Picture Post!

Lots of GOOD news!!

I'm so sorry for not updating sooner. To my defense, I've been pretty tired and busy - b/w pumping every 2 - 3 hours and trying to sleep in between at night, trying to spend some time with Aislynn and going back and forth to the hospital to spend time with Logan, there is hardly any down time left. Well, there really isn't any 'down' time left anymore anyway!

We had a few rough days with Logan having a chest tube and being on both ventilators. It was awful going in there and seeing him so sedated, but even worse seeing him in pain and agitated when the sedatives had begun to wear off. But, in the big picture...that was all short lived.

His chest tube was taken out on Friday!! They water sealed it on Thursday, but the next xray was questionable, and they didn't think the pneumothorax had healed yet, so they unsealed the tube. Friday, they sealed it again - and did more xrays...and no more pneumothorax! So, they took the chest tube out.

They decided on Saturday to wean Logan off one ventilator (the oscillating one) to just the conventional vent. We went in Sunday and ... he was not on a vent at all! He's breathing completely on his own with the help of oxygen through the nasal canula.

Logan's lungs are still hazy - so he's still dealing with preterm lung disease...but that's ok. One thing at a time, and he gave us 2...I'll take that! His oxygen level is at 40%, and room air is 21%...so he's still got a ways to go. He's also receiving it at 2 L of pressure, and they've tried several times to wean him to 1 L, unsuccessfully. He's just not ready to handle that on his own yet. Regardless...I'm so thankful for the huge leaps forward we've made (he's made) in the past few days. The nurses that were working last week came in after the weekend and are all amazed at how well he did over the weekend.

He still gets very upset and agitated any time he is moved, touched or 'messed with' (diaper changes, etc...). When this happens, his respiratory rate shoots up like crazy and his oxygen saturation goes way down. As he has more comfortable breathing time, he should be able to better regulate this... which brings me to...

I FINALLY got to hold him on Sunday!! Matt and I got there while the doctor's were doing their rounds, and the dr. asks me if I've gotten to hold him yet - I couldn't even say no, the tears were just coming too fast. That was not a good question to ask me! He tells the nurse to go ahead and take his UAC (umbilical artery catheter) out and let me kangaroo with him. I held his head and arms and Matt held his legs while they took out the catheter...poor baby did not like the tape being removed or the tubing coming out. He didn't bleed for long once it was removed. Then, I got to kangaroo with him. It was so relieving. 8 days old and I hadn't been able to hold him....another thing that is completely unnatural. As soon as he was laid on my chest, he calmed down and his monitor showed him breathing beautifully. Amazing. Matt was able to kangaroo with him too...he was so comfortable being held. I've been able to hold him every day now. I love it.

Oh yeah - another huge thing...they started feeding him (through a tube) on Sunday morning! He's been tolerating the breastmilk very well, so they've slowly increased him from 3 mL every 3 hours to 18 mL every 3 hours. He might be getting more tomorrow, we'll see. It's pretty exciting because I can't do much - but I am pumping...it's about the only thing I can do for him. And now he gets to have it. I'll be able to start trying to feed him by Friday. The nurse practicioner thinks he'll do well with it because he gets so worked up, but he loves his pacifier...so she thinks it will be calming to him - eventually helping him learn to self regulate himself too.

So much has happened in the past few days, I'm sure I didn't cover it all...but I think I got all the main things! Prayer works...it really is amazing to see what strides he's taken so quickly. I really am so very thankful.

As for Aislynn, my sweet girl. She's having a hard time understanding why I'm not around. Although she was very happy the entire time I was in the hospital on bedrest, then recovering from the c-section, she was still affected by everything that's going on. She doesn't like the hospital now, because it's where I went and didn't come home. Her sleep has gotten much more restless...she wakes up crying now, calling for mommy and daddy. It breaks my heart. I know she's being well taken care of when I'm not around...and she is happy, but my poor girl...her world has been turned upside down. I'm constantly reassuring her that I will come back. I can't wait to bring Logan home and get some sort of routine back in our lives. I feel that will help her so much. I know that she will get through this too...but it's still hard because a 21 month old just can't really understand all that is happening. Makes me teary just thinking about it.

Matt's still going to work - I know he'll need to take some time off eventually...and it will probably be needed when we do bring Logan home, so for now, he needs to keep his schedule the same. It also keeps some kind of normalcy around.

Thanks to everyone for the prayers, food and everything that you've done. We saw with Aislynn just how blessed we were to have you all in our lives - and we get to see it again. I'm so thankful for friends/family like you all. This is such a rough time in our lives - and I get so much encouragement from what most would consider the little things.

Ok...that's all for now. I'll post some pics next!

Let the rollercoaster begin...

We had a long night last night - it certainly wasn't boring...and not boring in the ICN is not good. The xray I'd mentioned in the previous post looked good. It was taken about lunch. The nurse practitioner was pretty content with it, so it caused me no alarm. They weren't able to take him of the cpap, so I wasn't able to hold him.

Later in the evening, Matt got here and we had dinner together...then headed into the ICN to see Logan. They had just done another chest xray, because his breathing had become even more rapid and they were waiting to get it back from radiology. Within minutes, his bedside was swarming with dr's, nurses, respiratory therapists, etc. The neonatologist showed me the xray - his pneumothorax had not healed itself and the air trapped in his body had increased a lot and was putting tension on his heart, shifting it over even more to the left. Never a good thing. They gave Logan some morphene and a few other medicines to sedate him, then put the ventilator in. Once that was in, they put a chest tube in to let the air leave his body. We were told when they were finished and went back to see him. At first sight, it was horrible to see the chest tube in his little body. It looked so painful. He was still knocked out from the pain medications/sedatives, but soon after started to jerk awake. The doctor wasn't leaving his side, making sure that as the next set of issues arrived, he would be there to make a split second decision.

After several theories of what was going on, the dr. decided to put Logan on a different type of vent..an ocillating one. That combined with some medications was supposed to let his lungs relax enough to help the pneumothorax heal along with increasing blood pressure to get the blood to flow through his lungs like it's supposed to, as opposed to bypassing the lungs altogether because of pulmonary hypertension. It was a lot to absorb, so I'm sure I'm missing bits and pieces.

It was getting late, and I needed to get my pain medications, but as soon as we decided that we would leave him, he started trying to cry over the vent. It was so sad...and the look on his face was complete distress. There was no way I could leave with him in pain...so we waited another 20 minutes for them to give him some more morphene so that I would know he wasn't hurting. That's another one of the worst feelings in the world...seeing an baby that small and helpless in pain. We left the ICN around midnight. I went back in at 3 to check on him and he was doing much better, so then I was able to sleep a few more hours.

It was one of those nights where everything is happening in a whirlwind and it is terrifying. You know in the back of your mind that everything is going to be fine, and that most likely, the next day or two will be calm...but that doesn't get rid of the fear/worry at that exact moment.

This morning, I went in to him still being on the vent...but breathing much, much more easily. His latest xray showed his lungs with no extra air around them. Also, an echo was done of his heart and it looked really good too. He was still very uncomfortable, so they are alternating a dose of morphene with a dose of a retrograde amnesia causing medicine, that way he has no recollection of the pain. Tests came back negative for pulmonary hypertension, so they are able to stop the dopamine. Also, his O2 levels were good, so they started lowering him off the vent. The last time I was in there, they had taken him down to 35% O2 (vent setting) and room air is 20% O2...

I haven't checked on him in 3 hours...and a lot can change in such a short time. I hope he's having a very boring evening. Matt's on his way now to bring me a cool wrap from chick-fil-a (much better than hospital dinner) and then we'll go see our little man.

I'm discharged tomorrow. I have such mixed feelings about it. I've been away from home for almost 2 weeks, and that means away from my house, my bed, my things....and most importantly, my family. I miss Aislynn so badly I can't even describe it. I know when I get home, I'm still not going to really be able to take care of her, b/c I need time to recover from my c-section and I'll be going back and forth to the hospital a few times a day to try to feed/spend time with Logan too. But, just being home w/ Matt, Aislynn and even Molly will be great. It's going to be a really hard day tomorrow though. You come to the hospital pregnant, have a baby...and leave without the baby. There's just something not right about that picture. It's going to feel like my heart is torn...I can already feel the lump that's growing in my throat, just thinking about it. It will be nice to be home, though. Ok..I feel a meltdown coming on, so I'll leave it at this for now. If I'm missing out on something, or you don't quite get what I'm saying...just send me an email or something. I don't mind at all.

A few pictures from this morning

Logan is on CPAP now, to keep constant pressure in his lungs, in order to keep them open so that he can breathe efficiently.

Although it looks a bit scary, it has actually reduced the amount of work he was doing to breathe, so he's able to rest much easier today.

I was told this morning that he has pneumothorax, where some pressure in his lungs caused air to leak out into the pleural cavity. They said that most likely, this would heal itself - so they turned down the pressure on the CPAP and increased his oxygen. They are going to take another xray in a few minutes to see if his body has absorbed that air and to make sure it hasn't increased. If for some reason it hasn't healed itself and actually gets worse, they'll put a chest tube in to release the air pressure. This isn't something abnormal - they apparently deal with it on a regular basis. That's comforting...but when it's your kid, it's still concerning. The doctor's aren't worried about it...it's just a bump in the road that they are used to. I'll find out more about what's going on with that after the next xray.

Also, they may take him off cpap later and see how he does. His nurse told me that I might be able to hold him later too. It's so difficult to watch your baby lying there and not be able to hold him...it's like he's yours, but not really. The good news is that now that it's been almost 2 days, they got his mrsa culture back and it was negative, so at least now we can touch him without having to wear gloves.

Logan Matthew Strother

Logan is the newest edition to our family, and definitely is most welcomed and loved. He came to us on August 16, 2008 (34 weeks) at 6:28 pm. Logan weighed in at 4 lbs, 11 oz and 18 inches long. He is already double Aislynn's weight at birth, and although so tiny, he's still 'big'! Logan will be spending his first weeks in the Intensive Care Nursery at WakeMed in Raleigh, following after his big sister's footsteps. We know from experience that this is a rough road, but we just keep moving forward, one day at a time. We have a lot to be thankful for.

Logan also looks much bigger in the pictures than he really is. I'll do a comparison shot of something familiar soon so everyone can have a good idea of his size.

This is our life :)

Hi everyone! I've created this blog to keep running updates of how we are all doing. Matt, Aislynn, Logan and myself. (Even Molly will get thrown in, too!)

I'm going to initially get some pictures of Logan up, then I'll just update regularly, as I get the time.