Hi, I am Hailey Sharp and on December 22, 2023, my sister and brother in-law, Katie and Scott Freese welcomed their beautiful baby boy, William Scott Freese (Liam) into the world. On December 23, they discovered he was having some issues with feedings and after consulting with Toledo Children’s Hospital, he was transferred to the NICU there and diagnosed with Esophageal Atresian and Tracheoesophageal Fistula (TEF)-meaning that his upper esophagus was not attached to his stomach and his lower esophagus was attached to his windpipe and he would need surgery. He had that surgery when he was 4 days old and he was in surgery for 10 hours!! The end result was that they could not re-attached his esophagus due to it not being long enough. This means he will require another surgery after his esophagus grows. Meanwhile Katie and Scott have to be away from their little girl, Lainey, which is extremely hard but she is being well taken care of and she gets to come see her mommy and daddy on the weekends. This could potentially be a pretty long journey for them in the NICU and after baby Liam is back home. We are making this Go Fund Me, not because they have asked us to, but because so many people have asked how they could help them during this time. With the money raised from this, it could potentially help them not to have to worry about things while they are up with their baby boy. They are staying at the Ronald McDonald house and it has been a blessing for them to be able to stay so close to little Liam but it’s not home! We don’t really have a “goal”, just wanted people to be able to help out if they wanted to. Most of all, please keep them ALL in your prayers during this time, that is the greatest gift you could give to them right now.

Update as of 2/6/24

Liam had a small procedure to see how far his esophagus has grown. His scope showed that the upper pouch of his esophagus has in fact grown & is closer to the bottom part. The parts of his esophagus are still a little too far to be connected yet, but in a couple weeks, surgery will do a similar procedure to the one today to see if his esophagus has grown any longer. Surgery is estimating that they still have about 4-6 weeks until his next surgery can be completed.

From Katie “Liam was a champ today & was able to be taken off the vent as soon as he got back up to the room. We are so glad things are moving in the right direction. We still have several weeks to go on this NICU journey & we are sad that means we have to be away from Lainey so much still Please continue to pray for- we are so thankful for all the prayers, God is working.”

After surgery they still have time in the NICU to make sure everything is working right before they will be able to go home they aren’t sure when they will be able to go home at this point just keep on praying and if you can donate they will appreciate it❤️

Update as of 4/09/24

Liam had his second connection surgery and everything went smoothly. Now to wait till Monday and they will try and start feeding him.

Update as of 04/13/24

Liam’s progress is really minute by minute right now. We’ve had a scary & long week since his surgery on Tuesday. His lungs have had a really hard time recovering & he’s needed lots of help & adjustments. I’d love to be able to give a great update, but things are still really hard and can change so frequently. Since his surgery, he’s had 2 codes called on him where the team has had to resuscitate him & replace his breathing tube. He’s been on several different types of ventilation machines to figure out what is going to work best for him. And he’s also very medicated with pain meds, sedation, and a paralytic to keep him as comfortable and calm as possible. He seems to be tolerating the new vent change from this morning fairly well most of the time. So here are the things we are praying for & the team has been working to improve (not in any specific order):

1) pray that his lungs would heal by him resting and letting the vent do the work for him

2) pray that his blood gas can be stabilized appropriately- how the lungs exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide effects everything else in the body. We’ve been trying to balance this so much over the past 2 days.

3) pray that his blood pressure & heart rate would stabilize. His blood pressures were too low yesterday so he got medicine to help increase & right now his pressure is on the high side as well as his heart rate

Overall, please just pray for Divine healing for his body. We need God to heal his lungs, keep his heart working well. We miss the sweet smiles and coos from our little boy. It’s so hard to see him so still. Pray that he would remain stable so the team can work on weaning the vent settings and then the paralytic so we can prepare him for breathing on his own again. We have such amazing people caring for him. The nurses, doctors, respiratory therapists, surgical team, have all truly been amazing & we can see that they love our little man so much. We need God to heal our baby boy & for Him to guide those caring for him in wisdom so they can make the best decisions to help him. We love our little man so much and just want him to get better.

From Katie Freese