Leah Thompson (Jenny and Garrett)

Hi everyone! As many of you know Jenny and G experienced a parents biggest fear last week. Jenny and Leah were airlifted to Helen DeVos children’s hospital last Monday and the three of them have been there since. I will share Jenny’s post below for more details.

Please join us in support by donating to the gofundme page in Leah’s name to help cover some of the unexpected bills they may experience.

From Jenny:

Life can be so hard and confusing. God’s plan can be confusing. But one thing that’s for sure is that God is good ❤️

Monday morning started out like any other day with a seemingly healthy happy Leah. Just a few hours later she was beginning to not act like her normal self. She seemed painful and she was extremely inconsolable- which is not normal for her. Thankfully we listened to our instincts and took her into the pediatrician as soon as possible, who then immediately sent us to the ER. Once we got into ER they had us airlifted within the hour to go to Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital. Monday night was one of the most difficult and scariest nights of our lives as she went through copious amounts of tests and procedures and we just had to wait for all the results to come through. Unfortunately with little babies, they can’t necessarily tell us what’s wrong so a lot of tests are needed to come up with answers. Luckily a bowel obstruction was ruled out upon arrival but by the time we got her to DeVos she had developed a fever so more tests were done. We received news that her culture came back positive for a bacterial infection in her bloodstream (sepsis) and she also had parotitis (an inflammation of her parotid gland), and an inflamed ureter/kidney. Her bloodwork was abnormal and her inflammatory markers were elevated. She was immediately started on broad spectrum IV antibiotics to treat the infection while we waited for further test results. Thankfully she did not test positive for meningitis Since Monday, she has undergone lots of tests and procedures in attempt to figure out if there is any other underlying diseases related to her intestinal issue, parotitis, and kidneys, and those too have tested negative which leads them to believe they were all secondary to the infection since infections tend to attack other bodily systems. So the good news is she does not require surgery of any kind ❤️ Her team of doctors here are unable to pinpoint where or how this bacteria would have reached her body, but the good news is that she is responding well to the antibiotics. She has been improving daily and her inflammatory markers and bloodwork have come back better and better each day. She is beginning to seem like her normal little self again and we couldn’t be more thankful Although not common, there is a chance the infection could invade her bones if not treated aggressively so we will be spending time here at DeVos until at least Thursday so she can complete her IV antibiotics and continue bloodwork follow-ups to ensure that she’ll be ready to go home. Please keep praying that she continues to improve and that her little body continues to show great strength like it has been ❤️

Being a new parent is challenging to say the least and if we could relay anything to other parents it would be to go with your gut, if you feel like something could be wrong with your little one, just go in. We were lucky that little Leah is a fighter and made it clear that she wasn’t experiencing colic or fussiness but instead a much worse pain. Her pain escalated very quickly which was a big signal to us that it wasn’t normal. What happened to Leah does not sound overly common, but her team of doctors said if we would’ve waited, the outcome could have been fatal since these infections are so serious in little babies We feel very blessed to have such a wonderful team of doctors helping fight with Leah, from the Munson ER team, to the Northflight team, to all the staff here at Helen DeVos.

We’d like to extend a huge thank you to everyone that’s offered support from near and far, and most of all thank you for all of your love and prayers. We truly believe in the power of prayer and we’ve put our trust in God to give Leah the strength to get through this and he has certainly showed up (we also think her big angel sister has a part in her healing as well ). We’ve seen so much strength in her throughout this last week and we are so proud of this little girl for everything she’s been through in her first month here, we love you so much baby girl! ❤️