Stand with Jenna and Lou Lou in Their Struggle

Hello Friends,

Lou Lou was born on April 24th at 24 weeks and 2 days. Weighing 1 lb and 6 ounces. We had a perfectly normal pregnancy and an excellent 20 week anatomy scan - she was measuring perfectly healthy and in the 86th-89th percentile.

Unfortunately, some time in February or March someone coughed/sneezed/shared parvo virus with me. I did not reflect symptoms but it did impact baby Lou. We were told that for an adult to carry the parvo virus and share it with a pregnant woman, was next to impossible and the doctors said they would've said 'it couldn't happen'.

My body started retaining fluid and I had low energy. I went to the OB ER and Lou's heartbeat was still strong at 154 bpm. But what we did not know was it was high because she was in distress. The ultrasound showed that she had 'hydrops' meaning her body was full of fluid. This is an extremely rare case and typically results in death for the baby. We were told that if I had waited one more day, I would have lost Lou. We found out her hydrops was caused by anemia and successfully completed 3 transfusions of blood and platelets across 6 days. We were able to get her to 100% blood capacity during this time and to regain over 200 grams of weight.

What makes our case more rare is that my body 'mirrored' hers. So I was showing fluid in my body and in my organs as well. This made our case a 1 in 10 million instead of just a 1 in a million. Mirror syndrome typically resolves within 20 days of the baby getting healthy; because ours was so severe I was not recovering. My organs were shutting down and we were forced to do an emergency c-section, delivering Lou right away. She was as healthy as she could be given the circumstances.

Her second night she suffered bleeding in her lungs and brain. At this time she is mending and healing the best she can, however she is at risk of cerebral palsy or lack of motor function.

Currently we are focusing on getting her body to digest breastmilk and to repair her liver, from there we will continue to our next steps.

During the stress of everything, I lost vision in my left eye and it is slowly recovering. We both continue to get stronger every day.

We appreciate the continued prayers and support.

Sincerely,

Jenna