When Kaye went in for her 20-week anatomy scan, she never expected to hear that something might be wrong with her baby’s heart. A few weeks later, doctors confirmed the diagnosis: Tate had Ebstein’s anomaly, a rare and serious congenital heart defect.
“My heart just sunk,” Kaye said. “You never want to hear that about your baby.”
From that moment on, life became a whirlwind of appointments, hospital stays, and worries about the future. Kaye was uprooted from their home in Montana to Denver to give the baby the best odds of survival.
In March, after a long day of labor, Tate was born. Having prepared herself for the very worst, Kaye was so relieved to hear him cry.
In his first few months, Tate endured multiple procedures, including emergency open-heart surgery, and faced intestinal issues requiring a stoma and ileostomy.
In the middle of it all, Kaye and her family found comfort at Brent’s Place.
At Brent’s Place, they had room not just for Tate and Kaye, but for the entire family to be together. It felt like a home away from home—a place to rest, connect, and focus on Tate’s healing.
“My daughter, Emberlee, loved all the activities,” Kaye shared. “There’s such a sense of community, too. I loved that Emberlee had other adults she could go to for support.”
Help with food, access to laundry, and countless other Brent’s Place services made day-to-day life so much easier for Kaye. But Kaye and her family didn’t just have their basic needs met. One highlight of their time at Brent’s Place was enjoying a magic show together. Programs like that gave Kaye and her family critical moments of joy and laughter during such a challenging time.
“If I hadn’t had Brent’s Place, I don’t know what I would’ve done,” Kaye said. “It let me focus on Tate and not on how I would pay the rent. That was huge.”
While Tate’s journey is far from over, he’s getting stronger by the day. No matter what the future holds for Tate, Kaye, and their family, Brent’s Place is here to be a source of stability, comfort, and hope.
