Lily Colleen McManus Is Here

Lily arrived Monday evening, January 4th at 10:28 weighing in at 6 pounds and 8 ounces. We were scheduled to start induction beginning Monday evening but our baby wanted to make sure her grand entrance was on her due date. My water broke very early Monday morning and we arrived at CHOP by 3 a.m. Lily was born at 10:28 Monday evening. She gave us quite a scare with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck twice but her neonatal team was right there to take over. Currently she is stable and in the CICU- the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit. We are waiting to see what day her open heart surgery will be scheduled. We still have not held her but are anxiously awaiting that moment.

The stars certainly aligned yesterday for us. To begin with my water broke on the day of my scheduled induction which was my due date. Only 5% of babies are born on their due dates, Lily and myself both hitting this stat. The staff at the Special Delivery Unit is just amazing and we can't praise them enough for their talent, dedication, and professionalism. When we checked in we learned that Dr. Zachian was the obstetrician on call. He is my close friend Jane's ob and delivered her daughter 16 years ago. My ob at Pennsylvania Hospital was his resident a few years ago too. This was a good sign for us. Then we meet our midwife whose name happens to be Lilly. Our private nurse is JoAnne which is Lee's mother's name. When it comes time for my epidural the anesthesiologist's first name is Leo, Lee's real first name. When the team of neonatologists and nurses came for the baby the head doctor looked identical to a colleague of mine from Council Rock, Keith Wigglesworth. Then he proceeds to tell us that his eldest daughter's name is Lily. Finally, Lily made her appearance at 10:28 p.m. with 10 being my college lacrosse number at Fairfield University and 28 being Lee's lacrosse number at Loyola College. We felt like everything just worked out beautifully for our daughter and couldn't be happier.