Happy 4th of July! Today marks one day since we met Luke face-to-face. For those of you following along along on Facebook, you already know many of these details, please excuse the redundancy.
Erica kinda had a rough night, which is to be expected after all that Erica went through. There were 4 different doctors participating in the surgery and an additional one that was there to observe so he could compare what he had been seeing in the sonogram to what things actually looked like. In the end, they had to do a partial hysterectomy because it was the only way to control the bleeding. Today they did a CT scan on Erica as a precaution, it came back normal. Now Erica begins the process of healing / recovery. We don’t know yet when Erica will be released from the hospital, I’ll keep you posted.
Luke was given about an hour to try and slow down his breathing and regulate his temperature, however, he just wasn’t able to do that, so they admitted him to the NICU a couple of hours after being born. He was given an IV and put on a type of respirator called a “CPAP”. It basically helps him to keep his lungs opened up so they don’t collapse down on themselves making it harder for him to take his next breath. During the day today, they have weened him off of all supplemental oxygen and his CPAP is just feeding him the same level of oxygen that everyone in the room is breathing.
We are hopeful the CPAP will be removed tomorrow sometime, so long as his breathing rate can decrease. Once he meets this milestone, then he can begin to feed normally and be on the fast track to being released from NICU.

Erica was able to see Luke in the NICU for about 20 minutes. It was her first time out of bed, and she was wore out afterwards!

The kids were able to celebrate the 4th with both sets of grandparents, and from the photos they sent, it seems they had a great time!