Please Join us in Prayer!

I love this pictures of Wesley. It might be the first time you guys have seen him with his eyes open! Wesley is become more alert everyday. Yesterday when I held him he had his eyes open the whole time and was doing the funniest faces, it was such a special time.

On another note we would love for you to continue to pray for Wesley. About a week ago on the 19th they did another brain scan. It showed that he had a mild case of hydrocephalus. (He has not had any new bleeds or blood since the one that they found at the very beginning. We have just been monitoring his head and seeing what this blood was going to do. ) Hydrocephalus is a fancy word for fluid on the brain. They have been measuring his head circumference since April 7th to see if it was swelling or expanding. His head had only grown at a normal rate and was doing good until April 22nd it grew 1cm and has continued to grow very fast over night which was a huge cause for concern. The blood that is in there is trying to get out but is clogged and not only being stuck in there but it is not letting spinal fluid through or absorbing it. Yesterday we walked in and talked to the doctor. He was nervous about his head growth and decided to go ahead and do a spinal tap to relieve some of the pressure. Wesley did great, they removed 7cc of spinal fluid and his head went down a quarter of a cm. We are now in a waiting pattern to see what will happen. The doctor explained that most babies in his case their head will continue to expand and then at 4-5 weeks it will level off and go down. Wesley turned 3 weeks old on Sunday the 26th. So they want to wait and see what he will do. In the mean time they might continue to do Spinal taps to relieve pressure until they see what exactly he his going to do. One encouraging thing is that on the ultrasound they can see the clot trying to break down and go away and they do believe that it will do that in time. There is a possibility that we hope does not happen, is that his head just continues to expand and does not level off at 4-5 weeks. He will then most likely need a shunt, but he is not big enough. He will have to be 5lbs for a shunt. So until then an neurologist will put a port in the top of his head that will act like a well and they will draw fluid straight from there.
This is all extremely scary and nerve racking for us. I think that it is because the doctor said that having this puts him at high risk for developmental problems along with just being a preemie. We will not know the effects this will have on him until 2,3,4,or 5 yrs. old. There is a chance that this spinal tap and maybe a couple more will do the trick and help him along. That is our prayer. They do not want to be doing spinal taps too frequently. Please pray that his head will not swell or expand anymore. That the clot and the blood will take care of itself and be reabsorbed into the body and that there would be no more pressure on the brain. Pray for healthy brain growth and not lasting or permanent effects from this. Pray that Greg and I would not worry, but would trust the great God that created and loves our little one. Thanks for caring for us and loving us. We can't wait to tell you what God is going to do!

Sleeping Wesley

Here are a couple pictures of our sweet Wesley. He looks great and seems to look healthier and bigger everyday. Last night he was 2lbs 8oz and 16 inches long. Grow Baby Grow!

The PDA is closed!

We are so excited to write this post and let you know that Welsey's PDA that we have been dealing with is closed! Thank you Jesus! We are celebrating with Welsey and all of you with this great news. Thank you for all your prayers. We have seen the power of prayer in a whole new way in our lives and in Wesley's. Thank you for taking our little boy and his situation and putting it at the feet of Jesus. With the PDA closed Wesley started getting breast milk again yesterday and has done great so far with that. It is great comfort to us that they are feeding him again and hopefully he with start growing more now. We have other news to post, but want to celebrate right now with you about this great news. Please keep praying, we are so thankful for you guys.

Some Encouragement Today

From almost day one the doctors and nurses have been telling us that this is going to be a roller coaster of a ride. And boy have we felt that on a daily basis with tests and news from doctors. Yesterday was defiantly one of those days. Wesley had both the head ultrasound and the echo but we did not hear anything from the doctors by the end of the day which we do not know what that means exactly, but no news is good news for right now. When I left the hospital yesterday around 5:30 Wesley was sacked out and resting very comfortably for about 3 hours. He was on his back and really cute to watch sleeping.

The big news of the day is that he graduated up to the next level of respiratory therapy. He moved off of the CPAP and onto the high flow nasal cannula. YEAH!!!! This is a HUGE step and we just pray that he will be able to be on there for a while and not have to go back to the CPAP. You can see him chilling with his oxygen up in the picture. Also check out his sweet hat. If it were only camo so we can get him ready for turkey season. Another awesome part of the day was that when they were switching him over it was the first time we saw him without any of that junk on his face. Check out his sweet face. It was so cool to not only see his lips but his whole face. We thank the Lord for the day he made for Wesley yesterday. Our amazing friend Jana Barrett and the other person holding Lucy's leg during labor brought us Wesley's first bible yesterday. It was so amazing and has his name engraved on the front. What a great gift for a kids that is getting the psalms read to him everyday. This was our encouragement from the word for our crazy day yesterday. Psalm 19:14, "May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord my Rock and my REDEEMER." My we know his nearness and his grace this day.

Big Tests Heading Welsey's Way

We have had a couple of good days with our sweet son since the start of the week which seemed so stressful. We have gotten to hold him a lot and we even began kangaroo care, which is pretty awesome and I am sure you will hear more about that later. However, an old problem has reared its ugly head once again. When Wesley was born he had some bleeding in the ventricles inside his brain. It was of no immediate concern at the time but just to make sure his head was not growing more than it should be they were going to measure the circumference of his head. So a normal head growth would be a half a centimeter a week. Well sometime over the last 24 hours his head grew an entire whole centimeter. it could be caused by a number of different reasons but they are going to do another head ultrasound tomorrow to get a better look to see what is going on. At the same time they are going to do another echo cardiogram to see what is going on with the PDA near his heart. We have been encouraged that the sound of the murmur is getting less and less. This may be a sign that it is closing. So we just ask that you pray for these two test he is going to have tomorrow. Please pray that the growth of the head is just normal brain growth or something that they can easily describe and fix. Also, please pray for the PDA to close or seem to be closing so they do not have to do surgery to close the duct. Thank you so much for caring for our little Wesley. He is a joy to be around and we are thankful that we get to see Christ more and work through him already.

An Update in Pictures!

A straight on view from inside the incubator.


Mr. April himself Wesley Noble.


Wesley holding Greg's wedding band


His little foot



His little hand


This little sign is on the side of Wesley's incubator. Every Thursday he is another week older (gestationally) and on Sundays he is another week older (for real). So tomorrow Wesley will be 28 weeks but really he is 2.5 weeks old! Whoo Hoo ! Confused? Yeah me too!


It has become our favorite time of the day- Holding Wesley!


This is a picture of Greg holding Wesley. Wesley is figuring out his fingers and keeps trying them out in his mouth. He has been taking a pacifier and loves it, but has been having trouble at multi tasking. Its hard to breathe and suck on a paci at the same time, so we will just stick to breathing for right now.

Getting Dizzy From Spinning in Circles

The last couple of days have been a little frustrating with Wesley. In the first couple of weeks of his life he made some enormous strides, but in the last few days it seems as though we have plateauted a little bit. Here is how it all went down. We meet with the doctor yesterday to follow up with a head ultrasound they did on Sunday. He basically explained that the blood that is in his head is still there. It has began to swell a little bit but nothing to be concerned. He can feel over 50 percent confident it will resolve it self, but we will have to wait and see. Our good doctor also explained that Wesley was going to get a third dose of the second round of neoprofen to close the PDA. For you sports fans keeping score at home this will be the end of his second dose. He told us they were going to repeat the echo cardiogram on Thursday to see if it has closed or not. So WE WILL JUST HAVE TO WAIT AND SEE. We are getting a little tired of this phrase. It seems that we are spinning around in circles with Wesley and we are getting pretty dizzy. But it is the truth. it is a rough way to learn patience and a dependence on trusting in the Lord.

Yesterday Lucy and I meet a good friend for lunch. We left after having this frustrating conversation with our doctor. While we were in the car the radio was on, but the volume was very low. Low enough you could not hear the music. My radio in the car will scroll the title of the song across the display. It moves pretty quick between artist, title of song, and radio station. Lucy was looking at it and it seemed to get stuck for about a minute and the word that was on the screen was TRUST. It was an odd reminder that either something is wrong with my car or god was meeting us in that moment. Please pray that we will be able to trust that God has Wesley wrapped up tight in his arms. Even in the moments that we are waiting around to see something God is moving and working. Our trust has been shaking over the last few days but we are moving towards Christ to meet us in this situation.

Caffeine Anyone?

Wesley has been doing great on his CPAP which has been a blessing except for a couple of episodes that we found out about this morning. Preemies lungs are not usually developed which makes breathing hard, but we also found out that the part of the brain that tells us to breathe is not developed yet either in preemies. With that the case, there are times when he forgets to breathe or just gets tired and goes into apnea. The nurses will rub his chest to stimulate him and then he will breathe but they also have medicine that will stimulate that part of the brain to help him to breathe and that medicine is?? You guessed it: Caffeine. So Wesley started an IV of caffeine this morning which will help with this problem. They said that this is really common in preemies and most of them are all on caffeine. We are glad that this will help him not have to go back on the respirator right now. The only question I have is why couldn't I drink caffeine my whole pregnancy or now, b/c of the baby and now you are giving him an IV of it?? We are just thankful that they know what they are doing and they have things to deal with this. Wesley also started back on Neo-profen today for another three day dose to help his PDA close still.
Please continue to Pray:

• Pray that this round of neo-profen will do the trick and the PDA will close completely and he won't have to have surgery.
• Pray for his brain scan on Sunday or Monday that the blood in the brain will have taken care of itself and he will have no long term effects from it.
• Pray that his lungs will continue to develop and that he would continue to do good on the CPAP and would not have any more episodes of paused or shallow breathing.

We appreciate and covet your prayers. We have definitely felt them and the hand of God guiding and taking care of us. They told us it would be a rollercoaster, and it definitely is. We are thankful that God is with us in the highs and the lows and for family and friends like you bringing requests to his feet. We can;t wait to bring our little boy home and for all of you to meet him.

Baby got back!

This is an older picture of Wesley, but I thought that it was cute, b/c you get to see his back. Today Wesley had a busy day. He had a PICC line put in and also had another EKG. We were glad not to be there to see the PICC line go in. We hate to see him be stuck with needles, but were happy that they successfully got it in. That will be a more permanent line that he will get all his meds and stuff put into, which means less sticking and we are happy about that. We spoke with the cardiologist today about the EKG results. He still has a PDA (which we were really hoping was gone) but it has closed a little more. (Yeah) The cardiologist has to meet with the doctor and they will make a decision on whether or not to do another round of the medicine or to do surgery. Please pray that the doctors will have wisdom on what the best decision is to treat him and that it will close! The doctor was encouraging though, he said how good Wesley was doing and that he has come along way. We like to hear good news.

Reading the Psalms to Wesley

Every day we have been reading a Psalm to Wesley for how old he is. It has been a great reminder and a fun thing for all three of us to do together. Our prayer is that the word of the Lord will speak to his heart. One encouraging verse for us is Psalm 10:17 "You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry."

Holding Wesley

Since Wesley has gotten the CPAP we have been doing some holding! When we get there in the morning our nurse has been getting him up and letting us hold him for about 30 minutes. After 30 minutes his tempature has dropped so he needs to go back in his incubator to regualte his temp. It has been a really sweet and fun time for us. He looks so much smaller outside of his incubator. I think the plastic magnifies him. Click on the Video below to see a little clip of Greg and Wesley.

Great day with Wesley and friends

What a great day to spend with our boy. As soon as we got to his bedside this morning our nurse asked Lucy if she wanted to hold Wesley. So for the next 30 minutes he spent some great time in his mothers arms. Around Lunch time we had a great visit from Bill and Joann Goans and Kate Black. It was a great time to show off the man, the myth, the legend with some great friends from back home. We had a sweet time of prayer and laughter. Wesley also had his third round of neoprofen this afternoon which is a good sign that he has been able to handle the medicine.

Big prayer request:
Please pray for the echo cardiogram that Wesley will have tomorrow to follow up from his 72 hours worth of the medicine. We will be able to see from the echo how his PDA is progressing. Our big hope is that it will be closed and we will not have to deal with this for a while. If it is not closed they will consider another round of treatment with the medicine. If that will not work they will think about having the surgery. Please pray that we will not have to go down this road. We will keep you posted. Thanks again for all your thoughts and concerns. We are so encouraged by your comments and concerns.

Wesley is off the Respirator and Yes, he does have lips!

Wesley had a BIG day today and has done great so far! Wesley got off the respirator today and now has something called a CPAP to help him out. For the most part he is breathing on his own and is doing awesome. The CPAP will help him by keeping his lungs inflated as he breathes on his own. The doctor explained that it works similar to a dog sticking his head out of the window. Praise the Lord for this step forward and answer to prayer. Above is a picture of his new mask, the picture does not do justice to how cute this little man is. And yes, he does have lips. We have not seen our precious son's lips for the first 9 days because they were covered up. They are beautiful. The respiratory therapists did let us know not to freak out or be upset if he goes back on the respirator that it is really common and expected to go on and off especially with how young he is. Another cool thing about being off the respirator is that we got to hear him cry for the first time and see him yawn. Another small victory for the day.

Way better then Jelly Beans or Chocolate Bunnies, we got to hold our baby!

Greg and I have learned a lot lately that you can't plan out life so stop waisting time. We thought that we would be in Myrtle Beach this Easter Sunday, but instead we are spending it with our precious son. Today was a great reminder of Life in Christ, that we serve a God that is alive and active in our lives. We also celebrated Wesley's first week of life. What an Easter gift- we also got to hold him today, just for a minute! Each week they will change his incubator out if he is stable and so we will get to hold him during that time. Something to look forward to on Sundays.

A Small Step Forward, an Answered Prayer

We can't believe that Wesley was born a week ago. The days have seemed so long but the week has gone by fast. It definitley has been a rollercoaster. We are clinging to the hope that we have in Christ and the hope that Wesley has in Christ and believing that God has a plan for this little man. Thank you, Thank you for your prayers. We spoke with the doctor today. They did another EKG to check for the PDA duct. Last EKG they found that his was still open and that it was a large opening. They were waiting for Monday to do another EKG to determine a plan of action, either medicine or surgery. We got the word out and people have been praying. The doctor came to us today and said that it has gotten smaller and that it looks like it is trying to close on its own. Praise the Lord! Please keep praying. They are all meeting tomorrow to determine what they want to do now. It still might be medicine or surgery but we are thankful and praising God for a small victory today.

It's Not a Blackberry but it is a PDA

Here is the latest to pray for. A few days ago our doctor noticed a murmur when he was listening to Wesley's chest. He was concerned by this and had a radiologist come in to do an ultrasound on his chest. They found what is called a patent ductus arteriosus, or PDA for short. This of course is not a personal digital assistant. To make it short when a baby is in the womb him and the mother are on the same breathing cycle. Her lungs are his lungs. When a baby is born there is a duct that closes to keep blood and other fluids out of the lungs. In most preemies this does not close because the signals get all out of whack do to an early birth. It can be barley open or wide open and it turns out that Wesley's is wide smack open. So they need to do something to close the duct. They can accomplish this one of two ways.

• They can use medicine. They use IB Profen of all drugs to help get it closed. Our doctor is concerned about using drugs because of the other bleeding episodes he has going on with his body.
• They can perform a simple surgical procedure to go in a clamped the duct close. Our doctors have explained this is a very simple procedure, but it is still surgery and nothing to take lightly.

The doctors are going to consider all the factors and weigh the options to determine which is the best path to go down. It is really crazy to think that our week old 2 and a half pound son would be up for surgery, but we have been encouraged to hear they do this on babys half his size all the time.

I would just ask that you would pray for:

• wisdom and discernment for the doctors.
• pray that a miracle might happen and the duct will close on its own, one doctor said he has seen crazier things than that.
• pray for Wesley to have a speedy recovery no matter which road they go down so he can be ready for the next hurdle to jump over.

We are meeting with our team of doctors on monday morning to figure out what the best game plan might be. We will keep you posted on what they come up with. As of right now he is in no need of any emergency actions because he is holding surprisingly, to them not to us, stable even though he has this going on.

Living in the Dean dome

It is amazing to see how God has had his hand on this entire situation. One of the most obvious ways is how he has provided a place for us to live while we are here in Asheville. I do not think anyone knows how long Wesley is going to be in the NICU, but we can bank it is going to be a while. During this time mom and dad need a place to crash. That is where God would show up. We have been blessed by Bob and Ann Dean for them to open up there home for us to stay. They have been huge fans of Asheville Young Life from before we went to college here and were always so supportive during our years we were leaders, but then we moved on and started a new life in Greensboro. But when something like this happens it is amazing to see how the years away don't matter at all. As soon as we stepped out of the car in their driveway there were the Deans with arms open wide to give us comforting hugs. We are so thankful for them and ask that you would pray for the Deans as they graciously let us live in their home. Not only have the Deans open their home but there mailbox as well. Some of you all have asked for a place to send notes, so feel free to send them to the following address.

Greg & Lucy Noble
c/o Bob & Ann Dean
12 Cedar Hill Drive
Asheville, NC 28803

Thankful for you all and thankful for your prayers for Bob and Ann.

Heres how it all began

Just to get everyone caught up, here is a copy of the note that our sweet friend Tara Tuttle put together for us on facebook. I can't believe this was all one week ago today. God has done some amazing things in a short time.

Hey Friends
For those of you who haven't heard yet, Lucy gave birth to our son Wesley O'Brien Noble at 2:45pm this afternoon (April 5th) at mission hospital in Asheville, NC. (we were @ Windy Gap this weekend). Lucy is doing great and Wesley is fighting hard as he arrived 15 weeks early. He is 2lbs and 9oz and is 151/2 inches long. His lungs are not yet fully developed, and he will remain in the intensive care unit at Mission for quite some time. Family and friends are with us and we are so grateful for all of the support and prayers that we have received. Please continue to pray for Wesley, that he would continue to gain strength and that God would continue to guide the doctors as they take steps to provide care for him. We will keep you updated as we know more, but for now please keep praying! Thanks.

The Noble 3 have a blog

Ok so we never really thought this day would happen. No not giving birth to our son 3 months early, but us actually getting into the blog world, but we have been so inspired and encouraged by others blogs that we decide to start working on our own. So here we are. It is going to take us a while to get it all figured out, but we wanted to have a way to communicate to everyone about how to be praying for Wesley. In scripture we are encouraged to pray without ceasing and I have never felt the urgency of that verse as I have since little Wesley was born. I think that it was not a coincidence that he was born at 2:47. We have been so blessed that people like you have been praying for him 24 hours a day and for now 7 days a week since he is a week old today. We have felt those prayers and are thankful for them. Please keep checking in here to know how to be praying and lifting our little man before the great physician. Thank you for all your love and support. There is no way we would be able to be getting though this without your encouragement. We will keep you posted or up-to-blogged if that is a word.