Our little miracle

So, there's something that we haven't shared with the world quite yet, but.... we found out this last January that we were pregnant. Not long into the pregnancy there were complications. I was in and out of the ER twice in the first trimester and Morgan and I were pleasantly surprised each time to still have the baby. After the first trimester there was another two times that we rushed to the ER thinking that we were losing our baby. After each of those times I was put on bedrest for a short while. At 20 weeks we had an ultrasound with a perinatologist and he found that the amniotic fluid level was really low. I was put on bedrest again but it was for the rest of the pregnancy. It was determined that my water had broke at some point in my pregnancy which answered some questions we had with some issues I had around 15-16 weeks. At 24 weeks we luckily decided to get the steroid shots which help to develop the aveoli in the baby's lungs. Since there was little or no amniotic fluid it was predicted that he would have pulmonary hypoplasia and have very small lungs and his chance of survival was far less than a regular baby born early.

To make a long story short, at 25 weeks and 6 days (we're just rounding up to 26 weeks), Samuel Coulson Young was born into our family after a couple hours of labor. He was born 3 1/2 months early. Luckily, we made it to the hospital in time. We were told that he was breech but we decided to have him naturally because of the high risk of complications with future pregnancies if we had the emergency "classical" c-section and because we were told the chance of his survival before 28 weeks was so low. (The classical c-section is different from the regular one. It goes all the way up and down the uterus because of how small the baby is. The regular c-section goes from side to side and is much smaller.) I received an epidural 5 minutes before he was born so it took the edge off, but he wasn't big at all. Samuel was born at 10:18am on Tuesday, June 7th, 2011 weighing 2 lbs 3 oz and 13.5 inches in length. They set him on my chest for 5 seconds and whisked him away to the NICU where they put him on the cpap and then found that he was going to need a lot more help than that. They put him on the High frequency ventilator (it pumps his lungs with oxygen 420 times/minute so basically his chest was vibrating). They also had him on the conventional ventilator. He is now 6 days old and as of this evening they have him on the cpap and he is doing great with it. They've slowly weened him off of the ventilators the past few days and he is surprising the doctors and nurses as well as all of us. He is such a fighter. He has been from the beginning. The entire pregnancy was an emotional roller coaster and it now remains that way but we are very optimistic about Samuel and that he will pull through and be okay. It's very hard to see him in the state that he is in but he is in great care at a Level 3 NICU. There are so many more details but there are family members that are asking for pictures so there are going to be a lot.

SURPRISE to all of those who didn't know;)

This is just moments after he was born. They put him on the cpap at first and then realized he would need more help and support so they put him on the 2 ventilators.


We were so pleased to find out that he was alive and surviving.
So little.
Proud dad.
The grandparents came to see him. My sister happened to be in town as well but I don't have of picture of her with him, but I will get one Les;)


They put him under the light for jaundice. As of today, Sunday, he doesn't need it.

We can touch him and hold his hands and feet but not much more than that.
Tiny feet.
He's opened his eyes a couple of times when we've been there. Those are really sweet and precious moments.


They put an iv in his poor little arm yesterday.
Another picture with his eyes open yesterday.

Morgan got to pick him up for a few seconds so they could weigh him. He just had to lift him up a few inches into the air because his bed becomes the weight scale. Morgan loved it. I refused to do it. I am so afraid to touch him like that because he is so fragile.
I did get to put some milk on a q-tip and rub it on his mouth. He liked it. He opened up his mouth to try to taste it. It was cute.
This picture is from today.
He was so bushed from all of the progress he has made. We are so proud of him.

Last Tuesday we witnessed the hand of God. Samuel is such a miracle. We learned that if it's the Lord's will, prayer and fasting can bring hope and new life where there once was none. I honestly didn't think he was going to make it and that he was too early to survive with the circumstances that he was in, in the womb, and considering he was breech and was delivered naturally. The Lord really has blessed our lives and answered our prayers. We are so grateful for all of the prayers that have been said on our behalf and all of the support we've received through the bedrest and now through this difficult time in our lives.

One more cool thing. A while back when we heard from the doctors that preterm labor and delivery was a very high risk with this pregnancy, we decided to prename him to make him more real and just in case things didn't go well. Before we knew that the pregnancy was going to be a high risk pregnancy we tossed around the name "Samuel" not knowing the meaning. After finding out the risks with the pregnancy, we decided to name him "Samuel". We looked up the story of Samuel in the Bible which we felt we related to in a way and then we saw that the name meant "asked of God". It fit perfectly. His name was meant to be Samuel and the meaning was perfect. Now he is here and we've been blessed to have him as long as we've had thus far. He'll be in our family forever. We've "asked of God" and we've been blessed with Samuel in our lives. What a miracle we've witnessed. We are so grateful. Words can't describe how we feel for him to be here and be alive.