Sun 16 May 1999
Today, Carissa Teodora Atherton joined our family.
While her birth went pretty well, they have taken her to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) because they detected meconium in the amniotic fluid. We don’t know what to think about this. If the meconium has gotten into her lungs, it could make her sick, but there is no way to tell if that’s happened.
The doctor is going to put her on a course of antibiotics and observe her for a few days to check her progress.
Sun 16 May 1999
We had a birthday party for Carissa, even thought she couldn’t be with us. 
Everyone in our family who can show up, has shown up now, and it seemed to be a good time to celebrate the big change in our life! Grandma and Papaw Atherton, Nana and Papaw Cotton, Uncle Tim, Uncle Kevin, Aunt Kristen, and even Great-grandma Cotton are all here.
We got a birthday cake for Carissa, some celebratory drinks (including a bottle of Dom Perignon that I was recently awarded at work), and I gave Sandi a ring with Carissa’s birthstones in it. We’ll give the ring to Carissa on her 16th birthday.
Happy, um, 0th birthday!!!
Ooh, fan-cy!
Carissa’s birthstone ring, currently on loan to Sandi (it fits her better right now)
So far, Carissa seems to be doing OK in the NICU. Sandi goes down every 4 hours to nurse her, although right now, Carissa is taking more easily to a bottle.
Local Tags: birthday, carissa, carissa's birth, grandma atherton, ken, nana cotton, nicu, papaw atherton, papaw cotton, sandi
Format this post for printing
Mon 17 May 1999
Posted by Ken Atherton under Daily Life
1 Comment
Carissa’s stay in the NICU is turning out to be less scary than we thought it might be. She’s obviously much more healthy than most of the other babies here, and it seems that the main reason that she is staying in the NICU at this point is because they already started a course of antibiotics, and once they do so, they will keep her until it is finished. That should be tomorrow at the latest.
It’s been fascinating to see all of the equipment they use in the NICU. My favorite right now is the pulse oximeter they are using on Carissa. It clips lightly onto her finger and roughly measures how much oxygen is in her blood. It’s lots of fun to fixate on, as a new parent. Every time it starts going down, you wonder if she’s breathing enough. I’ll be glad when we go home and I don’t have one of these to watch any more.
In the meantime, everyone we know has been stopping by during visiting hours to hold Carissa. There’s nothing like a new baby to draw a crowd.
Papaw Cotton holds the baby
Nana Cotton holds the baby
Papaw Atherton holds the baby
Grandma Atherton holds the baby
Even Daddy holds the baby
Local Tags: birthday, carissa, carissa's birth, grandma atherton, ken, nana cotton, nicu, papaw atherton, papaw cotton, sandi
Format this post for printing
Tue 18 May 1999
Posted by Ken Atherton under Daily Life
1 Comment
They released Carissa from the NICU this morning. We had a lot of paperwork to fill out and Carissa had to undergo a mandatory hearing screening. The hospital loaded us up with new baby stuff, but we got packed up and left for home around 3PM.
All of the baby books say that the hospital is the easy part. After those first few days, you no longer have a nurse on call to help with everything. It’s time to do it yourselves. For us, that starts today.
We are definitely looking forward to it, and we are unbelievably relieved that the meconium turned out to be a false alarm. There may always be danger, but I’m glad we got past this one.
Carissa, bundled up and ready to go. Look how excited she is!
Sat 29 May 1999
Posted by Ken Atherton under Daily Life
1 Comment
She’s only been here for two weeks and she’s already goofing around… What have we gotten ourselves into???
There are a lot of things that you might find on this site that would be useful for your own purposes. We're happy to share.
Our use of the the Creative Commons Attribution-No Commercial Use-Share Alike license means you are free to take and reuse whatever you want as long as:
1. You provide an attribution to the original work.
2. You don't use the work for commercial purposes. No use in advertising, no selling poster prints, etc.
3. You must make derivative works available to others in the same spirit that we've made the original material available to you.
If you have a blog where you post other material like we have here, we would strongly encourage you to add a Creative Commons license to your site as well.
