A Little Background

Most everyone reading this is aware of Jonathan's NICU journey. Quit a journey it was!! I have decided to blog again...at least when I have time. So although it may not be everyday, I will try to blog as I can. So this will be Jonathan's journal and just our life in general all in 1. I have also decided to back up a few steps and open up our life and fill everyone in on how we got to the point that we are at now. So...this blog might be a long one, so it's a good thing that Jonathan is sleeping.....So here is our story up to now (ok, so I might stop it early and do another blog to finish up where we are at...but we will see)

Our Wedding Day

Dan and I meant back in September 2001...late September (I'll move quick during this part). In December of 2006, he proposed to me and we were married on June 14, 2008..(see I told you). This is a picture of us on our wedding day!!

Sammy

We have 2 dogs. We have Sammy (above), she is our Chocolate lab and she is now 11 1/2 years old. Dan had Sammy before we meant. This picture is a couple years old...but you get the point :) She may have a little bit more white fur on her now.

Dakota

Just a tad over 6 years ago, I told Dan that Sammy needed a friend (multiple times). So Dakota (a black lab mix, rescue) entered our lives. Ok, so I brought her home and Dan came home from work and found a puppy at our house. I guess I was a little sneaky about it, but he never did say no to her once he laid eyes on her (and he never said no the whole time I kept saying Sammy needed a friend)...and he cuddles with her to this day!! So here is a picture of Dakota (right)...

Our First House

We bought our first house in April of 2009.... So now that we had our first house, we had our dogs, we were pretty content. We had been trying to conceive, but so far we had no luck. So in February of 2010, we decided to see a specialist...since there was still no luck at his point. We went through all of the testing that needed to be done and go figure...everything was "normal"...but we still weren't conceiving. So we tried 3 rounds of the IUI which is an insemination..none of those worked.


We decided to take a little vacation after the 3rd round (actually we didn't know if it took at this time or not). So we went to Vegas and got some relaxation in.

Dan and I in Vegas...May 2010

We also figured this would most likely be our last chance to do something like this since we were going to be having a child....at least in our thoughts it was hopefully have a child!! We came back from Las Vegas and got the negative test result. So we sat down with the doctor...who is the best fertility specialist EVER!!! Ok so he's the only one that we saw, but he and he staff are AWESOME!! If you ever need a recommendation, let me know...I'll give you his information!!! Anyway, we sat down with him and we decided that the next approach was to go through IVF (In-Vitro Fertilization). He was very confident that we would be able to conceive this way. So by now this was late June of 2010. Unfortunately, we were too late to go in with the July cycle and they didn't do an August cycle. So we were set to go into September. This actually worked out pretty good because then it gave us a little bit of time to save up some money to help pay for all of the medications and procedures. So in September of 2010, after the egg retrieval was completed, and the eggs were fertilized...we had some great embryos that they were able to implant. So they implanted 2, and we were actually able to freeze 6...Just in case!! A couple weeks after the implantation, we found out our dreams were coming true and I was pregnant!!! So that sums up the fertility roller coaster...I know this really didn't describe a roller coaster, but for those of you that have been on it...I'm sure you can relate...it truly is a ROLLER COASTER!! I probably had the most ideal pregnancy ever. I never had any morning sickness, no heartburn, no aches...I felt normal!! Except for 1 thing...this little miracle was growing inside me. At 20 weeks we found out that our little miracle was a boy. We decided that we would name him Jonathan Robert. Dan picked Jonathan and I said his middle name will be Robert after my Grandpa. So it was settled!! Things were coming together...or so we thought. At 22 weeks on the dot, the scariest thing in both of our lives happened (I'm sure our families lives as well). On February 14, 2011, my water broke. I was in labor and was given a magnesium drip to attempt to stop labor. I got sick, and my water broke from the pressure of my muscles. Everyone thought for sure that I would be delivering little Jonathan at this time. But he held on for another 6 days. So 22+6 weeks Jonathan Robert was born. It was February 20, 2011 at 4:26pm and he was 1 pound 5.5 ounces and 11 inches long. We knew Jonathan was a miracle to begin with...but we never knew how much of a miracle he was until he came into our lives!! So at this point we are now onto the NICU journey. We were told a lot of things while I was in the hospital on bedrest....NONE of it was good!! Generally, he wouldn't survive. He's too small for a vaginal birth, he would not be able to survive the pressure of the muscles, It would have to be c-section. His lungs are just barely there, there is not medical equipment small enough to be able to intubate him. We even heard this...if you want to consider late term termination we can get you to a facility to do that. We wanted to give him every opportunity he had available to him. So we were in it for the fight!! My labor started around 3:00 pm, I called the nurse around 3:15 pm, she checked me out and said everything looked fine. She decided to get the doctor just in case, the doctor checked me and I was dilated to a 3. They moved me into labor and delivery (L&D), put a new iv in my hand checked me again and I was a 6. Moved me into a larger room considering the neonatal team was going to be there, checked me again and I was fully dilated at 4:10 pm...and as I mentioned, Jonathan was born at 4:26pm.

Jonathan 4 Hours Old

This is a picture of him at 4 hours old...there were able to intubate him!! So it isn't a very clear picture because of the high humidity (as we got used to the NICU, we called this the baby's own personal rain forest). Also, because we weren't expecting him, Dan took this picture on his cell phone...Thank God for camera phones!!

Jonathan 24 Hours old

So we were told he wouldn't make it through the night....this is a picture of him the next day... So because his skin was so, so fragile, we were not able to put anything next to him to compare size, so he does look big here...but like I said, he was really only 11 inches long.

Jonathan 1 Week Old

So he survived the first night, but we were told the first 24 -48 hours were the honeymoon period, he will probably not survive through the week....Here's Jonathan at a week old. In this picture, I was able to put my hand next to him because we were doing some of his care at that time. Note that in this picture his eyes are still fused shut. A baby typically doesn't open their eyes until they are 24/25 weeks gestation.

Jonathan SEES 2 Weeks

So we were then told he wouldn't make it to see 2 weeks old. Jonathan opened his eyes on his 2 week birthday...

Holding Jonathan for the First time at 5 weeks old...Kangaroo Care

I held him for the first time when he was 5 weeks old... We did have a huge NICU roller coaster, but to help shorten this blog entry, Jonathan came home after 109 days in the NICU.









Sammy & Dakota were finally able to meet him after smelling his clothes (we brought laundry home and they were able to get his scent at that time..kinda funny, eventually they just started licking the clothes). So here is his video of him coming home..

 If you would further like to read in more detail about his journey in the NICU you can visit my online journal at www.caringbridge.org/visit/jonathanwegner


Jonathan did come home on oxygen, but in our follow-up appointment with the neonatal clinic in October, he was removed from oxygen! He is down 2 medications since he has been home and now currently (as of 2 days ago) weighs 13 lbs and is 24.5 inches tall!! This is Jonathan today...(ok so this was on Thanksgiving day..November 24, 2011, but I wanted to get a good one of him smiling) So that's our family....



I know this one was long, I'll try to make them a little shorter next time. But that is the background and I'll try to keep up on my blogging. So, this won't be just about Jonathan, but I'm sure he'll be the topic of most. Tomorrow, I'll go more in depth on Jonathan's development (as I know I need to update everyone on that as well) and how he is doing there.

I do plan on doing one more caringbridge update as I need to put some sort of a closing there. They give you the opportunity to print your journal into a book and I would really love to do that for Jonathan and give him the book when he is old enough to understand. Of course, there is a cost to that, but I think it'll be worth it.

So until next time...Enjoy, you never know when it will end!!