Help Me Stay Home With My Baby Until After Her Heart Surgery

As some of you may know, Logan and I will be having our baby girl tomorrow, Tuesday, November 5th, 2024. What you don’t know is she will be born with more than just one severe and rare heart defect.

Her diagnosis is a double inlet left ventricle, double outlet left ventricle, a hypoplastic right ventricle, a fairly large bulboventricular foramen, or a ventricular septal defect, and last but not least, the two lower chambers of her heart are flip-flopped. In simpler terms, the left and right ventricles are on opposite sides. The right ventricle of the heart that is on the left side is too small to function and never will. Everything is flowing both in and out of the right-sided left ventricle, along with having a hole in the wall between the two lower chambers.

I will spare you the details of what her symptoms will be as a result of these heart defects, but instead of choosing to put her through multiple heart surgeries without a guarantee of a longer life, we will be bringing our daughter home on hospice. Her estimated time on this earth is between 1-3 months.

We were absolutely devastated when we heard the doctor’s words. It seemed so unfair, especially after having three miscarriages in the past three years. How were we supposed to make such an impossible decision? The three choices presented were: 1. Terminate the pregnancy at almost 7 months, 2. Put her through multiple surgeries with uncountable risks and no guarantees, or 3. Bring her home just the way she is and let the man upstairs call her home when he decides to.

Option 3 was our choice. Please believe it wasn’t an easy decision to make and there will be some of you who won’t agree or understand, but this is our child. It’s what we decided was best for her and our family, no matter how difficult it will be.

As a family of almost five, we are asking for your prayers of support and strength, but also financial help. The reasoning for the financial assistance is so we can spend every minute our daughter has on this earth, with her. Without the constant worry of how the bills are going to be paid or how we’re going to keep our cupboards filled. In addition, Christmas will be here before we know it and we feel the extra pressure to provide a “normal” Christmas for our two other children. Luckily, Logan was granted six weeks of paid paternity leave, but unfortunately, only one paycheck coming in just isn’t enough. We were able to put some money away these past two months since finding out, but not near enough to cover all of the upcoming expenses. With the holidays fast approaching, we understand everyone’s finances are tight. If you are able to donate, please know how deeply grateful we would be. If you’re unable to do so, we would appreciate it if you could please keep us in your prayers and share.

Another favor we ask is if you know our children personally, please do not bring up this topic. Our daughter, who is 11, is aware that her little sister has multiple heart defects and will be requiring extra care once home. She understands that she will have respiratory problems and the tint of her skin will be more blue because of this. What she does NOT know, is that she will be dying not long after she is born. We do not plan on telling her until Thanksgiving Break. That way she has time at home to mentally and emotionally recover from such devastating news, without having to return to school the very next day. Being a preteen is hard enough and we did not want the burden of such news weighing on her heart and mind this entire time. Please grant us this wish of respect and privacy, as this will be very difficult for all of us.

We thank you all from the bottom of our hearts!

With all our love,

Jassmine, Logan, Amauree, & Ezra♥️