Support Penelope Ogden's Heart Journey

In November 2023, my brother, Jared, and sister-in-law, Brianna, had their anatomy scan, where they found out their baby girl’s heart had not fully developed. Jared’s amazing cardiologist at UCLA was able to get them in with the chief pediatric cardiologist there a couple days later. It became clear that their little girl had a single ventricle heart. They believed the left ventricle had fully developed, but the right ventricle remained “hypoplastic” or underdeveloped. They also learned that she would have some additional medical complications which can happen when the heart hasn’t developed properly.

Fast forward a few months and sweet Penelope June was born on Tuesday, February 27th at 11:32am. She was 6 pounds, 9.6 ounces, and 20 inches long. Bri was able to have one minute of skin to skin before the NICU team took her away.

Penelope then had a series of echos and ultrasounds of her heart and other organs. It was discovered that the pulmonary veins that connect to her left lung appeared to have some kind of narrowing or obstruction, blocking the blood flow out of her lungs. They decided to do a catheter procedure to get better imaging of her anatomy. The results showed that the left pulmonary veins did not form. There are some collateral veins and other connections between her heart and left lung, but currently her left lung is not being used. It was also confirmed that her stomach is on the right side and her liver is in the middle. Also, she has no spleen, making sickness and infection more dangerous for her. This means prophylactic antibiotics during her early life, since littles are so prone to getting sick.

Penelope had a breathing tube due to the catheter procedure and when they attempted to remove it, they determined she wasn’t ready and they stopped. Until she can breathe on her own without the ventilator, she will remain in the hospital, intubated. When Jared asked the doctors how long she could stay intubated, they said months. As of right now, they have no plans to take her off the ventilator in the immediate future. Their main concern right now is perfect nutrition to help her grow until she’s bigger and stronger to have her heart surgery.

The biggest thing you can do for our family is pray. We serve a mighty God and we know that He is going to move through Penelope. At the same time, we also know that it’s going to cost a lot of money for Jared and Bri to be there with their baby girl. Between lodging near UCLA, medical bills, transportation, and food, the out of pocket costs are going to be quite large. Jared and Bri would never ask for help financially, but we’ve had so many people asking what they can do tangibly to help, so we decided to set this up to help them even a little bit. Please do not feel obligated to give though.

Thank you for coming alongside our family in any way that you can. We look forward to seeing how the Lord is going to use Penelope’s life and how He will be glorified through all of this.

The Ogdens

PS - if you would like to follow their journey a little bit closer, feel free to visit their website below:

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