Support for Sophie and Scott

Thank you for being here,

I am Sophie's cousin Kayla. With the permission of my cousin, I have created this Go Fund Me to help support her and her Husband Scott as they navigate life after the unimaginable loss of their baby boy, Grant.

Unfortunately, after the loss of a baby, the mother is only eligible for 15 weeks of maternity leave and not the continued parental leave. Sophie's eligibility for funding will be cut off in Decemeber. The funds from this Go Fund Me will go towards counseling and support services, travel expenses, and lost income so this family has the space and time they need to heal.

Please donate as you are able and share their story

Please read Grant's story below:

"Hearing of our pregnancy was so exciting as it was deeply wanted. All three trimesters flew by as we prepared, and we grew more eager each day to begin our new chapter with this little baby that we had already been falling in love with for over 9 months. On October 8th at 3:02PM we finally got to meet our beautiful son. 

Without any prior cause for concern during the entire pregnancy and birth, Grant's battle began only 20-30 minutes after being born. He needed immediate attention in the NICU where they treated him for two collapsed lungs from a cause they did not know but suspected was much more serious than what was first thought. The following weeks became something we never thought we would have to face. 

Kelowna didn’t have the resources needed, so we were quickly transferred by air to Vancouver’s Children’s Hospital. First, into their NICU where Grant had a new chest tube put in for the air escaping from his lungs into his chest and was put on a ventilator. Being intubated temporarily helped maintain his oxygen levels, but an unknown strong pressure in his lungs was slowly tiring the right side of his heart and he remained unstable. 

Doctors decided that the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit upstairs was where our baby now needed to be transferred. The PICU was where they could provide the necessary support of a life support machine (ECMO) where blood oxygenation and cardiac function are performed by a mechanical pump outside the body. It temporarily does the job of both the heart and lungs. It is not a treatment and it has its own risks, but this pump allowed for rest, more time, and hopefully healing. This machine was very invasive and intimidating, but necessary.

We had momentary relief as his lungs stopped letting air escape. X-rays showed improvement from the previous collapse, but his heart and lungs were still in distress. Many, many doctors collaborated multiple times daily, and hosted conferences including Neonatal, Pediatric, Cardiac, Respirology, and Genetic doctors and specialists from all over Canada, but they didn’t yet know why this was happening. They hoped a day or two on the life support machine would let his tired heart rest and the lung pressure subside, but Grant ended up on ECMO for 11.5 days.

The life support pumps, as well as the ventilator and many other access ports and monitors, coated his little body with cannulae, tubes, cuffs, and tape. At first the equipment was frightening and hard to see past, but no matter what - Grant’s bright spirit and overwhelming cuteness shined right through. As much as it hurt us to not be able to hold him close and seeing him covered in tubes, we were thankful, because those interventions allowed him to hold on just long enough for us to experience him, and he us. We got to make sure he knew how loved he is, and how much he changed our lives forever. The doctors provided Grant with every medicine needed to ensure he wasn’t experiencing pain.

As almost two weeks went by on this invasive and risky life support machine, it became clear to the Doctors that what Grant was fighting could not be healed with time. 

Little Grant fought so hard against what turned out to most resemble a very rare and fatal lung disorder that presents in infants:  Alveolar Capillary Dysplasia. There is no cure.

Grant made many friends during his time in the hospital. Around 50 doctors and nurses exhausted every possible resource for him around the clock. As busy as they were, they couldn't help but to ooh and aww at his cuteness and sweet thankful eyes while they were working tirelessly to figure him out.

Due to the level of medications, many of Grant’s hours were spent sedated and sleepy. However, one of the heart-melting gifts our baby would surprise us with was deep sustained eye contact when he had enough energy to stay awake. He fought sleep so hard to keep looking into our eyes. Those moments felt like staring contests we never wanted to end. Locking eyes with him made us so happy, we longed to hold him but that was not possible in his condition.

On October 23rd, Baby Grant's time on the life support machine was up. He had already surpassed the indicated time allowance, and the cardiac surgeons took him off. They declared that now the team would provide support as far as medicine and ventilation, which was the maximum they could do. It was now up to the little guy to decide what happened next, and when.

Grant fought hard. His oxygen saturations stayed high the rest of the afternoon, but they slowly started to decline overnight and during the next day. We were told frankly a few times before this point that Grant most likely would not be coming home with us. It was impossible to accept those words, but the reality of this situation started to creep in and become overwhelmingly painful. 

The healthcare team at the end pushed two beds together so that Scott and I could lay on either side of our baby and cuddle him while his vitals were dropping. It got to a point where, regardless of the ventilator being set at 100%, Grant's oxygen levels had dropped much too low to sustain him. We made the excruciating decision to remove the ventilation machine and brace ourselves for the end.

On the afternoon of October 24, 2021, we broken-heartedly said our final goodbyes to the physicality of our son. Our baby left us peacefully. In his last moments we held him freely in our arms for the first time, in privacy and as a family. We were in awe seeing his beautiful face finally unobstructed by tubes and tape - truly a perfect little boy.

This has been an unimaginable loss that we will never get over but will learn to live with. Grant remains eternally in our hearts and in 16 days he taught us a love we never knew existed. He will be loved and remembered, and within our family forever