Baby Ellen Sharlene Surina finally arrived at 8:42 AM on March 6th, 2012. All 7 lbs 9 oz and 21 inches of her! And she was worth the wait. Life has gotten even better with her now in ours. She was born at Seton Medical Center just North of downtown Austin which is a wonderful facility and staffed with the most friendly and competent nurses. I mean, those nurses could not have treated us better. Everybody was so nice and so helpful, they really did wonders to try and help minimize our stress. Ellen gave us a little bit of a scare when she was first born (but everything worked itself out and thank God turned out to be just fine). She had developed something called Pneumothorax right as she was born which meant she had some air inside her chest cavity between her lungs and heart. But the doctors identified it right away and put a couple monitors on her and decided she should stay the night in NICU to be more closely monitored. The NICU nurses were just as nice as the regular nurses and they made us feel at home when we went up there to spend time with Ellen. We were allowed in there all hours of the night except for during shift change from 6:30-7:30. Even though she had her little monitors on, she was mostly in good spirits.
If she wasn't eating or asleep:
Well the air in her chest went away on it's own and they never had to do any procedures to correct it, so all went well and Ellen got to come down to Mama's room the 2nd day. And it was later that day when they decided they could discharge both mother and baby! During this whole process we were fortunate enough to have Lacee's Mom Cathy with us. She had been on alert in Clovis with her bags packed and managed to catch a flight which got her to the hospital in Austin about two hours after we checked in. So she was there for the entire labor and delivery and she was also able to run back to our house to take care of Preston. Thank you Cathy!!! And we also must add a Thank You to our great new friends and neighbors Brian & Teresa for feeding Preston the first morning and evening. And Katelyn came and visited us while we were in the hospital and we had a fun surprise visit from Katelyn's Mom Pat. We are truly blessed to have such great friend and family support. And it did not stop at the hospital. Cathy ended up staying with us for almost two weeks and Karlton and Brittany came up for a while. And as soon as they left, my parents (Stan & Donna) came up Friday afternoon to stay through Monday. It has been a whirlwind of fun and activity but we couldn't be happier!
