Big Day - New Surprises and Re-Admission

Big day today! Kathryn and I welcomed a new addition to our family. Ailah (pronounced eye-lah) Guinevere Boer was born at 6:14 this morning, weighing 6 pounds, 13.2 ounces and measuring 19 inches long. She joins big sisters Lillian (who you all know so well now) and Annabelle. Strange to think of how Lillian is a big sister now, but she is. Life should be even more interesting now. Unfortunately though, not all news from today is good news.

Kathryn's labor with Ailah was extremely quick. She woke me up at 4:45AM, and we got to the hospital around 5:30AM, and Ailah was born at 6:14AM, so not exactly a slow process. The labor was so quick that the things that happen during normal labor, such as having the fluid emptied from the lungs, couldn't happen. For several factors, ranging from potentially swallowing fluid during birth to not having a chance to get it out, Ailah was born with fluid in her lungs. Since she is also technically a preemie, the UW has decided to keep her for 24 hours at least, after which we will evaluate where we are with her.

In terms of concerns we have - oxygen saturation. With fluid in her lungs, it makes it harder for Ailah to send oxygen to her body and they've been running on the low side, low to mid 80s. We wouldn't expect a baby to be at 100 yet, but she should be closer. Add to that a low starting blood sugar, and there was minor cause for concern. Right now we are at a crossroads... assuming that the fluid gets better, we should have her home before the end of the weekend. If it doesn't, they could decide to diagnose her with pneumonia (I have no idea behind the reasoning for this, she does not have an infection) and take her to the NICU. If this occurs, I will probably push for a transfer to Children's because...

Lillian has been readmitted at Children's. Shortly after Ailah was born, Lillian started throwing up repeatedly and constantly. Between 6:30 and 12:30ish, she threw up approximately 6 times. It's not abnormal for Lillian to throw up if she has a full stomach and bowels, but we would expect a one-and-done situation from that, and that didn't happen. She kept throwing up even after she had nothing left in her stomach and started throwing up a yellow substance and then just spit. The more she threw up, the more upset she got (understandably of course), and it got to the point that we were worried enough to take her from Children's.

Once at Children's, Lillian continued to get worse. While her and I were waiting to be seen from 1 to 1:45, she threw up an additional 7 times and was miserable. Clearly dehydrated, she was admitted. Kathryn and I had originally thought that it was a poor reaction to the soap we had to wash her pacifier with at the hospital, but Children's was thinking that it was either a poor reaction to her meds or potentially an infection. For now, we have started to run tests (ruled out rotavirus so far) and have dropped all meds except for one of the anti rejection meds in an attempt to find out what is going on. Aside from ruling out rotavirus, we don't really know what's up. Since infection is the most likely suspect, we are in isolation for now, but other ideas have been thrown around like nec (unlikely considering the sudden onset of symptoms) to a milk intolerance (which makes total sense now that it's been suggested, especially in light of her absolutely losing it every time we offer a bottle). Right now we get to wait for more labs and tests and see if the purging of her system continues.

Sorry if I rambled/made no sense, it's been a long day. Not often that you have two kids in two different hospitals. More pictures now of Ailah for now

During an late false alarm last week, Annabelle demonstrates the proper way to sleep comfortably. It's no wonder so many people have back problems...

Annabelle tries to take a picture of Ailah.

Look at that hair! Early indication is a brunette, we'll see if that stays that way though.