Hi all!

As many of you know, Oliver has been through quite the journey for being only 3 years old. With the help of Children's Miracle Network and HSHS Children's Hospital of Springfield Illinois, Oliver has become one amazing little warrior.

For those of you that don't know his story, I tried to condense it as much as I could:

When I was pregnant, I was sent to maternal fetal medicine for high risk pregnancy. During my anatomy scan, I questioned why it looked like his lower jaw was not there. The doctor gave me a few possibilities of what could be, but ultimately without doing invasive testing, we would not know until birth if there would be any abnormalities or concerns.

Low and behold, at 35 weeks, I was induced and Oliver was born. He was quickly taken to St. Johns NICU where he spent just shy of 60 days with them. He was diagnosed with Pierre Robin Sequence, which is a sequence of events happening in utero that is characterized by an underdeveloped jaw, backward displacement of the tongue, upper airway obstruction, and commonly a cleft palate.

Oliver had all of these characteristics, which made daily tasks, such as breathing, eating, and gaining weight, a struggle. During his stay at the NICU, he had a feeding tube placed, tubes in his ears, tongue tie fix, and a jaw distraction surgery. Being a first time mom these things were extremely scary to see and watch your new born baby go through Luckily we had some amazing nurses that helped us through some of the hardest times, and later again when he had additional surgeries for the removal of his jaw distraction device and again for his cleft palate repair.

St. Johns NICU nurses, physicians, and staff were so welcoming and reassuring throughout the whole process during our stay as a new born, sending us pictures through the app, calling us with updates, giving a shoulder to cry on, and a comforting hug of reassurance. They taught us how to care for Oliver's medical complexity and prepared us for the outside world "alone" without the nurses with us. They truly care about the babies and parents on their unit and it shows greatly.

While the NICU was just a short stent of our experience with HSHS, we have also been with St. Johns pediatric rehab for the past 3 years as well. Speech Language Therapist, Joan, visited us in the NICU almost daily to help Oliver learn to bottle feed with his cleft palate and airway obstruction. Out of the NICU, she continued to help us with oral feeds and transitioned him into speech therapy as he became older. We saw Joan once a week and she became like family to us. Oliver started preschool this year and also "graduated" from speech therapy with Joan November 2024.

The Children's Miracle Network foundation has helped HSHS supply things such as the app to communicate with parents with newborns in the NICU, nursing equipment, medical equipment/training for parents to learn at home, rehab equipment and supplies, and so many other things that other families utilize daily. I 100% believe that without HSHS and CMN, we would not be nearly as successful with Oliver's story as we are. I have so much gratitude and love for every single nurse, receptionist, physician, therapist, and honestly all hospital staff we encountered with our journey with St. John's Children's Hospital.

Please, if you have the means to donate, it will help other kids like Oliver, have the chance to strive. If you are unable to donate, please share our story to spread the information on how wonderful the only Children's Hospital in Springfield Illinois is.