The story starts.....

While visiting Denise's family in Cleveland for the holidays, we received our own "holiday surprise". I woke up around 2:30 am on Christmas morning to find my bag of waters had broke. Denise woke up and we called our OB back in Madison who told us to get to a hospital. Luckily, Denise knew the best place to go, so, we drove down town to University Hospitals. I was admitted on Christmas and was placed on bed rest (we were hoping to stay on bedrest until Nicholas was 34 weeks.) Well, our little man had other plans. I started bleeding on Saturday night and it continued into Sunday. On Sunday night, our high risk OB decided to send us to the L&D floor to be monitored more closely. Well, a good thing he sent us down there. We were down there about an hour and I clearly had an abruption. So, they prepped the OR and in we went. Nicholas Gene Mancuso was born at 9:49 pm on Sunday, January 3rd, 2010. He weighed 1lb 13 ounces and was 13 inches long; his apgars were 3, 8 and 8; not too bad for a 25.6 weeker. Denise saw him come out butt first (quite the sight) and got to see him in the treatment room. I briefly saw him as they wheeled him past us on the way to the NICU. My parents and grandma had come in for the weekend and luckily stayed and were there for the delivery as well as Denise's parents, two sisters, brother in law and nephew. I'm sure they all saw me in a different light as they wheeled me back into my room from the OR. Quite a posse we had going. We were thankful they were all there to celebrate Nicholas's birthday. Everyone got to see him in the NICU that night.

Nicholas was intubated the first night and extubated the following morning. He was put on CPAP. So far, he is maintaining his own oxygen levels well on minimal CPAP support and room air. Overall, he is doing better than expected. We're bracing ourselves for the bad days but hoping only for the good. Today (1/7) they attempted to put in a PICC without success. He has two umbilical catheters that need to come out in the next day due to risk of infection. They will attempt the PICC again tomorrow and we're hoping for success!

I was discharged yesterday, so, we camp out in Nicholas's room all day and go back to Denise's parents to sleep at night. The staff told us we wouldn't get much sleep if we stayed here, so, we retreat to Denise's parents in the evening.

We'll try to keep up with the pictures and updates as often as possbile. Thanks to everyone for the calls, thoughts and prayers. We appreciate them all.

Denise and Denise