Happy 6th!

Andrew is 6 months old today! Happy birthday my little buddy!! Daddy is so proud of you!! You have been such a joy and a constant source of blessing in our life. You sleep well, eat a lot, smile all the time and laughs at daddy's silly faces-what more can we ask for? You are the answer to our prayers. We can't believe how quickly you've grown and how you change every single day. Our prayer for you is to know God and love God with all of your heart. May God continue to bless you and protect you! We love you Andrew!

Happy 100th Day Birthday!!

Wow, it's been 2 months since my last post. Where has the time gone? It's been a little crazy in the Suh household recently but it's all good. This past Saturday both of our families got together to celebrate Andrew's 100th day birthday!! In fact today is his 100th day birthday!! Happy birthday my little buddy!!!!!! It was a little crazy having both families over which included 2 toddlers, 2 infants and lot of other ppl over 18 but all in all it was a lot of fun and lots of good food. My brother in law brought 20lbs of Alaskan snow crabs which was just unbelievable.

Andrew has been more then what we expected. I think he's the best baby ever. I'm not saying that because he's my son. :) Of course I'm biased but we've just been really blessed. He doesn't cry during the car rides, doesn't cry when he's hungry, doesn't fuss when he's at church all day. He just doesn't cry. My parents have repeated tried to make him cry because they've never heard him cry before. I can count on 1 hand the number of times that he really cried.
He smiles so much especially in the morning after he wakes up from his 7-8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. It's my job to wake up first to change his diaper and to play with him for a little bit. During this time he just smiles, coos, laughs, and is just so active. It makes waking up so enjoyable to see him like that. I don't know if he recognizes my voice/face yet but I know he does with Betty. Whenever she talks to him and smiles at him, 90% of the time he smiles/laughs back. It's so cute!!
He's also gotten really big. I think he's about 14lbs and change.. I know the 'change' part can be 10-20% of his weight but he's gotten a lot bigger, heavier and longer since his 2 month check up. He has 'thunder thighs' as Betty likes to call it and he has no wrists. All you see is a line between his forearm and hands.. So cute though.
People have asked me what it feels like to be a dad. To be honest, it still hasn't really hit me yet. I mean I do realize that I have a son and that I love him to death, but I think it'll hit me more once he responds to me and recognizes me. I can't image how I can love him more and more but I'm beginning to realize that that love has to come from God and not from within. Before Andrew was born, I was concerned how I can love another person the way I love my wife. But it's amazing how God gives you that love for another human being.. It's very intense and it's awesome!!
This post is getting way too long. I don't have pics because they're all in my camera and I haven't been able to download them yet. We must have taken a million pictures so far.

Today we're going to go take a family picture at a picture place in the mall. Believe it or not, we don't have 1 single picture of Andrew in our house!! I know I'm a bad dad.. No excuses. That's why you're not seeing any pictures on this post either. I'm going to try to put up some pictures tomorrow morning.

For the 3 people that read this blog, I'll try to update more often.

He's the king..

..of our bed and our house.

Valentines Day

It's a bit late but figured it's better late then never. And also the purpose of this post is not to inform the 3 people that actually read this post about Andrew but more of a diary of his life. So hopefully one day he can go back to this blog and see what's been going on in his life.

Anyways for Valentines day we decided to just order in. Actually Andrew decided that we should order in. We were both craving sushi so I figured I call 30 minutes before and pick it up. Well, it ended up being a little more then 30 mins.. It was more like 1 hr and 45 mins! Can you believe that the wait for take out was that long? But I think the wait was worth it and we really enjoyed it. Andrew was good and slept through our entire dinner.

I was passed out after dinner. I've been passing out a lot these days, usually around 9pm.

Anger to Relief

We had to take Andrew to CHOP (in Philly) this past Monday to get more labs done. Previous labs were done at the CHOP outpatient in KOP but we didn't want to wait for an appointment since they're so backed up. First of all the reason why we didn't go to our primary ped office is because the lab tech there is like 15 years old and she didn't feel confident in poking a baby so young. My question is this: If your only job is to draw blood at a pediatrician's office, shouldn't you be competent in drawing blood for ALL pediatric patients? That's like saying that I can only give consults to hospice patients that are between the ages of 70-80. Anyways, because of that we had to fight rush hour traffic to get to the city.

So after registering and waiting, we finally get to the lab. The lab tech that was drawing his blood was horrible. She had no problem finding a vein in his hand but after she poked him, she neglected to keep the needle in place and it came out. So now she had to find another site to get blood which ended up being his foot. At this point I'm a little upset. He already has so many veins that are shot b/c of all the blood draws.. he didn't need an incompetent tech making things worse. Anyways, she found a vein and was getting some blood but instead of keeping the needle steady, it kept on moving around while the needle was still in there! I was so mad! And it's one of those things where if you say something to her, she's going to take it out on Andrew. I kept my mouth shut and by this point I think she realized that she can't do it and got someone else. She was able to come in, find the 3rd vein with no problems and got all the blood needed for the tests.

Andrew normally doesn't cry. The only time that he may cry is when we change his diaper. Even during his cicumcision he just slept through it all! During this visit, he was just wailing and screaming so much like never before. This was the first time ever that I saw tears coming out of his eyes.. Poor kid.

With all this said, his labs came back looking a lot better. His jaundice is going away and his ped didn't think he had to see a hematologist. Praise God! We'll be going back to the primary in 2 weeks for another check up and more labs. I wonder if the tech does blood draws for an 8 week old..

More blood..

So it looks like we're not out of the woods yet with Andrew and his health. In terms of his breathing, everything is fine and normal. But when Betty took him for his 1 month check up, his bili levels went back up which worried the doctor. So a few days later he got additional labs done requiring 3 needle pokes and those came back normal. But we weren't able to get a CBC done because he just didn't have any blood left so Betty had to go back the next day to get that done. The tech wasn't able to find a good vein because of all the blood draws he's gotten over the past 5 weeks so she had to get an ocology nurse to help. She was able to draw out just enough blood but she had to move around the needle back and forth to get the amount she needed. The CBC's came back normal. We were waiting on another result on his reticulocyte at the same time but the labs messed up and requested a different test done instead of the retic count. So now we're waiting to see if we even need that result. If everything comes back normal and the bili levels are still high and not going down, we might have to see a hematologist..

Please pray for Andrew that the bilirubin levels would go back to normal and that he would finally be 100% healthy for the first time in his young life.

$82639.10

That's how much Andrew's medical bill added up to as of 2/10/08. This included all of his NICU stays at HUP, CHOP, Betty's hospital stays, outpatient ped visits and my cable TV. Can you believe it?? Over $82K!! Obviously we're not responsible for a majority of this bill. I'm sure they charged $5 per diaper change, $10 for each bottle of formula and $20 for a dose of ibuprofen. But if you still would like to contribute then you're more the welcome. =) It's funny how the hospital submits an X amount and Aetna decides how much they want to pay them for the services. So if you don't have insurance, does that mean that you have to pay this entire amount? I'm sure you can negotiate with the hospital to get the price down but not enough to where you can pay what Aetna pays the hospital.

All to say, Andrew you're one expensive baby!!