Support Sweet Baby Raymond’s Final Expenses

In early May 2024, Dylan and Lauren received exciting news—they were expecting a new addition to their family in early 2025. But their joy quickly turned to concern when Lauren had a vanishing twin and subchorionic hematoma. This caused complications that led to the loss of one twin and significant damage to the placenta, marking the pregnancy as high-risk.

Routine ultrasounds revealed the baby was smaller than expected for his gestational age, sparking worries about potential genetic issues. Thankfully, an amniocentesis showed no chromosomal abnormalities, but amniotic fluid continued to leak intermittently. Lauren was placed on strict rest, unable to lift anything heavier than 10 pounds, which has been especially challenging with their energetic 3-year-old at home.

On Saturday, September 14, while grocery shopping, Lauren’s water broke just shy of 24 weeks gestation. After an ultrasound on September 16, Lauren was admitted to the hospital, where she will remain until their little man arrives. Doctors are closely monitoring both mom and baby with multiple daily tests, ultrasounds, and medications, hoping to keep Lauren pregnant until Thanksgiving week—the latest they’ll allow her to continue carrying because of the early rupture. Once their baby is born, he will be transferred to the NICU for specialized care. The doctors anticipated he would remain there until close to his original due date of January 7, 2025, but his health has declined in the new year and his road ahead is challenging.

Raymond was born on October 20, 2024, weighing 1.5 pounds and was 12 inches long. He will have an extended stay in the NICU as his lungs develop and to allow him to grow.

The doctors had to go up to 100% oxygen overnight and started to give Raymond medication to help with the fluids on his lungs. It’s the pulmonary hypertension causing his increase need for oxygen. He’s also had an increase in work of breathing in recent weeks so they did a lot of testing. They were checking to see if he has an inflammatory infection when they found his red blood cells were low and he has anemia so they had to do a blood transfusion, followed by more Lasix to help reduce fluid retention.

They were going to complete a cardiac catheterization on January 15 to check the severity of his pulmonary hypertension. However, his respiratory culture had two bacteria on it—a pneumonia bug—so the procedure was postponed to January 22.

Put under with anesthesia, Raymond’s procedure took three hours. The result of two balloon angioplasties and nitric oxide treatment informed the doctors of what medications and treatment they needed to give him. Sometimes babies outgrow hypertension and won't need follow up catheterization procedures.

Raymond continues to require significant levels of oxygen support. To help his work of breathing, he had a tracheostomy tube placed on February 4. He also has an G-tube for feeding.

Doctors had to remove his trach after his vitals began to crash. His lungs have collapsed and popped multiple times as large casts obstructed his airway. For the past month, he has received respiratory treatments and bag suctioning to remove these mucus casts while he was placed on ECMO.

The decision to place him on ECMO was life-saving and required sacrifices to his jugular and carotid arteries on one side of his neck. After 10 days on ECMO, the surgeon removed the cannulas on February 23.

Raymond is having another heart surgery to reopen one of his pulmonary veins. It was previously ballooned but due to his excessive amount of swelling following his tracheostomy and G-tube surgeries and subsequently going on ECMO, it reclosed. Once he recovers, he will have another surgery to place a new trach breathing tube.

Raymond was transferred to Children's Hospital Colorado in May 2025. Since then, he has been through another catheterization procedure to look at his heart and pulmonary veins. He also fought another bout with pseudomonas on top of tracheitis. Unfortunately, June 19 scared everyone because Raymond went into cardiac arrest. The doctors did CPR for 7 minutes as his heart rate and oxygen were undetectable for a time. But thank God he is still here. Raymond has been sedated and paralyzed since then because his echoes were concerning to the doctors and they didn’t want him to have another PH crisis.

This journey has been an emotional and financial strain on the Brants. They are asking for your support to help cover mounting medical costs for Raymond’s NICU care and his passing.

Any donations, big or small, will make a world of difference as they navigate this challenging time.

Thank you for your kindness and generosity in helping the Brant family through this journey.