My name is Jess and my husband and I are expecting our first child. We were obviously ecstatic and so overjoyed until we had our 20 week anatomy ultrasound and found out that our baby has a congenital heart defect called Tetralogy of Fallot. This specific defect is a combination of 4 things wrong with the heart- he has a hole in the wall between his ventricles, his aorta is bigger than it should be, his pulmonary artery is smaller than it should be and his right ventricle can put on more muscle than it should, which all in all, isn't ideal. The combination of those things means that once baby is born and I'm not the one breathing for him anymore, once he starts doing it on his own, the deoxygenated blood and oxygenated blood will mix and be pumped to the rest of his body which then means his oxygen levels can be lower than normal and he can become cyanotic (turn blue). All this means that our baby is going to require open heart surgery to fix these issues within the first 6 months of his life. Finding this out on the day we were so excited to find out the gender definitely put a damper on things. It's all been quite a lot to process knowing that we're going to have a long and difficult road ahead of us. No one wants their newborn, let alone first child, to have to have open heart surgery. It's scary.

We've been following with the fetal cardiac specialists at CHOP and it has been decided that that is where I will need to give birth. However, the upside is that the doctors think that with how his heart looks now in the scans, we'll be able to take him home shortly after birth and bring him back a few months later for surgery. They don't foresee him needing immediate intervention. There's also a chance that in a few weeks once I hit 37 weeks of gestation, we'll have to relocate to Philly to be closer to the hospital in case I go into labor.

With all that being said, this means there's going to be a lot of time spent off work without being paid, for both my husband and I. My maternity leave is set up to where I only get 6 out of the 12 weeks paid. And my husband only gets 2 weeks off paid for parental leave. Having to start my leave early to relocate to Philly will take away from that and I won't have those full 12 weeks for when after baby is born. Then I will need to be out again for an extended amount of time when it comes time for baby's heart surgery. We're asking for any support to help us through what is going to be a difficult time. Especially since baby's heart surgery will likely take place in the new year, there's a good chance there will be a large amount of out of pocket costs we'll have to pay due to insurance deductibles starting over.

Your donations will help us with our rent, bills, medical bills, gas for going back and forth from Philly for appointments and check ups, groceries, etc. due to us being out from work for an unknown amount of time. Any help will be greatly appreciated!