Esther Jeanne is here!

Esther Jeanne was born Saturday morning at 12:30 am after a very short (4 hours) but scary labor, with 6 EMTs in attendance (well, the 5 guys were in the hallway, and the one female EMT was in the room helping out), but she was born at home.

I began to bleed heavily at 5 cm, and it looked like I might need to transport to the hospital, but by the time the EMTs got there I was at 8 cm and going fast, so we asked the male EMTs to wait outside my bedroom, that left one EMT, my midwife and her assistant, DH and DD.  She was blue when she was born, and just got worse.  Even before they left with her (DH, midwife went with her in the ambulance) I was pretty sure that she had down syndrome, and the doctor has confirmed this from her physical symptoms, but they also are running a blood test to confirm as well.



I am now with her in the hospital (spent most of yesterday here with her, but slept at home last night), but I can't hold her as she is in a little tent so she can have a high level of oxygen to breath - I can hold her hand or stoke her body/head and I even got to change her diaper.

At first she required 100% oxygen, but by the time I got to the hospital, she was able to stay stable with around 75% oxygen.  Late yesterday she was down to 50% and this morning she's at 40%!  The air we breath is 21%, so she's making great strides in the right direction!



This morning she's in an incubator with lights as she started to get very jaundiced over night (sorry for the bad photo, but the camera doesn't like the bright light!), so they are giving her a little "sun" time to help her process things - getting her to a good feeding schedule will also help flush the biliruben out of her system too.  The pediatrician says she might be under the lights for a few days

This is so hard - my arms ache to hold her!

She had an ultrasound yesterday afternoon to check for any heart defects as it's very common with these precious babies, and they did find a hole in her heart, but it does not require surgery - Praise The Lord on that count!

Another hurdle was jumped through this morning - she pooped in her diaper!  Yeah!  They were getting concerned that she might have an intestinal blockage, but since she's pooped now, they'll start working up to getting her feeding!  She's been on an IV so far.  They'll probably start her with a feeding tube through her nose, and we'll be working on bottle feeding her, but down's syndrome babies tend to have difficulties with their sucking.

We had decided to concentrate on bottle feeding Esther as I had a very difficult time breast feeding Elizabeth, and never had sufficient milk for her (probably due to my "advanced maternal age") and so far, I seem to have no milk whatsoever - if my milk comes in, I'll try to suppliment the bottle feeding with breat feeding for both close contact with her and to see if I can at least do some breast feeding with her, but I don't want to hold up her progress in getting home!

Yesterday the pediatrician was saying that she believes Esther will need to remain in the hospital for about a week.

Prayer needs today:

That Esther's lungs continue to improve, so that she can be weened off of the oxygen and so she can be held and bottle fed.

That Esther will learn to take a bottle quickly, and show that she can be fed without a feeding tube.  Also that I might have at least some success at breast feeding her.

That my blood pressure will go down (it's still high and I'm soooo tired from loss of blood) and that I will recover quickly and have the stamina/energy needed to care for Esther.

That God will supply our every need -financial needs (we have not medical insurance), emotional needs, and spiritual needs through this time of great blessing and trial.

In Christ,

Ruth