So you're saying there's a chance.

The first few minutes of Logan's life.

Back on July 4th I received a phone call from a lady that I had worked with a while back. In her voice message she said she was calling because she remembered that my son was born early and was wondering how early because her daughter was going through something similar and just wanted to talk with someone who had been through that. She also said she thinks their situation may be a little worse. My first thought was I doubt things could be worse, Logan was born pretty early. Given that 24 weeks is the accepted cut-off for viability and Logan was born at 26.2. It turned out I was wrong.
After talking with her I found out that her daughter was 20 1/2 weeks pregnant when she went into labor and her water broke. My heart stopped for a minute while I tried to process. It turns out that she didn't delivery and was being monitored at the hospital. The chances of having that baby survive are pretty slim, but I will testify that miracles do happen. All my feelings of helplessness returned during our short conversation, which ending with me promising to pray for them and saying if they ended up at Randall's Children's Hospital I would love to come visit and help in any way.
It was hard not to think about those days right after Logan was born. Everyone we knew was hoping and praying for a miracle. I also had the thought that even a 1% chance means that it can happen. We had many experiences where the chances of things happening were really low and ended up happening to Logan. First only 12% of babies in the United States are born before 38 weeks, and 85% of those are born between 32-37 weeks which would put Logan around the 1% mark. The actual reason Logan was born early is still officially undetermined, but it was thought that it was due to a placental abruption. As there are no numbers on the amount of babies that survive I can tell you it is very small as there is no warning signs and it is often not found until it is too late.
The first % I was given from Dr. Larrabee was that Logan had around a 70% chance of survival. That seemed a lot higher than I was expecting so for me it was good news. News that until now I haven't shared with anyone.
Logan was given a mild sedative/pain reliever called Ativan, which in a small number of infants can have the opposite effect. On Logan it had the opposite effect. He was switched over to morphine and a note was made in his chart to avoid Ativan.
Logan had a few other conditions that are actually really common. The first being a patent ductus arterious (PDA), which is essential a bridge for fetal blood to bypass the lungs. Most/all infants are born with this, but it closes only hours or a couple days after birth. For Logan it remained patent which caused blood to accumulate on his lungs. The medication used to help close his PDA had a pretty high risk of side effects so the doctors were reluctant to use it. As to date no side effects have been noticed.
The other common condition was Logan's hernias. Apparently this occurs in high frequency for premature boys. As long as they would reduce they were not a big deal and would be fixed right before he went home. This is where Logan really shined in beating the odds. Before his surgery the surgical team discussed what would take place and some of the risks and possibilities. The first as with any surgery was the risk of infection. We were assured that all precautions would be taken and the risk was very small. The second was the possibility of recurrence of the hernias. We were assured there was only a really small chance that this would happen, less than 1%. 
Logan went for surgery the day before I had to leave to take my final chiropractic board exams. The day I returned Logan was not doing very well as an infection was brewing. The infection progressed so much that his incisions needed to be opened and drained. This gave us a couple more days in the hospital which turned out to be a good thing as our primary nurse was working the day that Logan was discharged. We definitely appreciated all the nurses in the NICU but Malia was definitely our favorite and it was a special treat to have her be the one to discharge Logan. It wasn't much longer that Logan had a hernia re-occur. We were told that it wasn't painful, but may cause some discomfort. This started a new waiting game, as the surgeon wouldn't operate until the first incisions had fully healed and recovered.



Our Family (the 1%)

In all of this I have learned that one in a million means that it will happen to one. A little hope is still hope. Hold on to what you have, believe in better things.