Hi everyone, this story is about Winn West Holmes, our beautiful daughter who was born on NYE 2018 which just so happened to be our fourth wedding anniversary. The feeling of pure joy that a newborn brings can only be truly understood through experience and neither of us could have fathomed the immediate depth of love we felt for Winnie when we first held her in our arms. After spending just two days in the postpartum delivery room at Fort Sanders with her, she was admitted to the NICU at the neighboring East Tennessee Childrens Hospital. During these first couple days, the doctors initially became concerned with her “lethargic” behavior, lack of crying and inability to breast feed or maintain her oxygen levels, sometimes turning blue when being bottle fed. These concerns started our journey in the NICU.
.........When we first arrived to our own personal room for Winnie, in the NICU on January 2nd —just two days after she was born— we were briefed by the doctors after they had a chance to make their initial assessment. We were told they were concerned about all of the previous things I had mentioned (the symptoms) as well her lack of muscle tone called “hypotonia”. The possible implications of the hypotonia Winnie was exhibiting were laid out to us by the doctors and that’s when it truly hit home that this was a potentially very serious situation.
