SWAT Team

I don't remember the days anymore. I just remember different moments. I wish I would have kept a better record of what was happening with Logan but I was still so shocked and spent most of my time just staring at him and counting each breath he took. We were told by the doctors that his lungs were pretty bad. No where close to being where they needed to be. Each breath Logan took hurt and he struggled at first. The nurses tried to give him something to ease the pain but he had an allergic reaction to it. He whole body twitched and shuddered while the nurse tried to tell me it was a normal response. He was just trying to get used to his body and his neurons were firing like crazy. I knew she was wrong though. There was no way that what Logan was doing was normal. Sometimes when he twitched his whole body would jump. I mean he literally got air and finally I convinced his nurse to take another look. They agreed and took him off of the Adderall and started a Morphine drip to see if that helped. It was a major improvement. He still moved a little and twitched and always managed to somehow throw his hands up over his head but he was more still and looked rested.  I made the mistake of relaxing a little after a couple days. And then about the third or fourth day I walked into the NICU early in the morning and Logan was just laying there. He hands and arms were laying limp at his sides and his breathing was labored. He was really pale and was hardly moving at all. I was filled with dread because I knew something was wrong. The nurse explained that Logan wasn't making enough red blood cells and would need a blood transfusion. It was so scary and I asked if I could give Logan the blood he needed. They said that they didn't really do that in the hospital because it was a long process and Logan needed the blood right away. He was too worn out from trying to breath. I had to sign some forms and then I watched as they hooked up a little syringe full of blood. There was probably only like 2 tablespoons in the syringe but it was what Logan needed. Not long after the transfusion he was nice and pink again and reached his arms up high over his head just to reassure me he felt better. Gray joked that all Logan needed was a steak and I decided that he could get a syringe of blood every day after that if it helped him improve so much. However my relief was short lived. The next evening as we were getting ready to go home Logan just stopped breathing. He had been working so hard to breath and sort of decided he was done. Alarms rang and whistles blew. Our nurse was on a break so I looked around for someone to help Logan. I finally yelled at a nurse on the other side of the NICU that Logan wasn't breathing. She looked up at me and said it was ok because he was on a ventilator. I quickly told her that he was not at all on a ventilator and was in real trouble. She hustled over then and made some excuse about how she forgot that Logan had been on a ventilator the week before. I looked at her like she was crazy because the week before my baby was still inside me. By then a few more nurses came over and started stroking Logan and rubbing his feet and encouraging him to take a breath. They even picked him up and turned him over to get him breathing again. I was hysterical just watching them flip my tiny baby around so I walked into one of the family rooms and closed the door. I cried and said a prayer pleading for Heavenly Father to help Logan. I could hear them frantically working on Logan so I took a few moments to calm myself and then went back out. The first person I saw was Grayson and he was crying. I immediately assumed the worst and rushed to the end of Logan's incubator. I remember thinking that I needed to see Logan one last time. I memorized his little face as the doctors and nurses continued to work on him. I cried for everything I would never experience with him and I again felt immensely guilty for bringing him into the world too early. And then, just like that, he took a breath and I began to hold mine. I stared and urged him to take another deep breath and slowly slowly he started to breath again.  Grayson came over and we watched as Logan kept on breathing. The nurse practitioner came over and explained to us that Logan had just experienced some called a bradycardia. He has stopped breathing which caused his heart rate to lower and set off the alarms. I never wanted to see that happen again. I told Logan that he had to keep breathing and he wasn't allowed to bring in the swat team of nurses and doctors anymore. I think I aged five years that night. I finally agreed to go home and get some rest but I called the NICU every two hours to make sure he was still breathing. He did but it only got harder. And poor Logan was in for some huge changes.

Arms still up after all the hard work of breathing