Support the Kaminski Family's NICU Journey

We're the Kaminski family, we have 3 amazing children and were pregnant with our fourth, the pregnancy was uneventful until we had our anatomy scan at 20 weeks and discovered my amniotic fluid was incredibly low. I also started bleeding heavily in the weeks following and was told I would need to see a specialist in maternal fetal medicine several hours away. My bleeding worsened and I went to labor and delivery for monitoring, doctors ordered tests and diagnosed me with premature rupture of membranes and said I'd need to go see the specialist even sooner than planned and should plan for a long hospital stay.

I went home to say goodbye to my children and my father and son drove me to the specialist, I had another ultrasound and more tests done and after several hours the doctors decided I would need to be admitted into the antepartum floor of the hospital for high risk pregnancies. I was at 22 weeks gestation, which is right on the verge of viability if the baby needs to be born early. the doctors had a goal of remaining pregnant until I reached 34 weeks. So our family began its new journey, every day was filled with monitoring, blood tests, and temperature checks to ensure baby and I were still stable. PPROM usually leads to something called Chorioamnionitis, this is an infection of the membranes and amniotic fluid around the baby. It can lead to sepsis for both of us if not caught soon enough.

I remained in the hospital for 7 weeks and baby and I appeared to be stable for the most part, I was treated for anemia, received two rounds of steroids to help the baby's lungs, was on 3 separate magnesium drips to protect the baby's brain development and prevent seizures from blood pressure, my blood pressures started to climb upwards. on January 29th my daily monitoring showed higher blood pressure than usual and the baby's movements on the monitors were abnormally low compared to active she usually was. I was sent to labor and delivery to be continuously monitored more closely, my husband left work and made the 2 hour trip in case the doctors made the decision to deliver. after 8 hours of monitoring the baby began to move more and I was admitted back to antepartum to rest. I joked that my husband should just spend the night at the hospital because i felt something was wrong. All seemed normal and my husband made the journey home to work the next day. overnight i experienced bleeding and cramps and was put on a monitor again where we noticed the baby's heart rate was low and her movements were less than normal again, theses are both signs of distress. I was admitted to labor and delivery again and during monitoring my blood pressures spiked up dramatically and I was diagnosed with superimposed preeclampsia with severe features. The doctors made the decision to deliver the baby that day, baby was only 29 weeks gestation and had breathing difficulties right off the bat. It was also discovered that my placenta had necrotic tissue and was falling apart, if we wouldn't have delivered that day we very well could've developed sepsis.

The baby was transferred to the hospitals sister facility down the road to receive 24/7 intensive care, she was placed on a cpap machine and tubes were placed in her belly so shed receive nutrients. I met all my recovery milestones the next day and was transferred to the same hospital to be near her. She very quickly became stable and was weaned from the cpap machine and was breathing room air fine. They took the lines out of her belly and put a picc line in her vein at one week of age, she also had a feeding tube placed in her nose to receive feedings. Shes currently 32 weeks old, having spent 25 days in the Nicu and has overcome some huge milestones! She remains stable on room air, is gaining weight, has undergone photo-therapy to battle jaundice, and is now regulating her temperature without help. the next step is to start taking feedings from a bottle rather than the feeding tube, this is a long road to travel down. If she can get the hang of this eating thing for 80 percent of her feeds she can get her feeding tube taken out and likely come home. Shes recently had some incidences where her heart rate drops significantly and she stops breathing for a while, doctors call this apnea of prematurity. Hearing this new detail has been scary and we try to monitor her as much as we can.

We usually visit her 2 times a week due to the long commute and the expense of the trips, we would love to visit more but that's difficult currently. With my being out of work for so long and continuing to be out of work to recover from surgery we are still catching up on regular expenses like groceries and utilities.

Any help at all is greatly appreciated. All funds would go towards any medical bills our insurance doesn't cover, travel expenses, and living expenses while I'm out of work.

I know this is a long backstory, but if you've made it this far, thank you for listening. Even a share could be a game changer for us. I cannot express how hard it was to write this and relive some of the hardest moments of our life while also still going through it. Asking for help isnt in our nature, but we will do anything for our sweet baby girl.

With love, the Kaminski Family.