Support the Family of Baby Evelyn

Evelyn reached her eternal reward and is now in the arms of Jesus, completely healed and in no more pain or suffering!

11/26/2021 - 11/03/2023

Forever in our hearts! ❤️

Please consider helping her family out with the funeral expenses and allow her daddy to be home to grieve before returning to work.

Hi, my name is D'Anne. I'm sweet Evelyn's Aunt. If you have been following my post for the last month & some change then you all will understand what's been going on in little Evelyn's life.

She was born with her heart on the wrong side of her chest, flipped & backwards, liver is in the middle, stomach turned around, and something called polysplenia: which is that she has multiple spleens and that = no immune system at all..so much that my stuffy nose and basic head cold can put her in the hospital. Evelyn was in the hospital for the first 4 months of her life causing many setbacks to her physical and internal health. However, Evelyn had her 8th surgery since birth (she's 22 months now) back in June that was supposed to cure (for a few years) her low oxygen levels. Unfortunately, her body didn't take to that surgery the way the doctors thought and my sister (E's mommy) wasn't ever able to ween Evelyn off of the oxygen support she was receiving directly after that surgery and her numbers were staying very very low. Without that support Evelyn was passing out.

On Tuesday night, August 29th, my sister Tonisa ran out of portable oxygen and asked the family to pray for Evelyn and a emergency supply of oxygen to be delivered on time for her. Unfortunately, they weren't able to deliver quick enough so my sister rushed her to Cook Children's Hospital and was immediately bypassed by the other 15-20 other patients in the waiting room bc Evelyn's oxygen levels had gotten so low that her entire body had begun to change colors as she was losing support to breathe on supplied air.

Fast forward to Saturday, Sept 2nd (also E's moms birthday), Evelyn had yet another procedure where they did a heart cath to see if they could figure out the cause of the excessively low oxygen levels.

Quickly after the surgery, the doctors gave parents the choice of 2 surgeries. 1 surgery would give Evelyn more time in her life but would require more surgeries in a few years and she would have an escalated heart rate after little to no activity. The 2nd option was a 10-12 hour open heart surgery that would give her the fullest amount of life but it was not guaranteed that she would make it out alive bc she is so little and it's such an extensive surgery & the recovery was a 3 week in hospital only stay. After the parents prayed and decided that they wanted to take option 2, Evelyn rested that night and went into surgery around 7:55am on Sept 3rd. This was now her 6th medical procedure/surgery in the span of her 21 months (then) of life! Fast forward again to a 10 hour surgery on Sunday morning, Sept 3rd, where Evelyn was put on bypass. Surgery went well but unfortunately, yet again her body was not responding well to this surgery. The doctors had to keep her on the operating table for another 2 hours to try one last thing, which was to place her on an ECMO machine. A ECMO machine is only good for a 7 day extension. The doctors had given my sister and our whole family little to no hope bc this was the very last resort and Evelyn's stats were not positive! God intervened, thankfully & she is still here with us. She is making some great improvements but still not close to being done with this at all. She was scheduled to have ANOTHER surgery on Sept 8th. Since that time frame she has gone in for about 3 more procedures and 1 of them being an emergency bedside open heart surgery. On Wednesday, Sept 27th the nurses and doctor had given my sister and her family permission to hold Evelyn for the first time since Aug 29th, but only because they told the family that they were preparing for "end of life" & they wanted Baby Evelyn to take her last breaths in her mommy's arms. It's as hard to read as it was to watch & see. Just 2 hours prior to this moment we had our entire family there (20 of us) in the room and began to pray for her! We are so thankful & feeling so humbled that God has given Evelyn life! The doctors told us at 3am on 9/28/23 " We truly have no explanation as to why her stats & internal body temp has risen except that Jesus Christ has reached down and touched her!" She is still recovering and still making little strides each day but they still have at minimum another month or so in the hospital.

I know this is ALOT to read and take in but this is just where we are! No family at all can financially do this on their own. Tonisa is a stay at home mom, she homeschools her children and tends to their farm animals and garden while Aaron is the only financial provider in the household and he drives the only vehicle they own back & forth to work. They are also trying to raise funds for a new to them mini van that can help aide in Evelyn getting Roman's from her doctors appointments & therapy sessions!

Aaron took a week off to be with his wife and baby girl for obvious reasons and we have had family members helping out with Jacob & Lily who are Evelyn's older siblings.

We all know that life happens even when we cannot perform adequately! Bills still come, family still has to eat, car have to be driven back and forth each day! There is so much more emotional pain/exhaustion that the family has endured and will have to endure over the course of the next few weeks/months!

We just ask that you would prayerfully consider donating to help this sweet family! Anything helps! If you're unable to donate, we completely understand and just ask that you keep Evelyn, Tonisa, Aaron, Jacob & Lily in your prayers thru this transition in their life!

We are deeply humbled by the amount of people that have invested themselves in our sweet earth Angel. Thank you all so so so much in advance!

Kindest Regards,

D'Anne Rodriguez

Evelyn's Aunt