Colorado
Leigh Aaron
Co-Hub Leader
Hi! My name is Leigh Aaron (soon to be Parker!). I currently live in south-eastern Colorado in the small town of Rocky Ford with my Fiance and our beautiful gastroschisis warrior, Kynley. I am a pediatric Speech-Language Pathologist by trade and absolutely love my job. Our gastroschisis journey began at about 18 weeks gestation while I was in the middle of my Master’s program. We did the spina bifida screening because “why not?” and had it come back positive. We were immediately sent to a maternal fetal medicine doctor a couple hours away. At first, everything looked normal and then we heard the dreaded “we need the doctor immediately.” It was that day that we found out two things: our baby was going to be a girl and we had NO idea how we were going to handle all of this. During a routine appointment, Kynley stopped responding which required an emergency c-section at 36 weeks. She had primary closure surgery immediately after birth and stayed in the NICU for 34 days. She has been in and out of NICU, PICU, and Pediatrics for a variety of complications related and unrelated to her gastroschisis. We didn’t find Avery’s Angels until our third hospital stay and I immediately knew I wanted to be involved in this foundation and reach out to families who feel like we did because the truth is, you CAN handle all of this.