Logan's Journey

Happy Halloween Everyone!!   My day was not spent quite the way I had hoped (passing out candy for the first time in my new neighborhood and seeing all of the adorable kiddos) but hopefully it was the first (or third) step in the right direction.  After talking to the doctors first thing this morning and letting them know that I wasn't interested in just sitting around hoping that the cramps and blood clot would go away, we all decided that we would do the third D&C this afternoon to get rid of whatever is in my uterus.  Surgery was set for 1 this afternoon so around 9 I headed over to the NICU to spend some time with Logan.  He was doing great!!  The doctor came over while I was there and filled me in on some updates.  He is now up to 30ccs on his feedings (I found out that 38ccs is his goal however as he gets bigger that will go up) and they said he was tolerating them really well with very little residuals.  They also said that he had been ...

So I just have to post a quick update since my post earlier today.  I finally was able to hold Logan for the first time tonight and it may have been the best feeling ever!!!  They allowed us to do it before feeding tonight at 8 and when we got there they had him all ready to go.  I was able to hold him for about 30 minutes although it seemed like it went by in a second.  Here are a couple of pictures, let's say I was a bit emotional but only because I was such a happy Mommy!!  Can't wait to do it again tomorrow!!! When they first handed him to me... Kangaroo Care!!

Still love those feet!!  :) One plus to the fact that Logan and I are now living in the same place is it gives me a lot more opportunities to see him and hang out with him.  Luckily, things have been going really well for him over the past 2 days.  The opthamologist came yesterday and he said things were looking good.  The pressure was down and as of now he doesn't think that surgery will be necessary, he will continue to monitor Logan's progress but for now things are good.  He also gave us the ok to finally be able to hold our little man!!!   Besides that, he is up to 25ccs every 3 hours and he is tolerating all of his feedings with no residuals.  This is one of the big steps to get him to the Intermediate Care facility, I don't know what the full amount of food he needs to be eating is yet but we are getting closer.   He has been making good progress on his CPAP, he went up on the Oxygen a little bit the first night but since then they h...

Sorry for the delay in getting this blog post up for everyone, but the past couple days have been pretty eventful.  I feel a bit like deja-vu to my post for last Friday, we have good and bad news, luckily the good news is around Logan and the bad news around me.   I will start out with the good news!  We have finally made the HU GE step we had been waiting for as of this afternoon.  Can you spot the difference?? That's right...we are officially on the CPAP and off the ventilator!!  According to the nurse and doctor, he is doing really well on it so far.  His oxygen continues to be at 21% and the nurses feel like he is much more comfortable now without the tube pulling his face one way or the other.  Next big step is to get him off the CPAP completely and just using the tubular breathing device that puts the small plastic pieces up your nose (sorry I have no idea what the technical term is).  After we get that done and he is on full feedings...

Well, I am not sure if you would call the last 2 days bad days or just not as good days.  Logan is doing ok, don't worry but we have had some things come up that are a little more worrisome than we have in the past.  Yesterday the opthamologist was back to check on Logan's eye, I happened to get to the NICU right as he was finishing up so he was able to fill me in in person.  He said that he was not as pleased with the progress as he was last week and that he is worried about the risk for glaucoma.  He said that the blood was still there however on the positive side the pressure in his eye is better than it had been the week before.   He said that we are decreasing the number of drops he will be getting as he has been on them for a while now, not sure how that will affect us...   He is coming back sometime this weekend to check it again and then we may have to make a decision if little Logan is going to need surgery or not.  We should know more on...

Love these little fingers!! The last couple days continue to bring some good progress!  We did get confirmation from the doctor that the PDA had closed up and we are back on our feedings.  They feed him 6ccs  every 3 hours which comes out to a little over a teaspoon each feeding.  Even though I don't feel like my milk has fully come in at this rate I am able to keep up the supply for his demand so that is a plus!!   He got another bath last night and weighed and we are now up to 4 pounds 5 ounces!!!  I can't believe how fast he is growing...when we first checked into the NICU they told us that we would be lucky if at 10 days Logan was back at his birth weight...instead we are now over a pound heavier!!  They did say some of this could be water weight and some of the instruments on him but I think that a lot of that has to be our little man too.  He sure looks fatter and bigger to me!  :)   His breathing is still coming alon...

Another little foot picture, I am kinda obsessed with them!! Logan is officially 33 weeks old as of today!  We are still making little progress every day which is reassuring.  Yesterday Logan got his second bath and they weighed him again.  He is now weighing in at 3 pounds 14.5 ounces, which is up 7.5 ounces from last Wednesday and 11.5 since birth!!  He still has some stuff on him which might skew the total a bit but I think its a good comparison from Wednesday to now...7.5 oz sound good to me!!   He is still being sat up in his "lazy boy" and when I got to the hospital today he looked like a little buddha!  I guess he doesn't stay up very well so he kinda melts down into himself and just looks like this tiny fat baby...pretty funny looking but not sure how comfortable it is for him.  They repositioned him a bit but he is still up pretty high, hopefully it is helping with his eye and his head though.   His oxygen went back a little bit a...

Our lil man is One Week Old!! One week down and one week closer to Logan coming home!!  I can't believe that it has been a week, it seems like it has been a year but I am just so glad that he has been making such great progress every day.  Today was no different, when we talked to the nurses they said that everything was going well, pretty uneventful which at this point we will take as a good sign.  The big news today was that we got his updated bilirubin score (which determines his jaundice) and it is low enough now that our lil man can finally get out from under the tanning bed!!  He had previously had it on him 24 hours a day and it was pretty noisy as well, now he just gets to hang out in his super quiet bed with a blanket over the top so it will be nice and dark, sure seems more comfortable to me! Due to the medicine they use to try and close off the PDA, Logan needed to get some more platelets.  I guess there is a shortage right now so we had to ...

Well, today was both a good day and a bad day for the Douglas household!  On the good side, our lil man continues to make great progress!!  He is still tolerating his feedings with no issues there.  The Cardiologist came back today to check on his PDA valve which still wasn't showing any signs of closing, so they started him on the medicine that will hopefully do the trick.  While he is on the medicine however they will have to stop feedings but hopefully they should start back up after he receives the 3 doses.  If the medicine works, that will keep us from having to do a minor surgery so lets keep our fingers crossed on that one!!   He did have to get some more platelets today but otherwise his blood count looked good and he hasn't required a transfusion.  As I have mentioned before, they have him all propped up to help his eye and his head, the nurses were kidding that when he gets home he is going to need a lazy boy because he is so used to bein...

Another good day in the books for Mr. Logan!  He continues his feedings and seems to be tolerating them well.  He is getting 4 cc's every 4 hours, 4 times a day and so far so good.  They have also added some Lipids to his fluids in order to help give him a little more fat besides just the feedings.   When we were there he was much more alert than we have ever seen him and the nurse informed him that they have taken his sedation medicine from every 4 hours to every 8 and we can definitely tell the difference.  He opened both eyes (I had previously never seen him open his right eye much) his arms and legs were moving around and he was doing a lot of sucking on his tubes which is a good sign.  It was nice to see him a little more with it and it didn't seem like he was in pain.   Also, while we were there the occupational therapist and physical therapist were there checking out his head and seeing what we should do to help with the forming and swelling...

Logan holding Daddy's finger! Another good day in the world of Logan!  The most exciting part of our day is that as of last night, they were able to totally ween Logan off his Dopamene (it was regulating his blood pressure) which in turn means Logan got his first meal this afternoon!!  They said that he took it really well and didn't have any spit up which was a great sign so hopefully this is just the beginning and we will be able to continue this going forward!  (now if only my milk will come in so I can feed him!) Besides that, the cardiologist came in again today and the PDA valve that I mentioned before still hasn't closed.  They are going to check it one more time on Friday and if there is still no progress they will try using medicine to close it.  We are hoping this will work but if not he will have to have a little procedure where they will go in through his back to manually close it off.   Logan's Home Away from Home! When we were there...

Today was a good day!  We called the nurses first thing this morning to get an update on how the evening went.  They said that he had a good night with not much action (something we want to hear!).  He had to go up on the ventilator volume but his oxygen is still down at the minimum amount and he is handling it just fine.  He had to get some more blood last night and some platelets due to him being anemic but since that time his blood pressure was much more regulated.  She said they had him sedated so he could just rest and get better and mentioned how cozy he was looking today.   Logan Bradley, 3 days old! I decided to head that way at lunch time for a bit of touch time with my lil man.  His blood pressure was still looking good and they said that there was a good chance that he would not need a transfusion today...it's the first day without one so we will take that at as a huge step.  He got his eye drops while I was there to take car...

After my first night back in the house (I had somewhat forgotten that walls could have colors other than white and beds could be soft and not move up and down at the touch of a button) we called into the NICU to get an update on Logan to see how he did during his second night.  The nurse on staff filled us in that Logan had had a pretty rough night and morning with the recovery he was still going through from them trying to change his breathing method.  Also, the doctors had ordered for 3 different specialists to come in and look at Logan to see how he was progressing.  The Cardiologist (heart), the Opthamologist (eyes) and the Neurologist (brain).  I will address each of these below shortly and what we found out... We let the nurse know we were planning on coming in for touch time and would see her soon.  When we got there we were able to hold his hand and grip his feet a little bit and give him as much love and support possible.  We both felt that the s...

Our first day as parents!!  We woke up from what some might call as sleep, I thought it was more torture with the number of nurses coming and going that evening and headed straight down to the NICU to check on Logan.  He was fairly stable from the night before and even just over night we could see that some of the swelling in his head and bruising on his face was starting to get a bit better.  The nurse filled us in that he was already at the lowest level of oxygen required and that there was a chance we might be able to move him from the throat tube to the nose ventilator later that day.  His blood pressure seemed to be maintaining pretty well, however he had to have some help from the medicine to fully regulate.  He was also doing fairly well maintaining his body temperature which they seemed pretty pleased about.   They did fill us in that he was anemic and would need a blood transfusion later that day.  My lil man has the same blood type as me...

Hello everyone and welcome to our blog about Logan's Journey into this world!  After about 10 months of trying to get pregnant and working with the REI (however we got pregnant all on our own) we finally got the wonderful news that we were pregnant one day before my 34th birthday in April.  Throughout the beginning of our pregnancy everything went great, no morning sickness, all the tests were great and I kept telling everybody I was a cheating pregnant woman since I was feeling so great (little did I know that this was going to jinx me in the long run!).   At our anatomy scan at 20 weeks we found out that LBD (Lil Baby Douglas at the time) was a little boy and we were so excited.  I had had a feeling since day 1 that it was a boy and Chris was so excited that the Douglas name would live on.  While we were at that appt we were unable to see his face as he was so far down in my pelvis.  The doctors wanted us to do another ultrasound at 24 weeks to chec...