Baby Penny and her family

Hi everyone! My name is Shannon, and I am raising funds for a small family that needs a lot of help. Melissa and Corey have been through so much already. They have three beautiful, sweet little girls: Ali, Mia (4) and Claire (2). The family faced the devastating news two years ago that Ali had cancer. Ali was a trooper, fought the battle and won. Fast forward to this year. Melissa and Corey are expecting a new bundle of joy, Penny. They recently discovered that Penny has an issue with her umbilical cord and her heart. I will post more information in the paragraph below. After already facing a battle with cancer, this new struggle will cause a financial strain. Let's face it; everything is a financial strain right now. Melissa's mom was a very dear friend of mine and, unfortunately, passed away when the twins were just one. Will you help me give this family a little financial relief and take some of the burden and stress off them, especially at Christmas?

Here is more information on Penny's struggle. The umbilical defect is called Absent Ductus Venosus or Ductus Venosus Agenesis. It is scarce, and there seems to be no cause; it is how she developed. The ductus venous regulates how much blood flow is sent directly into the heart. Penny’s is missing. That means that blood is being dumped into her heart at a much higher rate than it should be. Half of her heart is already slightly enlarged (much more, and her surgery will be more complicated), and it is overworking - it is like she is constantly running a marathon. This is the immediate concern as her chance of cardiac arrest in the womb is very high, but if her heart can tolerate it, it will mostly not be an issue once she is born, depending on how severe it gets before birth.

Her heart defect is called Complete Atrioventricular Canal Defect. This is where the middle wall of her heart never formed properly, causing oxygenated and non-oxygenated blood to mix and not transfer oxygen to her body as efficiently as it should. This heart defect will require open heart surgery when she is several months old, which is terrifying, but the surgery has a very low (5%) complication rate. This is yet another issue for which there is no known cause; it is simply how her heart formed.