A little background...

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 check on this again as they wanted to be able to cross off that everything was ok with his face.  At 24, same results so next ultrasound was scheduled at the same time as my gestational diabetes test at 27 weeks. 

At the 27 week appt, we still couldn't see his face and while doing the ultrasound the doctors noticed that his head looked a little swollen and that my cervix was a little short, they said it was nothing big but they wanted me to go see the Perinatals to get checked out just a case.  While at the Perinatals they didn't find or worry about either of the things mentioned by my OB but did find a very rare situation going on with my placenta.  Basically, there are 2 layers of the placenta the chorion that is attached to the uterus and the amnion which holds the baby.  The two layers are supposed to be fused after 12 weeks or so and for some reason mine were not.  They told us that it is a good sign that my water will break early or that there may be some chromosomal issues.  Our first round of chromosomal testing went well but just in case they ordered the Verify testing that is a little more intense just to be sure.  On top of that, they admitted me into the hospital that Thursday afternoon for observation to make sure that nothing was going to happen soon.  

While at the hospital they gave me 2 steroid shots to help with his lungs and just monitored us both about 3 times a day.  On Monday we went back and they said that I could go home if I promised to do bed rest.  So...we went home.  I had dr appts 3 times that week and luckily they allowed me to stay at home, I went back in on September 25th and they actually thought things were looking better.  Well, then the next day I started having some leakage, more than normal, and we decided to call the drs around 9 that evening.  They told me to come in and it sounded like my water may have broken.  I went in, got checked out, thought it was a false alarm and they sent me home.  Well, then around 3am i was sleeping in bed, felt a rush coming on, stood up to go to the bathroom and just soaked myself completely...water did break and we are only at 29 weeks and 3 days.  So, at that point we went to full time hospital bedrest. 

While we were on hospital bedrest they were monitoring LBD 24 hours a day and I was going to the Perinatals for ultrasounds 2-3 times a week.  We were never able to see his face even when at this point we had probably had 15 different ultrasounds and since my water broke there was very little fluid in there for him to move around in but he seemed to be doing pretty well.  Throughout all of this, I still felt great!  It was very mind numbing and hard for an active person like me to be strapped to the bed but I knew that every day we lasted would be best for the baby.  The doctors told us that we were targeting week 34 at which point they would take the baby because the chance for infection was higher than the benefit of him being in me, however they said we would be very lucky if we could just make it 2 weeks after my water breaking.  Well, we ended up making it 2 weeks and 2 days...

On Saturday, October 12th our lil man made his big debut!  I started to go into labor at about 4am just feeling a little pain in my back and stomach while sleeping. Luckily Chris had stayed the night so was there with me.  After trying to tell if they were contractions on my own we called the nurse around 6 and the contractions were about 4-6 min apart and starting to get more painful.  The doctor came in to check and we were at 2cm and 90% effaced so they moved us to the Labor and Delivery Room where they quickly got me on the epidural.  At about 1 they checked again and I was at 3cm and 100%, then things started moving quickly...by 3 I was at 8cm and then we ready to start pushing at about 4.  After just a couple rounds our little man made it into the world.  He wasn't breathing on his own so the NICU doctors were there to give him a breathing tube and get him ready for his new home.  They had to take him straight there and I didn't get to see him until about 9:30 that evening.  After he was delivered there were more issues with the placenta and I had to get a DNC to remove the rest of my placenta.  But luckily everything else on my side had gone very smoothly and I was in recovery.  

Once he got here we were able to better understand why we weren't able to see his face for so long, he had a huge bruise around his head where he had been stuck in my pelvis.  His head had been so restricted that the only place for the head to grow was up and not out and on top of that his face was up against my pelvis so he was very bruised across his face and his nose was smushed to one side.  We and the doctors actually felt very relieved that he was delivered when he was because he had used up any space he had available and then some, I guess he was just telling us he was out of room and needed some more space!  Hopefully all this will be resolved over time but time will tell and we can just keep up the positive thoughts and prayers headed his way.  

Logan Bradley Douglas officially made his debut at 4:07pm on Saturday, October 12, weighing in at 3 pounds, 3 ounces and he was 18.5 inches long (however much of this was his head) and he was 31 weeks and 5 days along.