Two Month Pictures!

Hello everyone! It's been quite a while since we've updated the blog, and since I finally know
how to do it, here goes!

Noah is doing wonderfully. He's turning into quite the little chunk (compared to what he was before) and is getting bigger every day! At his two-month visit on Tuesday, he was 10 lbs 10 oz. He's a very mellow kid - never really cries for anything, and is very patient with our poking and prodding =) We've had to wake him up at night, and watch the clock during the day, in order to feed him since he wouldn't cry for us. But he's finally starting to let us know when he is upset or hungry.

For anyone who's interested (hope I'm not crossing any boundries here), Noah has been taking a bottle, but luckily, I've been able to pump enough breast-milk that we've only had to supplement with formula a bit. We tried breast-feeding, but Noah doesn't really have the strong sucking muscles needed to breast-feed. We've also been taking him to a physical therapist to help strengthen those muscles, and while it's helped him with the bottle (he had a lot of problems in the beginning), breast-feeding just hasn't worked out for us. But, the important part is that he's getting what he needs and is getting good and fat =)

Over Memorial Day weekend, we had his first pictures taken, and they are adorable! We have the cutest baby in the world! Of course, we aren't biased at all =) He's starting to smile here and there, but we couldn't really coax one out of him that day.

Otherwise, life is pretty basic right now. Scott is still working at Melaleuca, and niether of us are in school right now, so we have a lot of time on our hands to love our perfect little boy. Summertime is the best, and we are excited for what it will be bringing!

Welcome Noah George Ostermiller

After a completely insane week, Jennie and I are ecstatic to introduce to the world our newborn son, Noah George Ostermiller.

I'll explain everything that went down.

My grandfather, George Ostermiller, was admitted to the hospital on Sunday night with some fever and aches that he'd had all week. By Monday afternoon, he'd been diagnosed with Leukemia that should be treatable by medication. By Tuesday morning, the condition was labeled as acute progressive Leukemia that would take his life. At 3:15 am Thursday he was gone. I was able to enjoy a few tender moments with him on Wednesday night before he passed.

Wednesday, April 1, was our due date. I skipped a couple of my classes in order to go to our final doctor's appointment with my wife. During the appointment, the doctor told us that something just didn't feel quite right. So, we went in to do a sonogram and found out that Noah was breech. Not only was he breech, he was completely sideways in the womb. Instead of trying to do aversion, where they re-position the baby inside the womb, we decided to do a C-section the next day.

Jennie was happy because she would be able to play her concert that night and not have to worry about the baby. I spent some time at the hospital with my family for my grandpa.

The next morning, we woke up at 4:30 to get ready to be at the hospital at 5:30. When we got there, we prepped for surgery and entered the OR at about 7:40. At 7:54, Noah was born. He weighed 6 lbs 9 oz and was 19 1/2 inches long.

After spending the day with us and being visited by family and friends alike, our little guy was taken away from us by the on-call pediatrician to be taken down to the Special Care Nursery. He apparently wasn't eating well (which was amazing to me that they would think that), and they were concerned about his ability to gain weight.

I was furious. Both of us needed our baby to be there with us. Jennie didn't get to see him for nearly a full day because she was stuck in our suite on the other end of the hospital.

At any rate, we got Noah back after he proved that he could eat well enough. But there was a constant fear that they would come back and take him away again at the first sign of trouble. Needless to say, we were both a bit anxious about it.

Originally, we'd planned on naming him Noah Scott. But as soon as he was born, I knew what his name was. Given the date he was born and everything that we'd been through as a family, I knew his name was going to be Noah George Ostermiller.

Another reason we decided on the name was the message that he sent us soon after he was born. My grandfather had a certain mannerism about him where his lower lip was always out just a bit more than his upper lip. I'm certain that on the other side, Grandpa held our little boy and taught him a few things, including this thing with his lip. He hasn't really done it since, but it spoke to our Ostermiller side of the family as a sign from Grandpa saying that he was alright.