He's HERE!!!

As I read my last post, I laughed because I said that, "Pending any disasters we will be parents in a couple of months". SURPRISE! We ARE parents NOW! God definitely has a sense of humor and is keeping us on our toes.

When the birthmother went to the doctor last week she had high blood pressure and the doctors had been monitoring her for about a week. This past thursday(4/7) she was admitted to the hospital with high blood pressure and the plan was to get the blood pressure under control and send her home. She had a sonogram done on friday morning(4/8), this was her first sonogram of the whole pregnancy. It showed that the baby was perfectly healthy and they were guestimating that it was about 30-34 weeks gestation. And it was a BOY!(oh no, we were convinced it was a girl). And the kicker, the doctors were inducing labor because mom's blood pressure was out of control.(we better find a boy name fast!)

So the doctors induced labor on Friday morning. At about 3 or 4 pm friday she was only dilated to 1cm. So we left the hospital to run errands and attempt to get our house in order. We were told not to expect a baby until at least saturday. Once again, God had other plans. We got a call at about 3:30 am Saturday morning from the birthmothers mom and she told us to get up there quick because the baby was coming soon.

Jacob Cole Johnson was born on April 9, 2011 at 4:42 am. He weighed 3 lbs 9 oz and was 17 inches long. The doctors are guessing he was about 33 weeks gestation but he was also diagnosed with Intrauterine Growth Retardation/restriction(IUGR). So the limited space in mommy's belly made it hard for him to grow like he should have. After birth he was immediately taken to the NICU for treatment.

For the first 24 hours he was pretty lethargic from the magnesium that mom was on for blood pressure(he had a lot in his little body) and he was on a c-pap to help him breathe. By the second day, he was breathing on his own with no problems and he was starting to grasp your fingers and briefly suck on a paci. We also got to give him his first bath yesterday and I got to do Kangaroo care. This is where the mom holds the baby on her chest(skin to skin) there are a lot of medical benefits to this in addition to great bonding opportunities.

Today he has made even more gains, he's sucking consistently on the paci and is more and more awake each time we go see him. He is a little jaundice so he's hanging out in the 'tanning bed' for the day. He also got his first feed today, 4 ml. Hopefully he will tolerate it well. He also had his first poopy diapers today! I will post again on my first attempt at changing my sons 'poopy' diaper. It was an epic fail!

And the biggest news of all: He is now officially OUR baby! His sweet birthmother signed the papers this morning declaring us the guardians of little Jacob. We are so blessed and continue to be blown away by this amazing experience! I will post more when I can, between feedings, diaper changes and visits to the NICU! This baby already has me worn out and he's not even home yet, but it's all worth it...I mean just look at him!!!