Update: July 11, 2020 (Day 2)

Milo was successfully put on ECMO during his first night, and Sarah was cleared to make the trip across the hospital to the NICU and be reunited with her little man for the first time since delivery.

It was a bit of a bumpy start to the night - the introduction of the blood thinner from the ECMO circuit brought on some bleeding around the wound on his right lung (the one that led to the chest tube needing to be installed earlier in the day). Thankfully, the team was able to get this under control, stop the bleeding, and carry on with attempting to stabilize him. When we left for the night to get some rest, his numbers were still not quite where they needed to be. But sticking with the theme since Milo joined us, his team was working diligently around the clock to keep him comfortable, continuing to search for that perfect balance to get him completely stable.

Again, we continue to be in total awe of Milo's team of nurses, doctors, and specialists (which seems to continue to grow by the minute) here at Lurie's and the whole NMH Group - we're constantly meeting new, wonderful people caring for our little guy every time we're in the NICU.

By morning, all was good! Doctors said it was a very smooth finish to the night with everything looking as they were hoping for (marching upward with the blood thinner, kidneys working well, head ultrasounds looking good, no signs of hemorrhaging, chest x-ray looking as it should, etc.). The team is still continuing to monitor everything very closely, and making ongoing tweaks to his settings and medication to try to get him stable enough for his hernia repair surgery. But right now Milo seems pretty comfortable which is all we can ask for. He's hanging in there like a champ!

The last bit of news from today is that we were able to get Milo baptized by one of the hospital chaplains, Glenda, who was an absolute angel and gave Milo a beautiful blessing right there in the NICU - and the team was able to pull some strings to allow Kevin's sister Kelly (Milo's Godmother and also a nurse at a different NICU here at Northwestern) to be there with us for the special moment.

Thanks to everyone out there praying for Milo, sending well wishes and good vibes, and just staying positive for us! It means more than you know to have such an overwhelming amount of love and support - we certainly appreciate it and we know Milo is feeling the love too!