Noa Douglas Stek

Noa Douglas Stek was born at Prentice Hospital at 3:33am on June 5, 2009. He was born at 36 weeks - one week premature and four weeks early. In spite of this he weighed in at a healthy 8lbs 9ozs and measured 20 inches. My water broke on Wednesday afternoon and I was induced Thursday morning. The birth went well except that Noa was big and didn't appear to be making progress down my birth canal. Under threat of a c-section, he and I put in a mighty effort and he crowned as the doctor arrived to take me to the operating room. Unfortunately he then got stuck in my pelvic bone and things were a little scary (and a lot painful) for a couple of minutes. We were discharged from the hospital on Saturday afternoon with the stipulation that we call first thing Monday morning to get Noa into the pediatrician's office as his biliruben was elevated. When we went to the doctor, there was some concern with a contusion on his right testicle that they thought might be more than birth trauma so we were sent to the ER of Children's Memorial to have a ultrasound performed on it. That turned out to be ok but he was admitted with a very high biliruben level (jaundice). There was concern that this was more than normal infant jaundice because of the very high levels but everything seems to be working out ok. He is responding exceptionally well to treatment (that's my boy!) and we hope that he will be able to come back home on Friday or Saturday.

Grandpa Stek left us this week. He died of cancer on June 6, 2009. He will be missed. I sure wish he could have met Noa. We love you Grandpa.