My First Blog

Hello Friends & Family,

Today I am 1 day old. I spent the night in the NICU here at Holy Cross Hospital. Let me tell you the story of how I got here.

It has been quite a journey for me. My parents decided to have me way back in November 2008. Little did they expect to become pregnant the very next month. My mom had a bit of a tough time with me the first several months because of morning sickness and fatigue. Around March, mom started feeling a lot better and energized.

While in mommy's belly, I took my first flight from the US to London and then Athens in May.

Everything was going well for mom and me. I was moving around a lot. [Babak: Emily used to sit on the couch in the basement and pull up her t-shirt and just stare at her belly for hours. Lela would move around and you could see Em's abdomen move around.] Last week mom went to her doctor for a regular visit. She mentioned that she hadn't felt me move around as much that week. So the doctor had an ultrasound done. Even though I can't breathe in mom's womb, I was supposed to make some breathing movements, which I didn't. Also, my heart rate was low a few times during the ultrasound. So the doctor sent my mom to Holy Cross Hospital to be admitted and monitored. Mom has been here at the hospital since Thursday (7/16/09) morning. They had her hooked up to monitors to watch my heart rate and her contractions. [Babak: For some strange reason Em started having regular contractions every 2-2.5 minutes once she was admitted to the hospital. They gave her some terbutaline and nifedipine to help stop the contractions. By the next day she only had rare contractions.] At this point I was only 32 weeks and 4 days old.

They gave mom some steroids (Betamethasone) to help my lungs develop in case I was delivered early. Over the next few days my heart rate continued to dip down too low on occasion and was not as variable as the doctor's would like. Mom had to constantly stay on her side because laying on her back made my heart rate low. Dad continued to go to work and was on call that Saturday (7/18/09). When he came to see us in the morning (7/19/09), mom and I were starting to have some heart rate decelerations again. So Dr. Travers (the OB) called in Dr. Matia (the perinatologist) to do an ultrasound urgently. Dr. Matia saw that the blood flowing to me in the umbilical vessel was not as good as it should be and told Dr. Travers that she recommended delivering me, even though I was only 33 weeks old. Dr. Travers recommended a c-section and mom was whisked away to the OR. Dr. Eng was the anesthesiologist. He gave mom a spinal injection to numb her from the chest down and I was delivered at 12:13pm. I weighed only 3lbs 10 oz. Dad saw my head when it first popped out of mom's belly. He got to hold me a few minutes later. [Babak: Lela did really well immediately post-delivery. Her APGAR scores were 9 and 9 (about as good as it gets) and she was crying.] I then went to the NICU.

Yesterday, in the NICU, they put me in an isolette to keep me warm. They put an IV in my left hand to give me nutrition. They put a feeding tube in my mouth and some oxygen through my nose [Babak: High-flow FiO2=21% @ 3L/min. Her blood gases looked fine.] Mom and dad came and saw me on there way from the recovery room to the postpartum floor where mom is staying. They both got to hold me. They saw that I have very light-brown hair (maybe a hint of red like grandma Shohreh wished for). I don't open my eyes very much, so they will have to wait to see what color they turn out.

My nurses and doctors say I am doing well. They had to put in another IV in my right hand because the one in the left infiltrated. Dr. Baer is my neonatologist today and she is trying to put a PICC line in my arm so they can continue to give me IV nutrition over the next 5-7 days. Mom has been trying to pump milk for me and got a teaspoon of liquid gold that daddy brought down for me. My nurses are planning on giving it to me through my feeding tube today.

Dad came by and saw me this morning. He held me for 45 minutes and talked to me a lot. I think I slept through most of it. My nurses told him that they all think I look like him. [Babak: I hope for Lela's sake they are wrong.]

Mom got out of bed for the first time today and is anxious to come down and see me. She's only gotten to see me for 10-15 minutes that first day.

I also have already met my Uncle Ali, Grandparents Shohreh & Hamid, and even uncle Leshaw. I like all the attention. I get to meet my Grandma Connie this Wednesday!!

I've had a stressful few days. I gave my parents quite a scare the last couple of days. I'm looking forward to getting bigger and graduating from the NICU some day. Stay tuned for lots of updates.