Baby Luke has been to everyone’s work lately, so here are some work pictures!

I have a lot of video to edit, but we shot some last night and I figured heck, I’ll put it online so everyone can see him. This is fresh from the cutting room floor. No, we don’t really have a cutting room, but it sounds super cool to say that.

Luke is Almost 2 Months Old on Vimeo

My main goal here was to test a feature on the video camera, but I ended up getting some good video of the baby to put up. I’ll have more to post in the future, but in case you haven’t been able to come over and see him, now you can get a glimpse of baby Luke in action.

Baby Luke Video

Stacie came home tonight around 6 pm. I loaded up all her things and her two flower vases and brought her home. During the day I ran out and bought a breast pump and got the car all washed up for her ride home. Her parents came over and brought dinner, and aftewards she did some pumping. She got 30 ml, a new personal record! Tomorrow we’ll take that to the hospital and they can feed it to him when we’re not there. Here she is on her triumphant exit.

Baby Luke is doing well. Right now they’re treating him for jaundice, but it appears the respiratory and stomach problems are mostly over with. His jaundice is fairly severe because he has a different blood type than Stacie. She is A+ and he is B+, so his body is trying to get rid of Stacie’s blood. This made us think, how exactly is blood type determined? It’s actually really interesting. The combination of the parents determines what the possible outcomes are. They’ve got him under the super cool lights, and how much longer he is there depends on how quickly he responds to the treatment. Check out his super cool glasses!

I’m making Stacie stay home in the morning so she can get a good night’s sleep, and then tomorrow afternoon she’s going to visit him. Our furniture is coming tomorrow, so now when the baby comes home he’ll have his room all finished. And with that, goodnight!

Made a short visit to the hospital this morning. Baby and mom are both doing well. Doctors said that Stacie can come home tonight after dinner, so that’s a positive. He gave her the option to stay another day, but they’re moving a new person into her room, and at this point she’d rather sleep at home. Baby Luke is doing well. He’s eating better and they haven’t put a tube down his throat. The last jaundice test came back fairly high, so they’ve got him under the super cool UV lights. I was thinking of running to Frys and buying some UV case lighting to make him feel welcome once he finally comes home (the geeks will get that one). It sounds like the baby will be there for another 2-3 days for them to monitor/improve the jaundice and his feeding. My job today is to go to Babies R Us and get the breast pump that we don’t have yet, and then straighten so mommy can come home to a clean house. Dave came by this morning to see us and pray with us and that was really nice. It’s great knowing there are so many loving people in his life and he’s only two days old.

As of this writing Luke isn’t even two days old yet, but I swear it feels like twice that long. Today was a very good day for both mom and baby. I’ll do mom first since baby got top billing last time.

Stacie is up and moving around really well. Right now they’re saying she’ll go home tomorrow (Monday). This afternoon she ate some In-n-Out and took a shower. She also got to breast feed him for the first time, so that was special. I’ll say more about feeding in the baby’s portion. After her shower she got a good look at the staples across her wound. I offered to take a picture, but she declined. Before she heads home tomorrow they’ll take the staples out, which my mom has said doesn’t actually hurt. Otherwise she’s been walking a lot and improving wonderfully.

Baby Luke has been doing great too. This morning they took the tube out of his stomach that was sucking out the blood (vampire tube!), and they also removed the oxygen tubes from his nose. The fact that he didn’t need them anymore was very good, and as a result he was much cuter looking. He still has an IV, and they think he might be a little jaundiced, but he’s doing well. Like I said before, they started to feed him today for the first time. We did breast feeding for a while each time with varying degrees of success, and then a little formula. At first he wasn’t taking the bottle very well either, and the blood in his stomach could be making him upset, but when I left he took the entire bottle they had measured out for him. His main problem is that he falls asleep in the middle of eating. It’s like, hey dude, did you forget what you were doing? The doctor has said that if he doesn’t get enough food they’ll have to put a tube down his throat (again), but this time to send in good stuff instead of take out bad stuff. He did really well though in his last feeding, so hopefully he continues that. After his feeding I got to hold him for the first time. His cheeks are red from the tape that was holding the oxygen tubes.

It seems so easy when he just lies there and sleeps through everything. He must know it’s good for our confidence. The plan tomorrow is for Stacie to come home, but Luke could be there for another couple days. Whenever the doctor thinks he’s healthy enough to come he will. Thank you again for all the prayers and wonderful comments, we love them all. Stacie hasn’t had a chance to read any of this, but I know she’ll enjoy each one.

Until tomorrow.

Luke Nathan

Born just after midnight on March 15th…about 4 hours ago from right now. He weighed 8 lbs 8 ounces, and was 21 inches long. But how he decided to enter the world was a wild ride.

Still a week from our due date, we went out to eat with Andrew and Sarah on Friday night. After we get home we decided to snuggle up on the couch and watch a movie, but 30 minutes into it we have a problem. Just after 11 pm Stacie starts to have some bleeding….a lot. After about 1 minute of that I know we’re headed to the hospital. We do the best we can to get her ready to go, but the whole time she’s still bleeding.

We make it to the emergency room and they admit her. The nurses get her setup and check her out. She isn’t dialated a whole lot, but the blood is disturbing. Water breaking should be clear, so this isn’t normal. The doctor comes in to check on things, and he says it’s hard to know what exactly is causing the bleeding, but it’s probably the placenta. He doesn’t think it’s ruptured, but more likely it’s coming detached, and delivering vaginally could be very problematic. So after a few tears we’re off to have a c-section. One out of four women have one, and while it’s not typically the way you imagine this moment, you have to do what’s best for the baby.

They prep her, and maybe one hour after we arrived at the hospital, we have a brand new baby boy. Right now he’s in the special care unit. The bleeding got into his lungs, so they’re working on clearing them up. It doesn’t sound too serious, but it’s something they’re keeping a close eye on. When I left they had done a CPAP which increases the pressure in the lungs to help clear them up. They’ll try this for a couple hours, and if it doesn’t provide the results they want, then they’ll have to intubate him and put a tube down his throat. Mom is also recovering from her cesarian. She’s tired and was going to try and get some sleep when I left. The worst part is she’s hardly seen the baby since they’re both recovering. For now some looks on the digital camera will have to suffice.

He’s a beautiful baby. His hair is blonde, he’s got big hands and feet, and I feel absolutely blessed. Both sets of grandparents and Andrew and Sarah came down until about 2 am and got to see Stacie and baby Luke. I’m going to try and get some sleep now and will head back tomorrow to see how my two are doing. Prayers for a speedy recovery would be most welcome. As soon as I have more information I will let you know.