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"