Now to the present.

Marcus will be 7 weeks old tomorrow and things have been "pretty uneventful" since bringing him home. His umbilical cord stump fell off when he was 10 days old. We waited a couple days and gave him his first bath the night before he hit 2 weeks old. While Lorenzo was entertaining him beforehand he smiled for the first time! He never cried when we put him in the water but was very fascinated by the entire thing. He did NOT like getting out of the tub and being cold afterwards though. We learned he loved his pacifier and wasn't such a huge fan of his bouncy chair (though he did enjoy the swing at Gramma's.) He started to stay awake a little more and take in the world. The TV took his interest right away as much as I tried to avoid it. His cousin Jason and Athena the dog were especially interested in him! But we did find that him and daddy had a favorite hobby, sleeping. And it seemed that everytime they were together that is what they did.

At 4 weeks we all went to get family portraits. Lorenzo was so excited that we ended up with 7 10x13 photographs! I also made a special onesie for him on his official one month birthday. On Father's Day, Marcus starting having "conversations" for the first time. That morning while I chatted with him on the couch like normal, he started to coo and smile in the breaks when I wasn't talking. When we went to visit Grandpa Tim a couple days after that, he giggled for the first time while Beverly was talking to him.

At his 6 week appointment he weighed a whopping 11 pounds 1 ounce and was 23 inches long. This past weekend we all went to Aunt Sue's for the first time since he was born and everyone couldnt believe how big he was already. Then the next day we all went to the park and had a mini-picnic and a long walk. Marcus loved being in the woods and just stared at all the different colors.

Scary News

After the traumatic labor experience I was happy just to rest with my new little guy. They brought him into the recovery room and he nursed from me like a champ. Then we both went to get cleaned up and he was brought back around 4pm to eat. This time was a little more difficult but he still latched on and knew exactly what to do. Then we cuddled for awhile. I sent him back to the nursery so I could get some rest. They would bring him back to me about every 3 hours to eat. Around 1 am I asked my nurse to go get him for me. She came back at 2 am with a doctor and no baby.
The pediatrician informed me that Marcus had started to vomit a bright yellow mucous that was blocking his airways. It was making it extremely difficult for him to breath and his heart rate would drop. They didn't know what was causing it so he had been moved to the NICU. I was still stuck in bed so i couldn't go see him. My nurse was a godsend and got me out of bed and walking around 5 am so that by 8 I could go visit him. He had a tube down his throat pulling the mucous out of his stomach, he had an IV feeding him, and he was jaundiced. It was so scary just being in that nursery with all of the sick and preemie babies.
Marcus spent 2 more days in that NICU until they realized that the hospital didn't have all the equipment needed to do all of the tests they needed to do. He was then transfered via ambulance to the Cleveland Clinic Pediatric Intensive Care. Again my nurses were a godsend and got me discharged 3 hours later (a day early) so that I could be with him. At the clinic they did tests on his stomach, upper GI tract, lower GI tract, and lungs. Everything seemed pretty normal so it was a waiting game at that point. Lorenzo and I spent most of the day at the hospital. By day 4 they started to give him a little bit of pedialite to see if his stomach could handle it. After that they moved on to formula in extremely small amounts. By day 5, they had taken out his IV and were giving him 2 ounces of formula every 3 hours. We were told he could be discharged the next day if he kept everything down. I prayed all day and night that he would be able to.
When he was 6 days old we got to bring him home! The doctors never found out what caused the vomiting or the mucous. We were told to just keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary. After such a rough beginning, we were relieved to get him home and get into a "normal" routine.

Here he comes!

All of this eventually led to the sacred event: labor and delivery. My due day was May12th. As that day came closer and closer and I wasn't feeling any contractions or prelabor symptoms, I started to get more and more nervous. Well my due date came and went with no baby (this is me the night of May 12th.) So May 13th we went in for an ultrasound to determine how big the baby was. They estimated him at 9lbs 6 ounces with a large head and extremely long legs. So now I was even more of a nervous wreck because this kid could be HUGE. Doc gave me some options and we all decided to get induced that day at 1:00pm. So in the meantime I went home and walked on the treadmill for 1.5 hours to try to help things along.
We got back to the hospital and got settled into the room. About 2 pm they came in and started the pitocin. The contractions started but they weren't very painful at all. Actually I even said to Lorenzo, "This is kind of boring." Everytime the nurse came in they would increase the amount but I still wasn't progressing very much. So around 5 pm they decided to break my water. After that the contractions really picked up. They became extremely painful and were piggy backing on top of each other, coming 2, 3, even 4 at a time with no break. I lasted about an hour an a half before needing the epidural. Around 7 pm they came in and getting that epidural is also extremely painful. It took 2-3 painful adjustments to get it right, but after the medicine kicked in I was in labor heaven. At that point I was told to rest/sleep because this would probably happen in the middle of the night.
Around 5 am I started to feel some pressure that even the epidural couldn't hide and I called the nurse in. They came in and checked and I was fully dialated. It then took about an hour for the team to come in and get me ready to push. So for an hour I had to make myself breathe and not push. I started to get extremely sick and started to vomit during this time. Also our heart rates dropped extremely low a couple times so we had a lot of extra people in the room when it finally was time. When I started to push they told me his head was a little swollen but it was normal. I pushed for an hour non stop. Only resting for a couple of the contractions. After that they told me there had been no progress and his head had swollen a little more so they were going to start the pitocin back up, increase my epidural, and to rest for a little while.
I slept for about 1.5 hours. Sometime during this time my heart rate dropped so low I wasn't really responding and felt incredibly tired. The baby's heart rate also dropped. My sister alerted the nurses and they stabilized us both. Around 9 am I once again started to push. Again I actively pushed for a hour with no progress whatsoever and his head had swollen even more. At that point the doctor told me this probably wasn't going to happen vaginally. He was already estimated with a large head and the swelling was making it worse, he wasn't moving past my pelvic bone. It was time for a c-section. I was so exhausted and in pain, not to mention scared that I kept going in and out of conscienceness while I rested between contractions, that I agreed.
I was rolled into the operating room and Lorenzo came in a little later all dressed in scrubs. He sat next to me and kept me awake. I couldn't keep my eyes open and he shook my hand and rubbed my face to keep me from falling asleep. At 12:34 pm on May 14th, Marcus Enrique Garcia was born. He was 8lbs 5 ounces and 21 inches long. After 23 hours of labor, I was so happy I cried. He was beautiful.

Exciting yet unexpected surprise

After Lorenzo and I set the date, we planned in an abstract way. We were still deciding how much money to spend, how big of a wedding, and the basic theme of the entire event. Well Sept. 6th 2008 came and went and I knew something was different. It was two days later that I found out I was pregnant. My immediate reaction was disbelief but I was excited. I called Lorenzo and told him he needed to come over, I had something to tell him. But he guessed it right away on the phone and was ecstatic! I had never heard him so happy. That was the turning point for the better for both of us. I quit smoking cold turkey and Sept 12 was the first complete day I didn't have a cigarette. Lorenzo also quit smoking and moved in with me three weeks later. We eventually upgraded from the studio apartment I was in to a two bedroom place in a much better neighborhood. He told his family right away while I waited about 3 and 1/2 months because of my sister's pregnancy.

I did go through some morning sickness and extreme hunger those first few months. I also had a huge aversion to all things seafood.

The second trimester was much easier.

The third trimester brought on a lot of aches, pains, and trouble sleeping but it was all worth it!

In the beginning

I figure since this is a blog about our family then the story of how our family came to be is appropriate. Lorenzo and I met while working at Buca di Beppo. He was a dishwasher and I was a server. I never really noticed him until he started to hollar things at me in Spanish. I told him he better leave me alone! Well once he was promoted to pizza/appetizer cook and I became the salad cook we began to talk more often. We then started to go out to Friday's with many people from work. Eventually this all led to the two of us hanging out and becoming a couple sometime in October of 2007. On June 17th 2008, I heard beeping extremely loudly outside of my apartment building. I got up to see what all the commotion was about and it was Lorenzo outside. I asked him why he didn't call me and he said his phone was broken. Meanwhile he had his earpiece in. He came upstairs and was acting very strange. I just went into the bathroom to brush my teeth. As I was doing this, Lorenzo came in behind me. He reached around me and grabbed my hand. He then put a ring on my finger, looked at me, and just said "Will you?" I screamed yes, dropping my toothbrush and spraying toothpaste everywhere, and gave him a big hug. It turned out he had his earpiece in the entire time because his mom was listening in! I immediately called my mom to tell her the news. We spent the rest of our day chatting about when we would get married and what it would be like. We set the date for Sept 5th, 2009.

Decided to get on the blog train.

Now that two have become three I have decided to record the special happenings in our life. I want to be able to look back and be able to remember the first day Marcus smiled at Lorenzo, the gifts Lorenzo got for his first father's day, and my crazy birth story. I want to know the exact day that first steps were taken, first words were spoken, and first sports were played. I want Marcus to have something to read to show him how much his parents really love him and each other. I hope this blog becomes those things and even more.