Off the Ventilator!!!

Logan was extubated on Friday afternoon! We are SO excited! He was put on SiPAP which helps him keep the pressure in his lungs and also helps with his oxygen. But he is now doing all the breathing on his own which is a huge step. He seems to be doing pretty well with it so far, although he wasn't too sure about the mask at first because it covers part of his face. But the tube is out of his throat and that is what we care about. The ventilator did damage parts of his lungs and have caused them to collapse a little, so he is not out of the woods yet. There is a chance he could be reintubated within a few days to a week. But if he makes it 7 days, he shouldn't have to go back on the vent. We keep our fingers crossed that he will continue to do well. The biggest concern now is that he needs to gain weight He lost about 120 grams when he was sick and following his surgery, so he really needs to put some back on. He is eating again and is getting 4 mL every 2 hours. His urine output is still not as good as they would like it to be which is a continuing concern. They give his diuretics pretty often, but the ones they give him can cause some hearing problems with long-term, continuous use. Mom got to kangaroo with him again today (she's having a hard time sharing with dad!). And we got to see his whole face with no tape or tubes or anything. He is SO cute. We'll get some new pictures up soon.
Please continue praying for our little boy. We are so thankful for the good days we have had lately, but we know we have a long way to go.
Love,
Meghann, Lance and Logan

Doing better...

Logan is recovering from his surgery very well. He had a tough time on Tuesday night and all day Wednesday. His blood pressure was low and his heart rate was high. And he had stopped peeing again. But a remarkable thing happened last night that no one could stop talking about today: he was runnning everyone at the hospital to death...until Mom and Dad showed up and started talking to him. The nurses said you could see on his chart that as soon as we got there, he turned the corner and made a BIG improvement. So much so that they are thinking of extubating him this weekend and letting him come out and play with Mom! We are so excited and relieved. He hadn't been moving much from all the anesthesia and pain killers, but he was up to his old tricks again today - hitting the nurses when they poked at him and kicking Mom when she changed his diaper. His blood pressure is right about where it should be, his heart rate is back down and he is peeing a lot. He is off the antibiotics and Dopamine that he had been on and was very alert all day. He was so alert that we actually left earlier than we had planned so he would get some rest! We try not to get too excited because things change so quickly, but we can't help being very hopeful right now. We have to cling to whatever hope we can right now because there are a lot of hopeless days. We keep praying and know that God will take care of our little miracle.
Thank you so much for the love and support and continued prayers.
Meghann, Lance and Logan

Surgery

Logan had his PDA (the duct in his heart) operated on today. We know we said we would let everyone know the date when we knew, but it kind of got sprung on us yesterday and it happened today at about 1:30. We got to be with him right up until the surgery started and it was a relatively short period of time before we got to see him again. The surgery went well. He didn't lose much blood and they did not have to put a chest tube in him. Those were our 2 biggest concerns. It was hard to see him after the surgery because he is usually so active and he was not moving at all due to the anesthesia and painkillers. It will probably be about 24 hours before he starts moving again. The next 48 hours are the most critical. His vent settings have already gone way up because he just isn't able to do the breathing work right now. The doctors say that usually within 48 hours, babies start to turn the corner and get better. We are praying really hard that this is the case with Logan. He's a tough little boy and was strong when they did the surgery, so we have faith that he will do well. We will let everyone know when we know more about how he is doing. Now that we have fixed this problem, we are hoping that we can move forward and maybe get Logan off the ventilator. And we hope that this is the last surgery our little boy will have to have for a very long time.
Please say a few extra prayers for Logan over the next 2 days as he tries to fight his way back and make forward progress.
Love,
Meghann, Lance and Logan

Kangarooing

Meghann got to kangaroo with Logan again tonight for almost 3 hours. He would have laid with her all day if she hadn't had to get up and go to the bathroom! Lance also got to hold him on Monday afternoon for about an hour. We have found out that Logan really likes to cuddle which we are pretty happy about. He gets as close to us as possible when we hold him and just kind of sticks to us. He loves it. We'll put pictures on here soon.
The good news is that Logan seems to be doing pretty well on his vent settings today. He did really well when he was kangarooing. He's also up to 5.5 mL every 2 hours and he's doing great with his feeds. He is just so darn cute and is still moving all over the place all the time. The bad news is that the hole in his heart didn't close with the last dose of medicine and is actually bigger than the doctors realized. So it has been decided that early next week, they will have to surgically close the duct. Although it is definitely a scary prospect for us and is not what we wanted at all, it will end up being better for Logan. He will be able to get of the ventilator finally and will start growing better. The bad thing is that it is surgery so he will be heavily sedated and on pain medicine, and he is still very small so the surgery is somewhat risky. And he will most likely have 3 or 4 really bad days after the surgery. But usually, babies turn around after a few days and improve relatively quickly. And the surgery is being done by the one of the best cardiac surgeons at Rainbows who comes very highly recommended by Logan's doctors. We will know more about when the surgery will happen after tomorrow. We will let everyone know when we have a date for the surgery. The other bad thing from today is that he was weighed on a more accurate scale and we found out that he is not as big as we thought. He is only 653 grams (1 pound 7 ounces). The nurses say that the scale in the bed was not as accurate because of everything else in the incubator with him. This time, he was out of his incubator. He'll be weighed again on Sunday, so hopefully he puts on some weight before then.
So Logan obviously needs a few extra prayers for the next few days, and we appreciate any extra love you could send his way. Thanks (as always) for the prayers and support.
Love,
Meghann, Lance and Logan

One Month Old!

We apologize for not putting out any new updates lately as our computer was having some issues. Anyway, Logan seems to be doing pretty well. According to his primary neonatologist, right now we just need to focus on him growing (kind of like a plant - one of the respiratory nurses has nicknamed him "Sprout"). As of last night, he was about 710 grams (about 1 pound and 9 ounces) and is 13 inches long. He is now stable enough that Meghann has been able to kangaroo with him twice. Kangarooing is similar to holding him except that it is skin-to-skin contact. So Logan lays in only his diaper on Meghann's chest and is covered up by blankets. He seems to LOVE being back with Mom and all of his vitals do better than ever when he is. Meghann absolutely loves holding him, to say the very least. The hard part is that he can only be held maybe every third day (although it is looking more like once a week) so it is hard to wait in between times. Lance will get to kangaroo with him for the first time on either Tuesday or Wednesday if he is stable. As for his health, he went up on his ventilator settings at the end of last week, but he has been able to start bringing them back down. The nurses can still hear his heart murmur, but the doctors have decided to not do anything with it unless it starts causing other problems. His kidneys were having a hard time last week as well and he was pretty swollen for about 3 days, but he has been able to turn that around too and has lost the puffiness. He is now eating 3.5 mL every 2 hours, which means he's up to about 1 ounce a day. Luckily, Mom is producing more than enough for now! Logan is definitely still as feisty as ever. He sure lets the nurses know it when he is unhappy! But they all still love him and fight over who gets to take care of him. He now has 2 primary care nurses, 1 primary neonatologist, 3 secondary nurses and about 15 other nurses who take care of him regularly, not to mention the receptionists and other nurses who just check on him and talk to him every day. He's never lonely... One nurse told us that she is surprised there haven't been fistfights over who gets to have him! It makes us very happy to know that he is so well loved there. It makes it a litte easier to leave at the end of the day. They are all really pulling for him and more than one has told us that they are praying for him. As hard as it is to be far from our families, the people at Rainbows have made it a little easier because they are so good to him. We got to see him without all the tape on his face too, and although we are a little biased, we must say that he is a beautiful little boy.
As always, we appreciate the continued prayers for our little guy. The power of prayer is an amazing thing to witness. We are truly blessed to have so many people praying for us.
Love,
Meghann, Lance and Logan

Logan is 16 days old today! We had originally been told that if he made it past the first 2 weeks he would most likely make it. We know we have a very long journey ahead of us, but we are grateful to be past one milestone.
This weekend was a pretty big one for little Logan. He had a broviac put in on Saturday afternoon. The broviac is a long-term IV that took the place of the line that had originally been put in his belly button. This line had to be put in because his veins are just too small for the picc line that was attempted twice. The line will be used for giving Logan medicine and fluids, and is the best alternative to him having to be poked all the time with temporary IVs. Logan did great during the surgery - no problems at all. The looks of it scared Mom and Dad quite a bit, but he was feisty as ever yesterday! For the first time, he had a nurse we didn't care much for. But he gave her a hard time all day by constantly setting off his alarms, so we were proud of him for that : ) Logan also received the last of his medication for the hole in his heart. He has a chest ultrasound on it today to see if the hole closed or not. If it didn't, we are likely looking at a second surgical procedure. It breaks our hearts to think that he will have had 2 surgeries before he is 3 weeks old, but it will most likely have to happen to prevent other potential heart and lung issues.
Overall though, he did have a good weekend. He got his first feeding of breastmilk yesterday! A whole 1/2 mL, which is about 2 drops. Hopefully he tolerated it well. He also put on some weight. As of yesterday morning, he was weighing in at 530 grams! That's a whole 100 grams over his birth weight! He now is about 1 pound 3 ounces! Now that he's eating, we're hoping he will continue to put on the weight. We're pretty confident that he will like eating as much as his dad does : )
Please continue to pray for Logan as we enter another week of uncertainity.
Love,
Meghann, Lance and Logan