Emily is Born!

Welcome to the World Emily!

August 20th, 2011 at 3:32 a.m.

7 lbs. 5 oz.

18.5 inches long

If you ever wondered whether the Lord hears yours prayers, Emily's story should be living proof that He DOES!!! What an amazingly blessed birth story I have to share with you :)

We walked into the hospital at 8:45 p.m. on Friday night, suspecting that my water had broken. After waiting about an hour and a half, the monitors were showing only irregular contractions and the lab tests indicated that my water was still in tact. The doctor was giving orders to discharge us while the Lord had other plans...with only 13 minutes before they were to sign us out, I had one very powerful contraction. Exactly 5 minutes later, I had another identically strong contraction. Jeff asked if we could stay just 2 minutes longer to see if a 3rd contraction would show up...sure enough, it DID! So, they watched me for another hour...1 strong contraction after another, each exactly 5 minutes apart. I went from 3-4 c.m. dialted to 4 c.m. in one hour and then to 5 c.m. the next! We officially got admitted at that point and went straight to a delivery room from triage. I asked for the epidural right away, as I was 6 c.m. by the time we made it to my room. The nurse anethetist arrived (a Barry grad...so fun for Jeff to talk to!) and my water broke all on its own at the PERFECT time! All that strong pressure that I was about to have to endure was taken away in minutes by my wonderful epidural! I was super comfortable for about an hour until I started having tingling under my left side. I re-positioned over and over for an hour until the nurse came in telling me that the monitor was no longer picking up her heart rate. She couldn't find it anywhere...why was I feeling "tingling" and why couldn't the nurse find the heartbeat?...because Emily's head was already half-way out!!! She grabbed gloves as fast as she could and caught Emily without hardly a push! To make matters even more amazing, she ended up being an old friend from high school...we were on the Lake Brantley Colorguard team together!

Here's Momma and baby literally seconds after birth!

Here's Emily's first picture all by herself out of the womb. She looks just like me as a baby...except with hair!

Emily is already helping Mommy scrapbook and is getting her feet stamped on her special foot print cards that I made for her!

This is Jean, a great nurse, and an old friend from high school. It was so amazing to have her catch Emily as she was delivered!

Momma Jo was supposed to be there for the birth...but with an entrance like that, even the doctor wasn't there on time...ha!

Papa Joe came later in the day to visit.

Aunt Stacy and Uncle Adam also came down. Stacy even made Emily her own special quilt! So beautiful...thanks Stacy! Laura enjoyed placing it on her sister ever so gently :)

Emily gets her hair washed for the first time.

She gets undressed for her bath...which she does NOT like :(

Emily sports her new "little sister outfit" and awaits Laura's arrival!

The girls meet for the first time! Laura exclaims, "Is Emily in Mommy's tummy? NOOO! She right HERE (pointing to Emily)!" So precious.

Emily even brings a present for Laura.

Emily chooses a tiara and some candy for her sister. They're already best of friends :)

Here's all of Daddy's girls.

The whole family is together at last!