With permission from Ricky and Jes, we are starting a fund to help them with all of the expenses and bills that come with the long term stay with a premature kiddo. Ricky typed up a summary to date that is below. I originally became friends with Ricky through DoorDash. He always went absolutely over and above, every single time. Small talk eventually led to becoming pretty good friends. Here is the update from Ricky, Jes, and Family...

"Leading up to Saturday April 15th Jessica had a very healthy and promising pregnancy. It was just night before that our family of five was out at the drive in watching Super Mario Bros. Jessica woke up Saturday morning with heavy vaginal bleeding. We rushed to St Anthony hospital who knew that she would have to be transferred if they could get her stable. At first they couldn’t find a heartbeat and those first few minutes seemed like a lifetime. When they finally found his heartbeat we were overcome with emotion. Carle hospital didn’t feel she was stable enough for transport and the doctors and nurses wanted us to find someone that would accept her immediately. The doctor came in and told me we were looking at a 75% chance of loss. Jessica was just 24 weeks 4 days along. St Johns hospital accepted us immediately but only for ground transport as there were storms brewing in the area at the time and wouldn’t allow for a helicopter. They had to send an ambulance from St Johns to Effingham and back. It took over six hours to get to St Johns from the time Jessica started bleeding. We were immediately relieved to be in a hospital with a NICU unit. If Jess had given birth in Effingham she would have been separated from him as she would have had to stay and baby would have been rushed to a NICU. The NICU Dr told us that Maverick now had a 65% chance of survival. Just the matter of being surrounded by the right people and equipment to care for him increased his survival rate by 40%! The game plan from that point was to “stay boring” and just sit in the hospital and stay pregnant for as long as possible. The next Monday they did a vaginal ultrasound and found that she had a bulging sac and that was why she was bleeding. The doctor told us we wouldn’t be going home at that point. Jessica was on bed rest for the most part but was able to get up and use the restroom and I would help her shower. We made it a whole four days to Wednesday April 19th when Jessica got sick on the toilet. Her vomiting caused too much pressure and the amniotic sac came partly out. They rushed her to delivery where she laid up for 28 hours of labor before they had her start pushing. Maverick shifted and ended up coming out arm first, had to be reset inside of her and then rushed down for an emergency c section. It was a very dramatic entrance to the world. Mama had to be put completely under and I was not allowed in the operating room because of that. It was the longest ten minutes of my life followed by the longest two hours. They rushed him out and up to NICU as mom and I sat in recovery room waiting to hear from the Doctor for almost two hours. They finally told us they had him stabilized and I was able to go see him. Jessica was still numb and unable to go see him. I face timed her when I got to him and for the first time we were able to breath a sigh of relief. We knew that there were a million things that could go wrong from this point on but we also knew that he was alive and surrounded by the best NICU doctors and nurses in the state. Today Maverick turned 8 days old. He has had many ups and downs from being taken off his ventilator and switched to bipap and back, not peeing then peeing too much, weight loss and gain and all the stuff that comes with being a preemie at this age. Lots of X-rays, blood transfusions, needle sticks, ivs, bilirubin lights and all of that fun stuff. But prayers and good vibes have flooded our way and we have done our best to enjoy our time with him one hour at a time. So long as we stay away from google and stay close to his bedside we are in good spirits and are ready for the long journey. 8 days in the NICU and fingers crossed just 102 more to go but we will take it one day at a time.

Sorry that’s a lot but it’s the short version of our last 14 days.

We made jokes that he better not try and beat his brothers birthday (July 3rd) and he ended up beating his oldest sister birthday who turned 16 on April 23rd. Maverick edged her out by two days and established himself as the first birthday of the year of our four kids."