Noah's First Week Home

It has been so wonderful finally having Noah home. I (Brian) took the week off of work. Although, having him home has taken some getting used to. Most days he has been feeding about every four hours :) However, he still is not able to breast feed (this will be a very, very long haul). He feeds from a special bottle that allows us to regulate the amount of milk he gets to enable him to properly pace himself so he doesn't choke or stop breathing. That being the case it means when Noah wakes up in the middle of the night the whole family gets up. I will feed Noah, while Teresa pumps milk for future feedings. Noah can take up to an hour to get the proper amount of milk. So at 3am this gets a little lengthy. Fortunately, I am off of work so I go back to sleep again after his 7ish feeding. Starting tomorrow I'm back at work so then the sleep deprivation will really start kicking in.

Noah's first home bath

The week has been primarialy just the 3 of us spending quality time with each other and learning how to be parents of a child who actually lives with us. However, we have made a few little trips. Monday we took him to his first pediatric appointment. He weighed in at 6lbs. 5oz. (although we have found scales can vary quite a bit). The Dr. said he is doing great and progressing nicely.

We also took Noah over to introduce him to our neighbors and good friends Scott and Becky Rotrock's new baby boy, Hunter. Noah and Hunter are the same gestational age. Noah was due on May 1st and Hunter on April 28th. Hunter was born 3 weeks early on April 9th at a healthy 7lbs. 3oz. These little guys will have many, many play dates in the future I'm sure.

We also took him to our community life group (small church group) on Monday so the people who have been feeding us and giving Teresa rides into the hospital for 6 weeks could meet the chubbed up, tubeless version of Noah. Teresa and I can't thank our church family at Sandy Bapist (imparticular our community life group) enough for taking such great care of us during this difficult time. They have been a true blessing and a great example of Christ's love.

The weather has been unseasonally beautiful here in Portland this week (Sunny and High 70's and low 80's) so we wrapped Noah up in went on a walk.

Home Sweet Home

After 6 weeks in the NICU we were finally able to bring Noah home today!! God is good! He is almost 6 pounds and growing like crazy. He's actually outgrown some of his preemie clothes and can wear some newborn clothes now though they are a little baggy on him but I'm sure that won't last long! The doctors told us we need to keep Noah "quarantined" at home for at least a month, i.e. don't take him anywhere except doctor visits, but we can accept visitors as long as you have no cold symptoms, haven't been around someone who is sick and that you wash your hands as soon as you walk in the door. So, if you qualify please feel free to give us a call. We just ask for a week of no visitors so we can try to adjust a little to life at home.

Thank you all again for your prayers and support.

We love having our little boy home!

Love in Christ,

Brian, Teresa and Noah

Packed up and ready to go

Teresa & Noah buckled up for the ride home.
Wake me up when we get there.

Noah's First Easter!

Happy Easter from the Merrell's

"Christ is Risen!"

Well we had our first setback with Noah this weekend. The doctors took out his feeding tube on Thursday to go to only bottle feedings. This is the last step before he goes home which we had hoped to be Easter weekend. They tried for a couple days to just feed him by bottle but he began to lose weight as he couldn't quite drink as much as he needed before falling asleep or continuously dropping his heart rate and not breathing. So he has his feeding tube back in and will continue to bottle feed but the milk he can't finish will be given to him by the tube. Noah will probably be in the NICU another week. So, we are now into week 6 at the hospital and looking at possibly having him home next weekend. It's so hard to get our hopes up and then be told it could be another week but we know we don't want him sent home before he's ready.

We had a little Easter party at the hospital for Noah today. I guess some would call it cruelty but mommy just had to dress him up in bunny ears for some pictures. This was much to the dismay of daddy who would have preferred a batting helmet though he was able to find a few Easter eggs decorated to look like baseballs, footballs, basketballs and soccer balls so it was a bit of a compromise. Mom just needed something to show those silly girlfriends when he's 18 and what's better than bunny ears? Of course the naked baby bath pictures will be taken once we get Noah home. You will notice his feeding tube is not in for the pictures. That's because just before we started to feed him today he got really mad at his nurse because she was taking too long to get his bottle so while he was flailing and hollering he reached up and pulled the tube right out. The nurse decided to put it in after he had finished with his bottle so we got to take pics without it! Oh, and Noah is now up to a whopping 5 lbs, 8 oz and almost 18 inches long so he is getting to be a big boy. Thank you all again for your prayers and support and hopefully the next time we send out an update it will be to announce that Noah is finally home!

Yeah, I am that cute!

Working on his curveball. Nice form.

I'm training to be a tri-sport athlete. The ears are supposed to be a helmet.

It's the Easter version of a "A Christmas Story"

5lbs 7oz!!!!!!

That's right our little guy isn't so little anymore. He is growing like crazy. He still is not able to feed himself completely. But, this evening they pulled out the feeding tube and are going to see how he does on his own ad lib schedule. Based on our experience he still has some growth in the area of breast and bottle feeding but if he really takes to it and doesn't have to go back on the feeding tube he could be coming home soon.

4 Weeks Old!

Noah now weighs 4 lbs, 13 oz and is 17.5 inches long so he has gained just over a pound and grown 2 inches since his birth. He is also able to stay awake much longer during his feedings and has actually eaten a few feedings completely from the bottle now. Once he can get all his feedings (8 a day) by bottle with no feeding tube he can go home which the doctors feel may be sometime next week. So hopefully, our little boy will be home by Easter Sunday!

He continues to "Brady" (forgets to breathe so his heart rate plummets) while eating but has not had one while sleeping in 5 days which is most important. The doctor said if you hook up a full term baby to a monitor while they eat you would find they have Brady's too so it's normal for babies to do.

Noah enjoying his favorite pastime; sleep, sleep and more sleep.

36 Weeks

Thanks for the great preemie outfit Aunt Jenn

Noah is now 36 weeks (gestation) and only a couple days from turning 1 month old.

He is really growing. He now weighs 4lb. 11oz and you can tell by looking at his face that he's chubbing up. He is getting more and more milk from the bottle and nursing. He feeds 8 times a day and about half of those are via nursing or bottle. On the times he feeds from the bottle he can get about 2/3 of his feeding before getting too tired and needing to get the rest from the feeding tube. Breastfeeding, however, is even more work for him so he can manage about 1/3 of his feeding that way. He still has a little ways to go as these feedings exhaust him and he occasionally forgets to breathe.

Criteria to come home:

He has to be able to get all of his food via nursing or bottle and not have breathing pauses and heart rate drops while feeding. He is probably still 1.5-2 weeks out. Our hope and prayer is to have him home by Easter.