This GoFundMe has been created to help my sister & brother in law - Alistair & Jared Kuss and their family. 

During Ali’s 20 week ultrasound / anatomy scan it was discovered that baby Kuss has quite a complex congenital heart defect (please see below for the explanation that Ali & Jared provided)

Before Ali reaches 32 weeks gestation her, Jared & Eli will have to uproot from their home in Hawaii and live in limbo in California in order to be close to the incredible delivery & surgical team at Stanford & Lucile Packard Childrens Hospital. 

Shortly after giving birth their sweet baby will undergo open heart surgery to work to repair the defect. 

During this in between time they will be living in a hotel, until they can be placed in the Ronald McDonald house, hopefully before delivery. 

I am working to fundraise a little money to off-set their day to day living expenses. We want to make it abundantly clear that the money that is fundraised is not to pay for medical expenses, as Tricare covers the costs associated with delivery, surgery & hospitals stays, as Jared is in the Marine Corps. This money will go towards day to day expenses, care for Eli, food for the family, upkeep of their home in Hawaii, until the time comes they get transferred to another duty station, and potentially a rental car, as they are unsure whether or not one will be covered at this point. 

If you feel so inclined & able to donate, it will be much appreciated. If you are unable to donate then we ask that you pray … pray that Ali & Jared are able to spend a bit of time with baby before he/she needs to be whisked off to surgery and pray that the incredible team of surgeons are able to do all they’ve set out to accomplish. 

All our love

Breanna & the family of Ali & Jared Kuss

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Below is the original post Ali & Jared shared with friends and family following the news of baby: 

The day before Thanksgiving, I went in for my 20-week ultrasound. 

My biggest concern that day? The ultrasound tech slipping up and giving away the gender. 

What I came away with? Words like “congenital heart defect” and “open heart surgery” and “transplant”. 

In what was a whirlwind of events… 

The ultrasound tech telling me to call my husband on deployment, the words “your baby’s heart…there’s something not quite right…”, the chief of MFM rushing me up to Pediatric Cardiology, sitting down with two doctors who had nothing but pity in their eyes….  

We learned that our sweet Baby Kuss, while healthy in almost every way, has a congenital heart defect, AKA heart disease. These defects are, according to our doctors, quite complex. I am no doctor, but I will attempt to explain what people far smarter than me have laid out. 

First, babe has something called pulmonary atresia. Where the heart is supposed to carry blood to the lungs, there is a hole. This alone, if not remedied, will be fatal. Luckily, babies have a separate tiny little artery that carries blood to the lungs while they are in the womb. This artery closes in the days or weeks following birth unless medication is given. That medication is NOT a long-term solution and would have very negative side effects the longer it is provided, therefore surgery is absolutely necessary for this condition alone. 

Secondly, due to another "hole" in the heart, our babe’s heart is one ventricle, instead of two. Here the doctors have two options. They can ATTEMPT to patch the hole in such a way that they repair it into a two-ventricle heart. This is an unlikely scenario according to the pediatric cardiologists, but not entirely out of the question. The more likely scenario is to surgically repair the heart so it can function as a one-ventricle heart. In this scenario, our child will require multiple open-heart surgeries before the age of 5 and as they grow into adulthood, that one ventricle heart will not be able to keep up and a heart transplant will be necessary. 

Where we all want to welcome our children into the world, cherish bringing them home, snapping pictures of them with their older siblings and in their first ride in the car…Jared and I will consider ourselves lucky to hold our babe for a few minutes before they whisk him or her off to the NICU, we will say our tearful goodbyes as they roll our little one off to have open heart surgery mere hours or days after birth, and we will anxiously await news on if God has granted our child more time on this earth or called them home to heaven.  

I share all of this, not in a bid for attention or pity, but in a mother’s desperation for prayers. This is to us our literal worst nightmare and we are helpless to stop the pain our child will endure. All we can do is pray and so that is what we ask of you, our friends and family. Please, please, please pray. If you don’t pray, please send good thoughts. 

We are thankful that babe is safe while in the womb and I will very much cherish every day of their health while growing inside me. At this time we are working out details for babe’s surgery. There are no cardiac surgeons in Hawaii capable enough to operate on babe, so we are being referred to Stanford. I will travel there around 32 weeks to finish out the duration of my pregnancy. This alone is a cause of stress and concern as Eli will be travelling with me, but we will essentially be raising him out of a hotel room until they can find space for us in the Ronald McDonald House. Making this transition as smooth for him as possible is an area of great concern for us and prayers to this end are also appreciated. 

The road ahead of our family is full of fear and uncertainty, but also hope that the brilliant surgeons at Stanford will be able to heal our child’s heart. It may not be a day or two after birth, but we fervently pray and hope to eventually bring our little one home with us. We ask that you pray for that as well.