Support Dylan and Heidi's Baby's Heart Surgeries
Thank you for visiting our page. We were recently informed that our rainbow baby has a very serious congenital heart defect called HLHS. Feel free to look up the specifics of the diagnosis on your own as it's very complicated.
Basically, it means that only 1 side of their heart developed correctly and there's nothing that would change that fact. While still in the womb, they are fine, but without surgical intervention after birth they will not survive. 30 years ago there were no options for children and families in our position, but today there are.
After birth, our baby will need open heart surgery within the first week of their life. If that goes well, when they are between 3-5 months old they will need a second open heart surgery. If that goes well, they will have some time before a third open heart surgery will be needed when they are somewhere between ages 3-5 years.
In addition, our child has cysts on one of their kidneys, a completely separate diagnosis fom HLHS. As of now, this is not our major concern. So long as the other kidney stays cyst-free they can live with only 1 and not have it affect their life in a major way, but it's still an added medical complication.
Obviously, all of this comes as a huge shock as we thought everything was fine until we had a fetal echocardiogram on 11/26. We are still reeling, but we are going to fight as hard as we can for our child and this is our path forward.
As you can imagine, our medical costs in 2025 are going to be extremely high. Thankfully we have good insurance and Children's Hospital in Minneapolis is in network as are the surgeons. But we will certainly meet our family out of pocket maximum no matter what. We will need to travel to and spend copious amounts of time at Children's Hospital. We may need to get a hotel for a length of time. There are so many unknowns at this time.
If you would like to, we would be so grateful for financial contributions at this time over gifts from our registry which we have taken down at this time. We also need your prayers. Please pray for our child and that we would have the strength to be as courageous as we must be.
THANK YOU
Dylan and Heidi Belkholm