I have to admit, First Breath sessions are emotional for me.  I feel the intensity of the excitement and love in the images as I am going through them.  I think they are powerful images because of the emotion they capture.  After her maternity session, Emilia invited Jason to be there to photograph the birth of her daughter.  What an honor!  Emilia was all smiles (even after her surgery!) and Keith looked so proud of her and then of their little girl.  Congratulations to Emilia, Keith, and big brother as well!  Thank you for having us share in such an incredible event with your family.

The last belly shot:

Waiting…

This is one of mom’s favorites:

Nine days past her due date, our family finally welcomed our new baby.  She was born at 11:03 pm at 7 lbs 13 oz and 20 inches.  She made a dramatic entrance in the world!  I thought I’d share some of the birth story for anyone who might be interested.

Jason and I went to a doctor’s appointment that afternoon where I was going to be monitored since I was over a week past my due date.  After an ultrasound, we were told that we needed to talk to the doctor and were put in her office to wait.  When she came in, she told us that there was no easy way to tell us that we needed to go right to the hospital and have a C-section right away.  She said the ultrasound showed problems and we had to do this immediately.  As she walked us out of her office to the door (me in tears) Jason asked about inducing labor instead and I asked if we even had time to go home and get our bag.  She said we needed to go straight from there to the hospital.

Scared about the baby and not really understanding exactly what the problem was, we went to the hospital.  It took an hour or two before the doctor on call from my group came to see us.  During that time, I realized that this couldn’t be that much of an emergency or they wouldn’t have waited so long to come talk to me.  I also told all the nurses that I didn’t understand what was wrong on the ultrasound and that I really truly did not want a C-section.  Finally the doctor came in and explained that the ultrasound showed little to no amniotic fluid and that could be an issue for cord compression.  He said that he didn’t see any reason not to try inducing labor, though I needed to understand that I was at an increased risk to have C-section.  I was so happy that at least I would have a chance of avoiding the surgery!

I started at 3 cm and they broke my water (though there was little of it left) and started pitocin at around 4:30pm.  My wonderful doula Stefany soon met me at the hospital and was just awesome trying to help me relax through contractions and also helping me position to avoid any issues with the baby’s heart rate since cord compression was a big concern.

At around 9 pm there had still been no change despite how intense the contractions felt.  I had the shakes really badly and in the middle of dealing with that and some painful contractions I realized something was wrong.  There were lots of nurses and the doctor in my room.  They were moving me all around from side to side.  The baby’s heart rate had dropped down and stayed down for several minutes and they were trying to help me get into a position where it would come back up.  Finally, after many scary minutes, it did.  The doctor told me that though I didn’t want a C-section, if the heart rate did that one more time we would have to do one anyways.  She also said that because I had no changes to my cervix and the baby was already not tolerating contractions, we might need a C-section anyways.  She told me to stay in the position I was in to hopefully keep the heart rate up.  I had hoped to wait until I was further along before getting an epidural, if I got one at all, but with hours of unproductive pitocin strengthened contractions and now having to stay in one position the entire time, at around 9:30 pm I got the epidural.

God was with us and believe it or not, in a little over an hour after that huge scare, I was ready to deliver!  In just that short time I dilated from 3 cm to 10 cm and in less than 15 minutes of pushing Jason and I welcomed our third miracle, our baby girl who is truly a gift from God.  She was perfect with no issues at all despite the labor scares.  She is absolutely beautiful with dark black hair and grayish eyes.  She was pretty fussy her first night, but who wouldn’t be after all that!  She is being much nicer to us now.

Big brothers came to meet their new sister today and both were so cute.  Our oldest son would hardly let anyone else touch his new sister and begged to hold her constantly.  In fact, he spent the entire day with us at the hospital because he wouldn’t leave her side.  Our younger son immediately reached for his sister and gave her a huge hug.  With some help he held her for a couple minutes and when we took her back he cried out “Mine” and asked for another turn.  They are both already so in love with their little sister and are going to be terrific big brothers.

We’ve had many people ask us what we decided to name her and we’d love to share that with you!  However, we have some internet safety concerns and have decided not to share it on the internet.  If you email us, we’d be happy to let you know!

Here are some of baby’s first pictures, with many more to come in the days and weeks ahead!  Thanks to everyone for the thoughts and prayers, and the congratulations!  We are so blessed!

Getting through a contraction with the help of my doula, Stefany:

Just after being born:

Meeting my baby:

Tiny hand around my finger:

Jason already has plans for making his daughter into a “Daddy’s Girl.”  We’ll see!

Proud big brother:

She already has both of her brothers wrapped around her fingers!