Pay It Forward: Jesse & LaDonna Sault Family
One of our core values here at Vintage Meadows is "paying it forward". We know how meaningful the generosity of others has been for us personally, and we’re always on the lookout for ways to extend that kindness to those in need.
As we've built relationships with our customers over the years, we have connected with people going through various life challenges (job loss, injury or death, illness, etc). Though tragic, these challenges are opportune moments for us to step up and help out.
Vintage Meadows heard Jesse and LaDonna Sault’s story, and we knew we wanted to help. Read their story below, in the family’s own words:
“In early November, two weeks before Levi would be born, Jesse Sault lost his job. Jesse and LaDonna had plans of stepping down from Youth Ministry at Thrive Church in Lockport (now located in Manhattan IL) when Levi was born, to spend more time with our soon-to-be 6 children. The changes were starting to mount.
When Levi arrived on Wednesday November 20th, we made the step down from our ministry official. Little did we know how needed this decision would be.
All of the doctors and nurses all agreed he looked healthy and ready to go home with us! The night we brought Levi home, Jesse and our daughter Rosie were in a car accident that totaled his car due to hydroplaning into another car. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but it was still not a good event to go through.
On the second night home, Levi started to fuss more and stayed up all night feeding or crying. The following morning he ate at 10 am and would not latch again all day long. During this time we started to notice his breathing looked labored and the accompanying noises were concerning.
A NICU nurse friend came by, and she recommended we take Levi to the emergency room at Edward Hospital in Naperville, where shortly after admittance, he was transferred to Lurie’s Children’s Hospital in Chicago.
At 3 am on Sunday morning, we received Levi’s diagnosis: a Coarctation or the Aorta (a narrowing of the Aorta) causing a backup of blood into his heart and lack of oxygenated blood to get to his vital organs. This put him into shock the day before and was the reason he was going unresponsive.
Later that day, during discussions with doctors about possible surgeries to repair the under-developed Aorta, we experienced the most traumatic moment of our stay at Lurie’s. Levi experienced a Cardiac Arrest for 45 minutes. The doctors were able to get his heart going again and place Levi on an ECMO life support machine. This gave us hope, however brief it was to be. We kept praying for a miracle here on earth.
Monday was spent doing tests checking for stroke, liver damage, kidney failure, etc…
Tuesday, we received the hardest news during Levi’s short life. The cardiac arrest had caused a stroke to occur in his mid-brain. This caused his responsiveness to diminish completely to external stimuli.
We didn’t fully realize what this meant until a neurologist explained the severity on Thanksgiving afternoon. The area of his brain hit has the lowest chance of recovery when injured in a stroke. Statistical zero. The doctors and nurses also informed us that his brain could bulge with the clotting starting to enter the ECMO machine.
Levi was truly being kept alive by the machines around him. All the improvements we had been seeing over the previous days in his liver and kidney function were just placebos in our emotional state.
We broke the news to our family that day, after spending time giving thanks for our blessings through this storm. We didn’t know how long Levi would live on life support, but we also didn’t want his body to become disfigured by the ECMO machine clotting and risk more body distress. We started setting up times for our family to come say goodbye.
Friday November 29th, we got news that the ECMO machine numbers were failing and he didn’t have much more time. We scrambled to get all of his siblings (5) together with grandparents, a few aunts and uncles, and very close friends who have also experienced loss of an infant to hold him, kiss him, and pray blessings over his passing.
At 3:33 PM, while in his earthly father's arms, the machine reading Levi’s pulse stopped, and at 3:38 PM, the nurse declared the official time of death and his passing on to his Heavenly Father’s arms.
Throughout sweet Levi’s 9 days here on earth we prayed and worshipped day and night, all while LaDonna never stopped pumping her breast milk in hopes that it would be for him. He received more prayer & love in 9 days than most people get in a lifetime.
His life also witnessed and ministered to many in the hospital around him. The hope we have in Christ that we will see our precious child again sustains us through this hard time, especially with the holidays of Christmas and New Year’s spent without our newest son.
Levi’s name means Unity. Through this time, we have seen that meaning come to fruition in relationships that had previously been broken being healed, family coming together, churches and community praying and providing food/support in all ways needed immediately without our needing to ask. This includes Vintage Meadows, via Aimee Willis, with their offer to help.
The body of Christ is doing its work perfectly and fully. Our God is a God who heals and fully restores. We know that our boy is healed for eternity in Heaven.
We’d like to thank Vintage Meadows and all of their patrons for all of their prayers and support through this hard season in our lives.”
This is where you come in. If you’ve been with Vintage Meadows for awhile, you’ll remember other families we have been able to bless through the generosity of YOU, our customer base. Here’s how we can partner together to help out the Sault family.
You can help out by adding a "Pay It Forward" to your cart when placing an order in our online store. Each "Pay It Forward" represents a donation of $10, and you can add as many "Pay it Forward" items as you'd like to equal the total amount you wish to donate (for example, 5 Pay It Forwards * $10 = $50 donation).
Each Pay it Forward donation goes directly to the family in need in the form of store credit so they can keep their family well fed and not need to worry about groceries. They receive 100% of your donations and we cover all credit card + handling fees associated with Pay It Forward.
With so many people struggling right now, making it easy to help each other seems like the right thing to do. Would you consider partnering with us in blessing families in need? Together, we can make a real difference!