Saturday, November 3, 2012

Luke and Addison - My Little Miracles!

I am now a mom to the most beautiful babies that I have ever seen! I feel so incredibly blessed to have them and they are absolutely perfect! We have witnessed miracle after miracle during our whole pregnancy journey, and we feel so blessed!

This is my last pregnancy photo. I was 35 weeks here and the babies were born 2 days later.


On Sunday morning at 4:00 AM, to my surprise, my water broke! We came to the hospital and I started a medicine to start contractions. The morning was fairly uneventful until I received an epidural around noon. Sweet little Luke was having trouble through the contractions and his heart rate had been dropping dramatically through each contraction. I had to have a C section immediately.

The delivery was an absolute whirlwind. I could still feel pain and I was terrified that I would feel them giving me a csection. It ended up that the medicine wasn't completely working, so they put me under for my babies' birth. I don't remember a thing! They delivered the babes so quickly and passed them immediately through the window of the NICU.

We knew before the birth that Luke would be really small, as he wasn't growing very quickly in utero. The plan was to stabilize little Luke and then transport him to Primary Children's because he had also been diagnosed with a coarctation of the aorta. When they were born, Luke was really small- 3 pounds 7 ounces - but he was doing SO well! He didn't even need oxygen when he was born! Addie weighed 5 pounds 14 ounces and needed oxygen for only a day or two.


Luke Michael Hunter


Addison Grace Hunter
When Luke was born, they did an echo on him to see if there were problems with his aortic valve, which I was so worried about! It turned out that he didn't have any issues with it. When babies are in utero, they have something called a PDA duct that circulates their blood, by passing the aorta. When they are born, the PDA duct closes and the blood goes through the aorta. The next step was to see what happened when his PDA duct closed to see how his aorta functioned. Another MIRACLE occurred! His heart did GREAT when the duct closed, and he ended up not even having the coarctation of the aorta. He has NO heart defect and will NOT need surgery! This stumped the doctors and we feel SO BLESSED to experience yet another miracle! Thank you so much for all of the prayers on behalf of our little boy. We feel beyond blessed that he doesn't have a heart defect and that he is doing so incredibly well!

For now, Luke is at Primary Children's Hospital and Addie is at the NICU at the University of Utah. It's definitely hard to go back and forth between the kiddos each day! Addie is able to breathe on her own and regulate her own body temperature, so the last thing she needs to master is feeding. Then, she should be able to come home! Luke is such a cute little fighter. He is working on being able to feed - he sleeps ALL the time and has a hard time waking up to feed! - and gain more weight so that he can regulate his body temperature as well. Both babies are doing so WELL and we cannot wait for them to come home soon!!!

They brought Luke to my room on his way to Primary Children's. This is the first time I met my little guy!


Sweet little Addie! She got rid of her oxygen quickly!


Luke's little body!

I LOVE these little videos of Luke!


 Cute Luke


 Addie in her crib - She should be coming home SOON!