Fundraiser for Baby Foltz

I’m Katy Miller and I’m organizing this GoFundMe on behalf of Jess and Taylor. Jess has been a huge part of my family’s life since she became my daughter’s personal care nurse 3 years ago. She and Audrey have developed such a special relationship in that time, so needless to say we are very saddened that she won’t be able to start the new school year again working with Audrey. In the past 3 years; Jess has demonstrated such selflessness, and compassion towards our family and now she and Taylor are in need of support themselves. Knowing that Jess and Taylor will both be taking time off of work to be in Pittsburgh for potentially a few months, I felt led to organize this page in hopes of offering some of that support to help to ease the difficulties that they are facing.

As many of you may already know, Jess and Taylor are expecting a baby boy in early November. This little guy will have a long road ahead of him beginning with open heart surgery immediately after birth. For those of you who may not know the situation, I’ll include Jess’s testimony here:

****A few months ago when Taylor and I went in for our anatomy scan, we got news that threw us for a complete loop. As I laid there for my ultrasound expecting that things would be fine; the doc took one look at his little heart and said things were anything but. I immediately bursted into tears as he told me there was a definite septal defect with the chance of other complications. I was then told that about 10% of the population has this defect. Hearing this made the news a little more tolerable; being that the septal defect alone was a common occurrence and that it’s most times fixed with no long-term effects.

We were quickly referred to McGee Hospital to meet with pediatric cardiologists and Neonatal surgeons who gave us some more bad news. They explained that he will have a complete septal defect at birth (meaning no chambers in his heart) but also that his Aorta and pulmonary vessel switched positions and his pulmonary vessel is immature. They told us the anatomy of his very delicate little heart is something that they don’t see often (about .0001% of the time) meaning that our little guy will have open heart surgery as soon as he’s born and will then have several corrective surgeries after.

Birth will look very different for us due to me being induced early at McGee and our baby immediately being taken from us to go have his first operation; only minutes old at children’s hospital (about 20 minutes away from me) . They explained he will be lacking oxygen due to the complexities of his immature pulmonary vessel, so we may or may not have time to meet him prior.

Our hearts hurt. I am scared to death. With this being said, Tay has been a wonderful support person and is so good at calming me in my most anxiety ridden meltdowns; but he of course is hurting as well. Life has been tough and unfair for the both of us lately but we are doing our best to see the silver lining. (That being that the docs at McGee’s and Children’s have been absolutely astounding and are definitely meeting every expectation up until this point. Their optimism and communication skills never fail, and I have high hopes for this baby while in their care.)

For right now, he’s growing as expected (measuring about 2 weeks behind) but is healthy otherwise. He kicks like a mule and even in my most uncomfortable moments, I cherish every movement felt. I know he’s a fighter. I know God and all of our guardian angels are on our side. If you could PLEASE keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we balance life during these difficult times, we would be forever grateful. Thank you in advance. *****

All of the funds would go directly to Jess and Taylor to help them with their bills and other numerous expenses they will incur throughout the upcoming months before and after his birth. They are facing a very scary situation and my hope is that this fundraiser will help alleviate some financial worries so that they can focus on their new baby boy!