Gabe - Before and After

We have been asked many times about how “puffy” Gabe was before and how “puffy” he is now. Most are curious about how far he has come and don’t understand what we are describing. They say a picture speaks a thousand words, so we decided to share with you some pictures of Gabe that we had previously not been posting because we didn’t want to scare anyone and at the time things were minute by minute. When he was first born the poor little guy looked like a mini Michelin man because there was so much edema. But now he is a changed little man and we hope that we don’t have to witness that again. Shannon and I were going through pictures of him the other night and our jaws dropped at the pictures of him then and now. It was almost as if the little guy had gastric bypass surgery and shrunk overnight. In fact, we will leave the NICU late at night and come back in the morning to see that he had shrunk even more overnight. People have commented that they don’t see how he has any more fluid to lose. But we have to realize that he is a preemie and he should be a lot smaller than he is now. Most people are comparing him to what they know is a normal sized baby at birth, which Gabe almost looked like at one point. These pictures are a wonderful example of how far our little trooper has come over the past few weeks. We pray that he will continue to lose this extra fluid so that he won’t have to work so hard to breathe. Also, Shannon and I are really excited to see his little features that are starting to come out of all the swelling and puffiness. The pictures above are from his first couple days and are a testament of how far the little man has come.