Felix Noah Riley
Born January 3, 2025
8 pounds
We are so thankful for Felix! He is a joy and everyone is so in love with him!
It's been a rough six months, though. He was diagnosed at birth with Down Syndrome and a heart defect. He had feeding difficulties from the start and was unable to breastfeed. He was at home for a few days before being admitted to the NICU, where he stayed for several weeks with feeding and breathing issues, among other things. Unfortunately, the NICU was two hours away from home, which was extremely difficult to juggle with everyone at home. He finally came home in early February, but then had frequent doctor and therapy visits and was on a feeding tube. He spent another week in the hospital in April due to two respiratory viruses and breathing issues. After that visit, he lost his ability to do any bottle feeding. Thankfully, since then, he has been doing well, and has been making good progress with physical and feeding therapy. He is still on a feeding tube, but has been gaining weight well and his doctor visits are slowing down. He will need heart surgery at some point, likely in a year or so.
Things are slowly getting a little easier. I look back at the last six months, and I'm not quite sure how we made it through. I'm so thankful for the many ways God provided, mostly in small things that felt huge at the time. It's been so, so hard, but it's worth it for this sweet little boy. Every bit of progress, and every cute little smile, reminds us of that!
