Lex had a great feeding this morning. He tends to fall asleep after about 3/4 of his bottle and it’s hard to get him to finish. He doesn’t have much choice though because he really needs the calories. He gained an ounce since yesterday which brings him to 3 lbs 11 oz. His milk has been fortified with extra calories so he doesn’t have to increase quantity.

He is the sweetest little kid. He doesn’t fuss or cry at all even when his bumbling parents take ten minutes to swaddle him or change his diaper.

He no longer needs his pulse/ox sensor nor his light therapy. He’s down to one cable which is monitoring his heart rate and his respiration.

Lex gained over an ounce again today!

Laura’s parents and sister, along with her family, came to town for the baby shower on Saturday. Early in the morning we went for a family portrait at Picture People. The baby shower started at 3:00pm and after greeting a few guests Laura’s water broke at about 3:30. We hid in Loretta’s bedroom for a while waiting for our doctor to return our call. After talking to the on-call doctor Laura’s parents drove us to Providence Portland where Laura was admitted under observation. They gave her a couple shots of some medicine to help slow or stop the contractions. They also gave her a shot of steroids which were supposed to help the development of the baby’s lungs. The nurse did an exam and told us that Laura was dilated to about 1 cm and she thought she could see the baby’s head. An ambulance was ordered to take us to Providence St. Vincents hospital on the west side and after about an hour Laura was admitted there. Laura was having some discomfort, but not really any pain. The doctor decided that he should do an exam on her just to see if she was progressing into labor or stabilizing. The doctor’s eyes bulged out as he said Laura was at 9 cm. There was no stopping him now, the baby was coming.

Laura was whisked into the delivery room while I put on a full body suit and followed behind. Laura’s contractions were small and the monitor wasn’t picking them up very well. The doctor asked the nurse to touch Laura’s belly and let him know when a contraction was starting. In all, Laura pushed through about 5 contractions and the total delivery lasted less than 30 minutes. The doctor couldn’t believe Laura’s tolerance for pain.

Right after Lex was born, at 8:21 pm, I followed him into the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) where a doctor and a couple nurses were surrounding him on a warming table. They were going over his vital signs and something called APGAR scores. He scored a 9 and a 10 out of 10 on the tests.

He was working pretty hard to breathe initially so they put an air tube in his nostrils to help get air into his lungs and clear out the fluid.

Later that evening Laura was wheeled into the NICU and got to see Lex for the first time.

We had many visitors on Sunday, with both sets of grandparents in town as well as Lex’s aunt and uncle. Friends from our Sunday night care group also came by to see how we were doing throughout the day.

Each day Lex was upgraded a little bit. He has been moved twice into progressively less critical care and the tubes and IVs have been gradually removed.

Laura was discharged from the hospital on Monday and we have been visiting Lex every day as many times as we can. He’s on a three hour feeding schedule, at which point we get to take him out of his incubator to feed and change him as well as get to cuddle with him.