Malachi Daniel, born in Belize City at 10:30AM. 6lbs 6oz (.455357143 stone) and 19 inches.



Was born with congenital pneumonia, so I haven't gotten to hold him yet as he's on IV antibiotics and oxygen. Hopefully soon.

Congrats and good luck.

Congrats!

Oh, by the way, I waited until they wiped him down so you could keep your lunch down, Tony F.

So now I have a Mal, and my second-born's middle name is Jane. Perhaps I can convince my wife to do Zoe next. I think if I asked for Inara she'd catch on...

Congratulations!

Congratulations!

Awesome! The best feeling in the world

Hoban might also be a stretch...

Congrats!

Congratulations John! Hope he gets home soon!

Hasn't been doing so well, but the future looks bright. The fluid in his lungs was working its way out and by morning the x-ray was looking good. Then he started having trouble breathing again and couldn't keep his blood oxygen levels up, even while on a ventilator. The doctors pulled the ventilator tube to see what was going on, and found out that it was plugged up with mucus.

Once the ventilator was removed and he was just back on oxygen, he started doing better, but still couldn't breath normally on his own. After another x-ray, they determined that while the ventilator was clogged, his lungs had gotten hyper-inflated. We waited a couple hours to see if the extra air would get absorbed, but it wasn't going away. So the doctors did a procedure to insert a tube through his side into his lungs to allow the extra air to escape. He seems to be breathing much more normally now. If everything heals up and he doesn't get infection, I think he'll be a fairly healthy baby.

Eeeek! A rough start, but it sounds like things are under control. Our thoughts are with you.

Ouch, it's tough to see them on ventilators. Chloe needed one for the first day or two (first one was huge and came with a special hat to hold the tubes onto her head) but it's not long before they get the hang of this air thing.

Congrats & good luck!

Thanks for the encouragement Hugo. It's been a long weekend.

Congratulations anf good luck!

Any news? The overinflation sounds frightening, but so did being asked for permission to give Chloe a spinal tap before giving her some drugs (standard procedure given some of her symptoms, but no less frightening for it).

All I could think of was amps that went up to 11...

It was touch and go there for a couple days. Almost lost him. Doctors were going to recommend an emergency medivac to the US when he turned around and started getting better. He's been recovering rapidly and is doing much better now. He should be discharged from the hospital on Tuesday. Just has to finish his course of antibiotics.

Turns out that we didn't emerge from Malachi's birth struggles as unscathed as we thought. My wife called from the States today and said that his MRI confirms that he has Cerebral Palsy.

Anyone have any experience with this? Success stories? Could use a couple right now.

I don't have any advise or stories, but I wish you & your wife and Ellis and Malachi the best of luck in dealing with the additional challenges this will bring to your family.

I'll give you what little personal experience I have with it, gleaned from my former co-worker's son and what exposure I had to my dad's job as a special ed teacher:

The bright side is CP is NOT a progressive condition. As he gets a bit older you'll get a much clearer picture of what you're dealing with, as there is a huge range with CP.

As for my former co-worker's son, he's 17 now, also mildly austistic. I spent more time with him as a toddler, where he was pretty "normal" (as if such a thing exists) but walked and talked a little funny. He now walks and talks a little funny, holds a job, drives, and will graduate high school with other kids his age, and wants to go to school to be a radiology technician. He did go to school year round, starting at the age of two and a half, which may or may not have helped, trying that route couldn't hurt.

As for my father's former students, various disabilities, were a mixed bag of success. Many of them went on to live "normal" lives. The level of "normal" of the outcome had to do mostly with degree of disability and the family they had than anything they were teaching in that school in his opinion. He was teaching ages 15-21, a shop teacher, so small kids weren't his thing.

Thanks Heather. I suspect his case isn't too severe but I guess we'll know more as he gets older. He still doesn't have good neck or trunk control and his muscles in his arms and legs are tight many times. He's basically has the control you'd expect from a 4-6 mo. old in a 9 mo. old body. The docs say that with physical and occupational therapy, he will improve, but they don't know how much.