birthdays, bottles and bradys

Today is Pierce's 2 month birthday (well technically it was yesterday since I'm so late posting this) and boy did he have a good one!

Tonight, when we weighed Pierce, he weighed in at 3lbs even (1365 grams)! None of us trusted the initial reading on the bed so we ended up weighing him on 3 different scales just to verify! That makes him more than double his birth weight (670 grams). And he was 15 inches long, a full 3 inches longer than he was at birth. It's so incredible to see Pierce growing as fast as he is. Some days, as I watch Pierce develop and grow, I feel as if he's starring in the Discovery Health "In the Womb" documentary. It's as if I have a front-row seat to watch as God literally knits Pierce together outside of my womb. Incredible beyond words!

The biggest event of the day was when Pierce was able to try out the bottle for the first time! Nik was brave and decided to take the plunge and give Pierce his first go at the bottle. Of course Laura (his nurse) assisted. Initially, Pierce was a little hesitant. Almost as if he was contemplating this new thing that was in his mouth. I wonder if he thought it was his long-time companion the vent making another return? However, once he tasted a few drops of milk, he went to town sucking. Apparently, as we learned the hard way, preemies have a difficult time managing to suck/swallow/breathe at the same time. Pierce did well for about a minute and then he decided that breathing was simply too much work. His heart took a little "pause" from beating, as Laura so gently described. Needless to say, he turned blue, made Mommy's heart stop, and scared Daddy real good. Nice, huh?! But after we made it past his initial brady, Pierce took to the bottle like a champ! He chugged along for a full 30 minutes (they only let him try for 30 minutes a day because anything past that time period would mean he's burning more calories than he's taking in). After he was done, Pierce was exhausted. In fact, as Nik was burping him, he was literally passed out and drooling! I think he was happy. :)

So today was a good day, one of our best. We are so thankful to God for Pierce's life and his health.

Thank you for your continued prayers!

Love,
Lindsay