Jack Jensen's Blog: 33 weeks and 4 days....

Friday, July 13, 2007

33 weeks and 4 days....

Hey everyone. Well, we made it through another week. This was a rough one. I actually went in on Wed because I was having a ton of contractions (some very painful) and pain in my back. They checked us out and Jack was doing OK (very active) and I wasn't in labor. My fluid levels had jumped back up to 27.3 and that's part of the reason why they think I was having all the contractions. I also got really sick Wed night with lots of vomiting (which I blamed on the beets my mom force fed me). When I saw Dr. Kramer today he said that he thinks the pain/vomiting is because of the gallbladder (even though it's the pain is in my back).

Jack had the hiccups today during the ultrasound. We were laughing so hard as we watched him. He was practicing breathing and swallowing his fluids a lot. He is still breech but a portion of his liver is UP :-( I'm hoping it was just a random thing we happened to catch. Everything else looked good and the mystery mass near the lung from last week was nothing...just a shadow...it wasn't there this time.

I go to Johns Hopkins Maternal-Fetal Medicine clinic on Monday to meet the OBs that will deliver Jack. I'll continue seeing Dr. Kramer until the end. Dr. Kramer said that he doesn't think I'll make it to 39 weeks with all the issues (gallbladder in particular). His feeling is maybe around 37 weeks (which is just over 3 weeks from now!!!!) is as far as I'll make it and he put me on bedrest from this point out. Fortunately I can telecommute for work so I don't have to use up my maternity leave yet. I'm scared to death now that I think we have so little time left. My mom helped me pack a bag for the hospital just in case. I can't believe it's almost time!

Oh- we got some 3D and regular 2D pictures this time. You can tell he's getting pudgy little cheeks and he has James' dimples!

Until next week....

Vic

3 comments:

Unknown said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; July 13, 2007 at 10:36 PM
Cindy said...: Those 3D pictures are really cool. I never got any of those made.

Sorry that you are having such a rough pregnancy. Hopefully the next few weeks will go by fast for you.; July 13, 2007 at 10:37 PM
The Goddess G said...: Keeping Baby Jack in my thoughts and prayers. Love the u/s pics...he is such a cutie pie.
~Carole; July 19, 2007 at 10:44 AM

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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.