And the name is....

We are naming our son Yonatan Shmuel. The first letter of Yonatan’s name – yud – is after David’s father whose Hebrew name was Yaakov. The s for Shmuel is after David’s maternal grandmother, Sylvia. Shmuel was also David’s father’s Hebrew middle name. It is our hope that Yonatan Shmuel will grow to embody the traits of both these individuals and the biblical heroes Yonatan and Shmuel.

As most of you know, David’s father was a union leader and had a strong sense that all people should be treated fairly and equally. He fought for justice throughout his entire life and taught David that he should do the same. We hope to instill these same values in Yonatan so that he can carry forth David’s father’s namesake.

David remembers his grandmother Sylvia taking great care of his grandfather and taking joy in their family visits to Florida when he was younger. We hope that Yonatan too will one day become a caring spouse – and visit us in Florida some day!

We’d also like to say a word about the biblical heroes whose names our son will bear. Jewish texts teach us that Yonatan is the ideal friend. He shared a special friendship with David (before David was King of Israel). Yonatan, son of King Saul, was in line for the throne of Israel. But Yonatan knew of G-d's decree that the kingship be transferred to David. Yonatan also knew that Saul (his father) wanted to harm David to prevent him from taking over his throne.

Despite the fact that it meant Yonatan himself would not become king, Yonatan warned David of Saul’s plan so that David could flee to safety. Yonatan's devotion to his friend David is unparalleled as is his honesty and humility. He was a true friend whose pride did not get in the way of doing what was right. It is our hope that our son will embody these qualities of honesty, humility and a strong moral compass.

Shmuel was a prophet of great esteem and was considered the father of all prophets. He was known for his righteousness. A story is told that a Heavenly Voice rang throughout the world, saying, "A righteous man named Shmuel is about to be born.” Thereafter, every woman who gave birth to a son called him Shmuel, but when the people saw these children’s deeds, they would say, “This is not Shmuel.” After this, Shmuel the prophet was born and the people saw his deeds. They said, "It seems he is the one." It is our hope that Yonatan Shmuel will live his life with such morality and justice and others will always be able to recognize these traits in him.

We are excited to welcome our second son into this world and to expand our family. We hope that together we can provide Yonatan and Ilan with a meaningful life informed by Jewish values and tradition.

BBN Comes Home

Sorry it's taken so long for us to post about BBN's homecoming. As you can imagine life has been busy! All is going really well. BBN is sleeping, eating, peeing and pooping just as he should. A visiting nurse came this morning to check him and all is well. He is up to 4lbs 11ozs, so we know he is getting enough food. Ilan is adjusting really well - he is very interested in the baby and the baby's things. He has a few moments of jealousy when Kerry is nursing the baby, but for the most part he is great and really interested in the baby. He asks to see him a lot and wants to know what he's doing. He loves seeing the baby's clothes, crib, hat, etc.

We hope you enjoy the photos of BBN dressed in real clothes - not hospital ones! The photo on the bench is Ilan meeting BBN for the first time in the hospital lobby. You can tell by the time we got BBN home, Ilan was much more interested in BBN's sleep positioner than BBN.

BBN's bris will be next Sunday, March 15th - since he can't be around a lot of people we will have it at home with immediate family but we promise we'll post his name on the blog that afternoon.

Thank you again for all of your calls, emails and check-ins. We are so thrilled to have our whole family together and can't wait for everyone to meet BBN.

Day 24 Update with GREAT News!

BBN is coming home tomorrow! We are very excited that he has come so far in such a short time. His total NICU stay will be 3 1/2 weeks - not bad for a baby who was on a respirator for the first week of his life!

We remember this stage with Ilan...we wait and wait for them to come home and then it feels like a mad rush at the end to get ready to actually bring the baby home.

BBN's bris will probably be on March 15th - a little over a week from now because we assume he'll be at or around 5lbs by then. Because BBN is a preemie he cannot be around large groups of people, so we will probably keep the bris on the small side in our home with immediate family - but we promise we'll post his name on the blog to let everyone know, shortly after the bris.

We will post some pictures of BBN's homecoming tomorrow! Thank you everyone for all of your support throughout this journey. We are so lucky to have so many friends and family who care so much about us - we couldn't have made it through this without you!

Day 23 Update

BBN is most likely coming home Thursday or Friday!!!!!!!! We can't believe it!

He has taken every bottle by mouth since yesterday and they have removed his feeding tube. He nursed for part of two feedings today. He's still not strong enough to only nurse, since that is harder than taking the bottle. So we will have to nurse him and then offer the bottle after that to let him take what he wants. It will probably continue this way for 3-4 weeks after he comes home, at which point he hopefully should be strong enough to get enough nutrition by nursing alone.

He is maintaining his body temperature well in the open crib. He didn't gain any weight last night - but he didn't lose either, which is fine for his first day in the open crib and the increased bottle feedings. Hopefully he will gain tonight.

BBN still has to pass his car seat challenge in order to be discharged - this means he has to sit up in his car seat for an hour with all of his vital signs remaining stable - sometimes it's hard for preemies to stay in this position for too long without their oxygen levels dropping (desatting). However, since he hasn't really been desatting in general, we don't expect any problems. They'll most likely try it tomorrow and see how he does.

As always, we'll keep you posted!

Day 22 Update

BBN was moved to an open crib today! This is another big step toward homecoming. He has been in the crib for a couple of hours and so far he is maintaining his temperature really well.

The other exciting news is that BBN nursed for the first time today! He latched on right away and nursed like a champ before exhausting himself after 5 minutes. He was too tired to latch on to the other side, but it's a good sign that he started off so strong.

These are two big changes for BBN in one day. Let's hope that they don't require so many calories that his weight gains slows down. Right now he's 4lbs, just shy of 5ozs.

Hope to have more good news to share!

Day 19-21 update

Sorry for not posting in a few days. It's been a busy weekend. Between going back and forth to the hospital, bringing Ilan to birthday parties (a very welcome and fun distraction from the hospital) and Shabbat we haven't had much time.

We hope you enjoy the new pictures with no oxygen and far fewer tubes! Now all BBN has is he feeding tube and the leeds that monitor his vital signs. (The patches on his cheeks held the nasal cannula in and were removed shortly after these pictures were taken)

BBN continues to do well. This morning he drank his whole bottle in 5-10 minutes! He did not need any chin support or reminders that the bottle was in his mouth - he just sucked it down like a pro! We were excited but also have to remember that there will be good feeds and bad feeds and he most likely will go back and forth for a while.

Because he is doing better and finishing most of his bottles rather than automatically doing every other feed by tube they are now leaving it to the nurses discretion. So we'll see how he does with this new routine. Hopefully it won't tire him out to much.

BBN also has gained weight nicely in the past few nights averaging about 1/2 oz to 1oz per day. He is now up to 4lbs 4ozs, so we're excited about that.

The doctors don't think he'll be coming home this week, but hopefully the week after that...we'll keep everyone posted.

Kerry & David

Day 18 Update

BBN came off the nasal cannula this morning and seems to be doing great without it..which means he is breathing 100% on his own! We are very excited that he could move from RDS (respiratory distress syndrome - the medical term for all of the breathing difficulties BBN had early on) to breathing 100% on his own in 2 1/2 weeks! Although it has felt like a long time to us, it's really amazing that his little body could heal itself so quickly and now his lungs are able to handle breathing on their own.

He continues to be bottle fed and tube fed every other feeding. For the most part he is finishing most of his bottles, although he is slow and some feeds are better than others. For now the drs are going to leave him in his isolet so that he doesn't have to spend calories keeping his own body temperature and instead can focus on gaining weight and feeding. Once he improves with the feeding, they will move him to an open crib, which will be another important step toward coming home.

Thanks again for following his progress. It means so much to us when we hear how many people are following the blog. We hope to have more good news to report over the weekend and hope BBN will be home soon!