September 3 2014. Wednesday. My dad slept in Luca’s room and headed out to the airport this morning. Still in town were Megan’s parents and my mother and sister.
Today would turn out to be the most fulfilling day for Megan and I. The memories we made this day will last a lifetime. The entire week it felt like Luca had laid lifeless. Today though it felt like he was full of life. We had been able to take photos of him with his squinting eyes but today his eyes were wide open. He was much more alert and willing to keep his eyes open. For us it was a sign that he was progressing. We wanted to believe that. We needed to believe that. We still had so much hope the day would come when we would be leaving the hospital with our son.
The photos we got weren’t the only perks of the day. This day we got to take Luca’s fingerprints and footprints. As you can see in the photo below we got both of his feet but just his left hand. Due to all the tubes hooked up to his right hand the nurses didn’t think it was a good idea to move them around. We took what he could get and were thankful for it this memory and experience. For the first time it felt like we were able to do something with Luca. Megan and I took turns trying to take his prints. We wasted a bunch of paper and re did his prints numerous times. The nurses and those who came to help us with the prints were so helpful and caring and waiting til we got the best prints.
Throughout the entire week the doctors and nurses were patient with us. We had so many questions. They answered them all and multiple times. We now wanted to know when Luca was going to start weening off of his life support. On this day they mentioned they may want to start weening him off soon because at this point the machine was doing more harm than good. Luca had still barely released any fluids still and the built in dialysis was not doing much to help him. The monitors showed that his heart was stoned enough to be off of ECMO. Tomorrow there was a good chance they wanted to start this process. Luca seemed stable on life support, but there was a chance that his heart and lungs would still not be strong enough to function on their own. We knew death was a possibility, but still nothing we had ever expected. Tomorrow would indeed turn out to be the worst day of our lives…
Sisters Facebook post 2 years ago today.
LUCA KNOWS HEART 
Magan and AJ- I’m so thankful that you have been posting your day by day journey with your sweet Luca all week. It’s such a precious reminder for me of blessings, faith and how fragile life truly is. I think of both of you often and hope each of these memories help heal the void in your hearts. Franny Kemp (Taylor’s Mom)