The Cubby Chronicles XXXIII

Note: Jacob Raymond Walker was born 12 weeks prematurely at Duke University Hospital the morning of Monday, May 19 2008. The following are updates, notes, & observations on his growth & development.

Jake has had a busy day here at Duke Hospital. I was hanging out with him this morning & nothing much was going on. Just holding & feeding him (he's taking more and more of his feeds by mouth & eating greater volumes of them) and having some 'guy time.' Everything thing was pretty quiet until Kristin came in.

She brought a form letter from the Wake County child services that said according to their records Jake had failed his hearing scan. Obviously this was a little worrisome because A. we don't remember Jake ever having a hearing scan & B. everyone would like their child to be able to hear. As we sat talking about how Wake County would have such a record when we were never informed that he'd received a scan, much less failed one, the Audiologist walked in.

Sure enough, he'd never been tested & she went ahead and performed the screen right in front of us. She did an Auditory Brain Stem Response test which consisted of strapping plastic cups on Jake's ears & taping electrodes around his head (it was quite a get-up, see the picture below). The idea is sounds are played into the ear cups & the electrodes pick up the 'correct' brain activity for each ear. Thankfully, Jake passed the test quickly with both of his ears but not before we snapped some photos.

I tend to take lots of pictures of the little guy every day so he's quite comfortable in front of the camera (either he's a natural model or he's just a baby who doesn't notice/care--you can be the judge). Regardless, his talent for looking cute & laying still served him well today when the nurse manager & people from the fund raising office came by & wanted to take pictures of Jake for upcoming campaign media.

Its somewhat of a toss-up on why Jake was picked--on one hand he's clearly the cutest kid in the entire place (I might be a little biased). On the other we do know the nurse manager & she had a pretty good idea that we'd be at his bedside so consent/release forms could be signed. I will note that there were at least 3 other families back in the TCN & untold numbers in the larger ICN that they could have chosen.

Anyway, the fund raising people said that they wanted to get some pictures of the chief of the children's hospital with a preemie baby for future brochures,etc... and Jake was the man for the job. Kristin changed his outfit & wiped his face off (potential stage mom alert) while the photographer set up her angles, flashes, & other camera equipment. We met the chief who seemed like a nice guy & they ended up taking 30 or so shots of him holding Jake in different positions.

The whole thing was pretty interesting & the media woman said she'd e-mail some of the pictures back to me which I'll pass along. The Cubby, to his credit, basically slept through the whole shoot which is exactly what he needed to do . In Hollywood that's called 'nailing it.'

Clearly he's going to be the next top baby model. Of course we're in need of an agent since we didn't negotiate any returns for his services. We're not suggesting that he get a cut of any money they raise, but it wouldn't kill them to at least have knocked something off of his hospital bill, right?