Initially my pregnancy was typical. I had a minor fall five months into my pregnancy and went in for monitoring as a precaution. We already knew we were having a boy and the anatomy scan at our 20-week ultrasound was normal. The ultrasounds I had over the next two weeks could not have been more different. They found abnormalities, including a month delay in his size, and we were told that our baby had a very high chance of being stillborn. In the next couple of weeks, I was admitted to the hospital due to his deteriorating vital signs, and had a c-section. Logan was born on June 24, 2017, at 27 weeks gestational age and weighing only 1 lb, 2 oz.
When he was 5 days old, we found out that he was sick with congenital CMV. Though Logan had been given a 10-25% chance of survival, he was a fighter. Over the next four months, Logan overcame many obstacles, including moving from an isolette to a crib, lowering his oxygen support, and learning how to breastfeed. After over 100 days and countless hours spent at the NICU, we were finally getting ready to take him home. Unfortunately, Logan became resistant to his antiviral medication and the virus quickly infected his lungs and brain. An MRI revealed severe and irreversible brain damage.
Logan needed to be reintubated, sedated, had a feeding tube, and was looking at a very poor quality of life. We no longer felt it was fair to make Logan continue his fight, and decided to continue with comfort measures only. On October 25, 2017, he died in his daddy’s arms, with his mommy, grandparents, aunt, and loving nurses by his side. He was just 4 months old.
Not a day goes by that we don’t think of and miss Logan. We will always wonder what could have been, had we known about congenital CMV and its prevention.
- Shared by his mother, Vanessa