I'll start with a quick TL:DR version then give you the long story.

After having her miracle baby girl Sienna, Amber was admitted to the hospital on New Years Eve. Since she was hospitalized for most of January she has not had an income. She was finally released on January 30th but the doctors said she will be in recovery for weeks to months. These funds will be to help cover living expenses and the hospital bills.

In September of 2020 Amber came across a woman on Instagram who had had a child on her own via sperm donor as a “Single Mom By Choice”. And so began a 3 year fertility journey with more ups and downs than expected. Finally after 3 ICI attempts, 3 IUIs and 4 rounds of IVF she gave birth to her miracle rainbow baby girl Sienna Elise in November of 2023.

Other than the early demise of Sienna’s twin, Amber’s pregnancy was pretty typical. She experienced pretty severe morning sickness and her second trimester was plagued by what she thought was heartburn. The “heartburn attacks” were basically hour long episodes of pain that had her on the floor screaming and vomiting up to 10 times per episode. They happened sporadically and there seemed to be no triggers. Her OB gave her a prescription and it did help so it wasn’t discussed again.

After a horrific birthing experience the heartburn attacks returned. Finally after 4 episodes in a 2 day period in which she had kept no food down her mother insisted that she go to the emergency room. On New Year’s Eve she was admitted to the Marshfield Medical Center and had her gallbladder removed the following morning. The doctors explained that the “heartburn attacks” she was having was likely her body throwing gallstones.

Everything with the initial gallbladder removal surgery went fine. Sienna was able to room in with her in the hospital so they could be together. The next day however the doctors had her scheduled for an ERCP procedure. This procedure was to get out any of the remaining free floating gallstones shown on her scans. She woke up from this procedure in extreme pain, a pain that was not really taken seriously by the doctors until the next day when the fluid in her drains turned a color that told them something was wrong and they rushed her to have yet another ERCP procedure to investigate what was going on.

After a few more nights in the hospital Amber was sent home on Sunday January 7th. This was a day when Amber had been having extreme pain. The CNA on that day remembers putting her in the car screaming. The nurse on that day claims she also had put on record that she didn’t believe she was ready to be discharged. The discharge summary reads that Amber was eating well and that her pain was controlled, neither of these things were true. The doctor on the discharge summary had never even seen Amber in person.

After 4 miserable nights at home with next to no relief Amber called in and explained her symptoms and they instructed her to come in through the ER. They ended up admitting her again and she had emergency abdominal surgery as the CT scan showed free fluid pockets all over the abdomen. An NG tube was placed at the time of this surgery. She was allowed ice chips. It had now been a few weeks since she had kept any real food down. They placed a PICC line in her arm and she started supplemental nutrition via IV (TPN). On top of everything she had also developed pancreatitis.

Through all of this Amber has been pumping in order to keep her supply up for Sienna as she hopes to go back to exclusively breast feeding upon returning home. She is thankful to have a friend who has donated breast milk as a few weeks worth of the hospital pumped milk had to be dumped due to the medications she was on.

It is now nearing February and Amber is facing a long recovery which doctors say could take "weeks to months". The funds raised through this page will be used to pay any medical bills not covered by insurance as well as cover living expenses from unexpectedly being unable to work as Amber is self employed as a home daycare provider. Even once she returns home doctors say it could be weeks to months before she is able to take her daycare babies back.