Most of you have been following our story with Gio since April when we found out he had bilateral pleural effusions and hydrops fetalis which is extremely rare and extremely deadly. (Skip to the last paragraph if you don’t want to read the backstory).

In May we had to fly to Colorado Children’s hospital for days worth of scans, testing, and procedures to save his life in utero. While there I was warned of the complications, the grim less than 15% chance of survival, the 40% chance of down syndrome, and the painful road ahead for me undergoing a total of 5 thoracentesis procedures (22, 6” needles through me into the baby to drain fluid) some of them requiring epidural’s some of them completely unmedicated…all of them with the risk of breaking my water and going into early labor. Each one gave Gio an extra few days of lung development and less pressure on his heart before the fluid returned and I had to do it again. Doctors asked me if I planned on continuing the pregnancy because of how difficult the road ahead would be. I left that in God’s hands…not theirs. For two months I was in a hospital every day either inpatient and/or outpatient doing ultrasound and NST’s and in the operating room weekly to drain fluid and make sure my baby was still moving and had a heartbeat. I was in a wheel chair and unable to walk for a month between all the procedures, then an emergency C-section where Gio was born not breathing, cut from me, and rushed into surgery while I lay awake on the table asking what’s happening while I had my own complications that required additional time in surgery. I didn’t get to see my baby until the next day. When I tried to stand I lost my vision and nearly passed out before my husband caught me and put me in a wheelchair. I had a spinal fluid leak which was causing spinal headaches where it was difficult for me to stand, lift my head, shift my eyes, or move….but I had to get to the NICU to see Gio and talk to him and hold his little hand through the Incubator so he knew his family was with him. For 3 months, it seemed like a rollercoaster of bad news….fluid drainage out of his chest tubes increasing, Gio kicking out multiple chest tubes and PIC lines, 2 blood clots forming (one in the heart and one in the belly), ventilator in and beeping constantly, intestine issues causing him not to go to the bathroom for weeks, both lungs collapsing, not being able to have breastmilk for a month and a half, 20-30 different supplements and medications being pumped into his little body 24/7, a hole in his heart with concern for the blood clots going to his brain/lung. It was 2 weeks before I had the opportunity to hold him for the first time. For 3 months we lived in the NICU and in August he slowly started making a turn for the better. A cancer medication (sirolimus) was a last ditch attempt to try and stop the fluid. A medication they just started trying for hydrops babies with little testing and we started seeing improvements. Eventually the fluid stopped and we were able to come off the ventilator and on to CPAP, and then weeks later onto high flow oxygen, and then wall oxygen, and eventually breathing on his own. It was a long journey, a combined 5 months in the hospital, an extremely traumatic pregnancy and birth experience, a very long and slow recovery process to try and heal my mind and body and a continued path of healing for both myself and our little blessing Giovanni.

I was really hoping we wouldn’t get to this point of asking for money despite countless friends and family offering to create GoFundMe pages for us and to donate. Maybe it was the water leak from all the rain we got a couple weeks ago that flooded Gio’s brand new nursery with mold in the ceiling that put me over the edge and is now requiring us to replace our roof…Or Luna tearing her ACL and requiring a $5,500 surgery, or the fact that insurance doesn’t want to cover some of Gio’s genetics testing and we are getting $19,000+ medical bills in the mail that aren’t being covered. It could be the fact that we are having to decide if Al should quit his job or not to care for Gio full time with his complex medical needs because we don’t have the luxury of family babysitting full time or being able to bring him to daycare. When Al and I agreed that it was time to bring Gio home in September, we did so with the understanding that we would go through training to learn how to insert the feeding tube through Gio’s nose into his stomach, how to operate the feeding pump, how to administer all his medications and supplements, and take on the role/job that the nurses were performing in the NICU 24/7. It is a full time job with 2 of us…with one person it is A LOT. 13 alarms go off in a 24 hour period for either feeds, medications, pumping, and that doesn’t include the feeding pump beeping inbetween once it is complete and needs to be primed through the line. We are still trying to come up with a plan for when I go back to work of how to properly take care of our son, losing a source of income, and needing to purchase another vehicle, replacing a roof, paying for medical bills, and paying for Luna’s surgery but it is starting to add up and we are to the point where we are ready to ask for help for those that are interested in helping. At the end of the day we will persevere and survive no matter what but we have chosen to create this GoFundMe to relieve some of the stress for us and give us some options to go forward for care or medical bills or a new roof or whatever else life wants to throw at us. We love and appreciate our friends and family so much for all your support and prayers through this crazy year and we are deeply looking forward to a better and healthy happy 2026. Thank you to anyone who has shown up for our little family in the last year. We appreciate you so much.