Update on Nathan and Owen

The last few days were stable for Nathan and Owen. Both still remain critical but are making good progress.

As most of you know, Nathan got an infection in his blood last Wednesday, November 25th. He has been working very hard to fight his infection and is improving. There were a few days his pulse was over 200. His pulse is now holding steady in the 130s and 140s. He also had a perforation in his intestine. A drain was put into his side which allowed his body to drain out the stuff the intestine had dumped into his body. The drain will be coming out over the next week. The upper right lobe in his lungs collapsed. He is receiving vibro-therapy and the lobe is opening back up. Because of the infection, extra fluids, etc Nathan had swollen to be about 3 or 4 times larger than he was before the infection. Now that he is fighting this infection his swelling is starting to go down a little. He has also lost a lot of blood profusion to his right arm. It looks like he will loose some of his pinky and ring finger.
We have seen God work in miraculous ways in Nathan's life. He has fought much better than the doctor's expected. His organ's did not shut down but remained strong during this entire process. It has been amazing how much joy he has brought to Preston and I. We are able to sit by him and open one of the doors on his incubator. We spend lots of time talking and singing to him. He really seems to like it because his stats (oxygen saturation and pulse) always look really good while we are spending time with him. His life is so precious and we are so blessed to be his parents.
Please pray for his continued recovery and strength.

Owen is doing well. His doctor's were starting to get concerned because his creatinine levels were starting to move up and up and were higher than they liked. This could have been a sign of a problem in his kidneys. On Tuesday his number was 1.6 and we prayed it would begin to reverse it pattern and go down to a 1.4. On Wednesday his number was a 1.3 and on Thursday it was 1.1. We praise God for turning his numbers around and for continuing to make him stronger. We are praying his number would continue to go down.
Owen is very fiesty. He is always wiggling around and trying to pull the tubes out of his mouth (every once in a while with some success), his diapers and some of the other probes on his body that read his pulse, blood pressure, etc. Owen is much more of a don't touch or talk to me guy (but can you blame him, he is still supposed to be inside for another 3 months). It brings us such joy to see the little personality God has placed in him. For a while we would just look at him from a distance. Yesterday we decided to try opening his incubator and talking to him. He seemed to start enjoying it again!!! Owen too is a great blessing and we are honored to be his parents.

We have been very blessed by the support of our friends and family all around the world. We appreciate your prayers and know it is making a difference in our boys lives. We can't wait until they are strong enough to come home from the hospital to meet all of you (probably in March). Please continue to pray for them, your prayers are working.

Even though this is an update on Nathan and Owen, I can't leave out Logan. He is doing well. He is enjoying school (he goes M-TH 9-1). He is learning new things. The other day Preston and I were reading a book and he looked at the fire truck and said "That fire truck is red. R-E-D red." He is also enjoying spending time with friends and family and doing lots of fun things (as you have seen in the pictures on previous blogs). Preston and I have worked out a routine that allows us to see the boys 3 times a day and also spend the majority of our day with Logan. He really likes all the time he gets with both Mommy and Daddy.