I'm sorry I've been so quiet on here lately, but it's very hard trying to put the way I feel into words. It's so hard coming to terms with the fact that Logan will be having a major open heart surgery in just a matter of days. I don't think anything can prepare you as a parent to deal with something like this. It's evident that hundreds of prayers are going up for Logan and us because my fear has slowly been replaced with peace. I'm still a bit anxious (looking forward to with dread... not to be confused with eager :P), but I know that God is with me.
One thing that I've tried to avoid is asking or accusing God... I don't really feel the need to ask "why?" or "why him?" or "why us?" In the 9 months of having Logan here with us, I think I have figured part of it out myself. God gave Logan a special heart because he truly has a special heart. He touches everyone he crosses paths with and brings joy to so many people. One great example is when we participated in the Directed Donor program through the Red Cross last week. The surgeon ordered 4 units of red cells and 1 unit of platelets so Jason, Ellen, and I all went in to donate on the same day. Logan was with us and all of the nurses fell in love with him. He walked around the waiting area with Ellen and when we left, everyone I saw had a smile on their face. The last person to donate blood was the office manager from my chiropractor's office. When I went in for adjustments, she would hold Logan and walk around with him and I think she kinda fell in love with him :). I just can't get over the fact that she, someone we didn't even know 6 months ago, was willing to give blood - life - to my son. There are no words that I can express to tell her how grateful I am. God is so amazing and never ceases to surprise me.
The nurses asked me to send in a picture and story to tell why we gave blood. They want to put stories up on a wall to encourage other people to donate. I don't think it would take anything more than one of Logan's smiles to convince someone to give blood :).
I could go on and on about the lives he has touched... people at my work are in prayer for him and have added him to prayer lists all over the country. Family and friends spanning from Washington state all the way down to Florida and across the ocean in England are praying for him. He is a precious, loved little boy! I pray that this surgery will be the last one he'll need and that he will be completely healed. I know he will have a powerful testimony :).
I'll end this post with a bit of scripture that I absolutely love... I've read it many times before I got pregnant, but now it holds a completely different meaning to me:
13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, 16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. - Psalm 139: 13-16
Now that I'm all weepy, I'm going to head to bed. Please keep us and especially Logan in your prayers leading up to his surgery. He has been coughing today and has a bit of a temperature :(. I hate to see him not feeling well... and besides that, if he is sick or has a fever when we go in for pre-op, they will have to reschedule his surgery.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Dear Logan....
To make things a little different, I'm going to start writing blog posts in the form of letters to my little guy :). I'm hoping that someday I can print these off and put them in his baby book :).
Dear Logan,
You'll be 6 months old this Saturday and I can't believe it! On one hand, it doesn't seem like that much time has passed, but on the other hand, so much has happened in such a short amount of time! You had your first heart surgery at 2.5 months and you're becoming such a big boy! You're SO close to saying your first word and you're just as close to figuring out how to crawl. You push yourself up on your hands and knees and kinda weeble-wobble around. Soon we'll be putting plugs in all the outlets and putting gates at the top and bottom of the stairs. You have figured out how to roll around and do an army-esque shimmy crawl on the hardwoods. I just need to put a dusting cloth underneath you so that the floors will get cleaned up while you're moving around ;). Your first two teeth poked through on the bottom last weekend and the top ones are close to coming in as well. You're still trying to figure out what they are and why they're there. You love your exersaucer and you've learned that the buttons make noises when you push them. You have loved to stand up since before your surgery and your legs are so strong! I took the sling out of your bathtub about a week ago and you love to sit up like a big boy while taking your bath. You've also figured out how to splash and hit the bubbles. You like it when I sing to you... your favorite songs are "Itsy Bitsy Spider", "I like to eat eat eat eeples and baneenees", and "Jesus Loves Me". Sometimes you make noises like you're singing along :). You have the most precious and contagious smile. I keep a picture of you on my computer at work and everyone loves looking at it. You love "nanners" and oatmeal and you're starting to like other foods too. In fact, you just gave me an oatmeal "kissy" and got it all over my cheek :). You're pretty much sleeping through the night (thank you Daylight Savings Time), but you like getting up at about 5 or 5:30 to eat. Gandalf still doesn't know what to think about you, but you want to be best buddies. I'm sure you will be someday :). You are so precious and the apple of my eye and I love you more than I could ever say!
~Mommy
Dear Logan,
You'll be 6 months old this Saturday and I can't believe it! On one hand, it doesn't seem like that much time has passed, but on the other hand, so much has happened in such a short amount of time! You had your first heart surgery at 2.5 months and you're becoming such a big boy! You're SO close to saying your first word and you're just as close to figuring out how to crawl. You push yourself up on your hands and knees and kinda weeble-wobble around. Soon we'll be putting plugs in all the outlets and putting gates at the top and bottom of the stairs. You have figured out how to roll around and do an army-esque shimmy crawl on the hardwoods. I just need to put a dusting cloth underneath you so that the floors will get cleaned up while you're moving around ;). Your first two teeth poked through on the bottom last weekend and the top ones are close to coming in as well. You're still trying to figure out what they are and why they're there. You love your exersaucer and you've learned that the buttons make noises when you push them. You have loved to stand up since before your surgery and your legs are so strong! I took the sling out of your bathtub about a week ago and you love to sit up like a big boy while taking your bath. You've also figured out how to splash and hit the bubbles. You like it when I sing to you... your favorite songs are "Itsy Bitsy Spider", "I like to eat eat eat eeples and baneenees", and "Jesus Loves Me". Sometimes you make noises like you're singing along :). You have the most precious and contagious smile. I keep a picture of you on my computer at work and everyone loves looking at it. You love "nanners" and oatmeal and you're starting to like other foods too. In fact, you just gave me an oatmeal "kissy" and got it all over my cheek :). You're pretty much sleeping through the night (thank you Daylight Savings Time), but you like getting up at about 5 or 5:30 to eat. Gandalf still doesn't know what to think about you, but you want to be best buddies. I'm sure you will be someday :). You are so precious and the apple of my eye and I love you more than I could ever say!
~Mommy
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
(Almost) 5 Month Update
I can't believe it's been almost 3 months since my last post. So much has happened since then and Logan seems to change everyday. His first surgery was on July 22nd and was very successful. He's had a couple of follow-up appointments since then and they were both very positive. He continues to gain weight and has met all of the developmental milestones. In fact, he's actually ahead of the game with most of them :). The cardiologist said he's very advanced and even though I'm his mother, I tend to agree ;).
Life as a working mom is pretty crazy. I still want to stay home with Logan, but until his next surgery is complete, I'm going to continue working so that he'll have two medical insurances. I just hope that after his surgery we'll be able to find a way for me to stay at home. It's so hard for me to leave Logan every day so that I can go to work. I took half of a sick day last week to stay home with him and I absolutely loved it :). This little guy is my world :). He has me wrapped around his little fingers.
He rolled over for the first time last week (from his back to his tummy). He's also starting to push himself up. I expect him to start crawling in the next couple of months. He's a strong little guy and loves to stand up (supported, of course). I bought him an exersaucer (at a consignment shop, yay) and he loves it. The seat spins all the way around so he's constantly excited about the toys he finds when he moves. He laughs and smiles a lot... he's generally a pretty happy baby. He likes taking baths and he has started jabbering a lot more. When he talks, his sounds are much more word-like. It really sounds like he's speaking his own language sometimes :). I'm trying to teach him "mama", but who knows what his first word will be :).
I'm still breastfeeding him and hope to do it as long as possible, which could be challenging. I pump at work twice a day and go visit him at the babysitter's house on my lunch break to feed him. He isn't a big fan of drinking from a bottle, but he has gotten better about it. He doesn't have much of a choice while I'm at work :P. He has started biting because he's teething and he's learning the word "no". I'm hoping he'll figure it out before his teeth come in because that really won't be pleasant. We've been dealing with thrush for the past month or longer. I didn't realize that's what it was because I just assumed the white inside of his cheeks was milk residue. Instead, it's a nasty yeast infection that he has passed on to me. We're using both natural remedies and traditional medicine to try to clear it up. Yeast is not fun.
I have a few post topics in my head and I'm hoping to actually write about them soon. Here are a few of my ideas:
New mom essentials
Breastfeeding adventures
Dealing with surgery
I started a post about surgery just a couple days after we came home from the hospital but I didn't get very far. It's really hard to put those emotions into words, but if you are interested in reading about it, I'll try to remember the details enough to write an entire post about it. If you have any other requests or questions or anything, let me know and I'll try to address it/them in a future post. In the meantime, have a good one and I'll try to write again soon :).
Life as a working mom is pretty crazy. I still want to stay home with Logan, but until his next surgery is complete, I'm going to continue working so that he'll have two medical insurances. I just hope that after his surgery we'll be able to find a way for me to stay at home. It's so hard for me to leave Logan every day so that I can go to work. I took half of a sick day last week to stay home with him and I absolutely loved it :). This little guy is my world :). He has me wrapped around his little fingers.
He rolled over for the first time last week (from his back to his tummy). He's also starting to push himself up. I expect him to start crawling in the next couple of months. He's a strong little guy and loves to stand up (supported, of course). I bought him an exersaucer (at a consignment shop, yay) and he loves it. The seat spins all the way around so he's constantly excited about the toys he finds when he moves. He laughs and smiles a lot... he's generally a pretty happy baby. He likes taking baths and he has started jabbering a lot more. When he talks, his sounds are much more word-like. It really sounds like he's speaking his own language sometimes :). I'm trying to teach him "mama", but who knows what his first word will be :).
I'm still breastfeeding him and hope to do it as long as possible, which could be challenging. I pump at work twice a day and go visit him at the babysitter's house on my lunch break to feed him. He isn't a big fan of drinking from a bottle, but he has gotten better about it. He doesn't have much of a choice while I'm at work :P. He has started biting because he's teething and he's learning the word "no". I'm hoping he'll figure it out before his teeth come in because that really won't be pleasant. We've been dealing with thrush for the past month or longer. I didn't realize that's what it was because I just assumed the white inside of his cheeks was milk residue. Instead, it's a nasty yeast infection that he has passed on to me. We're using both natural remedies and traditional medicine to try to clear it up. Yeast is not fun.
I have a few post topics in my head and I'm hoping to actually write about them soon. Here are a few of my ideas:
New mom essentials
Breastfeeding adventures
Dealing with surgery
I started a post about surgery just a couple days after we came home from the hospital but I didn't get very far. It's really hard to put those emotions into words, but if you are interested in reading about it, I'll try to remember the details enough to write an entire post about it. If you have any other requests or questions or anything, let me know and I'll try to address it/them in a future post. In the meantime, have a good one and I'll try to write again soon :).
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