Ayva Jordyn Garcia's Journey

Hello friends and family,

Some of you know a little about this beautiful precious baby, and For those of you who don't she is the daughter of my best friend Clarissa Garcia and her wife DeAndra Garcia-Gonzales and this is her story.
On December 11, 2020, Ayva Jordyn was born a micro preemie at just 25 weeks. She weighed 1 pound 8 ounces and was just a little over 11 inches long. After birth she was immediately intubated as she was not able to breath on her own. For the first several weeks of Ayva’s life, she fought hard for her life, and we never left her side. On January 20, 2021, Clarissa and I sat down with Ayva’s Doctors, nurses, Social workers, etc. and discussed the possibility of losing Ayva because she might not be able to fight, and we also discussed the possibility of being transferred to Denver at that time. Not sure what happened after that, but Ayva hit a turning point and starting to make huge progress with her breathing support. We were told that because Ayva was intubated for so long, she was going to have chronic lung disease and other issues could potentially come up. No matter what, we continued to help Ayva fight. On February 18, 2021, just a few days shy of Ayva turning 10 weeks old, she was finally extubated. She was doing amazing, and within a week she had progressed to less and less breathing support. She finally was able to completely come off the ventilator and just be on a Cpap machine, and on March 25, 2021 she came off Cpap and on to a high flow oxygen nasal cannula. Once she hit high flow, we along with many others in the NICU thought we were in the home stretch. We thought that she would continue to make good progress towards finally coming home. During this time frame not only was it official that Ayva had severe chronic lung disease, but we also found out that she had moderate to severe pulmonary hypertension, and after finding out about the hypertension, she was started on medication immediately. On April 13, 2021 Ayva was not doing well and was requiring more breathing support and ended up back on the least invasive ventilator and was requiring high setting support to help with her breathing. The discussion of having to go to the Children’s Hospital came back up, and it was decided that the best option for Ayva would be to be transferred. We were told that because Ayva was requiring high amounts of support, that she would probably need a tracheostomy to help with her breathing and continue to allow her lungs to grow, along with managing her pulmonary hypertension. On April 22, 2021 we packed up our things from our home NICU at Presbyterian Hospital and made our way towards our temporary home in Denver, Colorado. Since being at Children’s Hospital, we have already started to make huge progress, but we still have a long road ahead of us, and with that comes the cost of medical bills, food, gas, and lodging in Denver so that we can continue to support and be with Ayva during her stay at Children’ Hospital. If you are able to, we would appreciate any help that we can get, and we thank each and every one of you for following our journey. Ayva is such an amazing baby, and everyday she inspires us to fight and stay strong. When she comes home, we cannot wait for you all to meet her because she is going to be an amazing human being with such a big heart who will do amazing things in this world. We love and appreciate you all and cannot thank you enough. 

Clarissa, DeAndra, and Baby Ayva