Marilla Jane White

Marilla Jane White joined our family at 4:50 a.m. this morning. She is, of course, beautiful, and was a whopping (compared to her brother!) 7 lbs. 11 oz. She has dark hair-- we now have our blond, redhead and brunette. We had a wonderful hour holding her and congratulating each other on what a perfect baby we had produced.

Unfortunately, not all went like we hoped. When they were getting her ready for her bath, they noticed she was breathing a little rapidly, so they decided to monitor her breathing and heart rate for a while. It soon became apparent that something was really wrong with her breathing. At first, they were just monitoring her, then a little oxygen mask to help her blood oxygen levels, which were falling. Within a few hours, we had a rather different picture to show of our sweetheart:

We had delivered in a hospital without a NICU, and the conferring doctor from another hospital ultimately decided that Marilla needed more care than they could give her, and she was transferred to Crouse Hospital NICU.

Yep, Elliott's home for 80 days. Never thought I'd be back there! I was discharged from the hospital so I could go see her-- stepping off the elevator brought back so many memories. Thankfully, she is such a big girl for that NICU-- reminds me that we could have a lot more worries! She is now on a ventilator, but able to just be on room air-- no supplemental oxygen. It is sure hard to see her all hooked up to the cords and not be able to hold her, but it definitely was better for her. Her little breaths looked like such work this morning, I couldn't imagine how she was feeling. We'll know more within 24 hours-- there are so many possible explanations for her symptons, they haven't ruled anything out. The sense we are getting, though, is that it might be a bit rough for a few days, but hopefully we'll have our little girl home with us by the end of the week.

We were at the hospital by 2:00 this morning, and we've been going hard since then, so I think it's high time to go to bed. It's a little discouraging-- I'm using a breast pump again since she is unable to nurse at the moment. I thought I'd left that behind with Elliott. It's one thing to wake up in the middle of the night to nurse a little cuddle bug, it's another thing to force yourself to endure the pain of a breast pump for 15 minutes every three hours, followed by lots of scrubbing of breast pump parts. Hoping it will only be for a short while!

Will try to post more news tomorrow, as time and energy allows!