We are in LOVE!!!

Introducing Miss Emma Grace Garcia!...

well the walking must have paid off:) because Tuesday 5/12 at around 12:45am I started having some fairly intense contractions and woke Chris up to help me time them. It wasn't until about 45 minutes later that we thought, "Holy cow I think this is it!" So after chatting with the doctor, taking a hot shower in between the contractions and laboring at home for about 3 1/2 hours we headed into the hospital. We arrived at around 4am and immediately went into triage to get monitered and start laps... at least that's what we called them. In order to get admitted and make sure that you are in "active" labor and not be sent home they make you walk the halls for 1 hour and then get checked to make sure things are progressing. Needless to say we were admitted! We finally contacted all the parents and away we went. I labored for another couple of hours and around what they measured as 5cm I got the heavenly blessed thing called an epidural:). Honestly it was great because the night before after feeling like I was going to be pregnant forever, Chris & I stayed up watching a movie and stayed up pretty late so the epidural allowed me to get lots of rest and still interact with family and mostly enjoy the experience... not saying that the previous 5+ hours were a piece of cake because labor... wow! back labor... double wow! It was intense to say the least. Around 16 hours into it I was 8 cm and we were all excited; unfortunately I stayed 8cm for another 4 hours and after an ultrasound confirming that she was "sunny side up" basically facing up instead of back which makes vaginal birth almost impossible; especially when you're not fully dialated. During which time I had gotten a pretty high fever and they were worried about me & the baby. So we began talking c-section, not something you ever want to hear. After much prayer, deliberation and coming to a peaceful conclusion they wheeled me into the O.R. and we had Miss Emma Grace at 8:16pm via c-section. Although that was never exactly how I envisioned or anticipated the birth it was a great experience and a very good day. The staff at our birthing center were amazing and continued to respect and follow our birthing plan even though we had a c-section so I/we were able to have some close bonding time, alone with no nursing staff and I was able to breastfeed right away! All of which were incredibly important to us. So that's the revised version of our birthing experience that day and WOW what a day it was... I can't believe she's here. Here are a few pictures... Enjoy!!
... sorry I don't know why the pictures came out so weird!! I'll post more later.