Sweet baby Elizabeth - Birth Announcement Postcard

Description

Not all that long ago my eldest niece had her first baby. She had the perfect pregnancy (or as perfect as they come) and a very quick labor...especially considering it was her first. However, things took a turn for the worst when the baby's heart rate dropped very low a few times. Despite flipping and flopping, they couldn't get the baby out of distress, so they decided to do an emergency c-section.

When sweet baby Lizzy was born, she her initial apgar score was 1. She was not breathing and had a very low heart rate in the thirties. The second apgar was also 1. The medical team working on little Lizzy worked tirelessly for thirty minutes. She was not breathing so she was receiving breaths through a ambu bag (hand pumped air) aka "bagged her". They also had to give her fluids intraosseous (through her bone). Just when you think things couldn't get worse, her heart rate disappeared. After what seemed like hours they were able to revive her and start cooling her until the team from Children's NICU could arrive and take over.

All in all, she spent twenty days in the NICU before she was discharged. She's now 3 months old and has most definitely defied the odds. Babies with her diagnosis (hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy) rarely do anywhere near as well as she's doing. She's able to hold up her own head, is responsive, smiles, is quite vocal, is able to eat without issues (that has been a process), and most recently is attempting to crawl when she has tummy time. We're so very thankful that she's doing as well as she is!

This is one of the photos that we did from her newborn(ish) session after she was released from the NICU.