Aubrey Jae is here!

Hello everyone. We know you've been waiting a long time for an update and we apologize for the delay. It's been a long couple of days. I'll give you a short version now with some pictures and then post some more later today.

We checked in at the hospital at 5:30 pm on Tuesday as requested by our doctor based on time since the waters broke. T started active labor pretty quickly and we made good progress until 2 am Wednesday. At that point things slowed a bit (the dilation, not the contractions) and we made no progress for 4 hours. Pitocin was administered to help things along and labor continued, albeit slow dilation, until 4:00 pm Wednesday. T hit 10 cm and it was all systems go for 20 mins of pushing. We had good movement of the baby and things were looking really good until an exam revealed the cervix had retracted slightly, leaving a band across the baby's head. T stopped pushing and tried to relax through some pretty intense contractions hoping the cervix would dilate again. At 4:30 she tried pushing again but there was no change in the cervix. At that time Baby Jae's doctor brought in the OB-GYN for a consultation. After considering the time since waters broke, the amount of time spent laboring, the "stuck" cervix, T's energy level, and the risk of further laboring to baby, we were advised to have a c-section. Within minutes the preparations began. I packed the room, the nurse prepared T for transport to the OR, I put on some scrubs, and we were off. T entered the OR at 5:17 pm and at 5:34 pm on Wednesday Aubrey Jae was born! We were both amazed at how quickly things happened once the decision was made. The OR team was awesome, really efficient, and very considerant of us and the situation. A nurse snapped our first family photo when Aubrey was only 15 minutes old:

T spent an hour in recovery. Most of the attention was on her with secondary attention to Aubrey. Both did great and came through just fine. Here's a shot of me with Aubrey captured by T from her recovery bed:

We moved into our room at 8pm. Here's a pic of T and Aubrey taken around 8:30. After 39 hours, 24 of them in active labor, and a c-section, I can't imagine a more beautiful sight: