleep. But by 1:30 a.m., Trujillo knew for certain she was going into labor.
“I felt a gush of water,” she recalled. “That’s when I thought, this is not normal.”
That night, not figuring on an extra early arrival, Aispuro had been in Riverside visiting family with a dead cellphone, completely unaware the baby was coming.
“Her first baby had to be induced, so we thought we’d have another lazy baby,” he said. “We never expected her to come early at all.”
Trujillo phoned her sister, luckily awake celebrating the holiday at their uncle’s house, who drove her and her daughter from their Downey home to USC-Verdugo Hills Hospital. It was a bit of a haul, but the couple had had such a nice experience with their first birth they’d elected to return there for the second.
Trujillo, who hadn’t had one contraction or labor pain since her water broke, checked in and was scheduled for an 8:30 a.m. C-section. At 9:09 a.m. she gave birth to 7-pound, 11-ounce Kamila Elena Aispuro, USC-Verdugo Hills Hospital’s first delivery of 2014.
Just a short time after the baby’s arrival, Aispuro, 37, arrived in town and joined Trujillo as they spent their first moments with Kamila. That day, the couple was presented with a handmade blanket, courtesy of Mindi Rub, a USC-Verdugo Hills nurse known for distributing the custom creations to the first babies born on Christmas and New Year’s Day. It would be their second gift of the new year.
Missy Stehlin, the hospital’s interim clinical director of perinatal services and a 23-year labor and delivery nurse, said there’s just something special for nurses about welcoming holiday babies.
“It’s kind of like you share the holiday (with them),” she said. “It’s exciting for all of us.”
Stehlin, who lives in La Cañada, said she left USC-Verdugo Hills around 7 p.m. on New Year’s Eve but had been hoping the hospital would deliver the area’s first baby. A baby named Jessie was born at 4:30 a.m. at St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank.
But that statistic doesn’t mean much to Trujillo and Aispuro, who are happy enough to now have another reason to celebrate the glad tidings of New Year’s Day with family and friends.
“Now, we get to have a cake on the first and be surrounded by lots of family,” said Aispuro, who sees the two-in-one celebration as a good way to ensure people attend future birthdays. “It’s going to be a good turnout — they don’t have an excuse not to be at the party.”
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