Baby Finlay Faith Nihei was born on Thursday Oct. 29th via c-sec. Those of you that have been following Lauren's blog will know that we named the baby after Lauren's oncology doctor, Dr. Jonathan Finlay. Needless to say Dr. Finlay was touched and flattered by the honor. He indicated that the only thing named after him up to this point was a cow. It was also funny to see his interest in the pregnancy increase.

The original plan was to pull Finlay out on Nov. 1st, but after Hilary's ultrasound on Tuesday Oct. 27th, her doctor felt that the baby was big enough and why wait any longer, especially after what happened last year? For those of you that don't know, we lost Brooke Hope Nihei last September, six days before her due date when her umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck. So when they finally pulled Finlay out on Thursday, two weeks early from her original due date and even four days earlier than they had planned, it wasn't shocking to find that Finlay's umbilical cord was also (loosely) wrapped around her neck and the fluid level was very low (the more fluid the better, it allows the umbilical cord to float around and away from the baby).

It was also a huge relief when they told us she appeared healthy and she did not show any signs of down syndrome, which was a big fear of ours ever since we found out we were in the high-risk category of 1-97 chance that the baby would have down (anything below 1-1,500 is considered high risk).

Baby and mommy are doing good. It is fun to see how much the girls love her. Lauren can sit there for hours cuddling her. She is actually a great help. She is doing such a good job, that me and Hilary are thinking of going to dinner and a movie and leaving Lauren in charge. Just kidding of course.

Other stuff:
On Wed. Nov. 4th, Lauren is having her next MRI at 8 am. Which again is the most important MRI ever (the next MRI will always be the most important). This MRI is particularly stressful since Lauren, because of being sick from the para-influenza, pancreatitis, and her autoimmune issues, has pretty much been off her chemo since June.