Family Pictures w/ Lukas

On Thursday night after Lukas was born, before Lukas was even 24 hours old, we had our family pictures taken. The pictures turned out amazing despite the fact that it was a bit past Chelsea's bed time and she was melting down just minutes before.

We wanted to give a special thanks to Dave Ward for sharing his talent with us and for taking these amazing pictures.

Note: Click on the first picture to open all the pictures to a full-screen view.

                                                                       

Chelsea & Lukas

When Chelsea woke up on Friday morning after Lukas was born we decided it would be a fun little family moment.  We put Lukas on Chelsea's bed to let them "play" together.  Chelsea wanted "her camera" to take pictures, so of course we decided to capture the moment with a video camera.  To me it seems like they are old friends, yet they had only been together for one day.  What a beautiful moment and memory!

Enjoy this video!

Chelsea & Lukas 1080p from Jonathan Baker on Vimeo.

Beautiful Slideshow - Created by Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep

!Kleenex ALERT!

These pictures are so precious to us.  Julie, with Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep, came to the hospital to take these beautiful pictures.  These pictures were taken just an hour and a half after Lukas was born.

Melissa looks so amazing in these pictures, when you consider what she just went through just an hour before.  What an amazing mom!

http://shareitvideo.com/watch.php?v=241555793126151

We love you Lukas!

Lukas Benjamin Baker passed away peacefully in our arms early this morning.

Thank you everyone who was able to visit and share the love he brought to this earth for his short life.

At this time we are not accepting visitors. We will announce funeral plans as they are made.

 Please take a moment to cherish a life today on our behalf.

Thank you for all your love.
Jonathan, Melissa, Chelsea, and Lukas Baker

A few pictures... finally

Lukas Benjamin

It's a BOY!

We are so excited that Lukas Benjamin has arrived! It has been an emotional few months leading up to this point, but we are so glad he is finally here! We are humbled to receive such a wonderful spirit into our family. Our family will never be the same!

When: July 4th @ 8:03pm (just in time for fireworks!)
Weight: 6 lbs 13 oz
Length: 22 inches (just like his big sister.)

The delivery went well. Melissa was a champ and was able to deliver un-medicated. Melissa and Lukas are doing well. Thanks to the help of a wonderful medical staff, we were able to leave the hospital at 12:18am. As I write this post Melissa is sleeping in her own bed and loving it. We are accepting family visitors Thursday after 2pm and general visitors on Friday.

After having been told in February that our baby has HLHS, there was much soul searching, researching, crying, praying, and discussing. In the end we chose to bring this baby, where he will live a comfortable and peaceful life. We have been told that his life expectancy will be anywhere from 3 to 22 days. We will try to keep our blog updated with information on the baby's condition. However, our #1 focus will be spending time with the baby and visitors.

Once we get settled in we'd love visitors. We want to share this short and wonderful time with everyone that wants to visit. In order to maintain our toddler's napping schedule we only ask that no visitors arrive from 11am to 2pm. We are open to visitors at all other times. We plan on staying at home as much as possible, so feel free to stop by when it is convenient for you.


Here are some fun charts showing the distribution curves of his weight and height:

Are we there yet... almost!

The last few months have been filled with contemplation, prayer, research, and many emotions.  We didn't want to make the decision of surgery or Comfort Care quickly, but we also felt that we needed to decide what we wanted to do before the birth of our baby. Making this decision has been the most difficult choice we've ever made together, and we haven't taken it lightly.  There were times during the past months that both options have felt good, but in the end the treatment that we felt most at peace with was comfort care.

We are currently at the hospital and Melissa is making good progress.  We are hoping that this baby arrives today, July 4th. After the delivery we will spend some time in the hospital to make sure that mom is well enough to return home.  Once we are discharged from the hospital the baby will be transferred to hospice care to keep it comfortable while at home.  The life expectancy for this child is anywhere from 3 to 22 days, with the average being 12 days.  We will cherish every moment of this baby's life.  Jonathan has been able to take a month off of work, so we can all be together for this.

During these last few months we have felt an incredible amount of peace and comfort. We know that this is in part due to the many prayers offered in our behalf, Thank You!  We feel so blessed to be surrounded by such wonderful people.  We also gather much strength knowing that this child will be part of our family forever, even if only for a short time on earth.

p.s. Stay tuned for more info to come in the next few days.