Pray for Poop

 This is baby Lucas. He needs your help. The boy is having some troubles with his bowel movements, i.e. they are not moving. Dr. Johnson says we need to pray for poop and if that doesn't work we may need to organize a neighborhood fast for poop. We don't want anyone to have to go without food, so lets hope the praying works.

 This is nurse Mandee. She is sent straight from heaven. On day three in the NICU Mandee asked me how I would feel about her requesting to be Luke's primary nurse. I had no idea what that meant, but I had watched her with him and with some of the other babies and I thought this could be a good thing. Boy am I glad I said yes. She takes care of Lucas for six days straight and then takes 7 days off to travel to glorious destinations; a trip to Hawaii, a week in Montana and Valentine's in Wyoming. I don't know why she ever wants to come back to Provo. She is a miracle worker with our little boy, she knows exactly what he needs to calm him down and always takes the time to watch over him so closely. We are hoping that our insurance will pay for her to come live with us for a few months when he comes home. Not only is she wonderful to Lucas but she also makes our visits to the NICU so much fun. We love Mandee and are grateful that she requested to be our primary nurse.

This is baby Lucas during the last hours of Mandee's six days on, he knows she is leaving and he is not happy about it at all!

This is Dad. Some of you may wonder what is my role when we come to the NICU. Ashley plays the role of fabulous part time mother and full time milk factory, I play whatever role is needed. I weigh the baby, fold pillows, silence alarms and change diapers. My favorite role comes right after Lucas eats, I get to hold him while he takes the rest of his feeding and try and get him to sleep, as you can see here I am getting pretty good.

Happy Birthday Lucas!

Hard to believe that Lucas is already one month old today! Hopefully within the next few weeks he will get to join us at home only a mile down the road. He has grown and changed so much over the past month so we thought it would be fun to share his progression. Please do not be too critical of the quality of the video, especially the song transition mid video, we tried really hard. We love you Lucas!

New Digs

Our apartment has needed a transformation in order to get ready for the arrival of the little fella, so in the past few weeks we got rid of a large tv (thanks Jason for the use of it for the past year) and I did another manly thing building a dresser from IKEA. We rearranged some things and found some fabric bins at target to fill with bath supplies, diapers, books and clothes for Lucas. Notice in the picture that the bike still has a spot in the apartment, thanks to Ashley's fabulous Christmas present.

This is how they determine how much he nurses, they weight him pre and post and convert into mL. His weight here is not his actual weight, though yesterday he did weight 4 pounds 8 ounces!

Lucas also had a change of scenery at the hospital, with his weight about 1800 grams he no longer needs to be in an isolette because he can regulate his body temperature on his own. This means he can now do two of the four things he needs to do before we can bring him home. He is breathing on his own and regulating his temperature, all he needs to to now is nurse or bottle feed all of his food and sit in a car seat for 90 minutes. He is eating pretty well and is almost ready to go up to three feedings a day! We still feel so blessed that he is doing so well and though we are anxious to bring him home we are patiently waiting until his health warrants him leaving the hospital. 

What a precious little boy! 

Special thanks to Natalie for sending us her "backup" camera. Our nurse was making fun of me taking so many pictures of Lucas and thought he maybe did not like his photo-op, but I just kept snapping and ending up with some fun pictures.