Hello Everyone ~

Alicia is my daughter and Grayson is my precious grandson! Please help them any way or any amount you can. We truly appreciate it and please keep this sweet little one in your prayers.

❤️‍Grayson’s Fight:

At Alicia’s 20 week anatomy scan they spent a little more time taking pictures of the heart. A few days later we got a call that said we were to go to Riverside Maternal Fetal Medicine for an ultrasound to look further into something. At that appt, Grayson was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect and we were then referred to Nationwide Childrens Hospital for a fetal echocardiogram to confirm the diagnosis.

After doing the echocardiogram, we were brought into a conference room and told that baby boy had a rare heart condition called Taussig Bing Anomoly and would need heart surgery shortly after birth in order to live.

Going through the pregnancy there were many ultrasounds and echos as well as weekly stress tests to check the growth of baby and to keep an eye on the heart.

After baby Grayson was born, he struggled to breathe and had to be taken from mom almost immediately to rescue him. He was then taken to Nationwide Children’s Hospital after only giving her a 5 minute goodbye with her baby boy.

36 hours after Grayson arrived to Children’s, he needed to be intubated due to not being able to breath. They had to do a heart cath to open up space in the heart to allow mixing of oxygenated blood. The site of the heart cath caused a blood clot in his little leg and he had to be started in blood thinners.

One week after the cath, baby boy surprised us with a sudden cardiac arrest which pushed back his major surgery even further because a lot of his other organs, including his liver and kidneys took a pretty hard hit.

While recovering from the cardiac arrest, his amazing team of doctors were trying to come up with a short term plan to get Grayson healthier and bigger to do the full heart repair. That plan landed on a Hybrid procedure which bands the pulmonary arteries and puts a stent in the PDA.

Although that happened on May 1st, 2024 it was said to last him until 6-9 months of age when at that time, he would be stronger and bigger to be ready for his next open heart surgery. They have tried every thing to progress Grayson. We have ran every test we can possibly name to find out why he isn’t able to tolerate his feeds and the only thing we can come up with is that the anatomy of his heart is not allowing enough blood flow to his organs, making it difficult for them to function. He was also going into congestive heart failure.

Grayson will need his full heart repair sooner than expected. It is scheduled for Thursday, July 11. He is not quite the size we wanted him to be for it and he is not in the best condition for it. But we are hopeful that this will save him. Grayson has had a rough few months of life and it has been terrible to watch. He now has to still get blood draws and his hemoglobin has been on the low side so he has had multiple blood transfusions. He has to take Lovenox (blood thinner) injections twice a day. He has a nasogastric tube (NG tube) for feeds but he was having problems with vomiting so it was switched to an nasojejunal tube (NJ tube) that goes into the small intestine to try to get him some nutrition for growth. He has had blood pressure issues. He got NEC (necrotizing entercolitis) and all feeds had to be stopped in order to treat with antibiotics and not make the stomach or bowels continue to work with the inflammation in there.

Due to all of these tragic and unfair events, mom is struggling. Between just buying a house on her own a month before having Grayson and staying at the hospital and having to pay for food/other necessities while there, it is impossible for Alicia to get everything paid for. Her job is kind enough to still be paying her some wages but it is not enough to cover the cost of living in two places at once.

Please, if you are able, donate to help Alicia be able to continue to stay by her baby’s side and advocate for him and pay her bills at the same time. She has been there every single day from early morning until 11:00 pm, sometimes staying in his room all night based on his current situation. Otherwise, she is right across the street at Ronald McDonald house.

We are truly grateful for all of the love and support that Grayson has and we cannot thank everyone enough for what you’ve done so far. Please keep this momma and baby boy in your prayers

#GraysonStrong❤️‍

#CHD Awareness (Congenital Heart Defect Awareness) ❤️