Hey everyone.

I'm Chris Mervin, and I'm creating this fundraiser to support my sister Lauren Mervin and her newborn son (my nephew) Axel Mervin. Axel is currently in Birmingham at the Benjamin Russel Hospital for Women and Children with MAS and PPHN. I'll give the full story below. The short/blunt version is this: Axel is in need of medical assistance to stay alive. He is hooked up to an ECMO machine, because his body can't oxygenate his blood properly due to conditions that happened at birth. He started at St. Francis, then was driven to Piedmont, and then flown to Birmingham due to his condition deteriorating. He is expected to spend over a month in Birmingham and possibly multiple months. As you can imagine that will end up very expensive for my sister, especially after the medical bills start coming in. Outside of the obvious medical bills, she is currently staying in Birmingham to be with Axel and that creates hotel costs, food costs, etc. She is employed but obviously on leave since she had a baby just a few days ago, so she isn't bringing in any income. Any money donated will go directly to Lauren and help her continue to be with/near Axel along with helping her with expenses that begin to come up with his care. 

Long version:

My sister, Lauren Mervin, went into labor Sunday afternoon (3/7). She went to St. Francis, her planned place to delivery her baby, early Monday morning (3/8) around 1:30am or so. It was discovered early on that she had MAS (Meconium Aspiration Syndrome). To keep it simple, Axel (unborn baby at this point) pooped while stile inside of her (typically a baby would not poop until after being born) and he inhaled some of the feces. That built up in his lungs and created an infection along with putting tar like material in his lungs which makes it hard to breathe. After this C-section was completed hours later he was not able to properly oxygenate his blood correctly due to the lung infection. He was also diagnosed with PPHN (Persistent Pulmonary Hypertension) shortly thereafter. This is not uncommon with MAS cases. 

After hours (Axel was delivered at 5:30~am - 3/8) without updates outside of "there is no update, it's the same", we were told around 10am, that his condition was very severe and he needed to be moved to a different location. Those local to the area will know the Piedmont has a fantastic NICU and St. Francis isn't really equipped to handle major issues post-birth. They drove him via ambulance to Piedmont around 11am. 

My sister, who had just had a C-section, requested to be transferred to piedmont for her care so she could potentially see her son. This request was denied. She was told later in the evening that even at Piedmont he wasn't doing well even there and that they planned to transfer him to Birmingham (Benjamin Russell Hospital for Children). She managed to get herself discharged on the same day her C-section occurred. So well under 24 hours after her major surgery she managed to get discharged and had a friend of hers take her to Piedmont so she could see her child. She was able to spend a little time with him (still not holding him) before they insisted it was time to send him to Birmingham.

Axel arrived in Birmingham early AM Tuesday (3/9). They originally were giving us updates that he was doing well, but Wednesday it took a turn for the worst. Around noon Wednesday it was decided his condition was bad enough to place him on ECMO. This is a machine that takes the blood out of his body, adds oxygen to it, then heats it back up, and then puts it back in his body. Birmingham is the only location in Alabama that has these machines for infants. This machine requires someone to monitor the pump 24/7 along with multiple other staff members. I can't imagine what the bills will look like once this is done.

As of 3/13 he is still on ECMO and they plan to take actions to ween him off the machine starting 3/14 (slowly as I understand) to see if his body can handle the work on his own. Also speaking with the staff it seems like he has probably a minimum of 2 months left in the hospital before he can reach a discharge date. 

My sister doesn't really want to request donations, but I know she has a rough financial struggle ahead of her so I set this up despite her resistance. If anyone is willing or able to donate please do if you feel drawn to. She will definitely need financial help going forward as far as medical bills go once they come in, plus immediate expenses trying to be with her child (hotel/food/etc) as he goes through this massive endeavor. Even if you are not able to donate or choose not to, please consider adding baby Axel to your prayers. He has struggled since he was born and could use some lifting thoughts and prayers to boost him.

I will try to update the status of Axel on a regular basis so everyone can know what is going on. Thank you for anyone who chooses to donate and even those who don't that take the time to pray or lift up Axel in your thoughts. I know none of us know what works or doesn't, but prayers/thoughts never hurt anyone. Please take the small amount of time for that if there's nothing else to do.