Makinley Grace Schreier has arrived!

We are excited to announce that Makinley Grace Schreier was born yesterday, August 22, at 10:38 am.  She weighed 4 lbs 1 oz.  She tolerated delivery very well for being a premature baby and so far things look good.  Her lungs were developed!  She was intubated immediately after birth and given 45% oxygen so that she didn't have to work as hard to breathe.  After one dose of surfactant, she was down graded to the Cpap machine and is only receiving 21% oxygen(normal human level) as of this morning.  She does have two clubbed feet.  This means that both of her feet turn inward.  It was most likely caused by low fluid amounts.  A baby is not strong enough to push away from things inside the womb and therefore as Makinley grew her feet began to grow inward since they were being pushed up against the uterus wall.  This is something we can address in a month or so and most likely fix with six to eight weeks of casting.  In addition, one of her thumbs is is deformed.  It looks like two fingers put together with two nails, etc.  This is something we will also address later on when she is a little more stable. 

I was able to finally meet our baby girl this morning.  Andrew wheeled me up to the NICU for me to see her.  Her room is on the back wall of the NICU.  Doctors thought she would be in critical condition so they placed her in the high risk area of the floor.  She is so tiny!!  Andrew can wrap his hand around her whole bottom half.  It is so wonderful to see how much he loves her already.  It melts my heart to see the way that he looks at her.  We have loved her from day one but it so nice to put a face with a name now.  She is fairly dark complected which is a trait from her daddy.  Believe it or not she is darker than me at the moment.  No sun and blood loss have caused me to be pretty pale right now.  She has a head full of dark hair.  I can not wait to start putting bows in it!  I wish that we could hold her but so far they have not offered for us to pick her up.  They want to make sure she is stable before we move her a lot.  For now, I will just take in every feature and let her hold on to my finger for as long as she desires!  I am sure nurse Mindy thought we took LOTS of pictures - my sister Dee was making sure to capture our special memories on camera.

 





I would love to stay in Makinley's room every hour of every day but my body is still very weak.  I get light headed really easy and need to do things slowly.  Andrew took me back to our room and we spent some time talking to my family which allowed me to rest.  We will try to keep you updated with progress and appreciate all of your prayers and patience during this time.  We have a lot going on and are still focused on Makinley's well-being as well as the next steps for her care. 

To Makinley - We are so glad you have arrived.  Thank you so much for doing a great job during delivery.  You stayed strong just like we talked about and you didn't cause any problems.  Thank you for crying when you were born so that we knew you were fighting hard and mad to be in that cold room.  You have already won us over and we will help you anyway we can.  We have had your name chosen for a while now.  We really liked the name Kinley but it took us a while to agree on how to spell it.  Once we had that part Makinley just came to us and we figured you could be called Kinley for short if that's what you wanted.  We know that you are a miracle and we wanted to give credit for your birth where credit is due.  This is why we chose your middle name Grace.  It is only by God's grace that you are alive today and we wanted you to always remember that.  You will forever be our miracle baby and we pray that one day you will understand how much of a miracle you are and what a mighty God we serve.