Finally Home!

After one week at Children's Hospital, we were all able to come home on Friday evening.  Gabriel gained weight after starting feeding again and seems to be healing very well after his surgery.  He is free of all of his IVs and heart monitors!  We are very excited to have him home and are praying that he continues to eat well, gain weight, and thrive!  

We will post some more pictures soon.

At Children's Hospital

Praise God that things went so well today, we were able to start feeding Gabriel today we had to start with little bits and work our way up about every 3 hours, just to make sure the food wasn't a sudden shock to his system. He has done well with it so far and has kept it all down. This morning Faith's mom arrived and she will be with us through the weekend. Here are a few pictures from the last couple of days.

Another Update

Here's an update on Gabriel: Very early Monday morning, all of Gabriel's IV's failed because his veins were no longer able to receive fluids/nutrition. There were about 15 different nurses that worked on him for several hours trying to place another catheter. It was very difficult for us to hear him cry while they poked him repeatedly. Finally an anesthesiologist was able to place a small catheter in a vein on his scalp which would only work temporarily. The doctors needed to place an IV through his arm into an artery near his heart under anesthesia. There was some concern with Gabriel's heart since his potassium levels have been high and have not reached the normal level yet. The doctor worked very quickly this afternoon and had the PICC (new catheter) placed in a short time. Gabriel joined us back in his room and slept very well for the rest of the day. We praise God for how well he did and that there were no complications with his heart or lungs.
We want to thank everyone for their prayers, errand-running, meals, and cleaning our house. We appreciate it more than we can ever tell you!

Gabriel's Surgery

We are currently at Seattle Children's Hospital. We came down to the ER yesterday afternoon because Gabriel was vomiting and lethargic. After some x-rays, the doctors determined he had an intestinal blockage and needed emergency surgery. He went into surgery at 8:00 p.m. last night and came out about 11 p.m. Praise be to God that the surgery went very well and none of his intestine needed to be removed. His intestines were twisted and started to turn blue; the doctors untwisted and rearranged them and also removed his appendix. He is recovering in the NICU and should be moved to a regular room in the hospital sometime later today. He is doing very well--breathing on his own and comfortable. It is very difficult for us to see him hooked up to machines and IVs. We are not sure how long he will stay in the hospital, but it will certainly be another few days. We would appreciate your prayers and thoughts.


Below are a couple of pictures of Gabriel recovering from the surgery.

Finally Home

We were finally able to come home on Monday evening.  We haven't gotten too much sleep the last couple of nights, but things seem to be betting a little better.  Gabriel had his first appointment today with the pediatrician and everything is looking good.  He has grown 1.5 inches so he is now 20.5 inches (68th percentile) and he weighs 6lbs 12.5oz (15th percentile) which surprisingly is above his birth weight of 6lbs 10.7oz.

Here are some pictures of our last couple days in the hospital and our first couple days at home.

Gabriel Scott

Everyone, meet our new son, Gabriel Scott Carpenter.

Gabriel was born on February 13th 2009, weighing in at 6lbs 11oz and 19" long. Gabriel was so excited to see us that he tried to come out face first. Faith had to be induced because of some complications, she was induced around 2pm on February 12th, by midnight her water broke and her labor was pretty intense, she got an epidural and 14 hours later she was ready to start pushing. Thats when the doctor realized that Gabriel was trying to come out head first, the doctor was initially hopefully that when Faith pushed more that Gabriel would correct himself but instead his head started tilting to be even more face first. At this point it became very hectic lots of nurses rushed in and they whisked Faith off to the OR for a c-section. Everything happened very quickly within 15 minutes Gabriel was born.

Gabriel had some trouble breathing on his own at first and because of this he has been in the NICU but he should be able to come join us in Faith's room sometime on Sunday. Gabriel is breathing fine now the doctors just want to keep him in the NICU to keep an eye on him since he had such a rough start to life. Also, becuase Gabriel was trying to come out face first his face was pretty bruised up and he looked like he had just gotten out of a bad boxing match. All of the swelling has gone down now except for his upper lip which will probably develop a scab. There are a few more pictures bellow.

The picture bellow is when Gabriel was about 2 hours old. The swelling you see here is actually quite a bit less than when he was first born.

All the rest of the pictures were taken when Gabriel was about 24 hours old.

Happy Valentines Day

Weekend Getaway

Mike and I spent a long weekend in Cannon Beach, Oregon enjoying our last trip together as a two person family.  We left on Friday after having the final permit for the new bathroom signed off.  Friday evening we walked on the beach near Haystack with Annie.  She enjoyed getting to explore the beach and sniff the other dogs.  We had nice weather even though it was a little chilly.  Saturday we spent exploring the beach again, walking through the shops in town, and enjoying a fancy dinner out.  On Sunday we left and drove down to Tillamook where we visited the Tillamook Cheese factory and ate lots of cheese and ice cream :)  the drive down to Tillamook went along the Ocean and was very scenic, Mike took lots of pictures.  We had a great time and are now in the final 3 week stretch of this pregnancy.  I plan on walking lots, eating pineapple, and making eggplant parmesan for dinner most nights!  Any other labor-inducing advice is welcome!