Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Meet Xander!





Glad to announce the latest member of the family- Xander Christian Gesch! He's named after Uncle Alex. Alex Christian Gesch... Xander Christian Gesch.

He was born at 8:45 a.m on December 7th. He was 6 lb, 2 oz. and 18.5 inches long. Due to some pregnancy complications, the doctors recommended that Xander be born at 36.5 weeks (traditional "full" full term is 40 weeks). There was an increased risk of him being stillborn if we waiting until 40 weeks- so you can imagine that we were pretty happy to avoid that risk.

Xander (like apparently most 36 week term babies) was breathing pretty quickly upon being born- so they admitted him to the Newborn Intensive Care Unit. From what I can gather, this is primarily as a precaution. He's BY FAR the biggest baby in the NICU and is now breathing really well after one night. The other potential delay is that Xander wasn't able to keep enough food down (another common thing (so they tell me) for 36 week babies). In the pictures, that cord in his nose is a feeding tube to make sure that he gets enough food.

The blessing is that he's in the world, alive and well, and has a team of doctors looking out for him in case anything is wrong. The not-so-nice thing is that we haven't really gotten to see much of him. I was lucky enough to hold him for about an hour last night, but Stephanie has gone almost a full 24 hours without seeing him now. Hopefully we can start to right that ship soon.

3 comments:

Grandpa and Grandma VD said...

Congratulations on our new little Xander. He even looks chubby. We rejoice with you on his birth and Stephanie's delivery. We thank God for his blessing. We are anxious to see him. We are sure Alex's buttons are popping.

Karen said...

Welcome to the family Xander!
He is beautiful and I love his name. It looks like he has a lot of hair (maybe not as much as his big sister). Praying that his breathing and eating will be normal soon, and he can quickly join you. Looking forward to meeting him.

kyle said...

Congratulations on the baby boy!Glad to hear all are well. Great swaddle on that little man. How are his ears?