Logan's Journey

I received a phone call while I was pregnant with Logan. I remember it vividly.  I was in Marion, my hometown, in line at the Mickey D's drive through. The phone rang, I answered.  It was my hubby calling about receiving a call from my obgyn. They had received the results from my alpha fetaoprotein tests.  The tests showed the baby had Down Syndrome. I cried, but not because the baby was going to have DS.  I thought ALL children with DS have heart problems.  I did not want to see another one of my babies go through a surgery where their chest is cracked open, they are put on a heart/lung machine, and ultimately end up being medicinally paralyzed while they heal. It's gut wrenching the 1st time it happens, how could I possibly handle it again? I wiped my tears, took a deep breath, ordered my grub, and headed home. Upon arriving, Dan hugged me and said it could be a false positive.  I didn't really want it to be a false positive. Let me explain.  When I was around 14 years old, we went on a vacation.  My mom doesn't remember this story, but I do, like it was yesterday.  During this vacation we were in a gift shop, I saw a girl probably about 10 with Down Syndrome.  She was THE cutest little girl I had ever seen. She had pig tails, she was laughing when her dad tickled her, and I immediately wanted to take her home with me. I told my mom, "I want a kids like that when I get older." She said, "Megan, don't say that." (She didn't mean this in a mean way, just that we don't want to wish for things that are difficult in life) I said, "no, seriously.  I want a kid with Down Syndrome." Fast forward 13 or so years later on Christmas eve 2006.  I was about to pop with Logan. He wasn't due until Jan 6th, but that little booger wanted to make a grand entrance.  I felt sick to my stomach and made my mom and gma take me to the hospital, which was over 45 miles away near where Dan worked.  Dan met us at the hospital, and I was only 2  cm dilated. I was told I could go home and enjoy Christmas with the other 2 kids, but I had another gut feeling... I needed to stay there. Dan went home and taped the kids opening their presents.  He came back right as I was getting an epidural, I progressed to 6cm in a little under 2 hours. I told Dan I was ok, so he went down to the cafeteria to eat.  After he was gone for about 10 minutes, the nurse came running in.  The baby's heart rate dropped dramatically. The doc on call came in, together they tried to manually move the baby to get his heart rate back up, but it didn't work.  I needed an emergency C Section STAT. They attempted to page Dan, but he didn't hear it.  The next part plays out like an episode of 'ER', me being pushed down hallways by running nurses and docs yelling @ ppl to "MOVE OUT OF THE WAY!" I was wheeled into the delivery room maybe 5 minutes later Dan came running in.  Apparently my mom and gma found him while he was whistling up the stairs, he didn't hear the page. The on call doc pinched me with the pincher things and I yelled- it hurt like crazy- he said, "does that hurt?" I said, "yeah!!"  He said, "I'm sorry, honey, we don't have time to give you anymore medicine." And SLICE. The baby arrived a few extremely painful minutes later.  He was breathing well and screaming.  He did have jaundice and was under the lights for about 3 days.  During those days, our pediatrician looked at the baby and said that he didn't think Logan had DS. His muscle tone was ok and he didn't look like he had DS. (Now looking at his baby pics, he totally did look like he had DS!) He came into my room to talk to us.  He told us about Logan's blood test coming back abnormal.  Logan either had leukemia or down syndrome.  I prayed to baby Jesus it was DS.  Turns out, it was.  Logan had a blood disease called transient myleoproliferative disorder, but he is now in remission.  Other than that, Logan has hypothyroidism and has tubes in his ears.  NO HEART DEFECTS. HOLLA!! Even though having Logan was my hardest delivery, he is my sidekick and we are attached at the hip.