She's Here!!

Elizabeth Fe'Lyn has arrived. She was born via Cesaerean section on 4/20/07 at 12:12pm. She weighed 7 lbs 5 oz. and was 20.5 inches long. She scored a 9 on both of her apgar tests. Pamela went through the surgery just fine and is recovering very well. The baby has nursed and had regular body functions and seems to be doing just fine.

The doctor's thought that she had hydroencephaly, but that may have been a mis-diagnosis from the ultrasound. They ran an ultrasound on her head and her liver to see what the swelling was they saw last week when they ran one on Pamela. We haven't gotten a report on the liver yet, but the pediatrician couldn't feel any swelling at all. We should know something more on it later today or at least by Monday. The initial report on the head is that the baby has colpocephaly. Colpocephaly is a congenital brain abnormality in which the occipital horns - the posterior or rear portion of the lateral ventricles (cavities) of the brain -- are larger than normal because white matter in the posterior cerebrum has failed to develop or thicken. They said that there was agenesis of the corpus calosum. Agenesis would mean- a=no, and genesis=beginning. They use this to reference that there is either no or very little of the corpus calosum. We are in a wait and see mode. The corpus calosum helps regulate how much cerebrospinal fluid is in the brain area. There is still a possibility that the baby will need a shunt to drain the excess, but as of right now they aren't sure. This conditions prognosis can be mild to severe mental retardation, poor vision, mild to severe seizures, and developmental delay. As of right now, she isn't showing any signs of any of these. Praise God. They are going to do an MRI on the baby on Monday morning to get another look and see anything more.

We just received this diagnosis this morning and I ran home to post pics and leave this update, so Pamela hasn't been told all of the information above. I will be informing her about it when I get back to the hospital in a little while. Please pray that God will continue to bless little Elizabeth. Praise God for all of you that have been praying, we certainly have been able to feel them. There will be pictures posted here as well. Please continue to keep our family in prayer and we will be calling on some of you for some assistance as we need it. God bless all of you who have already helped.

May the Lord bless and keep you. May His face shine upon you and be gracious and give you peace.

Derek
for the Woods family