One Month Old!

Logan and Paige were one month old this past Friday!! Where has the time gone? To say that this last month has been a rollercoaster would be an understatement. The important thing, though, is that we have our two precious miracle babies and we just love them to pieces! We've gotten into a pretty good schedule. They're eating about 3-4 oz every 4 hours. I nurse each of them at least once a day, I pump for bottles and we supplement with formula. This is what works best for us right now and the babies are gaining weight like champs. So, I'm pleased with my breastfeeding at the moment. Would I love to exclusively breastfeed both babies? Of course! It's MUCH cheaper and it's the most natural food for them. But, that is just not realistic for us. They're both happy, healthy and Chris and I have our sanity...for the most part. :-) These are the things that are important.

Friday night we stopped waking them to eat in the middle of the night. Our pediatrician had suggested that we start now in hopes that we'll have them sleeping through the night soon. Won't that be awesome! They've done pretty well with it so far I think. We feed them around 9:30 and then put them down for the night between 10:00-10:30, depending on how long it takes for them to eat and get their diapers changed. So far they've gone 5 straight hours between feedings. That means we have one feeding around 2:30 in the morning and then they wake again around 6:30ish to eat again. After this feeding we start our schedule for the day which means that they eat every four hours at that point. Hopefully we'll be able to drop the middle of the night feeding soon. We're not going to deny them that feeding right now, though, if they wake up hungry. They're only a month old and are still little (even though they weigh over 6 and 7 lbs now!). Logan weighed 6 lbs 4 oz at the doctor on Friday and we're guessing that Paige has to be over 7 lbs now. Woohoo!

As for Mr. Logan, we had the follow up appointment with the cardiomyopathy specialist on Friday. They took blood to run genetic testing on him. She wants to rule out something called Barth's Syndrome. This is a very scary disease, but thankfully she and the pediatrician both feel that this is NOT what he has. She just has to rule it out. However, she is pretty certain that he does have left ventricular non-compaction. Thankfully his heart function is completely normal right now. He will need to be monitored closely, though, to make sure that it stays this way and that his heart function doesn't start to deteriorate. The severity of this condition varies greatly. Some people go their whole lives not ever being affected by it and others have severe cases and end up needing heart transplants. The positive thing is that Logan's heart function is normal and we're just praying that God heals his little heart and keeps his function normal. There is medicine that can be given if the heart does start to deteriorate, but we're going to think positively and believe that he won't ever need any sort of intervention.

So, that pretty much sums up what's going on around here. Below are their one month pictures and pictures from bath time. Enjoy!

Logan in his froggy towel

Paige in her ducky towel

What's been going on around here...

We had a great week last week! We took Logan and Paige to the pediatrician last Tuesday for a follow up visit and they both had great weights. Logan weighed 5 lbs 6 oz and Paige weighed 6 lbs 3 oz!!! While we were there, our pediatrician FINALLY received a call back from the cardiologist that we'll be seeing on Friday. She left a really comforting message. Her message said that Logan's heart function is completely normal and for our pediatrician to tell us not to be concerned. She said it looks like it's just something we'll need to follow. Praise God!!!!! I cannot even begin to tell you how happy and relieved we were to hear this. On top of that, I was able to speak to a client from work who happens to be one of the head doctors in the cardiology department at Tex.as Child.rens on Wednesday evening. He had actually been one of the doctors to look at Logan's holter monitoring from when he was in the hospital that week. He also looked at Logan's EKG from two weeks ago. He told me that he agrees that Logan's heart function is completely normal and that he believes there is no reason for us to lose any sleep at night. He said that we'll probably just need to follow up in 3-4 months with another echocardiogram to make sure that things haven't gotten worse, but that he serioulsy doubts that would be the case since Logan's heart function is normal. He knows the specialist that we'll be seeing on Friday and he spoke very highly of her. According to him we'll be in great hands with her. Woohoo!!!!!!

On Thursday I said goodbye to my twenties as I turned the big 3-0. I had a great birthday and I couldn't imagine a better 30th birthday present than the two precious babies that God has given me!!! Chris did such a great job making my birthday special. I have the best husband...and he's a pretty awesome daddy too! :-) My mom also came into town on Thursday to help out for a few days. It was great to have help with the laundry and washing bottles. I already dislike washing bottles! We enjoyed celebrating my birthday that night just the five of us and then we had a great time celebrating with Chris' family on Friday night. My birthday celebration just kept going!

Thank you all again for all the prayers and well wishes for Logan! I'll update everyone as to what the specialist tells us on Friday. I'm so anxious to find out exactly what is going on and where we go from here. Keep the prayers coming!

Here is a pic of Logan and Paige enjoying their boppys!

Update on Logan

As you know, our little Logan got to come home from the hospital last Monday afternoon. We are so happy to have our little man home again! I'm going to ask all of you to keep praying for Logan. We found out on Wednesday that something is wrong with his heart. We had to go back to Tex.as Child.ren's for an EKG and an echocardiogram. The EKG looked good, but the echo showed that something had not formed properly with the heart muscle in his left ventricle. The specialist that we saw specializes in arrhythmias and not cardiomyopathy, so her best guess is that he has something called non-compaction of the left ventricle. This is apparently a very complex condition and very complicated to diagnose. We have been referred to another cardiologist who specializes in cardiomyopathy. Unfortunately, we won't be able to see her for two weeks. We have NO idea how minor or serious the problem is or if this is even what he has. Please pray that if there is something wrong that it is very minor.

I cannot even begin to describe how hard all of this has been. There is nothing more heartbreaking than knowing that something is wrong with your child and not being able to do anything for them. I HATE the waiting game. I want his appointment to be tomorrow. I want them to tell us that they made a mistake and there is absolutely nothing wrong with his heart. I hate that I am now starting to experience some depression from all of this. I just want to enjoy our new little family and not have to feel this way. I wish there was a magic button I could push that would snap me out of it. I want to hold Logan and cry tears of joy instead of tears of sadness at the thoughts of what might be in his future with this heart issue. I am SO incredibly grateful for these precious babies. Is it too much to ask for them to be healthy, though? What parent doesn't want that for their children?

I'll leave you on a happy note. Here is a picture of Logan and Paige on their first Halloween. :-)

Logan & Paige

Here's a pic we took today of Logan & Paige! Until I have time to properly update this will have to do! :-)

Logan is coming home!!!

Thank you again to everyone for all of the thoughts and prayers for our little man. He's coming home today!!!! We're so excited that our little family will be back together again! Logan is doing really well. He looks SO much better than he did last Monday. All of his tests have come back negative, so he either did pick up some sort of virus that wasn't detected or it was just due to him being premature and under 5 lbs. Thankfully if it was a virus of some sort it would have run it's course by now and he was on three different antibiotics last week to knock out anything bacterial that might have been going on.

This past week has absolutely been one of the hardest weeks of my life. On top of Logan being in the hospital, Chris came down with strep throat Friday evening. Superb! He is much better now thanks to the high-powered antibiotics they gave him and it looks as though Paige and I have managed to escape the germs. My emotions were all over the place last week. Many times I found myself wanting to curl up in a ball somewhere and hide until this was all over. All our prayers were answered, though. God pulled Chris and I through and our little guy is better and coming home. I'm going to try my best to keep up with blogging now that our whole family will be home. Hopefully once I get into a routine I'll be able to squeeze in a few minutes to post pics and update everyone. We'll see how that goes!

Update on Logan

Thank you so much for all of your thoughts and prayers! Keep them coming! Thankfully Logan had a much better day yesterday. He was taken off of the CPAP machine yesterday morning and they took him off the warmer yesterday afternoon. He started bottle feeds yesterday and we got to hold him and feed him last night! I can't even tell you how amazing it was to get to hold our little man. He was so sick on Monday and going downhill quickly. It's amazing how much can change in less than 24 hours. When we left last night everything was still going well. They're going to bump his feeding amount up today and we should have the final results back from the blood cultures today. As I was told by several people, no news is good news at TCH. So, we're hoping that this was just an episode of him dropping his temp because he is so little and still premature. It's definitely scary that this can happen, but it could be so much worse too. We're hoping for another encouraging day for him today. I'll keep you updated.

Prayers Please!!!

Please pray for our sweet boy, Logan. He was admitted to the Level III NICU at Texas Chil.dren's Hosp.ital yesterday for hypothermia. He was put under a warmer and also put on a CPAP machine because he was having apnea episodes. He was very lethargic yesterday and did not want to wake up for his early morning feedings. He is stable and they are running every test known to man to try and figure out what's going on. The main thing they are looking at is infection. Thankfully, he is keeping his body temp up while in his heated bed and his heart rate was good overnight. He has not required any oxygen at any time but the CPAP is helping him to not have to work as hard to breathe. He also has a feeding tube now, but they have not started feeding him through it yet. We're hoping they will start feeding him this morning.

Please pray that the doctors are able to determine exactly what is going on with him and that it is just something very minor. Please also pray for Chris and me as we try to split our time with Logan and with our sweet girl, Paige. I'll update as we know more.