Last blog and New Blog For Our Boys

Luke did great at his sedated Echocardiogram on Friday, he is officially off all his medications and doing fine without them!!! His heart looks normal according to his cardiologist (Dr. Peter Chang). He doesn't expect Luke to have any problems with his heart. This was of course great news to hear!!!

We also want to let you know this is our last blog on this blog page for Luke. We've started a new blog for both our boys called "smiles and giggles", that can be viewed at:

www.theyoungs2004.blogspot.com

We'll keep this special blog to remember Luke's first year and our experience with his hospital stay and miraculous recovery. We also want to leave it up for anyone who may want to find information and encouragement for a preemie, micro preemie or extreme preemie that has CPAP, NEC, PPHN, BPD, ASD and a Cardiac Catheter procedure. We hope that Luke's experience can offer encouragement to other's. We especially hope someone who has a preemie with PPHN finds this blog hope full, as a preemie with PPHN living very long is doubtful, but Luke decided to beat the odds and we hope his blog will help other parents in our shoes see that the odds can be beat.

There IS always hope and in Him all hope remains steadfast and true, do not give up, do not give in, but do let God.

Love,
Luke and family

He's Crawling!!!

It's official, Luke is crawling. His proud Godparents were happy to witness his first continual crawling movements forward in their home on Labor Day. He continues to pull himself up on things too, he's a busy boy!!!

Still working on more pictures....

One Year Appt.

Now we're coming to a close of August, I thought I better write about Luke's terrific "1" year appt. He's pushing 20lbs. at 19lbs 12oz. and continues to grow very well, so well that he's growing out of his lung issues rapidly. His lungs sounded "normal" to his pediatrician. Another great surprise, as we didn't expect that for awhile longer. He'll still need to stay as healthy as he can this winter and we'll be keeping a lower profile, but we don't want to think of that right now when we're having summer fun!!

We've been getting out and doing all sorts of fun things as a family. A few of our favorites were, the Evergreen Aviation Museum, the Lebanese festival at St. Sharbel's, Beavers Baseball game, The Zoo and many trips to the local park. Luke is warming up to the swings.

Soon we'll be visiting Grandparents down near Florence, OR in Mapleton and that will be a our first family trip to the area in a long time. I think we're all looking forward to a trip away.

Luke is still working on crawling, starting to pick his knees up and moving forward, mostly backwards, but he's still faster with his scooting skills.

Hope everyone is having a great summer!

Melinda

Luke Turns 1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry for the delay since our last post. We've been busy! Included is a picture of Luke chewing on his Birthday bib, I am working on getting more pictures downloaded.

Since Bryan and Luke's Birthday's are only a few days apart, we did a kiddy party for both of them with 9 of their closest friends. They also had small parties on each of their real Birthday's.

We've experienced a lot of emotions centering around Luke turning 1, for me it started on the Friday before his Birthday, that was the day a year earlier that I had the doctor appt. that sent us to Emanuel, where we would wait for his premature birth. The thoughts of that day in particular caused a flood of emotions. Then on his actual Birthday, thinking back to the moment he was born, which started us on a journey with Luke, which we can't thank God enough for the outcome. And his Birthday also marking that he has been home as long as he was in the hospital, so we can officially say, he has now been home longer than in the hospital, which is a pretty darn good feeling.

What has Luke been up to? He is getting more and more expressive. He LOVES watching Bryan and just wants to do what he is doing, always trying to get his toy or get over to where he is. He is the pro "scooter", he can scoot anywhere. He has started getting up and rocking on his knees, so he will be crawling any day now. He is saying more sounds and is displaying more expression for his likes and dislikes. He's a pretty feisty guy and does not like it when a toy is taken away from him. He's eating more solids, but is quite picky, so we're working on those veggies.

Upcoming things for Luke are his vision follow-up appt. and a sedated Echocardiogram in September, sedated because he won't stay still long enough to get good readings. He's being weaned from his Sindenafil heart drug, so if his Echocadiogram looks good, he will be off of it for good. He still has a pending hernia operation for this fall, it will be a day surgery to fix a hernia he developed from an incision site during his intestinal surgery. These are just small things compared to what he's been through, but we wanted to keep you updated.

We've seen some of our NICU friends this month and we always enjoy seeing them and it's apparent they enjoy keeping tabs on Luke.

Hope to get more b-day pics up for you soon.
Melinda

Happy 4th Of July!!

Having fun on the swings today! July 3rd

Here is Luke attempting a ride on his brother's car. He isn't quite riding this, but he sure is interested. He wants to do everything big brother is doing!!

Luke is doing really well! He's teething and trying so hard to crawl. He has mastered "scooting" and has become quite good at it. Soon I know he's going to be all over the house. We spend a lot of time outside and we're also enjoying taking him places with us now. He's meeting many people who are just thrilled to see in the flesh the little tiny baby they've prayed for.

For Jeremy and I, we are thrilled to get out as a family once again. To places all together is very nice.

Luke has a few follow-ups coming up early July, so I'll keep you posted with those.

Melinda