Donate to Ashton’s Heart Surgery, Recovery, & Other Expenses

Hi, I am Jessica and my husband is Logan, and we have 3 children, Emmalyn (7), Ashton (2), and Aurora (7mo). We are currently trying to raise some money for some upcoming events with our son involving doctors visits, a medical procedure, a long hospital stay, and other expenses during recovery time.

Did you know only 40,000 babies a year are diagnosed with a Congenital heart defect? HLHS Accounts for about 2-3% of all congenital heart defects. Ashton is one of those 2-3% with HLHS.

HLHS is where the left side of the heart is severely underdeveloped or not functional. Ashton has 3 functional chambers and his fourth bottom left chamber is nonfunctioning. He was diagnosed with mitral atresia (he has no mitral valve) as well as having a double outlet right ventricle (DORV; both of his valves pump into one side of his heart vs one per side). Basically, he has less blood flow to his body than he does to his lungs.

I was 23 weeks pregnant With Ashton when he was diagnosed with HLHS. I had multiple doctors appointments a week until he was born Jan 2022.

He surprised all the nurses and doctors that day by kicking and screaming. He was a little off on his color but besides that he came out as a seemingly normal baby. They expected him to not cry or scream and for him to even be blue but he showed them all how strong he was that day.

Ashton was in the NICU for a little over a week before the doctors surprisingly sent him home. I was told they don't normally let heart babies go home before their first heart procedure. But with strict instructions I had to follow monitoring him, he never left my side. At two weeks old Ashton had his first open heart surgery where they put in PA bands around his arteries to help circulate blood flow more. He recovered after 1-2 weeks and he was able to come home again.

Fast forward to a year and a half later he had another open heart surgery but this one was a bit more difficult than the first. This procedure they had to redirect blood flow from his heart and lungs to his body somewhat equally. He recovered fast from that one in under a week and he has been living as normally as possible!

Fast forward again to now, Ashton is due for his (hopefully) final heart surgery coming up on September 16th to complete the directions of his blood flow, and will be in the hospital for 2/3 weeks. After discharge he will have to remain out of childcare for 6-8 weeks. He needs dental work before he has his heart surgery as well as pre admission testings and he has to wear a heart monitor for 2 weeks. On top of all of this, Ashton lost insurance. We are working to get him emergency insurance at the time but there's many hoops to jump through to make that happen.

His surgery is estimated to be around $186,000. The dental work is around $2,000. The cost of the doctor’s visits before surgery and the heart monitor hasnt been determined yet.

During Ashtons recovery time i will have to be home with him and that will be a big financial toll on our family..

We are just asking for some help, if you are able too anything helps.

Thank you for taking the time to read about our family, Ashton and our story with him so far.

Please share this with anyone you know who might want to help.