We are very excited to announce the arrival of Liam Andreas Bersagel-Briese! He was born this morning (Dec 19) at 0042, weighing in at 8lbs 10oz and measuring 21.25″ long.

Our excitement is slightly tempered by the fact that Liam is facing a big uphill climb right now. After our arrival at the hospital, Ahna progressed from 5cm dilated to 10cm in less than 45 minutes. During delivery, there was a sudden placenta abrubption, resulting in a decreased oxygenated blood flow to the baby for at least several minutes. The delivery quickly turned into a full-blown emergency c-section. Ahna did amazing throughout the entire labor process and especially during the emergency part of the delivery and she is recovering at the hospital as we speak.

Liam has had some major difficulties early with his respiratory drive, and later with concerns for long-term neurologic complications. These bring lots of other issues to play, but the focus is on the long term neurologic outcome. I transferred hospitals with him just a few hours after birth, and we are now at Children’s Hospital in the NICU. They are aggressively addressing the situation using a head-cooling method that will keep him under wraps for 72 hours before we will know much about the future. Currently, his vital signs are good and he is showing good movement. Ahna will hopefully be discharged soon and will then join us at Children’s. We are anticipating being here for a while before all of us can go home.

We are asking for your continued prayers for Liam and for Ahna; as well as all of the love and support that we have come to rely so heavily on.

We also must express our sincere thanks to the staff at Parker, the Flight for Life team, and the staff at the NICU here at Children’s. We are lucky to have these resources available to us.

Updates will be posted to the blog.

Tick, tock, tick, tock. I made it through 48 hours at work without ‘the’ phone call, but the house is now sick. Ezra didn’t last the day yesterday at daycare, Ahna actually had called out on Monday already, and now I’m not feeling the greatest. Luckily my parents live close by and my Mom has been able to sneak to the house each of the last two nights to help out while I was at work. If you follow Murphy’s prophecies, tonight or tomorrow might be it…after several weeks of warm weather and a record breaking dry spell to start the winter; we are expecting 4-8 inches of snow. Couple that with a routine visit to the doctor’s office later this afternoon, and you might have the makings of something. Or probably not. The blog will tell.

Today’s prep work was the building of the swing. We were fortunate enough to have borrowed one for Ezra, but the opportunity to buy one for this kid presented itself about two months ago. It was living in it’s original box in the basement since then, and today made the journey upstairs and smack into the middle of the house.

Today’s activity? An exercise in patience. We wait. We anticipate. We wonder. I remember from Ezra that this was the hardest part…and it still is, but this time we actually have something to focus on instead of simply always waiting. Still, that doesn’t ease the nerves or settle the mind. Every time my phone rings, I think “is this the call?” Every time that we plan on doing something, I wonder “will we make it through?” Every time we go somewhere, I think “what’s the quickest way to get Ezra to Saba and Savta’s house, get our bag, and get to the hospital?” Every night that comes, I prepare for being woken up. But it hasn’t come yet, and I suppose that all of the mental games that you play with yourself will pay off when the actual event occurs. Till then, we just wait.

The photo is of the day-by-day journal of a baby’s development from inception to birth. It always strikes me at the beginning  (how many pages are still to turn) and at the end (holy cow, we turned all those pages).

The guest bedroom…it’s to be occupied by visitors and family that is going to help. That means that it was on the priority list of things to get ready prior to the hospital. This might have been the easiest thing to do…make sure that the sheets are good and add some towels to the bed; but it had to get done. One more item closer to a baby.

Today’s baby preparation included getting almost all of the gifts mailed out to family and setting up the co-sleeper in our room. The sleeper isn’t yet hooked up to the bed, to allow us to get on and off the bed easier for the next week, but everything is in place for it to become the new primary sleeping spot for a baby.

Welcome to a new daily feature that I am hoping won’t last more than a few days. The countdown is till the anticipated due date of December 17, and despite all of the advice out there to pay as little attention to that date (as it is just a guess), I have decided to go the entire opposite direction and focus entirely way too much on it. Besides, it gives me something to do other than wait.

So, today’s baby preparation event was the installation of the infant seat in the Highlander (the Subaru is at work with Ahna so I will get it’s base installed later tonight). Say goodbye to any backseat easy storage for us and say hello to a new neighbor for Ezra! It certainly looks a little strange – about as much as it did when we installed it for Ezra. I suppose that each of these prep events will ease our minds a little as we try to get everything ready; but this one at least allows us to get the baby home from the hospital….a welcome thing.