Drum Roll Please.....

We FINALLY have a name for Sweet Baby Boy Barker...
Nathan Kean Leavitt Barker
So whaddya think?
I know it's a mouthful. We didn't want to go with 4 names... but once I tell you the back story of his name... you'll understand.
We had settled between Kean (which means fighter) and another name we liked. But Thursday night, after we'd found out our baby had Down Syndrome, our Bishop came over and gave Byron and I blessings (words of comfort we believe are from our Heavenly Father). After he finished, Bishop Firmage said as he was giving the blessing, he kept wanting to refer to the baby by a certain name. Of course, we told him he had to tell us what that name was. He said "Nathan". Both of us were like hmmm. We hadn't really even considered it (especially since one of my best friends in the world-- Stacy had named her oldest son Nathan).
I looked up the meaning of Nathan that night and it means "Gift of God". If you had heard the blessings from our Bishop-- you'd understand how fitting the name would be.
The next day, I walked into the NICU and as we were working with the baby-- Pam, our nurse asked me if we had chosen a name. I told her we were considering Kean and Nathan. When I said Nathan-- she let out a little squeak of surprise. When I asked her what that was all about... she said she had felt inclined to call him Nathan all morning.
So hopefully, you can now understand why we've been so torn and why Nathan has to be part of his name. Plus, our adopted "Grandpa" Bodily's middle name is Nathan. We've named each of our girls after people we deeply love and respect.
We felt like both names fit him-- he is a gift straight from Heaven and yet he's been such a fighter to get here and will likely have some pretty big battles in his life.
Byron's family tradition is to use the mother's maiden name as the middle name. So there you have why he has a mouthful of 4 names. We'll likely call him Kean. Hey, he has to have an unusual name to fit in with our family.
As for NICU today--- it was a pretty good day. His PIC line failed at 6am... so by the time I got there this morning, he had a honkin' huge IV sticking out of the crown of his head. Our nurse put a hat on his head so I wouldn't have to look at it. I didn't have the heart to ask how many tries it took or how long. I will tell you, he reminds me of the old "coneheads" from when I was a teen watching Saturday Night Live.
His infection is looking better, as are his counts.
I spent about an hour total today working with an occupational therapist to stimulate the muscles in his mouth. We even "practiced" breast feeding and he actually latched on for about a total of 2 minutes. That's huge. I hope I'm not getting my hopes up... but I think he's going to be on the higher functioning side of Downs.
I also got pee'd on for the first time. I jinxed myself and told my Aunt Daleen that he hadn't done it yet... and whaddya know!!!
He's a real boy!