Introducing....Jake

Baby Jake is finally here! Can you believe it? We are still in awe of our little miracle!

He was born via c-section on Monday morning at 9:57 a.m. He was 21 inches long and weighed in at 8lb 15oz. He cried immediately and had a 9 on his first apgar score! When I was out of recovery, we were able to go see him in the NICU and of course we fell in love immediately! He was much smaller than what we thought he would be, and they told us then that he had retained a lot of fluid in the c-section and also his head size made up for some of the weight. We put a newborn outfit on him and it definitely was a little large! He ate 12 cc (about 1/3 of an ounce) after he was born. He also had some fluid in his lungs and belly and had to be suctioned once. He has had a couple of apnea episodes yesterday.

Last night, he was still only able to bottlefeed about 15 cc every 3 hours, which is not nearly enough to keep his blood sugar stable. He also has already lost a pound, so they put a NG tube in his nose and tried to bottle feed what he would take, and then supplement with the tube. However, this morning they tried to give him 30 cc at one feeding and he spit almost all of it back up. His little belly just couldn't keep it all down. It was so hard to watch it all come back up when we know how much he needs it! The doctor wants him to be taking 40cc now at every feeding, so we are praying that he can keep down what they give him and take a little more each time. He is also whimpering quite a bit, and we don't know if he is pain from his belly, or maybe the pressure on his head is causing him some pain or discomfort. It is really pitiful, and we are praying that whatever is causing him pain to subside.

Tomorrow at 1:00 will be his shunt placement surgery. We are very excited for him to finally have his surgery scheduled and be able to start the next phase of his recovery. We know that God brought him to us thus far, and He will continue to be with him before, during, and after his surgery. And even though we believe that with all of our hearts, we know it is going to be incredibly difficult for us tomorrow when they take him from us into the OR. Please pray for us to have peace and strength, and for our Baby Jake to do well and recover quickly.