Help Bill & Misa Recover From Family Tragedy

Treasured friends Bill Millsap & Misa Eslava are going through the unimaginable. 

In spring of 2020, they were overjoyed to discover they had a baby on the way. But  six months into the pregnancy, as they were preparing to meet their adorable little daughter Mayari, complications arose....

"While in utero, we were given the dire news that our little Beastie had a rare developmental malformation known as a Bilateral Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia.

What does this mean? It means, while developing, her diaphragm muscle had not fully formed across her abdomen and her lower organs (liver, intestines, stomach) had grown up into her chest cavity, hindering her lung growth.

The prognosis was extremely dire. The options in California were: late termination (we were at the 25-week mark at the time of diagnosis) or carry her to term with minimal chance of her living past birth, along with increased health risks to Misa."

Their daughter's sole chance at survival was an experimental in-womb surgery known as FETO, available only at Texas Children's Hospital. So Bill and Misa uprooted their lives, disrupted their careers and moved to Houston  -- just praying on a one-in-a-million miracle that they would get to meet Mayari.

Miracles happen. 

On October 27, 2020 at 12:15pm, Mayari was born. Bill and Misa got to meet their daughter. And if you want to know what love looks like, look at the photos of them doting on her in the hospital.  https://www.facebook.com/1221024852/videos/10218747241051736/

But the fight wasn't over. "From this point, there were more surgeries (her liver, stomach and intestines were moved from her chest down to their proper places) blood infusions, infections, paralytics, Covid precautions, life support systems, and loads of love and care from one of the greatest teams in children’s medicine in the world."

All of that wasn't enough in the end. 

"In December, Mayari contracted a Staph infection and MRSA in her delicate lungs. Even with antibiotics, it progressed to Pneumonia... then to Necrotizing Pneumonia (killing healthy lung tissue, which was already in short supply).  The damage to her underdeveloped lungs was too much for her to overcome."

Bill and Misa were left with a choice: continue attempts to sustain her, knowing that she most likely would never leave the hospital, or even wake up again. Or provide her with as much comfort and peace as possible, and let her go on her own terms.

On February 6, 2020 at 6:25pm, Mayari Monterey Eslava Millsap passed in the arms of her mother and father. Even off the ventilator, it took four hours for her little warrior's heart to go silent.

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In a better world, Bill and Misa could come home to their friends and family, and focus on their most important priorities: to grieve, reconnect, heal, and honor the life they too-briefly brought into existence. 

But we don't live in that world. In this world, Bill and Misa's most pressing priority is to dig themselves out of the avalanche of debt triggered by employment disruption, insurance lapses, and maintaining rent on residences in two different states while attempting to save their baby's life. 

There's no time to grieve when you're drowning. So I'm asking everyone who reads this to throw them a lifeline. 

This is not an easy ask for them, because calling for help is not in their DNA. These are two of the most self-sufficient humans I've ever met. Their family crest might as well be two lions holding up a banner reading "Death before charity." And they're acutely aware of how the pandemic has hurt everyone's finances. 

But there's no hurt like losing a child. And to have to scramble and scrape just to survive in the wake of such a loss... it adds unbearable insult to unfathomable injury. 

They say grief is the final act of love. And with our help, Bill and Misa can forge through this aftermath and perform that final act for Mayari.