She's Here!

After a long day, Magdalyn Beth Weber finally made it here at 10:37 p.m. on May 20th, 2008. Erin was very relieved our two girls don't have to share a birthday. Maggie weighed 6 lbs. 9 oz. and was 20 in. long - a good size for over five weeks early. Her Apgar scores after she was born were high, and we were hopeful that she wouldn't need any special treatment.

The happy Mom and Dad

Maggie looks a lot like Ellie - she's got Ellie's lips and chin and her face is shaped a lot like Ellie's, just smaller. When Maggie cries, she makes the same face that Owen makes when he cries. She's got her mother's ears (thank goodness at least one of our children doesn't have to go through life with their father's weird ears).

Like all the Weber children, Maggie has really long feet and toes.

Unfortunately, after she was bathed and diapered, the nursery noticed that Maggie's respiration rate was quite high. Apparently if babies are breathing too quickly (lots of short, shallow breaths rather than longer deep breaths), it can cause problems with feeding. It's also an indication that her lungs might not be fully developed (though the neonatologist seemed to think that it was more likely due to excess fluid in her lungs - Erin only took one push to get her out, so the process was quick enough that it didn't give Maggie enough time to get that extra fluid out). After a couple of hours of monitoring, the doctors decided it was a big enough problem that she should be moved from the normal nursery to the NICU.

Here she is in the NICU with all her wires attached. She's got monitors for her pulse, heart rate, respiration rate and oxygen saturation. They have a blood pressure cuff around her ankle and give her oxygen through her nose, and a feeding tube that goes through her mouth straight down to her stomach.

As of this evening, we haven't seen a whole lot of improvement with the breathing situation. I should stress, however, that this isn't life threatening and we have every expectation that she'll figure out how to slow down her breathing eventually and she'll be able to come home with us. I'm also under the impression that this process should take days and not weeks, but the neonatologists don't like to set timetables. We'll just wait and see how she does.

We are a bit concerned that she's had problems digesting the formula they've given her (Erin's been pumping, but not enough to provide her entire diet, so they supplement with formula). If she continues to have problems, they may have to start feeding her intravenously. That would probably delay her coming home even more, so we're hoping that they can continue using the feeding tube rather than the IV.

It's tough having your baby in the NICU, but we really are blessed that she wasn't worse off. She doesn't need to be in an incubator or have a respirator breathe for her, and for now she isn't hooked up to the IV, so we can hold her when we come to visit. It felt a little lonely spending the night in the hospital room without her there, but we're looking forward to the time when she'll be healthy enough to come home with us and we can finally be together as a complete family.