Judah was our 'surprise' baby. We didn't find out about him until almost 7 months into his birthmom's pregnancy. We had been thinking about another adoption, but hadn't done anything about it, and then there he was. Born three weeks early.
We had actually only finally decided on his name the week before he was born. We had a different name picked out. We had been thinking about this other name for our next boy for the last year or more. And then as is his custom Mark decided he wanted to switch names at the last minute. He thought Judah sounded more manly, strong, .... a fighter name.
Little did we know that our little guy would need all the help he could get just fighting to live in those first days.
Judah was born with underdeveloped lungs. Highly unusual for a baby born that late, and that big. (almost 7lbs isn't that large I know, but compared to the other babies in the Special Care Nursery he was a giant) In this first picture of Judah you can't even tell anything is wrong, he's not even crying...... Oh yeah, that's because he also wasn't breathing. Our birthmom, who by the way is the most incredible person in the world, we love her so much!! Anyways she allowed us to be in the delivery room with her when Judah was born. INCREDIBLE!!!
If you want the whole story of those first few days you can start here.
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| Judah was rushed from one hospital to the next within 1/2 of being born, he was immediatly intubated to help those tiny lungs develop, and to get medicine directly into him. |
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| How many more cords do you think they could put onto the little guy?? |
Judah was extremelly sensitive to touch, light, ... well pretty much everything. The nurses in the SCN quickly discovered that life for them went much easier when all the lights in the whole nurserly were turned down for him. We also couldn't touch him very much for those first few days. I would sit and hold his hand and that would even bother him. Despite the sensitivity to light he was jaundiced and needed his own special light on him. (Did I mention that he also had his own nurse sitting by him 24 hours a day? Yep that's my high maintenance child.)
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| Oh yeah, the shades are cool. Every baby here want them, but I'm the only one who get's them. |
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| Hey you! Don't take away my shades!! Or my soother!! I'll pund you with my giant glove on this other hand. |
After a few days Judah's lungs had settled down and a much larger issue was discovered... a heart problem. Mark and I totally believe that God gave Judah the lung issue just so that he waould be in the hospital, with around the clock care and monitoring, just to find the heart problem. Had he not been on all those monitors for those days we very well could have taken home a baby who would have had a heart attact. When the heart problem showed up the doctors decided he needed a bigger hospital to help him. So he got his second ambulance ride down to Calgary. Which made us pretty happy because it was a much shorter commute.
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| Mommy get's to hold Judah for the first time. |
It's funny, I spent those days in the hospital comparing his size to the much smaller babies and thought he looked pretty good. Looking back now, Oh my goodness was he small. And now that I've seen pictures of sick preemie babies I can totally tell that he looked like that as well. At the time I just thought it was the way he looked.
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| Wow, he really loved his soother. |
He got his first echocardio done once we were in Calgary. The good news from this was that the shape of his heart was fine and that he didn't need open heart surgery. After hearing that I was relieved to hear about the medicine he would be on and the constant monitoring that we would have to do for him.
His brother and sister go to come visit more once we were in Calgary. Can you believe how small they look!!
And then finally, once his medication was regulated, he got to come home.
Seriously if you want to hear the whole story in more depth you can start here in January, and follow along here into February. We blogged daily back then, just to let all the family know what was going on.
Stay tuned for more Judah love tomorrow to see how the rough start didn't slow him down for long.
2 comments:
I haven't read your story before (about any of them, actually) so it's great to read it here. I LOVE how he was holding for dear life onto his soother! It looks like it was his best friend amonst all those tubes. So happy that God was looking out for your little one in all that!
Hard to believe he was ever that tiny! And his lungs grew just fine - I don't think anyone in the same room with him would believe he ever had trouble with them. He is so special! I'm so glad he joined our family.
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