On June 14th I went in to early labor at 35 weeks, and 25 hours later Keira Renee McCord was brought into the world via emergency C-section. We had a 48 hour stay at the hospital and then were released to go home. We were told she was perfect. She had an 8, 9 apgar score and everything. The next morning the unthinkable happened - Keira stopped breathing. She was rushed to the hospital by ambulance and then flown to CHOA where our whole family spent the next week hoping the hospital could save her. Sadly, and tragically she did not make it and we had to make the incredibly heartbreaking decision to release her from comfort care. This has been an extremely difficult time for both Caleb and I as this tragedy has been extremely difficult to heal from physically and mentally and unfortunately bills are piling up and hospital bills are rolling in as well. On top of all of that... Caleb's job terminated him for not putting in his PTO in advance while I was in labor... Even though he was told he could use PTO and unpaid leave when I did because they did not qualify for FMLA. He had 27 hours available and just chose to let him go instead...
The money that was raised in the beginning by my mom was enough to get us through that first week at the hospital and helped with some bills for June as well and we were very grateful for the support but unfortunately in taking time to grieve our bills have fallen behind for the months of July and August and we are having a tough time trying to figure it out. Both of us are now back working but it will take some time to catch up. You work so hard to get ready for a baby to come just to have it all taken away in the blink of an eye tragically... I had sold my car before I went into labor to try to get my credit score up and have a safety net for Keira but that is all about to be ruined if the mortgage cannot get paid. I have applied for mortgage assistance but will not get a determination until the end of the month and even then have been told all late payments will be reported to the credit bureaus. And on top of that just last week I was leaving therapy and got into a fender bender in Caleb's car and we are having to pay out of pocket for a rental. The term "when it rains it pours" doesn't even come close to describing this... We also lost two pets the two months prior to Keira's birth, one was a goat lost from circling disease and the other was my cat I'd had for half of my life. I literally cannot believe the bad luck we have fallen into. I waited my entire life to have kids intentionally after I was financially secure and went through a difficult high risk pregnancy just for all of this to occur. Caleb and I wanted more than anything to have a child together as well and now we have to wait a year before we can even think about trying again due to my body needing to heal from the cesarean...
I am not one to ask for help but I don't know what else to do. Initially I didn't even want to do a GoFundMe or anything but with all of this and now medical bills are rolling in... just to give an idea it was 15k for just the helicopter ride, 11k per night just for the bed in the NICU per night... thank God I have insurance but my deductible started over right before I went in to labor so I've got to pay out both deductibles for prenatal care and all of this as well seperately.
Our hearts are broken, we are both trying our hardest to put one foot in front of the other and try to figure out what our new normal is going to look like... Because nothing can ever be the same again after this tragic experience.
Anything helps. If you find it in your heart to donate we would truly appreciate it. If you can't and could at least share it to help get it out to the community it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
https://www.cantonfuneralhome.com/obituaries/keira-mccord
