Amare Update 10/11/07

Hi everyone. As many of you probably heard, Amare Daniel Quince was born on Tuesday, October 9 at 1:40 pm and weighed in at 8 lbs 10 oz. He has red hair and the jury is still out as to who he looks more like--mom or dad. He is so handsome and we are already in love with our little man. They took him off to the nursery to weigh him and clean him up and after about an hour and a half, he joined us in our post pardum room. The pediatrician stopped by and told us how great he looked and that he seemed to be perfect in every way. We were enjoying some quiet time as a family (labor is WAAAY more exhausting and painful than I could have ever imagined) and noticed that he didn't seem to want to eat. We would wait a half hour and then try again...no interest. In fact, he would push me away and get really upset. We called the lactation consultant to come help and she noticed that his breathing was very labored. She said she wanted to take him back to the nursery so they could watch him and check him out again. After about an hour (around 9pm) she came back and said that our baby was very sick and having some serious breathing problems. He was going to be taken to their Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and be hooked up to some breathing machines and IV's. We freaked out! They said they would come back and give us an update but by midnight we still hadn't heard anything. Gyasi marched down there and demanded to know what was going on with our son. They finally let us see him and didn't have a lot of answers as to what was going on. They said they thought he had some fluid in his lungs and whenever that happens, there is a danger of infection. They started him on some antibiotics for the possible infection but said that they might need to transfer him that night to another hospital in Lewisville, TX (about 25 minutes away) that had a more sophisticated NICU and had a breathing machine that he could benefit from. The next day they decided to transfer him. I requested to be discharged to be able to join him and my doctor released me from the hospital exactly 24 hours after giving birth. We immediately headed up here to this new hospital and are very satisfied wiht the care he's getting. He seems to be responding well to the breathing machine and they have reduced his oxygen levels from 100% assistance to only 50% assistance. We don't know how long he'll have to be here but we're prepared to wait to bring him home so he can get better.
We didn't expect or prepare for any of this and it has been an emotional rollercoaster. Hormones don't help with that journey either. Friends and family have been so supportive and our biggest challenge is trying to keep everyone updated. I plan to use this blog as a communication tool and then send out an email to everyone so they can come here for updates and pictures.