The internet has spoken

I found a geneology website that has facial recognition software that can do a couple of cool things. One of them is to figure out who your baby looks more like. Everybody always seems to think that Lucas looks a lot like me (Marc), but don't see much Esther in his face. I tend to think he looks a lot like both of us, and it seems that the internet would agree with me

Thankfully Home

After spending 11 hours at the hospital today, we finally returned home with the sweetest boy in the world. He was pretty knocked out by the dose of oxycodone he got before we left the hospital and slept until I had to get him out of his car seat.

We are super thankful that his surgery was a success and, prayerfully, his recovery will be smooth and as pain free as possible. As of now, he screams any time he is moved which complicates things a bit, but he is also, thankfully, quickly comforted in the arms of Mommy and Daddy. (We're so thankful for him!)

He will have his dressing in place for 3 days (which makes poopy diaper changes a bit messy) and his catheter in place for 2 weeks (which makes every diaper change pretty messy). Dr. Austin, his surgeon, said that the worst of the pain should subside within three days and we have Tylenol with codeine to help as well as a medication to stop the bladder from spasming due to irritation from the catheter. He will be pretty discolored for a while after the discomfort passes. Another example of Marc's thankfulness is that I don't get skeeved with such things and also that I don't mind doing all the diaper changes. :)

We are now thankful to be home and are hoping to catch up on some rest. We will celebrate a quiet holiday, keeping Lucas home and comfortable through the weekend. We are thankful that Marc's company is closed on Friday so we all get to be together for a long weekend.

Most of all, we are thankful that God loves us so much. He is true to His word that "He commands His angels to watch over us and guard us in all our ways". (Ps. 91) We know He was watching over Lucas today as we know He is everyday.

Thank you for your love and prayers. We pray that this weekend (and Every day for the rest of your lives) that you take stock of your life and thank God and one another for the precious gift of life and the many joys throughout it. :)

Blessings and Happy Thanksgiving!

"Under the knife" again

Just to inform/remind you all, Lucas is scheduled for surgery this Wednesday to correct his hypospadias. We don't have confirmation yet on the exact time, but we were told it'll be around 8am. It is an outpatient procedure and typically takes around 3 1/2 hours. He'll have a catheter for a couple weeks after to allow the created urethra to heal. Dr. Austin, the urologist, said that babies don't notice the catheter though; it doesn't cause them any discomfort. That's a relief to us. We hate to have him suffer anymore.

We'll reassure you all after the surgery that "all went well and Lucas is doing great", I'm sure. Thank you eternally for your prayers and love for this amazing little boy who doesn't like rice cereal and thinks it's funny to spit on his dad.

Oh and to update you all on another matter, Lucas was approved for vision therapy! He will have an assessment on December 6th and the amount/frequency of therapy will be determined based on the evaluation. (Thank you, God and thank you Dr. Lueder!)

Trying some real food

Lucas turned 6 months old last week, so we've started to try and feed him some rice cereal. He doesn't seem to like it yet, but feeding it to him is pretty funny.

Lucas' new laugh

Lucas has developed a new laugh. It doesn't sound much like a laugh, but he seems to do it whenever he's in a good mood.

Lucas in the bed

This was taken on November 5th, 2007

Lucas having some fun in bed:

Lucas and the election season

Every year around this time, Lucas gets all wrapped up in the election season. Unfortunately, there was nothing to vote for this year in Missouri (or so the lack of electioneering made us believe) - so Lucas took the time to reflect on politics of years past.... and suck on his fingers.

Lucas has been doing great. There haven't been any seizures since he's been at his full dose of Tegratol. He still really really REALLY hates his medicine, and will use his loudest scream possible when his medicine gets within view. We finally have an "official" neurologist - and we had our first appt with him last week. He said that once Lucas starts eating real food, we can give Lucas his medicine in a pill that we can mix up with the food. We plan to start feeding him soft foods next week (he will be 6 months this Wednesday!!), so hopefully Lucas takes a liking to food quickly and we can stop giving him this nasty liquid!

Besides that, the neurologist explained a few things to us about his brain that was in the MRI report that the Carter center did for us (the one that said that he doesn't have holoprosencephaly). Basically, Lucas' brain has not formed the way most brains do. When we're forming in our mother's womb - our brain divides into two lobes, and many of the structures within the brain divide symmetrically along the division of the lobe. In Lucas' brain - many of these structures didn't divide, and he is missing a part of the brain called the corpus callosom - which is the largest white matter section of the brain. We don't have any answers as to why these things might have happened, or what it will mean for Lucas. But we believe that Lucas is fantastic, and will continue to amaze us and his doctors.

Lucas has been getting a lot better with his head control, and seems to be starting to develop his laugh. Right now, it doesn't sound like much of a laugh - but it always makes daddy and mommy laugh :-)

Here are some recent pictures:

Lucas October / November