The story begins..

This blog will be our way of keeping a record of our little Isaiah's growth, surgeries, and general updates over the next few months to years. We hope this will help you all feel connected, from everyone here in Atlanta to our family and friends spread across the country in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Indiana, Ohio and elsewhere.

As many of you may already know, Rachel gave birth to Isaiah Jonathan Kolis at 10:07 pm on July 17, 2008. He weighed in at a whopping 8lbs 14.8 oz and 21 inches long and that was at only 36 weeks! Rachel was brought into the hospital last Monday for high blood pressure and two days later they began inducing labor due to pre-eclampsia. Nothing happened Wednesday, but we tried again on Thursday for a natural birth since her BP was normalizing and Izzy was doing fine. Why have major surgery when you can hopefully avoid it, right? Rachel began pushing at around 7.15pm but was having problems. After about an hr or so of pushing the doctor got the vacuum and tried assisting that way to no avail. The surgery was unavoidable and she had to have an emergency cesarian -- which is how we all began to really first know Izzy.

Rachel was still out on the OR table as the Neonatologist took me aside and explained that Isaiah's fingers were all fused together, as well as all of his toes. He had a high forehead, and a lot of fluid on the head from the labor and vacuum. We had ultrasounds early on in the pregnancy that had shown issues with the hands, but no one could ever tell us anything so we were ready for something, but we had no clue what to expect. Directly after the birth no one was quite sure what it was. Rachel and I were very confused, somewhat sad, but mainly just looking for more answers on what it was. It took until the next day when a geneticist came by the NICU and came to a clinical diagnosis of Apert Syndrome. They're running his DNA through a lab to verify this, but it is most likely what he has and will know for sure in about two weeks.

As of right now he's still in the NICU and we're learning more and more each day.

There's plenty of hope, but a lot of surgery ahead of him in his early years and we'll use this blog to give everyone updates, pictures, and probably more information than you'd ever want to know about our little 'Yoda'.