In Loving Memory of Martin "Marty" Jacob for the Gant Family

On behalf of Matt and Lillian Gant, we are sharing this fund raiser to help ease the overwhelming burden of medical expenses and support them them as they grieve the unimaginable loss of their newborn son, Martin "Marty" Jacob Gant

A Message from Matt and Lillian:

We are completely devastated. The most beautiful week of our lives has also become the most gut-wrenchingly painful moment we’ve ever experienced.

We don’t know how to say this, but want our friends and family to know what has happened without having to retell it.

On Monday night, we welcomed our perfect little Martin “Marty” Jacob to the world. Labor, delivery, and recovery all went so smoothly and we were able to welcome him home on Wednesday. The early days were a dream. We are so in love with him and have loved every second of the snuggles, diaper changes, feedings, and cries. He has his dad’s sweet eyes, his mom’s nose, the longest fingers and toes, and a sweet, soft head of hair. He is just perfect.

This weekend, our world quickly changed.

On Friday morning, Marty had some jaundice and was struggling with feeding. We took him in for a checkup, and Marty had lost weight and had high bili levels (we expected), but also had a low temperature. He was admitted to run labs and rule out an infection. MHP’s ED realized that his situation was going to require a peds hospital and he was transported to IU North.

At IU, they ran more extensive testing and had reason to believe he may have a bowel obstruction, making feeding difficult and resulting in jaundice. Marty was transferred again to the Riley Children’s Hospital NICU.

From there, Riley moved fast on testing into the early hours of Saturday morning. They discovered an upper GI obstruction and were taking him into an emergency surgery for intestinal malrotation - a non-preventable and non-detectable developmental issue that occurred in the early weeks of pregnancy where his intestines didn’t settle in his body properly and were twisting on themselves, causing a blockage.

In surgery, they found what was described to us as the worst case scenario - Marty’s small intestine had twisted on itself and all of the tissue had died.

The surgeons explained the devastating diagnosis and presented us with impossible options. We could remove the small intestine, followed by subsequent surgeries, an IV for nutrition, a transplant at one year, and life-long complications, or we could forgo treatment, knowing that it would lead to his demise.

Matt and I never imagined being in this position. How do you decide the fate of your baby who isn’t quite five days old?

We decided to give Marty a chance - remove the small intestine while he was still in surgery and give him a chance to pull through, knowing that if he didn’t improve, we would choose to discontinue treatment to allow him to be comfortable.

After several hours of no improvement, Matt and I made the impossible decision to remove life support and prioritize his comfort over ours. As they removed his IVs and tubes, Marty opened his beautiful eyes and held our fingers as we rubbed his perfect little head. He already looked so much more relaxed and after 24 hours of being hooked up to machines, we were finally able to hold our sweet baby boy again.

Martin passed peacefully in our arms Saturday afternoon as the three of us snuggled up for a nap.

There are no words to describe this pain and heartbreak. We carry some relief in knowing this was the best decision for him, but it feels like our souls have been torn apart.