Hoo Hoo Hoo...HOOSIERS!

At 6 weeks old, Noah attended his first IU football game (and I'm sure he will attend many more in the years to come)! We had an absolute blast taking our little guy to Bloomington and seeing our old stomping grounds! It was definitely a different way to experience campus with a Baby Bjorn carrier strapped to my chest!  We enjoyed the whole game - and Noah slept through almost the entire game, with the exception of halftime, when we went outside so he could eat!  We even ventured down to Kirkwood after the game and had dinner with some friends and bought a few sweatshirts for ourselves :) 

Here are a few pics from our little adventure!



Obviously we couldn't go in Kilroy's (they didn't believe Noah's fake ID), but for those old folks out there like us - umm when did Kilroy's get a 2nd story?!?!?!




Proud daddy with his future Phi Gam :)




Rockin' their Hoosier gear




Fiji House!

Kind of blurry on here, but this is the room Ben lived in when we met! It was the big party room - we'll wait to tell Noah those stories until he's a bit older!

Noah was ready to go home after a long day!


We also had a busy day yesterday at Riley Hospital.  Mostly it just required Noah to sleep, though!  He had his bronchoscopy (a small camera went through his nose and down towards his lungs so they could take pictures and see what was wrong) and Nap study, so we were there from about 9:30 until 3:00.  Noah did great - he didn't have any trouble with the bronchoscopy and it showed that he does, in fact, have laryngomalacia as Dr. Weist had suspected when we met a few weeks ago.  Most likely, he will just have to grow out of this, but we will have more clear answers when we get the results from the Nap study by next week.



This is Noah during his Nap study - I can't believe he was able to sleep for 3 whole hours with all this stuff attached to him!

 More big news...Noah was baptized on 10-10-10! We had a very special ceremony that included his cousins Reese & Elle.  The girls were baptized in the hospital when they were born prematurely, but the rest of the family hadn't celebrated with them yet - so we had one big ceremony for all the babies! Papaw took lots of pictures :)



Renee with Elle, Time with Reese, and Jared & Kim (Reese's godparents)





We had to move back and forth a lot - Ben and I are Elle's godparents, and Renee & Tim are Noah's godparents (so we made things quite confusing for Fr. Richard)!





Ty & Kate found a way to stay entertained - Looking at Papaw through the baptismal font!




So chunky that we had to buy a new outfit for him two days before (instead of wearing the one that our nephew, Ty, wore for his baptism)

And then of course we have lots of pictures of him just being cute!

Play time with Nana!



Say "Cheeseburger!!"



Aunt Renee & Kate know how to get him laughing!





I don't know why this is vertical and I can't figure out how to turn it, but it's still cute!



Snuggling with Mamaw Great - she was the best babysitter this morning!




The best reward for coming home to him today - lots of great big smiles and lots of cooing!










No One Said It Would Be Easy...

They just said it would be worth it, and it is!! Now I know that sleepless nights and a fussy baby are tough (believe me, I do!), but that's not what I'm talking about.  As most parents probably agree, there is nothing in this world that is scarier or more heartbreaking than having something wrong with your child or having to see them hurting.  From what I'm told, this never changes - no matter how old they get! :) 

As I mentioned before, Noah has been breathing very rapidly since birth, and because he is still breathing fast his pediatrician decided at his one month appointment yesterday that he should be seen by a pulmonologist at Riley (a lung doctor) just to make sure we weren't missing anything.  So today Noah and I spent our morning at Riley meeting Dr. Weist and getting some chest x-rays.  Dr. Weist believes that Noah has "laryngomalacia," which is actually very common in infants.  Basically he has a "floppy" airway, which can become occluded, or blocked, when he inhales.  In order to prevent this from happening, he is taking very quick and shallow breaths.  This diagnosis can only be confirmed by actually looking in his airway, so on October 19th Noah will have a bronchoscopy as well as a special type of sleep study.  The bronchoscopy is just a camera that they will put down his nose or throat and it will only take a few minutes (although I'm sure it will feel like an eternity as I sit in the waiting room).  The sleep study will take several hours of literally watching him sleep on special monitors that will help the doctors to see if Noah is occluding his airway when he sleeps, so they will know the severity of the problem and whether or not he needs any medical intervention. 

To most people this all sounds pretty scary, and as a mother I'm definitely nervous, but as a nurse I can tell you that this truly isn't all that frightening.  The most likely scenario is that it will just take time for him to grow out of it!  I was reminded by a good friend today that God doesn't give us anything we can't handle, so it makes perfect sense for me, as a nurse, to have a child that needs a little extra TLC!

Ok so enough of all that - here's the fun stuff! Noah was 12 lbs 12 oz and 23.75 inches at his one month appointment! That puts him in the 97th percentile for both height and weight!  He is having much more awake time now and we are starting to find a nice rhythm.  The last several nights he has slept one 5 hour stretch between feedings, so things are looking up! Ben has been incredibly busy with school, especially this last week since he has had 4 major exams in a row! Tomorrow is his last exam before fall break, so I know he is looking forward to getting in some serious Daddy Time with the little man this weekend!

Enjoy some photos from the last few weeks!


Great Papa came from Florida to meet his 5th great-grandchild!





Showing off our Colts gear! He has already outgrown this outfit :(



The boys are checking out their fantasy football teams!

Ty loves his baby cousin

We had a very nice dinner at the Stratford, where Mamaw Great lives!

Bath time is Mommy and Noah's favorite time of night!

More interested in me than the toys on his bouncy seat :)

I caught Ben sleeping - so I can prove that he does sneak in a nap every once in a while!

Supporting our Hoosiers against Michigan - surprisingly a good game!

Ty and Kate were all over Papaw while he held Noah - this is them saying "Cheeseburger!" but unfortunately they missed the part where they are supposed to look at the camera while they say it!!

10-5

Yes folks - that's 10 pounds 5 ounces! Noah had is first pediatrician's appointment on Tuesday, and he has gained an average of 3 ounces per day!  The expectation is 1 ounce per day, so it turns out he is a very good eater!  Everything checked out well with the pediatrician, aside from the fact that he is still breathing rather quickly.  At this point, the doctor feels that we should just continue to watch his breathing since it is clearly not interfering with his ability to eat!

Enjoy some photos of our fun with friends!!

Sweet as can be :)

Katelyn Kenney came to play again!

Katelyn with her Momma! Scott & Nicole were nice enough to bring us a yummy Mexican dinner!

Noah had a playdate with Oliver and Vivian Hursh so that their mommas could visit!

I love how Oliver is holding Vivian's hand!

Oliver has a few pounds on Noah still :)

Our latest family photo - Cooper got in on this one too :)

That's it for today! I need to hurry up and squeeze in a shower while Noah is still napping! The joys of motherhood :) :)

Noah is Home!

It's been a while and there is a lot to catch up on, so bear with me!!

After a few difficult weeks, I was induced on Friday, September 3rd. After many hours of labor and eventually a c-section, we finally met our "little" boy at 10:17 pm.  He weighed in at a whopping 9 lbs 7 oz and 22.5 inches long!  It was very clear to our doctor that a c-section was the right decision because that was the only way he was coming out!

Friday morning - about to be induced!

His head was extremely molded after 2 hours of pushing! Ouch!

Not a fan of his first bath

The first night was pretty rough on all of us - because of his weight they had to check his blood sugars, and of course his was low!  The nurses there called this the "Nurse Curse," meaning that anything that could go wrong probably would (for example, they couldn't get my IV started at first, then after many hours of labor I needed a c-section, and now my sweet baby had blood sugar problems)!  I pumped my little guy full of formula and eventually his blood sugar came up to an acceptable level.  He also had some breathing issues, which they eventually called Transient Tachypnea of the Newborn (or TTN), so he was being closely watched by the nurses because he was breathing so quickly.  At 3 am we were finally settled into our post-partum room and took a quick nap before the visitors started piling in at 10 am :)

Proud Papaw

Uncle Tom & Aunt Karyn came to visit!

Aunt Renee is in love too :)

Proud Parents finally get a photo together!

Kate was my little snuggler during her visit

Uncle Tim & big cousin Ty

Daddy did a great job giving a bottle for the first time!

Katelyn Kenney and Noah will be great friends :)

We finally came home on Labor Day and have settled into a routine here.  Lots of sleep, nursing, and diapers is what you will find in this household, and that is just fine by us! We are just so excited to be getting to know our little boy a little better every day!

Dressed and ready for home!

One of the few newborns that actually fits well in his carseat ;)

My Boys - Cooper isn't sure what to make of all this

Kate has a slight obsession with Noah now :)

My sweet boy

Wearing Daddy's white coat :) Almost fits!

That's it for now! More pics to come very soon I'm sure :)