Enlarge Courtesy of Loriani Eckerle

Matt, Loriani and Valentina Eckerle spend some time on the beach. Both mom and dad are pitching in equally, six weeks after their baby was born.

Courtesy of Loriani Eckerle

Matt, Loriani and Valentina Eckerle spend some time on the beach. Both mom and dad are pitching in equally, six weeks after their baby was born.

OK, ready? I'm about to shock you. About three weeks ago, when my daughter was a mere 6 weeks old, I left her with her dad for the weekend. One of my oldest friends was getting married in Boston, and I had miles to use.

My husband encouraged me to go. Not only did he encourage me to go, but he was almost excited about it since he rarely gets to spend a whole day alone with Valentina. So he didn't have a problem with it — but almost everyone else did. People just couldn't understand how I could "leave" my daughter.

I admit, my own insecurities as a mother probably exaggerated people's reactions in my head. I felt judged. One woman asked, looking confused, "So your husband is feeding your baby?" To which I wanted to reply, with a surprised look: "You have to feed them?"

Loriani and Matt's daughter, Valentina, came home from the NICU last Tuesday. Loriani sent this update about her frustrating attempt at breast-feeding.

Enlarge Courtesy of Loriani Eckerle

Valentina Eckerle was fed formula while in the NICU because her mom, Loriani, wasn't able to produce enough milk. Despite an initial disappointment, "I am too busy being elated at being alive with a healthy baby," Loriani says.

Courtesy of Loriani Eckerle

Valentina Eckerle was fed formula while in the NICU because her mom, Loriani, wasn't able to produce enough milk. Despite an initial disappointment, "I am too busy being elated at being alive with a healthy baby," Loriani says.

I still have my first bra. It is this tiny, AAA lacy thing from Sears. My mom took me to buy it in fifth grade. By seventh grade, I was a B cup and beginning to understand that my girls carried some power. They may have not always attracted the right kind of boys, but overall I led a pretty good dating life. Sure it wasn't just my boobs, at least I hope not, but come on, they helped.

I never really thought about their real or rather primary purpose: lactation. Once I became pregnant, I never even considered bottle-feeding. Along with cloth diapering and recycling, breast-feeding to me was a no-brainer. Keep in mind, I live in the Bay Area where these things are, at least to the middle- and upper classes, the norm. Of course I never could have foreseen that the pregnancy would attack my body in such a way that milk just wasn't high on its priority list.

Enlarge Courtesy of Matt and Loriani Eckerle

Valentina Eckerle is seen in the NICU on July 12. She needs to gain 3 more ounces before the hospital will let parents Loriani and Matt bring her home. Valentina was born early at 34 weeks.

Courtesy of Matt and Loriani Eckerle

Valentina Eckerle is seen in the NICU on July 12. She needs to gain 3 more ounces before the hospital will let parents Loriani and Matt bring her home. Valentina was born early at 34 weeks.

At home, sometimes I can smell my daughter. I'll be sitting there watching TV, and all of a sudden I smell her even though I know she's 10 miles away. It's the weirdest thing.

So what can I say about life in the neonatal intensive care unit? It sucks. Every day, I drag myself out of bed to go sit in an uncomfortable glider for a few hours and play mom under the eyes of yet another nurse. They try to loop me into her care by letting me do things like take her temperature and change her diaper (newborn poop deserves its own separate blog entry). But what I really want to do is yank off the little security device around her ankle and make a run for it.

Last week, Loriani Eckerle told the story of having emergency surgery to save her life during the delivery of her daughter, Valentina, at 34 weeks pregnant. She was unconscious for various periods of time. Her husband, Matt, shares the story of that evening from his point of view.

Enlarge Courtesy of Loriani Eckerle

Loriani and Matt Eckerle are seen with their daughter, Valentina Sofia, on July 3. Valentina was delivered via an emergency C-section on June 24. Loriani almost died due to blood loss during the surgery.

Courtesy of Loriani Eckerle

Loriani and Matt Eckerle are seen with their daughter, Valentina Sofia, on July 3. Valentina was delivered via an emergency C-section on June 24. Loriani almost died due to blood loss during the surgery.

Lori had been calling me regularly with updates and kept insisting that I shouldn't leave work. She said it was probably nothing big. I was getting less and less comfortable about being across the bay from her, so I left anyway.

I was on my way to the train at around 3:00 or 4:00, when she called me crying. She said that there was something wrong with her blood, and they might have to deliver the baby that night.

I told her I'd be right there. I dropped off our dog off with our friend Alex on my way out of San Francisco, and stopped at our house in Oakland to get Lori's labor and delivery suitcase, which she'd packed weeks earlier. I made it to the hospital in Berkeley about an hour and a half after the call. At that point, Lori was pretty calm. The doctors were telling her that they might be able to treat her without delivering "Cupcake," and she was holding on to that hope.

Enlarge Courtesy of Loriani Eckerle

Loriani and Matt Eckerle are seen with their daughter Valentina Sofia on July 3. Valentina was delivered via an emergency C-section on June 24. Loriani almost died due to blood loss during the surgery.

Courtesy of Loriani Eckerle

Loriani and Matt Eckerle are seen with their daughter Valentina Sofia on July 3. Valentina was delivered via an emergency C-section on June 24. Loriani almost died due to blood loss during the surgery.

Yellow eyeballs and bleeding gums essentially saved my life.

June 23 was my 31st birthday. I spent it much like I had spent the past few days in my pregnancy (see my initial post and a reference to a certain Maury Povich). I was feeling not great, but I had become used to feeling not great. My gums kept bleeding, and I was convinced I had yet another dreaded result of pregnancy: gum disease. Surely this was my punishment for not flossing.

I barely made it through a shower and dressed up for dinner. I was excited to go out and celebrate, but certain that if it wasn't my birthday I wouldn't have made it past taking off my pajamas. I got into the car with Matt and suddenly remembered something else had been bothering me. My eyeballs had looked yellowish to me earlier that day, or maybe even the day before.

Normally when I share these things with Matt, he doesn't exactly dismiss them, but he doesn't make a big deal about them either. This time I caught his attention. He wanted me to call my doctor, but I had been down that path before. It seemed the further along in my pregnancy, the sicker I got and the harder it was to reach my doctor.

Enlarge Courtesy of Loriani Eckerle

Valentina Sofia Eckerle

Courtesy of Loriani Eckerle

Valentina Sofia Eckerle

We are proud to announce the birth of our first "Baby Project" baby. Valentina Sofia Eckerle was born at 3 pounds, 5 ounces on June 24 to Loriani and Matt Eckerle.

Valentina arrived a few weeks early, and Loriani is still in the hospital but hopes to be discharged today.

She says, "It's a long story but unrelated to everything else, if you can believe that, my organs seemed to have shut down due to the pregnancy." Despite that, mom and baby are doing OK.

Loriani will be sending an update soon.

Enlarge Courtesty of Loriani Eckerle

Loriani Eckerle and her husband, Matt, recently received a diagnosis of intrauterine growth restriction for their baby "Cupcake," in addition to the chromosomal disorder Mosaic Trisomy 16.

Courtesty of Loriani Eckerle

Loriani Eckerle and her husband, Matt, recently received a diagnosis of intrauterine growth restriction for their baby "Cupcake," in addition to the chromosomal disorder Mosaic Trisomy 16.

Editor's Note: Loriani wrote this post last week. Over the weekend, she delivered a baby girl, several weeks earlier than expected. She is waiting to be discharged from the hospital and will send an update soon.

I'm 34 weeks along, and I feel like an ax is slowly picking at me. Dramatic, I know, but I can't help it.

Today I woke up with bleeding gums and a new rash on my arm. Lovely, right? Not to mention that every time I find these things in the mirror, my eyes go automatically to the acne that has overtaken my body. I never really got zits during adolescence, so I guess someone decided it was my turn.

About Loriani

Loriani Eckerle, 31, from Oakland, Calif., is a first-time mom with her husband, Matt. Their daughter was initially diagnosed with Mosaic Trisomy 16, but was born healthy after a dramatic delivery.

• Loriani's Full Bio
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I think the fact that these things are being stacked on top of Cupcake's diagnosis is, of course, a large part of my soap opera-worthy reaction. I'd like to think I'm a strong woman and that this is not me. Matt is so great, but I can tell there is some resentment there (another trip to the drug store??).

So it is safe to say that I am not enjoying this. I think at some point I did, certainly during the first trimester and most of my second. But I've reached my limit.

The doctor has told me to take it easy, which is a good thing because most days I don't want to leave the house. I'm not on strict bed rest, but I've sort of self-prescribed it. By the way, did you all know Maury Povich is still on??? I've heard lots about postpartum depression but not so much on the antepartum side.

Enlarge Courtesy of Loriani Eckerle

Courtesy of Loriani Eckerle

My name is Loriani Eckerle, and I'm 30 years old. Most people call me Lori. My husband, Matt, and I live in our house in Oakland, Calif., with two cats named Scout and Quentin, and our puppy Mr. T.

Matt and I first met when he interviewed me to become the eighth and last housemate in another house in the Oakland Hills. Luckily I passed the interview.

Matt and I dated for four years before getting married in May 2010. Having turned the big 30, I was already feeling the clock ticking. We decided to stop using birth control in late June 2010. By late July we were pregnant. We went in for a nine-week checkup in September and found out the fetus had passed away at six weeks. It was a horrible thing to go through, but in a way, I think it helped us prepare for what was ahead.

Enlarge Dan and Russell Photography /Courtesy of Loriani Eckerle

Loriani and Matt Eckerle at their wedding in May 2010

Dan and Russell Photography /Courtesy of Loriani Eckerle

Loriani and Matt Eckerle at their wedding in May 2010

I got pregnant again in November 2010. Everything was going fine with the pregnancy until I took the routine blood screening tests. The results showed the baby had an increased chance of Down syndrome (1 in 60). We chose to do an amniocentesis so that we could know for sure whether the baby had the disorder.

On a Friday, my doctor called and began by saying, "well it's not Down's." She told us the baby had a rare chromosomal disorder called Mosaic Trisomy 16, or MT16. She had never heard of it, but from her conversation with the genetic counselor, she understood it could lead to anything from clubfeet to stillbirth. We met with the genetic counselor that same day. Out of 15 cultured cells from the amnio, three had been found to have an extra chromosome 16. There was no way to know where these affected cells were on the baby, or if they were confined to the placenta.

I spent that weekend in bed not wanting to talk anyone and wishing for a miscarriage. Matt researched everything he could on MT16. He found the website for the Disorders of Chromosome 16 Foundation and emailed the president. We then received an amazing amount of emails from parents who had gone through what we went through and were now proud parents of adorable kids. I looked at every story obsessively and saw a pattern; most of these kids had been fine except for complications from being premature from Intrauterine Growth Restriction (IUGR) or preeclampsia. A lot of the babies had also suffered from heart defects. My doctor referred us for growth ultrasounds every month, as well as a fetal echocardiogram. I also started weekly non-stress tests at 28 weeks. So far, all tests have been normal, and we are very hopeful, although we won't know anything for sure until we meet our baby.

Enlarge Courtesy of Loriani Eckerle

Loriani Eckerle and her husband Matt

Courtesy of Loriani Eckerle

Loriani Eckerle and her husband Matt

My blood pressure has been slightly elevated, so I had to stop working. With the help of our 5-year-old friend, we've given the baby the temporary name of "Cupcake." Cupcake is due July 31. We've left gender a surprise, but I'm convinced it's a girl. I'm happy to be a part of this project so that any parents out there going through a similar situation can find us and know they're not alone. It has been a hard road with lots of tears, but we're confident in the end it will be worth it.