Meet NICU Mom Megan And Her Daughter, Leighton

Meet Megan Casey and her daughter Leighton, and read about Leighton’s NICU journey. In honor of their story, we are proud to donate magnetic PJs to MHealth Fairview Masonic Children’s Hospital through our Heart to Heart program.

Founded in 2021, our Heart to Heart program donates a year’s supply of pajamas to pediatric intensive care units at hospitals around the country, supporting families when they need it most.

Meet Megan & Leighton

Leighton was born with Esophageal Atresia type B (very rare, about 1:200,000). This means she had a long missing gap of esophagus, and a fistula between her trachea and esophagus. She was born unable to swallow. She also was diagnosed with tracheomalacia and a laryngeal cleft.

Her journey to fixing this was long, and she ended up having multiple surgeries between two hospitals across the country—about 15 combined hours of OR time, about two weeks combined of medical paralysis/sedation, and months of weaning narcotics.

During this time, she had so many important tubes, wires, IVs, monitors tracking her and keeping her alive.

When you’re in the NICU, especially for a long time, you just want any sort of normalcy you can get. You want to dress your baby and take pictures, just like every parent does. 

That’s hard with so much attached to their tiny bodies. Magnetic Me’s magnets allowed for easy access, and for all of the equipment to have various exit points between the magnets without cutting holes in the clothes. It kept Leighton comfy, accessible, and of course, adorable.

In the NICU, our bed was right next to the unit’s clothes closet. We watched nurses go to the closet everyday looking for something for their babies and walk away empty handed. 

We knew we wanted to see if we could get Magnetic Me  into the closet for all of the babies fighting, and all of the amazing nurses taking care of them. 

After 88 days, Leighton is now home and thriving! She is 100 percent orally fed, and that is a CELEBRATION for someone born without a big part of their esophagus! And she’s still repping Magnetic Me, of course!