Jake Meyers, Shaunna Johnson and baby Danika

Hello Family and friends

As many of you know, Shaunna, Jake’s partner is 6 months pregnant with a sweet baby girl, Danika Rose. Their son Damien turns two in August.

Last month at Shaunna’s checkup the doctors noticed some issues with Danika’s heart. Shaunna and Jake went down to Seattle Children’s hospital for tests and it was discovered that Danika has a very complex congenital heart defect. She has Aortic Hypoplasty, along with a Ventricular Septic Defect, and a mild hypoplastic mitral (and aortic) valve. This means that she will have trouble getting oxygenated blood to the rest of her body, especially her lower half. It will require surgery soon after birth to correct it.

At the follow up appointment, the doctors decided that with Shaunna’s pregnancy history, they will move her up to a high risk category. They have requested relocation to Seattle, approximately 10 days before her new due date and scheduled C section on Sept. 19th. From there they will attempt to keep one of Danika’s valves open with the hormone PGE, and if Danika does well enough she can stay bedside with Shaunna at the UW hospital and get some strength before Shaunna is discharged. After this (or if Danika does not do well enough) she will be immediately transferred to Children's for surgery. After that, we anticipate another 1-2 weeks in the NICU for her recovery.

We feel she will be in good hands and the doctors at SCH are some of the best.

Because of this situation we will be looking to rent a place in Seattle for the family for about 4-6 weeks. Jake will be taking time off work to be with Shaunna in Seattle. Jake and Shaunna will be spending a lot of their days at the hospital, so the plan is to have Damien staying with either Jakes parents or Shaunna’s mom, and hopefully have him come down to visit on long weekends when applicable.

Financially this is going to be a very tough, stressful time for them so we’ve set up this GoFundMe to help them out.

Emotionally they are going to need the strength and support of family and friends.

Please send lots of love and healing energy to Jake and his family for the next few months.