*update*

After a very long battle, many surgeries, and countless hours of love from her parents, family and friends, Harper Lee has passed away at 11:15 on October 17th. Katelyn and Kyler are heartbroken beyond words but know their beautiful angel is at peace with her brother in Heaven.

Hi everyone! I’m Tory, a close friend of Katelyn and Kyler Lee and I’m starting this to help them during their tough time following the birth of Harper Lee.

Katelyn and Kyler are two of the strongest people I know. In 2020, they found out they were parents to be to the most beautiful boy, Mister Graham Wade. Katelyn’s pregnancy took a turn in May of 2021 when Katelyn went to the doctor for swelling. Over the course of the next couple of weeks she was transferred to WashU in St. Louis via Life Flight after doctors diagnosed her with severe symptoms of Pre-Exlampsia. Graham was born on May 27th at 11:37 pm after doctors induced labor when Katelyn was experiencing organ failure. He was loved and cared for and even got to meet his grandparents and aunts before he passed peacefully, shortly after 2 am. The road to recovery for Katelyn was very hard, and emotionally traumatic after losing their son.

After recovering physically, mentally, and emotionally, Katelyn and Kyler found out they were pregnant with their Rainbow Baby, miss Harper. Being high risk, Katelyn and Kyler were seeing doctors both in Springfield and in St. Louis weekly. They learned soon into their pregnancy Harper was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect called Truncus Arteriosus. It occurs when the blood vessel coming out of the heart in the developing baby fails to separate completely during development, leaving a connection between the aorta and pulmonary artery. Because of this diagnosis she would require open heart surgery after she’s born.

Harper Mae Lee was born at 6:37 am on August 21st, 2022 after Katelyn was transferred via ambulance back to St. Louis due to symptoms of Pre-Exlampsia once more. She is the most beautiful girl! But they knew the fight wasn’t over.

On August 25th at just 4 days old baby Harper was taken for open heart surgery. She was the best trooper and made it out of surgery and was stable soon after. After the surgery however, it was found that Baby Harper had a brain bleed and issues with her aorta that would require another surgery. The following day she was taken back for surgery where they were able to fix her heart, however following that surgery they decided to put her back on ECMO as her little body needed a little help healing. In the following days she had multiple scans and test to see if she was in good enough shape to wean her off of ECMO, she was progressing and losing the fluids she retained during surgery and they decided to follow through and take her back into surgery this morning, the 6th of September.

Baby Harper was taken back into surgery and in that surgery started to bleed pretty heavily. Katelyn and Kyler were afraid she wouldn’t make it, but she is a fighter! She is currently back in her ICU room where she will start the long road to recovery as her little body handles the stress of all of her surgeries, only being 1 week and 6 days old.

Katelyn and Kyler are putting all of their strength into the health and recovery of their little girl. Katelyn is staying in St. Louis and unable to work while Kyler goes back to Springfield 3 hours away to work so they can stay afloat. Baby Harper’s medical future is unclear as of now and at the very least, the road to recovery is long and will be hard not just for her, but for her entire family. I want to raise money for them to be able to stay afloat and pay bills while being able to be there for their precious rainbow baby after such traumatic events have happened. No parent should have to go through losing a child, and no parent should be faced with the emotional trauma of watching their child fight for their life.