Lucas had his surgery. . .

Lucas had his surgery today. Everything went very well. With the prep work and recovery, it all took only about 4 hours. The actual surgery was probably only about 1.5 hours. As soon as the surgery was complete, they removed the respirator, and he is breathing just fine on his own. Praise God!!

They basically ground away the cartlidge material to make the opening. They did not put in any stints or anything. They said there is some chance that it may
close again, and they will need to redo the surgery. That may be 2 weeks or 2 months or not at all. It will not be sudden. We will just notice that he is starting to have difficulty breathing again, and we will schedule to redo it. We can live with that.

I told Chris the that it feels like he was born today. So much stress has dissipated now that he is on the path to recovery.

They just removed his catheter from his umbilical cord, so later tonight, Chris and I will finally get to hold him. What a precious moment that will be! Tomorrow, they will start feeding him milk. I am not sure if Chris will get to breastfeed tomorrow or Wednesday, but it will be soon. As soon as they see he is eating good and everything remains stable, then we will be able to go home. It will probably be 3
days or so.

We are so blessed to have this little guy, and we are extremely relieved that he is on the path to full recovery.