The First Million Seconds of Life
featuring Elizabeth Fay Abrams

It is now Tuesday, February 09, 2010 and Elizabeth is approximately 178296812 seconds old!
Elizabeth will turn 9.000E7 (ninety million) seconds old on Tuesday, April 24, 2007
and she will be 1.000E9 (one billion) seconds old on Saturday, February 23, 2036

June 16, 2004 6:01:00 pm - Elizabeth Fay Abrams is born by cesarian section. The doctor lifts her up in her first second of life. In the womb, babies are covered with a cheesy substance called vernix, which protects their skin from the amniotic fluid. (note 1) 6/16/04 6:01:10 pm - The baby is immediately transfered to an infant bed, where fluids are removed from her mouth and, she is cleaned, and given oxyen. 6/16/04 6:02:40 pm - The baby's APGAR score, a measure of newborn health, was measured at 60 seconds (it was 8 out of 10). The baby is given more oxygen, suction, and encouragment to breathe. The next APGAR score will be taken at 5 minues (300 seconds), and will be 9/10, a healthy baby.
6/16/04 6:17:40 pm - About 16 minutes old, the baby has been transferred to a recovery room, where she recieves injections of vitamin K and hepatitis B vaccine, and erythromycin in her eyes. Her weight is measured as 9 lb 12.7 oz (4.44 kg). (note 2) She will soon be placed in a bassinet and be reunited with her mother. 6/16/04 8:48:40 pm Now just two and a half hours old, the baby is swaddled and resting in a bassinet. She has been either sleeping or crying for her entire life. 6/17/04 9:47:40 pm - Little more than one day old, the baby sleeps in the arms of her grandmother. She has a common newborn problem: jaundice. The level of bilirubin in her blood is trending upwards, and over the next four days she will undergo phototherapy (separate story) to prevent the bilirubin from reaching unhealty levels.
6/28/04 7:47:40 am - Eleven and a half days old, the baby has completed phototherapy treatment, and continues to be in excellent health. She lost 10% of her body weight in the first two days after birth, but has gained it all back and more, now weighing 10 lb 0.5 oz. 10/10/04 11:47:40 am - About four months old, she is a healthy happy baby.

8/18/07 3:47:40 am - One hundred million seconds - (100,000,000 s) About 3 years and two months after birth

2/23/36 7:47:40 pm - One billion seconds (1,000,000,000 s) About 31 years after birth (note 3)

 

Notes:

1. Birth certificates do not record seconds, so we will assume for this story that the birth was at exactly 6:01 pm. However, for each picture the number of seconds is reported only to one significant digit, so the exact time of birth is not needed in order to correctly label any picture except the first one.

2. Surprisingly, the hospital policy is to drop the last digit of the weight rather than round it, so the birth certificate reads 9 lb 12 oz. However, any scientist knows that 12.7 should be rounded to 13, and the baby's mother deserves the right to claim every last decimal point of those ounces as part of the birthweight!

3. Don't worry, we'll take some more pictures before she's one billion seconds old!