Mary Cate is here...

Mary Cate Goodich was born on Thursday August 7th at about 1 p.m. On Thursday(the day before we were supposed to deliver her) I woke up with Stacie at the hospital and helped her do a few things before I went off to work. On my way to work I was feeling pretty good about things with Stacie, she wasn't doing too bad (not too good either) but at least I had peace of mind and felt good about her being delivered the next day to help Stacie get on the road to recovery. When I was at work I was about to start a surgery on a little baby when I got the scariest phone call of my life from Stacie.

When I talked to her, she could hardly even talk, so she handed the phone to the nurse and the nurse finished talking for her. She told me that little Mary Cate had developed fluid around her heart and lungs and that she was in heart failure; and that I needed to get there ASAP because they were going to deliver her as soon as the OB could get to the hospital. I immediately left work, thankfully there was someone there who could cover the case I was about to start, and I rushed to be with Stacie. I was hysterical, panicked, shaking and crying. I could not believe all of this was happening despite all the bad stuff that was happening already.

The baby was delivered a couple hours after I got there via C-section. The baby had to immediately be intubated and taken to the ICU, they stabilized her and immediately took her over to the childrens hospital here in Las Vegas. She finally got there safe and sound and over the past day and a half they have been helping her stabilize and trying to figure out what happened to her.

After a blood test on Stacie, they determined what happened to the baby was that she had a fetal-maternal hemmorage, which basically means that the baby was bleeding through the placenta somehow and back in to Stacie. Mary lost 25 percent of her blood volume, was anemic, edematous and this is what was causing the heart failure. They have been transfusing blood to her and helping her blood levels become normal so that she can flush all of the excess fluid out her kidneys on her own. They have her sedated still, intubated and stable for the most part. She has improved alot over the time she has been there and her prognosis is very good with time and good controlled medicine.

Stacie on the other hand is improving slowly and hopefully will be home by Monday. She is emotional of course because of not being able to hold and feed her baby, but is in pretty good spirits otherwise. The doctors feel that her physical state will improve with time as well. She is diuresing (a newly discovered and frequently used word by Stacie's dad) very well and hopefully will get rid of all that fluid. As far as why this happened to her, they are not sure, but right now they think that she had something called Mirrors(not sure of spelling) Syndrome, which basically means that what happened to her, happened to the baby. Her case is very unique and has her doctors puzzled.

Thank you everyone for your phone calls, prayers, e-mails, and thoughts. Stacie told me this morning that she felt like there were angels in the room with her one night in the hospital and that they are helping us through all this. A big thanks to our parents, Ashli, and Grandma and Grandpa Cooper who have been here through all this. I can't do enough or ever do enough to ever re-pay you for everything that you have done for us. We love all our family and friends and feel very thankful for you guys. I will keep you all updated.