Jack Jensen's Blog: 31 weeks + 4 days: Jack be nimble.....

Friday, June 29, 2007

31 weeks + 4 days: Jack be nimble.....

This week we had a great visit to Dr. Kramer. I brought the whole entourage...James, my mom and my dad. Everyone piled in and Jack put on a great show. We did the whole session with the 3D/4D ultrasound and they spent a long time so we could all watch him. We saw him swallowing fluid and moving his arms around. He even gave the world's biggest and cutest smile. We got a great photo of this and we all agreed it's our favorite picture of him so far. We also realized that Jack is a yoga master. My dad thought Jack was saluting him when we saw something next to his head. We couldn't believe it but it was his foot! I still don't understand how he can bend like that! The picture is amazing!

After all the fun with the ultrasound we also got some good news from the doctor. My amniotic fluid levels are back to normal! I didn't believe the sonographer and made her repeat it. We went from 28cm to 19cm! I suggested that maybe Jack is recycling the fluid better now and Dr. Kramer said it could be but the way he's laying etc could also be a factor and we shouldn't read too much into it. Of course try to be optimistic so until they prove otherwise that's what I'll believe. Everything else looks pretty much the same. We saw some lung behind his heart. His whole stomach is still up but the liver is DOWN! I think this little guy knew his daddy and grandparents were watching so he gave us a good show. We all left feeling good about the visit. Dr. Kramer will call the OB at Hopkins this weekend and we might start having to go there weekly. He mentioned something about getting me into a special clinic at Hopkins. He also said we'll definitely do a scheduled C-section and as long as the gallbladder holds out we're shooting for 39 weeks (around the 20th of August). This upcoming Monday is 32 weeks...the minimum size for ECMO. As of Monday we will have made it to the most critical cutoff. If I did have to deliver early at least Jack will be big enough to go on ECMO. What a relief it will be after Monday. Now everything else beyond that is more lung maturity and icing on the cake.

I'm off to enjoy a nice weekend with my parents. They are already spoiling Jack with wood toys for his nursery that grandpa made and quilts that grandma made.

Until next week....

Love,
Vic (& Jack)

1 comment:

The Goddess G said...: Rock on baby Jack!!!
~Carole; July 1, 2007 at 11:02 PM

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Jack's Diagnosis and Recovery

At our 19 week ultrasound Jack was diagnosed with CDH. One week later James and I went to Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. for more extensive analysis. We had a fetal MRI and saw that his hernia was on the left side (the most common) and at that time his liver was 'up' or in his chest. His heart was pushed to the right in his chest and he had a normal sized right lung and a very small left lung (about 1/5 the normal size). Overall his CDH was classified as severe with a Lung to Head (LHR) ratio of 0.8. His echocardiogram showed that his heart was beating strong and there was no underlying congenital heart defect. His amnio was also normal. The prognosis was 20-50% chance of survival at birth. The struggle we faced with this diagnosis was that there is little correlation between prenatal diagnostic test results and outcome at birth. Some babies with mild defects do poorly and some with severe defects pull through and do very well. All we could do was try to be optimistic and hope and pray that Jack would be a strong baby and fight hard. On August 20, 2007 John Verner Jensen "Jack" was born by C-section at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. He weighed 6 pounds 11 ounces and was 20 inches long. Within hours of birth he was placed on ECMO (heart-lung bypass). He had a 10 day run on ECMO and went to his hernia repair surgery on this machine. He was missing 90% of his left diaphragm, had his entire stomach, spleen, and parts of his small and large intestines and liver in his chest and he required a gortex patch. Jack came out of surgery off ECMO but with the cannulas still in place until later that night. He had a really hard night after surgery and we nearly lost him. We were later told his blood gases should have been unsurvivable and that it was pure will and not medicine that saved him. After 81 days in hospital we brought Jack home breathing room air and needing only an NG (naso-gastric) feeding tube. After 27 days home he reherniated and we had to go back for emergency surgery at Johns Hopkins. His awesome surgeons literally patched him back up and after another 16 days in hospital he returned home on Dec 21, 2007 - just in time for his first Christmas. Since then Jack has tackled his eating issues and is NG-tube free! He does not require any medication. We are extremely grateful for his incredible medical team and all his friends and family for their support, kind words, thoughts and prayers.

Jack's CarePage chronicles his day-to-day journey from diagnosis to approximately 6 months old (before we started blogging). See the link below.