When you give to Kosair Children's Hospital, your gift can give a family like the Auten’s the life of their first-born son.

Becky and Mike Auten, who lived in the small Western Kentucky town of Benton, were eagerly awaiting the birth of their first child. Yet the pace of their preparations during those warm  early June days was still measured, because Becky’s due date wasn’t until late September, 16 weeks later.

That afternoon brought a terrifying set of events. Becky was picking Mike up from a fishing tournament when her placenta, through which the couple’s unborn baby boy received all his nutrients, all his oxygen, everything he needed to live inside his mother, separated.

Mike started a frantic 30-mile drive to get Becky to a Paducah hospital, while towing a boat at speeds up to 100 miles per hour. He plunged into the hospital’s parking lot minutes before the Paducah’s hospital staff brought a tiny boy into the world at 5:56 p.m. This precious baby, Ryan Michael Auten, weighed just 20 ounces.

Facing a crisis, the Paducah hospital’s staff called upon the region’s only hospital that could solve the serial medical issues that held Ryan’s life in the balance.

That hospital was Kosair Children’s Hospital.

Three hours after Ryan was born, he was placed on a plane staffed with medical professionals for the flight to Louisville, to the Commonwealth’s premier hospital for children. The task confronting Kosair Children’s medical staff was formidable. Ryan was so underdeveloped that his father’s wedding ring would fit over his tiny bicep. All the body systems that Ryan would have developed during the last four months of life in the womb were simply not there, and had to be nurtured in Kosair Children’s Hospital neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) during day after dangerous day, week after grueling week.

Over those months, Ryan’s doctors and nurses performed a miracle. After over 15 weeks under the care of so many professionals, Becky and Mike strode out of Kosair Children’s Hospital with Ryan. Nearly two years later, Ryan is a living miracle. To some, it may seem like an everyday miracle… playing outside, riding in a golf cart with his grandmother, being the son his parents had always wanted.

Yet everyday miracles like Ryan’s would not be possible without a neonatal intensive care unit waiting every day for a baby like Ryan. And that readiness, for a preemie like Ryan or for children with cancer or a thousand other complications from injury or disease, depends on one other seemingly everyday action…the action of contributors like you to keep the promise of Kosair Children’s Hospital alive for suffering children through your support of the Children’s Hospital Foundation.

For Ryan and every other critically ill child, Kosair Children’s Hospital is a center of hope, the region’s premier center for specialized pediatric care. And our ability to treat every child, discarding not a one based upon his or her family’s ability to pay, depends upon you.

In 2007, the Children’s Hospital Foundation provided more than $7.5 million in equipment and services to Kosair Children’s Hospital - increasing the level of care to kids like Ryan Auten and the 109,000 other children who come to Kosair Children’s Hospital every year, regardless of their ability to pay.

Your gifts are necessary to prolong this vital lifeline.
Only through your help can we guarantee every child fundamental right:
To have every chance to grow healthy all the way to adulthood.

The tremendous community resource that is Kosair Children’s Hospital — the high-tech machines, the on-going research into new cures, and the mission of caring doctors and nurses — endure because of your support.  

We hope you’ll agree to help the children in Kosair Children’s Hospital who are now struggling with serious illnesses, sometimes fighting for their lives — even if their families can’t afford the treatment they need. Your gift to the Children’s Hospital Foundation is a gift to children, those today and those in the future, who need our help to grow into healthy adults.

Can I count on your help for Ryan and the other kids we’re helping today?
Make a donation  now to help children like Ryan Auten.

Lynnie, Meyer, R.N., M.S.N.
Executive Director

P.S.      Kosair Children’s Hospital’s excellence has been honored again – this time as a “Magnet” hospital for nursing excellence. As a nurse, I’m so proud of my colleagues….but a big part of this legacy belongs to you…help us keep up the good work by renewing your support.