Baby Levi James Harvey - Our Little Warrior

Damon Harvey is organizing this fundraiser.

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Early this morning, our tough and mighty warrior Levi went home to heaven to be with our Lord Jesus. We saw so many miracles performed in Levi's body, but we began experiencing several complications a few weeks ago. Rachel and I faced making difficult decisions, but Levi was so brave and left this world before we could make them. His heart stopped beating in the very early morning hours as his doctors did everything they could to try to save him. We are such proud parents and we are glad that Levi is now completely healed in heaven. We know that he now gets to see and breathe and speak. He gets to see the most wonderful sights while being held by the most caring father. We cannot wait to share these sights by his side. Rachel and I are overwhelmed with grief. This has particularly been a very difficult past few months traveling to and from Chattanooga as we attempted to give Levi all the comfort and strength we could. He certainly deserved better than us, and we are privileged to be his parents. We are confident that God will still perform miracles through the short life of Levi James Harvey. Small gifts are appreciated for our journey ahead but nothing is expected. We mostly need prayers that the Lord would strengthen us and keep our faith strong during this time.

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Hello Friends and Family! Many of you know the story we have lived over the recent weeks. We were 25 weeks into a normal pregnancy when my wife Rachel was suddenly hospitalized for very low amniotic fluid. It was discovered that our son, Levi (still inside Rachel) had not been growing and was significantly behind physically. Rachel's blood pressure was very high and the fluid was low. We were sent to specialists who rushed us to Erlanger Hospital in Chattanooga. This was an hour and forty minutes from our home.

Our new team of doctors found that there were problems with Rachel's placenta due to the high blood pressure. Levi basically could not pump his blood back to the placenta so the overall blood flow was poor. Levi was not in a good situation inside of Rachel; however, he was so small that it would be much worse for him to come out. The doctors worked to keep Levi safely inside of Rachel. When we arrived, he was only measuring at 21 weeks. During this time, we had an incredible community of people praying to our Lord for our son Levi. People from all over petitioned heaven for our family - many of the prayer warriors we didn't even know. Our thankfulness overflows for these prayers. God was building our faith, and we learned the power of speaking Scriptures over our children. So many people helped our family during this phase. Also, the care we have received from doctors, nurses, and other hospital staff here at Erlanger has been nothing short of incredible. It would take many pages for me to describe the sacrifices they made to help my family. These people are now our heroes.

We were able to keep Levi inside Rachel for about two and a half more weeks, and we lived at the hospital during this time. At that point, though, the blood flow declined and it was becoming dangerous for Levi to stay inside of his mom. Unfortunately, it was discovered that Levi had only grown a little more since arriving, and he was still only measuring around 21 weeks. We hoped for a few more days in order to give Levi the steroids, but it was decided rather suddenly that we needed to operate quickly. We had not finished the second round of steroids.

The operation was a miracle. We put all of our faith in Jesus Christ, knowing that He who started a good work in Levi would see it through to completion. We refused to throw away our confidence in the promises that God had given us in Scripture. We spoke the Word during Rachel's c-section and everything went smoothly. Both the c-section doctor and the NICU doctor said they were amazed with how well the operation went when they were expecting much worse. The doctors felt impacted and encouraged by our prayers, and they both believed God was working for Levi during the operation. They told us that they had seen unbelievable things happen in response to prayer and that this operation was another example of it.

Levi was born at 290 grams (or 10 ounces). He is the smallest baby to ever be admitted to the NICU at Erlanger Hospital. It turns out that Levi was even smaller than they thought. He was also in a much worse situation than anyone realized. The cord was wrapped around his neck twice and there was a tight knot in the cord. It looked scary!

Levi has been a miracle in his first few days in the world. Levi has responded well to everything they have done for him. The NICU doctors are impressed with how developed his lungs are, even though he didn't have amniotic fluid to practice breathing with. They are also encouraged by his well-formed skin, which will help him fight infections. He is even trying to breathe around the tube in his throat, which is good. His body is functioning normally; his blood pressure and blood sugar are good. One NICU doctor said, "There were a million boxes we weren't sure if Levi could check off, but he is currently checking them all off." We can only attribute this to a God who loves his people and who is strong enough to rescue them.

Levi's obvious challenge is being so small, and we are asking the Lord to strengthen him, touch him, and make him grow. Some dangers that Levi will overcome include the possibility of brain bleeds, infections, lung growth issues, stomach problems digesting real food. It is estimated that Levi won't be able to leave the NICU until at least April, perhaps longer.

This will be a very long journey for our family. Our extended stay at the hospital has already accumulated some financial difficulty for us, from living expenses to hospital bills. Some of these expenses are rooted in the fact that we don't live in Chattanooga; we live an hour and forty minutes away in Rome, GA. We will soon transition to a new phase in which Rachel will live in Chattanooga most of the time while Damon returns to Rome and visits as often as possible. Rachel will be able to stay at the Ronald McDonald House, thankfully. There will still be many expenses to navigate, though, due to the two of us often living in different places.

For our medical bills, we will not only have to cover the normal amounts associated with our insurance, but we are also facing some out-of-network fees that will be costly.

We have created this GoFundMe account to give us a little boost as we start this journey. We will begin using many of these funds immediately, as we already have some bills in hand to take care of and we will start to set-up Rachel's extended stay in Chattanooga.

Thank you for considering us! We promise that every small amount helps and every small amount will be met with heartfelt gratitude. Below I've written bullet-points of our expenses and our prayer needs. Many have offered to help, and we think this would be the most effective way to support us. I'll mention that some have already provided us with gifts, and these are deeply appreciative of these as well.

Our Cost:

Medical Bills: Both In-Network and Out-of-Network
Gas for extensive traveling to and from Chattanooga (at least an hour and a half from our home)
Food for our stays in Chattanooga.
Other living expenses for our stays in Chattanooga.

Our Prayer Needs: (We are SO humbled to know people are praying for us)

The Lord's healing hand upon Rachel. (Her recovery is going remarkably well...but it's still painful.)
No harm would come to Levi and that his brain would be protected from brain bleeds.
No infections or contaminations would touch Levi's body.
More weight would be added to Levi's body.
His lungs would continue to develop so that Levi would be able to breathe on his own at some point.
Strength for Rachel as she provides for Levi in many ways.
The Dean Machine (our three year old) - Just that he would continue to know the love of his parents and the love of God.
Blessings upon Dean's grandparents, because they have given up so much to be with us.

We are overwhelmed by the miracle that God has put us in the middle of. We are overwhelmed by the love people have shown us. We are very tired right now as we try to meet Levi's needs while also being present for Dean. We know that there is a long journey ahead for all four of us. However, we are believing the Word of the Lord, we are believing the future He has for us, and we look forward to the day when we will live as a family together in Rome, Georgia.

"But this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life" (John 9:3).