Our Beautiful New Addition

Day 5, 8 July 06

Day 4

Day 3

Day 2

14 hours old, 12pm, 4 July 2006

Angelina Gisèle Allegrini was born on Monday, July 3, 2006 at 21:56. She
weighed 7lbs12oz (3.525kg) and is 21.25in (54cm)long. She's got loads of
dark black hair, her dad's long legs and arms, and my clown nose. She is
cute as ever.

Her first few days on earth have been a bit rough however. During labor,
she aspirated meconium which filled her lungs. Though she never stopped
breathing and her heart was beating well, the meconium in her lungs
posed a big problem for her and she was whisked off to NICU immediately.
The first 12 hours were harrowing (and we now know her condition worsened and her docs didn't think she'd make it), but from that point on she started to
improve rapidly, amazing all her caregivers but not her parents who know
how tough she is! She was started off on an oscillating ventilator which
basically pushes oxygen through at really high frequency, while they
heavily sedate her so she doesn't try to work too much on her own. While
her lungs are fully formed and she should be able to breathe fine,
because they're so filled they use the machine to breathe for her while
she works at clearing out all the gunk. She was able to come off that
yesterday (July 6), was moved to a normal ventilator and by last night at 72
hours old, though still on the ventilator, was down to 50% oxygen, which
means she was doing half her breathing on her own! Each chest x-ray
looks clearer and clearer, and literally every hour brings improvement.
She's less sedated now and very alert - too much so at times because she
starts squirming and pulling at her wires. She clearly wants out of
there! Her docs thought they may be able to remove the vent entirely
today. She still has a long ways to go, she's got to finish clearing
those lungs, hold off infection and stay healthy. All her other organs
are working very well. She's amazingly strong and fighting like crazy!

Her doctors said to plan her being there for 3 weeks. An eternity when
we want to have her home, but given that in the first day they wouldn't
even hope that much, we'll take 3 weeks and hope for sooner.

We hadn't planned for any hospital stay as we had
planned a homebirth and did labor mostly at home, but once her heart
showed irregular beats we immediately transfered to the hospital which
is only 5 minutes away and has the best NICU around. Laboring at home
really was excellent, I had fabulous midwives and Frederic gave
incredible support, working nearly as hard as I did (and much more since
then!). Fortunately Angelina had her way of telling us
that she was going to need some extra help once she was born and we
listened! We also got very lucky with the OB on call at the hospital,
as she is renown as one of the best in the area. The entire team there
was incredible as well.