Birth Day - September 26, 2008

Shiloh Shane Stover

Born Friday, September 26, 2008, 7:36 AM

7 lbs 3 oz and 19.5 inches

Moments after he was born we were asking what were we ever going to do with such a tiny baby!!!!! (Mikayla was a whopping 10lbs and 21 inches long)! Michael held him for a few minutes, I got to see him and he was whisked away. It wasn't until I had been wheeled to a recovery room with no husband and no baby that I was told he had to go to the 'transition nursery'. Apparently, Shiloh was so excited about seeing us that he was breathing twice as fast as babies were supposed to. Normal breaths per minute for infants is around 50 - 70 bpm. Shiloh was taking 140 breaths per minute.

My doctor explained this was common with C-Section babies (a phrase we would hear too many times in 4 days). She said because he didn't get the 'push' through the birth canal his lungs didn't absorb that fluid that was causing the rapid breathing. She said he would probably be in transition 2 - 4 hours and then come back to us. After 8 hours they transferred him to NICU, instead of back to our room. It wasn't for nearly 18 hours that I got to actually see him, touch him, hold him, feed him. After 36 long hours in NICU he got his breathing under control and was brought to our room. The breathing problem would present NO long term problems! Yay!

But while in NICU they determined he had a heart murmur - "common in newborns, especially c-section babies". After much drama a cardiologist came in to discuss this 'heart murmur" with us. Come to find out this common c-section heart murmur was actually Atrial Septal Defect (ASD). A whole present in the heart in everyone, was 7mm instead of 3mm. And of course this ASD is (say it with me) "common in c-section babies". But good news is in a majority of children this problem corrects itself. If it doesn't it is a quick easy catheterization at 5 years old to close it up. Of course if he requires the catheterization he will not be able to participate in high air pressure changes. So no, Shiloh can not be a fighter pilot. But I would also have a great excuse why he can not go sky diving!!!! We'll go back for a follow up at 1 year old.

Through that 'drama' I mentioned earlier we also had a brain scan to confirm the ventromegaly that presented itself at 19 weeks in utero was cleared as we were told at 27 weeks. It in fact was, his brain looked perfect - and if I remember correctly the doctor must have passed on from the neurosurgeon something like "This has to be the most intelligent brain I've ever seen, in fact I can imagine only parents of a child with a brain like this could have a higher IQ" - if memory serves me, of course!

And then there were two smaller issues that were thrown in our face by some dramatic nurse practitioners. The first being that his hands were positional...you know when babies are in utero, it's snug in there - sometimes when they are born their hands stay in the position they were in while in utero. Not a big deal, we stretch his hands and they are perfectly fine. The other thing was his little tongue needed to be snipped underneath because the little flap that holds the tongue in the mouth was too short on him. That was snipped at almost 2 months. He was quite fussy for a couple days, but no problems there.

This was all while in the hospital right after his birth...and then there was the thing that we were least worried about - and mostly because (come on I know you know what I'm going to say) "IT'S COMMON WITH C-SECTION BABIES"....Shiloh failed two newborn hearing screenings. Everyone just kept telling us it was because he was a c-section baby and he still had fluid in his ears. We were told we should come back within 2 weeks to have his ear re-tested by the hospital audiology department.

And then a day earlier than we were supposed to...Michael packed us up and rushed us home! We retreated into our house with our new family of four. Happy, content, less worried and relieved to get away from the hospital.

Stressful, but beautiful! Through it all Shiloh was a gorgeous happy baby for us and we were beyond excited for Mikayla to have her "blueberry".