welcoming our newest edition, baby Kirsch

Hello everyone,

Well I am sure many of you, if not all, have heard the news that our newest member has arrived into the family. She is much earlier than we expected, but she knows " when its baby's time, it's baby time." We are more than happy to welcome her, too.
We still haven't found her perfect name yet, but have narrowed down the list to two, so standby for her name very soon.
What we can say about her, is that she is a very precious, beautiful little girl with blond hair like her mom. She was born 5lbs 4 oz at 11:09am Jan 8th. She was born via C-section because she was transverse. (I'll let Katie talk more about the procedure or the early stages) To say the least it was unexpected and sudden news for the 3 of us.

At first she didn't have to go into the NICU because she met the weight criteria of 5lbs or more, but has since been admitted into the NICU. Initially her respiratory rate was in the 90's which is high but not too abnormal for the first 4 hours as she was 5 weeks early and only 5+lbs. Having been born via C-section, she didn't get the chance of going through the normal birth canal which allows all or most of the fluid in her lungs to be pushed out. So, she retained some of the fluid hence the higher respiratory rate as she expels the fluid. She has also recently had a hard time regulating her temperature so they have moved her into the incubator to assist keeping her warm. They found that she would spend so much energy trying to stay warm that she didn't have anymore to eat so would then become hypoglycemic and lethargic. She has already lost 5% of her birth weight; the normal is 6% so she will have to catch up a bit, but has taken to a bottle of formula pretty well until Katie's breast milk arrives.

Katie's mom made it out here from Minnesota and has since been an enormous relief for all of us. We obviously can't thank her enough, and my sister Heidi for helping us get her tickets out here.

Logan has been handling it well so far too. He has yet to see her as he isn't allowed in the NICU, but Amy Jo hart helped us watch him all day on the 8th so he still got to have fun at the park and play in the abnormally warm 70 degree California winter.

Even though "she" is in the NICU, Katie has still been able to go see her and feed her. At first Katie was confined to her bed post-surgery, but after a few hours of momma being away from her little cub she had had enough and put her foot down. Since then she has got to hold and feed her every 3 hours. Katie has developed a sudden pain in the same side of her chest that her pneumo was on so they are looking into that but hopefully its just post surgery symptoms or dehydration.... More to follow on that.

Ok, well here is a much awaited picture or two of our newest baby Kirsch!!!!




Sean